Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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C-SPAN Student Cam Documentary Contest 2025 is here.
This is your chance to create a documentary that can inspire change, raise awareness, and make an impact.
Your documentary should answer this year's question.
Your message to the president.
What issue is most important to you or your community?
Whether you're passionate about politics, the environment, or community stories, StudentCam is your platform to share your message with the world.
With $100,000 in prizes, including a grand prize of $5,000, this is your opportunity not only to make an impact, but also be rewarded for your creativity and hard work.
Enter your submissions today.
Scan the code or visit studentcam.org for all the details on how to enter.
The deadline is January 20th, 2025.
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They focus now on the Trump transition effort.
C-SPAN viewers are familiar with Mark Caputo, former Politico, current bulwark, national political reporter.
And Mark Caputo, before we get to transition, first your takeaway from President-elect Trump's Meet the Press interview yesterday.
What stood out to you?
Not a lot of surprises.
I think what stands out to me is a lot of surprise from the news media that he and the commentariat that he's planning to be serious about mass deportations and that as the callers seem surprised now that that could include families of legal immigrants.
Now, I don't think the United States has the power to deport legal immigrants, but he is saying that there is going to be a family separation policy.
And what reaction has struck you outside of the political media?
Has there been reaction from Congress that you've seen so far from this interview?
I haven't really paid attention to that, to be honest.
You know, Congress right now is sort of, it has its own fiscal deadlines it has to meet, and it's tied up, at least on the Senate side, in what to do about Trump's nominations or his nominees to be in his cabinet.
And let's go to the nominees, Pete Hegseth.
What's the latest on his nomination?
The Trump team feels relatively good about his position, especially compared to how it was just a few days ago.
In their estimation, the last few days, last two or three days of the week, Hegseth closed strong.
No new allegations of wrongdoing, allegations, which, by the way, is denied.
And they believe that the longer that the Hegseth nomination proceeds and the longer Republican senators don't say no, at least publicly, the higher the chances are that Pete Hegseth gets a favorable vote and becomes the next Secretary of Defense.
Who are the Republican senators who could still say no that you're watching?
Well, obviously, Joni Ernst is the one to really watch.
And then there's Lindsey Graham to a degree, but the possibility that, or the likelihood that Lindsey Graham winds up bucking President Trump on the Secretary of Defense nomination is pretty small.
Ernst is under incredible pressure from the grassroots, the MAGA roots, the right-wing, whatever you want to call it.
That's a state, Iowa, that what he won by 13 points or something.
So she's up for reelection this coming cycle.
The likelihood of her saying no, politically speaking, is pretty low, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
She hasn't said no.
She also hasn't said yes.
And on Friday, she and Hegseth indicated they had a second and productive meeting.
If that sort of thaws, it's hard to see how he winds up without a majority of the Republican conference.
It's not impossible to see.
It's expected right now that Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Miurkowski of Alaska, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the former leader, are no votes.
That's what's expected at least.
That is enough if it's just three no votes against Hegseth to get confirmed.
So again, they feel relatively good about it.
The Trump transition team does.
They believe that time is in their favor as long as they can sort of keep grinding clock.
On December 20th, the Republican senators leave town for winter break, holiday break, or whatever it's called.
And there's one thing that Republican senators hate, or senators of all stripes hate.
It's Republicans bird-dogging them outside of their offices, asking them about controversial nominations and whether they're going to confirm them.
That goes away starting December 20th, and then the sort of the new year starts.
In that span of time, again, if Hegseth is not pulled, if he doesn't withdraw, and if there aren't four hell no votes in the Republican conference, then the chances, again, kind of increase and they increase closer and closer.
Just bottom line is that the Trump campaign, the Trump transition team, the Trump base believes he has a mandate.
He won the popular vote for the first time for a Republican since 2004.
He obviously won a majority of the electoral college vote.
There are Republican majorities in the Senate and in the House, and therefore they expect that his nominees get confirmed by the Republican Senate.
It's an understandable position.
If the Heg Seth nomination falls apart for whatever reason, is Ron DeSantis the next man up?
It looks that way where we stand now, but one of the dangerous things is kind of predicting what Donald Trump is going to do.
It's what makes him a unique figure.
It is confirmed that Donald Trump did call Ron DeSantis when the peak or when the initial crush of bad headlines started to really tear away at Hegseth.
And in that conversation, Trump had mentioned to DeSantis the possibility of being Secretary of Defense.
Now, this is a discussion they actually started having in June.
And it wasn't sort of real in June.
Trump obviously had not even been elected yet.
And so in this most recent conversation, just a few days ago, Trump had dangled this possibility.
And DeSantis signaled that he was interested in it.
That doesn't mean that he's necessarily going to do it.
And it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be offered.
There's a lot of things that have to happen in between.
But the main thing that has to happen in between is that Hegseth needs to withdraw one way or another.
And right now, Hegseth is saying he's going to fight like hell.
Donald Trump has told other people he likes the fact that Pete Hegseth fights like hell.
He's starting to publicly push him more.
So things are looking as we stand now.
It's Monday morning, right?
Things are looking okay for Hegseth in the minds of the Trump transition team.
That can obviously change just on a dime.
As we stand now, about 20 minutes left with Mark Caputo.