| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
And will to the best of my ability. | |
| And will to the best of my ability. | ||
| Preserve, protect, and defend. | ||
| Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. | ||
| The Constitution of the United States. | ||
| So help me God. | ||
| Congratulations, Mr. President. | ||
| Watch C-SPAN's all-day inauguration coverage on Monday, January 20th, including the historic swearing-in as Donald Trump takes office as the 47th President of the United States. | ||
| c-span democracy unfiltered democracy It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered. | ||
| We'd like to take a look at the week ahead in Washington to do that. | ||
| This week, we're joined by Andrew Desiderio, the senior congressional reporter at Punch Bowl News, and Andrew Desiderio. | ||
| It's 14 confirmation hearings this week, 13 nominees, 11 committees holding hearings. | ||
| What is a senior congressional reporter to do? | ||
| How do you focus your efforts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you've got to prioritize, right? | |
| In terms of the nominees that are the most controversial, that are going to have the most difficult time getting confirmed. | ||
| You've got Pete Hegseth first thing tomorrow morning before the Senate Armed Services Committee. | ||
| He, of course, is President Trump's nominee to be Defense Secretary. | ||
| His nomination, I think, is going to be the most important one to focus on this week. | ||
| But there are a couple of others who actually don't even have confirmation hearings this week that are on the national security side. | ||
| So Republicans we know want to prioritize the national security nominees who will not have their confirmation hearings this week and in fact will be continuing to meet with senators. | ||
| So there's going to be a lot of action both in those committee rooms and outside of those committee rooms. | ||
| I would say those other two that don't have hearings this week that are going to be controversial are of course Tulsi Gabbard, the nominee for director of national intelligence and Kash Patel, the nominee for FBI director. | ||
| In Kash Patel's case, he probably will not get a confirmation hearing until February at the earliest. | ||
| In the case of Tulsi Gabbard, she could get a confirmation hearing as soon as next week, but the Intelligence Committee has not yet noticed that hearing. | ||
| What is the strategy for having 14 hearings in three days? | ||
| Is there a strategy here of doing that with Republicans and control of the Senate, obviously, and Donald Trump coming in and these being his nominees, of course? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, look, this is what they try to do every four years, especially when a new president comes into office, right? | |
| They try to stack these as closely to the inauguration date as they can. | ||
| Of course, the Senate cannot vote to confirm any of these nominees on the floor until the new president is inaugurated. | ||
| So the question becomes who is a candidate for day one confirmation. | ||
| That would require obviously someone who's going to get every Republican, every Republican senator's vote, and also a substantial number of Democratic votes. | ||
| And the only one I see who could be a candidate for that right now is Marco Rubio, the president's nominee for Secretary of State. | ||
| He has his nominee before the confirmation hearing, excuse me, before the Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday of this week. | ||
| So he is, I think, the likeliest to get confirmed on Inauguration Day. | ||
| It would be obviously the afternoon of January 20th. | ||
| Four years ago, when President Biden first came into office, the nominee that he had confirmed on Inauguration Day was Avril Haynes, the Director of National Intelligence. | ||
| A couple days later, he had Lloyd Austin, the Defense Secretary, confirmed. | ||
| And then a few days after that, he had Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State, of course, confirmed. | ||
| So it is normal to prioritize national security nominees on the floor if you're Senate leadership. | ||
| In the case of Trump's crop of cabinet nominees, they are some of the more controversial ones, aside from Marco Rubio, of course. | ||
| So you could very well see a day one confirmation. | ||
| After that, it'll be up to Senate Democrats in terms of whether they will yield time or not, because under the Senate rules, each nominee, under regular order, if you use the full time, each nominee would take up a few days of floor time. | ||
| Out of curiosity, does Marco Rubio get to vote on his own nomination? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He can, as long as he is still a sitting senator by the time the vote happens. | |
| He could technically wait to resign until right before he becomes Secretary of State, of course. | ||
| So that could be interesting. | ||
| I've tried asking him about this to see what his plans are. | ||
| He doesn't have any specifics to share yet, but that could very well be fascinating. | ||
| I will say he does not need his own vote. | ||
| He's going to get 80, 85 plus votes probably in the Senate. | ||
| In general, what senators stick out come confirmation time? | ||
| Who are the senators that really tend to make a splash during these confirmation hearings? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, look, during the hearings, obviously it's dependent on who sits on what committees. | |
