The Daily - Day 1 of a Democratic Majority

Episode Date: January 4, 2019

The 116th Congress has been sworn in. With that, Democrats have taken control of the House, and Representative Nancy Pelosi has reclaimed her position as its leader. Here’s the scene on Capitol Hill as the day unfolded. Guest: Julie Hirschfeld Davis, who covers Congress for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the 116th Congress has been sworn in. And with it, Democrats take control of the House and Nancy Pelosi retakes her position as its leader. The scene on the Hill, as it happened. It's Friday, January 4th. How y'all doing?

When is your congressional ID? Senate press gallery, we're going to get IDs. Checking at that desk there. Thank you. So it's Thursday morning and we're inside the U.S. Capitol. We are here because this is the day when Democrats take the majority in the House. Nancy Pelosi reclaims the speakership and divided government begins. And we're going to go talk to my colleague, Julie Davis, who is covering this from morning until night. the speakership and divided government begins.

And we're going to go talk to my colleague, Julie Davis, who is covering this from morning until night. So Julie says she's over in the NYT hovel. Should we just go try to find it and say hi? What do you think a hovel is? Oh, I mean, it's just a decrepit, unpolished home. Hi. How are you? It truly is a hovel.

It is a hovel. It's kind of small. I think we should note for listeners that the New York Times Congressional Bureau is within sound distance of flushing toilets. That's the sound you're hearing. And also the Senate gavel. Flushing toilets, Senate gavel. Hey!

So, Julie, what's happening today? So it's a big historic day. Nancy Pelosi will be elected speaker to reclaim the gavel as the first woman to hold that post. And you have 100 new members of the House of Representatives, 66 of them Democrats, 44 Republicans, including the most diverse gender and racially diverse class in history. You have the first Muslim woman.

You're going to see the first hijab being worn on the House floor. You have the first Native American woman. And they're all going to be sworn in and take their places on the House floor after having stood up and voted for Pelosi for Speaker. So we should go down there. So yeah, we should go to the House. You see all the tourists here with their little audio programs. Their headphones on and their hats and their coats.

Yep. And these are all reporters assembled waiting for Pelosi to emerge, all the photographers, for her big close-up, her big moment. You know, it's been a while since the opening of Congress has had a lot of sort of new elements to it, you know? Usually these things are pretty standard affairs. I don't think I've ever seen this many people in this hall before. Is that a press in place? So this is

the house press gallery. The house press gallery, yes. Let's go in. This is really cool. Are you familiar with the recording rules in here? No. Do you have a press pass? Yeah, we're from New York. So, you can take

audio in the chamber if it's for your note-taking purposes only. It can't be for rebroadcast. And you can't record anything that happens in here for broadcast. Okay. Thank you. So, we are going to let you go and check back in with you later in the day. Okay.

Sounds great. I'm going to head in there and see what's going on. Okay, talk to you soon. See ya. Are you free now? Yeah. Do you want, should we go someplace else? Why don't we just go here? Can we?

Crazy. So Julie, what was it like once you got inside the chamber? So it was very loud and it was hot because us reporters were sort of all packed into the gallery and the visitors gallery was all full of people as well, family members and friends and supporters. And then the well of the house, the actual floor was completely filled with members and children because they were allowed to bring kids, I think 12 and under. So there were lots of babies being bounced around, lots of kids running around in their fancy clothes. And they were all sort of greeting each other for the members who had

been there before and high-fiving each other for the members who had been there before and high-fiving each other for the ones who were new. After they got called to order, there was a prayer. Receive now this prayer, O Lord. Amen. And the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag. And then what they did was they started something called the Call of the State. The representatives elect will record their presence by electronic device, and their names will be reported in alphabetical order by state. They have to convene the House, essentially. They have to get everyone there because they're going to elect the leadership.

Representatives elect will have a minimum of 15 minutes to record their presence by electronic device. The lights dim a bit and the electronic boards turn on. All the names of the members of Congress appear on the wall. And you can see the P's start to appear by people's names as they vote present. Representatives elect who have not obtained their voting ID cards may do so now in the Speaker's lobby. may do so now in the speaker's lobby.

So it was around this time that I snuck in myself to the House press gallery balcony, and I couldn't help noticing how really different the energy and the appearance were on the two sides of the House. On the Democratic side, it was youthful and loud and a little kind of chaotic with children running around. And there was kind of this sea of clothing. There was a Palestinian thobe, a Muslim headscarf. There was a Pueblo dress. And on the Republican side, by comparison,

and on the Republican side, by comparison, it was really kind of stark. Yeah, it was pretty striking. I mean, I think part of it is just the demographics of the new Democratic class. And, you know, the Democratic caucus was already pretty diverse, but this new infusion of members really made that a lot more pronounced. And they made a point today of, like, really strutting that and displaying that.

