c-span is your unfiltered view of government, funded by these television companies and more, including charter communications. >> broadband is a force for empowerment, that's why charter has invested billions tilting infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications support c-span is a public service along with these other television providers, giving a front row seat to democracy. ur conversation now on the 118th congress, we are joined by david harper, center of congressional and presidential studies, and they seem to be two schools of thought about the productivity of congress. some view it as a recipe for gridlock and others see it as a dynamic that offers opportunities for areas of

compromise. which school of thought do you fall into? guest: well in theory, it could be or should be an opportunity for compromise but over the course of the past four years or so, it really hasn't in. especially over the course of the past 20 years, a more closely divided congress in terms of differences between democrats and republicans. i can explain that, if you'd like. the reasoning for that. when the minority part is the majority party in the next

election, they tend to realize that it is not going to take much for them to be in the majority again and so they certainly don't want to do anything that enables the majority party to look like they are doing well or succeed because their odds of coming the majority are slim. host: so if compromise happens, the thought is that the majority party get credit for that compromise? guest: that is the way it goes. right now buying in particular, even though it is congress passing legislation, he would be the one who would be signing it, and that tends to give credit to his party and they don't want to do anything that increases the odds of him getting elected and taking more members of congress with him. host: who is the last president that didn't lose the house during their time in office? guest: you'd have to go back a

long way. it would be johnson, i believe. i have to think about that and double check. it has been extremely rare for that to occur. it has been the case in every election save just a couple that a president's party loses seats in the midterm. exceptions to that were bush in 2002 and clinton in 1998. the bush example was mainly attributable to the effect that was still going on following 9/11. in this case, the president's party only lost a few seats.

host: is the typical norm to announce your intent for investigations before the new congress is even seated? we are talking already about investigations of hunter biden, about the afghanistan pullout, the department of homeland security. is that unusual? guest: yes, but not anymore. if you go back, it certainly would be unusual. but if you look back at just past few, we've seen a steady ratcheting up of investigations. if you go back to the republicans, they decided early on that they were going to investigate clinton for whitewater, investigating which one, the monica lewinsky scandal.

democrats have been investigatory toward president bush, certainly the republicans were interested in investigating obama. there wasn't much to investigate. and under trump, of course, there was a steady stream of investigations. what this is now is retaliatory. when our guy was president, you guys never stopped investigating even after he left office, you guys can stop investigating, so now we have ever chance, we are going to do the same thing. i expect this to be a steady pattern moving forward, i think. when almost any president is going to be under threat of impeachment. host: before the 118th congress

convenes, we are talking about what a divided government look. david barker is our guest, the director of american center for congressional and mental dottie's. if you want to join the conversation, democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. he is with us until take: 40 5 a.m. third time this morning. a little bit more about the center if you don't mind. what specifically you studied, and how you did it. guest: sure. the operation is to strengthen the democratic square through recent -- recent programs and investment. we research a lot of different scholars, we provide funding and other resources. one of them being compromised.

programs, as i said, we have a lot of different training programs. that is the program for negotiation, also a longtime staffer. and we host a lot of events where we have speakers with the guidelines on democracy. we have politicians, scholars, journalists, all of the thought leaders who we bring in to talk about these challenging times and what they might do to address those challenges. host: i wonder if you've ever studied what joe manchin, the

west virginia democrat did for the 117th congress. a single member of the senate. do you think that happens again in the 118th, or do you think other members of the united states senate are looking at his example and might find a way to do the same thing in the next congress? guest: the difference is that republicans control the house now. there's only so much the democrats can do to get the house is going to pass legislation that the democrats want. when they have unified control of government, which they did for the last two years, the most powerful man in washington, he

was the democrat, the determining factor to what they could get done. that gave them an awful lot of negotiating leverage. and it turned out that congress wasn't, in fact, quite predictive, especially such recent congresses in the past 20 years. democrats are frustrated with him a lot of time, and his insistence on getting a few more republican votes. host: several callers already, let's get to a few of them. michelle is a democrat calling for marilyn. >> either. professor barker, -- hi there.

