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Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments.
Then Georgia Republican Congressman Buddy Carter discusses the incoming agenda of the Trump administration and House Republican priorities.
And Connecticut Democratic Congressman John Larson gives his take on the new administration, Social Security, and tax policy.
Also, the Wall Street Journal's Jess Braven discusses potential Supreme Court vacancies and how President Trump's second term could shape the high court.
Washington Journal starts now.
Good morning on this Thursday, November 14th.
Republicans are officially in charge of Washington.
Last night, the Associated Press projected House Republicans would maintain their majority.
Republicans celebrated the victories with President-elect Donald Trump in Washington yesterday.
Mr. Trump also returned to the White House yesterday with a welcome back from President Biden, both men promising a smooth transition.
Back on Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans picked South Dakota Senator John Thune to be their leader in that chamber, replacing Mitch McConnell.
And Mike Johnson remains as Speaker.
With control of Congress and the White House, Republicans believe they have a mandate.
This morning, we ask all of you, what is that mandate?
Democrats dial in at 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
You can join us in a text, include your first name, city, and state, 202-748-8003, or on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ.
This is the headline from the Wall Street Journal this morning.
Speaker Johnson gets the president-elect's backing to remain as the leader in the House chamber.
That was yesterday.
Republicans held their leadership elections in both chambers.
After Mike Johnson was elected to remain as Speaker, he talked to reporters, and here's what he had to say.
It is a new day in America.
Yesterday morning, we began on the steps of the House as everyone was flying in to begin work again as we complete the 118th Congress.
And we celebrated what is a new beginning, really, a new morning in America, a new day in America.
And so today we began this morning, as Steve Scalise just told you, our majority leader, that we began with President Trump.
And he came to visit us.
It was a bit of a pep rally.
Everybody feels very confident, very encouraged about the days ahead.
And he gave us a very inspirational message.
And he talked about the importance of maintaining unity and standing with this leadership team to go forward.
It was very well received, and that set the tone for our day.
And we had a very productive day together as a Republican conference.
And the theme that you'll hear over and over from all of our members across the conference is that we are unified and energized and ready to go.
We have to deliver for the American people beginning on day one in the new Congress, and we will be ready for that.
I want to congratulate these new leaders that have been duly elected to help serve the conference.
This is an extraordinary leadership team, and those who've been re-elected who have earned those positions well.
This was a group and a body today that worked together and did some really extraordinary things, putting together a leadership team and deciding upon our conference rules.
I want to again tip my hat to the chairs of two of our most important and active caucuses within the Republican conference, the House Freedom Caucus, Dr. Andy Harris, Congressman Harris, and Congressman Dusty Johnson of the Main Street Caucus, who worked together with a subgroup of members to work through a very deliberate process to come up with the rules.
So we come out of this excited to deliver the America First Agenda for the American people.
That was Speaker Johnson yesterday after he was elected by his conference to remain the leader of the House of Representatives.
As we said, the Associated Press last night projecting that Republicans would maintain their majority and now Republicans in charge of House, Senate, and the White House.
What is their mandate?
John in Brooklyn, Democratic caller.
What do you say, John?
Well, they think they mandate it to get rid of democracy and our rules and laws as we know it today.
But the only hope we have controlling them is the midterm election.
We can stop them by defeating them and taking back the House and the Senate.
Everybody wanted Trump.
They said he was good for the economy and the border.
They didn't think about other rules, other things that he would be doing, like putting all these people that's not qualified into these positions.
I think he's setting up a coup.
Like he said, if he gets in there, you won't have to vote no more.
And I don't think he's going to leave willingly.
So wait to the midterm election.
You can stop him.
That's all we have.
All right, John.
All right, John.
And two of the issues that you just mentioned were brought up by congressional Republicans yesterday when they talked about what is first on this agenda, addressing the situation at the border and passing, renewing the 2017 tax cuts legislation that passed during President-elect Trump's first term in office.
Those two issues, those two policies were mentioned as top of the agenda for Republicans.
You mentioned picks by President-elect Trump for his new administration.
Here's the front page of the Washington Times.
Trump gives assurances of Pete Hegseth at Pentagon Military Service, AIDS surprise nomination there of the Fox TV host.
And then next to that is Trump picks Gates, Matt Gates, the congressman, who resigned effective immediately yesterday from the House as Attorney General.
And Tulsi Gabbard, the one-time Democratic presidential candidate, was tapped by President-elect Trump as the director of national intelligence.
The Washington Times says it's another shocker.
Let's go to William in Ohio and Independent.
William.
Good morning.
I hope you're having a nice day.
Morning.
What do you think the mandate is for Republicans in Washington in the new year?
I think it's going to be crazy.
I think it's going to be isolationist.
I think he's trying to take over the whole country.
I mean, maybe he will be a good president this time.
I doubt it.
But I'm telling you right now, he's trying to isolate us from the rest of the world.
And it's scary.
And, you know, isolationists, and then he wants to take over and become a dictator.
That's exactly what I think Donald Trump's trying to do.
And that's something that we got to stop in the midterms whenever we can, because the man, he's the most dumbest president we've ever had in this country.
William, what if Republicans move on addressing the situation at the border, that they control the flow of illegal immigration into the country.
If they are successful at that, and if they are also, if they also continue the tax cuts from 2017, would you give them high marks for that?
Well, you ain't gonna stop immigration.
He just wants to put them all in work camps.
This country lives on immigration.
It's done it ever since my family came over here in the 1740s.
I mean, that's a long time ago.
And immigrants, this country is made from immigrants.
I mean, some of my relative, some of my ancestors were even Native Americans.
So, you know, but whatever Trump is doing is wrong.
I think he's just trying to take over.
He's in here for retribution.
And the tax cuts, hey, it never helped support.
I mean, last time I got a tax cut from them during the year, I had to pay it back at the end of the year.
It's the first time I ever paid in my life.
So you tell me what's happening from 17 to 20.
I was paying in at the end of the year instead of taking money back.
So it's just helping the super rich.
It ain't helping them.
It ain't helping the working class like me.
All right.
And that's all I have to say on the matter.
Thank you.
William is an independent Ohio.
Let's hear from Lucas, who's in Alexander, Arkansas, Republican.
Lucas, as a Republican, your party controls the House, the Senate, and the White House in this new year.
What is their mandate?
What should they do?
Hi.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for taking my call.
This is indeed a mandate, and I am so thrilled that the Republicans once again have unified control of Washington.
This mandate, as was already been established, I think although the Republicans have a full plate, immigration needs to be the first thing they take a bite out of on that plate.
I've heard Democrats fear monger and say they're going to, quote, deport grandma and grandpa.
I mean, two points on that.
I seriously doubt they're going to start by sending an 80-year-old woman back to El Salvador with all the heinous criminals that have been left into this country over the past four years and the numbers they give.
I'm not saying I'm a conspiracy theorist, but you might as well quadruple them because I don't think we're getting the straight numbers.
And at the end of the day, I hate to say it and it breaks my heart, but grandma, who's here illegally at the end of the day, they broke the law and they are in this country illegally.
That's my opinion on it.
All right.
Lucas wants to see immigration tackled first by Republicans in Washington in 2025.
James, here in Washington, D.C., Democratic caller.
James, do Republicans have a mandate?
No, they don't have a mandate.
And the president should have been vetted and he should have went to trial for what happened on the day.
The Capitol.
And I don't think that he was vetted before he was president in 2016.
The man don't qualify to be president.
He already told you he want to be a dictator.
All right, James.
Reminder, you've got to mute that television.
Just listen and talk through your telephone today.
We're asking you, with Republicans in control of Washington, what is their mandate?
What do they need to tackle first to maintain their majority?
Duane in Jamaica, New York, independent.
Dwayne, what do you say?
Good morning, Greta.
Good morning.
I am not a Trump supporter by no means.
I'm a centrist.
I'm in the middle.
I am willing to give the Republican an opportunity to have that mandate go forward.
Now, the problem I have is that they still have disruptors in the Congress.
They still have those MAGA folks who are going to disrupt.
So me as a voter and not voting for Trump, I don't see it going very far.
You have The new majority leader, his name slipped my mind.
He's what I consider a conventional Republican who's going to go by the rules.
Now, Johnson, on the other hand, I'm not quite sure because he's a mega.
So I'm willing, Greta, I'm willing to give him a chance and let's see what happens.
Dwayne, in the news reports today, in the newspaper this morning, they note that the speaker, Mike Johnson, will maintain control of the House, but with a thin majority still, he will not have much cushion.
And there are going to be moderate Republicans that come from districts that possibly the vice president won, and they are going to put pressure on him while at the same time, the conservatives that you're talking about are putting pressure on him.
So he does not have a lot of maneuvering, a lot of wiggle room.
Plus, he's going to have pressure from President-elect Trump to push the agenda in the House.
Dwayne, are you there?
Oh, you got cut off, Screda.
I'm sorry.
You got cut off.
Well, Greta, that's a very good point.
But here's the thing: in two years, there's going to be another election.
And the Democrats are now going to be on the defense as opposed to the offense.
I really think Thune is going to do his best to try to keep Trump in line.
Johnson, I have no faith in him at all and his congressional folks.
I have no confidence in him, Screda.
I'm sorry.
All right, Dwayne there, an Independent New York, on the senator from South Dakota, John Thune, who won the top spot for leadership in the Senate for Republicans yesterday.
There he is on your screen, held a news conference with his new leadership team, and you can see them there: John Barrasso, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Tim Scott there, James Lankford, Shelly Moore Capito.
That is the new leadership team on your screen for Senate Republicans.
Front page of the Wall Street Journal: Thune to lead GOP and Senate and tackle aggressive agenda.
The new majority leader will guide the Senate as Republicans work to pass tax cuts, consider Trump-nominated judges and cabinet officials, and navigate battles over government spending, foreign aid, and the debt ceiling.
Thune will need to hold together the dueling wings of the Republican Party, particularly given its narrow 53 to 47 majority when differences between lawmakers or with President Trump rise to the surface.
Edward in Battle Creek, Michigan, Democratic caller.
Edward, do Republicans have a mandate?
What do you think it is?
I don't think it's a mandate.
I think they won 51 to 48 percent of the popular vote.
That's not an overwhelming mandate.
But I wanted to mention about the mass deportation, these big issues that Trump kept harping on during the campaign.
And my concern, I guess, would be how bad mass deportations would be.
If Trump is talking about deporting at least 10 million people from the country, that's going to be, and he goes as high as 30 million.
It fluctuates every speech.
It's a different number depending on the speech.
So he's 10 million to 30 million illegal aliens or people to be deported.
That's going to be extraordinarily expensive and extraordinarily difficult.
And you notice, I mean, in his victory speech, people have pointed out, Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out that he didn't mention mass deportations in the victory speech for the election.
And I'm quoting basically from Lawrence O'Donnell.
He said that The tariffs might not get done.
The mass deportations might get done.
You know, it's going to be extremely expensive, extremely difficult, extremely disruptive.
Well, that's my view on it.
All right.
Edward there in Michigan, before Republicans take control of the Congress and the White House in January, there is a transition now underway.
President-elect Donald Trump in Washington yesterday, back at the White House with President Joe Biden.
The two met in the Oval Office.
They sat for reporters before holding a two-hour meeting, according to news reports.
The two men and their chiefs of staff in that meeting listened to what they had to say.
Part of that, they were talking about the transition process at the White House yesterday.
Elect and former president, thank you.
Donald, congratulations.
Thank you.
And looking forward to having, like we said, a smooth transition.
Do everything we can to make sure you're accommodated, what you need.
So we're going to get a chance to talk to us on that today.
Welcome.
Thank you, Jay Man.
Thank you very much.
And politics is tough.
And it's many cases, not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today.
And I appreciate it very much a transition that's so smooth.
It'll be as smooth as it can get.
And I very much appreciate that, Joe.
You're welcome.
Thank you all.
At the White House yesterday, Tom, Ellington, Connecticut, Republican.
Good morning to you, Tom.
Good morning, Greta.
It is a new day in America, and priority one is, of course, mass deportation of illegal immigrants and closing the border, completing the wall.
And the new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, euphemistically known as Little Marco, is a wonderful choice, as is Matt Gates.
Removal of Merica Garland, a totally unqualified Attorney General and vindictive to the nth degree, is also delightful.
I believe that we will have peace in Ukraine before the end of the month.
And also, to my Jewish compatriots, there is a new bright day coming.
Thank you for allowing me to speak.
Tom, there are news reports that some Senate Republicans are skeptical that Matt Gates has the credentials to be Attorney General.
Why do you think he should be Attorney General?
He's eminently well qualified, and he has been vetted by President Trump and his transition team.
So I have complete confidence in Donald Trump.
All right.
President-elect Donald Trump, this is from Punch Bowl News, announced Gates' nomination without giving Senate Republicans a heads up.
Many were absolutely stunned.
Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican, Iowa, 50-year veteran of Congress, stood speechless for 30 seconds when reporters grilled him on whether the widely disliked Matt Gates deserved to be confirmed.
Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both Republicans, signaled their dismay.
Other Senate Republicans told us privately that Matt Gates can't get the votes to be approved.
Now, the president-elect from reporting this morning in the Washington Post is pushing Senate Republicans to approve his nominations.
Here's what he had to say: That he plans to, while he stayed out of the race for the Senate majority leader in the Senate, the Washington Post reports, President-elect Trump made clear he wants the Republican-led Senate to bend to his will when it comes to his appointments, asserting that he plans to go around the chamber for some of his nominees.
Any Republican senator seeking the coveted leadership position in the United States Senate must agree to recess appointments in the Senate, without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner.
That's what he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
Here is Senator Thun, after becoming majority leader from his conference, talking about the Senate's role in confirming President-elect Trump's cabinet.
This was before the announcement of Matt Gates as Attorney General and Telsey Gabbard picked as the Director of National Intelligence.
Here's what he had to say.
Do you have any concerns about President Trump's cabinet pick so far and what advice will you give him when it comes to choosing nominees who will pass Senate confirmation?
Well, as you know, the Senate has an advise and consent role under the Constitution, so we will do everything we can to process his noms quickly, get them installed in their position so they can begin to implement his agenda.
Leader Thune, you've said that recess appointments are on the table.
That's a key demand from President-elect Donald Trump.
Will you move forward with that?
Well, what we're going to do is make sure that we are processing his nominees in a way that gets them into those positions so they can implement his agenda.
How that happens remains to be seen.
