>> this week, house democrats were hold leadership elections for the 119 congress. the house will revolt on legislation that ends the tax-exempt status of terrorists supporting organizations, which failed last week. the senate will vote on more of president biden's remaining judicial nominations. on tuesday, a house transportation and infrastructure committee on disaster readiness and response. enhe homeland security secretary, the fbi director, and the acting dector of the

national counterterrorism center testify on worldwide threats to the u.s. first on wednesday, homeland security committee of the house, then thursday the senate. this week live on the c7 -- c-span networks or on c-span now. you can head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on-demand anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> coming up live on "washington journal," your calls, comments, and news of the day. later, scott macfarlane will talk about the week ahead in washington. then the washington times white house reporter, jeff mordock, on the latest news on the president-elect's transition, including his picks for cabinet. "washington journal" starts now. ♪ host: good morning, monday,

november 18, 2024. "washington journal" is ahead paired we begin on president-elect donald trump's cabinet picks for the upcoming administration, unveiling more appointment over the weekend my including liberty energy ceo chris wright for energy secretary. we begin by asking you, what do you think will be the most important cabinet pick in the second trump administration? phone lines by political parties. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can also text (202) 748-8003 , include your name and where you are from. otherwise, you can contact us on social media. facebook.com/c-span or on x with handle @cspanwj. some headlines on donald trump's pick for cabinet.

this is peter baker of the new york times, the wrecking ball of the status quo, seen as a government stress test. usa today, trump signals combat ahead, the headline. in the washington times, in trump's cabinet, loyalty tops experience. he writes that the cabinet is a severe detour from the approach in 2017 when picks included the head of exxon mobil, 24 star marine corps generals, a former cabinet secretaries, and several business tycoons. many picks figuring they were more of a hindrance than help. this time he has chosen people he expects to be loyal as he carries out the unprecedented government housecleaning. we are asking you what you think will be the most important

cabinet position and a second trump administration. phone lines split as usual, by political party, numbers on your screen. new york times, their tracker on the cabinet level posts, these are the senate confirmation posts come about half of those positions have been named at this point, still waiting on positions including the labor secretary, treasury secretary, agriculture, commerce, transportation, education, urban affairs, cdc, surgeon general, small business administration, trade representative, office of management and budget, and a few others. about half of the posts have been named at this point, preparation ahead for some of them. lots of talk on the sunday shows about what that will include. we wanted to hear from you, asking you to look ahead at what will be the most important cabinet position. louis in highland park, illinois , democrat. good morning. caller: good morning.

i think it is an excellent question. to me, the most important appointee would be health and human services. as we can see what happened to america with the less pandemic, it almost crippled us. but we're are very thankful to dr. fauci and his staff and all the people involved in health this saved our country. from total devastation. on the others, we have stupid people who are like donald trump, who are walking around in public without a mask spreading the virus, making our country more fallible, more dangerous. host: are you happy with the idea of robert of committee, -- robert f kennedy, jr., as hhs secretary? caller: absolutely not.

the man has no scientific background, no way to analyze data, and he will be in charge of literally thousands and thousands of health care professionals who are supposed to take care of this country and keep us safe. absolutely not, no kennedy. host: as we said, plenty of discussion on the sunday shows on donald trump's cabinet picks. this was deborah burkes, donald trump's covid response coordinator in his first term, reacting on cbs yesterday to president trump's -- president-elect trump's pick of robert f kennedy, jr. [video clip] >> i think when we talk about things in public health, we do not acknowledge the concerns. because when my children went to school, there was maybe one in 1000 kids diagnosed with autism, now it is 300. so every mom sees a classroom of

kindergartners were one of the children has autism. that is scary to moms and dads. they want to know why. it is more than saying vaccines cause autism. it is us finding what the cause of autism is. >> it is ridiculous that there is not a lot of research and established causation for autism. but what he has that in the past is that autism is caused by vaccines, and there is no scientific basis for that, as i understand it. >> correct. so when they talk about transparency, that is why i am actually excited that in a senate hearing he would bring forward his data and the questions come from the senators to bring forth their data -- to bring forth their data. what i know is he is a very smart man that can bring his data and his evidence-based forward and we can have a discussion that many americans believe already is a problem. until we can have that transparency and that open discussion from both sides -- i

know the members have incredible staffers who bring great questions from their constituents, and that hearing would be a way for americans to really see the data that you are talking about. host: that was from "face the nation" yesterday, deborah birx on that program. the conversation about robert f. kennedy, jr., continues in the new york times today. a piece from a medical researcher, the headline, what kennedy gets right about american health care. she said, i believe there is a health care agenda that finds common ground between people like myself with medical researcher, clinician, and mr. kennedy. there are seeds of truth to some of what district kennedy says. noncooperation will not protect the integrity of the american public health or advance its interests. the opportunity to leverage his skepticism and relative political independence with the

most valid criticisms of the american health care witticism, put into constructive -- health care system, put into constructive reforms. the lack of effort to build consensus about what the country did well during the pandemic and what to avoid next time, missed opportunity for a closure to a difficult era while preparing for the next pandemic. more in the new york times today. that is just one cabinet position. we are asking you, what do you think will be the most important cabinet position and a second trump administration? robin in maryland, good morning, republican. caller: good morning. i cannot decide between department of defense and homeland security. i think both of the choices were excellent. pete hegseth is a true patriot. he loves america. he has two bronze stars. i think he did a great job. i think he will do a great job.

and the current head of the dod went awol for five days and lied to his boss about where he was. so i certainly think pete hegseth will be great. kristi noem, i think she is great. head of dhs here at the current head of the dhs light to us, told us the border was secure -- the current head of the dhs lied to us, told us the border was secure. there were millions coming over, and we were told there was no problem. i think kristi noem will be great. i wanted to mention, someone talked about how trump did not wear a mask. well, keep in mind that anything other than the n95 or kn95 mask had no value whatsoever. so we were all told to wear masks, but those masks did absolutely no good whatsoever. thanks for taking my call. host: thanks, robin, in

maryland. this is pennsylvania, steve, good morning, republican. what is the most important cabinet pick? caller: it is a hard stretch to say what is the most important. the department of homeland security could certainly be cut completely, as far as i am concerned. combating terrorism with another gigantic bureaucratic nightmare of a department is wasting time, effort, and money. the first caller talked about robert f. kennedy, jr. when you look at the current head of dhs, i think javier becerra, he is nothing but a career politician. if you want to talk about unqualified persons, if the

departments are nothing but career politicians, then we will get exactly what we deserve. donald trump and company are going to shake it up, and we will see where it falls out. if it falls out good -- well, trump, he is done after this term, end of his presidency, but perhaps the american people will start looking at things differently than business issues. host: what do you think about the senate confirmation process and how much pushback donald trump's nominees would get in a republican-controlled senate? caller: if they just rubberstamp everything, then that is not the solution either. there are some legitimate questions that have to be asked and answered. host: you would not be in favor of recess appointments, this idea of appointments that would go until the end of the 119th congress, avoiding the senate confirmation process? caller: if it starts to draw,

then i would support recessing appointments. if it draws out for that amount of time, then i wouldn't. host: that is steve out of pennsylvania. more from the sunday shows, cnn's "state of the union" had one senator who would vote on the confirmation process, senator fetterman of pennsylvania. he said democrats should stop freaking out about some of the appointees. [video clip] >> there are some i would absolutely be excited to vote for, like my colleague from florida or the representative from new york, of course. then others are absolute trolls, just like gaetz and those things. that's why democrats -- trump gets the kind of thing he

wanted, like the freak out and all of those things. and he has not even been -- it is still not even thanksgiving yet. if we are having meltdowns every appointment, it is going to be four years. the last time i was on your network, i was warning about the jackpot. i used that metaphor of the slot machine, the 777, and if trump wins, likely that will happen. he will get the house, going to have the senate, and the presidency, and the real jackpot is the supreme court. that has been very clear that that is the strong, conservative plan. so they have been running the table, and for the next two years, if you want to be concerned about that, they have the absolute ability to run the table, at least for the next two years, and that is what we should all be concerned on, not

small tweets or random appointments. host: senator john fetterman, democrat from pennsylvania, on cnn yesterday. back to your phone calls. ann, maryland democrat, good morning. caller: yes, i was calling about vaccines. i taught school for many years, and there are some great concerns, not just for children but for everyone, but these children in elementary school, preschool, they need their vaccines. they need more than just the vitamin c, which is not strong enough to help their immune system. as a result, when feeling about one of these candidates, this person who comes from a well-known family name is using his family name just to be in a position that will be detrimental to children who will attend school for the full-time, children who need to have these kind of things in their immune

system to strengthen them so they can go on with their life's journey, not only to school but to whatever work they desire later. i am 74 peer thank god i was given that opportunity. right now it is as if everybody is being cut off of being given an opportunity to live well, healthy, and provide a better way in life with their jobs and schooling. i understand this is what they want to do, but i cannot believe i live in a time like this within this country to have these people come here is because they are angry with certain other people. those other persons, democrats, not liberals. republicans, not too conservative. i like both sides. unfortunately, these people do not like any side and want to destroy people. i cannot do anything. this country comes to this, but i will still help to make this country better. thank you. host: charles in charleston, arkansas, republican.

are you with us? caller: yes. host: go ahead, sir. caller: yes, the question is, what are the most important cabinet positions? i would say the most important position is matt gaetz as attorney general, simply because we have three branches of government, executive, legislative, and judicial, and we must fill the traditional, which is very important. that is all i had to say. host: that is charles. this is another charles, texas, democrat. good morning. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller: treasury department, because if you do not know who controls that money in the treasury department, that is all that will be thought about. money will be diverted to different places, and you will never know it. if i'm not mistaken, it was the last election he was in, someone

diverted some money, money, missing in the treasury department, never did find out where it went. so if trump is in trouble, with the treasury department, look for him. if he ain't a billionaire, he will be. host: wall street journal focusing on the jockeying to leave the treasury department. we have yet to hear who donald trump will name for that post. this is what they write, it is played out privately at mar-a-lago in recent days. two of donald trump's most powerful allies, elon musk and robert f. kennedy, jr., used social media to give support for billionaire businessman howard that nick -- howard lutnick for treasury post. there is also investor scott bessent.

late friday, it appeared lutnick was falling out. trump and musk making their cases over the weekend. pressure on donald trump from cantor missed -- cantor fitzgerald to choose lutnick. peter in reading, pennsylvania, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. i name is peter, and i'm calling from reading, pennsylvania. as i sit here and listen to this nightmare -- i am an uber driver, and trump had a rally here in my town, and i was so disgusted because i happened to pick up a trump campaign lawyer worker.

i said to him point blank, said your boss is a racist and a bigot, but that is ok, we survived four years of this. and with matt gaetz a ts other clown forefse secretary, was a major, was not even in top -- in the top echelon of the military. i am a navy veteran, and when i served, i did not expect to see my country blown apart like this. that is all i got. host: he mentioned matt gaetz as attorney general. he was on fox news yesterday when speaker johnson was asked about that nomination. the ethics investigation ended

when matt gaetz resigned from congress to take up this attorney general position, to prepare for it. this is some of what speaker johnson had to say. [video clip] >> i do not in -- do not know anything about the content of the report. but what i do know is that the comments about this being a precedent for releasing reports is not accurate. there were two breaches of the tradition and the past under extraordinary circumstances. i do not think this meets the criteria. look, matt gaetz is a colleague of mine, and he is one of the brightest minds in washington, or anywhere, for that matter, and he knows everything about how the department of justice has been weaponized and is used. he will be a reformer, and i think that is why the establishment in washington is so shaken up by this pic. regarding your report, there is an important reason for the tradition and the rule we have almost always followed, and that is we do not issue

investigations and ethics reports on people who are not members of congress. i am afraid that would open a pandora's box. there is a jurisdiction to the ethics committee to limit it to those serving in the institution. i think this would be a breach of protocol that would be dangerous going forward in the future. host: speaker mike johnson on fox news sunday yesterday. thomas in new jersey, republican . our question, what is going to be the most important cabinet post in the second trump administration? caller: the last health person that ran for four years -- i am for jfk, jr., going into it. listen, i did not realize our products we are eating and serving our kids and grandkids are poisoning our youth and myself. i liked fruit loops but stopped eating them because

what is in them. it has been pointed out we are being poisoned. with these food products, i would like to see him in it because nobody else is talking about it. give the guy a shot. he is the only one that can help us. we're all being poisoned or getting cancer. we got to go to the doctors. listen, a doctor gave me this medication. i am doing better now off my medications. matt gaetz, i am a little bit leery of this guy. i think they should push into the side. he is kind of a little bit radical for me. speaker johnson worked with him for eight years. i worked with a lot of people i cannot stand, but i am not going to put them down. but i'm going to say matt gaetz should be pushed aside. host: what kind of work argue in. caller: i worked for a donald trump for a year. i made doorman at one of the

casinos. anytime i contract came up for renewal, he said just give them what they need. he loves his doormen. he loves his entry-level people working. with him and elon musk, i am going to watch elon musk, too, gotta keep an eye on him. host: did you ever have a don -- a conversation with donald trump is a doorman? caller: yes, many times. host: was he a good tipper? caller: oh, yes. there were four doorman, and he would give $400, and he would go, oh, god, and then he would take care of us, talk to us for 15, 20 minutes, talk about bettering the hotel are bringing better people into the hotel. this is 25 years ago. but this is donald trump today. everybody changes. host: what is the biggest difference today versus 25 years

ago? caller: 25 years ago, he was very egotistical. i will be honest about that, but he cares about people. people do not understand that. today, he is more of a christian then he was before. he was not a praying president before he went in, now he is a praying president for all those christians. host: good morning, line for democrats. caller: if i was trump, i would not even have no going to the senate, i would just make them all active. four years -- host: you say that as a democrat? caller: yes, i would appoint every one of them. i wouldn't have none of them go in front of the senate. thank you, yarl. have a good day.

