| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
Why We Need Bipartisan Deals
00:15:41
|
||
|
unidentified
|
Palmita over there can field any interviews that people want to do with the experts, whether it's around the prosperity project or the situation in RAN. | |
| And we have human rights experts and a whole range of people that can do interviews if you would like to and just speak to Palmito. | ||
| Thank you, Prince. | ||
| Take your home. | ||
| Welcome to Ceasefire, where we seek to bridge the divide in American politics. | ||
| I'm Dasha Burns, Politico White House Bureau Chief. | ||
| Joining me now on either side of the desk, two guests who have agreed to keep the conversation civil even when they disagree. | ||
| New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler and New Jersey Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer. | ||
| Thank you both so much for joining me now. | ||
| I hear you two are kind of besties, which might surprise some people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And no one's going to see this, right? | |
| This is just in the circle, in the bubble. | ||
| How did this friendship start? | ||
| Well, I think part of it really is because we live about 20 minutes away from each other. | ||
| He's in New Jersey, I'm in New York. | ||
| Our districts border each other. | ||
| We have a very similar sense of humor. | ||
| As they often say with New York, it's the three eyes, Italian, Irish, Israel. | ||
| He's Jewish, I'm Catholic. | ||
| And we just see eye to eye on a lot of things. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But you're not Jewish? | |
| No. | ||
| People are shocked by that. | ||
| Breaking news here on Ceasefire. | ||
| How did you guys start collaborating? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He finally came up to me and said, listen, I know the pizza and the bagels are better in Jersey. | |
| I just want to admit that. | ||
| And then I was like, oh, this guy's a good guy. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| That's fighting words right there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| I should have lived in New York for 10 years. | ||
| It is true, though. | ||
| It is true. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, but ours is better. | |
| No, no. | ||
| We just feel like Mike's a great guy. | ||
| And, you know, we agree on a lot of stuff, disagree on some stuff, but we do it in the right way. | ||
| We've worked together on so much legislation that we've just gotten to know each other. | ||
| And, you know, if you're willing to talk to each other and actually get to know each other, get to know each other's families, you know, this is how it should be. | ||
| It's not just bagel banter. | ||
| Like, you guys have actually worked on legislation. | ||
| How does that play out in a deeply divided Congress? | ||
| Well, I think one of the things that actually matters is the fact that because it is so divided, it really only takes a few votes one way or the other to advance legislation. | ||
| And so being able to work together on issues we agree on, whether it's foreign policy surrounding Israel and the Middle East or salt lifting the cap on salt, Josh championed that for years. | ||
| Fighting congestion taxes, fighting the congestion tax. | ||
| These are issues both on a national level and on a local level that impact our constituents. | ||
| I go to church in his district. | ||
| I always have for 35 years. | ||
| So like trying to block that, but it hasn't worked so well. | ||
| Yeah, apparently my passport gives me entry into New Jersey. | ||
| Hit a checkpoint there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Definitely need a checkpoint. | |
| Check your visa. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And most things are, you know, what you realize is that most things are just common sense. | ||
| And if you're willing to talk to each other and figure out where you can agree, 80% of things you can agree on, but you just have to be willing to talk and listen to one another. | ||
| See that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And it's a majority of that. | |
| That's the rubber, because right now, partisanship, it's kind of trendy among your people there on the Hill. | ||
| Do you ever get pushback from your fellow members of Congress or from constituents for crossing party lines? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's interesting. | |
| Here you get lots of pushback from party leadership. | ||
| You get pushback. | ||
| You go home and people are happy that you're actually talking to each other and working together. | ||
| That's a disconnection. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They want you to get stuff done. | |
| So when Mike and I work together on various things and get stuff across the finish line to help people who we represent, that's a win. | ||
| We put the country first. | ||
| And when you have that mentality, it's amazing how much you can get done. | ||
| If you just say, well, I'm not going to talk to the people. | ||
| And listen, Mike, I often see Mike hanging out on our, there's on the House floor, there's a place where Democrats sit and a place where Republicans sit. | ||
| And, you know, just like me and I, I wander over and hang out on the Republican side. | ||
| Mike's always on the Democratic side, talking to people. | ||
| This is high school lunch table stuff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, but that's how you actually get stuff done. | |
| You have to build a relationship. | ||
| Everything is building a relationship, talking to each other. | ||
| Yeah, like anything in life, it's entirely built on relationships. | ||
| And if you can find area of commonality, by the way, you can be the most progressive or the most conservative and still find an area of agreement and work together. | ||
| And that happens way more than I think people realize. | ||
| But for folks like Josh and I, where our districts are a little bit more in the center, I think it's also a little bit more natural. | ||
| And with respect to kind of New York, New Jersey, very similar dynamics, very similar constituency. | ||
| It also helps when we do a lot of stuff together. | ||
| I feel like a giant standing next to him. | ||
| So it really incentivizes me to work. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I'm sitting on two phone books right now just to be up here. | |
| Just so he sees us. | ||
| Because he's a giant of men, really. | ||
| Do you experience the same thing, though, like a little bit of maybe flack from leadership and people here, but your constituents back home enjoy the fact that you can work across the aisle? | ||
| So I think part of the big problem in Washington is that most of the districts are not competitive, right? | ||
| Two decades ago, there were over 100 districts that were competitive. | ||
| Today it's less than 35. | ||
| And you're trying to make that even a good difference. | ||
| Maybe even less. | ||
| But the thing is, there's only a handful of members that are in these tough competitive seats, and you have to build bipartisan consensus to get reelected, to get support in your district. | ||
| My district's one that Kamala Harris won that has 80,000 more Democrats than Republicans. | ||
| So my constituents appreciate when I reach across the aisle. | ||
| I was rated the fourth most bipartisan member of Congress in the 118th. | ||
| Josh has always been among the most bipartisan members of the country. | ||
| Is that a badge of honor today? | ||
| For me, it is. | ||
| For me, too. | ||
| And I'm proud of that. | ||
| And that's, honestly, that's how you get things done. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But what's interesting about that, to Mike's point, what you realize, and if you're not just, and a lot of our colleagues, they worry about their primaries, only about their primaries. | |
| So they're talking to this very small sliver of the electorate, and they focus all their time on this 10 or 12% of the entire electorate. | ||
| Well, in the places where we live and represent, you got to talk to 80%. | ||