professor barker led myself and a group of students studying law back in 2018. it is so great to see him on this morning. guest: good to see you. caller: yes. bald looks great on you, just wanted to say. you'd be happy to know that i am now a lobbyist in d.c. for government relations. this upcoming congress, i'm a little bit apprehensive because the last congress, you know the margins were so close. it was really a very productive congress and we got a lot of bipartisan deals done and whatnot. and i'm really concerned that this coming on is just going to be a circus, unfortunately. so what do you think for lobbyists like myself? what do you think the prospect for the next two years?

host: stay on the line for a second, i'm going to let david barker answer your question first. guest: i think that you have a right to be apprehensive. i don't think of the prospects are very good. you are correct that despite the margins being close in the last few years and despite all of the polarization, it was a productive congress, i was just saying that a second ago. but the republicans in charge of the house now, especially given that the speaker of the house, i don't know how long he is going to last for even is. in the first place, kevin mccarthy is going to be very beholden to the conservative wing, the inner chamber. that is a simple as raising the debt ceiling in a few weeks, because he knows that the first time he is going to be removed

as speaker. he isn't going to do anything to make it look like he is cooperating with ivan and the democrats. unfortunately, i think we can expect not a lot to get done. host: i can't pass up an opportunity when a former student calls in. what is the best thing that david barker ever taught you? caller: [laughter] i think the best thing he taught me was that when you are trying to follow your dreams in politics or anything else in life, staying committed to your goals is the most important thing. being smart enough to attend american university is another one because it is a great institution. i got my masters degree from there a couple of years ago. i'm very grateful for his leadership of the institution and the great time we had in 2018.

>> thanks for the call this morning. we are going to head from maryland all the way out to the last frontier. this is alaska. mike, independent, thanks for getting up pretty early. color: yes, good morning guys. my question is simple. i want to know where the 118th congress investigates the dossier used against president trump during his term in the white house that was perpetrated on him by supposedly hillary clinton and obama. will there be an investigation to find out and get to the bottom of this once and for all? caller: i'm sorry, investigation of democrats who were investigating trump?

i didn't catch that at first. obviously that is highly controversial over time and the caller's right to point that out, and i understand that the question is a good one. it is hard to say. this congress and this house would be inclined to do something like that, i believe. but they may have bigger fish to for a, in their view. rather than going back and revisiting questions pertaining to trump, i think they are probably going to be more inclined to focus on hunter biden because they get more mileage out of that. but it is a good question, and who knows? host: democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i am the quite excited to hear the rest of what professor barker has to say.

i'm in agreement with him on pretty much everything he is talking about but i'm whited or optimistic and he is. -- quite a bit more optimistic. i think that the upcoming republican control of congress is going to be such a clown show and airing of the worst of the republican extremists that the whole country is going to kind of have to wake up and see that something drastic is going to need to happen and i'm hoping that more people look at rank-choice voting like we had in alaska and i'm sure the republicans are upset. rank-choice voting basically took out sarah palin. but what i'm hearing in all the previous calls from the republican side, they are

talking about hunter biden, and it is going to be a republican extremist dream, what is going to happen in the republican-controlled house. there is going to be a country aghast and it is going to really just spill out the extremists and i think it is going to motivate the rest of us to do something. everyone talks about term limits, but i don't think term limits are the answer. i think the answer really is term limits along with rank-choice voting and i interested to hear your opinion on that. thank you. guest: you are right that rank-choice voting has a lot of momentum hide it right now to be successful. the goal is to hopefully

discourage victories by more extreme candidates. if anybody watching doesn't understand what it is, instead of just taking the favorite candidate, at the name suggests, you actually rank them. if nobody gets a majority, you go again and the candidate gets more votes as others are eliminated. who actually care about trying to get peoples second, third votes. you're going to tend to be more reasonable, you're going to tend to be more moderate, you are not going to tend to make as extreme types of statements. we are seeing some places increasingly embracing

rank-choice voting, so there is some real momentum there. i think there is some real potential of the course of the next 20, 30 years. we could use it as a tool to address this polarization that we all see and experience. host: won election that is decidedly not rank-choice voting that we will see tomorrow is the option first group that house i want to just go over what the rules are answered of preparing viewers from what we see tomorr. the speaker is not required to be a member of the house. candidates have tbe nominated by a member of the house. and the members vote by calling out the last names of their choice when their name is called on the floor members can vote for any individual, not just a memr