host: to alabama, this -- that was alabama. to d.c., this is robert. good morning. caller: i agree with the previous caller on the treasury department. when trump was in office on the first term, i was concerned that he was looking at the money. if you leave the white house and on the right is the department of the treasury and on the left is the world bank, so i remember that as a point of reference and historical reference, from what i understand it being in d.c., when bush, sr., was in office -- remember the scandal in 1991? at that time, it was not found out exactly what happened to that money because the money suddenly evaporated out of the banks. i think it was about $150

billion. we're saying the fbi c will bail out the banks. strangely enough, the fbi see -- fdic was bankrupt. host: 2025, what is the most important position? caller: we're talking about the presidential and as far as what could happen. last time, even when trump was in office and everybody got the stimulus. ok, everybody got the money, so money can go into your bank account, then money can also evaporate out of your account like with the savings and loan in 1991. that was under bush. then when the money got missing out of the world bank, and that was for the people for india, and i was downtown during protests when they literally locked down all of pennsylvania avenue.

they were saying, what happened to our money? so treasury, that is the most important department right now. host: thank you from the call from here in d.c. more from today's papers on donald trump's cabinet picks. this is about halfway through his cabinet level picks, about 12 right now of the 25 positions that require confirmation or that would be in the cabinet, not all of the 25 require confirmation hearings. this is from the opinion pages today of usa today. a headline, rfk, jr., tulsi gabbard, the cabinet lacks conservatives. tulsi gabbard, former democratic congresswoman, donald trump nominated for director of national intelligence, we are seeing an administration not being filled with conservatives. many trump's nominees are devoid

of conservative principles. the only quality that seems to matter for a place in this administration is a love of trump, he writes, even a newfound one. you can read more in usa today. this is greg in ohio, democrat. caller: i look at it holistically, not what is the most important pic, but who is being picked. trump professes he is going to make america great for all people. if you look at his cabinet picks, it does not look very diverse to me. and he claims that he had the most votes from african-americans and hispanics, but i do not see any of those people in his cabinet. this is what is very perplexing. i will just look at the secretary of defense, who was a company commander in a national guard, who was in charge of the entire united states military.

that blows my mind, that pick alone. it already proves that the united states voters are unconcerned about the person's character or life experience. these republicans, maga people, they are going to push these people through because they are scared of donald trump. and that is the bottom line. host: this is a headline from this week, donald trump's cabinet is on track to be the least diverse in the century. caller: and, once again, he touted that he is going to make america great for all people. really? i will use tim scott, for example. i really want to say something else, but he was his number one fan. where's tim scott getting appointed to? nothing. how about donaldson? nothing. so that should tell you something right there.

donald trump is disgusting. host: that is greg in ohio. from that newsweek piece, their chart, obviously donald trump is not finished making his picks for the next administration. but comparing his first administration in 2016, the number of white men in the his first cabinet of each president, this was donald trump in 2016, 18, compared to joe biden in 2020 at 7, barack obama at 8 in 2008, george w. bush in 2000 and 11. the number of white men in the first cabinet of each president. houston, texas, independent. good morning. caller: how are you doing today? i am an independent, and i have never voted for a party ever in my life. i vote for the person. i voted for obama, for clinton.

yes, i did vote for donald trump. what is bothering me about some of the callers and some of the things being said about donald trump's cabinet is, what president has ever put people in his cabinet that is going to go against him? i do not agree with all his cabinet appointees so far, but what if they do good? what if the tide has turned and they do something everybody is going to like? that will never happen, but if they do good for the country, what is the problem? a major, a houston retired firefighter, and my family is from sicily, and i am married to a black woman. the racism is never going to stop until we get along and we get -- we quit trying to make things out of a race. it blows my mind. we are supposed to get the country closer, and everything is negative no matter what this

man does. and i have heard a lot about people talking about the age of some of them. the people that wrote the constitution of the united states, the average age of those men in philadelphia was 42 years old. so let's get some young blood up there to do some things and maybe get rid of some of the people that have been there for 40 years and have done absolutely nothing. host: are you worried about donald trump's age, the oldest president to hold office in his second term? caller: not at all, because i do not know a lot of people his age that are as active as he is, that can play golf like he does, and stay up until 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning and wake back up and go to work. there is a big difference between people his age who have

to sleep half the day and people his age that can go to work and grind things out when they need to. it is a big joke, and people know it. host: front pages today at the new york times, describing what is happening right now. donald trump has put a giant grenade into the middle of the nation's capital and watched with glee to see who runs away and who throws themselves onto it. suffice it to say so far, more of the former than the latter. mr. trump has had real power is the ability to engender fear, and he seems to have achieved that. his early transition moves amount to a generation stress test of a system, and republicans val his demand to recess the senate for reconfirmation purposes. the balance of power established by the founders more than two centuries ago, and if he gets his way, he would put in place

loyalists intent on blowing up the very departments they would lead. your reaction? caller: number one, him doing that is silly. he loves the shock effect of doing stuff just to see how people react to it. i do not agree with it at all. but i do agree, if he does shake things up and if it does work out, then what are people going to say? i live in houston, and as far as the illegal migrants coming over here, i see it, i live it. i cannot go to a gas station, or my wife, without being harassed. people living on the streets. she gets scared, so i get her gas now. this might be rude, but it might change the way people think, but the people against him deporting people, i don't want anybody ever to lose a job.

my brother did, and he has never been the same. but if it did happen to one of those people against it, if it happened to their daughters, i guarantee you they would change their mind. host: that is vincent in houston, texas. to waco, texas, teresa, republican. caller: good morning. i think that the rfk nomination is absolutely on point. i mean, secretary becerra, whatever his name is, he is not from health care. he has no background in health care or anything. he is a lawyer and a retired politician. rfk, at least, studied with other doctors and scientists good he has that background and knows it. he is not taking away vaccines from everyone, just wants people to be informed. pete hegseth is a two time

bronze star recipient and has been in combat infantry. he served two tours in iraq and afghanistan and gitmo. he has qualifications, knows what is going on underground. as far as diversity, really? this is where it got, diversity from biden's cabinet? no, no, no. we got a diverse -- we got the first woman ever in history to be a white house chief of staff. that is diversity. everybody knows it. they know they are going to have -- everything is going to be better under trump. elon musk, he is doing this for free. a lot of people are not getting paid because they love our country. they want our country to do better. and that is all they want. that is all they want, get us on track. i cannot wait to see what elon and vivek uncover about all the

waste, fraud, and abuse that has been going on for decades in washington, d.c. that will stop a lot of the garbage. people will see exactly what our money has been going to, and it has not been anything that any american would approve or anybody in the world, for that matter. just for lucian s. i agree with all of his picks -- it is just foolishness. go trump. host: it is economic efficiency that vivek ramaswamy and elon musk are set to lead. vivek ramaswamy was on the news yesterday talking about efforts. this is what he had to say. [video clip] >> the dirty little secret right now is the people we elect to run the government, they are not the ones who actually run the government. it is the unelected euro credits created to executive action. it will be fixed through executive action. inc. about the supreme court environment over the last several years.

they have held that many of those regulations are unconstitutional on a large-scale. it gives us the industrial logic to downsize the size of that administered state. the beauty is that can be achieved just through executive action without congress. score some early wins, then look at the bigger portions of the federal budget that need to be addressed one by one. think, how can a president of the united states who has been elected actually do the thing the voters have voted for? they have not voted for incremental changes this time. we have voted for sweeping change, and the voters deserve to get it. we will focus on doing that early. >> president-elect trump said you are going to make recommendations as to where to cut. after all you just said, then what? >> we are not cutting ribbons, we are cutting costs. they will be done on a real-time basis. >> are you expecting to closed

on entire agencies, like president trump has talked about the department of education example? >> we expect mass productions and expect certain agencies to be deleted. we expect mass reductions in force in the federal government in areas that are bloated. yes, we expect all of the above. i think people will be surprised by how quickly we are able to move with some of those changes given the legal backdrop the supreme court has given us. host: vivek ramaswamy yesterday. the wall street journal today with a look at the workforce in the federal government, some numbers and a future. about 2.3 million americans working for the federal government in civilian jobs. the department of veterans affairs has the most civilian workers because it operates hundreds of hospitals and clinics. homeland security is the third largest agency, education

department is the smallest agency. this chart showing the agencies by size. veterans affairs here. in terms of payroll, amount spent on annual payroll for federal civilian workers, about $213 billion as of march 2024. workers in the education department had a median salary of $118,000 a year, the lowest median salary. treasury department has a lot of clerical jobs, median salary there $59,500. that story in the wall street journal, the size and money spent on the federal civilian workforce. this is frank in santa ana, california, independent. caller: good morning. i think the most important cabinet pick is the president of the united states, because he gets to pick the all.

i never voted republican in my life until this year. the democratic party has left me, i left them. if 10% of the stuff is what he has been talking about, kennedy, had no idea about the cereals and all the stuff, if 10% of the stuff is true about the kids and, not just that, the education department. 27th in the world. these are all democrats, and they got the swamp up there in washington, d.c., and we need a vacuum cleaner to suck these people out. host: what made you not vote for donald trump in 2016 not in 2020, but then vote for him on a third try in 2024? caller: this is it right here, the immigration. it got so out of control. people do not care about our country any longer. we have millions of poor people in our country that are not

going to be taken care of because now we have to take care of millions and millions of not just poor people, gang members, rapists, and murderers. that turned this whole thing upside down for me. one more thing, if you don't mind, there is not one candidate -- cabinet member right now that he has picked that couldn't debate the president of the united states retina who is basically senile, and i voted for him -- the president of the united states right now who is basically senile, and i voted for him. i will tell you, this is the sharpest man in the room, they would say come in two days later they're kicking him out on saturday afternoon, and no one says nothing. this is a ruse. i have basically woken up. i have never seen anything like this in my lifetime. i am sorry, i am going on here,

so that congressman from florida, watching his show, he held up a bag of nuts about the size of a cereal box, and he asked the people in the military, how much does this cost? five dollars, $10, $20 -- no, $90,000. in washington, d.c., all this stuff needs a vacuum cleaner, a big suction. then maybe we can get this country on the right track. i am sorry, thank you. host: got your point, frank. he mentioned president biden, we want to know where he is today, with brazil preparing to host the group of 20 summit. the ap rights, unlikely that the leading nations will sign a meaningful declaration regarding geopolitics, meeting today and tomorrow in rio de janeiro, overshadowed by two major wars and donald trump's recent election. president biden is at that group

of 20 meeting in rio de janeiro, brazil, today. meeting with other leaders this morning, some arrivals taking place right now at the g20. that camera they're showing some of those arrivals. waiting to see when president biden will show up. we will try to get that to you. we continue this discussion this morning, asking about donald trump's second administration, what is the most important cabinet post? mark in ohio, republican. thanks for waiting. caller: thanks for taking my call. most important, there's a lot of important cabinet positions, but i think the most important at the present time is secretary of state. rubio, once confirmed, he will have to negotiate with ukraine, with russia, with iran, with china, with north korea, and the list goes on. he will have a great backup in president trump.