| On the floor, it's a lot different because you have the sort of perpetual swing votes. | ||
| Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, I would put Mitch McConnell in that category now that he's not in leadership anymore. | ||
| Mitch McConnell has a singular focus for the remaining two years in his Senate term, which is to continue to advance his national security doctrine, his foreign policy doctrine, how he sees the world. | ||
| And that involves, of course, pushing back against what he sees as a more isolationist streak popping up in his party. | ||
| And one of the ways he is thinking about doing that is on these nominations, right? | ||
| So, you know, you have to really consider, is Mitch McConnell going to vote for someone like Tulsi Gabbard? | ||
| Is he going to vote for someone like Pete Hegseff? | ||
| I think a lot of it depends on what they say during their confirmation hearings and how they lay out their case. | ||
| But I would say just in terms of who to watch on the Senate floor, I think those three, Collins, Murkowski, McConnell, beyond that, I think it's nominee dependent because some senators, as we know, do have their pet issues they like to focus on when it comes to certain subject matter areas that cabinet nominees could have jurisdiction over. | ||
| So again, it's nominee dependent, but I would say those three are the ones to focus on. | ||
| C-SPAN callers also have their issues they like to focus on when they call in, inviting viewers to call in during this segment. | ||
| We can talk about any of these confirmation hearings. | ||
| It's 202-748-8000 for Democrats to call in. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| And let me just run through the schedule real quick of when these are taking place. | ||
| And we're covering most of these on the C-SPAN networks and also online, trying to let you see as many of these as possible. | ||
| Again, there's a lot this week. | ||
| On Tuesday, it's Pete Hegsdest for Defense Secretary, Doug Collins for Veterans Affairs Secretary, and Doug Bergham for Interior Secretary. | ||
| Then on Wednesday, a bonanza of confirmation hearings. | ||
| Christy Noam, Homeland Security Secretary, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, Pam Bondi, Attorney General. | ||
| Chris Wright, Energy Secretary. | ||
| John Ratcliffe, CIA Director. | ||
| Sean Duffy, Transportation Secretary. | ||
| And Russ Vogt for OMB Director, Office of Management and Budget. | ||
| Thursday, you've got Eric Scott Turner, HUD Secretary, Lee Zeldon, EPA, and Scott Besant for Treasury Secretary. | ||
| As you mentioned, Tulsi Gabbard, DNI Director, is what she's up for, not among those listed. | ||
| What should viewers know about Tulsi Gabbard and Section 702 of FISA? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so I reported last week that Republicans and Democratic senators who had met with her were unclear on her position on that critical national security authority, which basically allows the federal government to conduct surveillance on foreigners outside of the United States for the purposes of safeguarding national security, rooting out terrorism, things like that. | |
| And I presented that information to the Trump transition team, said we were going to report it. | ||
| And then as a result, Tulsi Gabbard gave her first public comment since being nominated for the job, in which she came out in support of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. | ||
| Did you interview with her? | ||
| This is a statement, yes. | ||
| And this was notable for two reasons. | ||
| Number one, she proposed legislation when she was in Congress, just four years ago, actually, to get rid of Section 702 entirely. | ||
| And number two, she voted against reauthorizing it every time it came up during her tenure in the House of Representatives. | ||
| And this is something she's been pressed on during those private meetings. | ||
| And again, I was told by senators from both parties who met with her that they came away from those meetings less than clear in terms of what her position was. | ||
| So it was notable that she came out in support of Section 702 because, again, those Republicans in particular who were on the fence about her were looking for her to give a full-throated endorsement of this authority. | ||
| And it's not just sort of some abstract thing where she just relies on what Congress does as it relates to reauthorizing Section 702. | ||
| She actually, as Director of National Intelligence, if she's confirmed, she will have to recertify the program itself as early as April of this year. | ||
| If she doesn't recertify it, the program goes dark. | ||
| So this is not some abstract concept. | ||
| This is something that lawmakers care a lot about. | ||
| And so I think it helped her confirmation prospects that she came out in support of it publicly. | ||
| And the statement, again, that you received on this from Tulsi Gabbard, if confirmed as DNI, I will uphold Americans' Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the American people. | ||
| Is there more to that statement explaining why the change of heart? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, look, I think number one, she probably knew that it would help her confirmation prospects to come out in support of it because, again, there's on the Intelligence Committee in particular, there are a lot of really hawkish Republicans and hawkish Democrats when it comes to national security and just general government surveillance. | |
