"macho man"] ♪ >> c-span's campaign 2024 coverage continues with the presidential primary and caucuses. watch live on the c-span network as the first votes in the country are cast in the upcoming presidential election. along with candidate speeches and results beginning with the iowa caucuses on january 15 and the new hampshire primary on january 23. campaign 2024 on c-span, your unfiltered view of politics.

coming up, u.s. attorney general merrick garland, treasury secretary janet yellen, and a number of other officials will be part of a press conference on an enforcement action seizing nearly $9 million worth of a cryptocurrency, allegedly associat with an organization that exploited over 70 victims through a romance scam and cryptocurrency confidence scams. we'll have live coverage of that news conference at 3:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. we are e washington journal. joining us now is the editor of national journal's hotline political newsletter. good morning kirk. >> good to be here today. host: let's start, remind us what the hotline is and the role you play in the information and news ecosystem. guest: we launched in 1987,

we've gone through a lot of different iterations. we started just tracking the presidential election but now we track races all over the ballot. we look at presidential polls, senate races, house races, governors and states races. we do that every morning. we do two newsletters, one at 9:00 a.m. and another at 11:40. while a lot of news outlets are just starting to get rolling on their campaign coverage or just now getting some last-minute analysis in of the 2023 results, hotline does nothing but campaign results. every candidate, every fundraising disclosure we get it out in the inbox bright and early. host: you recently launched hotline, what it takes 2024.

explain what this new feature is? >> that was a series of stories are correspondence did talking to campaign strategist at all levels. we did two stories for each, one looking at the democrats and one looking at the republicans and walked through the challenges and opportunities each party had going into 2024. we wanted to look really big picture right now to see what will be the biggest range of each party going in now. as we've seen this past month's here the democrats are really going to be relying on abortion access focused messaging, republicans will be talking about the status of the economy heavily. we looked at through the lens of the top campaign strategists how they are going to deliver those messages and what challenges will be in their way as we are going to be in this completely very partisan, divided election coming up.

>> we are talking with kirk of the national journal hotline. want to go ahead and let our listeners know what numbers to call if you have a question for kirk about the 2024 election or if you have thoughts about some of the candidates or races at hand. go ahead and start calling in now. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. we want to get to those calls in just a moment. before we get to 2024, the off year elections were just a couple of weeks ago. what were your big takeaways from election night and what do you think it might tell us about what to expect next fall? guest: because these are the off year elections and are state

specific it's hard to extrapolate the overarching lessons here. let me extrapolate some big overarching lessons. it's a good night for democrats, kentucky governor andy beshear were soundly winning reelection, the protest against the protege of mitch mcconnell. bashir gave red state democrats the blueprint to run. the election is an update on that playbook. he leaned into a lot of messaging that president biden wants to utilize in 2024. investing in infrastructure, competent response to crisis. he had won the most effective ads in the off your cycle of talking about defending abortion access rights. he had a testimony from a rape victim talking about if the republicans had their way she wouldn't be able to get the treatment she needed. relatedly in ohio estate the

trumpcare rate by two points, ohio voters in the state constitution for the first time in history. this is another data point in the trend we've seen whenever abortion access is on the ballot, voters overwhelmingly support expanding access. francis is based out of ohio, she's been following along with that effort closely the last few years to enshrine abortion access rights in the state constitution. that result was a shot in the arm for ohio democrats who haven't had a lot to cheer about. it's giving them hope that they can replicate that infrastructure going into next year when they have a tough senate race for sharad brown. there is a lot of momentum on the democrat side. it's not -- let's not completely overlook the recent republicans.

in new york, republicans flipped a county executive seat in long island for the first time in 20 years largely running on the same message that flipped a lot of house races for republicans last year. in virginia democrats might've denied republican governor -- republican governor glenn youngkin the trifecta by winning back control of the state legislature. they now control the entire general assembly but republicans performed really well in the legislative district that biden only won by nine points or less. things will get a little bit difficult for democrats and 2024. take these with a little grain of salt but there are a lot of encouraging signs for democrats going into 2024. >> before we get to phone lines i want to ask you what worked for democrats and what worked for republicans in this off year

election because you said there were some bright spots for both parties. what was there playbook that was successful? guest: let's talk about the -- he ran on a crime focused message and very much a we need to handle immigration crisis going on in our country right now. this is a very similar playbook to house republicans in new york in 2022 and a blue state. people forget democrats perform really well last year and house races. the areas that have lost their majority were blue states like new york and that's a very hyper localized message about crime about kathy hochul and about this bail reform bill that the state legislature passed that was widely unpopular to voters.