we're on the precipice of world war iii. you know. the biden harris administration did a terrible job. what a waste of money, effort, lives lost in afghanistan. $35 trillion in debt, and what do we have to show for it? it is crazy. the last caller, he was all right. i like to listen to this show because you get a lot of different aspects, more than talk radio, and you do a great job, as well. host: with foreign policy ring important to you, what do you think of -- with foreign being important to you, what do you think of at least a phonic as you and ambassador? -- what do you think of at least a phonic? caller: i think it is a good

one. i am kind of wary of he dseth. everyone else i see, i like. matt gaetz might have a hard time getting approved. but anybody else -- kennedy, kennedy is a democrat, and the democrat party did not let him participate in the primaries. the democratic party, they should be investigated. the whole party needs to be investigated. what is going on with mass media and everything, it brought us to where we are today. host: you mentioned pete hegseth and his nomination to head the pentagon, defense secretary. that was also discussed yesterday in detail on several of the sunday shows. this was on abc, a senator have an elective michigan was asked about it. [video clip] >> i was at the pentagon

thursday, and there is an absolute hallway constant chatter and conversation and concern from senior women officers, but i also heard from folks i have recommended to service academy, young women who have just started their career, asking if they will be able to accomplish what they want to accomplish. there is a lot of power. the secretary of defense is designed to be a very important job so who we put in there is extremely, extremely critical to our security and to who we are as a nation. there is deep concern but also a deep opportunity to make sure we are putting only qualified people in these jobs. >> hegseth has had any general involved in the dei woke crap has got to go. do you expect donald trump to fire top generals that he considers woke? >> i do not think you have to

interpret anything. i think it has been cooler they are putting together some sort of panel that will look at generals, people who have served their nation their entire life over multiple administrations, democrat and republican, in combat, they are now talking about dismissing them like some sort of kangaroo court. you can imagine the stress in the pentagon about that. but also the future of who we are as a military. our military and the role of the military is in the constitution for a reason, and i think we are at risk of politicizing the military in a way that we cannot put the genie back in the bottle. host: congresswoman and now senator-elect yesterday on abc. taking your phone calls this monday morning on the "washington journal." we are asking, what is your most important cabinet position in a second trump administration? that is our question in this opening our. this is tom out of pittsburg, california, democrat.

caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. as far as any cabinet position, a president has a right to nominate anybody he wants to, but there are checks and balances to any of these positions. that is the reason why before they are confirmed, the cove before the senate -- they go before the senate. a committee asks them questions that would find what makes you qualified to run this particular cabinet position. a lot of the people that i see that trump is nominating, are they necessarily qualified or is he creating some kind of yes-man? that is the only part that kind of bothers me. let them go through the procedure. let them go before the committee.

this is why i am nominating these particular cabinet positions, and let them be investigated, as they all have to be. are they qualified to run these particular cabinet positions? if they show they are qualified, fine. if not, then donald trump has to come up with another person. host: there is another avenue being explored, a recess appointment to allow donald trump to appoint these cabinet positions without going through a senate confirmation process. caller: ok, that goes back to the 19th or 18th century when you could not get congress to reconvene. this is the 21st century, and if this is the case, i do not agree with this. that should have been reputed a long time ago. there is a process where there

has -- there has to be a process. if he does that, then basically he is running -- i hate to say kangaroo court, but i am going to put in anybody i want to and i do not care what the american people say. host: as far as recess appointments, in the new york times today, is as a recess appointment can stay in place until the end of the next congressional session, meaning december of 2026. this says given mr. trump's short patience with appointees, he puts people and departments as long as he typically might have them without being subject to confirmation. he notes the average tenure for a cabinet secretary in the first term, other than commerce and hud, was 1.8 years. for key security agencies, the average term for an appointing was 10 point -- appointee was

10.5 months. this is diane, republican. caller: first of all, i think anyone who is going to say americans are stupid and do not know policy should be watching your show. i have learned so much about what our public is thinking and feeling, and i am grateful to everybody from every side who calls in. thank you. for me, the most important role right now is actually treasury, because without proper leadership there, everything else is going to go to hell. i am so worried about our deficit, all of that. i am worried about the fraud at social security administration. i would like them to delve into that. ssa is not under treasury, but i do think that they are funded by treasury, and ssa just considers their main role is to dispense funds, and funds are going all over the world, not necessarily to american citizens. if we could get a handle on so

much of the fraud in our government, we could see immense savings. i hope the person doing so in treasury has their eye on all of this, because they are funding these programs i need to know what their funding. host: any thoughts on some of the folks whose names have been floated for treasury, specifically elon musk and rfk signaling their support publicly for howard lutnick? caller: the players keep changing, is my issue. so i will not put my chips on any one person yet, until i have a better sense of who is emerging. i do think there are many qualified people in our country. host: thanks for that. wall street journal editorial board taking this up, they will comment on that. delete editorial, district -- disruption will not work at treasury, musk giving bad advice

to donald trump on financial policymaking. you can read that in the wall street journal. this is juan in pennsylvania, independent. caller: good morning. i think the most important appointment is matt gaetz for the justice department, because he will make the framework of what the former president wants, whether it is retribution or deweaponizing the justice department or whatever follows through with the other security agencies. the crime in d.c. is totally out of control. it has gone beyond limits. the folks he has elected, matt gaetz is going to crack the whip, just like he did with mccarthy. he is not afraid to do the right thing, and he is going to listen and do what president trump does, what he wants him to do.

host: do you think the attorney general has much control over crime in d.c.? d.c. has its own police department and court system here. caller: well, they are talking about the president is going to fire mayor bowser. there are certain things the president can do under the constitution, because d.c. does not have statehood. i think it is going to happen. it is in the plans. and matt gaetz is going to play a big role in that. that is why he wants matt gaetz, so it is the most important position. i think the other candidates will balance out, pete hegseth, everybody is talking out, will balance out. but matt gaetz, the attorney general of the united states, just like garland, is going to

be one of the most important positions. host: one more senator who was on the sunday shows yesterday who will have a vote on these nominations in the confirmation process, if they do take that route, the democrat from delaware. he touched on matt gaetz and the process. this is about two minutes of what he said yesterday. [video clip] >> the whole point of a confirmation process is to have meetings with those who have been nominated to run incredibly significant and powerful agencies and get clarity on their views, experience, and their character. that is why there have been both great consternation in the senate about matt gaetz being nominated to be the next attorney general, because of concerns about his character, and generally real positivity about senator marco rubio being nominated to be the next secretary of defense.

senator rubio has served in a leading role in the intelligence committee, foreign relations committee, for 14 years, and is a conservative republican. he and i differ on some key policies, but he is someone i have worked with legislatively, traveled with. matt gaetz is someone who just resigned to avoid the public release of a bipartisan report from the house ethics committee that might have very damming allegations against his character and conduct in the congress. >> and the doj decided not to charge in february of last year, but to the house ethics issue, you have called for it to be released. you are not the only one, there are republicans, including john cornyn, saying he would be open to a subpoena. do you think there would be bipartisan support from the committee to do what you needed to do to get your hands on that report? >> yes. to be clear about what speaker johnson said before, the ethics

committee loses its jurisdiction to discipline a member when they are no longer a member. on several occasions in the past, the house ethics committee has released a report with someone, as matt gaetz just did, resigned at the last moment to avoid the release of a report. some might say, why is it relevant now? it is because the senate has a constitutional role, our advice and consent role, to make sure that a president elect mostly gets their choice, their nominees, but does not get to put people in who are unqualified or who lack the requisite character and capabilities delete an incredibly important agency like the department of justice. host: chris coons yesterday on fox. taking your phone calls, a couple minutes left. we will continue the conversation about the nomination appointment later in the program. this is david in flint, michigan, a democrat. caller: good morning, c-span.

yeah, i think matt gaetz is about the worst of the picks. but to be honest with you, we democrats hate every pick he has picked. there unqualified. somebody said he picked the guy on fox news news because he looks nice. somebody else said he picked a lady to be over the fbi that is a russian sympathizer from hawaii. this is just horrible. host: one of the picks that has gone some support from democrats is marco rubio as secretary of state. caller: i agree with marco rubio, although i do not like him. but i think he is smart. and i think he has been in government -- host: we lost you for a second. caller: i think marco rubio is good, not worried about him. but the other picks are so

outlandish. the democrats, we are worried. then he is talking about going after the generals they gave their life for the united states, him and steve bannon and all them want to lock these people up. it has the country in an uproar. i hope i am still alive after these four years, i am 71, i will be glad when we can get a decent president again. thank you. host: one last call in this segment, georgia lee philadelphia. -- george in philadelphia. caller: person running in charge of the defense department, he would cut out all the females in the service. now, who's going to do their jobs, like the woman working in the submarines, who have

qualified security clearance? and who fly bombers, planes, and everything else? we don't have the manpower. host: george in pennsylvania, our last caller in this first segment today. coming up next, cbs news congressional correspondent scott macfarlane joins us to discuss the week ahead on capitol hill. later, it is the washington times' jeff mordock. stick around. we'll be right back. ♪ >> this week on the c-span networks, the house and senate are in. house democrats will hold their leadership elections for the 119th elections -- congress, and

orientation continues for newly elect members. the house will revol on legislation. the senate will vote on more of president biden's remaining judicial nominations. tuesday, fema's administration testifies on disaster readiness and spse. then, homeland secretary alhaji mayorkas, fbi director chstopher wray, and the acting rector of the national come to terrorism center testify on worldwide threats to the u.s., first on wednesday before the house, security committee, then before the senate homeland security committee. watch live on the c-span networks or on c-span now, our free mobile video app. or watch live or on-demand anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪

>> attention, middle and high school students across america. it's time to make your voice heard. c-span's studentcam documentary contest 2025 is here. this is your chance to create a documentary that can inspire change, raise awareness, and make an impact. your documentary should answer this year's question, your message to the president. what issue is most important to you or your community? whether you're passionate about politics, the environment, or community stories. studentcam is your platform to share your message with the world, with $100,000 in prizes, including a grand prize of $5,000. this is your opportunity not only to make an impact but also be rewarded for your creativity and hard work. teyour submissions today. scan the code or visit studentcam.org for all the thdeadline is january 20, 2025.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: on mondays, when congress is in session, we like to take a look at the week ahead. this week, we are joined by scott macfarlane with cbs news. last week, we were focused on republican leadership elections pay this week, democrats have their turn. what are we expecting? guest: at this moment of unique stability in washington, these leadership elections are actually quite stable. democrats may that seachange when nancy pelosi and steny hoyer stepped back after a generation of leadership, and the new generation of years to still have the galvanized support of their membership. hakeem jeffries of new york will be the house democratic leader. they've been in place the last two years. what house democrats have been telling us repeatedly is they did not suffer losses overall in

this election, unlike the senate, unlike the white house. there is stability coast-to-coast and how house democrats performed. they wanted to get the majority, they came up short, but they did not suffer the wounds suffered by the rest of the party nationwide. they are quite bullish in some spots. house democrats did really well in new york state. they foot to three republican seats blue, despite the headwinds of this election, which speaks well to the democratic leader, who of course was from new york. host: when it comes to a minority leader in the house, what makes a good minority leader? what has hakeem jeffries brought to the job? guest: something quite traditional, something quite untraditional. when you're in the minority in the u.s. house, you do not have any ability to control what is on the house floor. you have two skills. you have the ability to message, communicate, tell america why things should be different, and you have the ability to get

congressional hearings, some arguments before the public, when the minority asks their publics and when this is can give their statements. pretty limited bandwidth of power. over the last year, hakeem jeffries has wielded power i cannot remember another minority leader have wielded. republicans have been gridlocked. they have been unable to pass basic things like keeping the government open, spending bills, raising the debt ceiling to avoid calamity, doing the basic blocking of government. hakeem jeffries has had to intervene and come up with a whole bunch of his votes for government actually function. we will see if he can do that in all republican-controlled washington. host: but also an incredibly small margin separating republicans and democrats in the house. once again, we do not know the final numbers. we are waiting for the final couple seats. senate democrats, their leadership team, what do we

know? guest: still a bit of stability in the leadership ranks. we are not sure just yet until there are final projections made in pennsylvania, whether it is a 53-40 seven senate, if you include the independents who caucus with the democrats or 52-48. either way, democrats who have been running the senate for a while now become the minority party. a little more leverage the minority have in the senate. you have the ability to impact what is on the senate floor, to hold up what some of the president or the senate leadership want to do. every indication is the leadership stays the same, chuck schumer of new york, dick durbin of illinois, both of whom are using this final bit of runway they have to try to be impactful. chuck schumer is trying to confirm more of president biden's traditional -- judicial nominations. and there was dick durbin last week, trying to press as the senate judiciary chairman to get all those matt gaetz finals to the senate for confirmation hearings.