| If you want to get reelected and come back, and you better talk to 80% of folks, that means you're talking to Democrats, Republicans, Independents. | ||
| You got to talk to everybody. | ||
| And I think that makes for great governing. | ||
| Mike and I were walking down the hall in the Capitol last week, and there's a bunch of cops walking by. | ||
| And I'm very supportive of law enforcement, and so is Mike. | ||
| And I'll tell you, the cops are as excited because we're right next to each other. | ||
| As excited to see Mike, they're from Jersey as they were to see me from Jersey. | ||
| We're right next to each other. | ||
| And we're taking a picture together. | ||
| And I'm thinking, like, this is how, if people saw this, they'd feel a lot better about Washington and realize it's not just a bunch of people screaming at each other. | ||
| Problem Solvers Caucus. | ||
| Give me the quick elevator pitch for people who might not be familiar. | ||
| Oh, look, this is a caucus that started when Josh came in with Tom Reed, a New York Republican. | ||
| And, you know, ultimately it is built out. | ||
| Tom Swasey and Brian Fitzpatrick are leading it now. | ||
| And it's one of the only bipartisan caucuses in Congress. | ||
| So it's important, even if you don't get consensus on legislation, just to sit down and talk with each other and be able to address issues that come up. | ||
| Obviously, we've been working on health care and trying to find a bipartisan agreement. | ||
| That really came out of work from problem solvers and a few other kind of groups where we formulated a bipartisan working group. | ||
| to say, how do we get a bipartisan agreement? | ||
| We passed last week the discharge on the three-year with the intention of getting it to the Senate so the Senate could come back with a bipartisan compromise. | ||
| And a lot of that is rooted in the work that we did over the last few months as a House bipartisan caucus. | ||
| So problem solvers is vital, as is just the general importance of members sitting down across party lines and talking. | ||
| What's the relationship between problem solvers and House leadership? | ||
| Is it? | ||
| Is it good? | ||
| Are they happy you guys are around? | ||
| Or is it close to calling aside problem causers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I think there's some people in leadership on both sides who don't love it when you talk to the other side and find a bipartisan deal because they may want to use the issue for political reasons and political gain. | ||
| But the stuff that gets done and across the finish line inevitably happens because of groups like the Problem Solvers Caucus of members who are more like us sitting down in a room and saying, where's the deal? | ||
| We sat down with a group of bipartisan senators last week like we often do and say, okay, on the Affordable Care Act, how does this deal get done? | ||
| Where can we agree? | ||
| And try to get to 75% consensus. | ||
| And when we do, we say, okay, let's all get together and back that. | ||
| And that's, you know, frankly, whether you're talking about the infrastructure bill, about the last gun safety bill that was done in a bipartisan way, or health care, the only way this stuff gets done, we did during the pandemic as well. | ||
| The only way it gets done is if we actually talk to each other and a bipartisan group brings it across the finish line. | ||
| You know, we may not be the biggest tweeters and like everyone follows us screaming and yelling at each other. | ||
| I know that gets more attention. | ||
| But actually the governing part of getting stuff done, that's when the Problem Solvers Caucus and others step in. | ||
| I mean, look at somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who just left. | ||
| What accomplishments did she have in five years? | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| There's not one single piece of legislation that you can point to and say it's the inability to work across party lines, the inability to build consensus. | ||
| When you have such tight majorities and when most of the districts are not competitive in a general election and people are more focused on the base of their respective parties, it's hard to build that consensus. | ||
| Part of the reason why I've been legislatively successful, Josh has been, is because we've tried to build that consensus. | ||
| And when the extremes are not going to vote for the final product, but the middle can carry the day, that's how you get big things done in Washington. | ||
| And recognizing the way the Senate functions, where you need 60 votes on almost everything, you need bipartisan support in the Senate. | ||
| So if you start from a place of bipartisan support in the House, it's a lot easier to get to the final agreement than if you're starting from a place of, I don't need the other side. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think the healthcare is just a great example of just that, right? | |
| As we're talking about, when we've sat down, we said, okay, we definitely got to get these costs down for people. | ||
| We've got to lower their insurance premiums. | ||
| We agree on that. | ||
| So now you take the next step of, so where are the areas we agree? | ||
| Can you give on this or give on that? | ||
| See, what happens is no one actually says, hey, Mike, would you be okay if we did this? | ||
| Would that be a problem for you? | ||
| He says, no, I could live with that. | ||
| And what's often shocking, and I found this over the years, is as a Democrat, I read the paper and I think, oh, he must, he'll never support that. | ||
| Actually, when you talk, you say, oh, I could live with that. | ||
| And it's funny, that's how you actually govern. | ||
| Well, and I think people just don't see that often enough. | ||
| Indulge me for a moment in a poll. | ||
| Gallup put out these numbers last month. | ||
| You can see the president's approval rating at 36%. | ||
| It's gone down over his term. | ||
| But congressional Republicans and Democrats are even worse, I'm sorry to say to you both. | ||
| Congressional Republicans are at 29%, congressional Democrats at 24%. | ||
| I mean, what? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we're in the 29-24, obviously, the people who like us. | |
| Well, seriously, I mean, people don't love government in general at the federal level, but especially Congress. | ||
| What can Congress do to change this? | ||
| Well, I think this is true writ large of our country over the last 20-plus years, and especially since the advent of social media, where everything is bloodsport. | ||
| Everything every day is just soaked in negativity. | ||
| And so I think, generally speaking, the American people, it ebbs and flows, but they're generally very frustrated with politics and government in general. | ||
| I think what the bottom line to me is they want us to get things done. | ||
| They want us to be able to address the economy, the cost of living, job creation and economic growth, border security, health care, housing. | ||
| We're 8 million units underbuilt nationwide. | ||
| What they see oftentimes is that we're talking about things that may excite the base and may get the news media to get into a frenzy, but don't actually solve major problems facing the country. | ||
| We have serious issues to deal with. | ||
| And Josh and I are both on financial services. | ||
| He's on intelligence. | ||
| I'm on foreign affairs. | ||
| I'm the chair of the Middle East. | ||
| We focus extensively on serious issues impacting the country. | ||
| Our committee work is focused on serious issues, not the tit-for-tat that is often seen in Washington on some of these other committees. | ||
| And I think, generally speaking, if the American people saw that we were addressing on a daily basis the larger, more thorny and complex issues that really do require you to sit down around a table with the other side and say, hey, what can you give on here? | ||
| And that's what we've endeavored on on health care, child care, energy prices, and so on. | ||