You know, obviously, we want to make sure our committees have confirmation hearings like they typically do and that these nominees report it out to the floor.
But I've said this, and I mean it, that we expect a level of cooperation from the Democrats to work with us to get these folks installed.
And obviously, we're going to look at explore all options to make sure that they get moved and that they get moved quickly.
Will the legislative filibuster remain unchanged under your tenure?
Yes.
How do you intend to balance maintaining the independence of the Senate with passing the President-elect's agenda?
Well, I mean, the Senate, as you know, is, by the founders' design, a place where the minority has a voice in our process.
And we will do the job that the founders intended us to do in the United States Senate and that the American people intend us to do.
And that right now, after this mandate election coming out of the American people, is to work with this president on an agenda that unwinds a lot of the damage of the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda and puts in place new policies that will move our country forward in a different direction.
The incoming majority leader there, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, saying recess appointments are on the table.
From Vox.com, typically the Senate must approve presidential nominations for high-level posts, including cabinet positions, ambassadorships, and inspector general jobs in a process outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
This procedure is meant to be a check on presidential power, a way of ensuring officials directly elected by citizens can guard against the appointment of unqualified or corrupt personnel.
The Constitution, however, also allows for recess appointments, a provision that aims to prevent prolonged government vacancies by allowing the president to install officials without Senate approval while Congress is not in session.
Using such recess appointments, President-elect Trump would be able to appoint whoever he'd like without giving the Senate the opportunity to question or object to the pick.
Critics of the practice note that it increases the risk of unqualified, corrupt, or ideological appointees filling government posts.
It also significantly expands presidential power.
The new speaker, or the not the new speaker, the Mike Johnson, who will remain as speaker, I should say, also talking about yesterday to the Republicans that gathered in Washington about the nomination of Matt Gates as Attorney General and his resignation from Congress.
Here is what Speaker Johnson had to say.
Well, I talked with Matt immediately after that nomination was made.
In fact, President Trump told me this morning when he walked in, we were behind the curtains.
He tipped me off that that would be happening.
Matt and I were classmates.
We came to Congress at the same time in the 115th Congress in January 2017.
And alphabetically, we're seated right next to one another in the Judiciary Committee.
We served there together for seven years.
Some of y'all who cover judiciary know those are long meetings.
So I got to know Matt very well.
Look, I'll say this: everyone who served with him will tell you he's one of the most intelligent members of Congress.
He's an accomplished attorney.
He's very concerned about the law affair that has been occurring in the Department of Justice under the Biden administration and the fact that the American people have lost their faith in our institutions of justice because of everything that they've seen.
He's a reformer in his mind and heart, and I think that he'll bring a lot to the table on that.
I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately of Congress.
That caught us by surprise a little bit, but I asked him what the reasoning was, and he said, Well, you can't have too many absences.
So, under Florida state law, there's about an eight-week period to select and fill a vacant seat.
And so, by doing so today, that allows me, I've already placed a call to Governor DeSantis in Florida and said, let's start the clock.
He's in Italy at the moment, and so we're going to talk first thing in the morning about this.
And if we start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as January 3rd when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress.
So, Matt would have done us a great service by making that decision as he did on the fly.
And so, we're grateful for that.
Speaker Johnson, reacting to the nomination of Matt Gates as Attorney General, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal also has a reaction this morning.
Matt Gates is a bad choice for AG.
They write this: the larger objections to Mr. Gates concern judgment and credibility.
The U.S. Attorney General has to make calls on countless difficult questions of whom to investigate and indict.
Mr. Gates' decisions simply wouldn't be trusted.
He's a nominee for those who want the law used for political revenge, and it won't end well.
That's the Wall Street Journal's opinion this morning.
Let's go to Al in Highland Park, Michigan.
Democratic caller, Al, good morning to you.
Good morning.
What's the question again?
Wondering if you think Republicans have a mandate here in Washington in the new year, and if so, what is it?
What do you want them to do first?
Well, it's no mandate, first of all.
They're aware enough to be the one in the House and the Senate.
But the thing about it is, this whole thing is interesting because you have a Supreme Court allowing this guy to have more immunity.
What are the chances of that been Kamala?
That's a hell of a gamble, right?
He won everything, everything.
And the Supreme Court are not dumb people.
I'm thinking on that particular incident itself was a hell of a gamble.
They're not dumb people.
It had their fix in somewhere, right?
I mean, that was one, it was incredible, right?
Then you turn around and American people put a criminal, a criminal, in charge, most powerful country in the whole world.
A criminal?
I mean, you can't hate black folks that much, can you?
And then it turns out, in my opinion, I'll just say this here real quick: she lost because these guys don't dig chicks.
And another thing is, that young as I talk to young black guys, isn't it as hell when I talk to?
The fact is, they think it's a joke.
They think that it doesn't matter who's president of the United States, it's going to always be the same.
All right, Al.
I'm going to leave it there and follow up with a headline from the Washington Post this morning.
Special Counsel Jack Smith likely to quit before inauguration.
That is the headline, The Justice Department weighing how to proceed with the documents case.
Frank, Palm Coast, Florida, Republican.
Hi, Frank.
Oh, man.
Jesus Texas.
I bet.
Frank, it's your turn.
All right, moving on.
Steve, Las Vegas, Democratic caller.
Hi, Steve.
Hello, Branna.
Thank you for taking my call.
As far as the mandate goes, it wasn't a mandate, but I think this country's in the world, world of hurt.
So whether the people that he's putting in there, you know, for cabinet members, that's a joke.
I mean, they're not qualified.
I mean, Matt Gates, all he is, is a sexual predator.
But he's working for sexual predators.
So I guess we'll have to fuck together.
So thanks for taking my call.
Have a good day.
That was Steve there in Las Vegas about a Democratic caller.
We'll go to Steve next, actually.
While that caller was talking, you were looking at the front page of the Washington Post this morning with Trump's incoming cabinet picks so far.
You can see them all listed there and the agencies that President-elect Trump would like them to lead these confirmation hearings.
We'll see if they happen in the Senate or if there are recess appointments like we've been discussing this morning.
We're going to take a short break.
We'll continue to talk about the news here out of Washington.
When we come back, we'll talk with Representative Buddy Carter, Republican of Georgia, member of the Budget and Energy and Commerce Committees about the incoming Trump administration agenda and House Republican priorities.
And then later, Representative John Larson, Democrat of Connecticut.
He's a member of the Ways and Means Committee.
We'll join us to discuss the Trump administration as well, the agenda, Social Security, and tax policy.
We'll be right back.
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Washington Journal continues.
On your screen this morning as Congressman Buddy Carter, Republican of Georgia, member of the Budget Committee in Energy and Commerce, as well, sir, let's begin.
The Associated Press yesterday calling the House for Republicans after all the television networks had done so in earlier days.
Republicans yesterday in Washington, the leadership saying we have a mandate.
Do you agree?
And if so, what is it?
We do think we have a mandate, and the mandate is from the American people, and it is quite clear.
You know, the economy is a mess.
Inflation over the last four years has increased over 20 and a half percent cumulatively.
Yeah, it's at 2.7 or whatever right now, but you have to take it from a perspective of how much it has increased over the last four years.
People are hurting.
I can tell you, people in my district in South Georgia are hurting.
They're having to make a decision now between groceries and gas, and that's not good.
They're also concerned about the southern border.
That mandate for us is that we've got to secure that border, and we've got to do something about illegal immigration.
We've got to do something about the drug problem that is a result of that border being so porous.
We've also got to do something about being respected on the world stage.
And the people understand that.
They want to make sure that we're respected on the world stage.
We were not respected during the Biden-Harris administration.
And they want to do something about crime in our cities.
That's certainly important.
People want to make sure that they feel safe and they want to make sure that their family members are safe.
And right now, under this administration, they're not.
So the mandate for us and Congress is to address those issues, those issues that are so important to the American people.
When it comes to inflation, what can Congress do to bring down inflation?
Isn't that the job of the Federal Reserve, the independent Federal Reserve?
Well, let's look at the root cause of inflation.
The root cause of inflation started day one of the Biden-Harris administration when they declared war on fossil fuels, resulting in higher gas prices, resulting in higher grocery prices as a result of higher fertilizer prices and transportation costs.
All of that is a result of the war on fossil fuels that this administration undertook day one in office.
And we have passed HR1, which is lowering energy costs, and we can do that.
Now, look, I believe in all of the above energy strategy, a best of the above energy strategy, if you will.
And that's what we need to do.
We can bring down the cost of groceries.
We can bring down the cost of gas.
We can have energy independence in this country, but only if we utilize all the resources that are available to us in this country.
And we need to do something about that.
That's the way that we can help inflation.
On immigration, would you support mass deportation?
Well, let's see what it looks like.
That's a very general term, just mass deportation.
I can tell you, Greta, one of the greatest experiences that I've had as a member of Congress is to be able to attend a naturalization ceremony.
And I did that a couple of weeks ago down in Glenn County in Brunswick, Georgia.
And Judge Lisa Wood was kind enough to invite me to that and allow me to speak.
We had 32 people from 16 different countries who came into and be citizens of our country.
And I can tell you, what a great, great day.
I was so proud to be there, so proud of those people.
They were so happy.
They were becoming American citizens.
And certainly that's something that is valuable now.
And if you want to talk about illegal immigration, talk to those people.
You know, it's not an easy process to become a citizen here in the United States.
It's not an inexpensive process either.
They really are to be congratulated, and we are so happy there.
Our people are citizens of our country now.
If not mass deportation, then what would Republicans do to address the situation at the border?
Well, what we can do is we can secure that border.
We can continue with the fence and the offense that Barack Obama started, that Donald Trump continued, and that Joe Biden stopped.
That would be one way is to secure that border.
The Remain in Mexico policy is another way that we can make sure implementing that.
The Supreme Court has already said you need to be doing that and you should be doing that.
The Biden administration has pretty much just ignored it.
The Trump administration, during his previous administration, we had one of the most secure borders we've ever had.
And I'm very confident that he's going to continue on with that.
So, yeah, and Tom Holman, by the way, what a great choice is borders are.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for Tom Holman, and I think he's going to do an outstanding job.
And Christy Nom as Homeland Security Director, I think she's going to do an outstanding job as well.
So I'm very excited about what's going to happen at that border.
And I hope that I feel like it will result in a decrease in the amount of illegal drugs that are coming across that border now and the amount of illegal immigrants who are coming across that border.
Do you endorse your colleague Matt Gates as Attorney General?
You know, Matt Gaetz is a, I've served with Matt for about eight years now, one of the smartest guys that I know, and certainly a firebrand.
And I think that's what the president is wanting to do here.
He's wanting to shake things up.
Let's face it, the Department of Justice has been weaponized by this administration, by the Biden-Harris administration.
People don't have confidence in our justice system anymore.
And I think that's the message that the president is sending with this choice of Matt Gaetz: we're going to shake this up.
We're going to make sure that the people have trust in the Department of Justice and make sure that they're doing their job and that they're not being weaponized.
The Wall Street Journal believes that the nomination of Matt Gaetz sends the opposite message, that people won't trust his decisions.
They'll think he's out for political revenge because of his personality, because of what you were just saying.
Well, look, again, I think the intent of the nomination is to send a message, a strong message, that, look, the Department of Justice is out of control and they've been out of control for the last four years during the Biden-Harris administration.
And the American people don't have faith in that.
The American people fear the Department of Justice to a certain extent.
And that's not the way that we are supposed to be living here in this country.
So, you know, the nomination of a firebrand like Matt Gates, I think, sends a clear message of what this president hopes to achieve in the way of reforming the Department of Justice and the FBI and all the other agencies.
The Congress still needs to pass full-year spending bills for the current fiscal year or extend the continuing resolution to keep the government funded past December 20th.
What do you support?
Another short-term spending resolution or should they address spending levels and pass appropriations bills?
A lot of that will be dictated by what this incoming administration would like for us to do.
If they want us to do another continuing resolution to get it into the first of the year so that they can put their fingerprints on this budget, then certainly we'll be accommodating them with that.
But if they want us to go ahead and take care of it, then certainly I think that we ought to be cutting back.
I mean, you know, I can tell you in our conference meeting yesterday, the overwhelming theme was we've got to do something about our deficit is just out of control.
The second highest line item in our budget right now is the interest on our debt.
We can't sustain that.
Even our military leaders have told us the greatest threat to our country right now is our debt.
We've got to address that, and we can only address it through the budget process.
And I'm excited about getting started with that and excited about, we've actually been starting on it in the budget committee that I serve on.
We've actually proposed a 10-year plan to get to a balanced budget.
And if we would follow that, then we could achieve our goal.
How will you do that, though, if there is a push by the president-elect to renew the 2017 tax package?
The Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan, has estimated that continuing all of the expiring provisions would cost roughly $4 trillion over a decade.
Well, there are offsets, then, and you have to keep in mind, in this country, we don't have a revenue problem.
In this country, we've got a spending problem.
We've got to cut back on the spending.
And we've got to address the majority of what is causing our budget and is entailed in our budget.
70%, almost 72% of our budget is Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare.
Social Security can be fixed without cutting benefits to those who are getting it now or who will be getting it in the near future.
And if we don't fix Social Security, young people is not going to be there for them.
We are being irresponsible if we don't do something about Social Security.
And I will say that it can only be done in a bipartisan fashion.
It would be political suicide for one party, whether it be Republican or a Democrat, to try to do it by themselves.
We need to do that in a bipartisan fashion.
And when you talk about Medicaid and Medicare, that's the fastest growing area in our budget.
And that needs to be addressed.
We've got an aging population.
It's going to get worse before it gets better.
That's going to be tough.
Medicaid and Medicare is going to be tough, but it can be done.
It can be done, and we should do it again in a bipartisan fashion.
After all, when it comes to health care, everyone wants the same thing, whether you're Republican or a Democrat or Independent.
You want accessible, affordable, quality health care.
Let's go to calls.
Evie in Georgia, Independent.
Hi, Evie.
Yes, good morning.
And good morning to the Congressman.
I am a physician, and also I teach academics and part of the pharmacy college.
So I'm calling because I'm in the Albany, Georgia area now.
I was up in the Virginia and Northeast region, and I've come back to take care of a 90-year-old.
So the topics that you're talking about, now you, Albany, of course, as you know, buttresses to the southeast coast of Brunswick Sea Island with the in-between rural counties, Albany, Georgia being the southwest bridge.
Are you understanding where I'm speaking of?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So let's talk about the economy and the health offering and the future investments that now the new Congress has to come in and provide.
