accounts, fundraising data, and campaign ads. watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail friday night on c-span, at c-span.org, or download the podcast on c-span now or wherever you get your podcasts. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. ♪ >> c-span's studentcam documentary competition is back celebrating 20 years with this year's theme looking forward while considering the past. we are asking middle and high school students to create a 5-6 minute video addressing one of these questions. in the next 20 years, what is the most important change you would like to see in america? or over the past 20 years, what has been the most important change in america? we are 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 the opportunity to share a portion of an additional $50,000. the competition is friday, january 19, 2024. for more information visit our website at studentcam.org. ♪ >> on mondays, we like to take a look at the week ahead. joining us this morning is stephen newcomb of the messenger. newcomb, we get off to a bit of an early start yesterday with that funding deal that was announced. take us through how that deal has turned into that announcement package yesterday for actual legislative language to get past the house and senate. how long is that process going to take? guest: the first hurdle was that top line number, figuring out what level they were going to write the spending bill to. that is something going on behind the scene for a couple months now.

you have the turmoil of the new speaker which changed of a lot of the plans. also, we've got a couple scenarios here, to different parts of the government will run out of funding. they have until january 19 to write up the rest of the spending bills and also get them passed through the house and senate. there's going to be differences of opinion between the house and the senate. that seems a bit ambitious. the other option is the continuing resolution, which they've done a number of times already trying to kick the can down the road even further, but now there may be more of a willingness to pass a continuing resolution to keep funding at the same level they are at right now to give them more time to work to pass these bills and it is going to of set

conservative's in the house and even in the senate, but there's also the two avenues that was gotten right now. host: the biggest sticking point, the disagreement yesterday to iron out everything between the two sides. guest: it essentially finds out the differences between speaker johnson in the white house and democrats. we saw immediately after the deal was announced that house conservatives are not happy with this bill, with this agreement. the top number is the same number that was agreed to between former speaker mccarthy in the white house and the debt limit deal. it is not deep enough spending cuts for conservatives for policy changes. the freedom caucus calls it an absolute failure. host: yesterday saying it is even worse than we thought. 5:17 p.m., just an hour and a half or so after the deal came out.

guest: you can see this coming and figure johnson admitted this in his letter to his colleagues, saying these are not the cuts that we want, it is not going to please everybody. but the reality is this is a tough spot not just for speaker johnson, but that speaker mccarthy was in as well. he's got a very slim majority in the house, they don't have the senate and they don't have the white house. they are not going to get everything they want in every negotiation, so this is something we've seen play out a number of times with conservatives very upset with republican leadership. host: it is about $900 million in defense spending. less than $800 million for domestic spending. take us to another deal we've been watching closely, the border deal. what are the expectations, we are seeing new legislation on the border security. >> they worked through much of

the holiday. the updates have been incremental. they've been optimistic at points, pessimistic at points that they would be able to reach a deal on policy changes. look, they might reach an agreement, but there's not a great amount of optimism that any deal that leaves the senate between democrats and republicans would pass a republican house right now. if they can negotiate in earnest and see what that deal comes out to be, there is very little chance that the deal would emerge and be able to make it through the house at all. host: and as part of that deal that has been talked about, border security has also been part of negotiations on additional funding, emergency funding for ukraine, israel, aid packages as well. what is the latest on the

emergency funding requests, security requests. >> essentially, the border negotiations are the key that could unlock the additional funding for ukraine, israel. house republicans have said that they will not take up more emergency assistance to ukraine or israel without border policy changes, so that is where things stand. that is a key hurdle to being able to legislate to get more money to those countries, and that barrier right now is border policy and border changes that have been contentious for literally generations in american politics, being able to bring forward policy changes on american immigration system. host: we are looking at impeachment of the person in

charge of the border, alejandra mayorkas. guest: yes, we are going to get our first hearing, something that has been going on for months now. ella hundred mayorkas has been outside of president himself, perhaps the number one biden administration target for house and senate republicans. he has been the guy who has had a white-hot light on him since the beginning of the ration, and now that we are shifting into an election year, it's very obvious that republicans are gearing up to make immigration a top election year issue. they took a trip to the border over this most recent break, they've been very vocal about their disagreements with the biden administration, so we are going to get this hearing, i reporting shows that they want to move very quickly on this impeachment of our hundred mayorkas and they are obviously

also doing their impeachment inquiry to president joe biden. but the thinking the have the curtain is that it would be an easier list that would have more moderates coming around the idea of impeaching and putting mayorkas from his position and it would be an easier list and a quicker job in getting rid of any impeachment articles against the president. host: border security, impeachment, emergencies. this is what is on the agenda. if you want to talk that any of those issues, phone lines are open for you to do so. stephen newcomb is our guest. the phone numbers to call in, (202) 748-8000 for democrats. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independent, (202) 748-8002. steve newcomb will be with us until 8:45 a.m. eastern, as folks are calling in. what also you watching? yes: we are watching about the president biden impeachment as well.

