Monday Morning Politics: The Next Congress, And The Next Presidential Election

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend, and that the only super spreader events at your gathering is with a butter and the cream cheese. Happy Cyber Monday to everyone going shopping online today looking for those Black Friday kinds of deals without having to put up with shopping malls. Remember to shop local when you can, your neighborhood businesses often have websites too.

The holiday season this year brings a strange moment in American politics. The Democratic lame-duck Congress is trying to go out with a flourish history-making Speaker Nancy Pelosi characteristically being a fighter until the very end and trying to get some last things done before the Dems lose control of the House like passing a same-sex marriage bill to protect that institution from future Supreme Court challenges.

They might have enough Republican votes in the Senate to actually do that, even with the filibuster, before Republicans have the House majority in January. As the Republicans get ready to have that majority, well, that's where this really gets weird because they don't have consensus on who they'll elect a speaker yet. Probably, it will be Kevin McCarthy, who's been the minority leader, but he's getting pressure, especially for the most right-wing Republicans.

He's making promises like to investigate private businesses that help pay for women employees to travel out of state for legal abortions, or that are implementing progressive environmental and social policies at their companies.

Also, McCarthy would launch an impeachment investigation, he has already said, of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, over southern border policies and reinstate Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to committee assignments after she was removed last year for making bigoted remarks and supporting conspiracy theories like QAnon and the World Trade Center, the 9/11 attacks didn't really happen.

McCarthy would remove, from committees, Democrats like Ilhan Omar, Eric Swalwell, and Adam Schiff against named those names. Here is Schiff on CNN yesterday saying why he thinks this is all happening, and it's all about getting enough votes for speaker from those far-right members.

Adam Schiff: McCarthy's problem is he can't get to 218 without Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, and so he will do whatever they ask.

Brian Lehrer: 218 votes is how many he needs to become speaker. Adam Schiff there, California congressman, on CNN State of the Union. As Kevin McCarthy or somebody tries to come in as speaker with a bang, the history-making Nancy Pelosi goes out, she hopes, with a flourish. We have a perfect guest to dig into some of the details of this weird transitional moment. It's Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today.

Susan, always great of you to make some time for us. Welcome back to WNYC. I will also mention that besides being Washington bureau chief for USA Today, you are the author of the best-selling book about Nancy Pelosi called Madam Speaker, so perfectly placed to talk about this moment. Hi, Susan.

Susan Page: Hey, Brian, it's great to be back with you.

Brian Lehrer: First of all, this funny Washington speak term for these transitional moments, a lame-duck Congress. Do you know where that comes from?

Susan Page: Well, I do know where it comes from but only because I was forewarned you were going to ask me about it. Of course, now we refer to a lame-duck politician as somebody who did not win re-election but is not yet out of office.

There's this interregnum period, before the new people get sworn in, which can sometimes be a chance for statesmanship because you've been relieved of some political pressure. It can also be a chance for some mischief. I looked up at the heritage of this phrase, it turns out it goes back to 18th century Britain where it referred to brokers who were unable to pay off their debts, and then, in the 19th century, began to be a reference to politicians.

Brian Lehrer: Here we are with these lame-duck politicians who may go out as statesmen and women or some other way. Let's talk first about how Pelosi is going out, at least from that role, she's staying in Congress, and how Kevin McCarthy or maybe someone else is coming in. What do you see as the lame-duck Congress agenda for Pelosi and the Democrats?

Susan Page: Well, the did Democrats in the House would like to do a lot of things. They would like to pass protections for DACA, for the people who are here without documentation were brought here as children. They would like to pass an assault weapons ban. They could probably do that in the House but the trouble is you have to get 60 votes to get almost anything through the Senate to end the filibuster.

The lame-duck agenda, I think, is things that must get done. They have to pass a government funding bill because the government runs out of money in December. They really need to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, which sets defense policy, it's traditionally been a bipartisan matter and that is expected to get through.

They're going to consider whether to raise the debt ceiling, less clear whether they're going to do that. There are two things that they do have the votes in the Senate to do. One is the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify same-sex marriage that's gotten a lot of attention and energy since the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, raised questions about whether the High Court would continue to see a right to same-sex marriage.

The other is the Electoral Count Act, which is a measure that's designed to make it very clear that the vice president cannot up-end the results of the election, while they're counting the Electoral College votes. That was something that became an issue, you might remember, last January 6th.

Brian Lehrer: I think I've heard about that. Relevant to that, there's an article in USA Today about states that have past created these election fraud units like policing units after January 6th, to make sure, in the 2022 midterm elections, that that fraud that they were sure happened in 2020, but couldn't ever prove wouldn't happen in 2022. According to the article that your paper published, they didn't find very much.