the house. the person has to receive a majority of the votes cast by members or a person by name and if no candidate receives a majority of votes cast, the vote call is repeated and repeated and repeated until a speaker is found. explain the intricacies of that and why it can be anybody, not just a member of the house. guest: you described it pretty well there. typically it would be anybody, not just a member of the house. but we haven't seen that, we don't expect to see that. it doesn't have to be a member of a majority party, either. they can vote for nancy pelosi or hakeem jeffries. in practice, it is going to be a republican and in all likelihood, it will wind up being kevin mccarthy.

there are a lot of backroom deals that have been going on, concessions made alluding to that recently. he has conceded to change the rules for something called the motion to vacate which is specifically the number of people who have to call for his removal in order for it to be a floor vote on that. moving forward, the threshold has as few as five members of the majority party just to call for mccarthy today removed as speaker, that would likely happen. but it is an extremely low threshold. what it means is that pete is beholden to anybody specifically, lgbt in the house,

-- host: why does that not make an beholden to moderates who want more compromise, who could make that motion if they thought he wasn't compromising enough? guest: in theory, that is true. in practice, it is not what is expected to happen because moderates may want, frankly, more civility in the house. not someone who tends to pound their fist on the table and demand to get their way. we want compromise, want more moderation. they are not likely to be so obstinate in terms of demanding. but it is a good question. in theory, that could be the case as well. but what people anticipate to

happen if the freedom caucus -- that is what it used to be called, i'm not sure if that is really quite an accurate term anymore. really, the more maga-oriented members of the house to keep a close watch on mccarthy and punish him for doing anything that seems like it might be too conciliatory. the first is going to be in just a couple weeks. host: about 20 minutes left with david barker this morning. american university, the center for presidential studies taking your phone call before the 118th congress convenes. this is robert and chester, virginia. good morning. caller: you know, everyone -- not everyone, but a lot of

people said stuff going on now, mccarthy is going to win. well, i'd like to see the justice department enforcing the 14th amendment for anybody participating in this election. i'd like to see that happen. i would vote for him. i want to see the republicans get back in there and straighten some of this stuff up but number one, he participated in the insurrection. host: who is a republican that you would like to see the party? caller: well, i really don't have anybody. i don't want somebody that participated in the insurrection. host: i'll have you jump in there on the shadow of january 6

in the 118th congress. that committee, what happens in the 118th? guest: i think it is pretty much going to be the end of that investigation. we will see if the justice department actually moves forward with particular charges. i think that is likely to happen with regards to former president trump. i don't think anything like that is likely to happen regarding other members of congress for holding them in contempt. i think there is some evidence that members could talk about who may have been involved with certain phone calls and back and forth with the white house.

but again, the justice department could charge them. the january 6 investigation, that was done not by accident and they think that they're trying to build as tight a case as they possibly could against him specifically. i think that is with the focus is going to be. congress is going to be with the justice department. host: william, pennsylvania, republican you are next. caller: yeah, just one question to ask this person. january 6 committee was so lopsided.

do you want to say something about this, why they are doing that? guest: i misunderstood the question, could you repeated? caller: yes, i absolutely can. january 6 committee. you go to trial, and those two persons on the committee start a jury. they should have been removed because they have bias. guest: i appreciate that. kevin mccarthy refused to allow republicans to participate in that process. liz cheney and adam kinzinger wound up basically becoming the republican party by choosing to participate on that committee. there could have been more

republicans but they didn't want to participate. the two that did, it practically ended their careers in congress. host: west virginia, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning, happy new year. i have a couple questions and a couple points. an earlier caller mentioned, and i agree, it is pretty sad that the house republican control is probably going to result in a much things that we've known since 2018 already. but nonetheless, republicans are upset because they were allowed to use that for social media.