that message really resonates. localizing the crime issue not so much on the defund the police message we saw in 2020 but making it tangible to voters that proved really potent for republicans. there will be a preview of what they will do in 2024. for democrats, defending abortion access, it's making sure they are the champions of a woman's right to choose and a woman's right to have access to that procedure. because time and again from this past election, ohio is another example that results in deep red kansas. they have passed last year the defendant abortion access. kentucky saw similar results when they tried to restrict abortion access. it's the same playbook every time, making more so positioning yourself and the champion of abortion access right is an effective method for democrats.

not just filling out their base, they might have more problems during the presidential year but also those independent voters or softer republicans to vote democrat. we might see that repeated a lot. >> let's get to the phone lines now. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans 202-748-8001. independentd, -- independents, 202-748-8002. dean is calling from gilbert seville new york, what's your question or comment dean. >> i have two comments i would like to make. first of all the presidential election, nikki haley if she would now release the vice presidential candidate that she would like to run with, named

the democratic divorced tulsi gabbard. secondly i would like to throw out there that we should reinstitute the draft for every young person ages 18 or high school graduate should devote two years of government service to their government. not necessarily military, but i think we are the only country in the free world, one of the few countries in the free world that does not have a mandatory government service. thanks for calling. >> thank you for the question. i don't have a ton of thoughts but i do think there should be more tradition of servic look, e,

election workers, people on the front lines of democracy are under pressure from not only the election deniers but trying to rebound from doing an election under duress in 2020 during the pandemic, a near impossible task while they were making the

tracks while driving a train over it, keeping ahead where results were timely, fair. there is still a hangover effect from the pandemic with experience poll workers and election workers who behind the scenes retiring or stepping away because of the pressure. there were supply chain issues, people running out of ballot paper. you saw in mississippi earlier this month where they had to keep the polls open because of delays at certain polling locations an extra hour, including the most popular county in mississippi. this is not a problem going away even if trump goes away. this is about our election infrastructure suffering in 2020 and we need to find a way to give them support. >> let's hear from richmond,

virginia on the democratic line. >> good morning. i wanted to ask if he has any perspective on how the more progressive candidates seem to have performed better across the board. and, if there is any factor where in the democratic party within new york, new york state and florida, if they are focused on more conservative democratic races and if establishment democrats had any part to play in the general losses suffered there? thank you. >> that is a great question about what makes a candidate electable. traditionally in the swing states, it is more conservative

democrats or people more friendly more friendly the party has looked to nominate in these places. in new york and florida there might the more opportunity for progressive candidates especially in new york. that does not mean more progressive. but progressive democrats tend to do better up in those races then say florida which is a little bit more swing-y, if not meaning republican. what i'm interested in watching and is next election, state and local races but at the congressional level as well, is how these progressive democrats, even the ones in elected office right now, i think we have seen perspective than members of the progressive squad over comments over israel and the war in the middle east right now, it might be challenged a little bit from more centrist democrats.

i will be interested to see if the party infrastructure comes into bailout those progressive members, and if an open seat races because we have a lot of open house races now, now 27 house members who are not running for reelection or running for a different office, 18 democrats, nine republicans. it will be interesting to see what candidates emerge from those primaries and the makeup of congress, whether more centrist or progressive. >> again, were speaking with the editor of the national journal hotline political newsletter about campaign 2024, the race for control of congress. we welcome your calls or comments.

i have a question. what do you use? >> open secrets. manet peered donors. who is supporting which candidates. -- money. donors. who is supporting which candidates. there is a lot about the measures that the department and there was a redesign, but it is a great resource if you want to track the money race in these campaigns. in fact you can make a profile and click all what campaigns you want to get alerts on. if i want to keep track of how

much donald is pending on how much the joe biden campaign is spending or if i want to start tracking the senate races in montana and i want to know about it, you can check a box and get in email every time they interact and make a filing and every time there is correspondence between them. it is an awesome tool. in our day-to-day we use a lot of methods to keep track of the changes in election laws. there is a great tool but does a great map of a state-by-state guide to track legislation as it works through the bureaucratic and busy process at the state and federal levels. i also use resources, some of my favorite stats and statistics on fundraising, retirements, ad campaigns. we use it every day to keep track of a massive amount of

data we get every morning. >> you mentioned the amount of retirements we are seeing. this is the casualty list. it is the list of retiring members of both parties, both in the senate and in the house, compiled by the house press gallery. what i noted is that, there are more democrats who are either retiring, or a lot are seeking other offices, running for the senate for example, or running for office is in their home states. while it looks like there are more republicans who are just retiring period, not necessarily seeking another office, so i wanted to ask you how much will ongoing tension and instability particularly with the republican party affect the number of members that may be retiring and how could that affect republicans's ability to