Brunswick, particularly, is what, about 15,000 residents in Brunswick.
It's a very small rural town.
Is that where your district is primarily?
It is.
It is.
The entire coast of Georgia is.
I was just there, actually, at the cluster, Sea Island, which is a private island.
Then you go up to your district, I think, to what, Chatham, which is Savannah?
That's correct.
So Savannah is about $147,000.
That is the economic structure of your district.
Is that not correct?
Being that it's the fourth city.
It is the largest economic hand with the structures of the district.
And then you come to my region, but the thing with— Evie, we have others waiting.
Could you get to your question?
Well, you were speaking of we needed to create border security.
Well, the small regions of the rural towns where we feed the brown people who are doing farming, 70% of the workers in construction, in farm workers, in Tysons, meatpacking, Kagle, those are brown people.
Those are not black and white people who are the traditional residents of your district, sir.
So what would the farmers do with this?
Also, the Medicaid and Medicare.
Medicaid, as we know, is in fact a federal funded program, and the states with the match.
So therefore, the states are not having the burden of this.
It is the federal government that bridges us also with residents.
Okay, Evie, I'm going to just take those two issues for the Congressman.
Thank you.
Right, right.
Well, she makes a very, very good point.
And look, we often say in the state of Georgia, there are two Georgias.
There's Atlanta and there's everywhere else.
And I represent everywhere else.
South Georgia is different from the Atlanta area.
Now, the Atlanta area has got their challenges as well, and particularly in health care.
But health care is different in South Georgia and rural Georgia.
And it has to be addressed that way.
The first thing that we've got to do in order to address health care costs in this country is to have transparency.
We need to see where the money's being spent.
We can't see that now.
That's why I'm calling on Congress to pass the Lower Cost, More Transparency Act.
It has been passed out of the House.
It's sitting in the Senate now.
My hope is that during the lame duck session, we can get that passed.
That will help us to address health care costs if we have more transparency and we can see where the money's being spent and where we need to address issues.
But she's absolutely right.
Now, the other point she makes about immigration and about the workers, the H-2B program, the H-2A program, all of those are extremely important for the two reasons that she mentioned.
Ag is the number one industry in the state of Georgia and also in my district, the coast of Georgia, and tourism.
We need that program.
We need those workers.
So yes, that needs to be addressed.
There's no question about that.
Jim Englewood, Ohio, Republican.
Let's hear from you, Jim.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
My comment and my question is, will we be going after all the illegal immigrants that have committed crimes in this country?
And when I watch and listen to the news and I understand how the laws have been flipped upside down, that we do not level the laws against illegal immigrants, and yet we go after our politicians and people like Donald Trump that have had hoop after hoop to jump through.
for for forever now.
And I pray and hope that this next four years is a path of unity and instead of upside down, right side up.
Thank you for taking my call.
God bless.
Congressman.
Bretta, as you know, and as our listeners know, we've really struggled in the state of Georgia with the illegal immigration and particularly in the tragedy that happened at our flagship university at the University of Georgia with Lake and Riley.
That should have never happened.
Lake and Riley should be here today.
It should have never happened with this immigrant who came across that border illegally, was detained in New York, and then was released and went down to Athens and killed an aspiring nursing student who was going to serve people and help people.
And to that family, I just, I extend my condolences.
And all of us are still remembering that.
You know, you hear different numbers about how many illegal immigrants there are in this country, whether it be 16 million or 21 million.
Regardless, it would be naive of us to think that some of those aren't here with the intent of causing harm to us, that some of those are criminals, and they are.
They need to be deported.
And that's why we pass in the House the Lake and Riley Act.
That if there is someone who is detained and it's because of theft or some other reason, that they have to be deported.
And the Lake and Riley Act has passed the House.
It's over in the Senate now.
And I call on the Senate to pass that law.
We need that law to be addressed.
But the caller is absolutely right.
We've got to do something about those who are over here.
If they're going to be over here in our country, if they're going to be here legally or illegally, they better follow the laws of this country.
We'll go to Mark who's in New York.
Democratic caller.
Yes, good morning.
Thank you for C-SPAN.
I just want to say what the Republicans' real aim is while they have control of our government.
They want to give more tax cuts to the billionaires, and then they want to say, oh, the deficit's out of control.
We have to cut Social Security and Medicare.
This is what they're going to do.
All right, Mark, let's have the congressman respond to that.
Absolutely not.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Look, billionaires pay more taxes than anybody pays.
And that's just such an easy out to say, oh, you need to tax the billionaires more.
You need to do this or do that.
That is far from the truth.
What we want in the Republican Party is to make sure that we are delivering.
And we're going to do that.
Look at the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was passed during the Trump administration.
That had our economy humming.
We were really doing well during that time.
And if we would continue on with that and cut our spending, yes, we need to cut.
And as I said earlier, I am not proposing that we cut Social Security to anyone who's currently getting in or will be getting in the future.
But if we don't address it, it's not going to be there for our children and our grandchildren.
And that's irresponsible.
That's why we need to address it.
We need to address Medicaid and Medicare as well.
We need to address health care costs in this country so that we can deliver affordable, accessible, quality health care.
Congressman Buddy Carter, let's talk to Marie next in Baltimore, Independent.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Sir, you made a statement about America needs to be respected on the world stage again.
I'm trying to figure out how is the United States going to be respected on the world stage again.
And you're going to have to try to send representatives from the United States to foreign countries on sexual assault.
And we now have a president who's committed sexual assault, not rape, but sexual assault.
Can you explain that to me, please?
Thank you.
Look, when Donald Trump was in office in his previous administration, we didn't have the problem in Ukraine.
We didn't have the problem in the Middle East.
All that started under the Biden-Harris administration.
And the fiasco, one of the worst public relations debacles in the history of this country, the withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in 13 American soldiers being 13 American citizens being killed, all of that is a result of the disrespect and the lack of respect of America on the world stage.
Donald Trump is going to bring that back, and I'm very glad of that.
I'm so happy he has appointed Elise Stefanik for the United Nations.
She will do an outstanding job.
Elise and I came in the Congress together.
I have an enormous amount of respect for her and her abilities.
And I'm looking forward to her representing us at the United Nations.
But I will tell you, we are not respected on the world stage.
And I look forward to Donald Trump being president again so that he'll get the attention of Ukraine.
He'll get the attention of Russia.
He'll get the attention of Iran.
And he's not going to send billions of dollars to Iran so that they can fund terrorists like the Biden-Harris administration did.
Front page of the Washington Post this morning, Congressman, features the incoming president's cabinet picks so far.
You mentioned Elise Stefanik.
You also talked about Christy Noam, Matt Gates, Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, John Ratcliffe to go back to the Central Intelligence Agency, Tulsi Gabbert, the Director of National Intelligence, Lee Zeldin, heading up the Environmental Protection Agency.
Do you think that Senate Republicans should use recess appointments to fill out the president's cabinet?
Or should they follow precedent and have hearings and have senators vote on who will serve in the president's cabinet?
There are certainly, first of all, let me address the picks.
Outstanding.
Look, Lee Zeldon and I came in together.
Lee is sharp as a tack.
I just can't say enough good things about Lee Zeldon.
You talk about Tulsi Gobberg.
Tulsi and I served together as well.
I think she's a great pick.
I think that Marco Rubio, wow, he hit it out of the part with that.
I mean, I'm just so excited about Marco.
And I just think thus far the president's made some outstanding picks for his leadership team.
And look, management's not hard to figure out.
I did it for 32 years in my own pharmacy.
I've done it in my office here.
You surround yourself with good people and you let them go at it.
And that's what the president is doing right now.
Now, as far as recess appointments and whether they should be voted on or not, I think to a certain extent it depends on the office.
And another extent, that's up to the Senate.
They're the ones who have to make that decision.
If I were in the Senate, I'd want to have a vote on it.
But if they find it necessary to use their recess appointments, then that'll be up to them.
Jerry in New Jersey, Democratic caller.
Hi, Jerry.
Hello, good morning.
You know, Mr. Carter, I'm a Democrat, and I voted for Biden in the primary.
That was taken away from me thanks to the Democrats.
That's how corrupt they are.
I realized it at the time, and then they try to cram Kamala down our throat, and she turned out to be a disaster.
So I want to thank Greta and C-SPAN and most of the news media for helping me make that decision to vote for Donald Trump because the propaganda is just unreal.
Now, they have a lot of problems with the picks that Trump made, but they didn't have problems with the picks that Biden made, which if you look at the array of people they got in charge, what a joke that is.
So let's not go there.
And as far as corruption go, we could take care of the Democrats too with that.
But Mr. Carter, I want to know, are you going to, Musk and Aswami are going to help pick out stuff out of the budget?
And I'm hoping that you listen carefully to what they're doing and they're going to be transparent about it because I think that's going to help you a lot too with helping make decisions because it'll expose a lot.
You can't see everything, especially when you're inside like that.
So again, Greta, I want to thank you.
I love the expression on your face.
Trump won and he won handily and he won with Democrat votes.
And Mr. Carter, just please work with him, do the right thing, help this country get out of the mess they're in.
And I really appreciate you guys.
Thank you.
What a great point, Greta.
You know, listen, if you're going to, if you've got a budget out of control, what do you want to do?
You want to go to the experts, the ones who have succeeded, Elon Musk, Ramasamy, all of these, they have succeeded in business.
They understand it.
And I'm excited about what they're going to be able to bring to the table and what they're going to be able to point out to us.
Let's hope, as the caller pointed out, that we have the wisdom and the discernment to be able to go in and listen to them and to take what they, the suggestions that they make, and to act on them because it would be irresponsible of us to ignore their suggestions.
That's what the president wants.
That's what he's trying to lay the groundwork for.
Look, let's get the experts in here.
Let's get the best of the best in here, see what they think, and then let's go from there.
Before we let you go, Congressman, we just have a few minutes left.
You have sponsored the Disaster Reforestation Act.
Tell us about the impact of this and the Hurricane Helene on what is happening in the environment.
Greta, as you know, it's been a rough summer in South Georgia.
It's been a rough summer in the state of Georgia.
We've had Hurricane Tropical Storm Debbie, which caused flooding in my district and throughout our state.
We had Hurricane Helene, which was one of the most destructive storms that we've ever witnessed in the state of Georgia.
And then, of course, Hurricane Milton didn't impact us in Georgia, but it did in Florida.
That's why we've got to address FEMA and the Small Business Administration.
That is the number one priority that I have in the lame duck session right now as we come back is to make sure that we take care of them, that we have a disaster relief package.
Now, the Disaster Reforestation Act is very important.
Georgia is the number one forestry state in the country.
And, you know, forests are, trees are so important.
I always relate to the saying, when you breathe fresh air, get down on your knees and thank the farmer who planted the trees.
We need trees.
They are carbon sinks.
8% of all the pollution in the state of Georgia is removed by trees and by forest and by the carbon sinks there.
We need to make sure what the Reforestation Act will do is that if they will replant in trees, then those property owners can get a tax deduction for the value of their property.
Right now, after year seven, they don't get anything and they can't harvest until 20, 25, or 30 years later.
That leaves an open window there where they're just at the mercy of nature.
And what we do, we encourage them.
It'll be win-win-win.
We win because they replant trees.
They win because they can sustain.
And then all of us win because it serves as a carbon sink and helps us with our pollution.
Congressman, we'll get in one last call here.
Sid in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Independent.
Hi, Sid.
Hi.
Congressman, you know, a lot of people are saying a lot of things about Matt Gates, but I don't see it that way.
I think he's going to do what the president wants him to do.
My question is that, you know, we had during the Israel war, we had a lot of international students who thought that they had the right to free speech and right to protest and disrupted all our campuses and create a lot of problems with their anti-Semitic views and attacked the Jewish students.
What do you think Matt Gates was going to do in that situation?
Well, you know, look, quite honestly, I don't know Matt's views on that.
I suspect that Matt is just as concerned as anyone about anti-Semitism.
And certainly we in the Republican Party, we have been the party to bring this to light.
You will remember Elise Stefanik was the one in the committee meetings who called out the college presidents.
And certainly I'm sure Matt would address this as well.
And I might mention also that I've got a bill right now that's in the House that the Education Committee to continue funding for the education of the Holy Cost.
So many of our students today don't even know about the Holy Cost.
And we should make sure that we never forget, never forget what the Jewish people have gone through.
And that's so vitally important.
You know, I'm reading through the Bible this year.
And again, I've done it before, and I'm doing it again this year.
And God's promise to the Jewish people is something that all of us here in America should make sure that we uphold.
Congressman Buddy Carter, Republican of Georgia, thank you as always for the conversation with our viewers this morning.
Thank you.
Coming up on the Washington Journal, we'll go to the other side of the aisle in the House and talk with Democratic Congressman John Larson of Connecticut.
More, before we get to that, though, more of your reaction to Republicans in control of Washington.
They believe they have a mandate.
If so, what is it?
There are the lines on your screen.
We'll be right back.
Talk about the immediate inside with President-elect Trump.
Oh, wow.
Just a message of unity and a message of great economic policy.
It was great having Elon Musk.
And I just think it's amazing.
And I think the first thing we got to do is kickstart this economy, get some energy back in production, and do great things for the American people.
It was just a message of unity.
I thought it went great.
It was a very, obviously salvatory to a degree, but now this is where the work's got to get done.
I was very, very positive.
He's looking forward to a great first 100 days.
He was in an upbeat mood and very much reflected on what he had learned in his four years as president, four years out, and why he very much wanted to hit the ground running.
It was great.
It was just a great morning.
A lot of energy in the room.
Having the 47th president there to take his busy time out of his capital.
He's going to go see Joe Biden now, right?
But he came to the Republican conference to say, hey, listen, the American people spoke loud and clear.
We have a unified government, i.e., the House, the Senate, the White House.
Now let's get to work and do the people's work.
Let's go in and make America first, America always, right?
An America first agenda.
I mean, it's a beautiful thing.
It was a beautiful morning.
A beautiful morning.
So Donald Trump thanked us for our efforts and we thanked him for his efforts.
Because if it weren't for Donald Trump, I don't know if we'd have the majority.
I don't believe we would, quite honestly.
That guy, Donald Trump doesn't have blood in his veins.
He runs on motor oil.
That man is a machine, is what he is.
He's a machine, and he's always fighting for the American people.
If you aren't happy with Donald Trump's room, man, you'll never be in.
Right?
He gave a good cap, riled people up.
We got to follow this agenda.
We'll see.
