Pelosi steps down from Democratic leadership after

Lisa Desjardins: I will say three words, emotional, historic and still divided.There was a lot of emotion for House Democrats and a sense of relief for them. This is a question that’s been hovering over them for years of this idea of generational change. But there was also a divide on this historic day, when you looked at that House chamber. Very few Republicans were there. And none of them were clapping, even kind of giveaway lines, like praising the beauty of the Capitol.Those clapping on that side of the aisle were Democrats who were sitting there because of overflow. Lisa Desjardins: Quite a lot.Let’s look at who the current House Democratic leadership is, the top three leaders. Let’s take a picture, look at the picture of these three leaders. There you go, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then, of course, Majority Leader right now Steny Hoyer, and then Majority Whip — there we go — Clyburn right there.So these three leaders, let’s talk about when they entered Congress, if you look at this by the numbers, two of them elected in the ’80s during the Reagan era — that’s Pelosi and Hoyer — and then Clyburn in — just as President Clinton was coming into office.Now, let’s look at who is poised to succeed them. These are not just the next generation, but actually skipping two generations. There you go, Hakeem Jeffries in the middle, Katherine Clark to be the number two, and Peter Aguilar there to be the number three in the Democratic Caucus.And it should be noted that this was a difficult choice, especially for Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who is the number two. He has wanted to be speaker for such a long time. He is stepping down from leadership, but, like Pelosi, remaining in the House.Now, Clyburn is remaining in leadership, but in a slightly lower position. So you’re going to have those three sort of senior members of the Democratic Caucus still in Congress, but they will be advising these leaders, who are untested, these three. Better for them to be in the minority probably as untested than otherwise.I also want to say it’s important for the Democrats that Hoyer and Pelosi have, frankly, had a lot of tension between the two of them. And for Democrats I talked to you today, they say they feel like this team is actually more united and is going to be easy to get through.One last question, how unusual is it for a speaker to stay in the House and as a member? Well, let’s look at this. Denny Hastert — I’m sorry — Dennis Hastert in 2007, he did this for 11 months. And then, our great team, let’s go back to 1790, the first speaker of the House, of course, Frederick Muhlenberg, he actually stepped down as speaker and stayed for two years and went back and forth in leadership. Lisa Desjardins: Let’s first talk about the margin that they’re going to have to work with. Let’s look at that graphic again that shows where we’re at this moment in terms of races called.Here we go, 218 Republicans, and then look at that, just a tiny amount of six races left to be called. And I think, in the end, we’re heading toward a majority of four or five seats for House Republicans. Now, Nancy Pelosi worked with that same kind of margin. She was able to get some legislation through.But one difference here, first of all, is that Kevin McCarthy has said he will not allow proxy voting. Nancy Pelosi was able to allow vote — members to vote from their homes if they were sick or if they had some other obligation. They didn’t have to be here in town. Kevin McCarthy, no, they all have to be in their desks to vote, he says what he’s going to do.Other thing people know is that the House has the Freedom Caucus, which is a caucus which actually has formed and lived to be 30 or so members, which uses that leverage specifically to pressure their leaders. And that’s a different dynamic than Pelosi faced. It’s going to be much harder for Kevin McCarthy.All right, so let’s talk about the agenda. Let’s get back into policy. Enough of the politics and the numbers. But what we know so far about what the Democrats — or the Republicans are talking about, investigations. I talked to the oversight chairman coming in today, James Comer. He said that they’re going to take their time in building their case.So don’t expect hearings right away, at least on something like Hunter Biden. Also, they’re talking about trying to roll back some of the Biden agenda. We will see some of those bills pass, things like the IRS agents, kind of adding that enforcement layer that passed through this Congress. That’s something that will say House Republicans try to roll back.But as for their agenda, we’re still waiting for more specifics on their proactive agenda. But we hear phrases like parental rights, education, those kinds of themes that they talked about on the campaign trail, budgeting, also the economy. How will they handle things like the debt ceiling? All of those are in the mix right now, and we’re going to be watching very carefully.
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