Transcripts For CSPAN3 Jacob 20240706

Cspan now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live and on demand. Keep up with the days biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the u. S. Congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns, and more for the World Politics all at your fingertips. You can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for cspans tv networks and cspan radio, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. Cspan now is available at the apple store and google play. Download it for free today. Cspan now, your front row seat to washington, anytime, anywhere. A focus now on campaign 2024 with a familiar face with us at our desk, jacob rue baskin from inside elections. We are so in the latest right up by your colleague Nathan Gonzales on inside elections. Com, he writes this it is not too early to talk about the president ial battlefield because the underlying political dynamics do not often a shift dramatically in the months or year before the election. What is the underlying political dynamic of the president ial race right now . We have an incumbent democratic President Joe Biden with middling Approval Ratings seeking a second term, now officially having announced his reelection campaign. We have a divided Congress Facing a series of very important challenges over the next couple of weeks and certainly over the next 18 months. We have a former president in donald trump who is trying to come back into office having announced his bid for president even before the 2022 midterms. We know one side of the equation in president biden. We have a good idea the other side of the equation in donald trump. We know what the economy looks like. We know the historical trends associated with a president ial reelection bids over the last couple of decades. We have a pretty good idea of where things start out. We saw bidens rollout of his reelection this is the Biden Campaign ad that was put out this week. Too many people have been left behind and treated like they are invisible. Folks, my economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Its about making things here america again. Its about making the dignity of work. It is about time we are doing it. Joe biden is determined to reward hard work. That is why he passed historic laws that rebuild our roads and bridges, invest in our factories, and bring back american manufacturing. Over 12 million jobs have been created and joe biden is building an economy that leaves no city, no town, no american behind. We are investing in places and people that have been forgotten. They have been invisible. We have not forgotten. We are building an economy from the bottom up and the middle out or know what is going to be left behind. Joe biden, a president for all americans. I am joe biden and i approve this message. That was president bidens rollout added this week. How do you read that rolled out and the media reaction to the rollout this week . He does a couple of interesting things. In that ad, hell eons into the economy. This has been a major criticism of the Republican Party against biden and the democrats over the last two years. We saw the midterm environment being dominated by questions about cost of living and inflation. For biden to come out of the gate on offense on the economy signals that he is really interested in taking this issue head on as he approaches his reelection bid. He is not ceding any of that ground to whoever his opponent is. I think the other add touched more on the culture war issues. He went on offense on questions about book banning on the january 6th attack on the capital, things like that. It was an aggressive launch. It was, i would imagine, a response to a lot of the criticism that has been out there of the president about the lack of high profile nature of his administration. I think his white house has heard that. Even just by announcing their bid, they were put into rest a lot of the speculation about whether he would indeed run again, right . Hes the oldest person ever to serve as president. He would be 86 at the end of his second term. As long as he has been elected, there has been this persistent conversation undertone about, will he seek another term . Will he be a bridge candidate like he said during the election . What this launch did was say no, he is in it for another term . Its biden harris and all of the marketing. They want to put an end to all of that kind of stuff. The president ial race, one part of our focus in this 45 minutes with jacob rubashkin, it might be a little bit longer if you dont mind sticking around you can call in to talk about it. The other part of our conversation this morning is on the senate battlefield in 2024, the main senate races that will decide control of the Upper Chamber of that building behind me. Also, a new ad this week. 550 days away from election day, republicans, the National Republican Senatorial Committee targeting West Virginia democrat joe manchin. Here is that add. Joe manchin wrote bidens green energy bill, putting West Virginia jobs at risk and bragged about it. Do you regret voting for that massive spending bill . No, not at all. As far as the inflation reduction act, it will be the most transformative bill weve ever had. Then, his poll numbers tanked, so manchin is changing his tune. I would vote to repeal my own bill. Manchin stood with biden, not West Virginias. Tell joe manchin we wont forget. An ad from the National Republican Senatorial Committee targeting senator joe manchin, democrat of West Virginia. How important is this seat or every seat this cycle . When the chamber is evenly divided, every seat is very important. Democrats are sitting there with 50 seats. Republicans have 49 seats. Independent similar Kyrsten Sinema holds the final seat. She does not caucus with either party. Every single seat for republicans it is one seat closer to getting the majority back. These West Virginia see is probably the most important one. If they cant win this one, its unlikely they will win back the majority. West virginia is such a republican state. We see them really focusing on the state, really trying to get manchin to not even run to begin with. They recruited the popular incumbent governor to run against him. They are already starting to run tv ads against him. They are really signaling that this seat is their number one priority. It is their number one opportunity to help take back the senate next year. You make it very easy to try to get a sense of every race and every election. It is inside elections. Com where viewers can go. I want to show different aspects of the senate ratings. It is the battleground states. You can see the new battleground democratic seats