Super inspiring, man.
Fired everybody up.
I mean, like, you just couldn't be any better, I can be honest with you.
What was the atmosphere like in there?
Oh, it's electric.
It's almost like an Omiss football game, man.
It's electric.
He was very funny.
He was very accessible, saying hi to those members that he knows, just giving anecdotes or just cracking jokes of the rallies.
For instance, he said that Mike Johnson, who was sitting very close to him, said, Hey, Mr. President, I need one more rally like a day before the elections.
He goes, Oh my God, I'm tired.
Mike, I don't want to do that, but I don't got to do it.
You know, the way he was just being very funny and personifying and just explaining those last hours before November 5th.
We are delighted.
Well, it's great.
Showbiel.
You know, everybody was having a good time.
President, you know, obviously, you know, he's in a good mood.
And I think he was looking forward to going over to the White House.
I think probably the entire world's looking to see that footage.
But no, he's in a good mood.
Everybody's in a good mood.
Let's just, you know, get ourselves organized here and go do the job.
Yesterday, C-SPAN spoke to Republicans after they met with President-elect Donald Trump on Capitol Hill.
You were just listening to their reaction, their thoughts, what they heard in the room from the president-elect, Mr. Trump in Washington yesterday, returning to the nation's capital after securing the presidential contest last week.
He was welcomed back to the White House, to Washington, I should say, by House Republicans.
He met with them first and then he went over to the White House to meet with President Joe Biden.
When he met with House Republicans yesterday, I want to show you what he had to say at the top of that conversation.
He talked about the results of the election.
So you know we had like historic kind of numbers, especially for the president, but we won't get into that.
But the House did very well and I think we're responsible for 31, helping you with 31, meaning we could have lost by quite a bit and we ended up, I guess you'll be five up.
Are you looking at five or four?
Five or four, right?
Doesn't matter.
We get used to one for a little while.
When you can get used to one, you can get used to anything.
So I just want to thank everybody.
You've been incredible.
We worked with a lot of you to get you in.
And you helped me, and you helped me too.
And my numbers were, so they say, the 129 years, the most important election in 129 years.
That's pretty good.
I said, who is the 129 years?
What was that, Doc Ronnie?
What was who was 129 years ago?
I'd never looked because it started at being 100, and then they upped it to that, but it's a great compliment.
We won the majority by 7.1 million.
We won, which is great because Republicans aren't supposed to be winning the majority, Marjorie.
You know that, right?
And we won that, and we won it every way, all seven swing states by a lot.
President-elect Trump yesterday in Washington talking to House Republicans, noting that they were up in the count.
Last night after the president-elect spoke, the Associated Press officially called the House for Republicans.
This is from c-span.org slash results, and you can see there Republicans with the magic number of 218 to Democrats 208 in the chamber.
There are still nine uncalled races.
If you go to thewashingtonpost.com, you can see the uncalled races in Democratic-controlled seats.
Those are the grayed out seats as well as the Republican-held district.
So we'll see what the final number turns out to be for control of the House.
The Associated Press, though, after all the television networks, calling the lower chamber of the House for Republicans.
They will hold the majority there, as well as in the upper chamber in the Senate and the White House.
The party leaders say they have a mandate.
If you agree, what is it?
Janet in Cedar Hill, Texas, Democratic caller.
Janet, what do you think?
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my phone call.
Good morning.
I just feel that the mandate, they're really not going to do anything.
The Republicans, they have control of the House, the presidency, and the Senate.
And nothing is going to be done because they have already started the chaos with their nominees and candidates that they're nominating for different seats in his cabinet.
And nothing is going to really be done.
And all the underhandedness has already begun by Gates resigning from his position to take on the Attorney General's spot, which he's not qualified for, and a couple of the other people that are not qualified for positions that they are trying to push through by the president deciding to give them a recess.
Why do you need a recess when you control everything already?
I just don't want to say that they really don't have a mandate.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Janet in Texas, Democratic caller with her thoughts, talking about the picks so far by President-elect Trump for his cabinet.
There they are on your screen from the front page of the Washington Post this morning.
Frank in Johnson City, Tennessee, Independent.
Good morning to you, Frank.
Hi.
Brother, thanks.
Thank you for taking my call.
I just really, really would be astonished if the mandate would also include let's stop sending billions of dollars over to Ukraine and Israel.
I think that what's going on in Israel, we should not be paying for an out-now murder.
So I think we could impress the world by stop funding so much death.
Thank you.
Okay.
So Frank, you still there?
You said you would be surprised if it did not include that?
No, I'd be surprised.
Yeah, I would be surprised if we stopped funding all of those things I just mentioned.
Okay.
All right.
Frank there in Tennessee.
Here's the New York Times this morning.
The president-elect's Middle East picks signal staunch pro-Israel policy.
Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, left.
And the real estate developer Stephen Wickoff will serve as key Mideast envoys if picked by the Senate in the new Trump administration.
And then there is this related headline to share with you also from the New York Times this morning: aid deliveries to Gaza remain low despite U.S. warning to Israel.
Fewer basic staples, medical supplies, gas, food, water, getting into Gaza.
Michael in Charlotte, North Carolina, Democratic caller.
Michael, the Republicans control both chambers and the White House in this new year.
Do you think yes, I do.
As they spoke about their mandate for getting the illegal immigrants housed, but what are they going to do about all those who are facilitating those illegal immigrants?
They're aiding and abetting the breaking of the law.
But let's speak about the unspoken mandates that they have.
I just looked online to all the products that Donald Trump is selling.
Isn't there a Malmut's clause saying that he cannot benefit from his position?
But that's all he's doing.
He's ingratiating himself with all his picks.
Even when I look at Huckabee being appointed, Huckabee said this should be no two-state solution, and that's the United States position.
All right, Michael.
It's more about, I think it's more about the unspoken mandates that he has than the spoken ones.
All right, Michael.
Jim in Florida, Republican.
Hi, Jim.
Good morning.
Yes, I'll just preface it by saying I'm a lifelong Republican.
I grew up in a DFL party in Northern Minnesota.
That's the Democratic Farmer Labor Party.
So those are my roots.
But I became a Republican as an adult because of Ronald Reagan, like a lot of us.
In any way, if there's a mandate per se, the mandate is a rejection, if you will, of the policies of the last four years of the Biden-Harris administration and the Democratic Party writ large.
What I mean by that, of course, is the wokeness, transgender featuring the promoting of transgender issues, of course, the war on fossil fuel industry, and, of course, inflation, telling us that it was just transitory.
And the Democratic Party have no one to blame but themselves for this defeat.
So the mandate is, mandate it would be a rejection of these policies that we've lived under for the last four years.
And I am not a Trump fan.
When I voted, I voted for him ultimately.
It's just for the third time, but I really debated it.
And I even told my wife I regretted it when we walked out of the polling place when we early voted.
Why is that, Jim?
Why regret it?
I'm concerned about Mr. Trump's lack of intellectual curiosity and his own moral turpitude.
And now we're seeing with some of these pits.
And I live in Florida, so and I was an early and strong supporter of Marco Rubio, and I think he's an excellent choice for Secretary of State.
Matt Gates, on the hand, man, is a pedophile, a sexual predator, and has no business being the Attorney General of the United States of America.
It's a just, it's disgusting, really.
And I really don't think our new Senate, based on what they chose for leadership yesterday, will approve Mr. Gates.
Well, Jim, what if they use recess appointments so that there is no Senate?
Well, it's a good, excellent point.
I think it's a bridge too far, but again, I think Mr. Toon, the new Senate majority leader, has got a backbone.
I'm from the upper Midwest, as I just told you.
We're pretty tough people, pretty strong people.
And I think he's not going to be run over by Mr. Trump.
Well, listen to this.
Let me get your reaction to this, Jim, because this is from the Washington Post reporting about that Senate leadership contest.
It was held yesterday.
The candidates, all the candidates who are running for Rick Scott of Florida, John Cornyn of Texas, and John Thune of South Dakota, the candidates also all promised to change a pace from how McConnell has run the chamber, backing a more open amendment process and soliciting more feedback from senators, and all said their top priorities would be securing the southern border and reauthorizing tax cuts set to expire at the end of 2025.
They also all said that they would be open to recess appointments.
And the ultimate winner of that contest, Senator John Thune, repeated that to reporters.
Jim, are you there?
Your reaction?
Yeah, I watched the press conference.
I am a bit of a junkie, and I have more time when I'm retired, so I watch a lot of this stuff.
And again, my perspective on it is that that's what he said at the press conference.
Let's see what he actually does, what the Senate actually does rather, in this period before the new president is put in charge.
I just don't see it happening, but again, I do not have a crystal ball here at my home.
So certainly we are in a new political environment.
My point is that I think we have some sanity at the U.S. Senate and really also in the House of Representatives.
I think the Speaker there, he seems to be all in for Trump, but I think he's got a backbone as well.
And I just think Mr. Trump's going to find that our system of government is three branches, and he doesn't quite seem to grasp how it works still.
And I think he's going to run into some headwinds, even with Republican control.
All right, Jim, I want to give a little history, remind viewers, a little history from the Washington Post about Senator John Thune.
They write this: serving as majority leader during a second Trump term marks a remarkable journey for Thune, who just four years ago was working to thwart the outgoing president's efforts to overturn the Electoral College certification of Joe Biden's victory.
After Trump's loss in 2020, Thune told reporters that the Senate would reject Trump-backed challenges to the electoral results, quote, like a shot dog.
Trump later called for a primary challenger to Thune.
When the 2024 GOP primary launched, Thune did not endorse Trump and instead backed a colleague, Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina.
But in recent months, Thune worked to fix his relationship with Trump and pitched his leadership as a role in which he would work closely with the president as a team.
Listen to Senator John Thune following the Republican elections in the Senate yesterday.
It's a new day in the United States Senate and it's a new day in America.
The American people have loudly rejected the failed policies of the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda.
And this Republican team is united.
We are on one team.
We are excited to reclaim the majority and to get to work with our colleagues in the House to enact President Trump's agenda.
We have a mandate from the American people.
A mandate not only to clean up the mess left by the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda, but also to deliver on President Trump's priorities.
We will make sure that the President and his team have the tools and the support that they need to enforce border security laws and to remove the violent criminals who are wreaking havoc in every one of our states.
We will work to make America prosperous again by streamlining the bureaucratic machine and overturning costly Biden-Harris regulations.
And we will work to restore American energy dominance, not just our energy security, but energy dominance, which will lower costs and bolster our national security.
I'm excited to get to work with this team right away.
And I want to thank my colleagues who placed their faith in me to serve as leader, and to those who were supporting another candidate, I promise to be a leader who serves the entire Republican conference.
We'll have an ambitious agenda and will take each and every Republican working together to be successful.
Senator John Thune now leads the Republican Party in the Senate in the 119th Congress, chosen by his colleagues yesterday to replace Senator Mitch McConnell, who is stepping down from that leadership post.
On the Senate floor, the current majority leader, Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, congratulated Senator Thun on the victory.
President, I have just been told that Senator John Thune will be the next Republican leader in the Senate.
I congratulate Senator Thune on being chosen by his colleagues as the next Republican leader.
I look forward to working with him.
We've done many bipartisan things here in the Senate together, and I hope that continues.
As you know, I strongly believe that bipartisanship is the best and often the only way to get things done in the Senate.
That is the current Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, on the floor yesterday, congratulating the incoming Majority Leader, Senator John Thune.
With Republicans leading both the House and the Senate and the White House in the new year, they believe they have a mandate.
This morning, we're asking you, if you believe that too, what is it?
Sean in Stark, Florida, Democratic caller.
Hi, Sean.
Hi, good morning.
No, they don't have a mandate.
He won by less than three percentage points.
The Republican Party seems to claim the mantle of law and order.
And yet, Mr. Trump was tried and convicted for 34 felonies prior to this election and didn't spend a day in jail.
The rest of the world is looking at that and saying, how is that law and order?
Thank you for taking my call.
DeAndre in Baltimore, Republican.
Hi, DeAndre.
Thank you for taking my call.
Morning.
Good morning.
I don't know what the mandate is, but I think what it should be is to register AIPAC as a foreign agent and put in place an arms embargo and stop all funding to Israel immediately.
All right.
That should be the number one priority is to cut all ties with Israel.
DeAndre says that is a Republican Baltimore.
Larry in Georgia, Democratic caller.
Larry?
Yeah.
Press, I would like to make a statement to the American people, and then I go into my mandate.
First of all, I would like to say that for the election, but the greatest election, I'm 74 years old that I have seen.
And Kamala Harris and Donald Trump ran for president of the United States.
And the best and the person that the American people chose was the person they wanted.
Now, for my mandates and stuff, the policeman of the United States is the greatest police force in the world and the mandates.
They want to destroy the Justice Department, which is our greatest justice system in the world and our police court.
And you need to talk about them, how well they are.
How are they planning to destroy it, Larry?
How are they planning to destroy it?
You're saying Republicans.
They already said that they're going to try to destroy the Justice Department because of the person that's there, and they're going to try to change the rules and regulations of what we got and what we have been dealing with for the last past 40 or 50 years on the Justice Department.
And we have been putting people in jail that's supposed to go to jail.
All right.
Whether they're president, selling, or whatever, never one.
All right, Larry, Larry there in Georgia.
In other news this morning, I want to share with you a full-page obituary in the Washington Post this morning: Conservative lawyer's surprising cause, marriage equality.
Theodore Olson, Ted Olson, a conservative constitutional lawyer who argued for the 2000 Florida vote recount case that helped George W. Bush secure the presidency and, to much surprise, later joined forces with a liberal opponent from the election lawsuit in a successful effort to overturn California's 2008 ban on same-sex marriage, died November 13th at a hospital in Falls Church, Virginia.
He was 84.
The death was announced by his law firm.
Mr. Olson was a partner, and no cause was noted.
Ted Olson, here he is pictured here in the Washington Post obituary today, making his way through the crowd outside the Supreme Court in 2000 after making arguments for George W. Bush in the Florida election recount case.
If you go to our website, c-span.org, you'll find many events with the late Ted Olson.
You can find that there at c-span.org.
Ted Olson dying yesterday, causes unknown from the Washington Post reporting this morning.
Bill in Mart, Texas, Republican.
Hi, Bill.
Yes, ma'am.
Morning.
I would just like to say, ma'am, that we just had an election, and the people had been screaming for the last four years about the border, the economy, and dealing with terrorists.
You weren't dealing with Terry Biden and Harris.
Just placated to them.
