hey there, everyone. topping the agenda today, get ready for round two. today it's out with the old, it's in with the new. the 113th congress. will it prove to be the same old matchup between the white house and capitol hill? the new members of the senate will be sworn in just about an hour or so from now on capitol hill. a bit later on this afternoon.

house speaker john boehner could face an historical vote to keep his seat today, just a day after the all-out mutiny on the s.s. boehner. >> there's only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims, the house majority and their speaker, john boehner. i called the speaker four times last night after 11:20 and he did not take my calls. >> the dismissive attitude that was shown last night toward new york, new jersey and connecticut typifies, i believe, a strain in the republican party. this should not be the republican party, this should not be the republican leadership. >> under pressure the speaker issued a joint statement with eric cantor, saying getting critical aid to victims of hurricane sandy should be the first priority in the enough congress. and he scheduled two votes on

sandy relief bills, the first set for tomorrow, the second for january 15th. >>in i wa ii iin i want to go b word. how can you vote for a speak who are has a dismissive and cavalier attitude toward your people? >> john boehner made the right decision and he agreed to put it on the calendar. if we're going to carry grudges the rest of our lives, we'll never get anything done. >> jerry nadler took to the floor yesterday to blast the speaker on sandy relief. as governor christie says, october 29th has been a long time ago. 66 days. house speaker boehner has scheduled that vote tomorrow for $15 billion, followed by a vote january 15th for the remaining $51 billion requested. this first vote is expected to pass.

any guarantee boehner will be able to corral his members to pass the second part? >> there's no guarantee. we certainly hope so. the idea of splitting the vote originally into the $27 billion, which we figured everybody would vote for and $33 billion additional, which we figured all the democrats would vote for and they would be able to round up maybe 40 republican votes because a lot of the republicans wouldn't vote for it, even though it was demonstrably necessary, i still think that arithmetic holds and i hope so. after katrina, we voted the aid in ten days. normally it takes 15, 20 days. it's been nine weeks and counting. what the speaker just did is delay it another two to three weeks. it's not available the 15th. the senate has to vote again now because the senate approval died with the old congress. speaker boehner by his cavalier and disgusting act delayed aid to very, very needy people by at

least three weeks. >> you mentioned peter king, representative peter king. you add that to representative michael grimm who yesterday were blasting the house leadership and yet today they seem somewhat appeased. they say they will support him as speaker of the house. do you expect him to be reelected? i mean, is his leadership damaged from all of this? >> i'm not a republican. i'm not going to get into the internal politics of the republican party, but as an outside observer, i do expect him to get reelected. i don't see any significant challenge. >> okay. how about this, the president having signed the fiscal cliff deal into law via auto pen overnight but the next big fight on the debt ceiling debate is just a few weeks away now. mitch mcconnell wrote the president may not want to have a fight over spending the next few months but it's a fight he's going to have, it's a debate the country need. the senator worked with joe biden on the cliff compromise. do you think democrats, your party, is going to have to give significantly more ground on spending in the next battle?

>> i certainly hope not. there's still a huge number of people unemployed, 7.5% unemployed. as the republicans even admitted, the problem with the fiscal cliff is you were going to be taking money out of commit by reducing spending too fast and increasing taxes to fast. the same thing holds now. if you take money out by big spend beiing cuts, it's going tt employment. it's not the time to have big spending cuts now. everybody forgets $1.2 trillion in spending cuts we voted last august. as far as i'm concerned, that's enough for now. we're going to have a major fight over the sequester, which allowing that to go into effect would be another trillion-two in spend being cuts, which would be a disaster economically. we're going to have a fight over that. we should not have a fight over the debt ceiling. the debt ceiling, as the president says, is simply agreeing to pay the bills that

