| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| And Vice President of the United States, each for a term beginning on the 20th day of January 2025, and shall be entered together with the list of the votes on the journals of the House and the Senate. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| The purpose of the Joint Senate having been concluded, pursuant to Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 2, the 119th Congress, the chair declares this joint session dissolved. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are | |
| back live with our studio production as we continue to watch scenes from the chamber of the House OF Representatives, still officially in the joint session, although their work is done of certifying the Electoral College votes. | ||
| We're going to be able to take some of your phone calls in reaction to the events today: the historic re-election of Donald Trump after a four-month interregnum with Joe Biden's presidency, only happened once before in history. | ||
| And we'd like to hear what you think about what you saw today. | ||
| And let me tell you how you do that. | ||
| The phone lines are 202-748-8920 for Democrats. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8921. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8922. | ||
| And we'll get to your calls in a minute or so as we continue watching the scenes with lots of congratulations to Vice President-elect JD Vance, still a member of the Senate from Ohio. | ||
| We're going to take our first call for this segment. | ||
| Senate concurrent resolution 2, 119th Congress. | ||
| The electoral vote will be spread at large upon the journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm going | |
| to, again, attempt to take calls and see if we don't interrupt the speaker as he goes to the gavel, ultimately to gavel out this joint session of Congress. | ||
| Again, Casey Bergardo is with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He teaches at George Washington University, and he also directs their master's program in legislative affairs. | |
| And we're delighted to have you at the table. | ||
| One thing I wanted to just note, we were talking beforehand, Casey, about how much protocol and performance there is in a special session like today. | ||
| And one of those was the language that the speaker just used to spread the results across the journal. | ||
| Across the journals, which literally in that they took those big certificates of ascertainment and votes and literally put them on the various journals up there. | ||
| Who knows what's after that, but the wording matters and they took it literally. | ||
| What purpose does the gentlelady from Michigan seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, by the direction of the House Republican Conference, I send to the desk a privileged resolution and ask for its immediate consideration. | ||
| The clerk will report the resolution. | ||
| House Resolution 13. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Resolved. | |
| At the following. | ||
| I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading. | ||
| Without objection, the resolution is agreed to, and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| What purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Democratic caucus, I offer a privileged resolution and ask for its immediate consideration. | |
| The clerk will report the resolution. | ||
|
unidentified
|
House Resolution 14. | |
| Resolved. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be considered as read. | ||
| Without objection, the resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Michigan seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it stands adjourned until 11 a.m. tomorrow, January 7th. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlelady from Michigan seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn. | |
| The question is on the motion to adjourn. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| The motion is agreed to. | ||
| According to the House, the stands adjourned until 11 a.m. on Tuesday, January 7th, 2025. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And it's official. | |
| Today's House session and joint session is now in the history books. | ||
| And again, we were interrupted here by our gavel-to-gavel commitment to coverage of Congress. | ||
| But now we're going to go to telephone calls for Casey Burgat of George Washington University and Gina in Long Beach, California has been waiting patiently. | ||
| You're on, Gina. | ||
| Welcome. | ||
| Hello? | ||
| Yes, Gina. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
| Oh, okay. | ||
| I was calling because I had a question. | ||
| Does the 14th Amendment, Section 3, the disqualification clause, my question, I don't know if you could answer or not, but doesn't it say something about Congress has to do something like remove the disqualification for office if a senator or anyone that holds office in the United States government, | ||
| don't they have to remove that clause or something? | ||
| Thanks very much. | ||
| This question has come up a couple of times in our pre-program. | ||
| So do you want to explain how that process works? | ||
| There's just a clause within the amendment that says anyone that has committed acts of treason or insurrection against the government can be disqualified from future office. | ||
| But as we've seen, that is not an automatic clause that Congress has to take a subsequent action, usually by a vote, to deem them disqualified for future office. | ||
| And as we have seen, President Trump has not been deemed for that, and now he's going to be sworn in again. | ||
| The Electoral College vote count today took just about 30 minutes. | ||
| And just to compare it with past Electoral College votes, in 2009, 36 minutes to name Barack Obama president through the Electoral College count. | ||
| In 2013, his re-election was certified in 22 minutes. | ||
| 2017, the confirmation of Donald Trump's first victory lasted 41 minutes. | ||
