Watch the washington journal 7 00 eastern. Join with your phone calls, texts, and tweets. Host we are joined by scott long with the hill newspaper, covering congress for quite some time. You have a lameduck session coming in here shortly in the u. S. But before we get to the next congress, tell us what the next few weeks or month looks like on the u. S. House side in particular. Guest the house of representatives will come back to washington after this historic election to hold their leadership elections. It looks like democrats are moving forward with their leadership elections next week. That favors nancy pelosi. The quicker the election, the less time there is for their to build any momentum in opposition against her. Nowe is some chatter right from moderates who are just crumpled about the number of seats that have been lost by democrats in a very surprising fashion. At least seven vulnerable democrats in the house went down to defeat. That has caused some andternation in the party has incited some chatter about whether or not there should be a challenge to nancy pelosi but so far, none has emerged. Then we had right into the lameduck session itself. The big issue is whether or not there will be any sort of coronavirus stimulus. As you remember, there have been months and months of negotiations between pelosi and the treasury secretary emma steven mnuchin. Those did not yield any fruit before the election. There is a glimmer of hope that there could be some kind of arrangement and deal reached in the lameduck session but given what is happening now with the president himself in contesting this election and saying there has been all sorts of unsubstantiated cases of fraud, the Political Climate is not really great for any big deal to happen. It looks like that will be punted most likely into the next congress. Of course, we have government funding running out on december 11 so on top of all of the uncertainty surrounding the president and whether he will concede defeat, there is another threat of a Government Shutdown on december 11. The two sides will need to come together to reach an agreement on funding the government or risk another Government Shutdown next month. The lameduck session, with all of that, it sounds like it doesnt have the bandwidth to handle taking on another pandemic package. In our conversation with viewers this morning, that has been the top choice, the top priority of the viewers in terms of the Biden Administration handling. Do you think the Democratic Leaders are waiting for the administration to come in and on a pandemicp package before they moved . Happensepending on what in georgia with those two Runoff Senate races, we could see a divided government either way, either now and the lameduck session with President Trump or a divided government with joe biden in 2021 with Mitch Mcconnell and the republicans still in control of the senate. We dont know what will happen in georgia. We have an inkling that Mitch Mcconnell will hold onto the majority in the senate so we ,ould be in a similar situation although with joe biden who has taken the coronavirus threat much more seriously than and knowntrump has, in washington and capitol hill as someone who can cut deals, someone who has a 30 year relationship with Mitch Mcconnell, there is some hope that that is something that can be done. It really has to get done at this point because, as you know and the reporting has shown, there are millions and millions of Americans Still unemployed. The coronavirus number of cases are hitting record levels day after day now and this past election week we just saw. Things are getting worse and there has been in action from washington and from the congress. This is a time where the two sides really do need to come together for the american people. Host our guest is a familiar face on cspan and wears out shoe leather covering the house. The senior staff writer with the hill and we welcome your calls and comments, looking eight i head to the 117th election, the results in the house these are the numbers. Your publication published this morning this tweet about a recent northern virginia. This is the headline you comments you made in that Conference Call last week with democrats, the headline in the Washington Times this morning guest for the past six months, we have seen the two wings of the Democratic Party come together to coalesce around joe biden. Andaw Bernie Sanders alexandria ocasiocortez, the two progressive leaders, some for joe biden urge the progressive wing to really come out and vote for him which they didnt in 2016 which was in some part why Hillary Clinton lost to donald trump four years ago. Bidenks like now with joe , the president elect and his administration, preparing to come into power the focus now is what types of policies will the Biden Administration implement, how strong of a stance the progressive wing will have on that administration as it moves forward and also, as you mentioned, we are seeing someone about postmortem happening, a blame game with a lot of fingerpointing between spanberger and many others including james clyburn, the majority whip, pointing to the defund the Police Movement we saw from progressives that was echoed by a lot of progressive lawmakers. Spanberger is saying because of that embrace and because of the way republicans branded all democrats with the defund the runningovement and millions of dollars in as against them, that was why democrats saw at least seven or as many as 12 incumbent democrats go down to defeat last tuesday. Counterargument is