| One of her big issues with this program is civil liberties protections, right? | ||
| That was one of her arguments against it when she was in Congress. | ||
| She referenced Fourth Amendment rights there in that statement. | ||
| What she was basically saying to me was that given the reforms that have since been enacted over the last few years as it relates to Section 702, she feels comfortable that there are enough civil liberties protections, Fourth Amendment protections for Americans because the concern has been that while this program does target foreigners who are overseas, the concern is that the data of Americans gets swept up incidentally. | ||
| And so that's been the whole criticism of the program from people like Tulsi Gabbard over the years. | ||
| And you've had this push and pull every time this comes up on Capitol Hill between security and personal freedom. | ||
| Andrew Desaderio with us this morning, taking your phone calls. | ||
| We've got him for about another 20 minutes this morning, so get your calls in. | ||
| This is Chris up first in Alexandria, Virginia, Republican. | ||
| Chris, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, gentlemen. | |
| I have two quick questions. | ||
| First, for your guests, how long typically does it take a president to fill his cabinet and not just the cabinet, but all the political appointees? | ||
| I believe there are almost 4,000 of them. | ||
| That's the first question. | ||
| And the second question is, do we know where President Trump is in filling all of those positions? | ||
| I've seen articles in various sources that he's appointed, I think, most, if not all, of his cabinet, but I'm not sure about the middle executive appointees that head large divisions within the federal bureaucracy. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thanks for the question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, those are both good questions. | |
| I'll take the second one first. | ||
| So actually, over the weekend, President Trump unveiled a lot of additional sub-cabinet nominations, we call them. | ||
| These are deputy secretaries, undersecretaries, positions that do require Senate confirmation, but depending on the individual nominee, oftentimes get through without any real hiccups, sometimes even via unanimous consent on the Senate floor. | ||
| And when it comes to how quickly these cabinet nominees in particular can be installed, you look back into the last time, last couple times a new president came into office under President Biden in 2021. | ||
| It took the Senate a couple of months to fill out his entire cabinet. | ||
| I mentioned at the start of the show that obviously the Senate focused on national security nominees in the first week, that being the Director of National Intelligence, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State. | ||
| And then from that point, it's up to Senate leadership to decide which ones to prioritize. | ||
| We know that Senate Republican leadership this time around, they want to do the same exact thing. | ||
| They want to prioritize national security nominees. | ||
| But in the case of some of these nominations that Trump has put forward, the more controversial ones are in the national security realm, and therefore they're going to take a longer time to get through the process. | ||
| And again, even if they're ready for floor time, even if they're ready to be put on the Senate floor for a confirmation vote as soon as next week, it'll be up to Democrats to decide if they want to yield back time to get these nominees quickly confirmed. | ||
| In the case of Pete Hegseth, for example, the nominee for Secretary of Defense, I strongly doubt Democrats are going to agree to collapse time on that nomination because they are really focused on exposing who they see as an unqualified and unfit nominee for this position. | ||
| And just to the viewer, I was trying to remember the last couple of administrations. | ||
| The Partnership for Public Service, I believe, is what they're called. | ||
| They're political appointee tracker. | ||
| They don't track all 4,000 of those appointment positions, but they track about 800 of them. | ||
| And it looks like they're going to be doing it again for this next administration. | ||
| They've worked with the Washington Post to do that last time, but maybe a place for the viewer to go for that specific information. | ||
| This is George in La Plata, Maryland, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning, John. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| What I'd like to do is just commend the cabinet members that are going to be leaving our service, and that would be Admiral Kirby, Alexander Blinken, and Jake Sullivan. | ||
| These guys, their dedication has just been phenomenal. | ||
| And I'm pretty pessimistic about some of the characters that Trump has nominated to be as dedicated as they have been to this country. | ||
| Who are you worried about in particular, George? | ||
| Well, Hagstaff, for one, and Tulsi Gabbard. | ||
| John, I've called a couple times. | ||
| John McCain Republican, converted to independent. | ||
| But I'd like to remind Congress, too, and our representatives that when Matt Gates was still up for nomination and the Congress decided, oh, should we let all this news come out about him or not? | ||
| I think we need to remind our representatives that it's not a big boys club that they've got going up there. | ||