They wouldn't shut their border down.
They let child molesters, rapists, killers come into this country.
The economy, they wouldn't listen to the housewives and the people that have to pay rent or houses or buy groceries.
They wouldn't listen to them.
They wouldn't listen to them.
And white people, black people, Hispanic people, they voted.
75 million of them come out screaming to them, telling them that we need to do something.
So finally, last Tuesday, we got it across to them.
All right, Bill there.
Intex is a Republican caller on the economy bill, front page of the Wall Street Journal.
You and others may be interested.
Fed rate cut remains on track.
A 2.6% increase in consumer prices is unlikely to derail another cut in December.
Front page of the Wall Street Journal this morning.
Mary, Newport, Rhode Island, Independent.
Hi, Mary.
Hi.
I just want to remind everybody that Kamala Harris got 48% of the vote to Donald Trump's 50% of the vote.
And so it wasn't a blow-out election.
And there's a lot of us who are feeling pretty much disenfranchised.
We're going to be watching him and we're going to be getting more active and speaking up.
Thank you.
All right.
That was Mary in Newport there, Rhode Island Independent.
This morning, we are talking about the Republicans now in control of Washington after the Associated Press last night called the House for Republicans.
They had earlier called on election night the Senate for Republicans that follows television networks who had already called the House in previous days.
And the Associated Press following suit last night, now Republicans in January 2025 will be in control of the White House, the House, and the Senate.
Coming up in the Washington Journal, we'll talk with Congressman John Larson, Democrat of Connecticut, member of the Ways and Means Committee, to talk about this incoming Trump administration and Republican control of the chambers.
And then later, Wall Street Journal's Jess Braven discusses potential Supreme Court vacancies and how President Trump's second term could shape the federal judiciary.
We'll be right back.
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Washington Journal continues.
At our table this morning, Congressman John Larson, Democrat of Connecticut, serves on the Ways and Means Committee, the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Social Security.
Sir, let's just begin with the election results.
Sure.
This is the Washington Times this morning with the headline, Stunned Democrats Left to Alter Playbook to Win Back Voters.
Are you stunned?
No, I'm not stunned.
You know, I'm disappointed, but I'm not stunned.
I mean, this has been a close race, you know, in the cycle, et cetera.
But, you know, we have work to do as Democrats and reconnecting.
The most stunning thing is the number of people who didn't vote.
You know, when you look at these, what Trump got in terms of the three times he's run for president, he's gotten roughly about the same amount of votes.
And Joe Biden exceeded that when he beat him by, you know, close to 8 million votes, et cetera.
And so I think part of what we have to analyze is what we need to do to get those voters out.
What do you need to do?
Well, I think we need to talk directly to people about the things that matter to them.
And even though, I mean, we could recite prose and verse about of all the countries in the world going through international COVID, we fared and came out of it the best, even with everything that we went through.
In terms of the economy and doing what we did with respect to $16 million in job growth and also having at the same time lowered, you know, lowered the ability to pay off our debt.
I mean, it's these were things that we didn't communicate in a manner that impacts that discussion that's going on over a table.
And even with all that, if you still, you know, are having difficulty paying your grocery bills, if you're having difficulty paying the heat, et cetera, you're concerned and your concern remains about the economy and things that matter most to you.
I also think we should have really focused a lot also, both in the short and long term, on Social Security.
And we could spend, you know, three hours talking about that.
But Greta, you know this, but imagine it's been over 54 years since Congress has adjusted Social Security.
I think a few things have happened since Richard Nixon was president.
And we really, you know, and so the public has pretty much gotten a little upset.
And I think that's they've kind of set out pox on both your houses.
And you can see that even with the success of President Trump, he really hasn't pulled that many more votes than he did in 16 or in 2020.
And so I'll just talk about a mandate.
I'm not so sure about that with both houses being very close, et cetera.
But hopefully, and I mean this sincerely, that we can get something done.
Would you support Republicans' efforts to continue the expiring tax provisions of the 2017 tax cut put into place when President-elect Trump had during his first term?
Well, you know, I think that is where the focus is going to be on the Ways and Means Committee.
I think we have to have thorough discussions.
You may recall back in 2017, there were no corporations that were asking to go to 21 percent, et cetera.
And so now that this expires, that discussion has to be renewed and hopefully engaged in a bipartisan way to do what's in the best interests of the American people and the economy.
On immigration, would you support continuing the wall and other restrictions at the moment?
I think security along the border is important.
And I think we have to emphasize that and follow through to settle people's minds.
But again, here you had Chris Murphy with a proposal on immigration and on security on the border.
Linda Sanchez with the same thing.
A comprehensive path towards citizenship and reforming of the immigration system, I believe, is what we need.
But we should be able to work together with Republicans on that.
You think that massive deportation of people is not the way to go.
So you think Democrats will listen to what the voters had to say this election and work with Republicans on the border?
I think Democrats and Americans expect us to work together.
And I think you'll see that where we can agree.
And where we can agree, I think we can make great progress.
But where we disagree, we're going to have that discussion and hopefully a very public discussion and not one behind closed doors.
All right.
Congress still has to pass fiscal funding spending bills for this fiscal year.
They're under Congress under a continuing resolution this government is.
What do you think should happen?
Should you wait until I pass another continuing resolution and deal with this in March?
No, but that's what the proposal has been by the Republicans.
Look, you know, it's a common political fact that they believe since they'll be controlling the presidency in both houses that they're looking at correcting this either in March and they've even suggested next September.
I don't think that's the way to govern, et cetera, especially when there's so many concerns out there, not the least of which are farmers.
And there are a number of Republicans that want a deal in regular order.
I talked with Rosa DeLaurel last night, and she's hopeful, but she says we've got to come together and understand the impact that this is going to have on Americans today.
And people can't wait to March or next September.
They need help now.
We're talking with Congressman John Larson this morning here on the Washington Journal, Republicans in Control in Washington the New Year.
We'll take your questions and your comments as well.
Catherine in Burlington, New Jersey, Democratic caller.
Hi, Catherine.
Good morning, Greta.
Here I am again, Greta.
I didn't get my wish, but here we are.
Representative Larson.
Yes, Greta.
I want you all and the minority to hold the GOP feet to the fire so we can get some work done in the 119th Congress.
What do you want them to get?
Catherine, what do you want them to get done?
What do you want them to get done?
I want them to pass the border reform.
I mean, to send, you know, legislation up to about the border.
I want them to leave Social Security alone in Medicare because I'm on it.
And the things that he's saying, I'm listening to him and I like what he's saying.
Well, first of all, Catherine, your Social Security is safe and secure, but we shouldn't just be protecting it.
We need to expand it.
It hasn't been expanded in more than 50 years.
It's long overdue.
And we hope that the president has put forward some ideas with regard to Social Security, including people who work no longer having to pay taxes.
It is, in fact, double taxation.
We've had that in our bill in Social Security 2100, even when Trump was president, but they chose not to act on it now.
And the difficulty with what the president is proposing, why certainly people, I think Democrats and Republicans would support the fact that you shouldn't have to pay taxes on your Social Security, but you've got to pay for it.
Otherwise, that impacts the trust fund.
And so we want to make sure that not only are we protecting Social Security, but we're expanding Social Security as well.
There's over 5 million fellow Americans that get below poverty level checks currently in the country, and Congress hasn't addressed that.
Most of them are women, and of the women, most of them are women of color.
And why?
Because they were at home caring for their children, or when they were in the workforce during this time, they were making far less than their male counterparts.
It's long overdue.
We need to create a new floor for Social Security so that no one who pays into the government's number one anti-poverty program for the elderly and the number one anti-poverty program for children retires into poverty.
We'll go to Bill next in Battleground Washington Independent.
Hi, Bill.
Hello.
Mr. Larson, good morning to you, sir.
Good morning.
I'm just kind of wondering how long you've been in the Congress and how many bills have you actually written that got passed?
And my other question is, what do the Democrats ever do about reducing our national debt and the deficit?
Thank you.
Have a great day.
And thanks, Greta.
Well, thank you, Bill.
And I've written several bills, but most notably, unfortunately, the bill that I'm most involved and focused on is Social Security 2100.
And that's a bill to reform the Social Security system from top to bottom and make sure that we're taking care of people that haven't seen an enhancement in Social Security since Richard Nixon was president in 1971.
And it goes on.
So there needs to be an across-the-board increase bill for all recipients of Social Security so they can deal in this post-COVID and inflationary period with the expenses they're seeing and their costs that are rising.
And we need to pay for it, to your point, so that we're not creating further deficits.
Now, it should also be pointed out, and it's often not, that Social Security is a separate trust and has nothing to do with the deficit.
Having said that, however, we don't want to put the trust fund in deficit either.
And so that's why these things have to be paid for.
And what we've called for the pay for is to make sure that we lift the cap.
Most people don't even understand that there's a cap on Social Security.
So we lift the cap on people over $400,000, which means essentially they would be paying the same thing that a person paying $50,000, $70,000, $100,000, $125,000 pays throughout the course of a year.
And with that, that will provide the pay for to both expand Social Security and also extend its solvency.
Steve is in Kentucky, Republican.
Hi, Steve.
Hey, Steve Larson.
Thank you all for taking my call.
Listen, Mr. Larson, I'm a Republican.
I'm going to try to give you all some help here.
The reason the Democrats lost so big, and it was a big loss.
You look at the map, over 80% of the counties in the United States went for Republicans.
So this was a big loss for the Democrats.
You know it.
All the Democrats know it.
I'm going to tell you why.
Bad policy.
The policy that Democrats were coming with were destroying this country.
And that's why we saw the red wave that we saw.
The policies that the Republicans put forward, and we had a great compare and contrast.
When Donald Trump was president, we had good things going on in this country.
Wages were going up.
Everybody was working.
Interest rates were down.
We had a good thing going on.
And he's got the lay of the land now.
He did all that by going uphill against Democrats.
Now we've got some control.
We've got some power.
And we're going to show you what good policy looks like.
And I hope you all learn from it because I want us all to be well off and to succeed in this economy.
And I do wish the Democrats well, but only if they change their policies that help this country and that help the world.
Look what's going on in the world right now because of Democrat policies with the military.
All right, Steve, let's get a response.
Well, we look forward to working with our colleagues.
But Steve, I just want to point out as well that when you look at the economy that Joe Biden inherited from President Trump and then look at what he did, unemployment at an all-time low at 4%, 16 new million jobs created, et cetera.
We've got to continue to work together to keep moving forward in that area.
But as we talked with a caller earlier, even with all that, if you're sitting across the kitchen table and you see in this inflationary time your grocery bills going up, costing you more money to put gas in, we have to make sure we're articulating that and directing our focus at the people who need the most help from their government.
And we look forward to working with the Republicans, and hopefully they'll cooperate and we can work together like Chris Murphy did on immigration with Senator Lake.
You know, it demonstrates that we can elect, excuse me.
And, you know, the president then said, well, you know, we don't want that.
We'd rather have the issue than have the problem solved.
And let's hope that we get beyond that and get away from the issue and actually solving the problems.
We're talking with Congressman John Larson, Democrat of Connecticut.
We'll go to Connecticut.
Elizabeth is there in Bridgeport, an independent.
Yes, thank you.
Our largest city.
You answered my question about raising the cap on income for Social Security.
I'm glad to hear you support that.
But what about the age?
I've heard many people in Congress from both parties talk about raising Social Security age to 70, and it just seems completely impractical when you look at the physical nature of many people's jobs, the relative lack of health of a lot of Americans who are in their 50s and 60s.
And I wanted to know what you think about that, and if you have some more specific plans, if you are in favor of increasing age.
Thank you.
Elizabeth and Bridgeport.
Elizabeth, thank you.
That's a great question.
First and foremost, I think most people don't understand.
Sounds logical.
Here's what the Republicans present.
Their study committee has said that they want to see the age raised to 70.
What I think people don't understand is for every year that you raise the age, that's a 7% cut in benefits.
And their goal is to say, well, look, people are living longer.
That's where they should work longer.
Well, again, as Elizabeth says, you pointed out, depending upon the job that they're in, that could be quite difficult.
But the bottom line is this.
If you're living longer, you should then, therefore, be living on less.
So a 21% cut in benefits, and Social Security currently faces a cut because of congressional inaction, is wrongheaded.
Our proposal in 2100 says that, no, we stay at age 67 because that's important.
And then we enhance Social Security so that people get an across the board increase so that we now repeal weapon GPO, which impacts teachers, firefighters, police officers as well.
And also make sure with regard to disability that there's no more long waiting period.
We've actually had people die waiting to get their disability payments.
So these are the things overall.
It's not just a matter of keeping Social Security as it is.
That's protecting it, and that needs to be done, but also guarantee that it's not protecting doesn't mean cutting it.
What we need to do is enhance it.
We're talking with Congressman John Larson serving his 13th term in Congress.
We'll go to Ray in California, Democratic Caller.
Hey, Ray.
Hello, Mr. Larson.
The reason I called is because I found out that approximately 16 million people are in college right now, assuming half of them are Republican, half are Democrats.
Back in the primary in Chicago, many of the students decided that they were going to boycott the primary.
I believe that those people that boycotted the primary, along with anyone else who agreed with them, are one of the reasons that, as you mentioned, there were so few Democratic votes, approximately 10 million, fewer than our last election.
And I believe that that's the reason that the vote turned out the way that it did.
My question is, what are the Democrats going to do to get the college-age people who have a problem with the war in Gaza?
What are you going to do to get them back into the political system and to vote Democratic?
Well, thank you for the question.
I think we have to continue the outreach.
And I think we have to educate them and bring them back.
I mean, clearly, just getting through college today at the cost of college has been astronomical, having gotten three of my children through.
I understand the impact on the wallet.
But more importantly, not only getting through college, but also recognizing, and Joe Courtney and I have done several of these up in Connecticut, where people who may not want to go to college but want to develop a skill and reintroducing skills around manufacturing that pay incredibly high wages.
We're the home of Pratt Whitney Aircraft and electric boat with submarines and F-35, so that's a focus.
To your point, I don't think that we have to continue the outreach and, again, appeal to that generation about the fact that, yeah, climate change is real.
And these are some of the concerns that they share and feel.
And also getting through college and then having the ability to go into a job after you complete your college or other educational opportunities that could be provided to you.
And that way, I think it keeps them involved and committed.
But there's, to your point, much work that needs to be done.
What about the war in Gaza and those that felt that they could not vote for the Democratic ticket because of that?
