watch the hearing live at 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span three. primel also reenter on time. for more ahead, we spoke with a capitol hill reporter. and seung min kim joins us. she is a reporter for congress for political. -- politico. let's start with the senate confirmation hearings that are coming up. president-elect donald trump's cabinet nominees, including attorney general, secretary of state, headlined in your article, "gop jams the senate democrats with a confirmation blitz." what's the republican strategy here for scheduling these hearings? seung min kim: they say there is no actual automated strategy. that committee chairs schedule it, but their main goal is to trump'sany of donald nominees as ready as possible by

inauguration day. they love reminding us that they got seven barack obama nominees got confirmed on inauguration day in 2009. obviously, getting a lot of hearings in place is part of that strategy for republicans. now democrats are urging a slowdown of the process, but republicans are not listening to the democrats because this is is how they believe donald trump once these people in place -- wants these people in place, and this is really for the coming week to get as much of that done as possible. stephanie: what has been the senate democrats' response? did they have any power in terms of the scheduling or what they can do? seung min kim: they really don't have any power. depending on committees, the chairman and ranking member have a good relationship with one another, the chairman would generally like sign off a blessing of the 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. you have bob corker foreign relations committee going forward with rex tillerson for secretary of state on january 10. chuck schumer, senate majority leader, has told mitch mcconnell the senate majority leader that he would like to not have simultaneous hearings, but the request is clearly going unheeded. stephanie: let's look at these. you mentioned alabama senator jeff sessions nominated for , attorney general. he is the first one that we see. his two-day hearing starts tuesday. what meetings has he been having with his fellow senators leading up to this hearing, and how is he going to be treated in that committee? seung min kim: he has been doing a lot of these meet and greets with republicans and democrats. he started off pretty much right away with republicans in december, will he be meeting first with chuck grassley, and then meeting 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 who are meeting with senator sessions and other cabinet nominees this week. i spoke with senator dick durbin, the second ranking judiciaryho is on the committee. he met with jeff sessions this week, as did richard blumenthal, dianne 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. stephanie: and is not the first time he has been before that committee. let's move onto general james mattis. he will be preformed -- before the armed services committee. what is happening there? what happened with the 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 democratic senators who 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 for general mattis we don't see that , sentiment building among democrats, so that should not be an issue either. you have seen a lot of comments from democratic senators, very pleased with general mattis and his background and his character. he is kind of the only cabinet nominee that has effectively been held to a 60 vote threshold, considering that's the number of votes that a legislative waiver would have needed. democrats are not going to use it because they really do think general mattis is qualified and they want him at the pentagon. stephanie: let's turn to rex

tillerson, secretary of state nominee. who are the senators we should be watching as far as questioning, and what are the issues are facing this nominee? seung min kim: i think it is just one word russia. , there is a litany of issues he will have to pick up. there are a lot of foreign-policy issues that will be brought up at the hearing by all the senators, all the foreign hotspots. i think the issue of real controversy is russia. as we know, as chief of exxon mobil, he has close, personal ties with russian president vladimir putin. several republican senators have brought that out as a reason of concern. as for republicans on the committee, i would really keep an eye on senator marco rubio of florida. he right, 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. and i caught up with him this week and said senator, do you

still have worries? 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. stephanie: well let's touch briefly on the health care repeal. what is the status of things in the senate with the repeal, and when could we see it in the house? seung min kim: there are several steps congress must take to try to get this obamacare repeal track going. the first is approving a budget know sets that, you , in motion all the procedures for republicans to be able to draft a repeal law. that is actually going to come up next week. we are talking about long days on capitol hill. that vote will tentatively be on wednesday night. republicans and democratic senators can put forward any budget amendment of their own choosing. anything can get, anything can get voted on. they will be there 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. what the repeal plan looks like, but that is still pretty preliminary in the process. they are trying to take it one step at a time. stephanie: a look at the week ahead with seung min kim. she reports for politico. thanks so much. seung min kim: thanks for having me. coverage 1: watch live of the senate and house as well as other programs. you can listen on the free c-span radio app. monday night on the communicators, the research cofounder craig moffett offers perspective into the tv and video industry as the transition occurs. he is interviewed by david shepherd of reuters. >> we don't know who will be the

next chairman of the fcc. many say the commissioner will be elevated. i think the world of commissioner pie, and i think commissioner pie has extraordinarily sensible and well grounded respect that suggests real balance between the needs of infrastructure and the needs of application. announcer 1: watch the communicators on c-span 2. this past week, president obama said he would support repealing the health care law if republicans could put forward a better plan. he made the comment while speaking with vox media. this is just over an hour. ezra klein: good morning. and welcome to the blair house. i am mr.