he has the ability, as the democratic majority whip right now, and the democratic chair this committee until january, to try to push some lovers. host: what is john thune's relationship with schumer? we are so used to mitch mcconnell and john -- chuck schumer. guest: we will find that out. john thune started in the senate in 2005, so this is his 20th year with schumer. chuck schumer issued a statement for john thune, congratulating him on his election as the republican leader. that may just be traditional senate collegiality. john thune has never come across as somebody who has been particularly antagonistic towards chuck schumer, nor vice versa. but the roles sure are changing. that is one of the big portions to answer. host: on roles changing, we talked about nancy pelosi stepping away from leadership, hakeem jeffries stepping in cairo now we have mitch mcconnell stepping away after a very long time as the leader of the senate republicans, jumping

stepping in. mitch mcconnell's term runs through 2026. what will his role be now that he will not be one of the first people to speak at the beginning of the day in the senate? where does he fit in now just another senator? guest: this is so and traditional. think of the last sets of speakers of the house who, when they left that position, left the house altogether. dennis astor, john boehner, paul ryan gong. these are the types of things that have been tradition. nancy pelosi has been this democratic backbencher but has not carried it that way. she has been a force on television and she was potentially pivotal in president biden's this vision to stand down as democratic nominee for the white house and remains this powerful operator, working alongside the rest of her caucus and the leadership. that's. untraditional they may still be trying to navigate that. you have mitch mcconnell, now a rank-and-file senator with a

vote. how does that work in concert with john thune? it will be fascinating to find out. but who are the dissenting voices in the republican caucus for the more controversial things donald trump wants to do? we saw in president trump's first term susan collins and lisa murkowski were dissenting voices, does mitch mcconnell join that group? senate republicans can lose only three republican votes and get that majority for things donald trump wants to do. if mitch mcconnell sometimes joins the caucus of dissenters, there is very little they can do. host: taking your phone calls about a lot of issues in washington, the week ahead in washington. (202) 748-8000 for democrats to call in. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. as folks are calling in, besides leadership elections, what else is on the agenda? guest: let's start with what happens late at ap of the house

rules committee taking up this matter of whether to find, as a u.s. house of representatives, the secretary of state, and geneva -- antony blinken, in contempt of congress. the republican that has has -- there has been back and forth between the house foreign affairs committee and secretary blinken. it will culminate with some vote this week, likely to find him in contempt. when final days of this administration, with the attorney general try him, but it is something the republican congress will contend with while biting still in power -- biden still in power. and at some point, they have to refill the disaster loan fund. that was tapped out by hurricanes helene and milton.

homeowners who need emergency loans to rebuild, congress has got to get about refilling those coffers. some of those disaster state senators and congressmen verse happened raising alarms about this. the administration did so earlier this morning. congress won't tend to that today or tomorrow but will have to soon. host: where are we on government funding? guest: december 20 is the deadline. there are very few legislative days left. they will not pass all the preparations bills robustly in the traditional way. they will need another short-term continuing resolution to keep the government functioning for a matter of months and will go back toward it again in 2025. it is a matter of if they kick the can to march or try to kick it all the way until september and give president trump the ability to weigh in on this early or give time and space to do other things. host: is there an effort by democrats, while they still control two of the levers of

power, the senate and white house, to try to move some sort of government spending bill or have more of joe biden's fingerprint on what happens in this next spending bill? or is it just lame ducks all around? guest: they have the capacity to impact, and they may take this last opportunity to do so. some of the things democrats have told me they are interested in security and, how about federal commitments to pay for baltimore bridge rebuilding. commitment, not the money yet, but make sure the federal government signs on the dotted line that they will help find rebuilding the key bridge. they may have to provide the votes to pass this in the u.s. house. host: a question from jimbo out of california. canacfarlane espeica to what the republic cane congress can do in the first 100 days, with the accession of the

truck tax cuts? you can throw that in there as well. guest: yeah, those tax cuts are something the house speaker has said would be part of their first 100 day plan. it seems to be in unison on doing what they can is a chamber to get those things extended. what else? there has been a lot of talk from the incoming initiation about border issues, deportation , removal of some number of migrants. that takes money, manpower. that takes more money and manpower than may be in place now, so look for the republican congress to pass him sort of appropriation funding for border initiatives and efforts. and though this very narrow majority has splinted on so many things, every little things seems to break off a few folks, they may be lined up on that. host: nancy in connecticut, line for democrats.

you are on with scott macfarlane. caller: good morning. over the last two weeks, trump and the gop have not said a word about the economy, not a word about lowering inflation, not about stopping price gouging, nothing about affordable housing for the american people, nothing about lowering rent. just as trump did during his campaign, he never had details about these things. all he told his supporters was "i'll fix it." i am just cares about your opinion on that, all these issues of why i think the american people voted for him. guest: nancy is picking up a point a number of democrats have alerted me to. if this is it -- if this is a priority in mandate, and deal with those food prices, housing prices, you want to note the order he has will that his potential nominees for cabinet. he talked about his attorney general candidate, his u.n.

ambassador, secretary of state. but there have been no moves publicly to name somebody for the secretary of treasury or the consumer watchdog groups or the housing and urban development department. it would seem, if you are trying to triage most important issues, and if inflation and prices is the most important issue, you would want to start there with your treasury, your tax-based agencies and housing based agencies. that has not happened. that may be a political reality nancy is flagging for the rest of the nation. if he does not do that soon, it is a statement of values and priorities. host: james in fairfax asking about the january 6 pardons. he has been asking for this consistently. what is the latest on that? guest: it is a question we are all watching. it is in connecticut motion as we speak. there is a growing number of january 6 defendants going to court and asking the rest of their proceedings, sentencings, conferences, plea hearings to be delayed until after january 20,

citing specifically that trump has pledged pardons. so far, the overwhelmingly number of those requests, judges have said no, that is speculative, we are not suspending your cases on the potential promise of a politician for pardon. but those defendants are making an unequivocal argument that there are pardons to be expected, pardons have been promised, and there is an expectation of those defendants some pardons are coming. but there is an issue transcendent of january 6 that trump has not specified if everybody from january 6 get a pardon or if only certain parts of the population of january 6 defendants will get pardons. violent or nonviolent, those who pleaded guilty, those convicted at trial, those whose cases are still pending. he has not put layers to say this group gets in, this group won't. that is the big question between now and january 20. is it everybody, is it some, is

it anybody? host: what has matt gaetz said on this topic? guest: matt gaetz is one of the few members of congress who have actually been outside at the nightly vigil protest on behalf of the january 6 defendants. host: that is still going on? guest: it goes on every night, multiple years now. matt gaetz has paid a pilgrimage there before. he has been particularly on a big u.s. with his arguments that he believes the department of justice has overreached in the january 6 cases. in all of them, and the january 6 cases is a big umbrella, he s t specified whether there are some worthy or meritorious or all of them are on whether or unmeritorious. that is a big issue. those who criticize the persecutions, those who defend the defendants, have not really delineated if there is anybody who was justifiably prosecuted

or if there is a subset of people who stand out from the others. if there's any contrast among this big publishing, we are about to find out what the trump administration says about this. come january 20, there is an awful lot of people in prison or family members convicted who are expecting pardons. host: who runs that nightly vigil? guest: the nightly vigil is run by the wife of the first january 6 defendant convicted in trial, a texas man, the first to trial and be convicted by jury, and the mother of ashli babbitt who was in that crowd and was shot breaching the window to the house speaker's lobby. the two of them come along with volunteers, have been tireless and running this visual -- host: where do they set up? is it at the courthouse grounds? guest: it is at the jail. there is a protest space literally on the curb of the driveway of the jail they have cordoned off. it's streamed to a pretty large audience. host: where's the d.c. jail?

guest: not far from capitol hill, ironically. it is near the old football stadium. host: more calls. mike waiting in north carolina, republican. caller: good morning. i'd like to comment on the hit piece your network has done on "60 minutes" on all of trump's cabinet picks. you never did contradict any of biden's picks, like what does pete buttigieg have in his experience. he was a mayor, he did nothing about transportation. you talk about the cost of illegal immigration, you talk it will cost a lot to deport them and everything. there's already 1.2 million removal orders at this administration has not carried out, none of them. and you go see how much annually, a year, how much illegal immigration, immigrants, from housing, food, schooling, health -- it's almost half $1

trillion. moving them out of this country will cost taxpayers less when it comes to it. host: mike in north carolina. guest: a lot to unpack there. he mentions the cost of illegal immigration, deportation. it does cost money to get more border agents and more customs enforcement agents to run whatever programs will be run. there may be a cost savings to help offset that. it may be such a cost savings it ends up paying for that. it still needs congress and the appropriations process to get that through. the argument i am making here is congress might have an easy time getting the appropriations and the mechanization in place to make removals happened. this is one of the things for congress, the republican majority in the house, the incoming republican majority in the senate, and the incoming house synchronized and in lockstep. this may be one of the easier things they do. about cabinet appointments, i am

not sure about the piece he is referring to, but there will be some share of criticism about cabinet performance by any president by the opposing party in the u.s. senate. host: this question from x about the democratic policy and communications committee, chris wanted to know will happen between the race between debby dingell and jasmine crockett. why is this something to watch? guest: there's a deep dive on the house minority leader. hakeem jeffries was asked about this friday. this is a relatively junior member of the u.s. house, jasmine crockett, running against a more senior member of the u.s. house, debby dingell in michigan -- host: the wife of the late john dingell. guest: the legend john dingell, the dean of the u.s. house for quite a while. this type of generational battle is not uncommon in congress. congressman crockett has been a particular effective committee catered. congresswoman dingell has been a

mainstay in the coming occasions circuit. it will be an interesting race but also one that may reveal some fault lines inside the democratic caucus. host: 15 minutes left with scott mike rawlings this morning. taking your calls on phone lines for republicans, democrats, and independents. i want ask about this story you put out last week how the birthplace of grover cleveland honors his unusual legacy and what the impact has been of the election of donald trump. i know it is not the week ahead on capitol hill, but i want you to explain it. guest: grover cleveland is the only other president elected twice in nonconsecutive terms. the 22nd and 24th president lost the battle to the 23rd is at. benjamin harrison came back, won the presidency. shares that connective tissue with all trump now. grover cleveland from a suburb of new york city.

they have this historic site, his birthplace home, which is operated as a museum and educational center. it is across the street from an exxon station and a dunkin' donuts --which is true caldwell, new jersey, by the way. grover cleveland also has other things in common with donald trump. he was somebody who came to politics from the outside. he has some differences from donald trump. grover cleveland was a reluctant candidate for president, didn't want to do it, especially the second time, but managed to vanquish his previous defeat. we'll see if there are any more similarities that reveal themselves. host: nj.gov is where you can go to learn about the grover cleveland birthplace historical site, the division of parks and forestry in the state of new jersey. scott mcfall and with us this morning. terry is next, independent.

caller: good morning. i just want to ask scott if he considers himself a fair and impartial journalist. guest: we do our best. host: you can ask me that question. he has been on this program several times and happy to answer questions from you, our viewers. guest: we are imperfect vessels. we do our best. it is difficult work that it may not look difficult, but obviously, there are competing factions on every issue we cover. covering politics, you get competing factions on pretty much everything you touch. imperfect vessels about we try our best. host: let me dig down on that a bit. what changes for the congressional press corps, inside a time of change on capitol hill, senate leadership changing, obviously the white house has changed and that impacts what is happening on capitol hill. what does it mean for you folks who, day today, try to cover these folks, everything from where you go to who you talk to? guest: congress is one of those

unique things to cover as a journalist where you are guaranteed, every two years, to lose dozens of sources and dozens of relationships, through retirements or defeats at the ballot box. we watch although senior mummers of congress retire and call it a day. we recognize the relationships we formed and the information we gleaned from them are about to walk out the door. we see new members coming in, like last week, with orientation, dozens of folks elected from across the country, big towns, small towns, old, young, rich political backgrounds and newcomers. these are people we have to learn, their tendencies, their interests, and build a relationship so we are better journalists. it is a constant cycle of new people coming in and out. that's a challenge, but there is stability. the congressional leadership is poised stay the same. so we have a sense of how they function, how they operate, what their tendencies are, what committees they prioritize. some of that is simple fight. for those of us covering

politics, -- you will have to continue to churn to find new threads. host: who of those new members coming in most intrigue or interest you? guest: we like the distant if back stories. some of those coming in have years, if not decades, of experience in state legislators -- legislatures, very seasoned just leaders and no, through muscle memory, how to function. but there are those who come from different backgrounds who are fascinating. there is an electrical construction contractor family business owner from scranton who now represents northeastern pennsylvania. this is his first job in politics. by the way, he is joining the major leaks, coming into congress. let's see how he carries that. there's latifah simon, elected to succeed in a democratic leadership in the bay area. she was born legally blind.