| And I think if people saw more of that, rather than kind of the just hyper-partisan name-calling and attacking, I think the approval ratings would be a lot higher because I think people would say, all right, they're actually dealing with real issues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But I get, but you get this from like a media perspective. | |
| It's not always interesting to have people sit on here and agree on something. | ||
| I think this is fascinating. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I love this. | |
| But most of the time, they want, you know, on TV, on cable news, they want the soundbite of us screaming at each other, disagreeing, the nasty tweet, right? | ||
| That's what actually gets more attention. | ||
| So, of course, people feed it more. | ||
| And so members of Congress are like, ooh, if I want more attention, I just have to say something nasty about the other side. | ||
| Or crazy. | ||
| Or crazy. | ||
| And that's just the opposite of actually solving a problem. | ||
| Well, then for both of you, I mean, what is your message to, what's your message to House Republican leadership? | ||
| And I'll ask you the same for the Democrats. | ||
| Look, it's the same message I said before we went away on break and I signed the discharge. | ||
| We have to tackle these issues from housing to energy to health care to immigration. | ||
| I believe fundamentally on housing. | ||
| 8 million plus units underbuilt. | ||
| It's supply and demand. | ||
| We need to build more housing if we want to bring down costs. | ||
|
Healthcare Reform Push
00:15:18
|
||
| Health care, we need to reform Obamacare. | ||
| It's not working. | ||
| Since Obamacare took effect, health insurance premiums have risen 96%. | ||
| It's not enough to just say Obamacare bad. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| What are we doing to actually start to address that? | ||
| The Speaker put forth a bill. | ||
| Every Republican voted for it. | ||
| CBO estimated it would bring down health premiums by 11%. | ||
| We need to get that across the finish line. | ||
| You look at immigration. | ||
| I'm a co-lead on the Dignity Act. | ||
| We need to have a path forward to address those who are here illegally or undocumented. | ||
| Not a path to citizenship, but a path to legalization so they get out of the shadows. | ||
| They're working. | ||
| They're not collecting benefits. | ||
| And they're here in a way that is constructive to the economy and to the country. | ||
| These are issues like if we actually sat down and went through energy permitting reform. | ||
| We've all talked about the need for permitting reform for years. | ||
| Do it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's go. | |
| To your point. | ||
|
unidentified
|
To answer the question you actually asked for us, letting Mike just repeat issues, which I agree with him on. | |
| What we need to do is actually encourage our leaderships to not just go out there and every day say, okay, how am I going to stab the other side, right? | ||
| Versus imagine if you went out and said, we know the issues, right? | ||
| The housing, we've got to get more houses built. | ||
| We've got to get those utility bills down. | ||
| We've got to get to the point. | ||
| We've got the same page about all this stuff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You just listed the issues, right? | |
| We know the issues. | ||
| And say, okay, what if we actually got together and solved some of those problems? | ||
| And negotiated. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And negotiated. | |
| Now, listen. | ||
| Sounds so easy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
By the way, I get it, so someone's going to feel like they didn't get the win, but I actually think everybody, to your point on the numbers, everybody will look good, will get stuff done. | |
| And listen, there's still policy differences. | ||
| So when people go vote, they'll still know that Mike is a little more on this issue and I'm a little more on this issue and they can make a decision. | ||
| But wouldn't that be great if they actually stood up and said, let's get everyone in a room with somebody else. | ||
| Well, let's get to some fundamentals of what you guys are actually working on right now. | ||
| I mean, one of the biggest issues for Americans right now is health care, as you mentioned. | ||
| Congressman Lawler, you voted with the 17 Republicans that voted with Democrats to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years. | ||
| Now, that is basically DOA in the Senate, right? | ||
| Why did you decide to vote with Democrats here? | ||
| What do you think comes next? | ||
| Well, look, after the shutdown, we all agreed that we needed to sit down and actually talk about how to address the expiration of the enhanced premium tax credit. | ||
| And the consensus was we've got to do it for about two years. | ||
| We can't just do a clean extension. | ||
| There's got to be something. | ||
| We voted for, but you know that that's the right thing. | ||
| And so we came up with a real reform package. | ||
| And there were a number of different ideas and bills put forth. | ||
| But ultimately, the objective was to do an extension with income limits, with insurance reforms, with the elimination of zero premium plans. | ||
| We tried to get that to the floor for a vote working with House Republican leadership. | ||
| And ultimately, for various reasons, we couldn't get there. | ||
| My objective was not to say, okay, I tried. | ||
| My objective was to say, all right, we couldn't go this route. | ||
| There's another vehicle here. | ||
| Let's discharge it and get the Senate to get the bipartisan agreement. | ||
| We know the three-year clean extension is not becoming law. | ||
| The issue was it's a tax bill. | ||
| It had to originate in the House. | ||
| The senators needed a vehicle. | ||
| They also needed to show that there is bipartisan support to do something on this. | ||
| I think 17 Republicans crossing across the aisle to do it. | ||
| It's a statement. | ||
| That's the best thing. | ||
| Especially given that Republicans have never voted in favor of Obamacare. | ||
| So this was, I think, an important moment. | ||
| Now the question is, can the Senate come to an agreement? | ||
| We had a very productive conversation last week, Problem Solvers Caucus, with the senators that are leading this effort. | ||
| I do think we can get there if everybody is willing to take incoming from their own side and recognize we've got to put the country and the people above party politics. | ||
| Are Democrats on that same page? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A thousand percent. | |
| Here's the reality is, and January 15th is when open enrollment ends. | ||
| So in Jersey, for a family of four, premiums are going to be up $20,000 for a lot of families. | ||
| And that's unaffordable. | ||
| So either they're going to switch to a different plan that's not as good on their coverage, or they'll drop their coverage. | ||
| And that's happening for millions of people around the country. | ||
| It's going to happen in New York and other places. | ||
| That's unacceptable. | ||
| Our job is to do everything we can to get health costs down, health care costs down. | ||
| So either you say, forget it and walk away, or you do what Mike and I are trying to do and say, we've got to find a solution here. | ||
| Let's keep going. | ||
| And you don't give up. | ||
| Even if you're willing to compromise on, what do you think Democrats need to consider giving up here? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, so on this particular thing, the things we're considering are, as Mike mentioned, zero-dollar premiums. | |
| You know, that you have some sort of minimum monthly premium. | ||
| I think you've got to do everything you can to get widows of fraud. | ||
| Obviously, we've already put out all different kinds of income caps, and there's different numbers on the income caps still being decided. | ||
| There's plenty of things that I think we should all give on in order to get people's premiums down and find an agreement. | ||
| And I think we can do it. | ||
| I mean, last week showed that we can do it. | ||
