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informed. donate now at c-span.org/donate or scan the code on your screen. every contribution matters. and thank you. >> on mondays when congress is in session we like to take a look ahead at the week ahead in washington we do that by joining scott wong. trump set to address members of congress and the nation tomorrow night. tuesday night from capitol hill. then joint address is not officially state of the union. what are we expecting? guest: this is going to be a big speech by president trump. it is his first major address to the united states congress since taking office. especially since implementing all of these doge cuts that has been so controversial and widespread across the country. we have seen the democrats protest these cuts at the federal agencies. we have seen the reaction from

townhalls around the country. protesting republicans who have been supportive of elon musk and this doge department. we will hear directly from the president i think it will be a victory lap of sorts looking back at president trump's first month in office saying, look, i campaigned on these promises and i have carried out and fulfilled a lot of these promises. the scale back the size and scope of government to go after spending. we didn't really know that he was going to do these mass firings. we're going to hear from the president about how he thinks these mass firings have gone so far. host: how much do you think that friday night's blow up in the oval office is changing the speech right now? how much he's going to focus now on ukraine and peace and minerals deal? what are your thoughts? guest: it will be a big major part of this address because it is in the news. it is the biggest story at the

moment. i think everyone at this point several days out has now seen the blowup in the oval office between zelenskyy, president trump and vice president j.d. vance. this is an important deal that in the eyes of the president. this mineral deal. they thinks that this is the path to peace between ukraine and russia. clearly, zelenskyy wanted more. he wanted security assurances from the united states which the president trump was unwilling to give him in that moment. they walked away from the deal. zelenskyy returned to europe and ukraine where he did -- he was received well in the european community and did receive some additional support financial support as well as verbal support from european leaders there. to go back to my original point, this is important deal for trump to get done. he sees himself as a deal maker.

a lot is riding on this mineral rights deal. i think we will expect to hear from the president. host: it's not officially state of the union address. all that pageantry will be there. mr. speaker and the president of the united states and the guests we're expecting president trump to have guests and members of congress always have their own guest to try to make their points. what do you know about any of those things the guests and the audience who might be referenced or guests that members of congress bringing? guest: we know chuck schumer democratic leader to say look, invite guests who can demonstrating about impacted by some of president trump's policies. who have been hurt by some of president trump's policies. people like v.a. workers who are supporting veterans and veterans with disabilities. usda workers, noaa workers,

federal government workers who to the work of the country that is oftentimes unseen as well as people like who are impacted by potential medicaid cuts that we have heard so much about from democrats as the republicans try to advance their agenda including tax cuts and figuring out how to pay for that agenda. what democrats say will come out of the pockets of people who are recipients of medicaid. that have been disputed by republicans. we'll see what happens on that front. the other thing i would also mention is that we're kind of see a lot of the cabinet members very likely, key members of trump's cabinet who just had their bruising confirmation hearings before the united states senate. you'll see the senators sitting there with some of the cabinet

members who recently had rough goings. but so far everyone has made it through and gotten through and confirmed president trump's cabinet. that will be an interesting dynamic. host: 9:00 p.m. eastern is when this gets under way. that pageantry starts half hour. members start arriving hours beforehand. one thing afterwards is always the response to the president speech this year it's senator elissa slotkin of michigan to deliver the response of the address. what do viewers need to know about her? guest: she has served in the house of representatives for several years. she's now a freshman democratic senator from michigan. what's important to know about slotkin is that she outperformed trump in the 2024 election in the state of michigan.

trump won michigan. she as the democrat won the senate race in that state. outperformed by quite a bit. host: many people marked donald trump for president marked her. guest: she's a former cia analyst. she has a history with trump. she was instrumental. she was one of the hand full of national security democrats in the house who had been resistent for the first trump impeachment. at one point, they all came together and wrote a op ed in the "washington post." these are the national security democrats. elissa slotkin was one of them. saying that we believe it's in the national interest to pursue impeachment against donald trump. remember, this was the issue

pertaining to ukraine and russia. this was the famous phone call between president trump and zelenskyy where there were allegations that president trump was withholding ukraine funding. it's kind of a full-circle moment now that we're dealing with zelenskyy and ukraine. that's sort of elissa slotkin's background. she's an interesting choice. host: what make for a good response? how high or low is the bar here? guest: that's a funny question. there's an ongoing joke on capitol hill that deliver -- delivering the response to the state of the union it's the worse possible job. it's potential to flub it. people remember with those responses, marco rubio's infamous grabbing the glass of water off camera and then coming back on camera is one of more memorable ones.

