Photo. We begin with nbcs Aaron Gilchrist in New Hampshire where President Biden just touched down a short time ago. Aaron, what are we expecting there . Reporter chris, good afternoon, we expect to hear from the president near the bottom of the hour here, and this is an official event as opposed to the Campaign Events we saw on saturday and on friday in philadelphia area, and in atlanta. Today the president s focus as we understand it from a white house official, will be on lowering health care costs, something he talked about during the state of the Union Address and will reiterate today, highlighting in particular his call on congress to make some changes to enact some policies that he believes would Lower Health Care costs, proposals that are in the president s budget that was released today, the 2025 budget. In particular, theres one portion of the president s policy plan that would reduce rather, cap costs for prescription drugs, theyre drugs that are already capped for people wh
Creeping further to the right since donald trump s presidency. there s a new faction within the house gop, and it s the result of a surge of far-right by filling the halls of capitol hill. the new york times reports, quote, as a republican party s move further to the right, the fringe has become the mainstream. this was the ranks of the freedom caucus plan makes it difficult for the group to stay aligned on policy and strategy. the rise of another hard right faction in the house calling itself, the 20. including some members of the caucus and some who have long refused to join, has raised questions in recent months about where the real power lies on the right. the 20 is a very exclusive, and very mysterious. it stems from the well-established hard-line house freedom caucus. the freedom caucus was established in 2015, just
Less likely for bipartisan legislation to pass. it really just depends. first of all, it seems like inhaling some of those emissions he s talking about. there s no good emissions from a gas guzzling car, certainly not in black communities that suffer from asthma and everything else. that said, when you think about a narrow majority for the republicans, that could be good or bad. it could force the speaker to find democratic votes and more moderate republican votes to get things done, like for instance to avoid a debt ceiling crisis. at the same time, if the freedom caucus is able to enforce this idea that there could be a snap election and basically put a gun to the head of the speaker, which is what they want. they want to be alk to have a snap recall of the speaker, it could put the new speaker in a very precarious situation. that s why kevin mccarthy is holding out and doesn t want to give this weapon to the freedom
Speaker of the house in january, presuming republicans are in the majority, he will need 218 votes of the full house, and with all democrats almost certain to vote against him, that means he will need to keep most of the house republicans on his side, and we do expect if there is a republican majority it will be a narrow one meaning a handful of defections could be enough to keep him underneath that 218 vote threshold, which is why this vote that s going to happen behind closed doors by secret ballot is so significant because we will know how much work kevin mccarthy has in order to secure that 218 vote threshold. he does have a challenger, andy biggs, a conservative, a member of that hard line house freedom caucus. biggs cdoes not have the voteso become nominated speaker, but to extract concessions in which rank and file members as part of that freedom caucus want to exert more leverage, power over the spikeeakership.
Caucus. he wants to be able to fwgovern. he is an institutionalist. he could be able to work with moderate republicans, moderate democrats and get some stuff done, but he could be held hostage to the freedom caucus. good to see you both, thank you so much. thank you. don t forget to tune in tomorrow when former vice president mike pence joins jake tame tapper for a live cnn town hall. did russia hold off announcing a major loss on the battlefield just to avoid giving president biden a, quote, win before the midterms? we have new exclusive cnn reporting. and after the crackdown, airlines are paying up. if you had a flight canceled or delayed since the start of the pandemic, you may be getting a refund. plus, critics called it a political stunt. now new text messages we veal the high level coordination between the florida governor s office and a woman named perla who is recruiting migrants for