Yeah, it's going to continue to be a big issue, et cetera.
We certainly support Israel, our most trusted ally in the area, but we have strong disagreements, as has the president with Netanyahu, in the way that they've conducted that.
The President Trump has said he wants to be the peace president.
Let us hope that that's the case.
But I think that there needs to be a ceasefire, and we need to make sure that we're focused on a two-state solution that both Palestinians and Israelis can agree on.
We'll go to Coca Beach, Florida.
Kurt, Republican.
Hi, Kurt.
Kurt, it's your turn.
Israel.
All right, Kurt, in Florida.
One last call for you.
All right, folks, you got to mute your television.
Just listen through your phone.
Gary, in Connecticut, Independent.
Good morning, Representative Larson.
Good morning, Gary.
I had been a lifelong Democrat, and about two and a half years ago, I became an unaffiliated voter in the state of Connecticut because I just didn't feel that my party was listening to me.
But I still largely vote Democratic.
I just no longer contribute financially.
So that's the background.
I have a very important issue that I've never gotten an adequate answer on, and you're the guy to answer it.
I want to know why the cap on Social Security payments into has not been not just raised, but removed.
This, in my opinion, would completely make the system solvent and allow for perhaps more generous cost of living increases for senior citizens.
All right, Gary, let's take that.
So, Gary, you're absolutely right.
As I said earlier, most people don't realize that there's even a cap.
The current cap right now is approximately $170,000.
But after that, people don't pay in.
And the real outrage, as President Biden pointed out, who said, and Biden said, I will not raise taxes on anyone under $400,000.
So he put the cap on people over $400,000.
That's about six-tenths of 1% of the United States population.
But just with that money alone, we would both be able to expand Social Security.
And what we're asking is for them to pay their fair share, what everybody else pays.
This is not a new tax.
This, in fact, is the nation's safety net for capitalism and entrepreneurialism.
It allows people to be able to take risks and go out there and create jobs.
And if they fail and the unintended consequences are that people are laid off or out of work, they have the safety net.
The brilliance of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is still with us today, but it's been Congress's lack of focusing on Social Security and making sure that that program, again, as I said earlier, number one anti-poverty program for the elderly and for children.
And more veterans rely on Social Security disability than they do on the VA.
It's that essential and highly, highly regarded by Independents, Republicans, and Democrats who all believe that, you know, expanding it, even if it meant paying for it themselves.
What Biden proposed and what we supported was lifting the cap.
But to your larger point, you know, why is there a cap?
And that goes back to when Social Security was first being enacted, et cetera.
But it is something that Congress should be undertaking, and I think we will.
What remind viewers the solvency deadline here?
Pardon me?
For Social Security.
Yeah.
Well, the solvency issue right now, it's 2034.
And what that means is this.
Back in 1983, and a lot of people say, hey, wait a minute, that was 40 years ago.
Tip O'Neill, Ronald Reagan, and Bob Dole got together.
Reagan wanted to get rid of Social Security.
He thought it should be privatized.
Bob Dole felt differently and said, no, this helps too many people out.
But what we can do is come together and TIP, of course, was for saving Social Security, which they did, but they did so at the time in 83 by raising the age and then also putting in place programs like WEP and GPO, which of course limited and prevented teachers, firefighters, police officers, et cetera, from they or their spouses getting Social Security that they had paid in for.
So we're out to alleviate that as well.
Don in Pennsylvania, Republican.
Good morning, John.
I got two things.
Good morning.
I'm having a hard time hearing this.
The first thing is about the 11 billion votes that the Democrats didn't get.
I don't think that they did vote.
I just don't think they were there.
And the second thing is how much money did the government and especially Nancy Pelosi take out of Social Security, and how much did Nancy Pelosi take out for the impeachment on Donald Trump the first time?
Give the people what that number is.
Thank you.
Well, a common misunderstanding is, and people say this, I hear this all the time, that, you know, stop raiding the trust fund.
The trust fund has not been raided.
Money has not been taken out of there.
It remains intact.
In fact, it's so strong and solvent that the last time Congress really did anything to enhance it was 1971.
Richard Nixon was president of the United States.
It was interesting that Eisenhower and Nixon, they got it.
They understood as well that this was the number one anti-poverty program for the elderly and also for children as well.
So that has got to remain the focus.
No money was taken out of the trust fund.
What's happening here, and you probably will understand this readily, with 10,000 baby boomers a day, a day becoming eligible for Social Security, that large population, the largest in our history, is drawing out of the trust fund.
And so therefore, it's created yet another problem for Congress to deal with to make sure that both the solvency and the enhancement of Social Security.
And, you know, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all agree.
Because they understand the benefits of this program, as Bob Dole did, like I was just mentioning.
There are a number of Republicans who want to see this reformed.
What stopped them in the past has been the pay force.
And I don't think this is a time when we should be cutting Social Security coming out of global epidemic on COVID and coming out of global inflation and seeing people hurt at home.
That is a very strong kitchen table issue that we need to address and correct.
Your reaction to President-elect Trump's picks so far to lead his cabinet, former member of Congress, former colleagues of yours, and current as well.
Yeah, well, I think the president's entitled to pick whoever he wants and to pick the people that he feels are going to be most loyal to him.
And that's what he's indicated in what he had to say.
However, we have this thing called confirmation, and so they're going to have to go through that process.
And in that, and, you know, probably the most controversial is, you know, Representative Gates, et cetera.
But he's got to go through confirmation.
And in doing so, I think the public will become aware of those choices.
Those choices are a reflection on the presidency and how he intends to govern.
He's entitled to put forward anyone he wants who he believes will serve his administration and the nation best.
But the Senate gets a shot to look at that as well.
Well, if Republicans use the recess, use recess appointments to put these people in these posts, then what?
Then they're taking their power and abusing it.
And I think the public will take notice.
But I still think there are Mitch McConnell's in the United States Senate who respect the difference between the branches of government, the separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and the Senate, who very much guards their responsibility and confirmation.
That's going to be something that the American people are going to be watching closely.
And we'll see who stands up or who thinks that this is a wise thing to do.
Ike in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Democratic caller.
Hi, Ike.
Hey, good morning.
I'll just give you a messaging point here, my man.
This is why people get tired of politicians.
Make it short and make it sweet.
Here's an example.
You had the perfect chance when the college costs came up.
Which president was it that started this in the first place of charging people for college?
Because it wasn't always for profit.
That was Ronald Reagan.
These people are not educated in how we got to where we're at and the policies that caused these problems.
Now, I'll put in a quick one on immigration.
Hopefully people out there are aware that since 2005, they put off bringing into full effect the Real ID Act.
And now, the last I heard, it's supposed to come into full effect in 2025, which means all of these folks are now going to have to be verified on their jobs, and they're going to have to have this ID.
That's something that's coming at them.
They don't know that their taxes are going to be going up because of Republican policies that were passed.
And that's for the people that work for a living.
There's all these things Republicans have done that Democrats are complaining.
Oh, and by the way, one other thing.
They were talking about the deficit.
Why didn't you tell them that Biden actually brought down and brought down our operational deficits?
You've got to get better at messaging.
You've got to be short, sweet, and to the point, brutally honest, and educate these people on these policies and what they've done to our country.
Illegal immigration, by the way, you American employers, you carry the burden of that.
It's your fault.
And we don't have interior enforcement, and more people come in here by overseeing visas and by coming through the airport than they do through the border.
Let's get this thing straight.
Oh, by the way.
All right, Ike, we've got a lot to discuss there.
We'll have the congressman respond.
If I could remember it, Ike wasn't so short.
He probably is sweet, but I think he's mentioned a panoply of ideas that should be focused on as well.
And it's good to see that citizens are focused on these things as well.
And to think that Congress is not acting on these is a misnomer.
Acting and having hearings and then actually turning something into law, though, are two different things.
So we, Ike, I appreciate your concerns in this area and would acknowledge the shorter and sweeter we can be, the better off we'll be in terms of messaging.
But there's a lot to get done from student loans to the impact of climate change to immigration.
And there are a lot of good ideas and resolutions that are out there.
They should go through regular order, like it used to be, in terms of making sure that there are hearings, there is testimony, they're done in the public, and then they go to the respective floors for a vote.
It'll be interesting, and I don't know if people even are aware of the culture vote and whether or not the Senate will, once they're organized, continue to use that.
Where in the Constitution does it say that you need 60 votes to pass a bill?
Damian.
Damien and Laurel, Maryland, Republican, let's hear from you.
Oh, hi, Representative.
Nice to speak to you.
Sure.
Nice to speak to you.
If I say Elon Musk, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
Elon Musk, very inventive, very creative, very wealthy.
Was that short and sweet?
Damien, what's your point?
He supported Trump.
He supported Trump.
And so a lot of Democrats see him as a partisan and don't want to listen to him.
But this dude is the Ford of our generation.
He is the Edison.
He is doing it, dude.
He's making Teslas.
He's making Starlink.
He's making spaceships.
And he knows about government regulations.
So I hope the Democrats listen to him when he says, hey, we don't need this regulation.
We don't need this because he's one of the most successful businessmen that we've seen in our generation.
All right, Damien, let's take that point.
Damien, you're correct.
And I think that Trump and he are working together.
And he's indicated that he's got, you know, ways to streamline government and get rid of the inefficiencies.
And, you know, everybody ought to be open to that, but it ought to be, when I say open, there ought to be public hearings in ought to put out forward how he would do it and what the impact would be on individuals, et cetera.
I don't disagree that he's bright and talented and is advising President Trump, but that's the president's prerogative to bring that individual there.
His ideas that he put forward, in a democracy, they have to stand the test and the scrutiny and the public hearings that should take place so that we fully understand his ideas and where he has good ideas and they should be embraced.
We should take them up.
President-elect Trump supposedly allegedly looking at Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head up some sort of waste reduction commission.
What authority would they have?
You know, that's question number one.
And they, you know, what authority they should have.
I mean, obviously they advise the president, but what authority should they have over eliminating bureaucracies?
That should go to public hearings.
That should go through the committee process.
That should be open to the public.
If they're good ideas, the public and Congress, I believe, will embrace them.
And certainly with control of the Senate and House and the President, they have the opportunity in regular order to do that.
Go to Porter, Texas.
Spencer is watching there on our line for Democrats.
Hi, Spencer.
Hi, how are you doing?
Morning.
Good morning.
Hey, I'm just, I'm going to be short and sweet, like I said, because I think I said it all.
That's basically the same thing I wanted to tell these Democrats.
I consider myself a Democrat.
I really don't care for either party, but I lean more socially liberal, fiscally conservative.
But one of the problems, I think, with the Democratic Party is you had a guy that called several callers ago that was pushing policy, policy, policy.
Like, oh, the Democrats' policies created this mess.
And when you spoke, you didn't even address it.
Like, I mean, you have to, okay, if it's not the policies, when you leave stuff hanging out there like that, where he says, oh, it's the policies, the policies of, you know, Joe Biden created this mess.
And then you don't address it, you leave it out there.
It's just, it's almost as if you're saying, like, okay, so the policies are creating this mess.
I'm intelligent enough to realize that lots of these problems that occurred, a lot of that stuff was, you know, fall out from COVID.
Just like, you know, like, what does Joe Biden's policies have to do with the price of eggs?
He didn't create, you know, he didn't create, you know, the bird flu that, you know, killed off all these chickens that raised the price of eggs.
And you have to speak simply to people because, I mean, it's true that people aren't, I'm not going to say they're not that smart.
They just don't think that deeply about things.
Okay, let's get the conversation.
16 million jobs created, unemployment at its lowest level.
But as both speakers say, we could go down the list of accomplishments, but if we're not messaging it and it's not getting back to the public, they don't know because sitting across the table, they're still dealing with post-COVID issues and inflation, and it impacts them personally.
And we did not do a good job of communicating that to them.
And so I think that's resulted in the election and also resulted in a lot of people not coming out to vote that should have.
Congressman John Larson, appreciate the conversation as always with our viewers.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank the viewers as well.
We're going to take a short break.
When we come back, we'll talk with Wall Street Journal's Jess Braven about potential Supreme Court vacancies and how President Trump's second term could shape the federal judiciary.
Stay with us.
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We want to welcome back to our table Wall Street Journal Supreme Court correspondent Jess Braven here to talk about the high court and after this election, there's speculation that there could be some vacancies that President-elect Trump would then get to fill.
What are the validity of these rumors?
Well, it's interesting.
I mean, there was historically a time when the Supreme Court was seen as something apart from politics, and you would see members of one party, senators of one party, vote for a nominee of another.
Most recently, we know that Justice Antonin Scalia, a very conservative justice, was approved unanimously by the Senate.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I think, were three no votes against her.
Those days are over, and the Supreme Court now is treated as just another political prize by the two parties.
And we saw that after the death of Scalia in 2016, when Republicans wouldn't consider any nominee by President Obama.
And we saw that again very more recently in 2020 when Justice Ginsburg died.
And Republicans rushed to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to her seat shortly before they lost control of both the White House and the Senate.
So now we have three justices who are in their 70s, and both Democratic and Republican activists speculated that maybe it would be an opportune time for them to find other hobbies rather than judging our nation's laws.
And immediately it was liberals who talked about Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
She's the eldest member of the liberal bloc on the court.
That's a diminished bloc now, three justices.
She's 70 years old, was appointed by President Obama in 2009.
If she were to step aside, in theory, the Democrats, President Biden could nominate a successor.
The Democratic Senate could confirm her before they turn over the Senate to Republicans in January.
Similarly, Republicans, knowing that they don't want to have happen to their ideological allies what happened to the liberals when Justice Ginsburg died, they were looking at two of the elder conservatives on the court.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who was appointed in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush.
He is approaching the record for tenure on the court.
He's 76 years old.
Justice Samuel Alito, 74 years old, appointed in 2006 by President George W. Bush.
These rumors began circulating.
We saw articles about it.
We saw pundits talking about it.
No senators explicitly asking for this.
But the chatter certainly reached the Supreme Court because we talked to people close to the justices and found they were annoyed, maybe that's the word, by this kind of speculation.
And we reported, I think, fairly confidently that neither Justice Sotomayor nor Justice Alito has any plans to leave right now for purposes of political expediency.
An Alito, here's your headline.
Justice Samuel Alito plans to remain on the Supreme Court.
Let's talk about this current docket, what cases they are looking at.
Can you describe big picture what will be presented before the High Court?
Well, compared to the last term where we saw a case about presidential power that paved the way for President-elect Trump to return to the White House, we saw cases involving abortion.
