editor, and congresswoman lori trahan hand joins us to discuss tomorrow's vote on banning transgender athletes from participating in women's exports. and brian walker discusses his organization's effort to get present electrons cabinet picks to be confirmed. c-span's washington journal. join the conversation at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now or on c-span.org. >> tuesday, senate minority leader chuck schumer and house speaker mike johnson will discuss with the first 100 days of donald trump's second ministry she will look like. we will also hear from former trump advisor steve bannon. watch live starting at 8:30 a.m. eastern on c-span 2, c-span now, or online at c-span.org.

>> witness democracy unfiltered with c-span. experience history as it unfolds with c-span's live coverage as republicans take control of both chambers of congress at a new chapter begins with the swearing in of the 47th president. tune in for our live coverage of the inauguration as donald trump takes the oath of office, becoming president. stay with c-span this month for comprehensive, live, unfiltered coverage of the 119th congress and presidential inauguration. c-span, democracy unfiltered. every monday when congress is in session we'd like to take a look ahead in washington. we are joined by the senior congressional reporter at punch bowl news. andrew, it is 14 confirmation hearings this week, 13 nominees,

11 committees holding hearings. what is a senior congressional reporter to do? guest: you got to prioritize. in terms of the nominees that are the most controversial, the most difficult time getting confirmed, you got pete hegset h, the nominee to be defense secretary. his nomination is going to be the most important one to focus on this week they couple of others are on the national security side. republicans want to prioritize national security nominees will not have confirmation hearings this week and will be continuing to meet with senators. this going to be a lot of action both inside and outside those rooms that you don't have hearings this week are of course tulsi gabbard, nominee for director of national intelligence, and cash patel. in patel's case, he probably

will not get a confirmation hearing until february at the earliest. tulsi gabbard could get one as soon as next week but the intelligence committee has not yet announced that hearing. host: what is the strategy for having 14 hearings in three days, is there a strategy here of doing that with republicans in the senate and donald trump coming in and these being is nominees? guest: this is what they tried to do every four years, stack these as close to the inauguration date as they can. the senate cannot vote to confirm until a new president is inaugurated, so who is a candidate for day one nomination? the only one i see who could be a candidate right now is marco

rubio, the nominee for secretary of state. he has his confirmation hearing before the foreign relations committee on wednesday of this week, so i think he is the likeliest to get confirmed on inauguration day. it would be the afternoon of january 20 four years ago when president biden first came into office. the nominee he had confirmed was the director of national intelligence. a couple days later he had lloyd austin confirmed and then a few days after that he had antony blinken, secretary of state confirmed. it is normal to prioritize national security nominees on the floor if you are senate leadership. in the case of trump nominees, they are some of the more controversial ones. after that it will be epicenter democrats in terms of whether they would build time or not because each nominee under

regular order if you use the full-time, each nominee will take a few days. host: does marco rubio get to vote on his own nomination? guest: as long as he is still a sitting senator by the time the vote happens. he could technically wait to resign until right before he becomes secretary of state, of course. that could be interesting. i've tried asking to see what his plans are. he doesn't have any specifics to share, but that could be fascinating. he does not need his own vote. he's going to get 80, 85 plus votes in the senate. host: what senators stick out for confirmation time, who are the senators that tend to make a splash during these confirmation hearings? guest: obviously is dependent on who sits on what committees. on the floor is a lot different because you have the perpetual swing votes.

susan collins, lisa murkowski, mitch mcconnell now that he is not in leadership anymore. mitch mcconnell has a singular focus for the remaining two years on his senator which is to continue to advance his national security doctrine, his foreign policy doctrine, how he sees the world, and that involves of course pushing back against what he sees as a more isolationist streak popping up at his party. in one of the ways he is thinking about doing that is on these nominations. so you have to really consider is mitch mcconnell going to vote for someone like tulsi gabbard or someone like pete hegseth? a lot of it depends on what they say during the confirmation hearings and how they lay out their case in terms of who to watch on the senate floor, i think those three. young that, some senators to have their pet issue they like to focus on when it comes to certain subject matter areas