she now has to move to washington, d.c. for this new work. she is a one-time protégé of vice president harris. so she comes in here with a unique back story. let's see how she advocates for her district considering that. then of rural alabama, a one-time obama administration appointee who used to function in the justice department during the biden administration. he's coming into represent rural alabama, somebody who has equity in democratic administrations of the past. let's see what type of dissenting voice or collaborative voice he is with republican leadership and this incoming administration. host: lots to dig into. you can watch all as a place out on the floor on c-span. this is sophia, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. host: what's your question? you are on with scott mcfarland. -- scott macfarlane.

caller: good morning. today is my birthday. i am 74 today. host: happy birthday. caller: i've been talking to you since 8, 9 years. i always call every month. scott, i'm worried. jon stewart, he left. chris wallace of cnn, he had one more week to go. i voted for mr. trump. i never thought it would go this far. all the people who make us laugh and joke, they leaving. i hope stephen colbert don't leave neither. i have nothing much to say. i try to stay positive, try to stay from negative people, everything negative. everything negative, i wanted to stay out of it. i guess i got too excited.

now when i see mr. trump, i flip the channels. the face, i don't nkow what it is -- host: i do not want you to get too upset on your birthday. happy birthday. guest: this brings me back to terry's island. what he asks does resonate. are you a fair and impartial journalist, are you sure about that? i get that question a lot. sophia has their mirror image of this, concerned that people are departing the stage when donald trump takes office january 20. people do not want to be part of they're fair questions. symptomatic of people consuming news out of a silo where they don't become accustomed to hearing contrarian voices or objective fact on all matters.

certainly some of us are guilty of that ourselves going to news silos. i am a philadelphia eagles fan. i don't want to hear how good the lions and cowboys and 49ers are this year. i just want to hear about my team. if you are only consuming news out of a silo, you leave yourself vulnerable of not getting deeper or universal facts and opinions and thoughts and analysis. so we encourage people when administrations change, when majorities change to ensure that their media diet is healthy and robust and full. so when you hear a dissenting opinion or a dissenting report that goes counter to your world view, you don't think it to be biased and unfair. you think it's journalism and facts. it's one of the reasons why this program is so valuable because it does bring people together

where dissenting voices are heard and hard questions are asked. host: what is your advice to a reporter who will be starting on capitol hill in january, 2025? guest: this is going to be tireless. the enterprise of covering the trump administration the first time required people to be tireless. covering the second one appears like it's going to require the same amght of tireless -- amount of tirelessness. the 24/7 nature of it where news can break on saturday morning when you are hoping to go to your kid's soccer game or sunday afternoon, where you are hoping to sit down with a cocktail and watch a football game. this is a much different type of rhythm to it. on capitol hill, though, it still brings that unique aspect that no other governmental beat or journalistic beat has, where everybody is approachable. everybody can be held to account. everybody walks through public hallways and can be asked a question. the congressional beat is so inviting to so many people for

that reason. there are 535 members of congress. you can approach any one of them. you can approach speaker johnson. you can approach the senate majority leader. you can approach the newcomer from florida, from texas and ask a question and get an answer or a nonanswer but either way get something to help with your journalism. never been more important to be on the stage, to stay out there and ask hard questions. if sophia's birthday can be val vajed by this, there are a lot of good people who ask hard questions and do good journalism who are very much staying with it. host: this is barbara, good morning. you are next. you are on with scott macfarlane. caller: good morning. scott, you are a jewel in the crown of cbs is all i can say. your clarity of communication and your -- what do they call it? bedside manner. headside manner, we will call it. fantastic, don't change anything. listen to me, young man. i am 77. i am the perfect follow on

caller to our previous 74-year-old. i invented an epitaph for this election. here it is. poll is a four letter word. but so is data. so i think you get my point, and all i want to say is that i am watching this thing called the diplomat on in the flicks that is spectacular, but i am beginning to think that trump 2.0 might start to give it some competition for drama here because if the senators just say no to the insane ones and put them all through rigorous public questioning, it will add to my last point which is this. the way i have helped myself get through this is to visualize this show from other countries that are struggling against

autocracy ourselves and we are providing a master class in defeating autocracy through the use of media and in spite of and with using correct use of the social media. i recently went over to blue sky, so welcome to fact land, people. it's called blue sky platform. and we just -- it's -- to keep repeating that sequence of i see the presidency like a ping-pong match where it goes back and forth over the net, and just to see what we have done in america in terms of who we have elected president and what we have accomplished in spite of the ping-pongness of this game is just unbelievable, unbelievable accomplishments capped off by mr. modesty himself, joe biden. when people get what all these extraordinary things that have happened kick in with

infrastructure and everything else, we will look back at this time and we will put our feet up and watch a football game. ok, i am done. host: barbara, you mentioned joe biden. he is at the g20 conference this morning. i think he arrived in the past couple of minutes. he will be there today and tomorrow. a lot there from barbara. guest: first of all, thank you, barbara. two dynamics that are most interesting to watch the next few months is the ping-pong match you described. how different is this second trump term now that he is a lame duck without the impetus of re-election or the need to be politically active to secure re-election? does that change how any of this manifests itself? that will be fascinating but also it does feel like they're priming the pump for dramatic confirmation hearings and i am not sure that donald trump has shied away from the dramatic theater of politics whenever it comes up, if that's something he may in fact want or is averse to.

we will figure that out. see how he reacts if there are dramatic confirmation hearings for some of his picks. if he embraces that or tries to tamp it down. host: what is the most interesting pick left in your mind, halfway through his picks? guest: as was alluded to earlier by nancy from connecticut, at some point a treasury secretary choice has to be announced for a campaign and administration that ran on the idea that inflation and costs, runaway costs and economic issues are primal with voters. that's got to come soon and it's going to be a choice at that will be inspected quite a bit. host: couple more phone calls. john, texas, independent. go ahead. thanks for waiting. caller: thank you for taking my call. so the mainstream media complains about trump's plans. all presidents, they remove millions, obama, clinton, bush. it seems only biden didn't.

so why is trump's plan to remove people any different? there are millions of people who are trying 0 do it the right way, stay on the line. that's affecting their profit, to suffer. so why -- what is any different that trump is doing that the other administrations aside from biden have done? why is that a major issue that he is trying to -- most of the g20 countries, they removed people. host: john, got your point. guest: i am in the sure there's going to be a formidable or successful political resistance to this at all. i saw democratic candidates for the u.s. house, from long island to the midwest to the west coast, campaign on border security issues, trying to win on that issue as well.

i think what we are trying to make clear here and we were earlier in the program is that it will require some money or some action from congress to do the things trump has pledged to do. i don't know that there's going to be hurdles that they can't surmount in the process. the funding will likely be there. the language needed if necessary will likely be there. i am not sure the political resistance is strong at all based on john's question. i want to make sure that's clear. i think there is a consensus, congress will be behind this. host: what didn't we get to that we will be watching for this week? guest: this week keep an eye on the prosecutions for the capitol riot. does any judge say let's pause these things until january 20? because yeah, there is an increasing talk of pardons. so far judges have deflected those requests. let's see if one of them changes because if so others may come as well. but also any more statements the president-elect gives about what he is going to do on these

issues of matt gaetz for attorney general, pete hegseth for department of defense secretary, tulsi gabbard for intelligence chair. he is getting some pushback, including inside his own party some of this. see how he counterpunches. host: scott macfarlane, cbs news congressional correspondent. always appreciate your time. thanks so much. we will let you go. guest: it's been a pleasure. host: joe biden at the g20 summit. he is greeting leaders there, has just arrived. that's in brazil today. we will talk more about it in other open forum, but coming up next this morning, it's jeff mordock of the "washington times" dying -- diving deeper into the cabinet picks. we will have that discussion right after the break. stick around.

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providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government, taking you to where the policies debated and decided all with support of america's cable companies. c-span, 45 years and counting. powered by cable. >> c-span's online store, browse through our latest collection of apparel, books, home decor, and accessories. there's something for every c-span fan. every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: for what comes next, we are joined by "washington times" white house reporter jeff mordock. principling us -- bring us up to speed what happened over the weekend and what is left. guest: what happened over the weekend is president-elect trump

focused on two key things, his energy policy and his communications team. for energy policy the most important pick there is doug burghum to be his secretary of the department of interior. it's an interesting pick because he has been very critical of the biden administration policy of capping drilling within the u.s. he has talked about how opening lands up in north dakota has really brought back the north dakota economy and he is going to come into implement president trump's phrase drill, baby drill. he is onboard with that. he will be championing that policy. the president-elect has created a national energy council which will focus on trying to generate new energy, increase drilling, transportation, everything that impacts how the u.s. drills, transports, sells energy

overseas. this council will overlook. if confirmed, burgum will be leading that. the other focus the president-elect did is his communications team. he appointed steven chung, a spokesperson on his campaigns to be his communications director and caroline leavitt as his press secretary. she's been the press is secretary for this 2024 campaign. host: we will be seeing a lot more of her in the white house, the brady briefing room. guest: exactly. that will be her responsibility. she's going to be the public face of the administration and also she's going to be conducting the daily briefings. it will be interesting to see how many daily white house briefings this administration has. under the first trump administration, there were not a lot of daily white house briefings. the biden administration has brought that back. they have them every day and the president is in town. obviously the president is in

south america today, there isn't one but for the most part, they've had them on a daily basis. it will be interesting to see what happens when the second trump administration comes in. host: caroline lea virks tt27 years old. do you expect donald trump to make appearances in the white house briefing room as much as he did in the first administration? guest: it will be interesting to see. i don't know because he goes on -- when he takes trips or when he leaves the white house to go to marine one to take it to joint base andrews he always talks to the press. doesn't really need to be in the briefing room because he is not shy about standing there taking questions. in the first administration he was often late for things because he took all of our questions. so if he feels -- it seemed like toward the end of the first administration they fell that having trump come out and answer questions on his way to marine one or when he is deboarding air force one after a stop and answering reporters' questions

was a sufficient substitute for having him in the briefing room. so it will be interesting to see that sort of shifted at the end of the fir trump administration if they continue that. host: coming back to the cabinet picks, we are halfway through what we are expecting from the president. we are less than two weeks away from election day at this point. are these coming unusally fast? guest: yes, they are. i think what it is, the president-elect learned a lot from his first time, where it took him a long time to put nominees up and then the senate also there were a lot of delays. some of these positions almost took a year to fill. i think he learned a lesson and is trying to move at a fast pace. it looks like from what he has been talking about, he has had four years to think about who he wants if he returns to the white house. so he has put a lot of thought into this and you can see how quickly the picks have come. host: we have the toughest pass and easiest pass.