you voted to incur last year and the year before. to have a fight over that is to say the united states should throw the economy of the world into catastrophe. that should not happen. in order to avoid that disaster since the republicans are trying to use the debt ceiling to bl k blackmail the country say by saying it's a nice economy, pity to blow it up if you have don't pay our ran sam. dr ran some. -- ransom. >> you just said there should not be a fight over the debt ceiling but will there be? is there anything about the history of this issue that suggests there won't be a fight? >> there will be a fight unless the president takes it off the table by invoking his ability to say i'm going to ignore the debt

ceiling when and if it -- when and if it says that we can't pay the bills that are lawfully incurred because that would violate the 14th amendment. if the president is willing to invoke the 14th amendment, he can take it off the table. the republicans would yell and scream but he's has the right to invoke the 14th amendment and the republicans can take it to court. >> we're going to bring in our panel. hi, guys. good to see you all. >> good morning. it's want to start with what's happening at the top of the hour, robert. we have the 113th congress reconvening at noon. afterwards the house will vote to elect a speaker. if 16 conservatives decided to

vote against john boehner, we could see the first second ballot for speaker since 1923. what do you think is going to happen? does boehner have the votes? >> he does have the votes. there's a likelihood there could be a second or third ballot but the way the rules are structured in the house in terms of leadership, i can't see anyone quite frankly challenging him for the speakership and winning or speaker boehner losing his post. a the lolot of the conservative aren't upset with speaker boehner, they're frustrated with the process. i don't anticipate him losing his speakership. >> many have said he has an unenviable job. that's for sure. mr. boehner is reported live signaling in this upcoming congress he's done negotiating with the president. that's not an encouraging start. do you think we'll have more

gridlock than the last four years? >> the republicans want to do nothing if not change the subject. they mismanaged the negotiations over the fiscal cliff. while they were close to agreeing to a grand bargain, what resulted was putting revenue on the table that republicans, now crying foul about. speaker boehner's claim is about as important as what lucky tie he's going to wear tomorrow. it doesn't matter. what matters is, you know, how they're going to negotiate moving forward and how, you know, democrats and republicans are going to take responsibility for making some tough choices. >> okay. ron, the markets roundly cheered this latest fiscal cliff deal but it was your magazine about why they are united in the hatred of this cliff deal. here's what tom cole said on msnbc last hour. >> in the next 90 days he's got three big events in front of him, the sequester, the

continuing resolution and obviously the debt ceiling. i hope he doesn't misread what just happened and overplay his hand. >> so all these new cliff deals, what is that going to do to all the uncertainty out there? >> it's amazing. we were hoping we would finally get a deal that would allow businesses to release the cash on their balance sheet. a loflt them are doing well, would like to make investments in the u.s. but now we have another fight coming in february, march, april and june. we have months and months and months of this. this is how third rate nations act, how greece acts, argentina. this is not how the u.s. is supposed to act. becannot default on our debt. >> is there anything about potential corporations blinking first and say we know if we invest and open up the cash flows we have, it will create jobs and stimulate the economy. >> i wish that were so. a lot of businessmen are in washington lobbying but there really is a disconnect between wall street and washington.

because for companies, inaction is the risk. if they don't see an environment that they're comfortable investing in the u.s., they could move their capital wherever they like. they're global. washington, as we know, is very local. >> i want to ask you about the cover of "time" magazine. it talks blt 40th anniversary of roe v. wade and how a woman's right to choose is facing significant challenges in this country. it was an outstanding article. let's talk about this. the legislature, republican-led legislatures are ceding control to the states. >> it looks as though the pro-choice movement has lost ground because pro-lifers have targeted access in states. so in 2011 pro-lifers working with conservative congress people passed 93 laws that limited access to abortion in some way. now, that might include everything from stricter parental consent laws to waiting periods where particularly in states where they may be only one clinic, a poor woman would