Susan Page: Well, it's definitely an investigation in search of a crime. We know that they're limited scattered incidents of election fraud. We have no history in modern times of significant levels of election fraud. The biggest price this time were 20 people in Florida, who were found to have registered to vote, even though they had felony convictions. Now, Florida has passed an amendment to its constitution that allowed felons, once they're out of prison, have served their time to restore their voting rights.

These 20 People thought they were eligible to register and they did so, and now they've been caught, because, for various reasons, they weren't eligible. That is a pretty small group in a state that had what? 14 million votes cast.

Brian Lehrer: That's not exactly trucks of fake absentee ballots being delivered to Philadelphia in the middle of the night or something like that.

Susan Page: You know, Brian, what's remarkable is that they found nothing like that, nothing. Previous investigations, including by the Trump Justice Department, found no evidence of significant election fraud, and yet, we continue to have a majority of Republicans say they do not believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected president. The falsehood that Donald Trump has pressed since the 2020 election, has taken hold with a lot of Americans despite a complete lack of evidence that it's true.

Brian Lehrer: This revision to the Electoral Count Act, I guess it's to give extra insurance against a repeat of the January 6th shenanigans, not the riot, but what Trump and most Republicans in Congress tried to pull off with their votes and like what they tried to get Mike Pence to do, that sort of thing?

Susan Page: Yes, that's exactly right. Now, most lawyers thought this was already clear in the previous law but it was a law that was apparently sloppily written, it didn't foreclose [unintelligible 00:09:04] It didn't define in such a precise way what the vice president was there to do.

This law makes it clear that the vice president is there to preside over this occasion in a ceremonial way. It also raises the number of members of Congress who have to object to force a review of a state's electoral college slate. It's still a pretty low bar, but it makes it a little higher than the old law did.

It's designed really to make it clear what the intent of the founders were with the original way that the accounting of the electoral votes was set up.

Brian Lehrer: I want to play a clip of Pelosi from the speech she gave the other week announcing that she would stay in the house from San Francisco but not run for Democratic leader  again, as she reflected on what she might consider one of her last victories, which is the way these elections turned out. Yes, Republicans took control, but no red wave, and especially because a lot of the election deniers actually lost. Here she is.

Nancy Pelosi: With these elections, the people stood in the breach and repelled the assault on democracy. They were soundly rejected violence and insurrection, and in doing so, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

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Brian Lehrer: That line, Susan, and I talked about it on the day after the speech on the show, gave me chills. The way she invoked the pledge of allegiance there in talking about the election results, even in defeat of her conference. For you, who wrote a biography of Nancy Pelosi, I wonder how you heard that?

Susan Page: Pretty remarkable. She was one of the few Democrats who continued to insist that Democrats would do pretty well in the midterms. In fact, she said she thought Democrats could hold the House. It came pretty close. They didn't quite do that, but it was a better election for Democrats than almost anybody expected. She takes that as some vindication of the agenda the Democrats have pursued for the last two years and a repudiation of some of the things she has worked so hard against, including, for instance, the January 6th assault on the capital and other attacks on Democratic fundamentals.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you have any questions or comments for Susan Page on the lame duck session of Congress, this transitional moment, the speaker Kevin McCarthy, or not speaker Kevin McCarthy era about to dawn, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. More thoughts about Nancy Pelosi as she leaves the speakership. 212-433-9692 or anything on this lame-duck agenda.

What they're trying to do right now and may or may not be able to do from keeping the government running with the basic funding bill to some of the more dramatic things like preserving same-sex marriage and revising the Electoral Count Act or even enshrining DACA allowing the so-called Dreamers, that generation of undocumented immigrants to stay. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer for Susan Page.

In your best-selling biography of Pelosi that came out last year called Madam Speaker, was getting Obamacare through the House her proudest legislative accomplishment?

Susan Page: Yes. I talked to her again just after the speech that you just played. She met with a small group of reporters after she came off the floor and she continues to say that is the most significant piece of legislation of her tenure. It's one for which she bears a lot of responsibility for getting it done.

Brian Lehrer: Were you one of those who saw Pelosi as being frustrated with Obama's obsession as I think she may have seen it with trying to get bipartisan support for things he tried with Obamacare and failed? There were other things too, like Cap and Trade to help prevent climate change which both he and John McCain, his Republican opponent, had run on.

Then it didn't obviously go through because I think the Republicans under Mitch McConnell decided, no, our job here is to stop Obama's agenda even if we agreed with some of the policy items in the past. I'm just curious if you found anything like that in their relationship that Pelosi was trying to put more what partisan spine into Obama's back, or how would you describe any of that?

