♪ yamiche: taking power -- agenda. >> we as a team and caucus represent the diversity and strength of the american people. yamiche: house democrats celebrate the election of a new historic leadership team. >> kevin has worked harder than any other majority speaker that i've seen. yamiche: republicans disagree over who should lead them as they come into power in congress. some in the gop denounced hate speech as former president trump faces blowback for dining. >> really kind of a coup attempt. yamiche: the january 6 committee prepares its final report and weighs whether to make criminal referrals to the justice department, next. ♪ >> this is "washington week."

corporate funding is provided by -- consumer cellular. additional funding is provided by -- robert and susan rosenbaum, the corporation for public broadcasting and bite contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderator yamiche alcindor. yamiche: good evening and welcome to "washington week." for the first time in a generation, there is a new historic group leading the democratic party and thus. democrats voted to elect hakeem jeffries of new york as the house minority leader of the

next congress. jeffries is the first black leader of a party in congress in history. katherine clark of massachusetts was elected minority whip and pete aguilar of california is now caucus chair. all three ran unopposed. here's congressman jeffries after his election. hakeem: house democrats fight for the people. that's our story, that's our legacy, that's our values, that's our commitment as we move forward. yamiche: this week, there are other big developments for democrats. today in a dramatic change, a democratic national committee panel voted to appraise -- replace iowa with south carolina as the first state to vote in the democratic presidential primary. there needs to be a final vote of approval by the dnc. it was a rocky week for current republican minority leader kevin mccarthy. he is expected to be the next speaker of the house but has yet to secure the 218 votes needed

to be elected to the position, as som hard-liners in the freedom caucus, the sort of right wing part of his party, continue to withhold support. mccarthy and the gop have been dealing with the fallout from donald trump's dinner with nick fuentes and kanye west. both men have expressed racist and anti-semitic abuse. here's mccarthy -- and anti-semitic views. here's mccarthy. >> i don't think anybody should speak spending time --should be spending time with nick fuentes. yamiche: joining us to discuss more, nia-malika henderson from cnn and joining us around the table, michael bender, political correspondent for "the new york times," senior white house correspondent for cbs news, weijia jiang, you've seen her before, and asma khalid from mpr. what is this -- from npr.

what is the significance of this new leadership team in the house democratic party and the fact that jim clyburn is staying on? nia-malika: jim clyburn is staying on but other than that, this is a seachange. 30 years difference between the old guard and this new guard. they have pretty much sailed to power unopposed. there were concerns early on about whether or not progressives would be on board with this, whether they would try to mount some challenges. so far, the progresses i have talked to seem pleased with this new team. some history makers in hakeem jeffries np tag alert. they have been -- and pete tag alert -- pete aguilar. they have been brought up in the rates through nancy pelosi. jim clyburn will be in the number four position. this consternation among younger members of congress were very ambitious and saw this generational shift.

with jim clyburn remaining on and the number four position, they kind of had to do some reshuffling for another member out of colorado who would be in a new position where he is kind of in charge of messaging. overall, this was a really smooth transition, and you've got this younger, fresher face to the party, and i think a real kind of attempt to reorient take the democratic party to a working-class voters. that was a little bit harder to do with nancy pelosi, who is worth tons of money and is a san francisco liberal. with hakeem jeffries, you've got someone from brooklyn who can quote biggie smalls pretty credibly. yamiche: certainly a different vibe and markedly smooth transition. the president, how does he see this leadership change given the fact that there is this interest in a new guard? but also that he is possibly wanting to run for president,

saying he intends to run? weijia: i think joe biden, having been in congress and the senate for decades, understands because he has seen not only congress change, but of course, the country. he has mentioned from his first day office and well before that that, you know, the government needs to reflect the people, which is why he has so many initiatives, so many policies that he says are based on equity, are based on diversity. i think the president welcomes this very much. he and jeffries, of course our friends -- of course, are friends. they worked together before. yamiche: you think about the close working relationship that jeffries has with joe, on the other side, a tense relationship that hakeem jeffries has with republicans. nia talked about him quoting biggie smalls. what is your sense of his working relationship with mccarthy or possibly other republicans?

he was known for having other relationships with close conservative doug collins -- doug collins. asma: there's questions about whether he will even be speaker. the biggest question is what they will be able to achieve. i have been talking to a bunch of people, sources at the white house, and there's a sense that a lot of what is going to happen over the next couple of years is very limited legislation. a lot of what hakeem jeffries is going to be able to do is i think somewhat symbolic in terms of establishing democratic priorities and creating a really clear contrast, a really clear foil for the democrats to take into 2024. they two have not had that the last years -- they have not had that for the last two years. yamiche: i wonder about the potential for this to become en more complicated for him. michael: thanks for having me on here. excited to be here with a talented group for the first time on the show. you know, kevin mccarthy has