guest: the toughest pass is matt gaetz of the one thing i want to point out is there's three threads that run through all of these candidates that he has nominated. one is loyalty to the president-elect. every one of them has expressed their loyalty. two is a lack of management experience. kristi noem is a great example. 12,000 people, she will be in cadger of -- charge of a department with 200,000 people, homeland security. and the 12,000 is the most management experience we have seen from any of these nominees. the third is they've all been heavy critics of this administration -- sorry, of the departments they're going to run, the current administration i meant to say. they've been heavy critics of how the departments have been run. a great example is pete hegseth nominated to be defense secretary has been extremely critical. saying that under biden the

department of defense has been too focused on, his words, woke initiatives, trying to bring in diversity, eroding the military's values, again his words. you have matt gaetz who has called for abolishing the d.o.j. and the f.b.i. so i think that's really interesting to point out, that all three threads run through everybody the president has nominated so far. back to answering your question, i think the toughest goes to matt gaetz. he is embrailled in some -- embroiled in some sexual misconduct allegation. there's a house ethics report coming out, could be very damning. host: you think the report will come out? guest: i think it will. everything on the hill gets leaked at some point. it will come out eventually. so we have got that. it's interesting because mike johnson is refusing, so how it's going to come out -- it's going to end up in the desk of some

staffer who will call a news network add leak it to them. mike johnson's argument for not releasing it is matt gaetz resigned the day after he was nominated, which headed off the release of thattette is report -- that ethics report. mike johnson's argument is we only have jurisdiction if he is an active member of congress. if he is no longer a member of congress, that sets a dangerous precedent. so i think that is very -- that will be difficult. also he doesn't have any prosecutorial experience. it goes back to what i was saying about one of the threads is lack of management experience. he practiced law for two years and then he went into politics. i am not even sure how much he has really practiced as a lawyer. he definitely does not have -- for a position where you are in charge of prosecuting people, he does not have that prosecutorial

experience. host: who has the eastiest past? guest: doug collins. he has friends on the hill. it's a position where he has talked about reform, bipartisan support for reforming the v.a. there always has been. and there's really nothing controversial about him. that's the largest of the government agencies by civilian employees. host: it runs all of these veterans hospitals. doug collins, the former republican congressman from georgia. guest: georgia, yes. i expect he will have the easiest pass because it's one of the few things everybody can still agree on in washington is that the v.a. is in need of reform. he has made a lot of connections during his time on the hill. host: taking your phone calls with jeff mordock this morning, talking about donald trump's cabinet picks. the phone lines as usual, democrats it's 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. as folks are calling in, can you

explain recess nominations, recess appointments and that process? guest: i think recess appointments will be the most interesting thing we see over the next couple of months. what that is is the president has the authority in the constitution to adjourn congress and when congress is on recess, he can fill appointments. it's an older part of the constitution because it goes back from when people were traveling by horse and buggy and it took them months to get back to washington from their home district. so what that would essentially do is give the president unlimited authority to appoint whoever he wanted to whatever position he wanted without concept of the senate. they do that by holding confirmation hearings. some of these hearings will be extremely messy. we have talked about matt gaetz who is -- we have three nominees embroiled in sexual misconduct

scandals, pete hegseth, r.f.k. jr. and matt gaetz. if nothing they could get embarrassing. an easy way to avoid that is through recess appointments, adjourning congress and having the president appoint whoever he wants. it's an extreme test of presidential authority. president-elect trump has talked about it. he has not laid out a plan of how he would do it. mike johnson would need to be onboard with this although we haven't seen any signs that mike johnson would appose anything the president wanted to do. one of the things i think is really interesting is back in 2013, president obama tried this and he made a couple of recess appointments during the holiday. the republican congress tried to push back by having pro forma sessions. it went all the way to the supreme court and the supreme court swatted obama down, telling him this was unconstitutional because as long as they were having the pro forma sessions, that counted a them being in session. the supreme court did not define

where the powers end in terms of making recess appointments. so that's still vague out there. if this goes to another supreme court, you have a supreme court that leans conservative. president-elect trimp has put three people on that court. you know, likely they would go -- be on his side. host: who gets to decide if the senate goes into recess? guest: the president would. it's the authority in the constitution through obviously congress adjourning and that would affect the senate. it's a combination of the president and house speaker mike johnson. host: paul is in indiana, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i worked in the federal government, department of defense for many years and i think you are overestimating the importance of the secretaries when it comes to management. it was my experience over 25 years that the secretary, the

top guy, basically set the policies or tried to, and most of the actual management was done by the permanent senior executive service type of career civil servants who are under the secretary that did the actual management. plus i think that the real problem that trump has is that most of the people in d.c. are denizens of the bubble. they believe they know what the policy ought to be and if the president-elect doesn't do it their way, they need to resist him. you saw that a lot in his first administration. you saw it in bush's administration. you saw it in reagan's administration. especially in the i.r.s. and my deepest experience i have with people outside d.o.d. was state department. they believe that the state department knows what the foreign policy ought to be. if the president doesn't do it, he is wrong and that they need to block it.

you see that even down to the gs-7 level. i think that the real challenge for the new secretaries is whether or not they can convince these permanent civil servants to actually do what the people he elected to do. guest: to his point, i think we will see a dramatic rethinking of the federal government because he is right. prior to coming into this current administration, the secretaries set the agenda but it was up to the government workers to carry it out. we have seen time and time again where we have had government workers, career employees, go against the secretary, dispute the secretary. a lot of this happened when bill barr was running the justice department. they know time is on their side because at some point the secretary or the cabinet will be gone and they will still have their job. one of the ways i think in which the trump administration is

going to change that and rethink how we look at the federal government is by fitting out the work force and thinning out a lot of these career bureaucrats and career employees who have been there for a long time. and that will give the cabinet head or the secretary more power to carry out their agenda, which is obviously trump's agenda. great example of that is the department of government efficiency launched by vivek ramaswamy and elon musk, that -- there is a lot in this government that they could cut and i find it interesting that when you see ramaswamy, he has talked about way more than musk has in the public sector, talk about it, he seems to be going back to jobs and cuts. it's fascinating to me because it looks at -- it shows that they look at thinning out the government work force as a way to achieve the president's agenda but also you are not going to get to what they want

to cut which is $2 trillion. you are not going to get that by just laying off workers. i had the statistic in a story recently. if you laid off 20% of the government work force you are saving probably $7.6 billion. that does not -- that's a rounding error for the federal government. that's hardly anything. that's not going to get you to the $2 trillion you want to get. i find it interesting that that's what they're focused on is job cuts. but if they want to achieve the cuts that they plan to achieve, they're going to have to do way more than that. i know they've thrown out ideas. it will be interesting to see what they can and can't do. one of the things i think has gotten lost in the discussion is trump is the fourth president to try this, and it has never really worked. host: who are the others? guest: ronald reagan formed a commission led by peter grace and he recommended -- he had 2,500 recommendations and how to

improve the government, cut costs, and improve efficiency. none of those were enacted. clinton had his own commission about improving government efficiency and cutting government waste. they did have some layoffs, they did improve some automation of the government. most of that never -- moat of those who left came back. it was a drop in the bucket compared to what needed to be done. obama formed a bipartisan commission of 18 members, and all that was, was incompetent fighting about how -- infighting about how cuts should be made and in the end, they had to have 14 members agree on the recommendations. they could only get 11. there was so much infighting in the commission that congress didn't want to touch it because congress deemed their recommendations to be too toxic. so they never went anywhere. i would be interested to see if

elon musk and vivek ramaswamy have learned anything or have looked at those three other commissions to how to avoid the pitfalls that they're going to -- because one of the things, to cut departments, ramaswamy has come out and said there is a lot of authorized government agencies programs that have been out there that have since lapsed and we should do away with them. but to cut those, you need congress to cut them. everything they want to do with the exceptioneverything they wah the exception of layoffs, they will need congressional approval, and i just don't see them getting that. host: you mentioned vivek ramaswamy talked a decent amount in the week or so since we first learned about it. this is a minute and a half. let me show viewers what he said. [video clip] >> the dirty little secret right now is the people we elect to run the government, they are not the ones that actually run the government. it is the unelected. it will be fixed through executive action.

think about the supreme court's environment over the last several years. they held that many of those regulations are unconstitutional at a large-scale. rescind those regulations. pull those back and that gives us the industrial logic to then downsize the size of that state. the beauty is that can be achieved just through executive action without congress. score some early wins and then you look at the bigger portions of the federal budget 90 to be addressed one by one. so i think that is one way to look at this. how can the president of the united states, who has been elected with a historic mandate, actually do the things the voters have voted for? we voted for sweeping change, and the voters deserve to get it. and we are focused on how to do that as quickly and early as possible. >> so president elect trump just said in that soundbite you will make recommendations. so you will make recommendations in terms of where to cut after all you just said. then what? >> we will not be cutting ribbons. we will be cutting costs.

they will be on a real-time basis. >> are you expected to close down entire agencies like president trump talked about the department of education, for example? are you going to be closing down departments? >> we expect mass reductions. we expect mass reductions in areas that the government is bloated. we expect cuts of federal contractors and those overbilling the federal government. yes, all of the above. i think people will be surprised by how quickly we are able to move with those changes given the backdrop. host: one thing there was he said we expect certain agencies to be deleted outright. he did not say he expected certain departments to be deleted outright. guest: right, agencies within each department. everything is funded through congress. they control the purse strings. even with a republican-controlled senate and republican-controlled house, it will be a tough ask.

the current republicans on the senate and house, they ran on reducing inflation. they ran on cutting down illegal immigration. they ran on crime. this is not the tea party republicans from a decade ago where they ran on government reform and cutting costs. i think we will have as much resistance from republicans because these republicans -- you don't want to go back to your district with a program that has funded -- that has brought money to your district or has an office in your district and set you had to cut that and people lost their jobs. that is not going to play. i think they will be surprised how much resistance they see within their own party. host: alex out of minnesota, republican. good morning. you are on with jeff mordock. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. first of all, real quick on cutting, i think they can move civil servants to other locations they may not want to go to like guam, and that would

cause them to resign. but what i really want to talk about quickly was matt gaetz. one thing that needs to be pointed out is how much trump's own department of justice really undercut him and also just was politicized to support the left. just one quick example if you bear with me. feel free to fact check it. there was one of the businesspeople who was involved with hunter biden with international bribery and he stood trial. in that trial, there was a female referenced under biden as one of the people he was doing business with. the doj chose to reject hunter biden's name out of the evidence. when the laptop came out, you could see the email they were referring to. it was hunter biden. the reason they are bringing this up is the doj's choice to attack hunter biden for political reasons, that put the country on the path to the whole issue with the laptop and its

authenticity and it really sacrificed the credibility of the intelligence community and department of justice because they were playing politics. the department was under bill barr i believe at the time. to support the left or protect the bidens. this is what happened. i think this is why so many people in the country feel the more people oppose folks like matt gaetz, no matter their background, the more they want some buddy like that because they know that deep things happen covered up and they want someone who will take an adversarial position. i appreciate you fact checking me if it is not true. it is 100% true. host: let me let jeff mordock jump in. guest: he is right in terms of people want -- trump won the popular about, got the help -- popular vote, got the house, got the senate, but there is a mandate. people are frustrated with how some of these department have run, and they want to bring people in who will clean house

and overhaul because they feel that they've gotten too political and they are making political decisions. that was back to what i said earlier. one of the common threads that runs through all of these candidates is the fact that they have been very, very strong critics of the departments. host: take me to today's lead story. the fbi vetting of nominees. the exclusive story by you and your colleague. guest: basically, so the nominees will have to go through an fbi background check. there is no constitutional requirement the fbi has to do it. they have just been doing it since i believe truman -- excuse me, eisenhower was in office. these have gotten increasingly political. and what we have found is an fbi whistleblower saying they are looking for reasons -- they are looking to turn down nominees.

one thing i want to mention is there is over 4000 people who get nominated by the president that require senate confirmation. we think of the attorney general. we think of health and human services director. but we do not -- which we should get into at some point. but what we do not think of his u.s. attorneys. there are judges, career appointees. all kinds of people require senate confirmation. what we have found from this whistleblower is what is happening is these people are now looking for reasons to slow walk or hold back some of these nominees. and they are looking for things like, did they attend a trump rally? were they online complaining about covert restrictions? things like that -- covid restrictions, things like that? they are using that as a disqualifying factor in the background checks, whether to slow walk it or spike it altogether. host: what determines whether

some buddy passes or fails a background check? guest: they look for a lot of things. they look for, you know, anything, questionable judgment. they will look for any crime that they have committed. and it goes up to a section in the fbi called secd. what they sort of do is make the determination. it still has to go to the senate for approval but they have to make the determination whether or not someone can get security clearance. this was a problem in the first trump administration, that there were 25 people who did not get security clearances. and we have never gotten the full story on that. the debate was there was a whistleblower within the white house who said 25 people did not qualify. we still don't know to this day who it is, but there has been a high-level official they said

had three to four real serious red flags that they were concerned about. but the white house said these things were blown out of proportion. and since we don't know what the red flags were, we don't know who the person is. it is hard to say what the truth is. host: do you think we will find out who those people were and what the red flags were once donald trump comes back for a second administration and has the leverage of power? guest: i think we will find disclosures on a lot of things, a lot of things that stymied the president the first time. i think we will see a lot of disclosures about that. i think you will release everything. like matt gaetz at the justice department. host: jared, california, democrat. thanks for waiting. caller: yes, this is jared from california. my thing is donald trump is at different kind of people, spanish people, black people --

my question is, what is the only selecting white people to be in his cabinet?another thing . one more thing. why do we have two have all of the sexual assault people being heads? it is just wrong to have those people running the country. thanks for taking my call. host: that is jared in california. i will share a newsweek headline. donald trump cabinet on track to be the least diverse in this century. guest: it is true. the president's argument is that these people have diverse experience. that he is not plucking people who were the number two at their department and then putting them in the top role. that he is putting people from outside. business executives, a talkshow host, governors. he is trying to argue diversity is not under race or gender but under experience, is what the

president's argument -- the president's argument. -- but under experience is what the president is arguing. i want to address with the caller said about sexual assault allegations. i don't recall any time in this timer we have had three nominees in these positions with sexual assault allegations lodged against them. pete hegseth, matt gaetz, and rfk, junior. it will be real interesting to see how that plays out and how seriously some people in the senate take this and what we learn about these investigations as we move forward, as the confirmation process moves forward. host: i just wanted to note one paragraph from your white house correspondent colleague peter baker in the new york times. he said in the past none of these selections that you were referring to would have worked

in washington where a failure to pay employment taxes for a nanny would have been enough to disqualify a candidate. opting for nominees who are so provocative that even some fellow republicans wonder whether president-elect trump is trolling them. guest: some of this is, is he trying to test the loyalty and how compliant his senate is going to be before he moves forward with other things? it is kind of interesting to me the president is coming in with that he has built so much political capital. i am surprised he is trying to use up a lot of that on matt gaetz. there are other people he can put in the position that do not have the baggage matt gaetz has. we will learn about all three. no one seems to know about the pete hegseth sexual assault allegation until he was the nominee. all of a sudden, that came out.