Well, I mean, Deb Haaland, who is the first Native American woman in Congress, made a point of wearing her traditional Pueblo dress with the moccasins and like the beautiful turquoise and silver jewelry. And, you know, she did that because she was making a statement. And, you know, the first Palestinian member wore her, as you mentioned, a thobe. And again, that's not something she wears every day, but it's because they wanted to take note of this moment and have the world take sensible business dresses. And, you know, the mood, I think, was also just more somber. They're losing the majority and they're much less relevant in the current environment of divided government. Pursuant to law and precedent, the next order of business is election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. So basically that kind of unfolded for a while until they got to the point where they had enough members present on the floor.

Nominations are now in order. To actually start the vote. The clerk recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Jeffries. Hakeem Jeffries, who's the head of the Democratic caucus, gets up to make his nominating speech. Nancy Pelosi. For Nancy Pelosi. A voice for the voiceless. A defender of the disenfranchised. And it's this, you know, super high energy nomination. And that's why we stand squarely

behind her today. But he ends with saying. House Democrats are down with NDP. We're down with NDP. Pelosi's initials. Pelosi's initials for speaker....of the United States House of Representatives. May God bless the United States of America. Everyone goes crazy and it's like, you know, it's very exuberant. The clerk now recognizes the gentlewoman from Wyoming, Ms. Cheney. So and then Liz Cheney on the Republican side, who's the head of their conference. ...to nominate the gentleman from California, Mr. McCarthy, as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Gets up and nominates Kevin McCarthy, the Congressman from California, who has been

the majority leader, is now going to be the minority leader. And again, it's a much more sort of somber speech, but, you know, praising his leadership. Leader McCarthy led us in passing legislation to secure our borders, keep our nation safe, and the devastating practice of sanctuary cities. And yes, Madam Clerk, build the wall. With the occasional dig at the Democratic Party. Absolutely. This is her chance to sort of set the table a bit before Pelosi has her moment in the sun. The names of the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, a representative-elect from the state of California, and the Honorable Kevin McCarthy, a representative from the state of California, have been placed

in nomination. So then this actual vote gets underway, and it's a very unique kind of vote because unlike most votes in the House of Representatives, which are tallied electronically, this is a roll call vote where people actually have to say the name of the person they want to vote for for speaker in turn. Mr. Abraham McCarthy. And they literally go through every single member of the House alphabetically, say the member's name, the member says who they vote for, McCarthy or Pelosi, or in some cases, in a few cases, somebody else entirely.

You can vote for whoever you want for Speaker. McCarthy. And then the clerk who's taking the role repeats the vote back. Pelosi. And some members use their vote to, like, make a little statement, you know. I vote for a lady who will truly make America great again. Nancy Pelosi. So who are the Democrats who don't vote for her in this moment?

Spanberger. Bustos. Right, you have people like Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey, Conor Lamb, who was elected in a special election earlier in the year, but from Pennsylvania. Almost all of them are newly elected members who campaigned saying that they wouldn't vote for Nancy Pelosi, that they wanted change in Washington,

they wanted a new face for their party, they wanted, you know, the gridlock to end. And a lot of them are people who ran in districts that Trump won. They're not in solidly Democratic districts where Nancy Pelosi is going to be an asset, and many of them are in districts where she is going to be a liability. And so they came in after the election pretty firm in their belief that they couldn't vote for her, both because they didn't feel comfortable doing so and also because they

campaigned saying they never would. So among these closely watched freshmen who just got elected, in the end, it was not the liberal freshmen who opposed her on the floor today, it was Democrats who feared having an association with her, of having to explain to their Trump-voting constituents back at home that they had voted for Pelosi. Those were the ones who lodged protest votes. That's right. At one point, when it's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's turn to vote. She's like a star House liberal freshman. Yes, and she's like wearing a stark white suit and bright red lipstick, and she's very recognizable. She gets up and she says... Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi. And as she's sitting down, the Republicans all sort of, a couple of them like boo and do a little bit of hissing.

And she kind of smiles and looks over and mouths, sorry. You know, they have really hoped that Ocasio-Cortez and the left become as much of a thorn in the side of Nancy Pelosi as a speaker as the Freedom Caucus. And the hard right was for John Boehner and Paul Ryan after him. But in the end, she voted for Pelosi and all the other progressives did, and they had made a pragmatic choice. She went with Pelosi as sort of the most effective alternative if she wants to have a majority that actually does something. Then there's this weird, like, lull,

where we all know that she's going to be the speaker, but there's all this counting going on, and there's, like, backing and forthing, and the clerks at the desks are pouring over their sheets of paper, and the tellers on each side are pouring over their sheets of paper, and there's a lot of milling around. And it takes a while for the announcement to be made by the clerk of the house. The tellers agree in their tallies that the total number of votes cast is 430, of which the Honorable Nancy Pelosi of the state of California has received 220.