We saw very, very controversial and important issues.
So far, the docket this term is not as significant.
Of course, it is to the parties in the cases, and some issues are very important.
There's a case about transgender youth that is coming up in December.
There are other significant cases, as there always are by definition, at the Supreme Court.
But we haven't seen the kinds of things like major abortion rights or affirmative action or executive power cases that we had in recent years during the Biden administration.
But we are likely to see some after President Trump returns to the White House.
And if he does implement what is a very, one could say, bold reconception of separation of powers under our constitutional structure, if he does do that, there's likely to be litigation that will end up back at the Supreme Court, whether that is dismantling the civil service, as it's been known since the 1800s, imposing recess appointments in the manner he has suggested, with Congress deliberately going out of session so that he could do so.
These issues, as well as a massive immigration roundup, many of the things he's talked about are very aggressive assertions of power, and they may face some challenges under our structure.
Are there groups out there gearing up for a potential lawsuit on those fronts?
Oh, for sure.
Because, you know, and we've, and by the way, we've seen this under Presidents Obama and Trump I and Biden as well, that when they take certain steps that are opposed, particularly by their ideological opposites, they end up in court.
And sometimes they win, but not always.
So yes, for sure.
One front that has immediately opened up are state attorney generals from Democratic states.
They have made clear that when they heard President-elect Trump campaigning, promise to be a dictator on day one, they heard that and they thought that's not what we are into.
And they actually began gearing up their own litigation units to be ready to respond if he does things that they believe infringe on their own state's prerogatives.
There are activist groups that view President-elect Trump's campaign agenda as contrary to many of the things they believe in, environmental groups, the ACLU, which has an aggressive civil liberties perspective.
They've all said that they are ready to respond in court if the new president does things they believe are legally in error.
You also mentioned the idea of recess appointments.
The president-elect has picked some controversial folks to possibly lead agencies, Matt Gates and others.
That's the reporting this morning.
And the president-elect has said on Sunday that he would like whoever becomes Senate leader to push some of these folks through in a recess appointment.
Why would that present a legal challenge or potential legal challenge?
Well, let's remember what a recess appointment is.
In the Constitution, anyone who is an officer of the United States needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, or at least anyone who is a principal officer of the United States.
And those are the top positions, the ones that people are most concerned about, cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking officials.
There is a stopgap provision in the Constitution that says when the Senate is in recess, the President can make a temporary appointment that lasts to the end of the session of Congress.
And I think that was drafted in the 1700s mainly because they didn't have exactly the kind of communications and transportation technology that we suffer under today, you might say.
So no offense to cable viewers.
And so there is this stopgap provision.
Over the years, presidents have often tried to use it as a kind of workaround when they run into obstacles in the Senate with some of their appointees.
Presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama, they've all used recess appointments to try to get around in transit and Senate, maybe for more controversial nominees, or just because the Senate is really, really slow sometimes in getting around to its business.
About 10 years ago, four recess appointees to the National Labor Relations Board that Obama put forward were challenged by businesses that lost rulings at the NLRB.
They said these members aren't legitimately in office because it was an illegal recess appointment.
Supreme Court agreed and said, actually, for the first time, what counts is a recess, and that's 10 days, a 10-day span.
If it's longer than 10 days, then it's a recess.
If it's shorter than 10 days, then it's not really a recess, and it's inappropriate to use that provision.
So the Senate actually could then automatically prevent recess appointments, which is generally what they try to do, by simply having kind of fake sessions, pro forma sessions.
They gavel themselves into session, gavel themselves out, and they're done.
You know, that and though, and so recess appointments really went away.
What Trump is asking for is unprecedented, according to our reporting and our discussions with Senate historians.
He is asking the Senate to deliberately go out of business so he can appoint people to high offices without their advice and consent.
And that seems to be an unprecedented ask, at least publicly, and something the Senate has never, never done.
Generally, they tend to protect their power against the executive rather than abdicate in favor of it.
We're talking with Jess Braymer, the Wall Street Journal Supreme Court correspondent.
Join the conversation by dialing in this morning: Democrats 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents, your line this morning is 202-748-8002.
Remember, you can text us as well, include your first name, city, and state, to 202-748-8003.
Let's go to Mary Lou in Newington, Connecticut, an Independent.
Hi, Mary Lou.
Good morning.
Your turn.
Good morning.
Yes, hi.
I'm calling because you're talking about the Supreme Court and everybody's so worried about age.
Look, I am 92 years old, and I know what I'm doing.
I have all my faculties, and I am just as smart or dumb, what you want to say, or smart as I ever was.
And my age has nothing to do with it.
It's your health.
And because of medicine, what its advances in medicine, that's why we're all living so much longer.
But that doesn't mean, look, people at 89, 90, 85, a lot of them, I play cards four days a week with people that age.
We know what we're doing.
All right, Mary Lou.
Well, let's talk.
Are there any of the sitting justices who have health concerns?
Firstly, Mary Lou, congratulations on making it to your 90s, and we hope there'll be many, many more years ahead for you in Connecticut.
The issue is not really that these justices are losing their marbles.
No one is suggesting that any member of the court is incapable of doing the job.
And viewers can find out for themselves, listen to the arguments which are on the Supreme Court website or on C-SPAN's library and see, you'll see they're all quite with it.
That's not the issue.
The issue, as Mary Lou said, is really health.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was all there in her mind up until the end, but she was 87 and she had a lot of health problems.
And health issues and age sometimes are correlated, and that's really what people are talking about.
Supreme Court justices serve for life.
And so when you talk about the Supreme Court, you're looking at basically the geological time scale as opposed to the political cycles of the House and Senate and White House, which turn over with regular frequency.
So that's really what we're looking at.
I mean, Justice Thomas has been there since 1991, right?
I mean, that's a long time on the Supreme Court.
And so since these vacancies occur so rarely and can occur without any planning, as in the unexpected deaths of Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg, people who care about the ideological direction of the court are making these calculations.
The justices, we don't know exactly how much they are calculating the stuff in there, but they don't like this kind of talk.
And one of the very influential people on the right, Leonard Leo, who advised President Trump on his appointments in the first Trump administration and remains a very powerful figure in the conservative legal movement, he said the other day, this is almost an exact quote, not exact, I don't have it in front of me, but he said, you know, it's rather undignified to treat the justices like they're expired meat in the grocery store.
So he's trying to tamp down that talk too, maybe because it might have the wrong impact, could have a contrary impact on what the justices decide to do.
But anyway, that's right.
In these final weeks of the 118th Congress, Senate Democrats are moving to expeditiously approve federal judges before the president's term ends.
Explain that procedure and how both parties have used it to try to shape the judiciary.
Why is it important to watch?
Well, you know, in theory, the law is the law and judges will all apply it fairly.
And we have to say that as far as we know, all judges do apply it fairly.
It's just that what they think is fair and what they think the law requires depends a lot on their jurisprudential philosophy, what they think the law is about, what they think the Constitution's principles really mean and so forth.
So there is a big, big difference between what liberal and progressive and Democratic inclined lawyers think about the law and what conservative and Republican and maybe libertarian oriented lawyers think about the law and what the Constitution is calling for and how to apply it.
So each side tries to get people who share their philosophy into these positions.
And maybe in 95% of the cases, it doesn't make any difference.
You know, you committed murder or you didn't commit murder.
I mean, you embezzled from the bank or you didn't.
But on some of the issues where the law, the Constitution is not perfectly clear, it requires an extra step.
And that is what these battles are really, really about.
At the lower federal courts, it is very easy for judges to time their retirements because they can take something called senior status.
That allows them, if they've served a certain number of years, to really continue on the job, kind of working sort of almost for free because they would get a similar pay if they were retired.
But they can remain judges, can remain hearing cases and so on.
But their seat opens up and it can be filled.
So you'll often see towards the end of an administration or beginning, depending on it, judges appointed by a Democrat or a Republican taking senior status at that time to create a vacancy that the new Republican or Democratic president can fill.
And that is mainly what we are seeing with the Biden administration, what we saw with the previous Trump administration.
Of course, sometimes judges die in office, unfortunately.
Sometimes they quit entirely so they can work in private practice or what have you.
But that's what we're seeing there.
We'll go to David in Massachusetts Independent.
Hi, David.
We're talking about the Supreme Court.
Good morning to you.
How are you?
Doing well.
Question or comment here for our guest.
I have kind of a commenty question, I guess.
A lot of women have complained when Trump put a couple people on the Supreme Court that they voted against Roe v. Wade.
And they don't think that men should have any say in it.
Yet, in 1972, there were only men on the Supreme Court.
So now that there's women, and we have them vote against it, what is their problem?
I mean, you know, they want to stuff the Supreme Court now, and I want to find out what he thinks of that, of adding more people.
What do women want?
Well, I can't really answer that age-old question, but I can say that, you know, one's view of the law is not necessarily determined by one's anatomy, but we have seen that in general, women are more supportive of abortion rights than men have been.
That doesn't determine what any individual may think.
We know statistically that's true.
The Supreme Court is not a place you want to look to general statistics about the population to assess what they think.
When other abortion cases have come up where we saw, in fact, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, you had two women and one man dissenting from that.
Justice Stephen Breyer was among the dissenters.
And you had a woman in the majority to overrule Roe v. Wade, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
I think it's very hard to extrapolate onto the Supreme Court stereotypes of what women or men might think about this issue.
Politically and the great abstraction of hundreds of millions of Americans, we do know statistically that women are more supportive of abortion rights than men are.
I don't think that comes down to which gender they want to see appointed to the Supreme Court.
Are there more legal questions for the Supreme Court to answer on the issue of abortion?
There are tons of questions about abortion that the Supreme Court may be called upon to answer.
Some they had to answer in the last term involving a conflict between the Biden administration's application of federal law about emergency rooms and state laws that banned abortion.
The Biden administration said that if a woman shows up at an emergency room and has a grave health issue that calls for an abortion or she'll lose her fertility or some other important bodily capacity, then federal law requires the emergency room to provide one.
And state of Idaho said, no, it doesn't.
We outlaw abortion.
It's not legitimate medical care in our state.
That was an issue that came before the Supreme Court.
They didn't answer it.
They put off that ultimate question for a future case.
There are other issues that may arise.
Some states have discussed trying to criminalize travel to other states where abortion is lawful.
Whether they can prosecute someone who leaves their state to obtain an abortion elsewhere is a question.
There is a question about whether an antique federal law from the 19th century makes it illegal to send abortion medication through the mail.
There are many, many questions that could arise under this.
And then we don't know what legislation the Congress may take up or the administration under President Trump may promulgate to further restrict abortion.
We certainly know they're not going to expand it.
The question is whether they're going to take any affirmative steps to make it harder to get in states where it's already lawful.
We'll go to Jim, who's a Republican in Idaho.
Hi, Jim.
Well, I feel that by law, if you got four Democrat judges, then by law, we got to have four Republican judges.
That way, they can't do party favors.
They got to have rules legally.
Thank you.
You know, four and four equals eight, and eight is an even number.
So what happens if they split on a case?
That is not actually very efficient for a court when they have to make a decision, and the legal answer is yes or no.
The Supreme Court learned that early in its tenure because the first Supreme Court in the 18th century had six members.
And Congress soon changed it to an odd number because, you know, when you need to have a majority, you need to have an odd number.
There is no partisan requirement for the U.S. Supreme Court.
The justices don't think of themselves as Democrats or Republicans, even if the public tends to.
It is true that right now, all the conservatives are appointed by Republicans.
All the liberals were appointed by Democrats.
But that's not always been true.
One of the most progressive chief justices in our history, Earl Warren, was a lifelong Republican, Republican candidate for president, Republican nominee for vice president, Republican governor of California, and he ushered in a civil rights revolution that ended school segregation, expanded criminal defendant rights, did many other things that conservatives are still steamed about today.
On the other hand, you've had some appointees of Democrats who have turned out to be more conservative.
One of the two dissenters in Roe v. Wade in 1973 was Justice Byron White, who had been appointed by President Kennedy, and had been a major deputy attorney general in the Kennedy Justice Department.
So there have been more variation in past years.
Right now, we see a very strong identification between appointing party and judicial philosophy of the justice.
What is the public view of the Supreme Court, and are the justices, the current justices, concerned about it?
Well, you know, the public view from what we have seen from many opinion surveys and academic studies right now is negative on the Supreme Court.
It's at historic lows of public popularity or confidence.
And that's mainly since the year 2020 when Justice Ginsburg died and Justice Barrett was appointed and the court shifted very hard to the right.
And that, because a 6-3 court can move much more aggressively than a 5-4 court, where any single justice could conceivably break an ideological stalemate or try to find some kind of compromise, which is what we had when Justice Kennedy, Justice O'Connor were on the court in previous years.
The main reason that the court's popularity has fallen is that Democrats and to a lesser degree Independents lost confidence in it.
Republican confidence has sort of stayed about the same.
And the reason that is problematic, legal scholars say, is that the key to a court's legitimacy and credibility is whether the losers think they were treated fairly.
Whether the losers say, okay, I don't like this outcome, I'm disappointed by it.
I understand it.
I don't agree with it.
I accept it.
And that is what we pretty much had until 2020.
I mean, because the court was not so easily pigeonholed as tracking a particular ideological agenda.
And if you won one day, maybe you'd win or lose another day.
Right now, however, the court has lost the confidence of people who think that they're losing unfairly.
And that's really what scholars say is a problem.
Now, from the Supreme Court's point of view, you can also look at it this way.
They're not supposed to care about popularity.
They're supposed to do what's right.
And even if the majority disagrees, people look back to the 50s when the court began dismantling segregation in the United States.
That was not popular in a region of the country, the South, more popular in the North.
But the court went ahead with it, even though it was very unpopular and they faced a great deal of resistance in the areas where those decisions were taking effect.
So it's hard to draw the line.
But the court Has lost the respect that it had across the board in previous decades.
What was the impact of alleged ethics violations and has the court responded?
That is hard to say.
It certainly has not helped the court, but we do know that I looked at a recent survey by Marquette Law School earlier this year, and the net disapproval rating, the public disapproval, the justices who had the greatest disapproval were Justices Thomas and Justice Kavanaugh.
Both of them maybe were best known to the public for certain ethical or behavior questions that were raised.
Justice, I haven't seen studies that focus exactly on the ethics issue, but headlines and reports that say, oh, there were these undisclosed gifts from billionaires and so on, that can't be helpful to a court that wants to see itself as really above these crass considerations.
