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democracy. >> a discussion of campaign 2022 and at the senate with jacob with inside elections reporting analyst for the publication. thanks for joining us. >> happy to be here. >> can you set the stage for us as far as where the setting is snow at 12022 could bring as fr as control of the senate? >> the senate is currently split as evenly as possible. fifty democrats and 50 republicans. now, when joe biden's president and harris is vice president that means the democrats had a functional majority in the chamber because vice president. this has the tie-breaking vote however in the 2022 elections, we are looking at a battlefield that while small still could determine control of the senate which is on the line this november. either democrats or republicans walked out of 2022 with control

of this very important chamber. >> if that's the case, what are the most important reason ise u are watching that determines that ultimate outcome? >> so the races that are up for election this fall there are eight that we are watching most closely that we believe are the most competitive with an evenly split battlefield like the senate is evenly split. there are four democratically held seats and for republican seats that we are watching on the democratic side that's arizona, georgia, new hampshire and nevada. on the republican side that's wisconsin, pennsylvania, north carolina and florida. >> host: to talk about specifics, you mentioned arizona. i'm assuming, correct me if i'm wrong, that's senator cinemas seat and something people are watching particularly was played out the last few months in the senate with her. >> this is actually senator kelly's seat even though he was

just elected last year, two years ago, he has to run for election again because that was a special election over the remainder of the late senator john mccain's seat. so mark kelly is often in a similar situation in georgia where rafael just one what feels like two weeks ago but has to run again inin the fall. but the controversy surrounding senator cinema and her relationship with the democratic base is playing a role in the 2022 election in arizona and it puts senator kelly in a bit of an awkward position as he is trying to both hold onto the most of his voters in the democratic party.

[inaudible] but if so evenly divided so while voters will not get their chance to determine the senator's next couple of years until 2024, she still is finding herself playing a role in these elections in 2022. >> host: thank you for the correction. you mentioned new hampshire being at play. talk about that race. >> new hampshire is of all the democratic seats the one we see democrats with of the strongest at the moment. nevada, georgia and arizona we have the tossup sand new hampshire we see the democratic race and the reason that is is because republicans have helped incumbent governor sununu would've rinsed against incumbent senator and they believe that this was the best possible candidate not just in that race but potentially any reason the country this cycle and that if he ran he would be the automatic favorite of a lot of republicans i spoke to they spoke about that as a certainty

for a pickup opportunity when they believed chris sununu would run. of course he decided not to run and launched a pretty blistering attack on the united states senate as an institution saying he had no interest in going to work there and would much rather remain governor so what that means is the republicans now have to sort through a primary election to find their nominee. they have a whole bunch of different candidates in that state and the primary isn't until september, it's one of the latest in the country so if they haveth to face a mildly popular universally well-known and well-funded incumbent governor, he gets to sit back, build up her support within the state while republicans are busy fighting it out among themselves until the september primary and that's why along with new hampshire it's a little bit more democratic than the sum of the other states and why we see that as democrats are best positioned

at the moment. >> host: this is jacob of inside. democrats, (202)748-8000 and independent 8002 if you want to talk to him about the senate particularly when it comes to elections in 2022 and what the senate might look like after. you talked about the democrats. we are looking at for republican raises that we view as particularly competitive and the interesting thing about the republican side is we have seen quitere a few retirements out of the republican senators. five of them one retirement from a state seat of the democratic senators so in pennsylvania, senator pat toomey is retiring and that makes it to the democrats best chance at a pickup race this cycle. while we still feel republicans are slightly favored given the national environment,

pennsylvania was one of those in the presidential election that's an open raising that there are good candidates and it's a real opportunity for democrats. then you've got wisconsin where senator ron johnson has finally announced that he is running for reelection. another state that was closese in 2016 and 2020 because johnson is an incumbent and a democrat's ae still working through the primary and won't have a nominee until mid august. after that we have north carolina, and other republican n retirement, senator richard burr. a similar situation. a big republican primary. democratic. democrats already have the presumptive nominee and the former state supreme court justice so she has already transitioned to general election mode and republicans are still figuring it out but north carolina is a bit more republican intrinsically so we

