Jane Mayer and Evan Osnos on the Balance of Power at the Start of the Biden Administration
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 25 January 2021
⏱️ 31 minutes
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Summary
With Donald Trump rated the least popular President in the span of modern polling, President Biden might feel confident in claiming a mandate to advance his progressive agenda. Yet Democratic majorities in Congress are slim in the House of Representatives, and razor-thin in the Senate. That gives a small number of Democratic conservatives and moderate Republicans outsized influence over what legislation can pass. Senator Mitch McConnell, in a power-sharing arrangement with the Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, remains a force to be reckoned with. What will this balance of power mean for the new Administration? David Remnick poses this question to Jane Mayer, who has reported on McConnell’s tenure as a political operator, and to Evan Osnos, who covered Biden’s campaign and wrote a biography of the new President.
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| 0:49.5 | On today's Politics and More podcast, David Remnick talks with Jane Mayer and Evan Osnose about the incoming |
| 0:56.2 | Biden administration. They'll discuss Biden's policy priorities and what he can hope to accomplish |
| 1:02.2 | with a very narrow majority in the Senate. |
| 1:08.0 | This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. |
| 1:16.7 | To restore the soul and secure the future of America requires so much more than words. |
| 1:23.7 | It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy. |
| 1:28.7 | Unity. |
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| 1:41.8 | It's hard to conceive of two men more different, and with Democrats |
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