of course, things turned out for marco rubio. he's now secretary of state. oftentimes these are not memorable speeches unless you have a major flub like the marco rubio incident. host: the week ahead in congress is our topic. that joint address. a major component of the week ahead here on capitol hill. all eyes on washington on tuesday night. scott wong with us for this conversation. phone number is 202-748-8000 for democrats, republicans 202-748-8001, independents 202-748-8002. as folks are calling in, give us an update on where we are on funding the government past march 14th. host: we saw speaker of the house mike johnson appear on our network, meet the press and nbc over the weekend. he said that republicans want to push forward on a full-year cr that could carry the government,

fund the government current funding levels through the fiscal year which will bring us to september 30th. the deadline is less than one weeks away. march 14th. government funding will run out. we're at a risk of shutdown. the two sides are still far apart on top line numbers. democrats line in the last many days has been republicans you control the entirety of the federal government. you guys should figure out how to fund the government. obviously, given what we know about the breakdown of the house of representatives, mike johnson can only afford one maybe two defections at most on any vote. we know that there are at least two republican who oppose any sort of short-term stopgap funding that we call a cr. the math becomes very difficult. mike johnson will almost certainly need democrats to come to the table and help him pass

any sort of funding bill to avert a shutdown on march 14th. we're in this very tricky precarious situation once again staring down a potential shutdown in a couple of weeks. host: should the idea of full year resolution be be that hard? we're five months in the fiscal year now. when we say full year -- host: it's not a full year. congress is notorious for kicking the can county the road with the short-term funding resolutions what we call cr's. this case is no different. what johnson has said over the weekend is that look, we will -- this is what he said last year as well. we're not going to do any more cr's. they are horrible for the country. doesn't allow the country to plan ahead. host: explain what democrats will be looking for here in the next a couple of weeks as we come up to this government

funding deadline. what leverage do they have for what they are looking for? how can they get something out of this? guest: what some of them want is a promise of written into this resolution saying that the money that congress appropriates, remember congress has the power of the purse, will be spent by the executive branch, by the trump administration. normally, that's not a big issue. normally, that's the way it does work. in this case, congress appropriated money and trump has said that we're trying to scale back the size of government. i've created this doge department with elon musk at its head. we are cutting spending even though congress has appropriated this money. this is where you're seeing a clash of operation of powers except for the fact that republicans control the united states congress, the legislative branch and the congress, the gop

control congress. so far has said we're okay with what we've seen the trump administration do and the doge department do. host: i want to get to some callers. brad fayetteville, arkansas, independent. caller: it's funny how trump fired hundreds of thousands of government employee, trying to put food on the table and feed their families and pay their bills. meanwhile, the cia, the d.e.a. and dod have no cuts. this is nothing but protection for the oligarchs and the plutocrats and the billionaires. trump should be a i -- ashamed of himself and the republican party should be ashamed themselves. this is nothing but a class war of the wealthy against average americans trying to make it to

another day. host: that's brad in arkansas. some of the cuts, dod in particular. has doge reached the dod or will they? guest: they will. doge is largely has operated in secret. it has not -- it is a strange -- it's not even technically a department even though they called it a department. it was not created by congress. it was created by president trump. elon musk is not an elected official. he was appointed by trump. it's been interesting to watch how this so called department has operated largely in secret behind the scenes with not many of its members known to the public. people are slowly figuring out who these individuals are.

the caller is exactly right that dod represents the largest portion of federal funding and elon musk has said that he will be targeting every federal agency really including the department of defense. host: dod workers have been subject to that e-mail saying justify what you did last week. tell me five things that you did last week. a story from fox that came out earlier this morning might have been last night. pete hegseth directing the department of defense civilian workers to comply with elon musk doge productivity e-mail. the dod being impacted there. we'll see what happens. this is douglas in colorado, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say one thing. with this budget that supposedly

is coming out with big cuts to billionaires and also it includes a corporate tax reduction from 34 to 21%. instead of cutting, why don't we increase the taxes on these people so the budget is balanced? host: balance budgets. guest: i'm not sure i have any comment on that one. i will say that you're going to hear a lot about this fight over medicaid in the coming months. what has happened in this reconciliation process, what we mean by reconciliation just to revisit, i'm sure your callers and viewers heard about this term. as i think about it, i think, how can i explain this process to my 12-year-old daughter who's in middle school and learning

about government. what has happened is the senate has passed their budget framework. the house just last week passed their budget framework. we thought it would fail. but it passed by one vote to spare. basically, this is an outline. it provides some details but not many. it directs the committees to then sort of fill out the details. we're not even at that step. mike johnson speaker has referred to this as the kickoff of a football game as he loves football analogies. what's happened now is that you have these two competing budget resolutions that have passed. trump has sided with the house one. the house has quite a bit more in it. it includes a debt ceiling increase as well as extension of

his 2017 trump tax cuts. which is critically important for the president and his administration and republicans. they don't want to see taxes go up at the end of this year. the two chambers now have to reconcile these competing frameworks. that will take place in the coming weeks. at that point, once they figure out, okay the senate make some tweaks to the house one and they are both able to pass the same budget resolution, they have to pass the same one. it has to look like -- they have to be mirror image. then the committee will go ahead and start filling out the details of that framework. that's sort of where the rubber hits the road that we're talking about earlier. that's where we're going to start to see some major internal fights happening within the republican party over things like cuts to medicaid,