view the republicans is slightly favored in that race as well and then finally we've got florida which always seems to play host to these competitive elections no matter what the national political environment is and there we already have the general matchup with the incumbent senator running for a third term and then on the democratic side the congresswoman and the almost certain democratic nominee that has been raising a ton of money and while she faces an uphill battle in florida only a few democrats have won statewide in thee last decade. she is a strong candidate and it's a race we have to watch because like i said, florida evenca when the raises are not t close they are still close by any other state standard. >> we talk about the president's approval ratings and p where thy stand. how much of a determining factor order those ratings on the thraises and can things change

before november? >> the president's approval ratings played a huge role in the midterm elections and that's because the president isn't on the ballot so they don't have a way to take out their frustration directly on him and historically speaking they take it out on the party instead. if we go back and look at the last 100 years of the elections it is quite consistent the party in power in the white house almost always loses the seats in the house of representatives and more often than not loses seats in the united states senate as well. the trend is more consistent in the house but it's pretty clear across the board having an unpopular president is a drag on the president's party. that's because voters are generally unhappy and they go for the next best thing which is the president's party. we look at a few situations

which the party in power didn't lose control and gained ground. generally in times when it's been quite popular as the best example it's probably the 2002 midterms in which republicans actually gained seats in the house and senate despite george w. bush being in power and that's because the country was still reeling from 9/11 and very much behind george bush politically speaking. that's not the case in 2022. joe biden is an unpopular president and that spells trouble for democrats and the house of representatives. in the senate it is a little bit different because the map is more constrained. not every senator is up for reelection this time and democrats up to benefit of only defending seats in states that joe biden one and 2020. so they do have a bit of a built in advantage however things are

so bad for the president at the moment that a lot of those very close states like georgia and arizona. from zephyrhills florida, you are first up. go ahead. >> i want to ask why people always say the house and senate are evenly divided he had the power is evenly divided when the senate has that filibuster which means we have no power in the senate at all. democrats have no power. >> i think in some cases that certainly is true when it comes to i legislating it is far more difficult to pass most

legislation and when you can't overcome a filibuster but i wouldn't say there's no power. in the last year or so demonstrated that pretty well when democrats passed several trillion dollars of spending on the release packages with no republican v vote stated that wh just 50 votes and we are going to see another example of this in the coming months. that person may pass with no republican votes because itt could do nominations and appointments on a simple majority. i think the reason why we have seen such a lack of every day legislating coming out of the senate over the last decade or more is because so much needs

the 60 votes to pass, but there are also things that a democratic president and majority can do with 50 votes in the united states senate. and if democrats lose the senate, provided the last few years of the first term, it's going to get a lot more uncomfortable for him even more so than it already is now with the difficulties they have. >> joe, independent line. >> thank you for taking my call. and i just wanted to ask, i mean,ic what are the republicans going to run on in 2016 they promised to repeal and replace. they didn't do it. they've done nothing on immigration. they didn't address, they didn't do anything but lie about how many miles of wall the build. now they are going to be running in the month or two you're going to be running and campaigning i guess i should say but what are

they going to run on? president trump who was twice impeached refused to look at evidence. they took an oath to be impartial and they obviously just fiddled on that. how are they going to answer these questions? now they have a lunatic running around saying that he won. he has lied repeatedly. they got behind him and it is obvious from november 3rd. thank you. go ahead. >> what is the message generally that they will run on and on the second part, how much does the former president factor into these? >> one of the nice things about being a party that is out of power is that a lot of times the voters don'tr really care what

you're running on so much so as that you are not the other guy and that is what we are seeing at the moment focused on these areas of the biden administration. the thing i hear over and over again is inflation and cost of the border, the situation in afghanistan. they simply present themselves as an alternative and historically speaking that's an effective way to get back in power. a lot of the voters are simply looking for something new and at the gold in the midterm is to present themselves as a reasonable alternative to what we have going on at the moment. and that may well be effective because they are so dissatisfied with the direction the country is going back to the second part, the danger is that they

become unreasonable and they become perceived by the voters as unreasonable and the presence of the former government is integral. he lost the presidential election and the democrats won back the united states senate, they wanted to places like georgia and arizona. it was a rejection of trump in a pretty clear way. so with republicans decide rather than being the alternative, if they become perceived as a return, that could be a difficulty for the party heading into the midterms because the voters have already said that's not really what they want. so it's the republican quandary is how much to lean into