hold onto their narrow majority in 2024? >> that is a question we are watching closely. i can take you back to a series, our house correspondent did a pizza and talked about the transition that republicans are facing now from the chaos of october with the speakership battle come up with the multiple nominees for speaker, to campaigns, and what was consistent across the board when we talk to the strategists at the highest levels, the president of the congressional leadership fund super pac, they were acknowledging that this is not good for governing right now, that these last few weeks of this unfolding drama playing out on c-span every single day from the house floor and outside the speaker's office is not good for voters because it looks like you guys cannot control your

conference, you can't relate govern. we are trying to do the basics and the bar is so low and you're tripping over it. that is not a message you want to voters right now. you have seen some house republican members get fed up with that. in the weeks after they elected mike johnson as a speaker you saw three or four house republicans: a career including kay granger, who is one of the more more powerful and experienced. i think it expresses the frustration for people in the house where they are struggling to get the basic things done because they have a narrow majority of only five seats it elevates the power and the voices of those members who might not be interested in governing and a little bit more interested in getting their name out. they are beholden to the partisan members of their conference, like matt gaetz who triggered the ouster

of kevin mccarthy come so it is widespread frustration and the map does not work out in house republicans favor right now. house republicans hold 18 seats in districts that president biden carried. then on the reverse side of that there are five democratic seats that former president trump carried, and strategists are projecting this will be a very very narrow house fight again, but if you have to defend is 18 seats already, it will be tough when you want to defend your majority, add in the new open seats and it will be a real headache for republicans. the one saving grace for them now is there are more open competitive seats on the democratic side then republican side, so with those 18 i believe, house democrats retiring, seven are seats that have been labeled at some level of competitive. i believe four are a tossup or

likely democrat. now on the reverse side of that republicans have only one competitive open seat, and that will be the one for george santos who announced last week he would not run for reelection following a pretty tough ethics report about his conduct and misuse of campaign funds. open seats are always a big question in the house and that is what we are watching. >> let's go back to the phone lines. we are going to bessemer city, north carolina, mike on the republican line. >> good morning. yes, i have a couple of points if you will allow me. you're talking about the moderate so-called moderate democrats like joe manchin, kester, and around -- brown, all

of them ours saying something like the emigration thing and we need to drill for more oil for us and everything, but they only do that stuff when it is election time, but joe manchin is not seeking reelection because they have seen his voting record on these left-wing judges the biden administration has put forward you'd and we are going to -- forward. and we are going to take seats. kyrsten sinema is the demon in arizona and hopefully she stays into that and she took on chuck schumer and mr. trump will be the nominee, nikki haley and krispy kreme christie are not going nowhere. he might be doing well but he will not go nowhere. a running mate for him it is still to me a lot of opinions would be someone who is a good vice president. not nikki haley because she has

been in politics too long. she is down to earth and that, but you hear about that meeting out in san francisco? you heard what he told biden, that he's doing a great job on the border? and everybody can hear and see knows that the border is a chaotic mess. and everybody, they said we have to do some emigration but it is only on the democratic side that they bring that up when it is reelection time but when they get reelected they go right back to saying no, we will not mess with none of that. we will not mess with the border. they only say that the immigration system is broke. no, it is not. they need to abide by the rules on the book, the asylum laws that are a joke now, leading 6 million, seven then people in party? >> mike, i will stop you because i want to let him respond. >> i think mike is correct in

the sense that yes, the border is a huge issue in a huge liability for democrats now and you have seen the vulnerable members hone in and hammer on that message that there needs to be some sort of solution here. what they are doing is not a solution. the biden campaign as well in the white house acknowledge that there needs to be more done on the border right now. i think it will be an issue for democrats going forward. as for the vice president pick, i believe her name has been floated around, so has the arizona senate candidate right now. so has the conference chair of the house republican conference chair, so i would think we are a

little bit away from that but those of the top-tier tier right now. >> let's hear from willie and marilyn. democratic line. >> thank you for taking my call. i wanted ask a couple of questions. does he think the election was stolen from donald trump? >> no. >> the next statement i would like to make, right now i don't think mr. trump can get a secret clearance unless he gets elected here 20 think about that? >> first off, the time and time again in court we found that the election was not stolen from former president trump. it is getting, litigated in several states, but the election was not stolen from former president trump.