that progressives including aoc say that without the Progressive Energy we saw from the base, from the liberal base, that without that energy, joe biden would not have put been put over the top and is very close election in a handful of swing states. This is typical after an election. People try to assess what happened. It was a big surprise for the Democratic Party but these conversations are all happening behind the scenes and some of them are playing out in public [indiscernible]. Host congress will lose one female member, the Vice President elect, Kamala Harris will even there will be a special election i assume shortly thereafter in california but the headline in the hill points to this right, it is a very that was one of the storylines which sort of got lost on Election Night was that House Republicans, Kevin Mccarthy and the nrc see chairman had an extreme we good night in terms of recruiting women to serve, recruiting minorities to serve. In fact, most of the seats they picked up were picked up by women and minorities. There are still a handful of races that have yet to be called including out in california, young kim, a korean american woman, a republican is on the verge of defeating cisneros in california. There is a number this is a very diverse class and this has been a big problem for republicans in the past. A cycle ago, they only picked up and added to the ranks one republican woman. It was a big concern so they surey worked hard to make they have a diverse recruiting class and to everyones surprise, really did pay off for the republicans. I think they are on track to add at least a dozen republican size ofoubling the their female caucus in the House Republican congress conference. Host the National Journal tweets this lets get to the calls and hear from june 1 in silver spring, maryland, democrat. Make sure you moocher volume, go ahead with your comment or question for scott long. Comment is i dont understand or maybe you can explain to me why are they fighting so much when they should have the country come together and make it a better place for everyone . I just dont understand. If they are the leaders, they should set an example for other countries. This country is a laughingstock. I assume she is talking about the squabbling and the democratic caucus. What do you think . Guest i actually took that to mean the president contesting the result of this election. All of the networks and the Associated Press whom we rely on have called the race for joe biden. For all intents and purposes, it looks like a done deal and now the president s team is trying to litigate these results in places like pennsylvania and we are heading to a recount in georgia in the president ial race which is close. It seems when you talk to some republicans, they are not certain that this will change the result, that the litigation or protesting from the president and his team will change the results. What it does in a dangerous fashion is undermine our election system. It undermines democracy. The world is looking in a strange way as to whats happening in the United States and we have not seen this for some time. Host we have heard from very few republican senators congratulating joe biden. Lisa murkowski and mitt romney did but are you expecting other republican senators to make their statements . Past if you days have no and so i think we are probably we did hear from mitt romney am a one of the Senior Republicans in the party. If you look at the republicans who have waited and congratulated joe biden on his white house victory, a lot of them are people who either have been opposed to donald trump and have issues with donald trump including mitt romney, or people who are on their way out of Congress Like Francis Rooney of florida, a congressman who served as an basset or for george w. Bush and hes retiring and has extended his congratulations to the biden harris team. For the folks who see a future in the Republican Party or are perhaps looking to run in 2024 for president against joe biden, those people i think are following the lead of the president in contesting the sew some and want to kind of doubt and the results even though the results are clear. Joe biden has one then by more than 4 million votes and thats expected to increase significantly in the Electoral College vote was a pretty convincing win as well and is expected to grow if he does pick up georgia. On those two fronts, it was a very good night for joe biden even though the results took a while to get there. Host lets hear from richard in california, democrats line. Caller yes, i really think this is a time for the Republican Party to cooperate will step biden is the kind of guy, when you get down to it, he respects all his republican colleagues. Trump towont have placate, to worry about his attacks because he is on his way out. Crisis, a pandemic were over 1000 People Per Day are dying, where we have economic strife of all those people unemployed in small businesses. I think between biden and his and reallymake deals the respect his best friend was john mccain and ted kennedy. What does that say . I think all the false allegations of the election will just blow by. One of the problems is the Electoral College. Nobody should win by 5 million votes. That is a larger issue. Its the time for exactly what was spoken to by biden and harris of coming together and cooperating and quit the demonizing and people can sympathize with all of the Trump Supporters but in the long run, if you really look at who is fighting for the Trump Supporters, its the