| And then, of course, in 2021, because of the events with the breaching of the Capitol, it took 14 hours and 48 minutes to name Joe Biden the winner. | ||
| Where were you then? | ||
| Which one? | ||
| 21. | ||
| 21, I was actually I flew back home from Colorado where we were. | ||
| We were doing the family thing over Christmas and was doing some remote interviews when we saw the actual storming of the Capitol happen from my niece's bedroom. | ||
| So that will be a day that we had to fly in that night. | ||
| There were barricades as we have now, and it was just an eerie scene that I hope never be replicated. | ||
| Next is a call from Tony in Oaks, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Republican, hi. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| Thanks for watching. | ||
| What's your question or comment? | ||
| Well, I wanted to say thank you for showing this live on TV For C-SPAN, and I do recommend C-SPAN to lots of people across the board. | ||
| All three, one, and two. | ||
| Oh, great. | ||
| And I also want to just say, please be considerate and show unbiased opinions on it. | ||
| Be the real journalist and show both sides of the story, not just one-sided against the conservatives. | ||
| Okay, thanks for your call. | ||
| And we're pretty careful about showing both sides. | ||
| We have individual guests, so any individual program will not be, but over time we do keep a close eye on our balance on this network. | ||
| Next is a call from Kathy in New Haven, Connecticut. | ||
| Kathy, welcome to our conversation. | ||
| Hi, thank you. | ||
| I'm just wondering, how can someone who has been convicted? | ||
| Kathy, go ahead, felony. | ||
| Hi, I'm just wondering, how can someone who's been convicted of a felony? | ||
| I'm not sure what happened with that call, but we're going to go on to Art in Washington, D.C. on our line for others. | ||
| Hi, Art. | ||
| Hi, good day. | ||
| Thank you for taking this call. | ||
| And I'm also a D.C. resident, like the guest here. | ||
| So I'm thankful for the 23rd Amendment, where D.C. gets three electors to have the same presidency. | ||
| I wanted to ask about the Electoral College Reform Act, and that was part of an appropriations bill in 2023. | ||
| And I noted that only a handful of Republicans voted for it. | ||
| And sort of like the 23rd Amendment, when that came before the Congress and also the states, there were only a handful. | ||
| It was overwhelmingly adopted, but there was a handful of Republican or conservative leading states that voted against it. | ||
| Wanted to get the guest take on the Electoral College and Republicans' views. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Thanks very much. | ||
| Well, first of all, to Art, thank you for, we left that one item untended in the first section. | ||
| It was when D.C. actually got the right to vote in presidential elections and thus part of the Electoral College, which was? | ||
| 1961, I finally passed the test. | ||
| Yes, the 23rd Amendment, it was good to throw those three Electoral College votes D.C.'s way. | ||
| And for his question about the Electoral College Reform Act? | ||
| Yeah, it was passed in late 2022 as a part of a bigger appropriations bill. | ||
| This is something that a lot of folks worked on over a couple of years since the January 6th insurrection and his qualification of a handful of Republicans. | ||
| That was true on the House side. | ||
| I think it was 225 House members, so only a handful of Republicans there. | ||
| But on the Senate side, I think it was 68 senators, which in this day and age is a huge landslide. | ||
| So there was more buy-in than just a handful, especially on the Senate side where it mattered. | ||
| We are anticipating some remarks from the Vice President Kamala Harris inside the Capitol, and we're going to keep an eye on that and show those to you live when she steps up to the mics there. | ||
| Next is a call from Lydia, who's watching us in Florida. | ||
| Republican, welcome, Lydia. | ||
| Hi, I just want to say our group is very happy with the things that happened on the TV today. | ||
| And we just want to, God bless all of you people for being so great for putting this on TV for us. | ||
| If it wasn't for your station, we don't know what we would do. | ||
| Well, thanks. | ||
| What is your group? | ||
| We're a group of 80, we're over 80 senior citizens, and we just lost two recently. | ||
| And at least they got the vote for the person they wanted in there. | ||
| And we're just thankful to God for everything that happened today. | ||
| And we just hope that everything goes away in the future and everybody gets their heads on straight. | ||
| And you guys, keep doing the good work. | ||
| Thanks, Lydia. | ||
| How many people are in your group of over 80s? | ||
| There's 84 of us right now. | ||
| My goodness. | ||
| And are you all watching together? | ||
| Yes, we are. | ||
| We're in a clubhouse and we're all mixed. | ||
| We're mixed people, you know. | ||
| We're just from all over the United States, and we all moved to Florida for a reason. | ||
| And it's cold down here today, but we're okay. | ||
| Great. | ||
| Well, thank you so much for your call. | ||
| You know, for people in the business that I'm in and you're in, calls like that, just make your day. | ||
| That's good stuff, right? | ||
| Getting together, and hopefully, there's some cross-sections of opinions there where there's some healthy back and forth, maybe some good nature ribbing. | ||
| But yeah, 80, what'd you say, 82 of them, over 80 signing up in the clubhouse? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's awesome. | |
| That's great. | ||
| Thanks so much, Lydia, for calling. | ||
| I'm glad you got through to tell us your story. | ||
| Vera is next in Smithtown, New York, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Vera. | ||
| Hi, how are you? | ||
| Happy New Year. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And thank you very much for taking my call. | ||
| I'm a little bit confused, and I am hoping your guests can clarify. | ||