as for top-secret security clearance, look, when you are president you have a wide lateral for the type of documents you are allowed access to. it is a right of the office. the president doesn't needed has a background check. the office usually does that vetting and background check. if the american people say they want donald trump back in the white house,, then it is everything right now. >> let's go to the independent lines from ohio. >> hello? >> go ahead. >> my problem is the government and biden. i believe we are all live to. biden has no clue what he is doing.

he should not even be on tv. the government itself all the problems, it's like a bunch of little kids trying to get power and nothing gets done. this united states has been destroyed. trump should be back in. at least when he was in the got things done. biden has totally screwed it up, and then to hear that he gave iran billions of dollars and then turned it to hamas. i mean, what kind of president do we have? why don't you take care that the people here and stop giving our money away? we are not the superpower that everybody says we are. and all the other countries know it now, and that is because of biden. he has totally screwed up everything. i can't even make my bills because of all the high prices, and they say it is getting better and biden says inflation is better.

that is all alive. the american people need action. they don't need to be told everything is ok when it is not and it has got to stop. these are grown men and they act like idiots and that has to stop. you have take care of your un-people before you take care of anybody else, and that has never been done with biden, ever, and it is outrageous. >> ok, we will let kirk respond. >> she verbalized a lot of the frustrations voters have with president biden. look at that late is it the seat news poll -- nbc news poll, biden had only 40% of voters approving of the job right now. it was 87% disapprove. where he got his low smarts was in foreign policy. 46% of voters approve of president biden's handling of foreign policy matters. it is frustrating for the biden

administration right now because they look at the wars now in ukraine and israel, ramping up operations against hamas, and they have tried their best to keep american involvement to a minimum. there are no boots on the ground there. they have tried to clearly set guidelines and goals and meet those goals. and it is kind of this challenge for the biden administration overcome those frustrations, the key point about inflation, that has been a nagging issue for biden and his team effort since he really took office. the economics they're trying to make work are not sticking and if they do they associated with the higher prices at the grocery store, gas. it's not translating the same way the white house wanted to now. that will be the central problem of the biden campaign they need to overcome in 2024.

>> all right. let's hear from michael calling from pensacola, florida on the democratic line. >> yes, i want to get a few of the special election for the judge in new york, whether there will be a special election for that one. i want to look at the texas senate race in terms of the caucus and whether he's going with the current congressman. in the third thing is district seven congressional seat in virginia, he is going to be running for governor, so she is vacating that's seat, so some reaction to those things. >> all right. let's start with, the color asked whether be a special election for george santos is seat -- cento seat, but not yet, right? >> not yet. you just ran through some of the hottest races we are following.

i appreciate it. there is no special election for the george santos seat. he has said he is going to not run for reelection. he has said a lot of things in the ethics committee found he is not to be trusted at all. there is now a renowned push a third time to experimental -- expel him. they filed a motion to expel him and are expected to vote on it after the thanksgiving holiday. if he is expelled, there will be a special election and i would assume a lot of the same candidates running in that election will run for the special election right now. and for the democrats it is a seat president biden carried by about eight points. the former representative who ran for governor last cycle against kathy hochul is the prohibitive favorite in the praise so we watch that unfold.

the state of the house in virginia, the seventh district, district seven, it is a newly redrawn seat that president biden carried by about seven points last cycle. it was kind of used as a bellwether for how big of a red wave we would have last year. the toughened -- tough incumbent is tailor-made for that district. think about the opportunity for republicans. it will be a big field of candidates who are right now. the person leading the money race or you might remember from the first trump impeachment isn't that race and has raised about $800,000, which is a hefty sum for a house race. speaking of extensive races, texas is going to be very expensive right now. as michael mentioned, the former nfl player turned congressman is running against ted cruz right

now and he has raised so much money. he is routinely rounding off $6 million quarters and has outraised ted cruz for most of the year. there is a lot of money coming in from outside groups because ted cruz is one of those named republican that excites the democratic small donor class right now. democrats are excited about this race and about him as a candidate. however ted cruz will be tough in any year. in 2018 was she came within two or three points of beating ted cruz, it has been two cycles in the six years since then and it seems like that was the high watermark for democrats in texas where there is peak backlash against president trump with enthusiasm on the democratic base. we will see if they can surpass

that, but right now that is on a peripheral view of opportunities for senate democrats who would love an extra seat right now joe manchin retired. >> since we are there, i want to talk on the other side, i pulled up your national journal map of the democratic senate seat. there are a lot. 23 includes three held by independents who caucus with democrats, the yellow on the map. with 23 seats, how tough it be for democrats to hold onto the majority in the senate? >> it will be tough. shout out to our graphics team for that map. it looks great. democrats are at a disadvantage on this map. they told us during our what it takes this year at the this is the best map they have seen in decades.