that cabinet nominees could have jurisdiction over. so again, it is nominee-dependent that i would say those three are the ones to focus on. host: c-span collars also have their issues like to focus on. we can talk about any of these confirmation hearings. it is (202) 748-8000 free democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. independent, (202) 748-8002. let me just run through the schedule real quick of when these are taking place. we are covering most of these on the c-span networks and also online. trying to let you see as many of these as possible. there's a lot this week. tuesday, it is pete hegseth for defense secretary, doug collins for veterans affairs secretary and doug burgum for interior secretary. wednesday, kristi noem homeland security secretary, marco rubio secretary of state, pam bondi attorney general, chris wright energy secretary, jon magseth cia director.

thursday you've got eric scott turner and scott pheasant for treasury secretary. as you mentioned, tulsa gabbard, d and i director is what she is up for, not among those listed what should viewers know about her and section 702? guest: i reported last week that republican and democratic senators who had met with her were unclear on her position on that critical national 30 authority which basically allows the federal government to conduct surveillance on foreigners outside of the united states for the purposes of safeguarding national security, rooting out terrorism, things like that. and i presented that information to the trump transition team and said we were going to reported and as a result, tulsi gabbard gave her first public comment

since being nominated for the job in which she came out in support of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. host: did you interview her? guest: this was a statement and that was notable for two reasons. number one, she reposed -- propose legislation when she was in congress to get rid of section 702 entirely, and number two she voted against reauthorizing it every time it came up during her tenure in the house of representatives. this is something she has been pressed on it during this private meetings and i was told by senators from both parties who met with her that they came away from those meetings less than clear in terms of what her position was, so it was notable that she came out in support of section 702 because again, those republicans in particular who were on the fence about her were looking for her to give a full throated endorsement of this authority and that is not just sort of some abstract thing where she just relies on what congress does as it relates to reauthorizing section 702. she actually as director of

national intelligence, if confirmed, will have to recertify the program itself as early as april of this year. if she doesn't, the program goes dark. this is not an abstract concept, this is something that lawmakers care a lot about, so i think it helped her confirmation prospect that she came out in support of it publicly. host: and the statement that you received on this from tulsi gabbard, if confirmed, i will uphold american's fourth amendment rights about maintaining vital national security tools like section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the american people. is there more to that statement explaining why the change of heart? guest: number one she probably knew that it would help her confirmation prospects because again, and the intelligence committee in particular there are a lot of really hawkish republicans and hawkish democrats when it comes to national security and just general surveillance.

one of her big issues with this program is civil liberties protections. that was one of her arguments against it when she was in congress. she referenced fourth amendment rights in that statement. what she was basically saying was given the reforms that have since been enacted over the last few years as it relates to section 702, she feels comfortable that there are enough civil liberties protections, fourth amendment protections for americans because the concern has been that while this program does target foreigners who are overseas, the concern is that the data of americans gets swept up incidentally, so that has been all criticism of the program from people like tulsi gabbard over the years, and you've have this push and pull every time this comes up on capitol hill between security and personal freedom. host: we've got andrew for about another 20 minutes, so get your calls in.

this is chris in alexandria, virginia, republican. caller: two quick questions. first for your guest, how long typically does it take a president to fill his cabinet, and not just a cabinet, but all the political appointees? i believe there are almost 4000 of them. that's the first question. the second question is do we know where president trump is in filling all of those positions? i've seen articles from various sources that he has appointed most if not all of his cabinet, but i'm not sure about the minute executive appointees that have large divisions within the federal bureaucracy. thank you. guest: i will take the second one first. over the weekend president trump unveiled a lot of additional sub cabinet nominations, we call