| The question will be, to your point on leadership, do both sides want to use it for political purposes and not do anything, right? | ||
| Because they want to run ads against the other side? | ||
| Or do we all try to figure out how to come together and get something done? | ||
| Mike and I are focused on one thing, getting something actually into law into the president's desk, and we're not going to stop. | ||
| If you want to understand how screwed up Washington is, the DriCCC is running ads against me that I took away people's health insurance premiums by letting the tax credit expire. | ||
| And yet last week, most of their members were praising me for signing the discharge. | ||
| And I'm sure he has some Republicans mad at you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, of course. | |
| I'm taking a lot of incoming. | ||
| But this is why it's so complicated and difficult to get things done. | ||
| And so the objective to me is you've got to let that noise just go by the wayside and focus on the issue. | ||
| If we can get this agreement on the enhanced premium tax credit, I think then it allows us to focus on the larger health care issue and address the challenges. | ||
| Because the enhanced premium tax credit applies to about 7% of the population, which means 93% of the population are still seeing their health insurance premiums going up. | ||
| We've got to find bigger reforms to the system. | ||
| I think this is a positive step forward to get people to recognize, you know what, we can advance a bipartisan compromise. | ||
| We don't have to die on the hill of either defending Obamacare or railing against it. | ||
| We can actually look and say, we've got to fix this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Our budgets are working together in that permitting reform. | |
| Huge issue that actually you've got a lot of people on both sides who really agree on this. | ||
| So we can get things built faster. | ||
| We can actually get more energy up and running. | ||
| There's so much we can do there. | ||
| But again, you're going to have people really angry at us, but we know that there's a place where we can find common ground. | ||
| So the question is, are you going to do it or not do it? | ||
| So you guys are both on the House Financial Services Committee, and I want to move to another big headline this week, which was the Justice Department opened an investigation into the Federal Reserve's renovation of its Washington, D.C. headquarters. | ||
| Prosecutors claim that Reserve Chair Jerome Powell lied to the Senate about the cost of the reservations. | ||
| Powell claims the investigation is about the White House disagreeing with the Fed's actions on interest rates. | ||
| Listen. | ||
| This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions, or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation. | ||
| I have served at the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike. | ||
| In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment. | ||
| Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats. | ||
| I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people. | ||
| Congressman Lawler, for a Congress that has very rarely disagreed with the president on anything, I'm surprised how much Republicans have cried foul on this issue. | ||
| Do you think that this is a dangerous road for this administration to take? | ||
| I do. | ||
| I think there's no question Jerome Powell was late to the ball game in terms of addressing inflation under Joe Biden and late to the ballgame in terms of starting to reduce interest rates now. | ||
| But the independence of the Fed is critical, and I don't think there should be undue pressures applied. | ||
| Jerome Powell's term is quickly coming to an end. | ||
| It's expiring. | ||
| It's obvious he's not going to be reappointed as Fed chair. | ||
| I think everybody's going to be able to do it. | ||
| And he might stick around now on the board because of this. | ||
| But I think everybody understands he's not going to be the chair. | ||
| But for the Department of Justice to go after him over his testimony or discrepancies with respect to the overspending on the renovations to the Federal Reserve Building, I just don't think that is appropriate and I don't think it is helpful. | ||
| I think the focus needs to be on the economy. | ||
| The focus needs to be on how we continue to address the challenges facing the country. | ||
| And frankly, I think this is wasted time, effort, and a distraction. | ||
| With the time we have left, I do want to talk briefly about the potential of another government shutdown. | ||
| Axios writes that Democrats or furious Democrats threatened government shutdown after the Minneapolis shooting, saying, quote, progressive lawmakers see the end of January funding Cliff as a leverage point to exploit as they fume about the Department of Homeland Security under Christy Noam. | ||
| Congressman Gottheimer, is this the hill for Democrats to die on with the shutdown fight? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, obviously, I have serious issues with what I'm in Minnesota, and this is, we should not shut the government down. | |
| And I'm very hopeful, actually, and it seems like we're moving in the direction where we're going to get agreement on all of our appropriations work, you know, the annual budget, and we'll not shut the government down. | ||
| It makes zero sense to shut the government down. | ||
| I think Mike and I agree on this. | ||
| And I'm really hopeful that we will get there, and we've got to get there in the next few days and get agreement done. | ||
| And I would say on the Fed point, I just want to say that I agree with Mike. | ||
| The idea that we ever interfere with the Fed's independence is not only destabilizing and bad for the markets, but bad for people's faith in the markets and in our economy. | ||
| So I think, you know, hands off. | ||
| And I think you're seeing the reason why you're seeing such an overwhelming reaction from both Democrats and Republicans on this is because I think everyone agrees that the Fed should be independent under any president. | ||
| Very quickly, before I let you both go, stock trading ban, that this has been in the works for a while. | ||
| The current plan would allow lawmakers to hold the current stocks they own, but require a seven-day notice before making sales. | ||
| It would also bar lawmakers and their spouses from buying new stocks. | ||
| Congressman Gottheimer, does this go far enough? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think I'm very supportive of the bill that has a lot of backing so far, not the one that was introduced yesterday that says that there should not be ownership and gives a period of time to allow for that. | |
| But that's, you know, you think this is too watered down? | ||
|
unidentified
|
First of all, I'm just, we just got it yesterday. | |
| So I have not fully analyzed it and gotten every opinion on this thing. | ||
| But listen, I think we should be tough on this, and I have no problem with that. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
| Look, I am somebody who believes that we should ban stock trading. | ||
| I've long believed that. | ||
| The reality is you're privy to just too much information. | ||
| Even if you're not doing something untoward, the reality is you're aware of things that the average American is not, especially around things like timing. | ||
| And so from my vantage point, it's imperative that we get something done here. | ||
| There's been disagreement on some of the things. | ||
| I mean, you have members of Congress who, you know, may have had careers in corporations who came in holding stocks tied to that. | ||
| That obviously the concern is that it would preclude people from running for office and being elected to Congress. | ||
| Trying to find a middle ground here, I think, is what the objective is. | ||
| And I think Chairman Stiles done a good job trying to find that balance to prevent people from trading while in office, but allow them to keep things that they may have had coming into them. | ||
| Maybe something that could help those terrible poll numbers for Congress members. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That is all the time we have, gentlemen. | ||