Susan Page: That's such a great question because they had a very complicated relationship. They have huge respect for each other. I interviewed President Obama in working on the book and he acknowledged the big debt he has to Pelosi for the Affordable Care Act and other measures. He also said that she could be-- She didn't use the word pushy. I can't remember the word he used, but that she only had one gear and it was full speed ahead all the time.

She also always expresses great respect for President Obama and appreciation. On the other hand, she maneuvered to make sure that he went after the big version of the Affordable Care Act at a point when his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and others were urging him to curtail his ambitions. She did not allow that to happen. As it turned out, when she told the president she could get it through, she delivered.

Brian Lehrer: Obamacare too was based on a Republican model from when Mitt Romney-- How much people have forgotten this. When Mitt Romney was the Republican governor of Massachusetts and tried to bring in universal health insurance coverage, but using the marketplace, not like Medicare, where it's all government insurance, but using the marketplace, which is what Obamacare did. It created these exchanges of private insurance companies. It was Romneycare, once upon a time, it was a Republican idea that Obama was trying to adapt to the national stage and the Republicans blocked it.

Pelosi's role in that, as you were just describing, was so important for how fierce she was. I'm curious how much she has a similar relationship with Joe Biden because he also came in, of course, after the hyper-polarizing Trump presidency like Obama came in after a pretty darn polarizing bush presidency and Biden came in with the same kind of thing. Oh, I was in the Senate for so many years. I helped to craft many bipartisan pieces of legislation. Was there a parallel in the last two years?

Susan Page: Well, I do think that Pelosi is a skeptic on the reality of bipartisanship in this era. I think she understands that presidents may have other views or that it's important to the nation to express the aspiration of bipartisanship. I think she just doesn't see it happening these days. She's always been quite a partisan figure from a safe Democratic district, very much a Democrat in her DNA. Her dad was a member of Congress and the mayor of Baltimore and an FDR Democrat himself.

While I think that Pelosi deserves enormous credit for a really substantial legacy, I think you'd have to say that she's also operated in and helped fuel the partisanship that we see today.

Brian Lehrer: Fair enough. One thing about Biden, I also see that you have a USA Today/Ipsos poll out now, which finds that support for Biden 2024 has surged since the election among Democrats. Tell us more. What did you find?

Susan Page: This is so interesting, and I think it's had an effect on the internal democratic debate on whether Biden should seek a second term. What we found was, in this poll, we took a week after the election. It was after the returns were in, we knew who had won. The number of Democratic voters who thought Biden could win in 2024 went up, it went up to 71%. When we asked this question in August, only 60% felt that way.

The number who thought, "Yes, Biden deserves a second term, I would like to see him renominated," went up too. It's a 50/50 split. That's not fantastic, but it's better than it was in August when 56% said it was time for a change and 44% said he deserved reelection. This is definitely victory, and the midterms have convinced some Democrats that Biden can lead them to victory two years down the road.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Are there other people who get mentioned when people who don't want Biden to run say they would like somebody younger or somebody fresher, somebody with more progressive values or more of a fighter like Pelosi or whatever it is? Are there names that are getting mentioned?

Susan Page: Well, there are names of-- There are any number of Democrats who would like to run for president and would like to be president, and everybody from Pete Buttigieg to Gretchen Whitmer to Governor Newsom. You could drop a list of 20 Democrats who see themselves as presidential prospects, but so far none of them have said that they would challenge Biden if he chooses to run again. That is a really important point. We know, historically, that when a president gets challenged within his own party for a second term, as, for instance, Jimmy Carter did as George H. W Bush did, it weakens them and they often then lose the general election. So far, Democrats have been waiting for Biden to make a final decision, which he says he'll do early in the new year.  So far, we have no signs of anyone with any credibility who is willing to take him on.

Brian Lehrer: That's a really important thing to mention. Like you say, they're going to defer to Biden, at least as of now if he announces that he will definitely run again. There's a little on the Democrats folks about to lose power in the house. Now let's turn the page with Susan Page and talk about the Republicans coming in. When is the vote for Speaker of the House, and how close is Kevin McCarthy to having the votes?

Susan Page: Well, the vote would be on January 3rd, when the new Congress convenes and are sworn in. Kevin McCarthy does not now have the votes to win. He got 188 votes in the Republican caucus, he needs to get 218 if everyone is there and voting, and he's not there. You mentioned his problems with the Freedom Caucus, which just sells very conservative members, maybe up to about 30 of them, who have been demanding concessions.

He's got problems on his other flank. He has 17 Republican members who were elected from districts that voted for Joe Biden in 2020. The desires and agenda for the moderates in his caucus, it's very different than the one from the Freedom Caucus. To negotiate that is going to be really tough because he's got no room to maneuver. He's only got to probably have 222 Republicans, he needs 218 of them, that gives him no cushion for defections.