them. these are deputy secretaries, positions that do require senate confirmation but depending on the individual nominee, often times get through without any real hiccups. sometimes even getting unanimous consent of the senate floor. and when it comes to how quickly these cabinet nominees in particular could be installed, you look back to the last couple of times a new president came into office, under president biden in 2021 it took the senate a couple of months to fill out his entire cabinet. i'm engine at the start of the show that the senate focus on national security nominees in the first week, that being the director of national intelligence and secretary of state, and from there it is up to senate leadership to decide which ones to prioritize. we know senate republican leadership this time around once to do the same exact thing, they want to prioritize national security nominees, but in the case of some of these

nominations that trump has put forward, the more controversial ones are in the national security realm and therefore they're going to take a longer attempt to get to the process. even if they are ready for floor time, to be put on the senate floor for a confirmation vote as soon as next week, it will be up to democrats to decide if they want to yield back time to get these nominees quickly confirmed. in the case of pete hegseth, i strongly doubt democrats are going to agree to collapse time on that nomination because they are really focused on exposing who they see as an unqualified and unfit nominee for this position. host: i was trying to remember the last couple of administrations. the partnership for public service i believe is what they are called. they are a political appointee tracker. they don't track all 4000 of those positions, but they track about 800 of them, and it looks

like they are going to be doing it again for this next administration. maybe a place for the viewer to go for that specific information. this is george in maryland, independent. caller: aches for taking my call. what i would like to do is just command the cabinet members that are going to be leaving. had happened in admiral kirby and antony blinken and jack sullivan. their dedication has just been phenomenal. i'm optimistic about some of the characters that trump has nominated. host: who are you worried about in particular? caller: hegseth for one, and tulsi gabbard.

i've called a couple times, i'm a john mccain republican converted to independent, but i'd like to remind congress and our representatives that when matt gaetz was still up for nomination, congress decided should be let all this news come out about him or not, i think we need to remind our representatives that it is not a big boys club that they've got going on up there. they are representatives of the united states and me and all the people that vote for whether it is trump or kamala harris, if there is stuff going around in the background of these people, they need to put that stuff out and not decide whether it should be put out or not because it may be detrimental. that's not a big boys club they've got going up there. it is not a private club. and trump doesn't read the daily briefings.

he never did, so i think it's pretty important that the people in the cabinet are focused on just what is best for this country, because trump i don't think his priorities are what is going to happen in china, what is going on in russia and all these other countries that are threats to the united states. host: we will take your comments and let andrew jump in. guest: the caller mentioned the presidential daily briefing. one of the many reasons why it is so important is because 60% of that presidential daily briefing which is compiled and done by the director of national intelligence, 60% of the information in that briefing is brought in via section 702. that information would not be included in the president's daily briefing every single day. this is a big chunk of the information that the president

learns, that is national security team learns, and that is why it is so important especially to those republican senators who are weighing this confirmation vote and whether to support her. host: some of the dates and times of some of these key confirmation hearings that you talked about that you can watch on the c-span networks. tuesday is pete hegseth. this confirmation hearing for defense secretary in front of the senate armed services committee. 9:30 a.m. on c-span three is when and where you can watch that. wednesday it is marco rubio, his hearing before the senate foreign relations committee. that is 10:00 a.m. wednesday on c-span3. and elise stefanik's hearing for the next ambassador of the united nations if she is confirmed, c-span3, 10:30 a.m. eastern, again thursday, and there will be a lot more as well throughout the week, but those are some of the key ones. we spent 20 minutes focusing on

senate and confirmation hearings. what is going on in the house this week? guest: not much to be honest. the house is focused right now on planning for reconciliation, which of the process by which republicans are going to try to pass president trump's agenda. obviously this then this whole debate about one dill or two bills. it seems like an unimportant process disagreement that folks should not be focused on, that i think they should be focused on it because the republicans need to come to an agreement on how to proceed here before they actually get started on passing elements of president trump's agenda, because they need to pass a budget resolution. this is what lays out for they are going to do as part of the process and this is have a draft the reconciliation instructions and committees. so that has to happen before they can actually even get started on all of this. that is why the process dispute is important here. a budget of hauser publicans

