c-span student cam documentary competition is back, celebrating 20 years with this year's theme, looking forward while considering the past. we're asking middle and high school students to create a fun six-minute video addressing one of these questions, in the next 20 years, what's the most important change you'd like to see in america? or over the past 20 years, what's been the most important change in america? as we do each year, we're giving away $100,000 in total prizes with a grand prize of $5,000 and every teacher who has students participate in this year's competition have an opportunity to share a portion of an additional $50,000. the competition deadline is ay, bruary 19, 2024. for information visit our website at studentcam.org. c-span is your unfiltered view of government.

we're funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? no, it's way more than that. comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers to create wi-fi enabled lists so students can have the tools to be rea for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service alo with these television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> we welcome back to our desk to speak about the political road ahead on capitol hill. let's start on the political side. this headline, the elite story, if you go to rollcall.com right now, will the show of george santos go on? how do you answer that question? n at least for the short term.

we don't know how much longer in congress but it seems like santos will be with us one way or another for a while he was parodied on saturday night live recently. he is now part of the cultural fabric of our lives, at least our political lives. but the most immediate issue is whether he will be expelled from the house this week. guest: the immediate question is will he be expelled mississippia motion to expel santos to provide to other expelling -- in this congress, he's only been here since january and this will be the third time. some democrats were saying they don't feel comfortable with the lack of due process, some people say that is just an attempt to keep them in the headlines. but it seems like the ethics committee report that came out a little bit before thanksgiving break was very damming.

in detailed him spending money at casinos and for botox, just little tidbits that are just kind of amazing. it really is a good read if you are so inclined. the ethics committee website, some of it even gets into his staff who seek therapy, he had made lying such a part of his daily life that they needed to get help. this isn't the end of it regardless of what happens for him, but it seems like this week things might come to a head which brings into question all kinds of things.

defense authorization, conference reports come all the other things. host: one that would be competitive the democrats could pick up. guest: parts of queens that was held by a democrat most recently. santos won the seat in the 2022. he had lost to the incumbent and then ran for governor. he has said he is going to run regardless. he may run in a special election if there is a special election because the seat is vacant if he is expelled or running in 2024 regardless. host: with such tight margins, every seat is important. we've seen a lot of people heading to the -- recently, announcements and the past couple of days. take it -- take us through what it means for that math in the house. guest: everyone of these seats

seems to set off another planning scenario for how long will we have this person? so many resignations that resolve recently. the buffalo area democrats that he is leaving february to take a job closer to home. that will likely be a democratic seat in the future but who knows how long the seat will be vacant? the conservative republican from ohio has said he is going to take the job as president of youngstown fate in ohio. he needs to take that job before march. he doesn't know exactly when he is leaving. that will be likely a republican who will replace them, but again, when you take one out and you see the margins for which some of these votes happened, it drives a planner crazy. host: it is an unusual number of people who are leaving congress this cycle.

we used to call it the casualty list. people who are retiring, people running for higher office. all referred to as part of the casualty list. is the cash to list unusually high in this congress? guest: if it were to stay relatively static, this would be a little bit higher than average, usually about 30 people or so move on. right now we are pushing 36, 37. it is for a variety of reasons. it does seem that it is starting to pick up pace with a number of people, among the other people who have left recently, tony carr dennis, the democrat from california. chris stewart, who is a republican from utah, he left in september. special election was just filled to his seat. bringing the house up to 435 for the first time in a long time.

it is a lot of mix-and-match, but it seems like the last month or so has really picked up the pace in the texas filing deadline is soon. host: that forces the decision of whether they are going to run or not. guest: right. texas might push it into an area where we see a lot more than normal. host:host: from the legislative side, the latest on the emergency aid packages for israel, ukraine. precious few legislative days left in this calendar here. so what are we expecting to see today and next week? guest: we are going to see people talking about the fact that they are going to be talking. we're not expecting any sort of substantive thing on either floor of either chamber this week when it comes to a ukraine security package.

there is a lot of momentum at least among the congressional leaders. yesterday, mike johnson said of oars we need to get money to ukraine, we can't afford to have vladimir putin marching across europe. that is a more aggressive thing that some people were looking for, some people who support ukraine. he also said it needs to be coupled with a border security package which is one of those things that we booked in washington for a long time. they will is talked about immigration reform. that is always a fraught topic to try to attach to something that is considered must-have. so i think we are going to see a lot of people talking about do we couple ukraine-israeli aid into taiwan as well and border security, and can we get that out the door when the house wants to leave?> host: one minute 30 seconds of

chuck schumer yesterday on the senate floor. republicans on border security in this larger aid package. >> the worst thing we can do right now, the worst thing we can do is to make something as bipartisan as ukrainian aid conditional on partisan issues that have little chance of becoming law. sadly, that is what may well be happening right now, because the biggest hold up to national security supplements is some republicans on partisan border policy as a condition for ukraine aid. this has injected a decade-old hyper partisan issue into overwhelmingly bipartisan priorities. democrats stand ready to work on commonsense sense solutions to address immigration, but purely partisan hard right demands jeopardize the entire national security supplemental package, and i urge my colleagues as they