| How can today, as of today, how can we say that America is a democratic country when only the Democrats are upholding that rule? | ||
| Look at what Donald Trump did on January 6th, and look at the way he campaigned. | ||
| And look at who is getting to run the White House. | ||
| Elon Musk is the vice president or whoever. | ||
| And Vivian Aswami is another one. | ||
| And we are calling it a democratic country. | ||
| I don't understand. | ||
| Maybe you can clarify because I'm confused. | ||
| I'll do my best. | ||
| And the Vivian Ramaswamy, I can't wait till he hears that one. | ||
| I'm sure that's new to him. | ||
| But democracy doesn't only exist when you win, right? | ||
| That we have this system in place, that we both knew the rules going into it. | ||
| Parties can disagree about whether there's a better or more effective or more representative system, but we all knew what we were signing up for with the Electoral College count. | ||
| There was 312 Electoral College votes that went to Donald Trump. | ||
| No matter his transgressions in the past, there are processes for these to register your discontent. | ||
| And ultimately, he got enough votes to be sworn in, including the popular vote, which to your point about being a democracy, even he won that popular vote too. | ||
| So it undercuts that Electoral College problem there as well. | ||
| If you wanted to know what a certificate of ascertainment looks like, we've got a picture of one to show you on the screen. | ||
| And now that this is over, where do all these go? | ||
| The archivist. | ||
| That's where they go for, as we heard Thomas Wickham, the former parliamentarian, talk about how they keep records of all of those certificates going back to the original unanimous decision for George Washington. | ||
| So a pretty humbling position to be the archivist. | ||
| Colleen Shogun, shout out to you. | ||
| Receiving these votes, the official things that keep them well documented in the archives where they need to be. | ||
| Could you, as a legitimate researcher, go in and ask to see these historic? | ||
| Good question. | ||
| There are different access points depending on the documents and how valuable they are, like the Constitution. | ||
| I'm not Nicholas caging my way in there to get that. | ||
| But there's a lot of avenues for research there. | ||
| I don't know if it is a publicly available type of room to see those things, but there are examples of these online to see what they look like. | ||
| And it's worth seeing just because no one knows what a certificate of ascertainment means. | ||
| And what does it mean? | ||
| It literally lays out with state seal who the signing factor is, certifies exactly who the electors are and the vote counts there are. | ||
| It's just the certification stamp of approval from the governors usually sent into Congress to count. | ||
| You know, we didn't cover this in the first part, but how does one become an elector? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| This is a black box for folks where electors are usually like super volunteers. | ||
| They're plugged into their state and local parties. | ||
| The elections and usually the parties within those states have ultimate say on who the electors are, but they're literally named by people, usually bound to the candidate for whom they support. | ||
| But there are states out there that don't require those electors to be ultimately voting for the president, even though their vote state, their state vote totals say they are. | ||
| So it's a black box for folks, and it's usually depending on the state laws. | ||
| And those states where it's not required by law to vote for the person you stood for, they're called faithless electors. | ||
| Faithless elected, yes, or boundless electors, where you're not literally bylawed, tied to the person who ultimately won your vote count in your state. | ||
| William is in Dallas. | ||
| Hi, William, on our line for independence. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Yes, I was actually a Democrat, but I switched over to other because of the coup against Joe Biden when they took our vote away from us and they took votes away from all the people that voted in the primary. | ||
| So I cast my vote for President Trump. | ||
| I do have a question, but I do have a point of contention. | ||
| There was no insurrection four years ago. | ||
| Nobody was charged with the crime of insurrection. | ||
| And the guest used the word insurrection a few minutes ago. | ||
| And I was really unhappy to hear that as someone who used to be a Democrat. | ||
| But my question is, is it common for members of Congress to skip the inauguration and boycott? | ||
| Because my member of Congress, Jasmine Crockett here in Dallas, is not going to show up. | ||
| She's made that public. | ||
| And there's been a lot of Democrats have said they're going to boycott. | ||
| And that seems to me a little bit of a threat of democracy, too, because they were elected to be representatives of the people, and they should do their job and show up. | ||
| So is that common? | ||
| It's increasingly common. | ||
| And to your point about the insurrection, I guess I'll unapologetically say that, given that we live a couple stone's throw away from the Capitol and tanks were on our streets. | ||
| So it felt like one, even if the technical definition doesn't meet your standards. | ||
| But to your point about a rising tide of members skipping inaugurations, I should note that the former president, Donald Trump, when he lost, skipped the inauguration of his successor, Joe Biden. | ||
| And there have been an increasing number of the people whose party lost that election not attending as a sign of protest for their presidency. | ||
| Where I will meet you halfway is saying that it's good to show up even and especially if you lose, right? | ||
| That the peaceful transfer of power goes on, including the inauguration. | ||
| And though I didn't vote for you, you are still my president. | ||
| I hope we all do well together. | ||
| Next is Mona, who's watching us in Pittsburgh. | ||
| Hi, Mona. | ||