some problems on his hand. even if he becomes speaker and is able to pull this off, which he is probably still the odds on favorite, although he's got to secure those votes. he's still got that task ahead of him. this is going to be indicative of whoever is speaker on the republican side, the issues they are going to have trying to manage this unruly caucus with a lot of different viewpoints inside and with such a narrow margin in the house. you know, it is striking to me here that even the jim clyburn story became a story. it was such a brief challenge, right. but it kind of shows on the democratic side how well they have done this year at avoiding big, public fights within their party. there is many disagreements with inside the democratic party. they have been able to manage those, not just in the congress

but during the midterms as well. pulley of republicans have brought this up to me as a reason that democrats did such a good job s stemming the losses in the house and holding onto the senate. on the other hand, mccarthy, you know, i mean, clyburn to a degree, he's one of the most important democrats in the party for the last decade, no question. mitch mcconnell holding on on the senate side. you look at the past couple of years, all of the retirements we have seen in congress the last couple of cycles. the reason always how hard it is to get things done, how bad things have become inside the congress. they are talking about their leaders in the way if we heard voters saying these kinds of things on the campaign trail, we would expect a wave election. instead, these members keep electing the same leaders time and time again. mitch mcconnell has what, 10%

approval rating nationally? and he's in charge of the senate once again. mccarthy is the odds on favorite here. you wonder how much both parties woulbenefit. do we see the changes on the democratic side from some changes in leadership inside congress? yamiche: talking about changes, a big change is coming it seems to the democratic national committee, and that calendar, where they are putting your home state, south carolina, maybe you are feeling good about it, you are a native. i wonder what you make of this change, what is driving it? nia-malika: south carolina is rarely first in anything. this idea that it might be first. listen, i was texting with a democrat down in south carolina, south carolina could be first. they said job security for joe biden. if he is going to run, it certainly looks like he will, it will be great for his candidacy to stave off any potential maybe progressive challenger that south carolina, the state that

really delivered him to the nomination, delivered him ultimately to the white house, that that would be the first state. that would show his strength. even beyond 2024, i think it's a message tother democratic presidential hopefuls that you really need to do well with black voters should you want to seek the nomination of the democratic party. this is good news for joe biden. it is good news for somebody like kamala harris, should she want to run for president. it's good news for somebody like raphael warnock, which if he prevails on tuesday, i think is going to rock it to everybody's list as somebody who might run for president one day. this is a real kind of seachange. but something that has happened over discussion of 20 or 30 years, going back to jesse jackson about the strength of african-american voters, the primacy that they should have been the democratic party. last go around, iowa was terrible. we did not know the results of

the iowa caucus for days and days and days because they just messed it up. we got south carolina, my home state, possibly becoming the first nominating contest. there is sort of hurdles to jump over going forward at the state level for all of these states that are going to be moved up. so far, it is looking like democrats really like this. a lot of south carolina democrats did not know this was going to happen. joe biden had to call jim clyburn. i think the dnc chair was at a party fundraiser, so they had to tell him there. this was something obviously clyburn wanted, a lot of south carolina democrats wanted as well. but listen, they were surprised as anyone. yamiche: what are you hearing about the primary changes, the ramifications of this? especially for the general elections, where you also have new hampshire and nevada going to be up there. asma: that's what i was going to say. the major impetus for these changes was this letter by

president biden outlining how he wanted this calendar changed with south carolina at the top, followed by new hampshire and nevada, and in michigan and georgia. there has long been criticism that iowa and new hampshirwere not really demographically representative of the democratic party. the impetus immediately, though, as we just heard, was the fact that thiel caucuses themselves were a mess -- the fact that the iowa caucuses themselves were a mess last time around. some of these other places, you talk about michigan or georgia, those are states that have pretty decently expensive media markets with the detroit and atlanta. there are questions of, could a candidate like barack obama could come to the top -- could a candidate like barack obama have come to the top if he was not able to do those county fairs and meet with the voters like you did an iowa? yamiche: president biden trying to do all he can to generate goodwill and have a good

political future ahead of him. the rail strike, this bill that he has signed into law, basically saying here is going to be the deal among these workers, it does not have sick leave, any increase in sick leave. what are you hearing from the white house about that? >> this was a really difficult position for president biden. this is kind of a triple whammy. he himself has branded himself as the most prolabor president in history, as the rail guy, as someone who supports paid leave for all americans, and this sort of shows a failure of all three. i mean, you have union workers now, union leaders now saying that he turned his back on them, because essentially they say that he took away their right to collective bargaining, because this bill now forces the agreement into action. and so, they are not able to strike, they lost that. for the white house, you know, they were relying on the numbers

to try to explain why if there was a rail strike, it could cost $2 billion a day, it could cost 800,000 jobs within two weeks. they felt like they did not have a choice. but certainly, there is going to be repercussions. i mean, think about how much support the unions gave him and brought him to the white house, and now, you know, that political goodwill has disappeared. yamiche: michael, it is almost a hard turn to make the one that we have to make in a week like this, which is how we have to talk about hate speech and the former president's dinner with nick fuentes and the wrapper formally known as kanye west. i wonder what you are hearing about his standing in the gop and whether or not this is a winning strategy, in his mind, to appeal to the fringes of society? michael: i don't know that this is so much of a strategy and kind of what he has left here. right? i mean, to be fair to president