have to go, wait, pay for a hotel. >> there are four states with only one clinic. >> that's right. north and south dakota, mississippi and arkansas. you know, there a number of states where access is severely limited. so you could argue and in fact kate does that 40 years on it is now harder to get an abortion in this country legally than it ever has been. >> it is extraordinary. and yet with a different tenor to you, jen, after a bruising election, a record 20 women now in the new senate. it appears the gop-led house is still struggling with this so-called war on women, the house letting the violence against women act expire. are they poised to repeat some of the mistakes of 2012? >> it all depends. if you look at the last year there are many moments throughout 2012 that i think woke many women up across this krir country, millions of women, whether it was the debate about affordable health care or equal pay. women need to be on alert that there are republicans in congress -- all of them are

republicans who think that fighting for women means having a woman on your staff or having a sister or having a wife. what it means is fighting for policies that help move the ball forward for women. and this is something i think that could really keep women, independent women, republican women, really motivated this year. >> with a whole slew you new items on the agenda, what would be your advice to fellow republicans on the hill? >> as the only man here, i'm going to tread very lightly here. >> smart guy. >> as he should. >> georgetown teaches me really well. when you lose senator kay bail live hutchison and olympia snowe from maine, that's a real problem because you have women in positions of influence and power not necessarily at the table when men are making some of these decisions. i'm just say that. again, treading very lightly here, there are some women out there that are pro-life and are very comfortable with the

republican position out there. i don't want there to be this perception that there is this war on women out there and that all republicans are tone deaf when it comes to women's issues because truth be told, there are women out there that said the republicans are doing the right thing out there, there's a minority out there but there are some folks out there that are saying that. >> indeed that is true. our power panel, many thanks to you all. >> back to school, a new beginning for the students from sandy hook elementary school. chris murphy on an emotional day and his own, too, as he's getting sworn into the senate. and do you think the 113th congress will be more productive than the 112th? tweet me @alexwitt.

giving you a live look at capitol hill where the 113th congress will be seated at noon. that's less than an hour from now. the new congress will look like this -- the house will be made up of 233 republicans, 200 democrats. there are two vacant seats, while 53 democrats, 2 independents and 45 republicans will make up the senate. this will be the most diverse congress in history with 101 women, 43 african-americans, 31 latino, 12 asians and 7 lgbt members. about two and a half hours from now, my next guest will become the junior senator from the state of connecticut after serving three terms from the house i welcome senator-elect chris murphy to the show. good morning to you. big day. welcome and congratulations. >> thank you very much. kind of feels like the first day of school, except you have a couple million people watching you, about two dozen family members watching around you. it feels brand new getting sworn

in to the united states senate. >> the 112th senate gained the dubious distinction as being the least productive ever. how confident are you the 113th members have seen those numbers and they're going to be more productive? >> well, listen, i don't know that i'm confident about that because watching this place at work over the last month and a half suggests that lessons haven't been learned. i come from connecticut, which didn't have the devastation that new york and new jersey did with sandy, but we need that money. we need to start rebuilding our communities. and the fact that the house of representatives adjourned without getting that work done shows that the lessons haven't been learned. i think we can start off on the right foot. let's get that sandy relief done this week, let's get to work on the next act of budget negotiations now rather than at the 11th hour and we can prove to people that we have learned lessons. but i tell you, i don't have a lot of confidence and a lot of people out there in the american

public don't have a lot of confidence when you watched the circus that happens in the house of representatives the last couple of weeks. >> congress was able to work through the fiscal cliff crisis such as it is, dealing with the debt ceilings, fights over sequestration coming up next. what do you think it's going to take to balance this country's balance sheet and will that get done? >> listen, i think it's understanding that the bulk of the american public is essentially where this last deal came out. they want a balanced approach. they understand that some people are going to have to pay a little bit more in taxes, and they understand that belts are going to get tightened when it comes to government spending. so put all the politics aside and start talking early rather than later about a deal that is basically a one-to-one ratio of spending cuts and revenue increases. that's where people are. i think that's where people are in most parts of this country. doesn't wait till the last minute to do it. that's how kids all across this country do it when they're doing schoolwork, that's how a lot of