were at mar-a-lago this past weekend meeting with president trump. we are told that a lot of the house freedom caucus members were pressing the president on this issue because they ironically enough agree with senate republicans at the two-step strategy is best, the idea of doing border security first as part of a reconciliation bill and then pivoting to tax cuts later in the year. hauser publicans leadership, speaker mike johnson disagree, they think it is better to just do one sort of mega bill, if you will, so that was a big focus of the discussions this past weekend at mar-a-lago. senate majority leader john thune has quite eloquently laid out the case for the two-step process and he hosted president trump for a meeting at the capital last wednesday, during which senator thune and other senate republicans including lindsey graham, ted cruz, all these more traditional trump allies were making the case directly to him, to the

president for the two-step process. president trump is still siding with speaker johnson in terms of one bill, not necessarily because he thinks his ideas are better, but because he think the house is too dysfunctional right be able to pass two separate pieces of legislation on this front ma don't want either of those to go by the wayside. post: this may be very much in the weeds of how these things work, but how do you get two bites at the reconciliation apple, how can you do this in two vs. one? guest: you have a chance to do this under the procedures and rules of the senate, and if you can do it twice, you have two chances to get this done. and it depends sort of whether those budget resolutions, those vehicles were used in the previous year or not. there are a lot of different rules.

they decided to let them up into one year and the next. host: larry in the keystone state, democrat, good morning. the confirmation hearings concerning tulsa gabbert was nominated by president trump to the position of national intelligence. wasn't she the one that shot her dog because the dog growled or did listen to a command, whether our dog trainers, there are tasers or shot callers. and there were no charges filed. in a similar incident, and going back -- guest: let me just clear that up.

i think you might be referring to kristi noem and the dog incident from the book that she wrote. i think that is what you are referring to. caller: i'm sorry, yeah. and i just don't understand the situations like that being her nominated as national intelligence. going back in the to another incident with sarah palin who took office december 4, 2006 as governor, and she was in a helicopter and she resigned i think july 3, 2009. she was in a helicopter and there was a video of her with an assault rifle and a helicopter chasing a coyote or a wolf running, nowhere to hide in the video showed her shooting the animal. my question is aren't there game laws in alaska? no charges were ever filed with

her. and who is paying for all of this? host: the cricket incident, met with name -- met with the name of the dog that she wrote about the got a lot of attention. do you think that is a stumbling block for her in the confirmation hearing? guest: i really don't think so. it was more of a stomach block for her prospects to be chosen as the running mate last year, but in terms of the senate confirmation process, there won't be an issue there. for some of these nominees who are definitely more on the controversial side, the assumption is they are not going to get any democratic votes. it's republicans have a 53 seat majority so as long as they can keep everyone together for only lose a couple of votes, these folks are going to get confirmed and she is not one who is on my list in terms of ones to watch for potential defeat. host: just run through that list again, who was on that list to watch for potential defeat? guest: i would say pete hegseth,

we were discussing that earlier. and then two more, because he gabbert, nominee for director of national intelligence, her hearing can be as soon as next week pending on when the intelligence community actually notices it. and the third one i would say is kash patel, his confirmation hearing likely will not be until february, to the senate judiciary committee this early on prioritizes the attorney general and deputy attorney general nominees. host: and a different list, who are the nominees on a list of nominees who would likely get a significant number of democratic votes? guest: i would say marco rubio is someone likely to be confirmed the afternoon of the inauguration. it's not just the fact that he is there colleague, obviously they give great deference to their colleagues and their nominated for these positions, but secondly, he is someone who one foreign policy is in the mainstream of republicans. so most democrats will look at him and say i disagree with and

philosophically but i don't have an issue within serving as secretary of state under a republican administration. others i would say, for example, sean duffy as transportation secretary nominee, he's already got a bunch of democrats coming out in support of him including his home state democratic senator tim baldwin, and another one i would say is elise stefanik, the nominee for u.s. ambassador to the u.n. he could get a handle of votes. john fetterman of pennsylvania has already said he's going to support her, so i think there are a number of cabinet nominees who are going to secure democratic support. the question is how many, and will that even be necessary because again, you got 53 republicans in the senate and all of them support this respective nominee whoever you're talking about, you don't need all the democrats. host: tennessee, republican, good morning. caller: thanks for coming on