that sort of continuing the hunter biden saga. you're also going to get charges against the president's son this week for defining the congressional subpoena in the impeachment inquiry. republicans insisted and there subpoena said that the president's son and his lawyers were clear that they would only do a public hearing. hunter biden even showed up with a capital on the day that that deposition was scheduled, and essentially stood in the backyard of lawmakers and said that he was there ready and willing to testify, but he wouldn't do so in a private setting. we will also be getting that this week. trying to hold the president's son in contempt of congress, i know we are desensitized to a lot of the stuff, but that is quite an escalation of this

investigation. host: a call out of greenville, texas, independent. you're on the steve newcomb. caller: good morning. stephen, is it not the primary responsibility of congress to pass a budget each year by may 1, if i'm correct. is that not the case? guest: yes, it is congress' duty and job to pass a budget and this is something that republicans at a macrolevel have been pushing for a systematic change to this point where they could not be a situation where the passing off of this bill every year and pulling everything together. they wanted to pass the budget, they want to pass all these

individual spending bills. so that is something systematically that i think speaker mccarthy came into office trying to change. we've seen how tough it is to accomplish, in a house that at this point has a two or three seat majority. host: in this chart we showed every once in a while, it shows the percentage of appropriations bills enacted by the october 1 deadline, this isn't budget, but actually passing appropriations bills. it hasn't been since 1997, and in the 90's and congress last past their appropriations bills on time, you can see how poorly their percentage has been in recent years. your thoughts on that chart and why you bring up the question. caller: to me it seems really obvious. i mean, your opening statement,

stephen, was that they need to get to some kind of a deal here to come up with the top number before they can send it back to appropriations. i thought under the constitution we were supposed to do this in may and to do this every year, come up with that top number, if i'm not mistaken. mccarthy and biden did come up with a number, but i don't know how we could get into this impasse where the first part of that was done and we were unable to come to terms in the appropriation process which led to this impasse that we've been in for the last six months. it just -- to me, i'm just going off your last segment here where were talking about what we could cut and what we couldn't cut, and of course i couldn't get through to get on the phone on

this, but if they don't pass a budget, you want to save some money, stop paying them until they do. because if they can't a here to there oath of office, to adhere to the constitution, the primary duty, why we are sending them there, if you cannot do the job, why would we pay them? guest: very quickly if i can, why that was thrown off course, why they had to come to the table again, after the mccarthy deal. that initial deal, the debt limit deal and subsequently the continuing resolution working with demographic the government open, that is why kevin mccarthy lost his job as speaker. that is why conservatives joined

him -- join with every democrat in the house to remove kevin mccarthy from the speaker's office. that topline agreement with the reason why and the continuing resolution why this entire thing was thrown off course in the first place. and that is the danger of facing speaker johnson at this point. there is skepticism, i think, that conservatives would ever strategically remove a speaker again, at least in this congress, but we've seen a full on rebellion from the furthest right wing of the republican party on this specific issue. host: massachusetts, this is ryan, line for independent. >> good morning. i've seen your segment on the budget related to congress, and i actually have a solution. why is there no federal voter

referendum when it comes to budgets? like there are in the states. i think it to be in constitutional law. number two, why don't they cut more foreign aid, considering even cutting it to zero. number three, why not look at the welfare entitlement states and say hey, let's look into the fraud that is going on from all the welfare that is going out? this is common sense stuff. it should be mitigated that congressmen should not be able to vote themselves in. a federal budget referendum would do that. thank you. host: a voter referendum on budgets and raises, or the issue of fraud in welfare. guest: let's talk about foreign aid because that is something that is kind of top of mine on capitol hill. we talked about a little bit. the reality is that there is an overwhelming consensus on

capitol hill in both parties, definitely amongst house democrats, senate democrats and senate republicans that they need to get aid to ukraine, they need to get aid to israel. but not releasing foreign aid while the american government doesn't have its own spending priorities obviously figured out at this point, not acting on that foreign aid is a position of some house conservatives, and that is really that faction of lawmakers that is holding up the release of foreign aid. so that at the battle that we are seeing play out right now on capitol hill. host: to colorado, line for democrats, good morning. >> good morning. i'm a democrat, i've been a democrat all my life. i'm trying to figure out what is going on with giving all this

money to our enemies or what we call enemies, brooks. -- crooks. we are getting nothing back on it. host: who are the crooks, bob? caller: all these places that they are paying, like iraq and all these. why are we paying them to fight us? i don't understand it. it makes me sound like a republican. of course, republicans bow down to the democrats whenever the democrats say we want this done, and they let it go. i lived in a town that has got at least 15 people living on the streets.