| Thank you both so much for joining me. | ||
| New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler and New Jersey Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having us. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| All right, let's turn now to this week's C-SPAN flashback, where we dig deep into the video archives to show you a moment in political history not unlike what's happening today. | ||
| We take you back to the run-up to the midterm elections in 2006 when the stakes felt strikingly familiar. | ||
| It was the middle of President George W. Bush's second term. | ||
| Republicans held the majority heading into the midterm elections, but concerns over terrorism and the war in Iraq dominated the national conversation. | ||
| Here's President Bush responding to a reporter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I understand why you would claim or assert that the Republicans will win the midterm elections, but if in your heart of hearts you really didn't think that, would you tell us so? | |
| And are you resentful that some Republican candidates seem to be distancing themselves from you? | ||
| You know, no, I'm not resentful, nor am I resentful that a lot of Democrats are using my picture. | ||
| All I ask is that they pick out a good one. | ||
| Make me look good, at least, on the picture. | ||
| Mark, the first part of your question, the serious part, if I thought we were going to lose, but I tell you, we're not going to lose. | ||
| My heart of hearts. | ||
| Now, again, I understand how, look, I read the look at the newspapers around here. | ||
| I can see why you think that I'm concealing something in my heart of hearts. | ||
| The race is over as far as a lot of the punditry goes. | ||
| You know, they've got it all figured out. | ||
| And they just, as I said, they're dancing in the end zone. | ||
| They just hadn't scored the touchdown, Mark. | ||
| You know, there's a lot to a lot of time left. | ||
| And these candidates are working hard out there. | ||
| And my message to them is keep talking about the security of the United States and keeping taxes low. | ||
| And you'll come back here. | ||
| In what was known as the Democratic wave, Democrats ended over a decade of Republican rule, sweeping majorities of both chambers of Congress, governorships, and state legislatures. | ||
|
End of the Day Advantage
00:15:21
|
||
| And we've got two political pros from both sides of the aisle to help us look ahead to the elections this year and beyond. | ||
| Democratic strategist Kevin Walling, he served as a surrogate for the Biden and Harris presidential campaigns. | ||
| And Republican strategist Brian Lanza, former senior advisor to the 2024 Trump campaign. | ||
| Thank you both so much for being here. | ||
| We could use two campaign brains for this conversation. | ||
| I want to talk about the midterms. | ||
| We are really in it now, you guys. | ||
| I mean, you just heard President George W. Bush there, Brian. | ||
| How much does that take you back? | ||
| And how much does that remind you of right now? | ||
| It is a flashback. | ||
| It was a different time. | ||
| You sort of appreciate the president's confidence there, but you saw what happened at the end of the day. | ||
| And the current time is always going to be the economy. | ||
| At that point, President Bush wanted to focus on taxes. | ||
| He wanted to focus on terrorism. | ||
| I think it was the three T's campaign. | ||
| There was another one I don't recall. | ||
| It certainly wasn't tariffs. | ||
| But it's now. | ||
| It's always going to be about the economy. | ||
| And I think we're getting that sense that Trump and his team are now starting to shift focus to it. | ||
| So it's a flashback. | ||
| I just hope that November is not the same flashback. | ||
| Kevin, are you hoping for a replay of 2006? | ||
| I'm just happy you didn't play the press conference with Obama after he said we got shellacked in 2010. | ||
| That could have been a more terrifying. | ||
| Democrats and Republicans have felt it now. | ||
| They really have. | ||
| And it's important to remember, actually, President George W. Bush was the only president, I think, in 40 years in that first midterm election that actually increased his majority in the Republican majority. | ||
| But it's generally a case, as we know in recent history, that the party in power loses ground, certainly, and that was the outlier in President Bush's first midterm election. | ||
| But Democrats are certainly hopeful. | ||
| I think we're pretty bullish, but part of this is also, too, managing expectations. | ||
| The number of seats that are actually in play has just drastically, even since that press conference, has gone down just with gerrymandering and positioning. | ||
| You heard the president there responding to a question about whether he's resentful that Republicans, some Republicans are distancing themselves. | ||
| Every time this happens, the president plays such a big role, even if he's not on the ballot. | ||
| Is President Trump an asset or a liability for most of these races? | ||
| I think at the end of the day, the Republican candidates who are running have to find a way to make him into an asset. | ||
| Because if you look at historical patterns, you go back to Nixon, you go back to Carter, they'll always tell you, and I had a pollster telling me this during Trump or during Bush, or Bush won. | ||
| It's the historical trends as if your president in power is doing really well, then the party out of power, the party is going to do well itself. | ||
| So if we start to jump ship and say that the sky is falling, that's going to be the senses that the general public has, and it's going to weaken Trump even further, which is going to have a negative impact on the race. | ||
| So what I tell candidates all the time is, wherever the president's faves unfaves, whatever he's achieving, it is going to have a direct impact, and you have to sell that in the best way, because if you distance yourself, you're just going to suppress your base, and you can't have that. | ||
| How much are Democrats going to play off of President Trump? | ||
| How big of a factor do Dems want to make him here? | ||
| Yeah, I think where it makes sense, right, to nationalize the elections, but I think one of the big takeaways from the 2025 elections is really localizing these races. | ||
| And Democrats have seen a lot of success in some of these special elections and some of these state legislative seats. | ||
| I think we're 25 and zero in terms of flipping state legislative seats last year by localizing the elections and focusing on those bread and butter issues like Mikey Sherroll did in New Jersey and Abigail Spenberger did in Virginia. | ||
| I think to Brian's point, we've never also seen an incumbent president sitting on such a war chest too. | ||
| So in terms of running away from President Trump, he's sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars and this is his last election cycle. | ||
| And obviously Susie Wiles, others have said he's going to be out there front and center. | ||
| So positioning and he likes to be praised, as we know. | ||
| And if you're seeing these candidates run away from him, that's a whole lot of money that they're also running away from. | ||
| Let's take a look at this headline from the New York Post. | ||
| NRCC Honcho, very bullish Republicans will hold the House in 2026 despite historical headwinds. | ||
| Brian, is this just positive thinking or is this the vibe? | ||
| I think there's some data to support optimism, right? | ||
| I think historical trends say we're going to lose the midterms. | ||
| The president in power usually loses the midterms. | ||
| But if you look at where we were in 2019 when the Democrats were trying to take control of the House of Representatives, they're generic in the Republican generic, the Democratic generic. | ||
| The Dems had about a 12-point advantage. | ||
| If you look at that today, it's a one-to-two-point advantage. | ||
