Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on how Trump will govern after the blue wave

[0:00] less than a week after democrats historic wins in the midterms president donald trump is sending [0:04] mixed messages about how he plans to govern for the remainder of his term on that and congress [0:09] returning to washington i'm joined now by our politics monday duo that is amy walter of the [0:14] cook political report with amy walter and tamara keith of npr great to see you both good to be here [0:19] let's start with president trump you saw in that wide-ranging 60 minutes interview [0:23] he repeated this claim that he would and could work with democrats specifically on immigration [0:28] that interview was taped around the same time that he promoted stephen miller to chief of staff he's [0:33] one of the most combative members of his team and the architect of the president's hardline immigration [0:38] policies tam if history is a guide which president trump are we going to see over the next couple [0:43] years i think that the president trump who talks about making deals the president who talks about [0:50] being conciliatory or maybe my immigration policy went too far we'll get that president his his words [0:57] will say those things but i don't know that his actions will what we saw in the first term after [1:02] the midterms is he did talk about the idea of doing some bipartisan things and then we had a very long [1:10] government shutdown and ongoing battles and hardball and and stephen miller elevating stephen miller is the [1:17] clearest sign you could ever get that president trump is choosing combat over bipartisan cooperation [1:26] speaking of a different kind of combat too you saw him back in the press briefing room today [1:30] with the ufc ceo dana white as he joked about offering dana white the job of press secretary what [1:37] does that say to you oh this has been a completely ridiculous news cycle that has filled three days [1:44] and i think is an indication of what we're going to see more and more of from the president which is [1:50] doing things to bring the spotlight back to him doing things to get attention because [1:55] as the republican party tries to wrestle with what it does next and who it's going to be in the future [2:01] and president trump isn't really part of that future he still wants to be the showman [2:07] amy we also saw the president less than a week after those elections casting doubt on them posting [2:12] today that there's questions about whether the election was honest or not what did you make of that [2:18] so i think i've used this phrase before but he is a hammer and everything is a nail that is his entire [2:25] way of operating as president and i think he also does best when he has a foil and one of the [2:32] challenges he's had especially at around election time is when the election is focused on him and his [2:38] behavior or his policies like we saw in 2018 2020 when he was president and heck even in 2022 when he wasn't [2:47] president president but he weighed in in that election and then of course this most recent midterm [2:53] election when it's on him it's a lot harder for republicans and for trump himself when he has a foil [3:01] where he can make it about oh hey it's me versus this person then he tends to be able to unite the [3:11] republican party because it's uniting around anger about the other side rather than trying to get [3:18] them to rally around some of the more controversial things that he does so he's really in need of where [3:24] is this foil going to be and i think for democrats the challenge for them going into this year is they [3:30] keep talking about the fact that they're going to be laser focused affordability accountability that's [3:35] all we're going to talk about but it is pretty clear that the president is going to try to bring them [3:40] into these fights he would like to see more of that and to keep them responding to him rather than [3:46] have the president responding to the democratic congress yeah and on whether this election was [3:51] stolen it's like he's going through the stages of grief in reverse he started with acceptance [3:56] and he seems to be working backwards meanwhile you saw lisa report earlier congress is back in [4:00] washington including those newly elected members we saw republican thomas massey who lost his [4:06] kentucky primary earlier this year moved today to force a vote on impeaching the defense secretary [4:11] pete hegseth he's accusing him of violating the constitution and the will of congress in the iran [4:16] war and other operations and tamis strikes me this is really the first post-election test for republicans [4:24] after those brutal midterms what should we expect and it it comes at this time the lame duck period when [4:30] there are republicans in congress who do not have to answer to the president because they also do not [4:36] have to answer to the voters ever again they you know it's you only lose once i don't know exactly how [4:43] this is going to turn out but um pete hegseth does not have a well of good will on the hill the other thing [4:50] i'll just add though is that i've spent a lot of time talking to swing voters and these voters they want [4:57] results and no one was talking about impeaching pete hegseth they're talking about they want the prices [5:04] to come down they want their lives to get easier they want democrats to keep the promises that they [5:09] made when they ran just days ago and several of them specifically said i just don't want two years [5:17] of investigations and impeachments and now right out of the gate you have this right yeah i completely [5:22] agree with that and you know again when you talk to democrats they also agree with these voters point [5:29] which is we do not want to get sucked into a retribution campaign we need to deliver and deliver [5:35] very quickly these voters are expecting us to do something now again this was thomas massey a republican [5:41] right who put this forward in a lame duck these new members have no say on this but as they go forward [5:48] they will have to answer for decisions the leadership makes and also the uh their base demanding that [5:58] perhaps they go after certain people and amy house republicans now have to make a decision about who's [6:04] going to lead them as well we know they vote tomorrow in the house on on their leader house speaker mike [6:09] johnson is not running again so majority leader steve scalise and judiciary chair jim jordan are running [6:17] what are we going to learn from that election yeah whether republicans want to punish the [6:21] establishment and go with an outsider the establishment of course would be scalise who's been in the [6:26] leadership the outsider jim jordan who does a very good job in the minority of goading democrats um which [6:34] side they choose i think is going to tell us a little bit about how hungry these voters are to turn the [6:39] page yeah and i think that you will see whether this new republican conference this new smaller republican [6:45] conference whether it is going to be interested in combat or whether it's going to be willing to [6:51] compromise and and certainly jim jordan if he were to become speaker signals it's another signal of [6:58] okay it's on combat is on meanwhile on the democratic side we know that the uh they won't select their [7:04] leaders until later this month but the minority leader chuck schumer could be challenged we know senator [7:09] chris van holland has said he is considering that and a number of newly elected senators have said [7:15] they may not back schumer right and this is the same this is the same debate which is the establishment [7:21] and by the way in this case the establishment that actually helped to bring many of these members in [7:26] recruited them spent money on their campaigns but the democratic message throughout this campaign has [7:33] been we need to turn the page we need a new generation of leaders that is going to be what chuck [7:38] schumer is going to have to answer for in the minds of many of these new senators yeah and schumer is 75 [7:44] years old and he so he he does not represent a new generation whereas many of these new members are [7:50] quite a bit younger um and uh yeah and he he also signifies a lot of the challenges that the democrats [7:59] have had with messaging over the years and in fact in the primaries he picked some of the people who lost [8:04] tamara keith and amy walter always great to start the week with you both thank you so much you're welcome [8:10] thank you