families do it when they're putting together their budgets. listen, let's start talking now rather than 1 1th hour when the debt ceiling is about to expire. >> you said gun control is one of your priorities in the wake of the sandy hook shootings. can you give us a sense of how the folks in newtown are doing today, as the kids get back to sandy hook elementary, albeit in a different building? >> this is really, really tough, not on for the kid and parents but for the teachers as well. everybody knows that school has to resume at sandy hook this week. they're obviously going to school in a different building in the next town over, but it's going to take frankly weeks, months and years to understand the true impact. kid are going to start having symptoms of ptsd, as well as teachers and administrators, a long time from now. what we can do is show them we're serious about making sure this doesn't happen again. there is a new day on gun violence in this country. you've seen it in the fervor of the president, you've seen it in

democrats who used to pay fieldy to the nra now saying it's time to pass an assault weapons ban. i'm going to be on the floor of the senate today as i get sworn in lobbying my colleagues to pass an assault weapons ban, pass a ban on high capacity magazines before the legislation goes somewhere else. that will show people in newtown there is at least small measure of good that comes from this incident. >> and getting help from those out there with mental health issues and need the help that we ought to provide for them. i guess you're getting in around the 2:00 hours because you're one of the new kid on the block. we'll see you then. >> thanks. >> for more on the return to school, we go to rehema ellis. i understand the police are holding a new conference this

afternoon, rehema? >> that's right. authority are going to let us know here in the monroe area, we're about three miles from the new school where the children are going, they're going to let us know how things went this morning. as the buses transported these elementary school students some seven miles from their old schools to the new place where their backpacks and jackets and even their desks were brought in to create as familiar a situation for them as possible, but this is an unsettling time even as they try to settle in for teachers, students as well as parents. listen to what one parent told us about what they're feeling today. >> there's probably a lot of parents who are nervous. you know, i think the kids are more resilient than maybe the adults are at times. so overall the kids are excited, the parents i think there's a little bit more anxiety behind it. >> and to ease that anxiety today what they've done is they've allowed parents to be in the classes with their children. i think it's to help the parents feel comfortable, also the

children to feel comfortable. there is a police presence outside of the school as well. and we're told that it's going to continue for some time to come, maybe we'll get an update on that, as well as, again, how thing, going for the children as they try to acclimate themselves to a new place. where the memorials have come down and the welcome signs have gone up. alex? >> thoughts and prayers are with them all as they get through this day. thank you, rehema ellis. contract's governor dan malloy will hold a conference today and will announce the state's response to this tragic shooting. >> from the hospital. secretary of state hillary clinton expected to make a full recovery after being hospitalized for a blood clot. now will her toughest critics leave her alone? don't bet on it. former press secretary joe lockhart weighs in on that. and support for same-sex marriage comes from an unlikely source in illinois.

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secretary of state hillary clinton is at home recuperating after being discharged from a new york hospital yesterday where she was being treated for a blood clot behind her here. robert, welcome. good to see you. what does the road to recovery look like for her? she's out of the hospital and she's home. >> we saw her yesterday. there's a good clue. there she goes out of the hospital with her family. she's walking on her own. she's clearly not in any way disorient disoriented. the state department said she was doing business from the hospital, even before she left. she was there for a routine checkup because we know she hurt her eye during the same fall

that did cause the concussion. there's no reason to think that she's anything but on the road to recovery as described by her office. >> you and i spoke yesterday about the fact that she had that blood clot behind her right knee back in 1998 while as first lady. some women have a propensity towards blood clots and that may not be secretary clinton but these blood clot medications, does it weaken her or make her vulnerable to bruising? >> it does. it's standard medical procedure to titrate the medications. you don't want them to be too thin or to clot either. millions and millions of americans take these medications because you get them after heart procedures, you get them if you have a tendency for blood clots. a lot of people live very normal lives on these medications. >> thank you for weighing in. appreciate that.