here. There are eight seats in this election. If you go down to the battleground republican seats, there are no seats listed in the republican category. This is a campaign where democrats are very much going to be on the defensive. Thats exactly right. Democrats have had three good cycles when it comes to this class of senators, right . Starting in 2006, really even starting in 2000 which we dont consider a great year for democrats because they actually picked up seats in the senate. Starting in 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2018, all were good cycles for senate democrats, broadly speaking. What you ended up with was two thirds of the seats up for election the cycle being held by democrats. They are going to be playing a lot more defense than offense. Given the change in the Political Landscape over the last couple of years, its especially bad for them. They are defending quite a few seats in states that donald trump won in 2016 or 2020. The best way for determining how a state is going to vote for senate is how they vote for president. They are defending these seats in republican states like West Virginia, montana, ohio, and battleground states like michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania. They have very few pick up opportunities. The very to they have our texas and florida. They are the best democrat on the meager map. We just saw a republican senator in florida win reelection by 16 points, a republican governor in florida win reelection by 20 points. Texas is not a democratic state. Its not a state friendly to democrats. The fact that those are the best places that democrats have to look is really speaking to how difficult this cycle is for them when looking at offensive opportunities. Jacob rubashkin, happy to talk about any state you want. We could talk about house races as well. We can test his knowledge there. We are 550 days out from election day 2024. The phone lines again are open. Those are our standard political lines. This is jerry in new jersey, line for democrats. Good morning. Good morning. I have a couple of questions for you. Do you think that the press is going to be honest and fair and hold joe biden to questions. Im not talking about advanced questions that they write out for him and all. Im talking about questions that they give him. He has to answer on his own. Do you think they are going to have debates . Im really curious. Joe biden says no debates. Do you think they will debate . The other question is, i dont believe joe biden is really going to run. I think the question is coming out about his finances and his family. I think it is going to take him out. I think the democrats are going to have to get him out. As a democrat, what would you like to see if not joe biden . Actually, there is no democrat. Im not keen on any of them. They are all so radical. Who would you like to see iran . Who would you like to see when . [laughter] youre guess is as good as mine right now. Its really up for grabs. This is a republican side, hutchinson and haley and all of them. I dont believe they are running to be president. I think they are running to be Vice President eventually. Thats jerry in new jersey. The press and biden debate does biden make it for the next 550 days . Yeah, look, i think that barring any sort of major unforeseen issue biden will be the nominee for the democratic party. Incumbent president s dont lose their primaries when they are seeking reelection except in the one case that comes to mind, creating the modern primary era in 1968. I think that barring any sort of major unforeseen change biden will be the nominee. He is clearly intending to run. Hes putting together his campaign. It was made official. On that front, i think that is the outcome there. On the question of debates, i think this question oh primary debates look, it is a traditional thing for democrats or republicans when they are incumbent president s to entertain primary debates, right . Donald trump had several challenges in 2020, former Massachusetts Governor bill weld. Barack obama did not do primary debates in 2012. Bush didnt two primary debates in 2014. This is something that is not unexpected for biden. No, im not going to debate Marion Williamson or robert f. Kennedy junior, candidates that dont really have any shot of winning the nomination. I dont think we will see any sort of primary debates on the democratic side. I think it is an interesting question as to what the debates will look like for republicans. Front runner donald trump has made it clear that he is considering skipping the first or second primary debate there. If he doesnt get any blow back or suffer any repercussions for doing that, i think it is reasonable to expect that he might skip all of the primary debates. If he is the nominee, i think there is an open question as to whether he does the general election debates either. Debates are very much a topic of conversation. We got about 19 minutes into the segment before donald trump came up for the first time. On that topic, what is your read of ron desantis and his ability to contend against donald trump and what he is thinking right now in terms of actually getting into this race . Look, i think desantis is still in a position to be the primary challenger to trump in the republican primary. He is polling in a tear of his own. He has bad financial advantages with his left over funds from his gubernatorial run, about 70 million there. That does put him in a different position than your mike pence, nikki haley, its a hutchinson, and other potential president ial candidates. However, he is clearly not going in the right direction. There was a moment where he was rivaling trump in early voting states in National Polling. Over the last three months, we have seen a real precipitous decline. He has dropped to about 20 . What was it . Did the disney matter . Look, i think that there are any number of answers as to why desantis has struggled. I think the primary one is that he is not a candidate for president. Hes not running for president. Trump is running for president. Hes doing the things he needs to do to run. He is courting the endorsements. He gave desantis a real black eye by getting all of those members of the florida delegation to endorse him over there not just their own governor, their own popular governor who just won a landslide victory. He is setting up delegate operations in early states. Desantis, for whatever reason, has decided that he is really going to cede all campaigning to super pac until he officially announces his campaign over the summer. I think what we are seeing is that when you have one candidate who is out there on the trail doing the work and one candidate who