think about that to remember what president zelenskyy told us when he spoke in the old senate chamber. he said if we don't get the aid, we will lose the war. let me repeat that. zelenskyy said if we don't get the aid, we will lose the war. that is the state with ukrainian aid. the possibility of victory or defeat the ukrainian people and ultimately our western way of life, and let's be clear, a victorious prudent would be in emboldened putin. if ukraine falls, putting will keep going. russia's authoritarian influence will expand. other autocracies may feel emboldened and democracy around the world would enter decline. host: chuck schumer on the floor of the senate yesterday. as this debate is happening on capitol hill, what role of the white house playing and how much russia can and are they applying to what is happening here on the other end of pennsylvania avenue? >> it seems like the message is

a little muddled. they obviously want to get a package up north and possible, with as much flexibility as possible. hopefully coupled with israeli and gaza for humanitarian purposes. it just seems like they are not escalated. yesterday, the president when he was announcing his supply chain council and his executive orders to streamline the supply chain made some comments about it, but he hasn't been fully aggressive. there's only so much pushing you can do in these. sometimes when you are hurting, it is not even stray cats at this point. i think it is still at the cattle stage. you can only do so much to push people in one direction. they are just getting back.

it is a relatively slow start even though it seems like we are running out of days before the end of the year. the house is just coming back today, the senate came back last night. they are not in a huge hurry to get something on the war and also the president has said he is going down to atlanta today for the memorial services for rosalynn carter. i'm sure that that was sort of occupy most of his time and most of the messaging. they don't want to look like they are going partisan and pushing for war aid during a funeral. host: that service taking place today as part of three days of tributes for the former first lady. we are going to be airing it on c-span, also on c-span.org and the free c-sn w app. 1:00 p.m. eastern today for that service in atlanta at the glen memorial united methodist church. we are talking this morning with the editor-in-chief of roll

call, a very good person if you have questions about the legislation with the politics on capitol hill. phone lines are open for you to call in. as usual it is split by political party. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. as folks are calling in, what else is on congress'to do list in the next couple weeks before the end of the calendar year? guest: we did catch a little bit of a break. we usually have this massive rush at the end of the year on appropriations. the government funding deadlines have been pushed into january and february, so there will not be that. but they always like to do the big pentagon policy build. they are going to conference, it looks like, and it looks like there was sort of a bipartisan move to get that done before the end of the year. the faa could be reauthorized as

well, especially in light of recent reports about near misses at airports. if you've been traveling the last couple of months or couple of days, you know that there could be some improvements possibly in the way that we move people through airports. host: busiest travel day in history. guest: yes, two point 9 million people screened by the tsa. the fda, there is stuff about pilot training, modernizing air traffic control and so forth that needs to be done, particularly for a country is on the move as we are. there's also a bunch of things that people don't think about a lot that are equally important. medicare is scheduled to cut the pay of doctors who take medicare. usually, congress had that off one way or another. right now it is unclear what the vehicle may be. there's a bunch of tax provisions that they always like to get done before the end of the year.

host: another year of tax breaks for research and develop them. guest: a lot of things like that. this is what a lot of lobbyists spend a great deal of their time on and what makes a lot of corporations make decisions going into the next business year about what they are going to spend money on and so forth. so these are all big ticket items that need a home and need to get done before the end of the year. even though we don't have to worry about appropriations as much before christmas and new year's, and college bowl season, of course, they still have a lot on their plate to get done. host: and of course, come back in january and there that awning lined up for january 19. let me take some calls. bakersfield, california is first. independent, good morning. >> good morning. jason, i was wondering if you could ask to me house speaker johnson does not suffer the same

fate as speaker mccarthy. i've been trying to think about it, he has been able to delay it for a while. but i just don't see it happening. i was wondering if you could maybe explain it to me. guest: it is a bit of a guessing game with us because he has run into some of the same exact problem, he pointed out. mccarthy didn't have enough votes to get those continuing resolutions across the finish line, he had to rely on democrats. and johnson, we've seen he's run into some of the same problems where it doesn't take much for somebody to say i'm not going to support this unless i get my vote on amendments. they pulled a number of appropriations bills from the floor because of this reason right before thanksgiving. you may recall that they left

sort of suddenly in the middle of the week, the week before thanksgiving because they had pulled the appropriations bill and they didn't have anything else to do. the feeling on capitol hill was let's just get people out and let them cool off a little bit. it is hard to see how things cool off when you're talking about expelling a member from the chamber. as we come back, there are a lot of ceilings still and i think that is reflected a little bit when they make their statements about why they are retiring. this is about as good an answer as i have, is that mike johnson doesn't have as many enemies as kevin mccarthy has. mccarthy has been around for a long time and he has been a staffer for bill thomas before. he accumulated a long record of

personal relationships and personal enemies. as any member does, you accumulate experiences and sometimes those stick with you, good and bad. mike johnson hasn't been around as long, and he may be in a little that of a honeymoon phase. particularly in the house freedom caucus, people are giving him a little bit more room to run. but we are seeing some frustrations that are doubling up. before we left, chip roy, republican from texas went on the house floor and challenged his colleague to say give me one thing that we've done that i can run for reelection and that frustration is likely still there. we may be able to avoid some of the biggest fights that we gotten away on with spending, but the other question is who is next?