it was detailed in both stories. gary peters the chairman of the democratic senate campaign committee is back again after helming the committee in 2022. he needs to defy gravity again. with joe manchin retiring and giving that seat to republicans, president trump carried west virginia biomes 40 points in 2020, democrats, there is no plan b, so that is a wash and democrats are starting the cycle at a 50-50 split. in order to keep the senate, they need to defend every single incumbent and was the white house. -- win the white house. the lines for the balance and it will be in two states of former president trump carried twice, montana, and in ohio with sherry brown. between those two races alone you could see investments of

over that amount. they will be expensive. if republicans flip one seat they will probably take control descendant right now. >> already. -- alrighty. let's go back to the phone lines. virginia. republican line. >> good morning. i am the chairman for an organization virginia called chasing freedom virginia and we do a voters guide for all the races in virginia and interview the candidates and publish the results and do an endorsement and primary, but we are a conservative organization nonpositive, but -- nonpartisan, but that's not the reason i cold. you had a color earlier who asked whether the election was stolen. the overly simplistic version of what really happened and what we have to recognize and for all

the democrats out there please listen very closely, they lied to year. they did it on purpose. we now see what happened with the fbi influence twitter and facebook. >> i am going to stop you. who is they? >> the fbi work with twitter and facebook depressed free speech in order to cover up the hunter biden laptop which is now been revealed to be true, which we know probably would have flipped the election if it came out it was true and there was ongoing investigations into hunter biden the whistleblowers have revealed. in addition to that the democratic party also went and essentially manipulated 51 career intelligence officers defaming the reputations by convincing them to go out and say it was likely russian disinformation. that was also a lie and they knew it was alive. and all of this goes back to the

fake dossier that was created by the clinton campaign to defame donald trump which got turned into a false counterintelligence investigation into the trump campaign that outed carter page who was a source of the cia and russian oligarchs. i mean, what i'm trying to say here is and it is very very important that democrats out there realize that the democratic party did this to you. they did it to everyone. they lied from the very beginning because they knew that donald trump was not going to play with all of the political charts. he was going to try to work for the american people will. and he spent his entire administration being forced to defend righteousness essentially and i don't mean righteousness religiously but doing the right thing. what i am begging people to realize, i am begging people to

realize that you have to look at the facts. you can't just listen to people's talking points. you can't just -- >> all right. we appreciate your call. i want to let him respond. >> it is certainly a comment more than a question. while he was dipping into a lot of conspiracy theories there and ongoing investigations into hunter biden and the biden family, i don't necessarily believe that the election was stolen, that the they, the fbi or deep state was behind the conspiracy to put biden in the white house and stop trump. we have seen that play out time and time again, proven time and time again through multiple investigations, state investigations, that the big lie was nothing more than the big lie. >> all right. we will get one more collar in. -- caller.

go ahead. >> good morning. good program. i just wanted to mention something and ask questions about congressional races. in portland, oregon, i'm with the portland gray panthers and organize election forums. we have had 70 candidates talk to us. portland oregon has rank-choice voting in effect next year and there are no primaries. i want to mention that and if you have time for a comment. on the oregon race, as you probably know perhaps there is one open seat because there it is a candidate retiring and there is a contested seat with three women engineers trying to take out the seat, traditionally a democratic seat was that the people we are keeping track of

our all three women engineers running to get the nomination, and then for the other seat which has long been probably not a contested but along democratic seat of a diverse candidates like one who has a sister party in congress in washington state and eddie mauro alice, a city counselor from gresham, so if you have information or comments on those two races that would be great. thank you. >> all right. any response? >> that's great. i think the oregon braces getting overlooked because -- race is getting overlooked because of a bias. i think the bloom and how are seat will be a safe solid democratic seat and that will be done and dusted in the primary. i think the idea of adopting rank-choice voting is interesting especially citywide elections. we saw how that played out to scale in the app laskin at large

ray/year which saw -- race last year which saw the candidate flip that seat after the other candidate passed away. because she was the second choice for a lot of republicans who wanted to support sarah palin or the other candidate on the ticket. and so it feels like with rank-choice voting there is more incentive to play towards the middle more, to be that type of mortar consensus candidate. we see a lot of these more safe primary races aware it is oil -- races, where it is boiled down to a race between the extremes. >> ok. good afternoon. ag garland: i am joined today by janet yellen, lisa monaco, and