democrats. They just havent realized it. I hope that happens. Who knows . We may get the senate with the two senate seats in georgia. You heard from the president elect on saturday night. His message on the message from his entire team since the tuesday hasults on been of unity. He has said this is a time when both sides need to come together. He says he will facilitate that coming together. He echoed president obama when he said there are no red states and blue states, just the United States. He is setting an entirely different tone than the current occupant of the white house. He understands how divided the country is and understands the challenges that this country faces at the moment. A is coming into office at very difficult time. I cannot help but think of the parallels to when president 2009 came into office in after the economic crisis. The first thing they did was pass a big stimulus package that included big infrastructure pieces. There are a lot of parallels and of course we are dealing with the Coronavirus Health pandemic that is very different but in terms of the economy, in terms challenges,mic biden is facing a similar situation to president obama who he served under. Host lets go to our republican line. Caller i want to tell you you cheated on the election. You used a scorecard. Signals Intelligence Program devised by the nsa and you used to use it for the islamic terrorists. It changes the vote midstream. A had ohio, florida, texas and then you stopped midstream. And that was so you could get your news signal put in. Host who do you think was running this . They stopped until the next day and thats when you put your signal and. We won half the country and then you put your signal in. It stopped it and then the other half is when biden one and he got all of those. Host on her allegations of cheating on the election, as you pointed out, there are lawsuits in a contested election going on. What do you think the role of the Biden Administration or the biden elect administration is to reassure voters who are doubtful about the way the election happens . Guest there certainly has to be an acknowledgment that 70 million American Voters did cast their ballots for President Trump. I would have to say i was surprised as were many people in washington and around the country that those numbers were simply not reflected in the polls and there has to be a reckoning that will happen with our polling system and how those are conducted. Reporters like myself and you and many others in this town rely on those poles to get a sense of what is going to happen. Certainly, the democrats in congress were caught flatfooted. They did not see that happening and they certainly didnt anticipate they would be losing seats in the house of representatives. Nancy pelosi thought they would gain seats. Some people talked about as many as 520 gains for democrats in this past election and the reason why that is so significant is because that would pad their majority as a buffer in advance of 2022, the midterms, with president elect biden in office, we note probably will be a rough election cycle for the democrats, certainly the inublicans are within reach 2022 of taking back the majority and are wellpositioned. There are real implications to the turnout that we saw from President Trump. In terms of biden and how they can guarantee or assure the need to public, they look and allow the folks who run these elections to continue to count ballots. Many of the ballots are mailin ballots that were sent in before and for reasons determined by state legislators including in pennsylvania, they are counted after election day. Thats why we are continuing to see the counting continue in many of these states. Its a slow process but it is the process that is established by many of these states. Host joe biden not the only winner this weekend, number of congressional races and you saturday, the race in David Schweikert is considered a moderate republican so how does he fit in . Is the republican conference more diverse now . We talked about women coming into the conference, what is the overall republican Conference Look like . Guest i would just say in terms of David Schweikert, he is a conservative, he is a fiscal conservative who happens to represent a district in scottsdale just outside in the affluent phoenix suburbs. He has had a number of top phrases and has had some ethics issues he has been dealing with. He was somebody who democrats thought they could knock out of his seat. I think thats one of the storylines, another storyline we saw from tuesday as the count continues and the numbers are being reported and we are seeing who won and who lost. Did not unseat a single republican incumbent. Democrats thought that they could pick up anywhere from 520 knit seats. They have not unseated a single republican congressman yet. They did pick up a couple of seats down in North Carolina due that favoreding democrats. They did pick up a seat of retiring congressman ron woodall in the suburbs of atlanta. In terms of what they had expected to do and knock off a ton of incumbents, that simply has not materialized and it did not materialize in the David Schweikert rest. Host lets hear from North Carolina next. Caller thank you for taking my call. I just want to point out that im proud to be an american regardless of the election or whatever. Im glad to be born here and have a right to express my opinion. However, there is some troubling things about the election that have come forward. One, i would like to know , if nancy pelosi holds interest in the