>> the confirmation gets started next week for donald trump's cabinet when the senate judiciary committee holds hearings were jeff sessions. next tuesday that live at 9:30 a.m. on seized and three. three.so -- c-span laterre on that hearing for congress, we spoke with a capitol hill reporter. host: seung min kim joins us. she's a reporter for congress for "politico." she joins us for a look at the week ahead in congress. seung min, let's start with the senate confirmation hearings that are coming up. donald trump's cabinet nominees, including attorney general and secretary of state, headline in your article "gop jams the senate democrats with a confirmation blitz." what's the republican strategy for scheduling these hearings? seung min kim: they say there is no coordinated strategy,

committee chairmen schedule it of their own will, but their main goal is to get as many of donald trump's nominees ready and in place to be confirmed by inauguration day. they love reminding us that they got seven barack obama nominees confirmed on inauguration day in 2009. obviously, getting a lot of hearings in place is part of that strategy for senate republicans. now, democrats are urging a slowdown of the process, but republicans are not listening to the democrats because this is their goal. they believe donald trump wants his team in place as soon as possible, and the coming week is really the week to get as much of that done as possible. host: what has been the senate democrats' response? do they have really have any power in terms of the scheduling or of what they can do with the confirmations? seung min kim: they really don't have any power. depending on committees, especially if the chairman and ranking member have a good relationship with one another, the chairman would generally

like a sign off or the blessing of a democratic ranking member, but they don't actually need their permission to schedule a hearing. so you have chuck grassley going ahead with jeff sessions, starting january 10. bob corker, foreign relations committee, going ahead with rex tillerson for secretary of state on january 11. chuck schumer, the new senate minority leader, has told mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leader, that he would like to not have simultaneous hearings, but that request is clearly going unheeded. host: let's look at a couple of these. you mentioned alabama senator jeff sessions is nominated for attorney general. his two-day hearing starts tuesday. what meetings has he been having with his fellow senators leading up to this hearing, and how will he be treated in that committee? seung min kim: he has been doing a lot of meet-and-greets with republicans and democrats.

he started out right away with republicans in december, meeting first, as is custom, with the chairman chuck grassley, and with other members of the committee. democrats actually had a caucus-wide strategy not to meet with any of the cabinet nominees until the new year. so you have a flurry of democrats meeting with senator sessions and other cabinet nominees this week. i spoke with senator dick durbin, the second ranking democrat on the judiciary committee. he met with jeff sessions this week, as did blumenthal, feinstein, many of the democrats. we will see how it goes. a lot of these democratic senators emerged from these private meetings saying, look, senator sessions is a colleague, but we have a lot of tough questions ready and waiting for him at the hearings next week. host: it is not the first time he has been before that committee. let's move on to the secretary of defense nominee, general james mattis. he'll be before the armed services committee. what main issues are there?

what happened with that waiver he needed? seung min kim: it looks like the waiver he needs to become the pentagon chief -- because he has not been out of uniform for seven years as the law mandates -- that doesn't look like it's going to be an issue. my colleagues surveyed a lot of down -- democratic senators on their feelings, and it seems a lot are willing to grant him the one-time waiver, aside from senator gillibrand, a democrat from new york on the armed services committee who was very fast out of the gate saying she would oppose a waiver. we don't see that sentiment building among democrats, so that should not be an issue either. you see a lot of comments from democratic senators, very pleased with general mattis, his character, his background. it's kind of interesting. he was the only cabinet nominee that has effectively been held to a 60 vote threshold, considering that's the number of votes a legislative waiver would require.

democrats are not going to use it because they do think he's qualified and they want him at the pentagon. host: let's turn to rex tillerson, secretary of state nominee. who are the senators we should be watching for questioning, and what issues are facing this nominee? seung min kim: the issue is one word -- russia. there is a litany of issues he will have to pick up. a lot of foreign-policy issues that will be brought up at the hearings by the senators, all the foreign hotspots. but i think the issue of real controversy is russia. as we know, as chief of exxon mobil, he has close, personal ties with vladimir putin. several republican senators have brought that up as a point of concern. as for republicans on the committee, i would really keep an eye on senator marco rubio of florida. he initially, when mr. tillerson was announced as donald trump's

pick for secretary of state, he expressed his concerns about tillerson's ties to putin right away. i caught up with him this week and said senator, do you still have concerns? he said yes. how he approaches the hearing, what questions he raises, and how he feels after the confirmation hearing will be very important to watch. host: what is the status with the repeal of obamacare and when could we see that in the house? seung min kim: as we know, there are several steps congress must take to get the repeal track going. the first is approving a budget resolution that sets in motion all the procedures for republicans to be able to draft a repeal law. that's going to come next week. we are talking about long days here on capitol hill. that tentatively will be on wednesday night. republicans and democratic senators can put forward any budget amendment of their own choosing.

anything can get voted on. we'll be here late into the night. that will be the big day for the budget resolution to happen, and then it will go to the house. and then as we know republicans , are talking about how to draft a repeal or a replacement plan. we don't know what that looks like, that's still pretty preliminary in the process. were trying to take it one step at a time. host: that's a look at the week ahead with seung min kim. she reports on congress for politico. thanks so much.

>> vice president joe biden met yesterday with