Brian Lehrer: What do some of the people-- I mentioned in the intro some of the things that he might do to mollify the people to his right, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was stripped of committee assignments last year by Pelosi and House Democrats joined by about a dozen Republicans for what was described at the time as her history of trafficking and racism, antisemitism and baseless conspiracy theories.

Perhaps that McCarthy would reinstate her. I think he's had some joint appearances with her on cracking down on corporations that implement what they call woke policies. You could tell me how much of that you think is actually going on, but also what's the pressure from the other side? What do the more moderate Republicans want?

Susan Page: The more moderate Republicans would want a focus on things like the economy and jobs and inflation and issues that resonate with voters of all sorts. Meanwhile, you've got more conservative members, looking for investigations. We had Congressman Comer from Kentucky, who is going to be the new Republican Chair of the House Oversight Committee was on Meet the Press yesterday. He said that he thought they would be pursuing 40 to 50 investigations.

Investigations of all sorts of the Biden administration of the Afghanistan, withdrawal of Hunter Biden, of that COVID relief funds, and how they were distributed. There is a really different tone between the two--

Brian Lehrer: Wouldn't McCarthy's answer and maybe it would even be true, be that we can do all of these things, we can follow a policy track, and deal with inflation and deal with crime, and whatever in their way, and at the same time, we can investigate the Democrats?

Susan Page: I'm sure that is the argument he will make, but what's your priority? How far are you willing to go? To what degree do you focus on investigations? Do you make that your cause? Do you try to pass any sort of legislation that would have a chance to get to the Democratic-controlled Senate? I think these are more difficult questions than you might think.

I think it's entirely possible that McCarthy doesn't get elected Speaker. I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility at all. In fact, at this moment, I think it's maybe more likely than not.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Dan in Brooklyn with a question about that, I think. Dan, you're on WNYC with Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today. Hi, Dan.

Dan: Hello. Hey, thanks, Susan. Thanks for calling in or joining us. To be fair, I'm from the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, just driving through Brooklyn, but as a Pennsylvania country bumpkin, I don't understand the rules. You just mentioned that Kevin McCarthy may not be elected. What is the procedure if he doesn't get 218 votes? I also don't know, can he get votes from the Democrats, or is it only within his own party? I just don't understand it whatsoever. If you could enlighten me, please.

Susan Page: Dan, no, more important state in this last election than Pennsylvania.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, I'm a country bumpkin from Queens and I don't understand it either. I'm glad Dan asked.

Susan Page: Hey, by the way, I'm from Kansas. You guys have on me in terms of country bumpkin hood. In the election for speaker, Democrats would be free to vote for Kevin McCarthy. I would find that pretty surprising. I think they'll probably be voting for Hakeem Jeffries for speaker with their votes. The thing that makes getting elected Speaker tricky is that you don't have to beat somebody with somebody, all you have to do is defeat the candidate who has been proposed, been nominated.

It's not as though you the people who might oppose McCarthy have to come up with a candidate of their own that can get 218 votes, they just need to vote against McCarthy, keep them below that threshold, and it would throw it back to the Republican caucus to figure out who they wanted to nominate instead, or whether they had some strategy for getting their votes aligned.

There's also one procedural thing that Pelosi used in 2018. People forget, Nancy Pelosi faced a reasonably serious challenge to her leadership and to her election as speaker in 2018. There was definitely some sense it was time for a new generation of leaders.

Brian Lehrer: More from the center of the party, right? Tim Ryan from Ohio predominantly?

Susan Page: That's exactly right. It was from the center of the party but it was also a sense that she has been leader for so long, let's get some new blood. There were any number of new members of Congress who had promised in their campaigns not to vote for Pelosi for speaker, and she convinced enough of those to simply not vote for anybody. You have to get a majority of those present and voting for somebody. Every person who looks present lowers the threshold to win the speakership. That's also a maneuver that McCarthy might be able to use.

Brian Lehrer: We have 15 seconds left, if not McCarthy, who? Are there any names?

Susan Page: I think Steve Scalise would be the likely choice. Close to McCarthy, very popular, has been in the leadership, and you remember, he survived that terrible shooting at the congressional baseball practice sometime ago.

Brian Lehrer: Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today. She is also author of the best selling biography, Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power. She also wrote the Matriarch Barbara Bush and The Making of an American Dynasty and by the way, in case you didn't hear folks, she's now working on a biography of TV journalist Barbara Walters, a book to look forward to coming in 2023, which is, all of a sudden, nearly upon us. Susan, thanks as always.

Susan Page: Hey, thank you, Brian.

 

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