>> hillary clinton is at home resting right now but will the right wing lay to rest the conspiracy theories about how her illness prevented her from testifying on the september 11th benghazi attacks? >> i'm not a doctor but it seems as though that the secretary of state has come down with case of benghazi flu. >> apparently she's suffering from acute benghazi allergy, which causes light-headedness when she hearse the word benghazi. >> when you don't want to go to a meeting or a conference or an event, you have a diplomatic illness. and this is a diplomatic illness to beat the band. i mean, i certainly hope it's nothing serious, but this was revealed in a way that i think was not transparent. >> joining me is joe lockhart, former white house press secretary. joe, these attacks have been so demeaning. even "the washington post" conservative columnist kathleen parker on tuesday called out some of those right-wing lawmakers and pundits. she said the attacks on clinton

during her illness, essentially attacks on her character have been cruel and unfair. what must the world think of us. you worked in the clinton administration, joe. how much do you think these attacks are remnants of the extreme cynicism hurled at former president clinton perhaps? or do you think they may also point to their hatred of president obama? is it anything with a big d in front of it. >> i think it's a combination of things. ignorance is an unlimited and natural resource in this country that lives primarily in the republican party among the most conservatives. but you combine that with the fact that this sells, you have companies making hundreds of millions of dollars like fox news, internet web site, radio talk show hosts that are now, you know, worth $50 million, $100 million based on their spewing of ignorance.

you combine those two things together and there's no way to stop it. probably the best thing to do is ignore it and not pay a lot of attention to it. i don't think the secretary has spent a lot of the last two weeks consumed with what john bolton thinks of her. she's got bigger things to worry about. >> let's play right now what he said on monday. he turned it up a notch. john bolton. >> do you believe the explanation she's being treated for a blood clot in the new york city hospital or do you continue to believe there's an effort to prevent her from testifying fully about what she knows on benghazi? >> i didn't think that was the effort to begin with. i think they're trying to walk a fine line that does not affect the potential presidential candidacy that we expect. >> how much do you think, joe, this is a prelude to what could be a nasty campaign season come 2016 if hillary decides to run for office? >> first off, let me address mr. bolton. you know, the congress doesn't get it right all the time and

maybe not even a lot of the time but, boy, did they get it right when they told him he wasn't fit to be u.n. ambassador. he's just showing us why he's disqualified to serve and he's showing us why he's become a fringe thinker. yes, he'll get on fox, he'll get on rush limbaugh, but it's not part of the national conversation. 2016 is a long way away and it's already nasty and it's nasty about all issues and all politicians. you know, it is the bipartisan agreement to disagree. >> but you know, joe, her name has been bantered about for quite some time. there are a lot of women i've seen in an advertisement, women in congress who are voting and saying that, yes indeed, we are going to have a woman running for president this next go round. so naturally we're all concluding it would be hillary clinton. she's going to be 69 years old come 2016. that was the same age ronald reagan was when he was elected in 1980 and we all talked about

his age. the fact that she's got this health issue, the scrutiny for that, would that become an issue in 2016? >> i think we're way too far off. here's what i would expect, if she decides to run, which i'm sure she hasn't. she's got plenty of other options. i expect the tea party, the far right, to attack her no matter what. it is somewhat amusing, though. i had a republican senator talking this morning about how if only hillary clinton was president now, we'd have a better result than barack obama. this is all pretty flexible. i expect whoever the democratic nominee is they'll come under very harsh scrutiny from the right. i think hillary understands that and if she decides she wants to move forward, she knows what she's in for. >> well, she continues to be one of the, if not the most admired women in the world. >> for a very long time and that's a really remarkable

achievement. >> i agree. joe lockhart, good to see you this thanks so much. >> sure thing. >> 67 days and counting, the northeast is still waiting for hurricane relief funds. is congress biased against the region as governor chris christie claims? out with the old and in with the new. washington bids a fond farewell to the 112th congress. well, more like a good riddance. do you think the 113th will be more productive? you can tweet your thoughts.