| Hello. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Excellent coverage on C-Stam. | ||
| I have to say, I'm so impressed with your network. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I have been, I'm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I have been a registered Democrat all my life. | ||
| And unfortunately, back in the prior election, when Biden got elected, and I did vote for him. | ||
| And mainly my basic news source was CNN. | ||
| And the misinformation and the snippets that they would show convinced me that there truly was an insurrection, even though I had watched the whole thing. | ||
| But then after talking with family, because I'm open-minded when it comes to politics, and I decided to switch my networks to Newsmax and Fox, and then go back to see what the other legacy media mainstream was saying. | ||
| My eyes got wide open. | ||
| And I am so excited and proud to say that this lifelong Democrat voted straight Republican this year because the Biden and Harris administration have made our country a disaster. | ||
| And we now have a new true leader and a wonderful cabinet pick to make America first again and safe again. | ||
| And I am proud to say that this registered Democrat voted Republican. | ||
| And with respect to the other comments I've been listening to regarding the insurrection, I want to make a point. | ||
| You know, what a lot of people don't realize because they're watching a lot of the legacy media regarding January 6th is that Donald Trump did reach out to Pelosi, basically, | ||
| you know, asking her to make sure that there's enough boots on the ground because he did draw a large crowd. | ||
| And there was a recent video on Newsmax or Fox that showed, I think it was her daughter, Nancy Pelosi's daughter, videotaping her in a car. | ||
| And they were talking about January 6th. | ||
| Now, Mona, I'm going to ask you to really wrap up. | ||
| We have so many people waiting. | ||
| What is the point you want to make? | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| So the point is Nancy Pelosi took direct accountability and responsibility for what happened on January 6th. | ||
| But I am so thrilled that we are going to get our borders cleaned up. | ||
| And thank you again for taking my call. | ||
| And I am so glad Pennsylvania flipped from blue to red. | ||
| Thank you again. | ||
| Thanks for calling. | ||
| Mona, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. | ||
| You have anything for her? | ||
| No, just maybe to note that Pennsylvania, obviously one of the swingiest of all swing states and a lifelong Democrat, proudly going Republican. | ||
| She obviously wasn't alone. | ||
| And that's why we saw the results we did on November 5th. | ||
| So now the work of legislating begins. | ||
| The new Congress has been sworn in. | ||
| Slim majorities on both sides of the Capitol. | ||
| What does that portend for the desires of the Trump administration to get its agenda passed? | ||
| Struggle. | ||
| Struggle. | ||
| They're going to use some expedited procedures. | ||
| And since we're on C-SPAN, we can talk nerd a little bit and that they're going to use a reconciliation process. | ||
| They're going to use the Congressional Review Act that really reduced the number of votes necessary, especially in the Senate, down to a simple majority, where the other route would need to get around the filibuster, which takes 60. | ||
| And with 53 senators going in, when they're ultimately all filled, they don't have close to 60. | ||
| So it's going to be a struggle. | ||
| We saw this not only in Trump's first term, but also Biden's four years as well, where we just have historically small margins with little margins for error or vote giving up and an opposition party who's not all too willing to compromise with you unless they get something in return too. | ||
| The reconciliation, I don't want to spend a lot of time because it's complicated, but when can they use that reconciliation as a tool? | ||
| When they pass a budget, yeah, it has to be money-related. | ||
| The definition of money-related has been getting bigger and bigger and bigger. | ||
| So we'll ultimately see what way they come up with it, but it's got to be tied to the budget. | ||
| Next is a call from Buena Park, California, Republican line, and William is on the air. | ||
| Welcome. | ||
| Hi, good morning, everyone. | ||
| I just want to say, you know, happy Monday. | ||
| And I'll keep this pretty short and simple. | ||
| In regards to what happened today, I'm very happy to see that even though the Democrats, Republicans may not get along all the time, in this case, that things went back to normal operation, seems like, because I was afraid that there'd be some animosity from the last period, how things went. | ||
| So I'm glad things are going, it looks like, good pacing. | ||
| So my question, though, is in regards to the precedent of locking up the Capitol when this occurs in the future, because it happened in response to last time, correct? | ||
| But I'm curious, is this going to be a precedent in the future where we feel the need to have to put walls up during, you know, even during Supreme Court rulings? | ||
| And I feel that goes to a lot of our international friends and enemies abroad that when you have to put barriers up to protect the federal buildings from court cases or House rulings, that it doesn't show a good precedent of stability in the country that the people vote out of their way to ransack an office or federal building. | ||
| So I hope this was a one and done deal. | ||
| I mean, I'm young enough not to know of any other items in the past. | ||
| I do know the Gore Bush saga was a little contestant as well during that period where Gore had to see himself get signed out of the presidency. | ||
| So just for you, to the, I believe the George Washington professor, what do you think the precedent is when it comes to basically the protection of the federal buildings when it comes to these new time periods of electing the president, putting new laws, new Supreme Court cases? | ||