association with the former president. he likes to be the center of attention. it's better than joe biden, not joe biden, but they are going to have to navigate not being donald trump either if they want to have as big a success as they could. >> washington, d.c., democrats line. >> i truly believe that. and also the amount of representatives that there are allotted because i am from

washington, d.c. and with taxation without representation, we don't get a say so in the laws that are passed, legislation or anything. you also have a lot of states with a significant population, more votes, i guess more power than another state with less population. and it's very unbalanced especially when it comes to the south states. they have more power than the north in so many ways when it comes to the legislative task. i think it's said washingtonians don't have a say in the vote in the senate or congress that we pay more taxes than any other state that is in the union and it's not there.

in the evenly divided senate we saw this last year the movement to make dc no longer this unto itself territory that has 700,000 peopleat in it who don't get a vote in congress, which is absolutely the case and to grant them the representation to the senators to increase the size of the united states senate to 102. the bill to do just about past the house and died in the united states senate because of those that are not on board with the dc statehood.

it's possible that we could have seen the district of columbia admitted as a state to the union and granted those two senators but because that is subject to that threshold, there are not enough democrats and state supported republicans, some like lisa murkowski that has expressed openness coming from alaska. o there are a lot of people. there was a chance to correct that and balance at least when it comes to the district of columbia and democrats do not have the chance to pass it. the senate these days is a top place for democrats to be successful because the party is struggling so much in a smaller

and more rural places over the lasts decade. that isn't how things have always been andee there's no that is howlieve things always will be if we go back to 2008 when democrats did have that 60 vote majority in the senate, democrats had two senators from montana and two senators from north dakota and a senator from south dakota and republicans had two senators from georgia and from arizona. the balance will simply different and at the moment the two parties are positioned in such a way that democrats are at a disadvantage in the united states senate. there is no denying that. >> since you brought it up theat georgia senate race, what is the status of raphael warnock you to getting another term in the senate? >> absolutely. this will be one of the most competitive phrases among the

closestf in the entire country. raphael warnock won that victory along with john in the 2021 georgia special election runoff and now he will face in all likelihood a republican, the former star university of georgia and nfl running back who is never run for political office before butgi is a favorie of the former president trump who encouraged him to run and helped to clear the field to run. both are raising incredibly large sums of money. walker is one of the top fundraising republicans of the entire country and georgia as a state is so evenly split between democrats and republicans. both of the candidates in terms of how low they can fall into very low ceiling in terms of how many voters there are out there foran them to get. if you look at the elections in

georgia in 2018 he only won by two points and a great year for democrats. we go to 2020, joe biden won by a fraction of the percentage despite the different national environment, 2021 no special elections and each were decided by about two points. this is a state that at the moment holds really competitive and close phrases. so this will be close both because we have two candidates running a ton ofai money but alo because the state is simply so evenly divided on the basis for this agenda. >> independent line, you are next. >> i'm calling about the young man that's on tv here saying the democrats never have a chance and everything. i haven't heard a republican or independent or anybody in their party get on tv and say anything

about social security. how are they going to handle social security here on out? the people who are on social security need a word about this. what the republicans stand on as far as their midterms on the social security. i'm interested in what's going on with social security. >> howic do those specific topis like social security end up in a person's race for the senate? >> the reality is republicans have stopped talking about sociale security and medicare. a lot of the government support programs that once made up of therepublican party specifically looking at ways to restructure in some cases privatize that like george bush tried to do a decade and a half ago, those were one central tenant of the

republican party. that's kind of the movement within the party and they have learned their lesson which is to stop talking about social security, stop talking about medicare. donald trump made that very clear when he got up on the stage in 2016 and said everyone else here is going to cut your social security and medicare and i'm going to increase it and that was an uncommon position for republicans at the time and since then i think they realized how politically unpopular that is and they stay away from the issue regardless of how they feel about what to do with social security and medicare, and i think broadly speaking, republicans don't like the spending in any sort of way but thatwhen it comes to the uses of political issues i think it is t rare to hear that centered as a conflict of discussion when there are things they think are so much more salient.