| So as much as the media is giving this groundswell of all these things, that things are moving towards a Democratic way and there's going to be another wave, gerrymandering had a huge impact. | ||
| So I don't suspect we'll have that same wave that took place. | ||
| But if you look at the generic, the generic is still very close. | ||
| It's certainly 10 points behind, double digits behind where it was in 2019. | ||
| And I think that's what's given Republicans the optimism that they still have a chance that there hasn't been this separation between the generics Republicans and Democrats, and they can fill that with an economic message. | ||
| Let's take a listen to the president weighing in on this. | ||
| You go back a long way. | ||
| The sitting president, whether it's Democrat or Republican, always loses the midterm. | ||
| Even if they've done well, almost always. | ||
| And, you know, you'd think it would be like a 50-50 deal. | ||
| Even if the president's done a great job, I think we've done a great job. | ||
| We've done maybe the best job ever in the first year. | ||
| But they always seem to lose the midterm. | ||
| There's something down deep psychologically with the voters that they want maybe a check or something. | ||
| I don't know what it is exactly, but you would think when you have a victory and then on top of the victory, you have a great, successful presidency would be an automatic win. | ||
| But it's never been a win. | ||
| Hopefully we're going to change it. | ||
| He's not projecting his usual immense confidence here. | ||
| Is he managing expectations or what's going on here? | ||
| Listen, I think he's looking at history. | ||
| At the end of the day, history's not on our side with this. | ||
| But I would stress to President Trump, and I'd stress to Republicans in the House anyway. | ||
| Bill Clinton did really well in his 96 election, right? | ||
| It was the second term. | ||
| The Democrats did really well. | ||
| And the reason, or Bill Clinton did well, but the reason Bill Clinton did well is because Republicans overreached with impeachment. | ||
| So I think we're hearing a lot of impeachment conversation now. | ||
| That does turn off voters. | ||
| So if we spend the next nine months, if Republicans spend the next nine months saying, hey, we've already had some articles filed. | ||
| This is their only game plan. | ||
| This is their only path for the future. | ||
| I think that one to two point spread gets even smaller. | ||
| And we have a reason to be optimistic. | ||
| I think the president's just, he's a data guy. | ||
| He's a business guy. | ||
| He knows what the numbers look like. | ||
| And it seems like a stretch, but you always got to fight to the end. | ||
| Yeah, how careful do Democrats have to be with the whole impeachment talk? | ||
| Incredibly careful. | ||
| And to Brian's point, it's a good one. | ||
| You saw him in that kind of rally at the Kennedy Center with the Republican caucus talking about the first act that Democrats will do is to give me a third impeachment. | ||
| And again, as we've seen, and the Bill Clinton reference is a good one. | ||
| And even Trump's impeachment, his numbers went up when he was acquitted by the Senate. | ||
| So I think it is a very tightrope that Democrats have to do again about the need to really localize these elections and not play into that national dynamic, I think, is important. | ||
| And also, too, I don't think we're going to see this shellacking that we saw with 2010, as I referenced before with President Obama, where it was a 63, 64 seat flip. | ||
| We're talking maybe single digits, maybe low, double digits for the Democratic pickup. | ||
| Because again, the Cook Political Report has it at 17 seats that are pure toss-ups. | ||
| I mean, that is a very small playing field for Republican defense and Democratic offense. | ||
| Is that a reason for Republicans to be optimistic or nervous? | ||
| Yeah, I think optimistic, right? | ||
| Because you have to remember, what voters are looking for in November, they're actually going to be resolved by it by July, right? | ||
| And that's going to be the economy. | ||
| I think pollsters will tell you, you've seen in your data that the vast majority of the electorate makes up their decision about what the economy looks like in an election year in July. | ||
| And the data is there. | ||
| The argument there becomes a little bit harder. | ||
| But the data is there that when Trump took office, it is better than under Biden. | ||
| Interest rates are a little bit lower. | ||
| Gas is circulating cheaper. | ||
| There's all these arguments they could make. | ||
| But they just got to make sure that the push for people to believe that has to be in June, July when voters are making that decision. | ||
| Because if you wait late till November, you've already lost your case. | ||
| Let's talk about the arguments there in the messaging. | ||
| Are Republicans on the same page as the president about the message? | ||
| I mean, he's trying to talk about the economy, but now you've got headlines about Jay Powell and the independence of the Fed. | ||
| And you also have spent the first couple of weeks of the year really focused on foreign policy. | ||
| Yeah, he can't lose focus of what matters more than anything else in a midterm election. | ||
| It's going to be the economy. | ||
| And in the presidential, it's always going to be the economy. | ||
| External factors are what they are. | ||
| External factors with POW is an external factor. | ||
| But at the end of the day, the pocketbook issue that voters are going to look at is they're going to go to the polls and say, do I have more money to spend today than I had it under Joe Biden? | ||
| The data says yes. | ||
| The challenge for the Republican candidates and for this Republican president is to make people feel that because they don't feel that yet. | ||
| So how can Democrats take advantage here? | ||
| Well, and to Brian's point, it's the same challenge we faced as Democrats the last four years under Joe Biden. | ||
| And take it from the guy that tried to sell Bidenomics for four of those years. | ||
| If people fundamentally don't feel it, and to Brian's point, if they don't feel it in their pocketbooks, the fact that 40% of Americans, many of them watching this program today, can't incur a $400 debt. | ||
| If it's a medical issue, if it's a child care issue, that's problematic. | ||
| And I think as we've got a lot of great lessons learned from Virginia and New Jersey, when it comes to actually putting concrete ideas out there, you can't just run on the general notion of affordability, but you've got to talk about tackling utility costs. | ||
| Talk about supply chain resilience and things like that, tangible things, and not just the general optics of affordability. | ||
| But again, it is a difficult road to hoe. | ||
| And obviously the White House is figuring out they've got to do it. | ||
| Obviously, the president was in Detroit talking about the economy this past week. | ||
| With the headlines coming out of Iran, out of Venezuela, what have you, he's got to focus on that base support. | ||
| And it's the economy, to Brian's point. | ||
| And I would add this POW and interest rates fight that's taking place. | ||
| The president has one weapon there is when the new Fed Minchair, a new Fed Minchair comes in, which we know a new one, they have the ability to shock the system. | ||
| I mean, they have the ability to come in and say, you know what, we're not going to drop interest rates by one point. | ||
| We're going to drop it by two. | ||
| That news and that earthquake, we don't know what the world's going to look like after that, but that'll at least show to the American public that President Trump is trying to do something to drive down costs. | ||
| Look at what he's done with interest rates. | ||
| It may be a short-term win, a long-term economic damage, but the election's in November. | ||
| And he has that. | ||
| That's a big, we've never seen that before. | ||
| What kind of power? | ||
| Does that tool worry you? | ||
| Should it worry Democrats? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Certainly. | |