| Other than that, though, I hope you guys have a good rest of the day and good rest of the new year. | ||
| Thanks so much for calling in. | ||
| Yeah, William, thank you for this just because it's the symbolism matters here, right? | ||
| That I walk over here. | ||
| We see it on this camera right there. | ||
| There are barricades around the entire Capitol complex and even further than there were throughout the last four years. | ||
| And so no, this isn't a one-off. | ||
| I think this will be standard operating procedure going forward, just as more of a preventative measure that even if it's a very unlikely chance, we don't want to be caught again with an overwhelming of the Capitol Hill police force. | ||
| But the symbolism really hurts me to my core in that there's literal barricades around the symbol of counting our votes in the people's house. | ||
| And this is a community for folks, including myself and my family, where today is literally the only snow day that my kids have ever had. | ||
| And where they go sledding is Capitol Hill on Capitol Hill, which is just one of the most special things out there. | ||
| And the fact that it's barricaded up to count our Electoral College votes just hurts me in 19 different ways. | ||
| And I wish it were different. | ||
| I wish it won't be the case, not only for Electoral College January 6th counts, but States of the Union, they threw them up there for too. | ||
| They did it with what they thought were going to be contentious or contested Supreme Court rulings. | ||
| So I fear that this is going to be more normal than it should be. | ||
| And that's just what happens when things go terribly, terribly wrong. | ||
| When you get out there later today, and we will let you go at some point with your kids, will you have to go through security to go sledding? | ||
| No, we are on the outside here at C-SPAN headquarters around the perimeter. | ||
| Next is a call from Jackson, Mississippi, and Mark is on the line. | ||
| Jackson, Michigan. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| My question is real quick. | ||
| How many sitting vice presidents have overseen their own electoral count? | ||
| I know of three, Adams, Van Buren, and Senior Bush. | ||
| Your comment? | ||
| Uh-oh, you're being tested again. | ||
| Nixon did as well. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And Hubert Humphrey, we said earlier, he did not attend. | ||
| Right. | ||
| He would have as the. | ||
| But he was with a UN delegation or something. | ||
| He went to a funeral instead of presiding over it. | ||
| So there, and then Al Gore. | ||
| So those are the ones that come to mind from history, not very often. | ||
| Next is a call from Katrina in Virginia Beach, Virginia. | ||
| There you are, Katrina. | ||
| You're on the air on our independent line. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
| Yes, thank you both so much. | ||
| I just, first off, I'm a native California. | ||
| So I was a registered Republican until 2016, and I've been an independent ever since. | ||
| I am just, I don't know, there aren't words to express how this seems to be one-sided. | ||
| Four years ago, there was mass protest, and now everything seems to be just, you know, great. | ||
| I think that VP Harris showed resilience even in losing. | ||
| And so I guess my question for Dr. Casey is, what do we expect next? | ||
| And how can we take her exemplar level of resilience and hopefully, you know, make sure that in future years, we don't have a January 6, 2020 again or 2021, whatever it happens. | ||
| It's an important question. | ||
| And I was trying to picture myself in VP Harris's shoes today, literally saying your name as the loser of the presidential election against someone with whom you fundamentally disagree and just how hard that might be and a commendable performance of just doing what she knows she had. | ||
| And I think it's important to also say that I thought VP Pence performed an outright, very impossible job when he was literally targeted as a position to overrule an election, that we often say that there was so much chaos and that's because there was. | ||
| But really, if not for him performing his duties as an American above a Republican, I think that day could have got even worse than it was. | ||
| So the last couple of VPs really standing up and doing exactly what's right when it's needed the most. | ||
| Next is William, also in California and Van Nuys on the independent line. | ||
| Hi, William. | ||
| Salutations and thank you for having me on. | ||
| I'm calling because I find it a bit disconcerting that Article 14, Section 3 of the Constitution is veritably being ignored and that we have people who are in our government that are essentially ignoring this to preserve their own political careers and to seem fine and dandy for the future elections when we have someone that clearly committed an insurrection. | ||
| Now, people call in and they say, oh, it was just a protest. | ||
| It was just a riot. | ||
| But the reality is, when you're trying to inhibit Congress from performing their duties of certifying an election, that is in fact an insurrection. | ||
| And Donald Trump clearly coordinated this through thinly veiled messages being tweeted out. | ||
| And it's very one-sided. | ||
| People are continually saying, oh, well, you guys act this way. | ||
| You guys act out. | ||
| And I'm an independent. | ||
| I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat. | ||
| But I do find it disconcerting that one side is being given all the leeway to just pave the way for an authoritarian regime. | ||
| And no one is resisting because they're concerned with their own political careers. | ||
| And it shows how beholden these people are to corporate interests and their own personal interests. | ||
| And they don't really care about what we're voting for. | ||
| And the American people will see as this administration unfolds exactly what they voted for. | ||
| And they will learn from the actions of our representatives exactly how they are not being served by the government that they have chosen to elect. | ||
