Ultimately, all 67 counties' final certified results will reflect all eligible votes cast in the 2024 general election.
To the hundreds of county election workers across the Commonwealth who continue their work to certify an accurate count and to honor the will of Pennsylvania's voters, I'm grateful.
More information about the statewide recount process and the process for county boards of elections to get the final certification is available on the department's website, vote.pa.gov.
Thank you.
Tonight, President-elect Donald Trump is speaking at a gala organized by the America First Policy Institute.
It's taking place at his Mar-a-Lago Resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
We'll have live coverage starting at about 8.30 Eastern on C-SPAN.
You can also watch on the free C-SPAN Now video app and online at C-SPAN.org.
At our table this morning, Congressman John Larson, Democrat of Connecticut, serves on the Ways and Means Committee.
He's 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 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 interest 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 have 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, 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, 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 to deal in regular order.
I talked with Rosa DeLaure 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 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 done?
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.
Hi, Stephen.
Thank you all for taking my call.
Listen, Mr. Ross, 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 policies 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 y'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 do that.
Yeah, electricity.
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 the 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 was to say, well, look, people are living longer.
That's where they should work longer.
Well, again, as Elizabeth, as 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 vote 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 the 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've 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 risk 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 do on the VA.
It's that essential and highly, highly regarded by Independents, Republicans, and Democrats who all believe that 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, 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.
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.