for voters like cost-of-living, the economy in general and to some of the other things the administration has done. >> in seattle, markham the democrats line. >> good morning, gentlemen. thanks for c-span. i think jacob is very well studied, but he is missing the mark in that nobody wants to be typedd as i'm a republican a lot of the time. people willof change this electn i think and i think he needs to reflect american people cannot be stereotyped. they will vote the way they will vote and i don't think that he has a very accurate representation the way they are going to vote. >> host: what leads you to believe that? >> he reminds me a lot of my

cousin. he wants to reassure us that republicans will vote this way for instance normally republicans support the war effort, but they are not doing at this time on the foolishness of the war. >> and how does that relate in 2022? >> well, we've got to get a majority. it's too long been a tie, so good question to answer. >> host: >> guest: i think certainly when it comes to how politicians vote, the republican party has gone through a bit of that over the last couple of years and that demonstrates what i was saying with social security that sometimes the parties can move in unpredictableic ways and

particularly in the age of donald trump who shifted the party on a lot of these issues particularly on foreign policy when republicans were kind of the party of the incredibly muscular foreign policy and a trump in some regards tried to yank that back. specifically we are talking about ukraine. he had a major beef with nato which for the republicans was rare that a republican would go up and so openly question the alliances in europe and cozy up to the russians. that was in the position prior to 2017, but it became the position and now we see a lot of republican media in particular kind of at the forefront of questioning the united states involvement in the situation in ukraine. i make no retention of knowing how each and every person, each

republican is going to vote because i understand the positions shift. however, when it comes to voters, they do change and swing voters do exist. for the vast majority o of the voters, how they voted in the last presidential election is the best indicator of how they are going to vote in the next election and that has increased every single cycle. it used to be we saw a lot of split ticket voting into these days we see very little and the competitive races it does change their mind and it ends up being the difference and that's why a state like new hampshire or georgia or nevada that voted for joe biden in 2020 and to the united states senate, those like north carolina which elected and voted for donaldvo trump in 2020

pretty easily elect a democrat. so, voters to change their mind. politicians do move on the issues, but we can't determine and project quite a bit of the voter behavior and politician behavior from how they have acted over the span of the voting or politic careers. >> host: republican lion, thomas. go ahead with your question or comments please. >> i am. 28-years-old and i plan on running for president in 2032. we need a new face for the party and we need to be a party of the future. i am so sick of going on cnn and fox into every single day they talk about january 6th or hunter biden's e-mails or trump or hillary clinton. all we do is talk about the past. and i would like to see a republican party looking towards the future, looking at clean energy, looking at stem, new ttechnologies, looking at new

economic ideas, things to move forward rather than constantly moving back. both parties are doing that. >> host: that's thomas in florida. for all you've said about looking at the races and the potential of what the outcome, i know it's early, but what do you see as the outcome? >> guest: well, it is still early. i think anything from a democratic gain of a few seats to a republican gain of a few seats is well within the realm of possibility. i think because the battlefield is so small, which is rare for the senatena battlefield, theres only four democratic seats that are particularly vulnerable. only four republican lay held seats are vulnerable. we are not going to see some of these massive swings that previous years have brought us like 2014 when the republicans picked up nine seats in the senate and 2010 when they picked up seven seats in the senate. that is highly unlikely. that said, because the senate is

easily divided, they just need the one and they have more opportunities to do it particularly democrats can'tra pick up any seats of their own, so the national environment is looking prettyty good for -- it gives a cause for hope and at this point it could go either way. >> host: inside. if you want to go to the website and find out more about the analysis to particularly take a look at the senate races, you can do so. thanks for your time today. >> guest: happy to be here.

>> certainly, johnson's secretaries knew because they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. in fact, they were the ones who made sure the conversations were taped as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and others. >> you will also hear some blunt talk. >> i want a reporter for the number of people assigned to kennedy and me and then number assigned now [inaudible] if i can't ever go to the bathroom, i want to go. i promise i won't go anywhere. i will stay right behind these gates. >> find it on the c-span now

apple or wherever you get your podcasts. >> broadband is a force for empowerment. that's why charter has invested billions. building infrastructure, upgrading technology, and powering opportunities in communities big and small. the charter is connecting us. >> charter communications supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. former employees of the newly named commanders spoke about their experience working for the nfl team of accusations of widespread harassment and misconduct. they also talked about the nfl role and prior investigations into the