| Now, I don't know what we're supposed to do. | ||
| I don't know how we're supposed to have hope. | ||
| The only thing I look at is how Kamala Harris had such wonderful composure. | ||
| And she said, you know, she did her duty and she's allowing this to proceed. | ||
| And I understand, you know, people are trying to do the right thing and make sure that we don't descend into complete chaos. | ||
| But just notice how four years ago, these people came on Capitol Hill and they committed an insurrection, a violent insurrection nonetheless. | ||
| Whereas today, you don't see that happening. | ||
| You don't see independents. | ||
| You don't see Democrats doing this. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| This MAGA movement is an extremist movement. | ||
| And now we have President-elect Elon Musk and Vice President Trump. | ||
| And the people are to thank for it. | ||
| Not people like me, not people like the Democrats, but in fact, the MAGA movement and the people that try to appease them in order to have some sort of semblance of peace in this process. | ||
| And unfortunately, we will bear the responsibility of having the consequences thrust upon us, whether they be economic or otherwise. | ||
| Thanks, William, for your call. | ||
| You spent some years on Capitol Hill before moving into teaching at GW. | ||
| What about his comments about who lawmakers are beholden to? | ||
| What did you observe firsthand? | ||
| Yeah, that's a widespread feeling that if you ask people who are the representatives, whether they be members of the House or Senate, who are they ultimately responsible for? | ||
| And I think across the board, across the ideological spectrum, you'll get answers of, not me. | ||
| It ain't me. | ||
| They're not responsible to the American people. | ||
| And I think that there's a big gap between what the public thinks a member of Congress does and who they respond to and who they're looking out for and who they actually do represent when they're in their offices. | ||
| And everyone, there's convenient scapegoats out there. | ||
| And this is one of several chapters in the book of why I try to tackle these things because they really matter, as you see, feel very big levels of discontent where everyone thinks that they're beholden to lobbyists or they're beholden to special interest groups or campaign finance folks who are just willing to bribe anyone and everyone to get what they want. | ||
| The one thing I'll say because I know we have to keep this short, is that ultimately there has to be elections. | ||
| They have to get enough people to come back and vote for them. | ||
| And you say that all they care about is they're worried about their own positions and power. | ||
| And I say, good thing. | ||
| Good thing they're worried about keeping their own seat because that means they're having to satisfy at least a number of them to get re-elected. | ||
| The alternative of them not worrying about voters is way worse than worrying about the voters to keep themselves in office. | ||
| We are still awaiting Vice President Kamala Harris, who's expected to speak and take questions from reporters on Capitol Hill. | ||
| We've got a camera there live and as soon as she gets to the room where she is anticipated, we'll provide coverage of that and until then we're going to continue taking your calls. | ||
| But you referenced the book and we talked about it in the first part, not the second. | ||
| So I'm going to ask if we can put it on screen again. | ||
| So folks who are interested in reading your work and it will be available when? | ||
| February 4th. | ||
| Just right around the corner. | ||
| So close so far. | ||
| How long have you been working on it? | ||
| This has been a year plus in the making of actually sitting down and pen to paper. | ||
| And what is it like writing a book? | ||
| There are good days and bad days. | ||
| You end up loving it and hating it all at the same time, but I'm incredibly excited for it to be out there. | ||
| I think it'll do a lot of good if we just sit down there and read it with an open mind. | ||
| Are you doing a book tour? | ||
| Trying to. | ||
| Right now we're kind of talking about who is interested in having conversations and I'm a yes man. | ||
| If anyone wants to talk about these things, I'm showing up. | ||
| Next is a call from Austin, Texas. | ||
| Josh is watching us and on the Democrats line. | ||
| Hi, Josh. | ||
| Good afternoon. | ||
| My question for you guys is what can be done to change voting? | ||
| Because my Is I know that there are at least six states, maybe more. | ||
| I know there used to be nine, but there's not where you can change your vote after you made it. | ||
| Do you know about states where you can change your vote after you? | ||
| I would be shocked if that were actually true. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| What we do know is that two states, and we talked about that earlier, have proportional representation with the outcome of their votes versus the others are winner-take-all. | ||
| Do you think there's going to be more states following in that line? | ||
| I think so. | ||
| I think in just terms of how few states are actually choosing the ultimate presidents, I think there's going to be a lot of conversations, especially when you combine it with we've never had fewer competitive elections when we're talking about the House of Representatives, that fewer than 10% of House seats are toss-ups, right, where we don't know who's going to win. | ||
| And the vast majority, it's independent of who the actual candidate is. | ||
| We know a D is going to win here and an R is going to win there. | ||
| That's not good for a back and forth to say nothing of actual governing. | ||
| And so I think there's going to be a movement, an increasing movement, a stronger movement about affecting state laws. | ||
| And that's where you need to pay attention. | ||