| Again, and you saw in the video that Powell released in terms of not responding to political pressure, the independence of the Fed is critically important when they look at the data and analysis in terms of job growth, job loss, and obviously the interest rate situation. | ||
| So any kind of tampering that for political causes, I think, is problematic. | ||
| You've seen some Republicans, not big friends and allies and supporters of the current chairman, even though he was appointed by Bush or by Trump round one, coming to the defense at least of the independency of the Fed. | ||
| And I do worry about the political implications of that. | ||
| But what is the risk reward there? | ||
| Because Brian is saying new Fed chair comes in, lowers interest rates significantly. | ||
| That is a benefit for the US. | ||
| People have more money in their pockets immediately. | ||
| I think it's a very short-term, hyped-up opium boost to the economy. | ||
| And I would then argue the long-term ramifications of that initial boost that we've seen when it comes to actual inflation and actual job growth as a result of that. | ||
| When you kind of gin up that economy really quickly, as we saw during the COVID crisis, right, when you just flood that, right, and there's a lot of commercial engagement, I think there are some long-term ramifications of that folks aren't thinking through necessarily. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal sums up the situation for Democrats like this. | ||
| It says, Democrats see a path forward to House control in 2026. | ||
| Trump's low approval ratings plus GOP retirements and a razor-thin majority show risks for Republicans. | ||
| Is there a coherent strategy for Democrats right now, or is it sort of ad hoc, take advantage where you can? | ||
| I think it's generally taking advantage where you can. | ||
| I mean, the one thing that you can count on with President Trump is just the ability to control the narrative, right, and to shift the narrative quickly, right? | ||
| Just think week to week what we've already talked about after the new year, right? | ||
| We're talking about foreign policy to a large degree. | ||
| Now we're talking about the Fed. | ||
| So his ability to control the narrative is something that obviously powered him in 2016, powered his comeback in 2024. | ||
| And I think Democrats, to my point earlier, just need to focus on those bread and butter issues, focus really specifically on what is in people's pocketbooks, healthcare costs. | ||
| We've done, I think, an important job during the government shutdown last fall, really putting health care front and center. | ||
| That's obviously going to be a critical issue, something you talked about with the two members previously as they weigh different options heading into this potential new government shutdown at the end of January. | ||
| So again, focusing on those issues, not taking the bait every time, but actually being steady and focused on the economy and healthcare, I think is the winning message for Democrats. | ||
| Hearing Kevin just now and then seeing that summary from the Wall Street Journal, I mean, is there a pit in your stomach at all in this moment? | ||
| There's always a pit in my stomach, you know, because at the end of the day, no matter how much work we do, it always depends on turnout, right? | ||
| But yeah, I think from my standpoint, you know, we knew the day after President Trump won the election in 2024 that this midterm was going to be tough. | ||
| We knew that the very next day, we knew that historical data said it was against us. | ||
| The only way we could push back is making sure that we created a strong economy that people feel. | ||
| Some of the foundations, the administration will make the case the foundations are there for a strong economy. | ||
| They just have to highlight it, right? | ||
| And it's different, you know, because normally faves and unfaves of a presidential would matter, and you'd look at that and say, oh, he's got low favorables. | ||
| President Trump's only had to five high favorables two months out of his entire legislative or his entire electoral career, and that's inauguration and just after it. | ||
| So we're used to fighting with President Trump's approval ratings being upside down. | ||
| And that usually was an indicator in the past. | ||
| We don't think it's the same indicator now. | ||
| And we have more weapons. | ||
| Like if we really are having this affordability pricing conversation, President Trump still has tools where he can turn things and adjust it. | ||
| Like I said, he has the ability with a new Fed chairman to come in and drop two points. | ||
|
Alaska Senate Race Lead
00:04:26
|
||
| That's an earthquake. | ||
| That makes noise for months, and people feel that immediately. | ||
| He has a way, President Trump can pause some of these tariffs that are potentially, you know, that has the potential to drive down costs even further. | ||
| Like those are real tools that he has, that he's utilized, that he has the ability to lose. | ||
| He hasn't pulled those triggers yet. | ||
| We'll see what it looks like if and when he pulls those triggers. | ||
| But there's, you know, as much as I have a pit in my stomach, I still feel that we still have a lot of tools that can actually help. | ||
| A lot of the focus has been on the House, but let's talk about the Senate because there's a little bit of hope for Democrats there too. | ||
| They need a net gain of four seats to retake the majority. | ||
| What's the outlook for the Senate right now? | ||
| There is that glimmer of hope, Dasha, I think, especially with the news out of Alaska with the former congresswoman. | ||
| Yeah, let's actually show a headline from Politico here. | ||
| Former Representative Mary Peltoa jumps into the Alaska Senate race. | ||
| The former Alaska Congressmember will likely face off against Senator Dan Sullivan and is a recruitment coup for National Democrats. | ||
| How big a coup? | ||
| It's a huge coup. | ||
| I give Leader Schumer a lot of credit in terms of recruitment on that issue. | ||
| Again, Alaska is one of those states that has that ranked choice voting that we saw that play out with Sarah Palin a few cycles ago when she was looking to make a comeback to the House. | ||
| So I think folks are very hopeful. | ||
| She's an independent streak. | ||
| She is Alaska through and through. | ||
| And in fact, her announcement video praised two former long-term Republican Ted Stevens. | ||
| You talk about localizing. | ||
| Localizing, right? | ||
| And Alaska is a really special, unique place. | ||
| Same with Hawaii, very obviously separated from the mainland. | ||
| So their politics are a little different. | ||
| She's running against the Washington establishment in that announcement race. | ||
| So again, folks are hopeful. | ||
| We're hopeful about Sherrod Brown. | ||
| Donald Trump won that state of Ohio by double digits. | ||
| Sherry Brown only kept his loss margin to three and a half points. | ||
| That's a huge, huge overperformance over generic Dems. | ||
| Obviously, North Carolina and Maine, we saw President Trump on the attack against Susan Collins in Maine, who will be the Republican nominee. | ||
| Don't know if that's necessarily helpful. | ||
| We still have to figure out on our side what that's going to look like in terms of our candidate to take on Susan Collins. | ||
| So there is some hope on the Democratic side. | ||
| Brian, before the camera started rolling here, you guys already got talking about 2028. | ||
| I mean, we just started 2026, but we can't help it, right? | ||
| It's on the horizon. | ||
| It's going to be a big one. | ||
| Right now, it looks like Vice President JD Vance has some momentum. | ||
| Take a listen to Glenn Yunken. | ||
| I think as people speculate on what's going to happen down the road in 2028, I agree with President Trump and Marco Rubio. | ||
| I think JD Vance would make a great, great presidential nominee. | ||
| The outgoing Virginia governor there. | ||
| How likely is it at this point that Vance is the guy for Republicans? | ||
| You know, I think the data says it's very likely at this point. | ||
| He has the largest lead of anybody out there. | ||
