One of the biggest-ever classes of new lawmakers joined the Pa. legislature this year. Spotlight PA followed 3 of them as they navigated a freshman year full of power struggle and scandal.
different priorities. >> for democrats, first time not had a pelosi or gephart. i think for tonight, that group will be challenged to come up with ideas also. the president will lay his out and be challenged with good stuff. >> mr. president at the podium receiving last round of applause, he typically speaks for about an hour, we expect he will do that this evening. there is interesting moment, kevin mccarthy waited a long time for that moment and the speech was just handed over to him as president biden gets ready to speak. the two of them met to discuss the possibility of reigning in spending, see if we hear about that tonight. >> house speaker says he will not rip up speeches and will not do anything, he will honor president biden. >> president of the united states. >> here is president joe biden
and the east in donbas, and kharkiv, kherson, it is continuing to slow down from what it was in the fall, just because of weather, it is rainy, it's cold, it's muddy, they can't really move around, so there is a tremendous slowness. and the ukrainians are pushing as quickly, or as dramatically as they have been. russians are forming an alliance in the east and south. so it is hard for ukrainians to get down there. just last night the russians launched a huge barrage against kyiv yet again with ukraine, with drones, a lot are shut down but ukrainians can't shoot down everything. and this is where ukraine is begging for more air gens -- air defenses for months. and it would make a big difference, with german gephart, with defending the waves of
strong lean of strategic blunders by the president of the russian federation. this only decelerates the departure of his commerce looking for alternative sources and thanks. so he was only hurting himself in the long run. as far as germany goes, obviously, this is important. i live in frankfort. so i'm aware of the debates going on inside the coalition government of germany. they've made the decision to do this. the gephart represents a very good capability against helicopters and drones, affect, to be used in a ground support role as well. you are right, it looks like a tank, because this touurd is mot on the tank. this is a very good capability ukrainians can use for this fight. >> general hodges, thank you for your time. we will continue to have your opinion in the days and weeks ahead. up next, we turn to politics and their try-again moment,
younger than they are right now, but just striking to me to see how far removed they are, yet he's at the pinnacle right now. >> yeah, absolutely. to be fair, gephart is still in washington. he said the same thing as the others did, which is from a distance, because neither of them have -- none of them have talked to biden recently, it's very clear to them why he's doing what he's doing. they're all focussed on covid relief still and every single one of them brought up the infrastructure package, but it's interesting. gary hart kept saying, listen, i'm retired in deep colorado. i don't know the day to day. and dukakis said to me, he retired as well when we spoke. listen, i'm focussed on infrastructure. i understand what's happening with mitch mcconnell. i'm not doing the day to day of this right now. joe biden was in his third term in the senate when he ran for president in 1987 and again that was 34 years ago. so, he's been deep in this for a very long time and it's easy to forget that sometimes. >> i also love to an extent they
three of the most heavily taxed states. 14 in california, 9 in new york and 5 in new jersey. why would they vote for that, art? >> they may not if that's the only thing they're considering. if they're considering prosperity in the country i think they'll vote for this bill in spite of that from these people specifically. but if i were in those states getting rid of the amt will save these people in those states a lot of money as well. so it's a deduction as well as getting rid of the amt that you have to put together and make it as one item. that may be very beneficial to new yorkers, californians and people from new jersey. look at them both together. >> bill: how many democrats voted for the reagan tax cuts in 1980. >> shannon: 86 in the senate the vote was 97-3. except for paul simon. >> bill: why was that? why was it so overwhelmingly in favor, then? >> it's the right thing to do. they learned their lesson in the 84 race. we won the election in 84. winning 49 out of 50 states and all the democrats decided after that that they would work with reagan and they did work with reagan. they were brilliant, they were wonderful. gephart, kasten combined to be the 86 tax act. we dropped the highest rate
interesting there, we'll see how that comes out with my name. that might be a tough one. the faa is trying to track down whoever is shining lasers into their planes and cockpits. four flights reported being targeted last night in new york and new jersey. it's a federal crime to point a laser at a plane and it's been happening a lot lately. last week at least 11 pilots reported having lasers shined at their planes. tom blank is the former head of tsa security policy. he's now the executive vice president of gephart government affairs. according to the faa, laser incidents have been steadily growing since 2010 and already there have been more than 2700 this year alone. just how dangerous are these lasers to flight ops? >> it's really a very dangerous situation. and in fact they have been growing really since 9/11 which is when tsa began tracking them not only as safety violations but as security problems. so the agency tsa views them
gephart and clinton strategy. i'm not sure they know where they want to come down. >> she has the benefit of not being in the middle of the fight. >> she's not going to be able to avoid it much longer. >> it's going to move through congress. senate is expected to take up the bill next week. the house is anxious to move on it as well. so we will have several weeks now where it's going to be in the mix. she may be pressed to the point she has to come down on one side or another. that's -- you know they are experts, our presidential candidates in avoiding being absolutely cornered. she could avoid it. for a little while longer. it is a legitimate fight inside that party. i think it's interesting what reid is trying to do couple the trade bill with the transportation bill.
to help keep it a big secret. martha: the little girl clapping in the background. yeah, this is a good show. new reports that the federal aviation administration may reverse a ban on electronic devices that would make flying a whole lot more enjoyable, folks. those announcements please shut down your cell phones, turn off your ipods could soon become a thing of the past. skopscott brenner shows me now, he is with the firm gephart government affairs. good to have you here. is it a myth or not that these devices, our phones and everything else could interfere with what is going on in the cockpit? >> you know, everything to date has been basically just antidotal evidence. i don't think the faa has done any thorough testing to show the emissions and how they affect aircraft navigation. i think the faa high school a pretty good idea of going about it. what they are not doing, smart phones, anything that emits a