trump, he did not invite a lot of these folks to mar-a-lago. that's not to excuse this either. some of the nick fuentes, it has kind of been lost that trump did bring in kanye west, who has had a track record here of some anti-semitic comments. what i am hearing from a lot of republicans is that that should have been enough. the fact that whether or not he knew w nick fuentes was, an avowed white nationalist, to bring him in is really beside the point. the leader of the republican party, the most recent president, the leading contender for the nomination in 2024 right now should have known better than to bring in kanye west. . -- full stop ,period.

trump kind of walked right into this, that he should have a little bit more vetting process around him. they say he's going to. but also, kanye went there, kanye west went there and asked trump to be his running mate. yamiche: it's really interesting that he would bring that up. you have obviously covered race and civil rights in this country. what do you make of the way this has played out? we don't have enough minutes to get into kanye west. tell me what you are hearing from your sources. nia-malika: well listen, this is not a surprise. we know who donald trump is. we know the kind of footsie that he has played with white supremacists. this is a flashback to what happened in 2016, around david duke, him not knowing who david duke was. his campaign in 2016 was sort of white grievance meets economic populism. now, it seems to just be white grievances, no sort of economic populism. there is not a kind of build the

wall slogan, it's down to his own sort of personal delusions and misgivings about what happened in 2020. listen, this is why he allegedly lost in 2020, why he allegedly lost in 2018. this is why republicans who tied themselves so closely to trump's identity, whether it was around election to nihilism or the kind of white supremacist rhetoric, that's why they "lost." these trump hand-picked candidates. this is a real problem for the republican party. among the leadership, they have essentially for years just kind of ignored it. itas festered among actual voters. it is not clear that republican voters are sick of donald trump's rhetoric, primary voters, the kind of voters who would actually matter in him winning the nomination in 2024. yamiche: i want to just bring up

that there are only weeks left before democrats lose power in the house. the january 6 committee, which is doing a lot of work on white supremacist, i should add, met today. this week, a democratic committee member said the probe's final report will be released this month. founder of the far right oath keepers, steward rdes, was found guilty of seditious conspiracy for his role in the capital attack. it is the most consequential case to come out of the january 6 commission. what's your sense of the confidence, of the impact rather, of this guilty verdict, the january 6 committee's work? >> i think the stewart rhodes guilty conviction is quite money mental. he was found guilty of seditious conspiracy -- is quite monumental.

he was found guilty of seditious conspiracy. that's not an easy charge for prosecutors to get. they were able to convince the jury that he is guilty of that. that is really significant. i think there have been questions about the purpose of the justice department doing all of this. when you get a guilty conviction at this level, to me, it sorta validates the work that the justice department has been doing. whether that is significant in the political context ahead of republican primaries in 2024 is a totally different thing. it signifies to people that this was significant and that there will be consequences. yamiche: one of those consequences could be with the january 6 committee is looking at right now, which is criminal referrals. michael: definitely. this was a huge victory for the justice department, no question. they will have some cases coming up in the next few weeks. we will see if they can repeat that success. there are going to be political consequences for this. i did not mean to just suggest that all trump had left was white supremacists and white

nationalists. he is shedding 10% of the party in exit polls from 2020, 2022 as well and heading into 2024, he's not done anything to bring the party back together, which leads into some of the january 6 issues. we saw the election deniers lose kind of up and down the ballot from coast to coast. and when if the man that democrats have been charging is most responsible for the riots on january 6, if he is at the top of the ballot, i think you are going to see that continue to play out and have consequences for pumpkins. yamiche: 've covered trump together. what do you make of this? what does your reporting reveal? weijia: nia got this exactly right that this is nothing new and so did michael.

i was in that gaggle with kevin mccarthy. his response was president did not know who nick fuentes was. in unison, me and other reporters screamed like, but he knew who kanye was, right? i think that is a really important point because president trump has been here before. it is always about him. it's not about condemning, you know, in fact, he has not condemned fuentes, even though now he does know who he is. it's about him. i didn't know who he was. when it comes to qanon, it's about, well, i didn't know who they were but they liked me very much. this is a political strategy. we cannot forget what helped him win, which is given a voice t people who thought they did not have one when it came to saying these things out loud. nia-malika: when we have to keep uncovering it, as we continue to see these scary developers have been. yamiche: thanks to our panelists for joining us. on tomorrow's pbs news week and,

we get the latest from georgia ahead of tuesday's runoff election. good night from washington. thanks for watching. >> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- additional funding is provided by the ewan foundation, sandra and carl delay-magnuson, rose mercer and andy shreeves, robbie and susan rosenbaum, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs ations from viewers like you. thank you. ♪

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