that is a seven-year-old allegation that was sort of brushed under the rug because he was not in the public eye. he was a talkshow host on fox news, so in the public eye but not in the political arena. now he is in the political arena, that is coming out. not just with him, but with all of these other nominees, what else is out there that we just have not heard because these people have not been in the spotlight to the extent they are about to be? host: virginia, independent, good morning. thanks for waiting. caller: hey there. yes. i would argue our government is a lot more entrepreneurial market driven than people would understand. i think there is a lot tension in president trump -- the pillars that got him into office. he is worried about entitlements, some programs that are very popular. that is one example of the benefits of government. as far as the market driven

stuff, mr. musk has greatly, greatly benefited from government programs and different stimulus moneys for himself and his companies. it is kind of ironic he will be heading this agency. but i will say let's cut back the entitlement programs. let's deport all the illegals. let's get these boomers back into these jobs and have them start working to contribute to this great new economy we are going to have. host: jeff mordock, what do you want to pick up on? guest: a couple of things. his point about cutting the government. musk and vivek ramaswamy talked about cutting $2 trillion from the fed. right now, the government is $6.7 trillion. 2019, not long ago, our budget was 4 -- $4 trillion and people were not dying in the streets and government was functioning fine. we can have $2 trillion cut from

the government but where is the will to do it beyond trump, musk, and vivek ramaswamy? one of the biggest challenges come of easiest love was tending fruit is the money the government wastes on studies that go nowhere. for example, they spent several million dollars on a study i believe out of the university of north carolina to teach monkeys how to gamble. that is a real thing. you can look that up. that is a real thing. it was an hhs study to determine, what is the risk factor that impacts people's brains that make them gambling addicts? there are photos from this, monkeys holding cards with poker chips in front of them. there is another study out there, you could look this up -- host: looking for the picture. guest: transgender monkeys. again, another hhs. this was $8 million. they took mail monkeys and

pump them up with female hormones -- male monkeys and pumped them up with female hormones to see if they are more susceptible to hiv. this cost a lot of money. in doing the study, they realized the type of monkeys they were using in that study were not susceptible to hiv at all, basically rendering the study a complete waste. host: the monkeys gambling, i was able to find a johns hopkins headline on it. gambling monkeys like big bets, study finds. scientists find the area of the brain, a possible step to improving treatments to risky behaviors in humans. the johns hopkins university headline on it. the study you are referring to, i am assuming. guest: yes. i said it was north carolina, but you are right, it was johns hopkins. host: about five minutes left with jeff mordock of the washington times. i want to ask before we run out of times, what changes in the

white house briefing room for you and your colleagues in a second trump administration? have you been told about any changes? guest: we have not been told about any changes. carolyn leavitt -- karoline leavitt was just announced in the job. we have yet to see what she will do, how she will handle it. it is a position that the people in his first administration did not have success. host: i was interested on your end on who gets seats to the white house briefing room, access to the white house briefing room. what do you think on that looking forward, not back? guest: the whca, the white house correspondents association, they set up where everybody seats, so your seat is pretty much guaranteed. where the real challenge will come in, there is always a lot

of people standing on the side who are from smaller outlets, maybe podcasters. under the biden administration, they were coming in. they were asking questions. there were a couple issues. the biden administration sought to crackdown on that bike having everyone need something to go in. or they would escort you. very limited in what you could do. whereas before, if you had a day pass, you could come in, grab a seat where the reporters sit, and spend your day working there. you really cannot do that anymore because of some changes because of some issues. so it will be interesting to see if they are more easier on who they grant press passes to, who they -- you know, outlets we do not traditionally think of news

outlets coming in. on top of that, if they get questions. one of the big criticisms of the biden administration is the way the white house briefing room set up by the first row goes to the legacy media. fox news, nbc, cnn, abc, and then wall street journal, new york times. they have been shy about going past the third row in the briefing room and that has cut off a lot of outlets from asking questions and that has been a recurring problem for retention for three years. there has never been a change and there is no will to change it. i would be interested to see how much karoline leavitt moves around the briefing room and if she takes questions in the fourth row or fifth row. host: taking your phone calls, your questions. this is keith in denver, colorado, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. still, i look at these cabinet

nominees, tulsi gabbard, matt gaetz, pete hegseth, and rfk, junior, and i have to say it appears to me that these threats of recess appointments are in fact trump acting as dictator before day one. i also think that is a prime example of government by the worst. and my question is, what would the anti-woke agenda -- how will that impact? because what will be the litmus test? how does it implement? and what is woke? host: let me take your question in the time we have.

behind jeff mordock is our screen. there is a camera on the roof with one face to towards the capitol and one towards union station. i have never seen somebody step the camera but somebody did last time while you were talking. for viewers who might be confused, that is what you just saw. jeff mordock, you get the final minute and a half here. guest: what i want to say is he brought up kristi noem. we brought up the baggage of matt gaetz and rfk, junior. she has a lot of baggage too. we are not talking about her because we are so focused on everybody else. host: jeff mordock is the white house correspondent for the washington times. you are familiar with his work if you read the front page of the washington times. he often appears there and we appreciate your time. next, your phone calls. it is our open forum. the numbers we will put on the screen for you. democrats, republicans, and

independents, go ahead and start calling in. we will show you yesterday joe biden was the first to visit -- first president to visit the amazon rain forest. in brazil, he met with local leaders working to preserve the rainforest. take a listen. [video clip] >> today, i am proud to be here. the first sitting u.s. president to visit the amazon rain forest, to commit to protecting the rain forests like this one. the most powerful solutions we have to fight climate change is all around us. the world's forest. trees breathe carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. and yet each minute, chopping down the equivalent of 10 soccer fields worth of forest each minute. that is why we are in the fight

to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. that is why we lead by example at home, conserving an area of the u.s. land and water larger than the nation of uruguay. we have done it by fighting for tribal partners, lifting them up, business communities, most impacted by -- and the community's impacted by climate change -- and the communities most impacted by climate change. we all know there is much more we can do and must do at home and abroad. that is why today i issued an official proclamation to support the conservation of nature around the world because the fight to protect our planet is a fight for humanity for

generations to come. maybe the only existential threat to all our nations and to all humanity that exists. with today's proclamation, i am proud to announce first the united states develop an finance corporation will mobilize hundreds of millions of dollars in partnership with the brazilian company to reforest the amazon. second, we are launching a brazil restoration finance coalition to mobilize at least $10 billion by 2030 to restore and protect 20,000 square miles of land. and third, i am announcing an additional $50 million to the amazon fund. we have already given $50 million. fourth, we will provide the funding to help launch the president's new initiative, the tropical forest forever fund.

it is in the interest of all of us. it benefits the united states just about as much as any other country here in brazil. happy to support bipartisan legislation to launch the new foundation for international conservation that would leverage public funds to mobilize billions more in private capital. the fight against climate change has been a defining cost of my presidency -- cause of my presidency. we have launched a 150 nation strong global methane pledge. we delivered record financing to countries. we pledged we would deliver $11 billion per year by 2024. i am pleased to announce today we not only kept that promise of a we surpassed it -- promise, we surpassed it. >> "washington journal."

host: just over half an hour left in our program today and we will end with open forum. any political issue. it is (202) 748-8000 for cats to call in. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. i wanted to note some programming notes on the c-span networks including going on in just a couple minutes here over on c-span2. former trump administration health and human services secretary alex azar is giving an address to the foundation for research on equal opportunity, a discussion on economic and political freed. that will be happening on c-span2 as we finish up today and open forum. take your pick. either one is a good program for you to watch. if you want to call in, phone lines are open for you to do so. nancy is up first out of pennsylvania, democrat. go ahead.

caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i have only lived here for four years, but i am amazed at what i'm finding out. that we have the fifth worst tapwater in the country, ok, in the state of pennsylvania as well as pennsylvania's breast cancer and thyroid cancer rates are higher than the national average. with all of the fracking and everything and the drill, baby, drill, my biggest concern is the future of people's grandchildren and the future of our planet. we are obviously in a very crucial time. he is putting somebody in charge of the epa that has a very bad voting record. i just -- it is very dismaying to think what is going on in our country right now to be honest with you. i'm just -- i don't recognize the country. host: what do you know about lee zeldin, who has been announced

as the donald trump epa administrator? caller: just that he has a very, very anti the environment voting record. that is what i know. ok. that is my concern. these are things i discovered as a senior living in pennsylvania the last four years. frack, baby, frack. drill, baby, drill. people in the community are not aware we have the fifth worst tapwater in the country. please check me because it is true because of all the industry. so what is the legacy for people that have grandchildren and the future for people when this type of thing is going to happen? not just in pennsylvania but other states. i also heard they are going to reopen the nuclear power plant, which is not near where i live. i am just aghast, frankly. host: thank you for the call. this is the new york times brief wrap up of lee zeldin's tenure.

former congressman from long island who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022. he is an avid supporter of mr. trump, who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election. during his tenure in the house of representatives, he voted against the clean water legislation at least 10 times and clean air legislation at least half a dozen times according to a scorecard put together. the other nominee who will have a big say over energy and environmental issues is the energy secretary. we found out this weekend chris wright is the nominee for that post, the ceo of liberty energy. there is the picture of him in the wall street journal. he was front and center for the fracking revolution, the wall street journal writes, that we ship the country. a band of scrappy wildcats that brought it to heights.

pumps water and sand underground. his election elevates a pernicious branch of the oil and gas industry is skeptical of climate change science and mostly has not pledged low carbon energy initiatives. back to the phones. this is david in the louisiana, independent. go ahead. caller: good morning, mr. john. this is the original deplorable citizen. citizen dave. going to double wide out next to the garbage dump and the music group that would be named poor white trash. but guess who's tangerine will be president. [laughter] you cut me off the last three calls, brother, but i will save you the trouble. see you next time, brother john.

host: this is rene in westchester, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. hi. i am just calling in to say what i expect out of my president of the united states of america, for him to respect the constitution, him to protect the constitution. i want someone that regardless -- i am democrat -- whether they are republican or democrat, to go in and take care of business. i don't want four years of clowning, of clowns, i don't know, and someone using the white house to get back at people, angry because they said something against him or spoke against him. that is what happens when you run for president. you are going to have people for you. you are going to have people against you. and also, as far as his picks,

there is a lot of people in the republican party that are loyal, educated, experienced people. and there are a lot of other people he can pick for some of these cabinet positions. and i feel that he should pick, you know, somebody that is experienced and not just because they are loyal and they don't have the proper experience. host: who is somebody you would put in that category? caller: i'm just saying, marco rubio is fine because he is experienced. but i am just saying some of these people like that guy for attorney general. someone who has worked as a prosecutor and may be on the state level or somewhere who worked as attorney general. someone with experience. and they are telling him things because they are the truth.

like sessions. he was extremely nasty and cold to that man. i am just saying you have republicans that are qualified with experience. and those are the people he should be using. you know, not these people because they are friends and tell him what he wants to hear and all that. you know, the people who voted for trump, i just hope that everything goes well and works out well because we are all citizens of the united states of america. and everybody should want the best. host: rene, the democrat and pennsylvania. this is dean, republican in muncie, indiana. caller: good morning, john. i am calling to address the speech of president biden at the amazon rain forest. you know, i understand there is a lot of things we need to do in other countries. but what is going on right now in our county, northern part, as

they are installing solar fields. i want the public to know that are chopping down millions of trees to get access to the sun for solar fields. now how is that benefiting us? it is not. he is over there praising the rain forest after destroying the rain forest in the united states. it really gets my goat. and i witnessed it. it is a quarter-mile from my property. i have seen then cut down over 500 trees. they don't log them. they just push them over and let them rot. they need access to the sun for the solar panels. that is horrible. we are not gaining anything. before i hang up, i want to compliment you on veterans day. that was the best i have ever seen anyone from "washington journal" handle an issue. you were great.