| When President Trump ran four years ago, DeSantis, there's, I think, about a 12-point spread at the highest, but it was in the single digits for a long, long time. | ||
| J.D.'s got a 30-point lead over everybody else. | ||
| The 35-point lead. | ||
| I mean, the fundamentals are set up for him to run really well in the primary. | ||
| God willing, we get Kamala Harris again, and we have that same type of rematch. | ||
| I think the country wants this rematch. | ||
| And we'll see what happens. | ||
| I don't know if Democrats want that rematch. | ||
| I was going to say, what are the chances that it's Harris? | ||
| You know what? | ||
| Again, it was interesting that she obviously looked at the California governor's race, which is fairly wide open on our side at least, and chose to set that one out. | ||
| I think this week she re-kicked off the second leg of her book tour. | ||
| She's down nationally against Gavin Newsom, who's in the lead, at least on the generic front. | ||
| But it's also a question for the Democrats, and this process is playing out this past week, as we saw, as to what states go first, right? | ||
| Because that is also determinative of who our nominee is. | ||
| So obviously, Gavin Newsom leads every poll, mostly on the national front, but he's running neck and neck with Pete Buttigieg, for example, in New Hampshire. | ||
| So we know the early primary states are often obviously the presidential nomination. | ||
|
Elizabeth Warren's Call for Action
00:03:02
|
||
| They're Tom Shari, right? | ||
| Nominee makers. | ||
| Josh Shapiro, Gavin Newsom, and Vice President Harris. | ||
| All right. | ||
| I want to turn now before I let you guys go to one of my favorite segments, not on my bingo card, where we highlight a funny, unusual, or downright weird political or cultural moment. | ||
| On Monday, at an event that aired right here on C-SPAN, Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren talked about lowering costs and expanding housing. | ||
| She called for President Trump to get on the phone with members of the House and Senate. | ||
| You may be surprised at how he responded. | ||
| Take a listen. | ||
| The Republicans are saying in the House, no, they can't do that. | ||
| They don't want to do that. | ||
| And where is Donald Trump? | ||
| Has he lifted a finger to move that bill forward in the House of Representatives? | ||
| He sure knows how to get on the phone when he doesn't like what they're doing over the Epstein files. | ||
| He knows how to get on the phone when he doesn't like what somebody's trying to do over Venezuela. | ||
| But is he on the phone to say, move that housing bill so that we can start right now today on expanding more housing in America? | ||
| I'm in the car going back to my office afterwards. | ||
| Phone rings. | ||
| It's Donald Trump. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So did you recognize the phone number? | |
| Was it that White House switchboard number? | ||
| Actually, I almost didn't pick up because I didn't recognize the number. | ||
| But I thought, yeah, 202. | ||
| That's probably somebody here in Washington. | ||
| And it was somebody here in Washington. | ||
| So, you know, I talked to him, but that's exactly what we talked about: I talked about the importance of moving forward on lowering costs. | ||
| Yeah, talk about not on my bingo card. | ||
| That certainly wasn't Brian. | ||
| Listen, he will call people. | ||
| I mean, we knew this in 2016. | ||
| I think that in 2016, we tried to contain these avenues where he could communicate with people because everybody has an idea in the presidential. | ||
| But he's not opposed to calling a Republican or a Democrat if it comes to finding a solution. | ||
| I think that's the thing we almost forget: for the vast majority of Donald Trump's political or his professional career, he was a Democrat. | ||
| So he has these existing relationships, and now he's a Republican. | ||
| So if there's anybody that's going to bring us together in a bipartisan way at this point, I got it, I think it's Donald Trump. | ||
| Calling Elizabeth Warren. | ||
| Wouldn't you love to learn a fly on the wall? | ||
| That's a conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was thinking about it. | |
| Please dial us in. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, again, to Brian's point, you know, I think the president will get credit with a good amount of the American people if he sees them actually taking action on this, right? | ||
| Not even necessarily getting it passed, whether it be executive order or legislation. | ||
| But Americans generally respond to elected officials at least working to take action. | ||
| And of course, they were talking about a credit bill, I think, to limit it to 10%. | ||
| The speaker threw cold water on that this week. | ||
| But again, if voters perceive that you are actually doing something about this issue, I think you'll get rewarded. | ||
|
Ceasefire Moment
00:02:30
|
||
| And that's obviously what the president was doing in that call. | ||
| And you know, that's the spirit of Ceasefire. | ||
| Maybe the president is watching and taking a cue from you all coming on the show. | ||
| They can be your next guest. | ||
| That's a great idea. | ||
| Let's get our producers on it. | ||
| That's all the time we have, guys. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Democratic strategist Kevin Walling and Republican strategist Brian Lanza. | ||
| Thank you for joining Ceasefire. | ||
| Thanks, Sasha. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And let's close this week's program with our Ceasefire Moment of the Week, highlighting what's possible when politicians come together. | ||
| Longtime House member Stenny Hoyer recently announced that he will not seek another term. | ||
| Here's a portion of the Maryland Democrats' emotional speech on the House floor: I've won elections and lost a couple. | ||
| Celebrated triumphs and suffered setbacks. | ||
| Enjoyed friendships and endured hardships. | ||
| As the song says, some days are diamonds, some days are stone. | ||
| Happily, I've experienced more diamonds than stone. | ||
| Shakespeare advised us all: this above all else, to thine own self be true. | ||
| And it must follow as night to day, thou canst not be false to any man or to any woman. | ||
| In that vein, Mr. Speaker, I have decided not to seek another term in the people's house. | ||
| I make this decision with sadness, for I love this House, an institution the framers designed to reflect the will of the American people and to serve as the guardian of their liberty and their democracy. | ||
| Thank you all. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, with tremendous gratitude, I yield back. | ||
| Hoyer embraced many of his fellow House members, including Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise. | ||
| Currently, the longest-serving Democrat in the House, Hoyer will leave his post after nearly 45 years at the end of this current Congress. | ||
|
Comcast's Community Commitment
00:01:45
|
||
| That's all the time we have for this episode. | ||
| Here's a look at our guests for next time. | ||
| Ceasefire is also available as a podcast. | ||
| Find us in all the usual places. | ||
| I'm Dasha Burns. | ||
| remember, whether or not you agree, keep talking and keep listening. | ||
|
unidentified
|
On Saturday, we'll have live coverage of the inauguration of Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, along with Lieutenant Governor-elect Ghazala Hashmi and Attorney General-elect Jay Jones. | |
| From Richmond, Virginia, watch live at 12 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN now, our free mobile app and online at C-SPAN.org. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Comcast. | ||
| The flag replacement program got started by a good friend of mine, a Navy vet, who saw the flag at the office that needed to be replaced and said, wouldn't this be great if this was going to be something that we did for anyone? | ||
| Comcast has always been a community-driven company. | ||
| This is one of those great examples of the way we're getting out there. | ||
| Comcast supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||