decisions in front of them. thank you so much. announcer: on friday, it is the 52nd annual march for life rally in washington, d.c. the event will include house speaker mike johnson, senate majority leader john thune, florida governor ron desantis and other pro-life advocates you can see it live starting at noon eastern on, c-span now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. announcer: announcer: c-span, democracy unfiltered.. we are funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> oh, you think this is just a community center? no, it's way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with 1,000 community centers to create wi-fi-enabled liftzones so students from low-income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. announcer: comcast supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat tdemocracy. ♪

announcer: if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage, you can find it any time, online at c-span.org. pdas of key hearings, debates and newsworthy events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these "points of interest" markers appear on the right side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. this timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's "points of interest." mychael schnell is joining us. this meeting yesterday between president trump and gop congressional leaders that happened yesterday, what are you hearing happened during that meeting? guest: we were told by speaker johnson and steve scalise there is some type of plan for how reconciliation is coming down at

that was significant because we know there has been debate in the capital cut will republican leaders try to pass one reconciliation bill of trump's policies? will they split his agenda into two separate bills? that has been the main question. house members, particularly mike johnson and jason smith, happen pushing for one single bill. john thune has been pushing for two bills. president trump has made his preference for one bill known but kept the door open to both. this has been the first step for -- before we can move onto what exact policy is in this legislation or pieces of legislation. majority leader steve scalise told us the agreement was on one bill. john thune seemed noncommittal to that when talking to reporters, so this is still the question of one bill or two bills but it seems they have the

outline of a plan of how they are going to attack reconciliation. house republican leaders say they want to pass a budget resolution which unlocks the budget reconciliation process sometime in the week of february 27, so the self-imposed deadline to get this process started and have these key decisions made is approaching. host: what is the big deal between one bill or two bills? does it make that big of a difference? guest: there are questions of cap republicans even get one bill over the finish line. the budget reconciliation process is significant in that it takes away the need to get democratic support in the senate. it breaks the threshold from passing the bill from 60 votes to a simple majority but the house is its own issue. even though the house only needs a simple majority, republicans are grappling with a thin majority. once elise stefanik leaves the

house to serve in the administration, the brake that will be 217-2 hundred 15, which means republicans cannot even afford to lose one member on a party-line vote. when they plan to vote on reconciliation, the margin will be larger because some special elections would have happened by then, but even if it is a one or two person majority that is slimmed so the concern in the house as they are only going to get one bite at the sample. if they could reconciliation over the finish line, it will only happen once and the strategy here is that mike johnson is thinking i have some folks who do not like an aspect of the bill but there are some big sweeteners in their, namely immigration and border portion of the legislation. house leaders are hoping by putting those in one single bill some conservative republicans who are against other areas of the legislation will not vote against it because they do not want to tank the immigration and border section. that is the argument for one

bill. two bills is a senate folks are saying they want to give president trump an early win on the border and immigration and then deal with thorny issues down the road but there is concern in the house of will be get bites at the sample. host: you mention immigration and border. what are things they agree on that we will likely see in the bill? guest: we are waiting to hear what the specifics are. members have been tightlipped about the actual policy. we have seen house republicans for a few weeks have a lot of listening sessions with different committees and interest groups in the house republican conference and factions to get an idea of what everyone wants to see, so we still do not know what details and policy is going to be in this reconciliation bill but we can see what is on the president's mind. we saw his executive orders, things like ending birthright citizenship, reinstating remain in mexico so we know where his

priorities lie. it is a question of what policy we will see put into this gop bill. guest: president trump revived the idea of recess appointments for his cabinet. where does that stand? guest: that has been something raised during the election to become the next majority leader of the senate and we saw the candidates agree to it, including somebody like john thune, saying they would do every thing they can to confirm trump's cabinet nominees in a swift manner. we haven't heard much about this idea of recess appointments. there are questions about how this would look practically, logistically, what legal concerns surrounding it could be, but it is something i am interested to see if that is more of a discussion on capitol hill. trump did get his first cabinet nominee confirms. it was a unanimous vote in the senate and senate leaders are teeing up more votes here and we

are seeing those nominees dispatched out of committee and making it to the floor soon. pete hegseth to be defense chief. expect to see more of these nominee votes in the coming days. the question of recess appointments -- we will see if we hear more about that this week. host: going back to pete hegseth for defense secretary, new allegations have been leveled against him. he denies allegations of abusing his second wife. what are you hearing about that and is that impacting his nomination? guest: democrats are outraged by this new development and affidavit given to lawmakers that leaked to the press. democrats are concerned. they have been concerned with pete hegseth's nomination this entire journey. it is why his vote out of committee was on party lines. did this information come to the table too late? we have seen pete hegseth's

confirmation hearing and vote in committee. one of the key holdouts, joni ernst from iowa, announced she would support pete hegseth after that hearing. there are still a few outliers who have not said where they leaned one way or another, lisa murkowski cut mitch mcconnell, and todd young. if all four of those republicans vote against pete hegseth, he will not be able to be confirmed as defense secretary in the margins, but i think it is a question of will those four ultimate lee vote against him. the other folks are pretty locked in. they said they are going to support him and i do not know they would backtrack on that after reading this affidavit. it is a possibility but it is unlikely and i think folks are going to be asking, did we receive this information too late? host: you had a chance to talk to speaker johnson about president trump's january 6 pardons. what did he tell you? guest: he said he has not had an

ability to review it yet. he did not have a specific reaction, sort of deflecting the question to not comment. we will try again today, assuming he has had a moment to review the pardons that president trump signed on the first night of him being in office but the reaction from the house republican conference is mixed. i spoke to folks who said this is the president's prerogative. he has the ability to issue pardons as president and this was his decision. i have had folks who said the rioters were being unjustly held and prosecuted. i have heard folks say this was the wrong decision, particularly the violent protesters accused of violently assaulting police officers. i will note there were more than 600 january 6 protesters who were accused of violently assaulting law-enforcement officers who were released as part of the sweeping pardon. some folks said this was not the right decision and they wish it

was done on a case-by-case basis, so truly a mixed bag when you talk about reaction from the house republican conference. we did hear from the more moderate folks who are not the biggest fans of trump expressing displeasure with the decision, but overall a mixed bag for republican reaction to that. host: thanks for all those updates. mychael click c-span's washington journal, our live form involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics and public policy from washington and across the country. coming up thursday morning, usa today justice department correspondent will talk about president trump pardoning january 6 defenders in fmr. v.p. biden's preemptive pardons for members of his family, his administration and supporters. we'll also talk about future policies under president trump

and other news of the day with florida republican congressman carlos gimenez and democratic congresswoman judy chu, and federal news network reporter on president trump's executive actions aimed at the federal government workforce. c-span's washington journal, join the conversation live at seven :00 eastern thursday morning on c-span, c-span now or online at c-span.org. quex listing of programs on c-span through c-span radio is easy. tell your smart speaker play c-span radio and listen to washington germany daily. important public affairs events throughout the day and weekdays catch washington today, listen to c-span any time, just tell your smart speaker play c-span radio, c-span created by cable. lack c-span, democracy unfiltered. we are funded by t