The ballad of the one-term Democrats

KCRW's Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.2 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nomination hearings for President-elect Trump’s Cabinet are scheduled to begin next week. Senate members on both sides of the aisle have signaled they may challenge some controversial picks. The toughest fights could surround important national security nominees like Pete Hegseth (defense secretary) or Kash Patel (FBI director). As investigations into several violent New Year’s terrorist attacks continue, is there an increased sense of urgency to get those positions filled?

One of President Biden’s last acts will be eulogizing former President Jimmy Carter, who passed just before the new year. Both one-term Democratic presidents were everyman candidates who struggled to maintain popularity amid economic and foreign crises. KCRW examines Biden’s final days in office and how the sunset of his term feels oddly familiar to Carter’s.

What stories or themes are positioned to stand out in 2025? Our Left, Right and Center panel has a few predictions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Happy New Year, everyone, from left, right, and center. I am David Green.
0:05.7	You know, our New Year's resolution on this show is we are going to help you feel less disoriented when it comes to politics this year.
0:13.7	I think it is so easy these days to fall into this trap of wondering how the heck my friend or office worker thinks that way, it makes no sense,
0:24.2	it makes me angry, I'm going to disengage entirely. Well, we're here to engage. We're here to listen
0:30.4	to views on both sides. We are not trying to persuade you one way or the other or find some
0:35.3	kumbaya, but we all want to seek clarity together
0:38.6	and try and make sense of things and then you can take what you hear in the show to your next
0:42.4	happy hour or dinner party or conversation with family and that would be like where'd you get that
0:46.9	smart take so i am grateful to start 2025 with mo elathe on the left he was an advisor to
0:53.3	hillary clinton when the two of us met.
0:55.3	He is now executive director of the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service.
0:59.7	And on the right, Sarah Isger is away this week, but we're very lucky to have Michaela Carr here.
1:04.8	She was chief of staff and general counsel to former Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.
1:10.3	Happy New Year to both of you. Happy Kevin McCarthy. Happy New Year to both of you.
1:11.8	Happy New Year.
1:12.7	Happy New Year.
1:13.9	I think I want to start with a story that speaks very much to what I was just talking about,
1:22.1	which is Donald Trump trying to put the team that he wants in place for his second presidency.
1:28.3	You know, the confirmation hearings for his cabinet nominees are set to begin next week. Republicans in the Senate are saying that horrific ISIS-inspired attack on New Year's in New Orleans has added even more urgency to at least get President-elect Trump's national security
1:45.6	picks approved. And, you know, I just think this is one of those moments where people can look at
1:51.1	Trump's nominees. Some might say, what? These are not traditional picks. Some of them have little
1:56.6	experience. What is going on here? Other people who supported Trump might be saying,
	...

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