| It's not a national federal law, though we can make changes there, but concentrate on your states to open up primary process, to incentivize more parties, to incentivize more turnout, to make sure that we can get folks that are responding to not just the most extreme versions of their parties, but all voters within a congressional district. | ||
| And Alaska has ranked choice votes, which made a difference in the outcome with Lisa Murkowski's election. | ||
| How many states are moving towards that? | ||
| Yeah, it's a good question about how many are, but a growing number of them. | ||
| And it's not just ranked choice voting, that there's proportional representations in state legislatures, or there's things called the jungle primary where it's not that whoever wins the Democratic primary faces off against the Republican primary, but the top two or three of any party actually go to the general election and that's who you choose. | ||
| So you'll get some moderating effects on who's turning out and what types of candidates you get to run, which is always good. | ||
| Jeff is in Knoxville, Tennessee, Republican line. | ||
| Hi, Jeff. | ||
| Hello, and good afternoon. | ||
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| Just wanted to make a comment on the events of today. | ||
| You know, peaceful transition, peaceful certification. | ||
| So that went very well. | ||
| And I applaud the American people for their votes. | ||
| I applaud the outcome of the vote. | ||
| Just a comment on the people asking for Congress to invoke Article 14 for insurrectionism. | ||
| There was no insurrection four years ago. | ||
| Had they done that today, you would have seen an insurrection. | ||
| So that's my comment. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thanks for your call. | ||
| Let's take our next call from Mary in Westchester, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Mary, you're on C-SPAN Democrats line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| Oh, hi. | ||
| I just want to talk to Mr. or Dr. Casey about, and I know everybody's been talking about the law that says that you can't sit as a president if you cause an insurrection or you're involved in an insurrection. | ||
| I know that people are saying that he wasn't convicted of the insurrection, but we all saw it on TV. | ||
| We all know that he did. | ||
| There's a lot of deniers. | ||
| They just think if you say it enough time, it's time. | ||
| It's not going to be real. | ||
| But it's real. | ||
| And I want to know why Congress didn't do anything about that. | ||
| I also think that that normalizes political violence. | ||
| And, you know, this is what we're seeing in our government. | ||
| And with President-elect President Donald Trump, or soon to be President Donald Trump, they're also making laws that they break. | ||
| And I want to know what you think about How people are going to respond to that. | ||
| I mean, our own government that makes the laws for us are able to break the laws, but nobody else can. | ||
| They just continue to make their laws and people and they can break their own laws. | ||
| He's also been convicted of crimes, and he's still getting the top decision in the United States. | ||
| And I just don't understand at all why the Congress didn't do anything. | ||
| And I'm disappointed in Democrats. | ||
| I'm a Democrat because I think there's more that they could have done. | ||
| And I'm just wondering about Congress. | ||
| Why didn't they take this? | ||
| Okay, thanks, Matthew. | ||
| It's a good question. | ||
| I hear it all the time of where was Congress for this? | ||
| And we've heard it throughout the calls about the insurrection clause within the 14th Amendment. | ||
| But I should point out that Congress did take action, and especially Democrats, and that he was impeached not once but twice. | ||
| And Congress's role in that process, they have a power to convict, and they also have a power to disqualify him from ever serving in future office, which would obviously take precedent over running again. | ||
| And so they impeached him. | ||
| They followed that process. | ||
| They held a trial in the Senate. | ||
| They ultimately did not convict and obviously did not disqualify. | ||
| So it's there. | ||
| The tools are there. | ||
| And we have to recognize that just because we don't get the outcome that we want doesn't mean that everyone is corrupt and everyone is playing by their own rules or beholden to someone else. | ||
| It's just that we have people who disagree about what happened, even if your eyes and ears told you something different. | ||
| Next is Warren, who is in Hiram, Georgia on our independent line. | ||
| Hi, Hiram. | ||
| Oh, sorry, Warren. | ||
| I'll take Hiram. | ||
| Hey, thanks for having me on. | ||
| I just had a note for your guest, Casey. | ||
| I know he seemed really sad about the gates that are put up around the Capitol this year. | ||
| I just wanted to note that there were multiple layers of barriers around the Capitol in 2001 or 2021 and January 6th. | ||
| Those barriers were actually removed by the Capitol police, who then waived the protesters into the inner rings of those barriers. | ||
| I know that because I posted videos of that to social media outlets like Facebook, and I was banned for inciting a riot during that time. | ||
| So I think there's a lot of misinformation that many of your viewers, if they're not looking for their own information outside of mainstream media, they probably would not know that. | ||
| So I am glad the election was certified today, and I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the day. | ||
| Thanks for the call. | ||
| Next is Joshua in Somerset, Kentucky. | ||
| Joshua, welcome to our program. | ||
| Republican line. | ||
| Yes, ma'am. | ||
| I just was calling it what's just good to see transfer of power, peaceful transition. | ||
| And I'm glad no one didn't try to cheat the change to vote. | ||
| I mean, to call out a vote or the popular vote. | ||
| So it was a good day for America. | ||
| And I want to congratulate Donald J. Trump for being elected for the President 47 of the United States. | ||
| And I want to thank Americans. | ||
| We're about to see America Greg again and America's safe again. | ||