Software Company that ive been seeing that had computer glitches throughout many of the states and some of them were flipped for trump and then turned back to biden. Number two, my point is, a Health Care Issue that i just do realizes that america the point of Affordable Health care. Public,it be private or wrongeople, i think its that people should make a profit off of sick people. I think the establishment for that that is just unreasonable to me to have not toble insurance but have these Insurance Companies making millions and millions of profit and paying for Peoples Health insurance when they cant even afford to just the premiums. Host thank you for the call, scott wong, on Speaker Pelosi and her election affiliation with any Software Company, do you know anything about that . Guest i have not heard that. Frustrating but positive things about our aretion system is that they run by counties and states. They are run really at the local level which is why it takes a long time to count these votes. Sometimes votes are coming in from a third world or parts of different states. Means that almost never is there a case of widespread voter systemscause these are that are controlled by local governments and counties specifically. It becomes very difficult for foreign country like russia or some of our adversaries were china to come in and interfere on a widespread basis with our elections because they are run, in some cases, by counties that a republican in some counties that are democrat. That is one of the great things about our election system is that they are run by local officials. I just saw this morning on 60 minutes, a republican official in philadelphia who has been responsible for part of this vote counting process was saying that there are no irregularity irregularities he seen a system been a portly there are people making threats against him and others in philadelphia but he was but a republican was trying to assure concern voters that the votes are being tallied appropriately. Its just taking a little bit of time and he asks for patients. Host lets get one more quick call from linda in new jersey on our democrats line. Caller yes, good morning, gentlemen. Say that i i want to am the noncollegeeducated white woman, i am in my 50s and my thoughts are that seniors often in my state which is a blue state vote down ballot because they are familiar with some of the people, the names and the faces and often, the younger boaters are the people and the Younger Voters seniors who are conservative, are not voting for the down ballot candidates. Thats why there are 70 Million People voting for the former president and now for joe biden, president elect. He has over 75 million plus. My point is that the moderates will make a difference in the congress. Hopefully, it will be 5050 in the senate. From there, we will work. Thats what joe does, he works, thank you. Host scott wong, final thoughts on that or anything ahead you are reporting on . Guest when joe biden first 30 or 40he Congress Years ago, it was a much different type of place than it is today. It was a time when you could reach across the aisle. He had many friends on the republican side of the aisle and more recently, he has done deals with Mitch Mcconnell. After fourcongress, years of President Trump, after this very, very divisive partisan election, it is going to be very difficult, i think, for the two sides to come together if there is a divided government on anything really meaningful. I heard you mention earlier about infrastructure and the joke around town about it is always infrastructure read week. President trump said infrastructure was one of his Top Priorities and in a divided government, we did not see that top priority run up to the top at all. We did not see any action on infrastructure and the four years of this trump administration. To see be very difficult anything really meaningful come together if we do see a divided government. The problem solvers in the house who are bipartisan groups think they will be, they think all eyes will be on them like people like susan collins, but it is hard to see anything really meaningful take place in the next year if we have a split government. Host scott wong, senior staff writer with a hill and you can read h journal. s washington every day, we take your calls on the news of the day and to discuss policy issues that impact you. Tuesday morning, a discussion of the senates leadership election , then well talk about the Affordable Care act case being heard by the Supreme Court with katie keith of georgetown university. A discussion of the biden president ial transition with Virginia Tech Political Science professor and white house transition project Advisory Board member. Watch cspans washington journal at 7 00 eastern Tuesday Morning and be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook messages, texts, and tweets. Live on tuesday, the Supreme Court hears oral argument in a consolidated case that questions the constitutionality of the Affordable Care act. Thats at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. On cspan2, naacp president Derek Johnson talks about the 2020 results and the impact of black voters and the Racial Justice movement. At noon, the nomination of james knapp to be a District Court judge for northern ohio. At 11 00 eastern on cspan three, the former acting fbi director Andrew Mccabe testifies before the Senate Judiciary committee as part of its investigation into the fbis russia probe. As the u. S. Senate
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