These midterm results defied both parties' expectations. They want to investigate how they believe Democrats failed to protect the Capitol on January 6.įOLKENFLIK: And one last thing in the minute we have left. Beyond that, some Republicans have said that when the House control flips in January, they want to conduct a different kind of January 6 investigation. And she has equated the preservation of American democracy with ensuring that Trump is never president again. She's the vice chairman of the committee. She's not going to be in Congress after January. This is the top priority for Republican Liz Cheney. It'll focus on former President Donald Trump's role on January 6. LIASSON: We can expect a very big report - could be a thousand pages long. What should we expect from that investigation? All I can do is try to make life better for the American people.įOLKENFLIK: When Congress draws to a close, so will the work of the January 6 committee. He said, well, I can't control what they're going to do. Remember, he said in his press conference right after the midterms - he was asked about Republican investigations. He's going to try to point that out to make them look as extreme as possible and out of the mainstream. And to the extent they conduct a lot of investigations, they seem to ignore Americans' kitchen-table concerns. But also, politically, he's going to be trying to make the House Republicans a foil. He'll try to get bipartisan legislation through a divided Congress, but with a Republican House, that will be much more difficult. He still has a Democratic majority in the Senate. Biden can still get his judges confirmed. That's why Democrats pushed so hard before the midterms to pass the president's priorities, like the infrastructure bill or the climate and drug pricing bill. LIASSON: Well, for all presidents who have lost complete control of Congress in a midterm, it means that Biden's legislative agenda pretty much grinds to a halt. There might be impeachment proceedings against President Biden and other administration officials, as well.įOLKENFLIK: Well, I guess impeachment aside, what does the prospect of divided government mean for President Biden and his agenda? You're going to hear a lot about Hunter Biden's laptop. The other big priority for Republicans with their new House majority is not passing legislation as much as it is investigations. The smaller the margin, the harder it will be for Kevin McCarthy to get the 218 votes he needs to be speaker. And with their tiny, little, single-digit majority, that's going to be very hard. LIASSON: Well, their first priority is to elect a speaker. I must say, Republicans this fall ran on relatively scarce specifics in their campaigns. And it doesn't look like they have those.įOLKENFLIK: Pretty full plate for a pretty short period. But in the Senate, that would take 10 Republican votes. And on their wish list, they would like to codify Roe v. They want to pass the Electoral Count Act to make it harder to overturn a free and fair election - in other words, to make sure that no January 6's will ever happen again. In the Senate, Democrats want to codify same-sex marriage. They would really like to raise the debt ceiling and get that out of the way early so when it reaches its limit sometime next year, the U.S. First of all, they've got to keep the government open past December 16, so they have to pass a big funding bill. LIASSON: They have a lot of unfinished business. How much unfinished business do they intend to take up? NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins me now to talk about what that means and what's ahead.įOLKENFLIK: The lame duck session is the last gasp of Democrats controlling both chambers. In Washington, that means Congress returns to work with an agenda defined by a phrase we're going to hear a lot these next few weeks, lame duck session. OK, the tryptophan may still be bouncing around your body, but we're about to leave the long Thanksgiving weekend behind.
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