had people in the neighborhood and me, meaning his brother the congressman, didn't stop telling lies about the election, something bad was going to happen. >> this week you will also hear from two texas representatives, a democrat and republican ronny jackson. january 6, views from the house, sunday at 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, and listen on the free san -- on the free c-span radio app. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies and more, including buckeye broadband. ♪

>> buckeye broadband supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. host: steve is a former democratic congressman from new york and current director of the institute of politics and global affairs at cornell university. he joins us now. welcome back to c-span. how are you? w are you? guest: it is always great to be with you. thank you. i want to talk about one of the latest headlines out of the empire state. yesterday, formal impeachment probe nears and, governor agrees to give evidence to investigators. how do you see this playing out? caller: -- guest: i think the pressure will build on the governor to resign, and if he does not resign, i sense there will be a robust impeachment process. new york is a little different

in terms of impeachment than the federal government. in new york, the new york state assembly can vote to impeach, and the senate can vote to acquit or convict. there are judges from the new york courts who are part of that process in the senate. there is only one senator who is removed from being able to vote. that would be andrea stewart cousins, the senate leader. she can vote to remove the governor and then presumably would fill the spot. the process is going to continue. the governor is under tremendous pressure. i never had a warm and fuzzy relationship with governor cuomo. let me just disclose that. any objective observer of new york has to recognize that he has rebuilt this state. there are very few places you can go that have not been modernized, reinvented, rebuilt.

the same personality that has enabled this governor to lead the way he has led has been tarnished by what appears to be odious behavior documented in the ag report. host: you mentioned one already. as we try to watch this process play out, who are the other key players to watch as these impeachment proceedings move forward? guest: i would watch a little-known figure nationally, but well-known on long island. his name is assemblyman chuck levine. he represents a district on the north shore of long island. when i was in congress, i represented his district. he represented portions of mine. this is a former prosecutor. he is a quiet, steady personality. you may notice he has been out of the press. that is his nature. he is diligent, studious,

working with his colleagues on both sides of the aisle on this inquiry. he is somebody i would watch closely. host: if cuomo leaves office, who is a democrat you can see stepping up and winning statewide in 2022? guest: the lieutenant governor kathy hogle. i have a special relationship with kathy hogle. the republican incumbent in her congressional district left. that was the first open seat i inherited, which gave me 30% of these gray hairs she had been the county clerk in that area of new york, northwest new york. that district had not seen a democratic member of congress since the civil war or before the civil war. kathy hochul ran as a democrat

in that special election in that district and stunned the political world by winning, served a term, and then was defeated. that district returned to its gravity. here is the lesson she taught us. if you can win that district in new york, you can win almost any district in new york. if you can win almost any district in new york, you are a pretty good candidate statewide. if you happen to be the lieutenant governor, that gives you a leg up -- a leg up. there are others looking at it. in my view, the advantage has to be given to kathy hochul. she will be acting governor if governor cuomo leaves. host: former chair of the d triple c, as you know the

president's incumbent party usually loses seats in a midterm election since world war ii. what is the path to defying that trend in 2022 for congressional democrats? guest: i have a different view of the conventional wisdom that the democrats are going to lose their majority and as many as 20 or 30 seats. if you probe the history, you will learn the exceptions to that rule of the president's party losing seats, the first exception was 1934 and the next was in 2002. why did fdr pick up seats in 1934 and why did george w. bush pick up seats in his first midterm in 2002? in both cases the country was emerging from existential crisis

, the depression in the 1930's, 9/11 and 2002. the president was blazing a path of hope for the electorate. they did not want a check for his policies. the voters of 1934 did not want republicans checking fdr's policies because they thought those policies relating to a recovery. voters in 2002 did not want a democratic check on george bush's policies because they thought those policies were making them safe, that he was leading decisively after 9/11. i believe 2022 is more likely to be a 1934 environment than the typical environment. the country is being led out of crisis. we hope covid is significantly behind us. it may not be entirely behind us. the electorate do not want a

republican congress blocking every policy by president biden to continue to lead us into security and public safety, stability. host: steve israel joining us in this 45 minutes of "washington journal." feel free to pick his brain. republicans (202) 748-8001, democrats (202) 748-8000, independents (202) 748-8002. from 2022 to 2024, you talk about 2020 for in your column -- 2024 in your column this week, the impact of presidential ambitions for 2024 playing out in real time right now when it comes to responding to covid. explain. guest: this is frustrating. you have a good bipartisan level

of cooperation around the country in terms of urging people to get vaccinations and to wear masks and to do the sensible things of not getting the disease or transmitting the disease. you have some exceptions of hypocrisy. you have people like governor desantis in florida who has single-handedly tried to block the biden administration from every single sensible safety standard. so much so that the state of florida sued cruise lines and wanted to mandate masks and vaccinations. governor desantis who is blocking the administration from keeping people safe and healthy it will also run for president criticizing the administration for not keeping people safe and healthy. that is sheer hypocrisy. there are other national figures. ted cruz crowed the other day