host: this is jay in mississippi, independent. good morning. caller: good morning, mr. john. how are you doing? host: doing well. caller: my comment is this, donald trump is not in office yet, and they already -- the news media, it is the same old playbook. it looks like you all should have learned something from last time. trump won big again. something they complain about, his cabinet picks. he could nominate jesus christ, and a lot of democrats and these left-leaning liberals would have a problem. host: what cabinet posts would you put jesus christ in -- post would you put jesus christ in? caller: that is kind of a crazy question, but i would put him in

-- maybe i would replace matt gaetz and put him in that position because everybody calling in-house -- calling in has problems. there was a woman who was called in for adultery, and he bent down and he said anyone who does not have sin, cast a stone, and he turned around. that could be a good moral for today. have a good day now. host: darren is in the centennial state, colorado springs. good morning. caller: hey, good morning, john. i also wanted to say on your veterans day show you did a great job. host: a lot of good folks sharing their family stories for veterans day. it always happens on veterans day. we get that every year.

caller: i am a veteran. i really appreciate it. i also appreciate you read what was under the statue of liberty. it almost brought a tear to my eye. people think about how this deportation plan of trump is going to go. if he is building this christian coalition, we have four sex offenders, a convicted sex offender trying to get cabinet positions. i don't want to hear talk about christian values in the republican party. thanks. host: that is darren in colorado. alex in lake forest, california, republican. good morning. caller: yeah. thanks for taking my call. i just have a couple comments. most of the states that have no voter id have gone the way of the democrats. and it is really kind of concerning the fact that some of the states are still counting

and things are swaying towards democrats when republicans were actually winning it has been 13 days, almost two weeks since that started. another point i have is talking about climate change and the amazon but at the same time okaying nuclear weapons for ukraine is a bit insane at this point. almost like he is starting world war iii but thinking going to the amazon will help anybody or anything if world war iii starts. kind of concerning to me, and thanks for taking my call. host: that news coming out yesterday. the associated press story that president biden authorized ukraine to strike deeper into russia. thousands of north korean troops deployed to reinforce the war.

according to a u.s. official and three other people really with the matter. they use them for attacks further inside russia as vladimir putin positions north korean troops along ukraine's northern border to try to reclaim hundreds of miles held by ukrainian forces. this is nikki in new york, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for the man on the roof. you must submit that. host: i have never seen that before since we had the cameras there. that is why i felt like i needed to explain it. caller: you did a good job. another thing you did, you anticipated what would occur. i believe the press corps would be decimated, and there would be only certain agreeable interviewers for the donald trump press corps. i would like to compare.

i am independent, but i would like to compare what happened 100 years ago. the first thing you do is you attack the media. you set the media down. if you are a dictator, that is your playbook. the second thing you do is you attack the people who are responsible for law and order, and you replace them with stooges. if you want to kill something, you don't have to shoot it. host: you think it is possible to shut down the media in this country? caller: not the social media today. i don't believe so. no. unless you see right there -- i just want to compare what happened 100 years ago. the difference between mein kampf and project 2025, so to speak. you have a comparison there. adolf hitler was a convicted criminal, convicted of treason.

spent time in prison where he wrote mein kampf. now you have another convicted criminal in the white house. host: got your point. we will hold off on the nazi comparisons this morning. we will go to steven in illinois. caller: good morning. president-elect trump has announced he will appoint matt gaetz, the congressman from florida, as his attorney general. it is well-known and factual that several years ago congressman gaaetz -- cumbersome and matt gaetz had sex with a girl who was a high school junior. also, on the house of representatives floor, circulated and showed pictures of him naked with another woman. host: steven, some of these things are being investigated. we have not seen a report yet. caller: no, it is true.

host: when you say factual, we have not seen the reports yet. we know what the investigation's are about, but as far as i know, there has not been a report released confirming that yet. caller: the girl's attorney has released information that this is the case. so this just is not hearsay. are you still there? host: i am listening to you. but it has not come out in the confirmation process. caller: why in the world did the people in his congressional district reelect him? there is something wrong here, sir. that is all i can say. thank you for listening to me. host: this is gordon in kansas city, kansas. good morning. republican. caller: morning, john. thanks for taking my call. would you take press secretary job if they offered it to you? host: would i take the job, gordon? caller: yes. host: i don't think anybody cares about what job i have. would you take the job? caller: i think you would make

an excellent press secretary because you know all the ins and outs. that lesbian we have had for four years, she did not know anything. anyway, i called to talk to scott macfarlane because cbs, nbc, and abc are going to be in court for the next two years for slander and libel against our president. and i want them to pay out more than fox had to pay out for talking about the voting machines. host: that is gordon in kansas. this is anne and wisconsin. good morning. caller: good morning. i just wonder why -- i see that trump and his people don't want to find that ethics pledge that is legally required for the transition. and if they are not willing to do that, why are there no

repercussions? it seems like we have these moves that are in place. they ignore them. and they just -- that seems to be ok with everybody. then why do we have these rules in place? that is my question. thank you. host: mike from nebraska, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning, john? how are you doing? host: doing all right. caller: anyhow, let's get on with the subject. the obama administration's plan backfired to get harris president, ok. it really did. they had the plan from 2020, you know. and they knew biden was going to bow out. and harris backfired on them. you still on? host: i am listening. what happened? caller: still on. the obama administration tried to pull a fast one.

yeah. not only cbs and abc and them got to go to court. msnbc, cnn, they will have a seat at the table too. this is getting ridiculous. the trump derangement syndrome. msnbc, puppies and kittens. host: this is kenneth, independent in michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. i would to congratulate chief executive officer for jumping from cnn to c-span. i hope he carries the same thing with him. also, ever since trump was elected, he turned from a nazi to a clown. hey clown will put a smile on your face, and everybody should be smiling. host: sharon, oregon, democrat. good morning. caller: hi. obviously as a democrat, i was not happy with the results of

the elections and many of my friends are not, but what i decided was to accept the results that now trump is the president. and he is telling us what he is going to do. the people you had on earlier said the first thing that is going to get done is the same tax cut, reinstating the tax cut that really helped the 1%. then his second thing is really important, to cut the deficit. by reinstating the 1% tax cut, which did not help me as an ex teacher and retiree very much but it helped elon musk a lot and trump a lot, that squeezes the revenue of programs. so the next thing he says he is going to do is we have to cut the deficit. and you even heard your people earlier, the word entitlement. they use the word entitlement

because the biggest part of the budget, social security, medicare, medicaid. so what is going to happen? i told my friends that are grieving, the people that are crowing now, they need medicare, social security, and medicaid much more than i do. they voted for him. there is going to be a rude awakening two years from now when suddenly we thought we would get this deficit in control. all the money, the revenue is gone. you could only bleed the middle-class and the poor so much for revenue. and then they say we have to cut social security, we have to cut medicare, we have to cut medicaid. at some of your callers -- and some of your callers that are calling now, i cannot wait to hear them. host: long call the third rail of politics. people don't touch it. caller: how can they not? how can they not?

if you are going to cut the deficit, if you are going to squeeze -- i am a teacher, logical, pragmatic, the negative word they called kamala. if you squeeze off the revenue and you have no more revenue and your biggest programs, and republicans are not going to cut the military-industrial complex, the only thing that is going to take it down, and we were talking about the monkey study or whatever, that is $1 million. that is not cut the deficit. to cut the deficit, you will have to go after the big programs. host: as you say, medicare and medicaid is currently about $1.8 trillion in the u.s. budget. social security, $1.5 trillion. defense and war spending, about $1 trillion. interest on the debt also about $1 trillion. the u.s. tax revenue this year, $5 trillion.

and spending is about $7.2 trillion. that is sharon in oregon. about 10 minutes left in our program this morning. this is faye in ithaca, new york, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning, john. just to let you know my phone sometimes cuts me off, so if that happens, it is not because i hung up. host: that is ok. what is on your mind this morning? caller: i have been trying to get through for two months now. first i just want to repeat what i said last time about clemency. because we need to free leonard, a native american prisoner now for decades. if you could have deb haaland on soon to talk about clemency in general and also to talk about leonard. now, the second thing, john, i am a democrat. i voted for kamala harris. there is a lot to say, and i am

not going to be able to have time to say it right now because i might get cut off by my phone. i am scared to death, john, for our country. i am shocked that someone like donald trump could get into office again. this is not healthy. he is a very unhealthy man. she is -- he is putting in people that should not be in public office. i need, he should not be in public -- i mean, he should not be in public office. mitch mcconnell has damaged this country severely and will not be looked good at and history -- in history. i am a good person with a kind heart. i watch a lot of news networks, which is too long to talk about here. but we are in a lot of trouble, john. i am scared to death. i am scared to death they are going to go after pbs or your

channel, go after news networks that are fair, bbc, you know. i really am scared to death. we are in a lot of trouble, john. there are so many smart people out there. why aren't they calling in? why aren't they coming out? people in government who know what trouble we are in right now. i can't stress that enough. i can't go into details because i will get cut off. i mean, this -- i am just hurting as an american. why? we are going to suffer so much, john. this is not a healthy administration. this administration should never have been allowed. where are the safeguards? that is what concerns me.where are the safeguards ? to put this in recess is absurd. host: that is faye in new york. this is phil in minnesota,

independent. good morning. caller: good morning, john. you know something? i am not afraid nor will i be intimidated. people don't actually see how weak he is because there is nothing more he could do for the congress and the senators. yes, for the first six months to one year, he can run riot, but he cannot do enough damage. what amazes me is to see how weak, that people don't see how weak he is. you think they want to lose their seats for him? i don't think so. it does not work that way. he said, if you want a friend in washington, d.c., you get a dog. take care of yourself and your

family and tell your workers i said hello. host: before you go, what do you mean there is nothing more he can do for that? what do you mean by that? caller: he can only serve one term. mr. president, i'm sorry but you do not have my vote. that is what i believe will happen to him. you have to understand with this individual everything is smoke and mirrors. i am a very old cynical soul. [laughter] nothing interferes with my logic. so you take care of yourself, take care of your family, and take care of your workers. you have a nice day, sir. bye-bye. host: thank you. this is wendy in milwaukee the republican. good morning. caller: yes. hi. i just want to say that i am in liberal milwaukee, but i don't belong here. i will be going back to south florida as soon as my lease as.

-- as soon as my lease ends. first of all, people were sick of what was going on. i love latin people. but we had 15 u.s. service people blown to pieces. that was the first disaster. and ukraine got invaded. now, some lady -- a lady at the store said to me that is not president biden's fault. i am like, the people here, as my mom said, who voted for kamala harris, my parents are democrats, my relatives are all liberal, and my mom even says they are not aware of the world here in milwaukee. they are liberal. the american people, including me partially, are tired of what has been going on. the whole shift of everything

was people were concerned about the other countries. for instance, president obama was more concerned about the muslim brotherhood in egypt than he was about building up our country. it is a basic concept. it is not complicated. host: if you don't like wisconsin, why did you move to wisconsin in the first place? caller: i grew up here. i came home when my dad died in 2016 and then i came back during covid for some reason. i was in a different neighborhood. it was more active. wisconsin is not the same. it has changed. there has been a shifting of people. things have changed. i noticed a drastic change.

now we are allowing the sabotage to continue. the idea that we spend all of our time attacking. nobody investigated obama's gay affairs. all of this stuff with people calling in saying seven years, there was a sexual encounter, that got settled. the attacks that are always being talked about. robert kennedy all of that. host: our last caller on

"washington journal." stick around. more programming on the c-span networks. the house and senate are in this week. we will be back at 7:00 eastern. in the meantime, have a great monday. congress returns later tay for their final week of work befo t holiday. newly elected house memberar back inashington for more orntion sessions including selecting capitol hill offis by lottery. the house and seteontinue talks ahead of another

government funding deadline and must pass additional federal spending to avert a shutdown. the house is back later today at noon eastern. th will consider several bills including legislation banning the u.s. government from contracting with any person that has business operations with the also, a bill to increasenment. transparency oma-in ballots by requiring envelopes toave tracking barcodes. senatorsill vote at 5:30 two o vote. watch live coverage of the hou andate and all of our coressional coverage online at c-span.org or on our free video app, c-span now. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government funded by

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