That Nancy Pelosi has been elected Speaker. And at that point... And in that spirit, I extend my hand of friendship. That is when you have this kind of rare moment of bipartisanship where Kevin McCarthy from the Republican side and Nancy Pelosi from the Democratic side both go up together to the dais. And to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, I extend to you this gavel. And he hands her the gavel and she becomes Speaker of the House. And what does she actually say?

Thank you very much, Leader McCarthy. I look forward to working with you in a bipartisan way. So she starts out with sort of a gesture to the Republicans. I respect you and the constituents who sent each and every one of us here. They expect and deserve for us to try to find our common ground. There's a really interesting moment where she mentions dreamers. And we will make America more American by protecting our patriotic, courageous dreamers. Whose protections President Trump has revoked. And when we're talking about the dreamers, let us remember what President Reagan said.

She quotes Ronald Reagan in his final speech as president. He said, if we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership role in the world will soon be lost. Ronald Reagan. And there's a big round of applause. And as I looked out over the chamber, it's all Democrats who are clapping. And so there's a long pause and she finally looks over to the Republican side and says, You don't applaud Ronald Reagan? You don't applaud Ronald Reagan?

You know, she's trying to reach out and be bipartisan and seem like she's talking to everyone. But she kind of notes in this wry way that there are limits to that. I close by remembering a cherished former member of this body. And this wasn't the only time she mentioned a Republican president. She actually closed her speech by talking about George H.W. Bush. Today, I single out one of his great achievements, working with both Democrats and Republicans to write the Americans with Disabilities Act into the laws of our land. What's the message of mentioning these Republican presidents? Well, I think she's trying to show that, you know, she is respectful of people of both

parties, but with a clear kind of sharper edge implied of like, but she doesn't actually respect the sitting Republican president. You know, she's sort of hearkening back to a time when Republicans and Democrats were better able to kind of talk to each other and share some common values and give a nod to the fact that that's not happening anymore. It's a call for a kind of bipartisan spirit that has been lacking. And it certainly wasn't the hallmark of the Republican Congress that just closed. And so I think she's trying to kind of identify Democrats with that. Congress that just closed. And so I think she's trying to kind of identify Democrats with that. But that also sounds like a message to her own new activist liberal House freshmen that would seem to kind of put them in their place and say, your agenda is not our only agenda. In

fact, it may not even be my agenda. It's one of many agenda that we have to deal with here. I think that's right. And I think that was a big kind of theme of the speech was that, you know, none of this is about being partisan and being on one team or the other. It's about what the voters told us, which is that we want you to go to Washington and fix things and talk to each other and be more accountable to the people. And so whatever that means, that's what we're going to need to do. And it's not going to be about, you know, staking out our positions on the fringes. Now in practice, we'll see whether that actually pans out. But it is important for her, I think, going into her

first day as speaker to make it clear to people that she is not going to be carrying the water for any one particular ideological part of the spectrum, that she has to unify everyone or else this thing is not going to work. This majority is not going to be effective. Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that you take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you're about to enter, so help you God.

I do. Congratulations, Madam Speaker. We'll be right back. I could do it now, or I could, I mean, I'm going to be here a long time. So if you want to do it now, I can. I'm not like on deadline this second. I think it could be pretty fast. Let me see if I can't. I'm not, like, on deadline this second. Let's just do it. I think it could be pretty fast. Let me see if I can grab a chair. Yeah. Okay, here we go. So, Julia, I was speaking to Senator Schumer yesterday about getting the government open again,

but a lot of our conversation was about what he described as this ironclad partnership with Pelosi to work together, starting with solving the shutdown and making sure to not fund the wall. But more broadly, his point was that the two of them are going to be in constant communication. They're going to be this one unified democratic unit. And that's his perspective. I wonder what Pelosi's perspective on that partnership is. is it as unified to her? Or does she have a different take on the relationship? I think it is as unified in her mind, but maybe for different reasons. I

mean, I think that she recognizes the reality that she is the one with the actual majority. She's the one who needs to set the table for these votes to take place. And her ability to do that is going to shape the message in a lot of ways that Democrats are going to go forward with. But she doesn't want to be in a position where the House is moving in a direction that Schumer can't follow, because that undercuts her negotiating power. And if nothing else, Nancy Pelosi is a very effective legislative maneuverer, and she knows that your power is in knowing where the votes are. And that's not only true in terms of the House. It's also true in terms of the Senate. She has to know that