potentially other entitlements. host: how long does that process take? are we going to be watching this play out all spring, summer and fall? guest: the answer is likely yes. at least, all spring and potentially into the summer. these things do take a while. the challenge for the president and the republicans who control congress, the later this seeps in the year, the harder it becomes. in part because you start thinking about reelection. 2026 is around the corner. people that are in tough elections start to get a little skeptical a little worried about their seat. we're seeing these townhalls. these are townhalls in sort of ruby red deep red areas. you're seeing resistance what's played out with these doge cuts and concerns about cuts to things like medicaid and

medicare. as that pressure intensifies on republicans, you potentially could see republicans start to get a little weary and not want to vote for this reconciliation package because they think it could cost them their reelection in 2026. host: loretta in spring hill, florida. democrat. good morning you're on with scott wong. caller: good morning. i'm just wondering why the american people should let our government do the tax cuts of 2017 that trump put in the first time again? why on each side of every party, independents, republicans, democrats. why is that acceptable to give the ultra rich more tax breaks? people need to stand up.

host: tax cuts in congress. guest: trump and congressional leaders and the republican party would argue that they campaigned on renewing these tax cuts. this is a central message that you've heard every time there has been pushback to a trump policy, you have heard republicans and the white house say well, we campaigned on this. we were very transparent with the american public. we let them know what we were running on and what we will do if you put us into power in washington. they would argue that this was a central tenant of their political campaign in 2024. renewing these 2017 tax cuts. if nothing is done, if this reconciliation package fails, taxes will go up for americans including for the wealthiest americans.

republicans who are anti-tax don't want to see that happen. they feel like they have a mandate to get this done because they ran on this very issue. host: the tax cut and jobs act passed in 2017. why are they up in 2025? guest: well, they were only guaranteed for a certain number of years. that very likely, if my memoriry serves correct, we should term back and go back to 2017. this is the last time that we were in this exact situation. president trump had been elected in 2016. republicans won the house and senate. they own the trifecta. we're in a similar situation here in 2025 where republicans are control the entire government. they're in a situation now where they can push through on a partisan basis their agenda through this reconciliation process that happened in early 2017 when they tried to repeal

obamacare, you'll remember, you were around that failed and by one vote essentially. it passed the house. john mccain killed it with his thumbs down. later this year, they made another run through reconciliation and were successful in passing the trump tax cuts. they only went for a certain number of years. that's why they are going to expire at the end of this year. republicans are once again dealing with this tax issue in reconciliation. host: here's what happened in the 2018 election. guest: yeah. there was backlash to efforts to repeal obamacare. there were townhall protests. there was backlash to the trump tax cuts. democrats positioned this as a tax cut for the wealthy. they are doing the same thing here with the renewal of these tax cuts saying that republicans

are only looking out for the special interest of the wealthiest americans in our country. therefore, want to raise -- cut taxes on the backs of working-class americans. the republicans challenge here is they will have to figure out how to pay for this massive tax cut. basically, the reconciliation budget that the house has passed states that they need to find cuts worth $1.5 trillion, john. the biggest portion of those cuts will have to come from the energy and commerce committee. what's interesting about energy and commerce is that energy and commerce oversees medicaid and medicare. to have this number, $880 billion that the budget lay

lays out to find cuts -- the house has to find cuts from the enc committee, that is why you're seeing democrats say if you're going to cut that much from enc. where is that coming from? it will very likely come from medicaid potentially medicare. president trump and republicans saying no, we're not touching your benefits. what we're going to target is waste, fraud and abuse. what does waste, fraud and abuse mean? that's really sort of this gray area of what does waste, fraud and abuse mean. where will those cuts come from? who will be impacted? host: going back to the numbers in the house in the 2018 house democrats gained 40 seats in the 2018 election and took control of the house of representatives. just a walk back not too long ago. this is cindy in washington state, republican. good morning.

caller: good morning. i'm calling about the meeting with ukraine and trump in the oval office. you know, zelenskyy and trump had an agreement and zelenskyy flew here to sign the agreement. zelenskyy met with senator chris murphy just prior to the meeting with trump. he sabotaged the signing of that agreement. then, set out to say trump and j.d. ambushed zelenskyy. zelenskyy and murphy ambushed trump. guest: well, i think that meeting is in the eye of the beholder. if you are a supporter of president trump, you find blame with zelenskyy that he blew up

the deal. clearly zelenskyy had intentionings of making a deal flying all the way from kyiv to washington to meet with the president of the united states and the vice president as well as a number of senators in the runup to that oval office meeting. democrats and critics of president trump would say that president trump and j.d. attacked zelenskyy in the middle of that meeting in front of all of those television cameras. host: i think most member of congresses were home and on their way home when that went down. you'll get senators back today at 3:00 p.m. who you most interested in going up and asking a question about what happened on friday to what member of congress? guest: i think certainly, the republicans who have in the past

been supportive of zelenskyy and ukraine in this war against russia. i think the loyal republican supporters of president trump, we know what they're going to say. certainly, there are democrats up there who have taken a real interest in this ukraine-russian war. i want to hear from them. people like mark kelly of arizona who said over the weekend that he was actually in one of those meetings with zelenskyy just hours before the now infamous oval office meeting. what mark kelly said over the weekend this was america at its lowest point. it showed that america is -- it showed america weakness. it