c-span and talking to everybody but i have to take issue with you and everyone else making a big issue at of section 702 to spy on americans for no reason, other than washington wants to start -- spy on them. the border has been wide open for four years, anyone can walk in. suddenly tulsa gabbert is some kind of national security threat? you guys are -- leading us, we are not stupid. this is why everyone in america hates everyone in washington and why we really -- elected a reality start. host: let me ask you, do you think it was wrong of tulsi gabbard to come out and say that this is a tool that she will continue to use? caller: yeah, i mean honestly she really sold out. i know she's trying to get into power, but it's time that we had leaders with a real spine who said that washington cannot continue to push around the

entire world. we are about to cause world war iii. you are a bunch of clouds up there. guest: i will note when it comes to section 702, this is something that republican senators were saying to me was a problem for them in terms of her confirmation prospects. i don't think any of us in the news media are necessarily playing it up as something that is a must-have or super important. we brothers information to the trump transition team and that is what caused them to issue this statement to us on behalf of tulsa gabbert supporting section 702. again, people who opposed section 702, people who are worried that in the words of the scholar, is being used to spy on americans, they do feel like tulsa gabbert has sold them out on this issue. and when it comes to prospects

for confirmation, this was a must do for her. she needed to come out and say this or else are prospects were going to be significantly worse. host: final minute or two, what haven't we gotten to that you're going to be watching for this week in washington that we should know about? guest: descendant is going to be continuing to consider the lake and riley act, a piece of legislation that would make it easier for law enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants suspected of committing crimes. this is something that senate majority thune is aiming for to be an early legislative wind for his new majority in his republican trifecta in washington. a number of democrats support the bill in its current form. you've got to think about could

this get the 60 votes? it probably can in its current form but a lot of the democrats who voted to advance it want amendments, including senate minority leader chuck schumer. they want the chance to amend this piece of legislation. while republicans are saying is that they are open to narrowly tailored amendments on this issue, but they don't want this to become sort of a comprehensive immigration bill. so the next two days will be critical. there is another procedural vote tonight in the senate on this. this one will not be controversial. over the next couple of days we will see how serious democrats are in terms of wanting to try to amend this legislation. do they have the votes to sort of filibuster this before it can get final passage? i suspect there are enough democrats right now who would vote yes on final passage on the legislation as currently constructed. i will also add that to get the house has passed this, if the stem passes it that mean it goes to the white house. the current president is obviously joe biden, but what we

played last week is that republican leaders in the house and senate want to hold that piece of legislation, assuming it passes both chambers. they want to hold that piece of legislation until donald trump comes into office so that he can sign it potentially on day one. and there is discussion of potentially trying to catch joe biden by surprise and put him in an awkward spot by sending this piece of legislation to him on his final day or final couple days in office, but they have decided that they are likely going to wait until trump comes into office so that he can for sure sign this piece of legislation and they can notch it legislative win on border security that was a very dominant theme in their messaging as part of the election last year. host: if you want to know what is going on under the capitol dome you probably should be following punch bowl news.

andrew is a senior congressional the latest issues in government, politics and public policy, from washington and across the country. tuesday morning, tomorrow's confirmation hearing for pete hegseth with leo shane. an massachusetts democratic congresswoman lori trahan discusses tomorrow's vote on legislation barring transgender athletes from participating in women's sports. and heritage action executive vice president ryan walker discusses his organizations effort to get present -- president-elect trumps cabinet picks confirmed. join the conversation at 7:00

eastern tuesday morning on c-span, c-span now, or c-span.org. tuesday, president-elect's defense department nominee will have a hearing. he previously served in iraq and afghanistan as part of the minnesota national guard and works for a vetens advocacy group. here and a mters degree in public policy from the jfk school at harvard. you can watch tuesday at 9:30 a.m.