There's no allegation, by the way, of bribery or anything like that.
It's really more, it's a little vaguer, it's a little squishier question.
When you're so closely associated with extremely wealthy people who have their own ideological agendas they want before the court, what does that say about the court's independence?
We're not seeing any kind of quid pro quo allegation.
We're just saying, hmm, does that look right?
That seems to be what ethics scholars are asking.
Jane's in Scottsdale, Arizona, an independent.
Hi, Jane.
Yes, hello.
Good morning.
Morning.
Yeah, I mean, basically, to be completely honest, I was mostly a lifelong Democrat until maybe like 10 years ago.
I really switched to the Independent Party mostly because of the problems we seem to be having nowadays with media.
And talking or listening to Mr. Brevin, I have some questions for him because I feel like he really skews what he's saying and it's not very factual.
In what way, Jane?
In what way?
Well, one of the things he pointed out was like that Trump said that he was going to become like a dictator.
I mean, he never said these things, but yet the media pushes these narratives.
And as such, it's turning off people like me who are independent because it's so falsely skewed.
Just like I'm pro-abortion, I think the state should be looking at the abortion rights and have some sort of abortion rights, okay?
Maybe not to the extent like New York, where you can terminate two days after the baby's born, but something logical.
In Arizona, we had passed a thing that said 14 weeks for abortion.
And then all of a sudden they put it on the ballot and they acted like it was just like you were voting for or against abortion.
But what we really wound up voting for was an abortion up to six months.
And it passed and nobody seems to care, but I do think at six months, that's a little excessive.
Okay, Jane, we'll take your comments.
Just Raven.
Well, Trump did say, now you could say he didn't mean or he was joking.
He said, they said, I'm going to be a dictator.
I'm paraphrasing him.
I don't have the quote in front of me.
But, you know, I'm not going to be a dictator.
Well, except maybe on day one.
So that is basically the way he put it.
And his administration is preparing a lot of very, very ambitious executive orders that they intend to issue on day one.
So I don't understand what's not factual about that.
Or I don't understand what's not factual about saying that people who don't agree with that agenda listened to his assertion that he's going to be very aggressive on the first day and began getting ready to respond to policies that they have legal questions about.
So I don't understand what the I don't understand the assertion that that's not factual.
I mean, what's not factual about reciting what he said?
You know, and again, as far as I'd ask this, there are a lot of people who do criticize the news media, and the news media should not be immune from criticism.
But when you say they got something wrong, how do you know that?
You know that because you read that someplace, unless you were there in person.
So it's some form of media that you're relying on.
And the credibility of it, well, that's usually established over time.
I'm proud to say that the publication I work for, established in 1889, has a very good reputation for credibility that stands up over more than a century.
And I think this is true for other major news organizations.
So let's not be so hasty to dismiss news organizations that have a tremendous institutional commitment to accuracy and to correcting errors when they make them.
How important to you as a journalist is your reputation?
Well, it's essential because we have no, unlike the court, whether they are liked or disliked by the public, they have to be obeyed.
We do not as journalists.
And what we do is right out there every day.
And I hear from readers who, you know, often when they what they think of as an error is actually news they wish wasn't true or or viewpoints expressed in an article that sources say, not us as journalists, sources say that they disagree with.
And confusion among these things, I think, is unfortunate.
News media has let the public down, I think, in not really explaining how it works, how it decides what is credible information and what is not, what it decides to publish and what not to publish, and what matters and what doesn't.
The public deserves to know a lot more about how those decisions are made and how facts are verified.
But simply saying, oh, I don't like what I read, therefore it's not true, that's not a fair way to look at what people in the news media work very hard to present.
You can follow Jess Braven's reporting if you go to at JessBraven on X, WSJ.com online, or at WSJ on X as well.
Jess Braven, Supreme Court correspondent with the Wall Street Journal.
We always appreciate you talking to our viewers.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, viewers.
Thanks, Greta.
We're going to take a break.
When we come back, return to our conversation from earlier this morning.
Republicans control Washington.
They say they have a mandate.
If you agree, what is it?
You can start dialing in now.
We'll get to that conversation in just a minute.
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And we are back this morning continuing our conversation here on the Washington Journal about Republicans in control of Washington.
The Associated Press last night officially calling the House for Republicans after numerous television networks had already done so.
The Senate in Republican hands and the White House as well come January of 2025.
This morning, Republicans are saying that they have a mandate.
So for this morning, we're asking all of you: do you agree?
Roll Call had this headline that we were just showing you about the leadership elections that happened yesterday in the House.
Speaker Johnson was re-elected as Speaker for the new 119th Congress.
And part of that conversation also included the motion to vacate.
Roll Call reporting that the threshold will rise under the House GOP.
House Republicans factions agreed Wednesday night on a change to the chamber's rules that would make it tougher to oust the Speaker in the manner that former Congressman Kevin McCarthy lost his job last year after some threatened the current Speaker Mike Johnson with the same fate earlier this year.
The deal struck between members of the Hardline Freedom Caucus and the more centrist Republican Main Street Caucus would raise the bar for members to offer a motion to vacate the Speaker's chair by requiring additional members to sign on to such a privileged resolution.
After the leadership elections in the House by Republicans yesterday, Speaker Johnson came to the microphones and this is what he had to say about the party going forward.
It is a new day in America.
Yesterday morning we began on the steps of the House as everyone was flying in to begin work again, as we complete the 118th Congress, and we celebrated what is a new beginning really, a new morning in America, a new day in America, and so today we began this morning, as Steve Scalise just told you, our majority leader, that we began with President Trump and he came to visit us.
It was a bit of a pep rally.
Everybody feels very confident, very encouraged about the days ahead and he gave us a very inspirational message and he talked about the importance of maintaining unity and standing with this leadership team to go forward.
It was very well received and that set the tone for our day and we had a very productive day.
Together Is a Republican conference.
And the theme that you'll hear over and over from all of our members across the conference is that we are unified and energized and ready to go.
We have to deliver for the American people beginning on day one in the new Congress, and we will be ready for that.
I want to congratulate these new leaders that have been duly elected to help serve the conference.
This is an extraordinary leadership team, and those who've been re-elected who have earned those positions well.
This was a group and a body today that worked together and did some really extraordinary things, putting together a leadership team and deciding upon our conference rules.
I want to again tip my hat to the chairs of two of our most important and active caucuses within the Republican conference, the House Freedom Caucus, Dr. Andy Harris, Congressman Harris, and Congressman Dusty Johnson of the Main Street Caucus, who worked together with a subgroup of members to work through a very deliberate process to come up with the rules.
So we come out of this excited to deliver the America First Agenda for the American People.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who will serve again in that post in the new Congress, talking about the agenda for Republicans in the House.
They control the House, the Senate, and the White House next year.
And topping the agenda, immigration and the 2017 expiring tax cuts.
Renewing those tax cuts, topping the agenda for Republicans.
Outside of that meeting yesterday with the Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump, C-SPAN caught up with some members to get their reaction to the meeting.
And here's what many of them told C-SPAN about the future of Mike Johnson's leadership.
What was the atmosphere like in there?
Oh, it's electric.
It's almost like an O Miss football game, man.
It's electric.
He was very funny.
He was very accessible, saying hi to those members that he knows, just giving anecdotes or just cracking jokes of the rallies.
For instance, he said that Mike Johnson, who was sitting very close to him, said, Hey, Mr. President, I need one more rally like a day before the elections.
Go, oh my God, I'm tired.
Mike, I don't want to do that, but I don't got to do it.
You know, the way he was just being very funny and personifying and just explaining those last hours before November 5th.
We are delighted.
Well, it's great.
Showbill.
You know, everybody was having a good time.
President, you know, obviously, you know, he's in a good mood.
And I think he was looking forward to going over to the White House.
I think probably the entire world's looking to see that footage.
But no, he's in a good mood.
Everybody's in a good mood.
Let's just, you know, get ourselves organized here and go do the job.
President Trump threw his support behind Speaker Johnson.
How do you feel about that?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, we got it, you know, we're going with the team we got right now.
This is what we won with.
This is what we need to stick with right now.
Mike's done a good job.
Mike and the president are on the same page.
They speak all the time now.
They've developed a pretty good relationship.
And I think we need to stick with what's working right now.
I was with Kevin McCarthy when he was the speaker, but Mike Johnson is doing a really good job.
And I think there's no reason to change horses at this time.
We just need to produce for the American people.
And Mike Johnson's the right guy.
Well, what he's saying is everybody get behind Mike Johnson.
Okay, let's do that.
And I think we all should be behind Mike Johnson.
We've got to get behind Mike Johnson.
And then within these first 100 days, I was talking about the first 100 days, we get everything we can to get his agenda through.
We can't sit here and wait around and play games.
We can't afford to do that.
Let's get to work immediately.
So when Donald Trump is in the White House on January 20th, right, he can go charge forward, right, and get his agenda to the American people.
And he's going to save our country.
He's going to save the globe, quite honestly.
He'll save the world.
House Republicans talking to C-SPAN yesterday after they met with President-elect Donald Trump on the future of the Republican Party.
We're asking you this morning, do you think they have a mandate now that they control the House, Senate, and White House in the new year?
Tom in Illinois, Democratic caller.
Hi, Tom.
What do you think?
Good morning.
Thanks for having me.
Well, I have a lot to say about all this, but I'll cut to the chase.
I believe that the Republicans for a long time now, even before Trump, let's say going back to the 90s, have had a threefold agenda.
There are three key things that they are doing.
Number one, they want to privatize things.
And we could see that right now with how Trump is cozying up to Elon Musk.
And, you know, they're going to trim the government agencies, trim the budget, trim the bureaucracy, so-called bureaucracy, which is going to mean a lot of government employees, long-time public servants, are going to lose their careers and lose their jobs, which I think is wrong.
And it's all about corporate interests and corporate greed, some would say, and businesses doing better, which they may think that's good in the long run for our economy and for those businesses, but do we really want to throw out the baby with bathwater?
All right.
You know, that seems to be a recurring thing here.
All right.
Tom's thoughts there in Illinois.
Tom, I'm going to move on to Janet, who's been waiting in Morton, Illinois, independent.
Janet, it's your turn.
Hello.
I think I don't know who they did.
They have a cabinet member picked for health and human services.
I do not know off the top of my head if he has made that pick yet.
Why do you ask?
Well, he always said he wanted abortion rights to go back to the states.
And here's my take on that.
History: I was actually in an ERA demonstration here in Peoria, Illinois back in the day.
And ERA, that amendment, never got put into the Constitution because it was not, it didn't go through the state approvals.
And my take is this: women who either are for or against abortion rights, and I am definitely for abortion rights for women.
It's our body, let us decide.
If that ERA had gotten through and it been an amendment, there would have not even had to have been an issue of who dictates what women can do with their own bodies.
And I live in a state now where people, women that have states with restrictive abortion rights, are coming to Illinois to have it done if they can afford to travel.
Why?
Because abortion rights here are up to the woman.
And I'm just saying, women, whether you're pro or against abortion rights, if you want to take control of your body, we should have gotten the ERA amendment passed when we could have gotten it passed through all of the states and made it an actual amendment to the Constitution.
And we wouldn't even be having a conversation about abortion rights.
All right, Janet.
Washington Post is tracking the President-elect's picks for his cabinet.
If you go to WashingtonPost.com, you'll see that here and that where they have filled in the different slots with faces, the Health and Human Services post not yet filled in here in the Washington Post's tracking.
Ken, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Republican.
Hi, Ken.
Hey, good morning, America.
Good morning.
We have been saved by the election, and people saying there's a mandate is kind of a divisive term because of the vaccine mandates and all that.
So it's not a good term, but 75% of the polling said the country was in the wrong direction under the Democrat leadership.
And so there is now got to be change.
So it is required by the voters in electing Republicans to change the direction of the country for the good.
Because we had insane policies like men and women's sports.
and open borders and all the issues of two million new government employees so that we had big government invasion of all of our rights that was potential.
The Justice Department was weaponized, all of those things to go after their opponents because that's why the Matt Gates appointment is so concerning to Democrats because the Justice Department was corrupt.
And so it's going to be really interesting and calling it a mandate is kind of, like I say, divisive, but we definitely voted for change.
Okay.
And Republicans were able to flip the Senate leadership there.
Democrats not in control in the 119th Congress.
Republicans yesterday chose a new leader as Senator Mitch McConnell said he would not seek the top spot.
Front page of USA Today, it's South Dakota Senator John Thune, who will be the new Senate majority leader.
He spoke to reporters yesterday about the agenda and the Senate's role in confirming President-elect Donald Trump, Donald Trump's cabinet.
Here's what he had to say.
Do you have any concerns about President Trump's cabinet fix so far and what advice will you give him when it comes to choosing nominees who will pass confirmation?
Well, as you know, the Senate has an advise and consent role under the Constitution.
So we will do everything we can to process his noms quickly, get them installed in their position so they can begin to implement his agenda.
Leader Thun, you said that recess appointments are on the table.
That's a key demand for President-elect Donald Trump.
Will you move forward with that?
Well, what we're going to do is make sure that we are processing his nominees in a way that gets them into those positions so they can implement his agenda.
How that happens remains to be seen.
You know, obviously, we want to make sure our committees have confirmation hearings like they typically do and that these nominees reported out to the floor.
But I've said this, and I mean it, that we expect a level of cooperation from the Democrats to work with us to get these folks installed.
And obviously, we're going to look at explore all options to make sure that they get moved and that they get moved quickly.
Will the legislative filibuster remain unchanged under your tenure?
Yes.
How do you intend to balance maintaining the independence of the Senate with passing the president-elect's agenda?
Well, I mean, the Senate, as you know, is a, by the founders' design, a place where the minority has a voice in our process.
And we will do the job that the founders intended us to do in the United States Senate and that the American people intend us to do.
And that right now, after this mandate election coming out of the American people, is to work with this president on an agenda that unwinds a lot of the damage of the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda and puts in place new policies that will move our country forward in a different direction.
Senator John Thune, the incoming majority leader on using recess appointments from Vox.com, they note that recess appointments are allowed under the Constitution.
They said, though, using them, President Trump would be able to appoint whoever he'd like without giving the Senate the opportunity to question or object to the pick.
Critics of the practice note that it increases the risk of unqualified, corrupt, or ideological appointees filling government posts.
It also significantly expands presidential power.
Jim, Parsons, West Virginia, Democratic caller.
Jim, we're talking about Republicans in control of Washington.