we could be spending it right here but we are sending an overseas to other people. host: on this issue foreign aid, specifically focused on israel and ukraine, there is a caller saying this is a small assessment of what we get back. a lot of our callers saying we could spend that money here in america. host: what is the argument for foreign aid? guest: i think that number one, some leaders don't see it as a zero-sum game. we could effectively spend on her foreign priorities, domestic priorities the argument for some lawmakers, let's talk about ukraine. protecting ukraine against the

russian invasion, lawmakers who are in favor of increased aid see it as one way to keep american soldiers out of a fight. you can arm the ukrainian army without shedding any american blood. and they also see putin's ambitions in europe and in russia as expansionist and they see the ability to push back against that aggression as a decision that is safeguarding core, key american foreign policy interests, not allowing the russian army to steamroll the ukrainian army and claim land.

they see it as an investment in democracy around the world but i don't think anybody is under the illusion that ukraine was some perfect democracy before this invasion. it was at the very least an ally, and the argument for it is that this is a good investment in a good way to protect american interests abroad without having to shed any american blood. host: jeff in california often tweeted his questions, once to know if you can explain how speaker johnson compromises with senate republicans and immigrants were working together in keep his position. is he going to be the next kevin mccarthy? guest: this is a question that is being talked about. i am personally skeptical given

the debacle that the ousting of kevin mccarthy caused. that conservatives would move again to get rid of a speaker. if we go back to that time, it was nearly in month-long impasse. it is sort of a blur, it could have been longer. for weeks, all we were doing was trying to find a speaker and one speaker candidate would come up and another would go down. one would come up, another would go down. they weren't accomplishing anything. all the while they were barreling toward these headlines, and that impasse is sort of what necessitated continuing resolutions which conservatives were upset about and continuing government funding much at the same level as that right now. so i am skeptical that

conservatives would move that faction of house conservatives would move to oust speaker johnson, but that doesn't mean that they can't make his job extremely difficult and muck up progress and make this appropriations process very painful for republican leadership. >> beheaded the house freedom caucus tweeting in part this yesterday afternoon. at some point having the house majority has to matter. that spending with an open border, how should speaker johnson deleting that. >> again, he is in a really tough spot. a lot of these guys and gals are the ones who threw their support behind making johnson speaker. these are the same people who voted to oust -- largely to oust kevin mccarthy.

they wanted to get rid of kevin mccarthy to impose a new speaker. well, this is what they got themselves. they got themselves speaker mike johnson. i think he should read this as a threat again to make this process painful. i think if you read the writing on the wall, speaker mike johnson can expect any democratic votes to pass any of these spending bills, many of these spending bills going forward and if they were to need any resolution for short-term stopgap bills, to expect any democratic votes, and ultimately again that that partying with democrats is what got mccarthy ousted. host: do you think at this point that if this deal goes to the floor in the next couple weeks, that it gets more democratic vote in the house band republican votes in

republican-controlled house of representatives? guest: we've seen it happen before. i don't know specifically, maybe a senate bill or two. i'm skeptical that some of these spending bills, specific appropriations bills would get more democratic support than republican, but they are certainly going to need the democratic votes. republicans, there's a number of mechanisms they could use to try to stop progress here. one of them is to try to stop the rule, which would allow the bill to even go forward. usually that is something that the majority just as a rule just vote for if you're going to vote against the bill, it will vote against it on the floor. but we've seen republicans vote against the rule to not even allow a bill to get on the floor. aunt democrats as a rule again

have decided not to vote for a republican rule going forward. so we will have to see to what extent the speaker is going to need democratic support. >> steve newcomb taking your questions, maryland, independent, thanks for waiting. caller: thank you, thank you for taking my call. real quick, it seems a sticking point for most americans is the border. there seems to be a lot of blaming, the blame game going on. my question is which branch of government exactly is responsible for fixing for policy? is it the legislative branch, the executive branch? is that the judicial branch? we give comments in the legislative branch blaming the executive branch, sometimes it is a mix of comments about the