| Just wanted to make those comments. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| So thanks for your comment. | ||
| Here's an update via X on the status of the Vice President. | ||
| And this is from Julie Tarkin. | ||
| Since she left the House chamber after presiding over the certification of President Trump's win, Vice President Harris has been huddling with Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in his office over 40 minutes now. | ||
| And the Democratic whip Catherine Clark is also in there. | ||
| So that's why we have not seen her in front of the cameras as we've been telling you is supposed to happen. | ||
| What do you think is going on in that room? | ||
| Man, don't you want to be in there? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I strategize. | ||
| There's not much left to do except for maybe coordinate responses, coordinate talking points across party leaders. | ||
| Don't know. | ||
| Want to be in there, though? | ||
| Next is a call from Oregon on our Democrats line, and Kerry is the caller. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
| Yeah, thank you for coming today. | ||
| I wanted to get your comments about expanding the Supreme Court because that's been talked about in years past. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's a movement, particularly on the left, that once Republicans solidified their majority for what looks like at least another generation in another four years where he's obviously going to appoint very conservative justices. | |
| People want to dilute that conservative majority by expanding the court. | ||
| Pretty big threshold to get. | ||
| I mean, to pass a new court bill to get through not only a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and then a Republican president willing to dilute their own power. | ||
| I think it's something that we're going to be talking about more and more, especially as decisions come down the pike that liberals disagree with. | ||
| But the likelihood is obviously not going up. | ||
| There's nothing in the Constitution that mandates the size of the court. | ||
| Not at all. | ||
| There's not even the number of justices that are on the original court. | ||
| And again, to the genius but infallibility of the founders, they decided in the first Congress to have six, which is obviously setting yourself up for an even number where decisions are tied oftentimes. | ||
| So, no, it's set by Congress. | ||
| Congress is the architect of the other two branches, and it's been set by nine for a long time now, but it's not written in stone from Mount High that that's what it's got to be. | ||
| You want to also briefly talk about FDR and his attempt to pack the court? | ||
| Yeah, his attempt was in similar political circumstances where he wasn't getting the rulings that he wanted from a more conservative court. | ||
| So he was threatening to pack the court to make sure that a lot of his New Deal legislation would go through and wasn't subject to judicial review that would stop it. | ||
| So he would say, all right, you want to test me? | ||
| Then I'll get Congress to my Democratic majorities to make sure that you are one of 15 or more seats rather than one of nine. | ||
| So this is nothing new is under the sun. | ||
| And this is one of those things, too. | ||
| We're going to take two more calls for you. | ||
| Next is a call from Hanford, California on our independent line. | ||
| Greg is the caller. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
| Yes, hello. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call and happy new year to all your listeners. | ||
| I would like to ask your guest to apply his expertise to my question. | ||
| In my state, there was an individual on the presidential ballot who's foreign-born. | ||
| And I understand that's common in a couple of states where you can be foreign-born or underage and still be on the ballot. | ||
| I would like to know what would be the proper procedure if such a person was to win a state with security state, or if even, say, a write-in for Mickey Mouse curious state, what should happen in that case? | ||
| Good question. | ||
| I mean, the electoral, the process would go forward, but ultimately, if you have someone reach a majority who is not eligible to be president of the United States, Congress would obviously have a right to object to those electors and the swearing in or the certification of that candidate. | ||
| So it may happen. | ||
| I wasn't familiar within Connecticut where I think you're from, that that is true. | ||
| But you can have write-in candidates of Mickey Mouse and other that I guess in theory could win the presidency. | ||
| But if and when it gets to Congress to certify what we saw today, they're not going to get that far given that the Constitution prohibits anyone foreign-born from being sworn in. | ||
| Next, and our last caller is from Jessup, Georgia. | ||
| This is Gabe on our independent line. | ||
| Hi, Gabe. | ||
| Greetings. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| And good afternoon, and Happy New Year to all of the USA. | ||
| A little bit of an apology on my voice. | ||
| You sound fine. | ||
| You sound fine, Gabe. | ||
| Terminal of stage four cancer. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| Elegantly disabled military bet. | ||
| But I am an independent and I am pleased with the results of the election. | ||
| And I say congratulations, and the prayers will be for Trump and Vance. | ||
| And I don't like politics too much, but it's a necessary evil, I guess you could say. | ||
| I'm glad this process is over and behind us. | ||
| A question that I had: I'm not real up on the Electoral College and it's voting. | ||
| Does the 538 change each time that it's called in to verify the election? | ||
| Does this number change? | ||
| And 538 is what all the states communally come up to, right? | ||
| Maybe someone can address this. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Thanks, Gabe, for your call. | ||
| Gabe, thank you, and thank you for your service. |