that he introduced a new bill that would stop federal or local governments from imposing mass mandates. he will be the first to criticize the biden administration if covid does not disappear. i fully understand the sense that some people have that masks are a mandate. i disagree. or vaccinations may not be safe although they are. i get that position. you have no right to take that position and then criticize the biden administration for not doing its job. they are trying to do the job, but if you block them every step of the way, it ranks in the highest level of hypocrisy. host: plenty to talk about this morning with former congressman steve israel. bert is up first. go ahead. caller: i would like to ask the former u.s. representative about how he would compare the

situation with governor cuomo to the situation with bill clinton, monica linsky, and the situation with joe biden and tara reid, where i saw an interview where she claimed joe biden groped her in a senate office and i think 1996. guest: high don't compare that because in that case you have ms. reade's explanation, her description of what may have happened. in the case of governor cuomo, you have an independent attorney generals report, a democratic attorney general on a democratic governor, where 11 women told the independent investigators that they felt at times to be harassed or uncomfortable.

in one case, the case of a state trooper, she was groped. i don't think there is a fair comparison between the three instances you have mentioned. host: it is (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. congressman israel joining us after a late night in the senate after an agreement was not reached on that bipartisan infrastructure bill. take us through your thoughts on the path forward on that and the reconciliation bill. guest: this is complicated. you are seeing policy and schumer, they are skating on thin ice while trying to thread a needle while trying to reach the finish line. very difficult to do. here is what i think will happen based on the conversations i have had as recently as last night. they are going to get this

bipartisan bill done. they should get it done because it is a bipartisan bill. there may be further delays. one senator yesterday objected to various amendments that has postponed a vote on culture until saturday. -- on cloture until saturday. i think it is going to pass as it should. then senate majority leader schumer will bring up the budget resolution that allows for reconciliation where you only need 50 votes to pass investments in infrastructure, human services, health, etc. i think they will get that past. -- passed. it is all about whether senator manchin and cinema and a few others will support that bill. speaker pelosi has said she will not entertain a vote on the bipartisan bill without the

reconciliation bill. she is going to wait for both of those packages to arrive at the house. then she has to figure out how she gets a majority of her caucus to support both of those. i sat with her for four years as chair of the dccc. nobody can count votes better and get you to what people assume was impossible victory better than nancy pelosi can. i am optimistic that both will pass. it is going to be turbulent. host: this is george out of l.a., of early this morning, independent. caller: i just want to ask your speaker who seems to be carrying the typical democratic line if he is concerned about covid, tens of thousands of covid infected people are coming to this country and spreading the disease.

is he concerned about that? what is he saying to biden about that? guest: i have to respectfully disagree with your characterization that i am parroting the line. i believe what i am saying. i think we have to go back to a place in this country where we can disagree agreeably. and not attack the motives of each other. i hope that you would have the same respect for my view as i do with yours although we disagree. i do not care what is causing covid. i'm not sure you are correct about tens of thousands of people coming into this country with covid. i have seen no evidence of it. i would love to see your evidence of it. whatever it is, does not matter to me. what matters to me is that we take the sensible steps to keep you and your families safe.

we did not revolt against vaccines for polio. we did not politicize vaccinations for measles, mumps, rubella. why politicize this? it is the same thing. why attack this and politicize this when it is simply intended to stop the transmission of a worldwide pandemic? you can ascribe whatever motives you want. that is fine. just put your mask on and get the vaccination and do not endanger your neighbors or family or yourself. host: i wonder, do you miss elected politics? guest: no. i'm this my colleagues. i talked to them every day. i miss the camaraderie on both sides of the aisle that you do not see it when you turn on the cable news shows or talk radio. i do not miss the fundraising. i do not miss the electoral politics.

here is what i miss. this is something i wish more people understood. my favorite place in the capitol building, and i think this is particularly important after january 6, is a balcony right off the house floor. it stretches the length of the house chamber. it overlooks office buildings. on one side, you can see the supreme court and library of congress. on the others, you can see the washington monument and the national mall. you could be beating each other up on the floor of the house, attacking and criticizing, but then you could go out on that patio, which i called america's patio, and sit with your political opponents and talk about things like my son is graduating from high school. my daughter is having some problems. i have got to go home and deal

with them. i don't like traveling back and forth to washington. what can we agree on instead of disagree on? i miss that balcony because it was the most productive and liberating and bipartisan place i have ever been to in washington, d.c. host: steve israel, currently the director of politics and global affairs at cornell university. this is carolyn in silver spring, maryland, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i echo what the previous caller had mentioned about hypocrisy. i am going to move onto a different point, which is the vaccines. fauci was just talking about how there needs to be drugs and therapeutics because clearly the vaccine has been proven, based on israel's statistics, not as effective as originally sold to

the american people. people that were infected have natural immunity. why would they go and get a vaccine for something that they have already recovered from? there is no data that is also saying that all these people that have natural immunity are infecting or reinfected at a high rate as much as the people that are being vaccinated right now that are spreading covid which is the reason why we are being forced to mask up because this vaccine is not effective in stopping the spread. host: do you mind if i ask if you have taken the vaccine? caller: i have not, however i have had covid, and so has my husband and child. we recovered. this was back in march >>