there has to be some speaker in order to get any sort of business done, and it seems like mike johnson just enjoys a little bit more goodwill among the republicans holding caucus then kevin mccarthy did. host: his relationship with the other leaders in congress, what you find most interesting? mcconnell, chuck schumer? what do we know about this relationship? >> not a whole lot. the relationship with mitch mcconnell, the senate minority leader is to me the most interesting part of it. just in raw terms, he can ignore jeffrey's in the house because house majorities have a power when they stick together. that is not there in the senate. of course, the majority can kind of run rush if they want. that doesn't mean that they will, but it doesn't seem to be an antagonistic relationship at this point. but it is also not as relevant

as his relationship with mitch mcconnell in the senate. they've set themselves up in this weird thing where mcconnell obviously wants to give him as much running room, but they don't always see i to i. they certainly don't see i to i on ukraine and israel supplemental. mcconnell wants to get that money out the door as soon as possible. johnson, the israeli aid with cuts to the irs. i'm sure mitch mcconnell doesn't have any left the irs, but he sees this as a problem for democrats to support in the senate. i think those relationships and the relationship with schumer, they've met. they seem to have met a few times and there doesn't seem to be anything antagonism, but that doesn't mean the positions of a whole are very firm. so it will be interesting. and it's also brand-new. you hear this a lot, he is new. he won't be new for long.

host: republican, good morning, you are on. caller: i told you like six months ago i am ultra, ultra maga. i know you are part of the media but i think you are a spokesperson for the democratic party. you just said that we have to fund ukraine and the border. you recording schumer. the border has got to be secondary. we've got a fun irs, but we can't fund the border. you guys are living in a bubble out there. this government is on its way to a massive cry -- nine. and then you have the people coming illegally that we have no idea who they are. 200 people on the terror watch list. we can't cross the border but we have to get money to ukraine to

seven years ago the 2016 election to make sure trump win-win because he was planted by russia. israel is our real ally. but people in that city -- not the host, because he seems like a nice man, they need to wake up. if we don't control the borders, i want to help -- host: let me assure you jason di ck is a nice man as well. back to the immigration issue and the site on capitol hill. guest: one thing that joe is reflecting on his a lot of people you look in public polling and the thing on the front of most people's minds is crime, inflation, immigration, border security. these are the kitchen table issue that people are concerned about. this is the stuff that will define what the election is

about. we are in the middle of the election cycle and this also speaks to the difficulty of trying to resolve some of these issues combined with other issues. i think there is a wide agreement among republicans and democrats that they need to get israel aid a supplemental package. anyone who has been to the border knows the situation needs to be addressed. one of the bill for the house will consider this week is revoking a lease that new york city has with the park service to house temporarily migrant in new york city. in this sort of field. this is top of mind for a lot of people but it also is, for where things fit into big legislative packages including something like immigration, as collocated as it is, it's just going to slow a lot of other things that

people feel strongly about as well. host: nathan gonzalez, your election analysis editor. republicans focus on battleground polls. democrats pointing to off year race election results. guest: again, nathan always was trying to look for just a little jan what we're seeing in front of us and he's already thinking about the iowa caucuses for the republicans are in january. they are going to be here as soon as we know. even with democrats shuffling the calendar in vindman, that is happening any matter of months. both of the front runners are relatively weak. they are both immensely unpopular with the public. both are underwater. that doesn't mean that the polls

aren't going to show one thing or another, but the battleground polls that you were talking about, that nathan talks about, donald trump has been looking very good in places like michigan and pennsylvania and arizona and georgia, the states that will decide the election. aunt nathan's point is that is overlooking the tremendous legal jeopardy that the former president binds himself in in cases in washington, new york, miami. so to just say you've got these other people, relatively strong fields in nikki haley, ron desantis. these are former governors, current governors, only you and ambassador. they are ready to make their case. chris christie, our former governor, and no one seems to be listening because it is like trump is beating biden in georgia.

so let's walk on by like there is nothing to see here. on the democratic side, democrats to do very well in the off year elections and they did very well in 2022. they lost the house, we are talking about red tsunamis and so forth. that didn't happen. it was reflected in how tight the margins are in the house and senate how divided the country is. biden is not a great -- well, he made -- might be a good retail guide but it is hard to see him firing up in the same way that will be see people like trump's crowds were so forth, or enthusiasm. biden has got a series of legislative accomplishment that he can run on. inflation suzy: house will be in order. the house will suspend the rules.