i'm not questioning some things about hunter biden, but russian propaganda. my point is this. you should have answered improperly. he was appointed by trump and are already to investigate the steel dossier. he had three cases. and they were disproven, essentially. a lot of the steel dossier presented to trump and the trump campaign and republicans just don't want to hear that. but those trials, that vindication venture and crusade that trump set them upon did not prove out. because much of what was within the steel dossier was strange,

questionable evidence that ship -- that did share connections and members of the trump campaign connections to russian agents. guest: those are good points that the caller made, and the same is true with regard to the collusion a couple years ago during the trump campaign and the russian government which was taken by many people to be vindictive toward trump and the republicans but if you read the report, it revealed conduct suggestive of some kind of --

i'm not sure that is necessarily the correct term, and maybe it is, but that was a clear, full-blown republic. -- conspiracy on the part of the republican campaign working with the russian government to hack into the dnc. again, the softer term is collusion between the russians and the trump campaign. communication, certainly that led people to question or wonder what exactly happened. we will never know because there was no clear, absolute evidence one way or the other, but to suggest that the mueller report or any of these other investigations vindicated trump and the republicans on that is inaccurate. host: a question from political homeless tony on twitter.

the idea of pursuing and prosecuting a former president any concerns with professor barker? guest: not really. i mean, nobody can be above the law. just because you were president or our president or some future president made the in office, no american can be above the law. some people feel like it was a mistake for ford to pardon nixon back in the 1970's following watergate. and he did so to try to be healing, to try to move on, to not continue rehashing those things and did not try to be overly divisive for what at the

time was perhaps viewed as being unnecessary. if you go all the way back to the civil war, decisions were made did not go after some former confederates. there were good reasons to do that. that has their history. but when certain things are so flagrant, if the justice department concludes that they are overwhelming in this particular instance were guarding trump and january 6, or other matters, not only is it not bad for the country to pursue those things, but it is probably healthy. host: david barker, professor

and director of the american university of congressional and presidential studies. author and editor of several books. explain with the politics of truth that polarized america is. guest: sure, that is a volume that my colleague here at american university and i wrote together. a lot of scholars, a lot of journalists, a lot of practitioners from around the country to talk for a couple of days about what is this situation that we got here in terms of misinformation, in terms of polarization? we have this tendency in the united states on both the left and the right to perhaps be

overly heuristic about how correct we are. we think that the facts are on our side when in reality, is a lot murkier and a lot grayer. the causes of it, the consequences of the. we can proceed to try to improve the situation and windup putting together a book that has many chapters, many authors, but always different titles. i encourage everybody out there to pick up a copy if you think you will enjoy it. host: ocean isle beach north carolina, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. the professor basically said better that i could exactly what my thoughts are. we have both sides going at each other. we act like little children at the playground.

just because you got 60% of the vote, there's 40% of the people still in your district. what a senator votes for in kentucky also affects the people of california, florida, alaska. we just need to come together. a house divided shall not stand. it has to stop. safe schools, safe border, jobs, a self-sustaining nation that we are kind of moving were manufacturing is what we need here but not to forget about the rest of the world. the pragmatic approach to government, i appreciate you showing up. exactly what he just said, about that new book, it is what we need to do.

we are going down the wrong path. thank you for taking my call. guest: i appreciate those sentiments as well and i think they are shared by most americans, frankly. and we see some of that. just a couple of months ago, in case after case, the voters were showing that they were a little bit fed up with some of the extremism, a little bit fed up with the anger and the combativeness, the incendiary language and behavior that has become the norm, the election denial and other antidemocratic types of movements.

the average american is reasonable. the average american doesn't hate the people on the others the average american would like for us to find more common ground as we try to move forward and live in this country together. there are several aspects of our system, about our culture and our media that pull us in different directions. but that doesn't necessarily have to be the way it is forever. there are some encouraging signs in terms of the movement toward rank-choice voting and many others. the media outlet might change social media.