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course with the first family. there is also a snapshot of daniel day lewis checking out the gettysburg address in the lincoln bedroom. and taking a breather after a game of hoops with friends, george clooney, toby mcgwire and don cheedle. >> and senator kirk suffered a stroke last year and walked up the senate steps for the first time. >> and al jazeera rights are sold to former vice president gore. >> and hey, mom, cover your ears, okay? you're not going to like where

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we are not going to amend the united states constitution to stop gay people from getting married. we are not eliminating the department of energy. we are not letting detroit go bankrupt. we are not vetoing the dream act. we had the choice to do that and we said no. we asked, you answered. do you think the 113th congress will be more productive than the 112th?

blueberrytea tweeted, that's a pretty low bar. yes, i do think given the increase in progressives. filibuster reform seems key. from doug goodman, wishful thinking but no. keep it simple there. >> in just a matter of minutes, the 113th congress will convene for the new session. what will the legacy of the outcoming 112th congress be? joining me now is ezra klein, a columnist for "the washington post" and bloomberg. ezra, good to see you. >> good morning, alex. >> your article is titled "good riddance to the rottenest congress in history, thank god." the 112 passed 111 laws. we're throwing out a whole bunch of numbers here but what was it about the 112th that you think found legislating so difficult?

>> utter paralysis temperatu. to be a little fair to the 112th, they're the culmination of trends toward polarization, towards our system of governing breaking down. i think the lessons of the 112th fundamentally scary to people who care about good governance. again, this was the least productive congress in terms of public laws passed since we began keeping score. the 1948 congress, the do nothing congress of harry truman, passed more than 900 if i'm not misremembering the number. this congress will pass about 220. this was the least popular congress of all time. at two points their popularity in gallup dipped to 10%. when rasmussen polled whether or not the u.s. should become a communist country, they said it

should. you have particularly polarization on the republican side, the republican continuing a very, very extreme streak in their party's history, mixed with a composition of the entire federal government that allowed for a lot of paralysis. so you had a republican leadership in the house, you had a very slim democratic majority in the senate that could be filibustered and then you had a democratic president. what is a perfect recipe for gridlock amidst this kind of polarization. >> do you think part of the reason we're talking about this as well is because it comes on the heels of the 111th congress, which was the most productive congress in history? you write love it or hate it, the 111th congress governed. >> they did. you could have put this congress next to any other and they would look terrible. the reason, alex, is that they were terrible. it is not an optical illusion. they they did an awful, no good >> tre operated really on the

edge of the possibility for congressional governing. the things they did to try to solve america's big problems, ranging from the american recovery and reinvestment act, the stimulus, to the affordable care act, the health care bill, to the financial regulations. ted kennedy serve america act, the end of don't ask don't tell, the ratification of the star treaty, the new tobacco regulations, lily led better pay fair act. the tax deal that extended the bush tax cuts for two years and added reams of new tax stimulus. it was a congress that did very big things at a time when i think everybody agreed whether or not they liked the particular solutions the 111th came up with, that our country had big problems. the 112th came in at a time when we still had big problems, and they made many of them worse. i mean, their typical bay of legislating was to set a kind of a trap for themselves of possible government shutdown or breach of the debt ceiling or the fiscal cliff. they say, well, that trap will surely force us to come to a conclusion. then every single time they let it spring shut in their face, and then the way they solved