| They're representatives of the United States and me and all the people that vote for whether it's Trump or Kamala Harris. | ||
| If there's bad stuff going around, the background of these people, then they need to put that stuff out and not decide whether it should be put out or not because it might be detrimental. | ||
| That's not a big boys club they got going up there or a private club. | ||
| And Trump doesn't read the daily briefings. | ||
| He never did. | ||
| So I think it's pretty important that the people in the cabinet are focused on just what's best for this country. | ||
| Because Trump, I don't think his priorities are what's going to happen in China, what's going on in Russia, and all these other countries that are threats to the United States. | ||
| George, let me take your comments and let Andrew Desiderio jump in. | ||
| What do you want to pick up on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the caller mentioned the presidential daily briefing, right? | |
| The reason why Section 702 is so important, one of the many reasons why it's so important, is because 60% of that presidential daily briefing, which is compiled and done by the Director of National Intelligence, 60% of the information in that briefing is brought in via Section 702. | ||
| If not for Section 702 of FISA, that information would not be included in the President's daily briefing every single day. | ||
| So this is a big chunk of the information that the President learns, that his national security team learns, and that's why it's so important, especially to these Republican senators who are weighing this confirmation vote and whether to support her. | ||
| Just some of the dates and times on some of these key confirmation hearings that callers are talking about that you've talked about that you can watch on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| Let me just run through a couple of these. | ||
| Tuesday, it's Pete Hegseth, his confirmation hearing for Defense Secretary. | ||
| He'll be in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee 9.30 a.m. on C-SPAN 3 is when and where you can watch that. | ||
| Wednesday, it's Marco Rubio, his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. | ||
| That's 10 a.m. Wednesday on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| And Lee Stefanik's confirmation hearing, his next ambassador to the United Nations, if she is confirmed, C-SPAN 3, 10.30 a.m. Eastern, again, Thursday. | ||
| And there'll be a lot more listings as well throughout the week, but those are some of the key ones. | ||
| We've spent 20 minutes focusing on the Senate and confirmation hearings. | ||
| What is going on in the House this week? | ||
| What should we be watching for? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, not much, to be honest with you. | |
| The House is focused right now on planning for reconciliation, which is the process by which Republicans are going to try to pass President Trump's agenda. | ||
| Obviously, there's been this whole debate of do we do it in one bill? | ||
| Do we do it in two bills? | ||
| It sounds like an unimportant process sort of disagreement that folks should not be focused on, but I think they should be focused on it because Republicans need to come to an agreement on how to Proceed here before they actually get started on passing elements of President Trump's agenda because they need to pass a budget resolution. | ||
| This is what lays out what they're going to do as part of the process, and this is how they draft the reconciliation instructions and committees. | ||
| So that has to happen before they can even actually get started on all of this. | ||
| So that's why the process dispute is important here. | ||
| A bunch of House Republicans were at Mar-a-Lago over this past weekend meeting with President Trump. | ||
| We're told that a lot of the House Freedom Caucus members were pressing the president on this issue because they, ironically enough, agree with Senate Republicans that the two-step strategy is best. | ||
| The idea of doing border security first as part of a one reconciliation bill and then pivoting to tax cuts later in the year. | ||
| The House Republican leadership, Speaker Mike Johnson, they disagree. | ||
| They think it's better to just do one sort of mega bill, if you will. | ||
| And so that was a big focus of the discussions this past weekend at Mar-a-Lago. | ||
| Senate Majority Leader John Thune has quite eloquently laid out the case for the two-step process. | ||
| And he hosted President Trump for a meeting at the Capitol last Wednesday during which Senator Thun and other Senate Republicans, including Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, all these more traditional Trump allies, were making the case directly to him, to the president, for the two-step process. | ||
| He, President Trump, is still siding with Speaker Johnson in terms of one bill, not necessarily because he thinks his ideas are better, but because he thinks the House is really too dysfunctional right now to be able to pass two separate pieces of legislation on this front, and they don't want either of those, obviously, to go by the wayside. | ||
| This might be very much in the weeds of how these things work, but how do you get two bites at the reconciliation apple? | ||
| How can you do this in two bills versus one? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| So, you know, you have a chance to do this under the procedures and the rules of the Senate. | ||
