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00:00:00
Speaker 1: News out of America is that the Mississippi Senate seat has gone to an African-American, John Coulson. Very, very narrow win over the Republican incumbent. And it's the first time that Mississippi has had a black senator in 150 odd years, which makes with Alaska still to go. The Senate race has the Democrats on 55 and the Republicans on 44. Alaska running very, very close. With a House of Representatives, there are still some districts to be finalized. They are supposed to be all done by Friday, I understand. But it looks as if the Republicans might have a shortfall of something like 70 or 80 seats, a significant majority for the Democrats. And how are they going to use it when they take up those seats in the two houses on the 3rd? of January. One of the questions is impeachment. Are they going to try to impeach Donald Trump? A lot of voices, even democratically in science, saying no. Pete Hexeth, dissident Republican, introduced articles of impeachment against the Secretary of Defense, and it was referred to a committee which effectively kills it because the committee won't have time to consider it before It voids when the Democrats take over both houses on the 3rd of January. Political journalist and author, close watcher of the American political scene, John Matteson joins us now.
00:01:36
Speaker 2: Hello, John. Hi, John. Good to talk to you.
00:01:42
Speaker 1: What did you make of the decision by Calvin Massey? I mean, he didn't get any support from other Republicans officially, but what did you make of his decision to try to impeach.
00:01:54
Speaker 2: You know, John, I think it was just Tom Massey's last-ditch chance. He's a lame duck. He's got about six weeks left on the job. He's a principled guy who got wiped out by Trump because he stood up against Trump on the Epstein files and a couple of other things. And so it was his last attempt. He thought he'd get a few Republicans. In the end, he didn't get any.
00:02:25
Speaker 1: Do you think it sets the scene? Well, it's probably separate. I mean, it's probably an entirely separate set of considerations. Impeachment once the Democrats are in significant control. They don't have enough votes in the Senate, I think, to impeach without Republican support. But certainly they have enough in the lower house to impeach Hexer or Trump should they want to.
00:02:54
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. But, you know, there is quite a strong body of people who are saying, you know, when you do an impeachment, especially of the Trump administration, The impeachment process takes all the oxygen out of out of Washington. You can't get anything else done. And there is a lot of pressure on the new Democrats coming in. And they came in on the basis that they get things done, not just impeachments. But I think reform policies and investigations, but particularly policies, they need to get legislation passed. that prevents a lot of what's going on now from slipping through the cracks. So I think their priority will be to try and do that. There will be investigations of individuals. I think they'll call the Trump sons to account for themselves. And there will be subpoenas. There'll be a ratchet subpoenas. As for impeachments, I don't think they'll go for Trump immediately. They may go for Hexis immediately. But again, some people see it as a red herring. The voters didn't send them there to attack individuals. They sent them there to get prices lowered, to end the Iran war, to stop the corruption. And those are practical things they must do.
00:04:11
Speaker 1: I was reading a couple of articles in different media channels suggesting that Trump might cut Hexerth loose. I mean, he has in the last 48 8.72 hours, defended him stoutly, congratulating him on winning the important wars in Venezuela and in Iran. Venezuela was hardly a war, and he certainly hasn't won the war in Iran. But the fact that Donald Trump supports you mightily today doesn't mean that he's not going to look at you and go, you know what, you are causing me to lose political capital, so bye-bye. What do you think?
00:04:49
Speaker 2: Look, there's no doubt you're right. If Trump wakes up one morning and decides to get rid of him, we'll get rid of him. The problem he faces is that that is more complicated. If he gets rid of him immediately, he needs to get in a replacement in the current Congress, which which has six weeks to run, because otherwise it has to go to the new Senate to get confirmation of the new one. And that's going to be very difficult. So if he doesn't fire him in the next days or weeks, he might find it very difficult to fire him at all.
00:05:25
Speaker 1: And to go back to what you said, the Dems were elected to do stuff, to fix things. And with Trump showing that veto hat and saying, I really don't want to be Mr.
00:05:38
Speaker 2: Veto.
00:05:38
Speaker 1: And then in the next breath saying, I'm going to veto everything that comes my way. I mean, that's going to be one of the challenges for the Democrats to convince the people who voted for them that if things aren't being done, it's not their fault because look at all the great plans we had. But unfortunately, that old bloke stuck in the White House gazing with delight at his ballroom and his reflecting pool isn't allowing it.
00:06:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, John, it's all about strategy now. It's like a chess game. If the Democrats are shrewd, and I think they're talking about this, is to do individual bulls that are popular and make Trump veto them. For instance, if they did a bull, and this hasn't been drafted, but for example, if they wrote a bull that said in tariffs against Canada, because they're very unpopular, They get it through the House, they get it through the Senate, and Trump vetoes it. The public will be against him for that. So that's where Trump is not above being influenced.
00:06:43
Speaker 1: John Madison, thank you very much for sharing those shorts thoughts with us. He didn't share any shorts with us. We keep our shorts to ourselves. With legs like mine, that's the wise thing to do. John Madison is a political journalist and author.