I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Friday, December 18th.

The Trump administration may be ending, but national politics is not, With COVID relief of various kinds expiring for millions

of Americans in just a few days, Congress still hasn't agreed on a new package, though leaders

say they are very close. The lead New York Times headline on this this morning says Biden

faces challenge as Congress drops state aid to secure stimulus.

Other challenges for the president-elect include a big new Russian hack that got revealed

this week. They may have failed at hacking our democracy this time around, but they're still

hacking our government. Revelations keep coming about Hunter Biden

that are leading President Trump

to consider a special counsel, like Robert Mueller was,

as a parting gift to the president-elect, you might call it.

And if Joe Biden really hopes to depolarize the country,

which he says is one of his main goals,

how can his administration do that while

still criticizing Republicans when they disagree? Biden's campaign manager, Jan O'Malley-Dillon,

made conservative media headlines this week when, in the context of defending compromise

to a progressive group, she said this. In the primary, people would mock

Biden like, you think you can work with Republicans? And she went on to say, I'm not saying

they're not a bunch of Fers. Mitch McConnell is terrible. And of course, I cleaned up Fers for the

radio. Well, that may be a defense of compromise, but is it a path to unity?

With us now, Associated Press, White House correspondent, and NBC News political analyst

Jonathan Lemire.

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