| And if you can do it twice, then you can sort of, you have, again, you have two bites at the Apple, you have two chances to get this done. | ||
| And it depends sort of whether those budget resolutions, those vehicles were used in the previous year or not. | ||
| There are a lot of different rules and regulations that go into it. | ||
| Four years ago, or I guess three years ago now, Senate Democrats could have taken two bites at the Apple in a single year. | ||
| They decided to pass first the American Rescue Plan in 2021 and then in 2022 pass the Inflation Reduction Act. | ||
| So they decided to split them up into one year versus the next. | ||
| A couple minutes left with Andrew Desiderio this morning. | ||
| Larry in the Keystone State Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And good morning. | |
| How's everyone doing? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| How are you doing? | ||
| Okay, I have a question, too. | ||
| The confirmation hearings concerning Tulsi Gabbard, who is nominated by President Trump for the position of national intelligence, wasn't she the one that shot her dog because the dog growled or didn't listen to a command? | ||
| Well, there are dog trainers, there are tasers or shop callers, you know, and there are no charges filed. | ||
| And a similar incident, and going back a little bit concerning Sarah Palin. | ||
| And Larry, let me just clear that up. | ||
| I think you might be referring to Christy Noam in the dog incident from the book that she wrote that whole thing. | ||
| Yeah, I think that's what you're referring to, Larry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I'm sorry. | |
| Yeah, Christy Newman, yeah. | ||
| You know, and I just don't understand the situations, you know, like that being her nominated as national intelligence. | ||
| Now, going back a little bit to another incident, you know, with Sarah Palin, who took office December 4th, 2006 as governor. | ||
| And she was in a helicopter, and she resigned, I think, in July 3rd of 2009. | ||
| She was in a helicopter, and I've seen this on the news media. | ||
| And there was a video of her with an assault rifle in a helicopter chasing a coyote or a wolf running nowhere to hide. | ||
| And the video showed her shooting an animal. | ||
| My question is, aren't there game laws in Alaska? | ||
| And no charger ever filed with her. | ||
| And who's paying for all of this? | ||
| Well, Andrew Desiderio, the cricket incident, that was the name of the dog that she wrote about in her political memoir that got a lot of attention. | ||
| Do you think that is a stumbling block for her in the confirmation hearing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I really don't think so. | |
| It was more of a stumbling block for her prospects to be chosen as President Trump's running mate last year. | ||
| But in terms of the Senate confirmation process, I don't think there's going to be an issue there. | ||
| Again, it's not for some of these nominees who are definitely more on the controversial side and they're not going to, you know, the assumption is they're not going to get any Democratic votes. | ||
| You know, Republicans, remember, have a 53-seat majority. | ||
| So as long as they can keep everyone together or only lose a couple of votes, these folks are going to get confirmed. | ||
| And she is not one who is on my list in terms of ones to watch for potential defeat. | ||
| And just run through that list again. | ||
| Who's on your list to watch for potential defeat? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I would say right now, Pete Hagseff, the Defense Secretary nominee, his hearing is tomorrow morning. | |
| We were discussing that earlier. | ||
| And then two more whose hearings are not this week, that being Tulsi Gabbard, the nominee for Director of National Intelligence. | ||
| Her hearing could be as soon as next week, depending on when the intelligence committee actually notices it. | ||
| And then the third one I would say is Kash Patel, the nominee for FBI director. | ||
| His confirmation hearing likely will not be until February. | ||
| That's because the Senate Judiciary Committee this early on prioritizes the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General nominees. | ||
| And then give me a different list. | ||
| Who are the nominees on a list of nominees who would likely get a significant number of Democratic votes? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I would say Marco Rubio, as we discussed before, he's someone who is likely going to be confirmed the afternoon of the inauguration. | |
| It's not just the fact that Marco Rubio is their colleague. | ||
| You know, obviously they give great deference to their colleagues when they're nominated for these positions. | ||
| But secondly, Marco Rubio is someone who on foreign policy is within the mainstream of Republicans. | ||
| So most Democrats would look at him and say, you know, I disagree with him philosophically, but I don't have an issue with him serving as Secretary of State under a Republican administration. | ||
| Others, I would say, for example, Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary nominee, he's already got a bunch of Democrats coming out in support of him, including his home state Democratic senator, Tammy Baldwin. | ||
| And another one, I would say, is Elise Stefanik, the nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. | ||
| She could get a handful of Democratic votes. | ||
| I believe Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, has already said he's going to support her. | ||