that was to then set another trap. they legislated like wiley coyote trying to catch the road runner and had almost the exact same ridiculous results. >> what about the cynicism of folks who, well, let's look at what senator john mccain released today, this statement talking about all the stuff that's added on to emergency legislation like getting money and funding for those that suffer from hurricane sandy. i mean, things like adding in $430 million in tax breaks for hollywood film and tv producers. $70 noul in taxed for nascar track builders. $59 million in tax credits for algae growers. $15 million in subsidies for asparagus growers, $7 million for buyers of two or three-wheel electric scooters. i mean, when that kind of stuff is parsed out, do you think that the american public looks at that and goes really? that's adding to a bill that's meant to help people rebuild from a devastating storm? >> i can tell everyone i think some of that actually was also in the fiscal cliff bill, but i

agree with you in a broad sense. people look at that and certainly senator mccain for a long time has tried to make people look at that and say, oh, what are they doing over there? i am much, much, much more positive on that kind of pork. not because i think all of it's a good idea, although let me say for the record that the reason you have that are founders created a system in which congressmen represent districts. senators represent states. they are supposed to get idiocincratic things that their constituencies want. those things you're hearing about, it's sounds funny to say algae. i haven't looked into that tax credit. i can't say whether it's a good idea. maybe it's a terrible idea. that is part of our system. if we want different things, we need a different system. i actually think one reason the 112th went so poorly is because we did eliminate a lot of earmarks. there's a lot less of that kind of thing happening, and what that's meant is that you can't go house majority leader eric cantor can't go to republicans in his conference and say, look,

if you pass this bill or if you vote for this bill, if you are willing to koomp miz, we can help you on something important to your constituents. you can go back to them and say you got them something. instead of being able to do that, all that money is now given to the executive branch to divvy up, and congressmen and senators simply have to decide if they agree on the overall kind of partisan issue. that's made for much, much, much more partisan clashes because we've taken out, frankly, some of the pork that greases skids of the legislative process out of the system. i'm not saying legislative is pretty and i'm not saying pork was good. i want to be clear on that where are a lot of the things we ended up doing were small, bad things, although some of them weren't that bad. a lot of things that we call pork were helping out schools, were helping out hospitals. it is one way we made the system work. we've taken that out, and we haven't replaced it with anything so all we're having now is a system working much worse in aggregate even if there's fewer things for john mccain to point to in specific bills. >> yeah. i stand corrected. i'm glad you made that correction. it was fiscal cliff, not the

emergency aide fund there for hurricane sandy. my own excuse, have you seen my desk? it looks like a bomb hit it. ezra cline, thank you very much. appreciate it. >> that is a wrap-up of things for me. i'll see you back here at 2:00 p.m. with a cleaner desk, i promise. tomorrow at 11:00 a.m., you can join me then. san diego mayor, former congressman bob filnor, and senator heathersteins, jimmy williams, our senate insider. on the power panel perry wakon, ron reagan, and suzy dell percio. joanne reid is the anchor for that show. >> asparagus, algae and romney. can't beat that, right? >> pretty good stuff. >> indeed. thank you. well, it is the first day of the class -- for the 113th congress, but some republicans aren't exactly pecking an apple for speaker john boehner. we'll bring you the speaker nominations and votes live. and look at the fractures within the gop. we'll look at that with panelists jonathan kapart, lee gallagher, and nick.

plus, lawmakers from the northeast blast house leadership for playing politics with disaster relief funding by playing politics. we'll look at congress's sandy fumble and swayed by 2016. we will look -- we will discuss some of the fiscal cliff votes and how they could be early indicators of white house ambitions. all that when "now" starts in three minutes. [ male announcer ] at scottrade, we believe the more you know, the better you trade. so we have ongoing webinars and interactive learning, plus, in-branch seminars at over 500 locations, where our dedicated support teams help you know more so your money can do more. [ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dollar trades are just the start. our teams have the information you want when you need it. it's another reason more investors are saying... [ all ] i'm with scottrade.

there's a new congress in town. does that mean there will be a new speaker of the house? we'll find out. it's thursday, january 3rd, and this is "now." i'm joye reid. alex wagner returns tomorrow, and joining me today "new york times" political reporter nicolas comfisori, political analyst and former