if, you know, she's going to stake out a position and she's going to need Schumer to be able to hold Senate Democrats together on it, that he's going to be able to do that. And so for the same reasons, I think that Schumer sees it this way. Pelosi also does, but she has an added incentive because she doesn't want to make her members take votes that are going to be meaningless in the end. And potentially, if they can find issues where they can draw a handful of Republicans to their side, a much more effective way of actually getting something done and getting something to President Trump's desk. So she really does need Schumer as much as Schumer needs her. Nancy Pelosi. I do, at least, because she actually has a legislative majority. But it sounds like she also needs him and the Senate Democrats in order for that majority to be effective and for its votes to carry actual meaning. To some degree. I mean, there are going to be places where she is going to have to part ways with him. Schumer has a much more sort of moderate caucus, if you look at the group of Democrats that he has. It's a much simpler sort of math problem for him. Schumer has a much more sort of moderate caucus if you look at the group of Democrats that he has. It's a much simpler sort of math problem for him. And so she can't let him drag her too

far to the right because then her progressives will revolt and they'll say, why are we going to the right? We're the majority. We should be as progressive as we want to be. We should be as, you know, dug in on our position as we want to be. And that's not always going to be the incentive for Schumer. But on something like government shutdown, where there's a lot of unity among Democrats, I don't think you're going to see a lot of daylight between the two of them. They're most effective when they can be in lockstep. There seems to be greater risk for her in the relationship and in the concept of the

two of them being in lockstep than for him because of the diversity ideologically of the House Democratic caucus. I think that's right. She has members who will give her more trouble and she has more loose because she's in the majority. You know, she's shooting with live bullets. On the other hand, Chuck Schumer has a different problem, which is he has a bunch of people in his caucus in the Senate who are eyeing runs for the presidency, who are not going to want to let Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats be to the left of them, who are going to want to be defining that ground that Democrats are going to be on. And so they have different problems. But I think when it comes to being outward facing toward Republicans, they both see the need to be unified because if Pelosi is going to be successful, she needs Schumer to be able to sustain her positions in the Senate and vice versa.

So with all this in mind and taking stock of this day, what is the meaning of what happened here in the Capitol today? sort of very different looking, different sounding, energized majority of Democrats and Speaker Pelosi, sort of trying to reset the conversation a bit and reimagine what Congress can be about. After two years of having a Congress that never told the president no, always had his back, was always in lockstep with what he was doing. This was an attempt to kind of turn the page and say, we look different, we sound different, we are going to be different. But we're going to try to do it in a way that sounds unifying. So the substance of it is we're challenging President Trump. But the symbolism of it is a more unifying approach.

symbolism of it is a more unifying approach. And honestly, I'll be interested to see how long that lasts, because this is going to get messy really fast. And the shutdown is just sort of the first iteration of that. So I think it was about a fleeting moment of having a sort of a higher aspiration for Congress. And we'll see if that lasts. Thank you for spending the day with us, Julie. I really appreciate it. It was my pleasure. So the new wooden sign says, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

And it's a serious-looking chamber of offices. Late Thursday night, the new Democratic majority in the House voted to reopen the federal government without funding the border wall, as signs emerged that the Pelosi-Schumer strategy behind the vote of trying to drive a wedge between Trump and Senate Republicans was starting to work. Two Senate Republicans, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Susan Collins of Maine, broke with the president, saying it was time to end the shutdown, even if Democrats refused to sign off on $5 billion for the wall. Still, the shutdown is expected to continue unless more Republicans

embrace the Democrats' plan. Here's what else you need to know today. Okay. Raise your right hand and I'll gesture the other hand. Okay. Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic? The Senate was also sworn in on Thursday. Take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion,

and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which you are about to enter, so help you God. I do. Congratulations. On the other side of the Capitol from the House ceremony, the scene was more subdued, as Vice President Mike Pence swore in more than 30 senators,

10 of them newly elected in November's midterms. The new class gives Republicans a slightly larger majority in the Senate than they had previously held, with 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats. The Daily is produced by Theo Balcom, Lindsay Garrison, Rachel Quester, Annie Brown, Andy Mills, Ike Streis-Kamaraja, Claire Tennesketter, Michael Simon-Johnson, Jessica Chung, Alexandra Lee Young, and Jonathan Wolfe, and edited by Paige Cowan, Larissa Anderson, and Wendy Dorr. Lisa Tobin is our executive producer.

Samantha Hennig is our editorial director. Our technical manager is Brad Fisher. Our engineer is Chris Wood. And our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderland. Special thanks to Sam Dolmick, Michaela Bouchard, and Stella Tan.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.