| So, you know, I think there are a number of cabinet nominees who are going to secure Democratic support. | ||
| The question is, how many, and will that even be necessary? | ||
| Because, again, if you got 53 Republicans in the Senate and all of them support this respective nominee, whoever you're talking about, you don't need any Democrats. | ||
| To Troy in Tennessee, Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Andrew, thanks for coming on P-San and talking to everybody. | |
| But I have to take issue with you and everyone in Washington making a golden calf out of Section 702 of FIFA, which was used to spy on the Trump campaign. | ||
| It's to spy on Americans for no reason at all other than the corporate state of Washington wants to spy on them. | ||
| The border's been open for four years, wide open. | ||
| Anyone can walk in. | ||
| So suddenly Tulsi Gabbard is some kind of national security threat. | ||
| You guys are gaslighting us. | ||
| We know it. | ||
| We're not stupid. | ||
| This is why everyone in America hates everyone in Washington and how we elected the reality of the story. | ||
| Let me ask you, do you think it was wrong of Tulsi Gabbard to come out and say that this is a tool that she will continue to use? | ||
| The statement that we read earlier? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's she really sold out. | |
| And it's, you know, I know she's trying to get into power, but, you know, it's time that we had leaders that grew a spine and said that, you know, Washington cannot continue to push around the entire world. | ||
| You're about to cost World War III. | ||
| And you're a bunch of clowns up there. | ||
| I will note when it comes to FISA Section 702, this was something that Republican senators were actually saying to me was a problem for them in terms of her confirmation and prospects. | ||
| I don't think any of us in the news media are necessarily playing it up as something that's, you know, a must-have or is super important. | ||
| We're just listening to the voices of, again, these Republican senators who get to vote on this and who are saying that this is a problem for them for her confirmation prospects. | ||
| So again, we brought this information to the Trump transition team, and that's what caused them to issue this statement to us on behalf of Tulsi Gabbard supporting Section 702. | ||
| Again, people who oppose Section 702, people who are worried that it's, you know, in the words of this caller, you know, being used to sort of spy on Americans, they do feel like Tulsi Gabbard has sold them out on this issue. | ||
| But again, when it comes to her prospects for confirmation, this was a must-do for her. | ||
| She needed to come out and say this, or else her confirmation prospects were going to be significantly in doubt. | ||
| I know you have to go get your day started on Capitol Hill. | ||
| Final minute or two. | ||
| What haven't we gotten to that you're going to be watching for this week in Washington that we should know about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Senate is going to be considering, continuing to consider, rather, the Lake and Riley Act, which is a piece of legislation that would make it easier for law enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants suspected of committing crimes. | |
| This is something that Senate Majority Leader John Thune is aiming for to be sort of an early legislative win for him, for his new majority, and for this new Republican trifecta in Washington. | ||
| On Thursday of last week, 84 senators, so every Republican and almost every Democrat, voted to open up debate on this legislation. | ||
| A number of Democrats support the bill in its current form. | ||
| So, you know, you got to think about can this get to 60 votes? | ||
| It probably can in its current form, but a lot of the Democrats who voted to advance it last Thursday want amendments, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. | ||
| They want the chance to amend this piece of legislation. | ||
| What Republicans are saying is that they're open to narrowly tailored amendments on this issue, but they don't want this to become sort of a comprehensive immigration bill. | ||
| So the next two days will be critical. | ||
| There is another procedural vote tonight in the Senate on this. | ||
| This one will not be controversial, but over the next couple of days, we'll see how serious Democrats are in terms of wanting to try to amend this piece of legislation. | ||
| Do they have the votes to sort of filibuster this before it can get to final passage? | ||
| I suspect that there are enough Democrats right now who would vote yes on final passage on the legislation as currently constructed. | ||
| I will also add that because the House has passed this, if the Senate passes it this week, that means it goes to the White House, right? | ||
| The current president is obviously Joe Biden. | ||
| But what we have reported, what we reported last week, is that Republican leaders in the House and the Senate want to hold that piece of legislation, assuming it passes both chambers, which it's already passed the House. | ||
| They want to hold that piece of legislation until Donald Trump comes into office so that he can sign it potentially on day one. | ||
| And there was discussion of potentially trying to catch Joe Biden by surprise and put him in an awkward spot by sending this piece of legislation to him on his final day or final couple days in office. |