the country has recovered before and i think that again, in 2023, i see some signs of optimism moving forward. host: this is jerry, republican, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i hear these people always talk about they want congress to pass legislation, passed legislation. don't they realize that every time they passed legislation that is money out of our pockets? the one thing i would like to see from this republican house is i would like to see a subpoena of nancy pelosi's phone records and text messages in the weeks before and leading up to january 6. i think a lot of americans would

be very surprised and very shocked about what they find. we still have a communist president, communist senate. that is one thing i would like to see. host: what do you want to follow up on? guest: i don't have any great responses to those comments. the investigatory congress, i don't think that anything will be off the table for them. host: time for maybe one or two calls. this is ginger in kentucky, go ahead. caller: the discussion about how anyone could be the speaker of the house even though they weren't elected i think would be

kind of disingenuous to the voting public for anyone to come in. the question, is that written in our constitution? i want to hear your comment on that. if the republicans cannot decide on a speaker, i think it is going to make america look like the laughingstock when they don't have their business in order. thank you. host: mr. barker? guest: yes, that is in the constitution that it is part of the rules. it is really a technicality. while in theory someone who is not a member of congress could be speaker, we are not going to see that for precisely the reasons that the caller suggested. that would be undemocratic in many respects and it wouldn't be

politically popular so i think that the caller can rest assured that they don't have to worry about that. host: steven mnuchin, would you ask the professor if you think that all district house should be drawn by independent commission like she can without help? guest: -- like michigan. guest: i think that would help. unfortunately right now, there's states disproportionately that tend to be democratic states so you've got some disparity there in terms of the enthusiasm on both sides of the aisle for independently-drawn districts. i would say that if we were trying to do something like that and completely eliminate the problems associated with gerrymandering, it wouldn't

solve all our problems. the biggest reasons why districts tend to favor one party of the other is the way people sort themselves into neighborhoods in the u.s. increasingly over the course of the past 50 years, we've seen a trend toward people just tending to flock together politically because our politics has become so culture-based in the way that it is based on our identities. race, gender, sexuality, religion, taste. people who share those kind of characteristics tend to stay close to each other. so districts tend to be comprised of people who are heavily blue or heavily red and we can improve that at the

margins by getting rid of gerrymandering but it would only be an improvement at the margins. host:host: last call is from tim, west virginia republican. caller: i had a question on the senate side about the bill that just passed link to the house. there was 19 republicans that voted for it including from west virginia. i was wondering, when her term comes up in 2024, if the people will remember that she voted for the bill, will that hurt her, or possibly help her? thank you for your question. guest: again, you may think this

is unfortunate, but voters do not tend to punish or reward members of congress. they tend to believe that they will be punished for rewarded, but the political science on this indicates it is pretty rare, actually. it has to be an extremely high bill in the house to come very close to the next election. there has to be a lot of consistent media coverage for a member to be either punished or rewarded. it is well over 90%. she is probably going to be safe , tend to get reelected. how well they are known in the

districts. casework or constituency service. my guess is that is going to be the case. host: david barker is director of the center for congressional and presidential studies. thanks so much for the time this morning. we will chat with you again and editor-in-chief. director of political research at the. search center talks about the

center's recent report on expectations for a divided government. congressional reporter for bloomberg talks about the opening day of the 118th congress including the contested battle for speaker and continued controversy surrounding representative elected george santos. and senior congressional reporter for punch bowl news talks about the senate agenda. then, capitol hill reporter for the washington examiner on what is happening behind the scenes within the republican congress. watch washington journal live at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning on c-span, or on c-span now, our free mobile app. join with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. announcer: gordon just three chang is a well-known opinion writer, book author, and graduate of cornell law school. gordon chang was born in

longbranch, new jersey and grew up 25 miles outside new york city. at columbia high school, he was president of his class. mr. chang spent almost two decades in china, wheree practiced international law. in the past 20 years he has appeared regularly in the american media. gordon chang was the author of the coming collapse of china in 2001. we discussed with him if he is still sticking by that production. announcer: author rd chang on this episode of book notes plus. book notes pluvailable on the c-span now app or wherever you get your podcasts. announcer: listening to programs through c-span radio just got easier. tell your smart speaker, play c-span radio, and listen to washington journal daily at 7:00 a.m. eastern, important congressional hearings and other public events throughout the day, and weekdays at 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. eastern catch

washington today for a fast-paced report of the stories of the day. listen to c-span anytime. just tell your smart speaker, play c-sn radio. c-span, powered by cable. announcer: c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? no, it is way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. announcer: comcast support c-span as a public service, along with these other televisi providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. announcer: washington journal continues. host: the day before the beginning of the 118th congress, we are joined by the author of the forthcoming book "why