judicial branch. who is responsible for fixing the border? guest: it is a good question and this is something that is being debated on capitol hill. when republicans went to the border this past weekend, to eagle pass, texas, held a press conference and took a congressional delegation down to the border, they placed the blame solely on the biden administration, and this is part of the reason they are trying to impeach homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas, there election of duty. they have refused -- they claim they have refused to enforce the law. the executive branch points the finger back at the legislative branch at congress and says we are using the tools that we have been given and are navigating a system that is been created through congress to the extent

that their executive changes, that that is something that has been -- for example, title 42. the executive branch has been able to use title 42 to expel migrants from the u.s. who are seeking asylum in the country because of the pandemic. but the executive range, the presidencies of trump and biden, the rule was the same but they utilized it friendly and implemented differently. there's a little bit of truth to the idea that both of them are responsible for governing the southern border. congress passes a law and give the guard rails the authority, and the white house and the executive branch decide exactly how they like to enforce those

movies. host: before we get too close to the end, a debriefing this week on what we used to call ufos. what are we expecting to find out? guest: they are uaps now, right? host: unidentified anomalous phenomenon. guest: it is good that you pulled that out. [laughter] there is a classified briefing, that is where a lot of this uap stuff has been going through. republicans on the committee aunt democrats -- i shouldn't say that, this is a bipartisan issue. there is support on both sides of the aisle for more transparency from the federal government about some of these uap's which supports sensitive because of the military testing and everything else. it is not an issue that i've been following incredibly closely, and i can't remember

what they of the week, it was either tuesday or friday that the breathing is this week, but they will be giving a classified briefing from administration officials, and that can lead to a hearing in the future. they already had one or two. host: and maybe we will find out more afterwards. this is john in georgia, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. yes, to solve the budget problem. if you go to the website, you will see that mandatory spending was just out of control between the year 2019 and 2022. mandatory spending increased by $1 trillion. in 2022, the government collected $4.9 trillion, more than any other year, yet we still were in a deficit of more

than $1.5 trillion. in 2023, the government collected 4.4 trillion dollars, the second most of any year ever. yet that only paid for a portion of mandatory spending which was $2.8 trillion. that was not all of it, just the largest portion. interest on debt, military budget, about $1.5 trillion. everything else that we collect in this country is borrowed money. interest only debt has gone through about $1 trillion this year. i would be the second largest line item in the budget, second behind mandatory spending. if there any appetite in congress to control mandatory spending? guest: there is an appetite, certainly, a bipartisan appetite. republicans have wanted to establish a budget commission,

to get leaders together, lawmakers together to try to find a pathway to a balanced budget. will that happen? it hasn't happened in the last however many decades. they are struggling right now to even pass their appropriations bills as they are written right now, and they continue to blow past funding deadline after funding deadline. updated picture being able to tackle that macrolevel issue of the budget is in some ways obscured by the more immediate issues of passing this legislation to keep the government opened in the immediate term and funded over the next fiscal year. and so that is what they are working on right now, that is the immediate need to get those bills done.

julia, are you with us? host: we will give just the last call, thanks for hanging on the line. caller: let me correct a couple of things. biden is the one that brought every single presidential directive on the border when he came in office. he is the one that has been allowing all these people to come in. in 2021, new york was 8.5 million people. that is exactly the amount of people that he has allowed into that border by dropping all the presidential executive orders in place. right now, we've got the governor of california allowing all these trains operating and everything else. we are going to end up paying

for it. they just reported on fox that they've had all these tow trucks lined up where they are keeping all these immigrants, and they are toeing away their cars. who is paying for the cars? guest: look, the idea that the biden administration has done nothing to remove migrants from the border, it's false. in fiscal year 2022, more people were encountered at the border, 1.4 million people encountered at the border were removed from the u.s., more than any single year in history before, so the president has been criticized on this issue for being too hawkish on the border. and he gets it from the right for having open borders. this is a more complex issue

than saying that the white house has just dropped every border initiative and has failed to enact any laws of the southern border. that just wouldn't be true. host: 8.5 million, i haven't heard that one. this is the new york post setting a syracuse university study saying it has been 3.8 million migrants entering the u.s. since jill biden took office. have you heard a .5 million? -- 8.5 million? guest: no. host: steve newcomb covers the messenger. guest: we cover in-depth congressional coverage. everything that we've been talking about on the show and even more, we will have it.

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