is not punching back, trying to keep more to themselves, you are going to see a mismatch. That is showing up in the polling. We are getting to the point where we were talking about questions of inevitability. Is trump the inevitable nominee . Thats not a good place for desantis to be. It can snowball very quickly. All of a sudden, you start to argue rick perry in 2016 . Are you scott walker in 2016 . You are not the guy whos going to win the nomination but the guy who flames out early. This is tony in arizona, an independent. Good morning. Thanks very much. You both are great. Two quick questions, is this inevitable that two incumbents run that is going to be trump against biden . The second thing, if the election were held today, i know its not, we would win that . Thank you. Who wins today . [laughter] if the election is held today, its very, very close. That is what the National Poll and suggests depending on who you look at. You will either see a tight race or biden with a very narrow edge. I think the battleground polling in states like georgia and michigan and wisconsin, arizona would suggest that biden maybe has the slightest advantage. The reality is that these are two very unpopular political figures. Joe biden remains unpopular. Trump remains unpopular among the electorate. When you have that situation, you are probably a going to get a close result. As john has been saying, we have 550 days. Have i said it too much . No, its good. Its good to have the reminder. We are still quite a ways away. There is quite a bit of campaign left to happen, all the campaign left to happen. I think from now, it will be close. I think it will be close throughout. To your question about inevitability, look, i dont think anything is inevitable in politics. You have seen far crazier things happen. Think about where we were in may of 2019 versus where we were sitting by ourselves in isolation. Remind us where we were. We were all hanging out together. We were not wearing masks. We were not talking about vaccines. It was a very different world. You could fly internationally. As opposed to 2020 when we were all in our pause. Things can change very quickly. Look, i think that trump is clearly the favorite to win the nomination. Biden is clearly the favorite to be the democratic nominee. Despite so much of the country saying, well, i dont really know how i feel about a biden sharp rematch, it looks like the most likely outcome at this point. We were just talking about republicans in florida. Lets go to a republican in florida, pensacola, dennis. Good morning. Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Yeah, i just want to know what the guest thinks about the reasoning why they are trying to all the cover ups and scandals and all of that. All of the attacks would be endless. I mean, i like desantis. He is our governor. I am not a big fan of Donald Trumps his demeanor. I am all for his policies. I am all about making America Great again. Can i dont know why the media is trying to turn that into a such a derogatory statement. We cant be a great power if we cant be great again. We have been in decline for years. Obama started all of that. Im not races at all but they try to paint the Republican Party as racist. That is just not something that is true. Was there a time in 2016 to 2020 that america felt like was great again . Satan again . Im sorry, say that again . Was there a time from 2016 to 2020 when you felt like america was great again . Absolutely, absolutely. We were on top of the world. Everyone was afraid of us. Donald trump, he did not show his cards. Hes a business guy. I get that. You cant show your cards. You cant solve everybodys problems. We are creating more problems for ourselves talking about other peoples problems. We are not helping the american people. We are basically going into decline. This country has become a joke from a political standpoint. That was his original question to you, the media and joe biden. I think there are things about their about biden, they will come out at the moment. Theres innuendo that various members of the Republican Party and congress have been talking about lately. Weve been hearing for a very long time since republicans took back control of the house of representatives and to control of the Oversight Committee that there was going to be this investigation into biden, into his family, into the financial dealings. If there are things theyre, they will come out. There does not seem to be anything more than any window and speculation. Look, i think that we have seen in the media report critically on biden and democrats before, on the withdrawal from afghanistan, on issues about inflation. I think no democrat out there would tell you that over the last year or so the media has been fair to their guy either. Look, if there are things about biden, they will come out. We have 550 days. We have 550 days, exactly. If you think back to the quote on quote october surprises, stories can come out very late in the game that damage candidates, right . It was the comey letter nine days before Hillary Clintons loss in the 2016 election which really upended that race. Even the press conference came that summer, a year later in the cycle from where we are at right now if you think about the entire covid19 pandemic. All of that took place in 2020, further along in the cycle than we are now. There is a lot more reporting left to be done. Theres a lot more information left. Can you pull the curtain back on the recording on what you have seen . How much of these issues that come out our Opposition Research by the other side dropping in a reporters left . Is that a lot of what happens on the campaign trail . Is it mostly reporters doing this on their own . What is your sense of how much of this stuff is just really good Opposition Research that these campaigns then funnel through the media to try to get out there. I think every reporter operates differently. Everyone and every campaign has its own dynamic. Obviously, campaigns spend a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of effort on Opposition Research. This is one of the fundamental pillars of modernday campaigning, digging into your cup opponent, finding the damaging or salacious material and trying to get it out there. Having the truckers 24 7. Exactly. Campaigns with more resources, certainly Party Committees and outside groups, spend an enormous amount of money literally attaching young people with cameras to their opponents to follow them around and record to try to catch even the slightest slip up or piece of material that can be used in a campaign ad down the line. Look, i think that certainly happens. The colonel of a lot of these stories that we see it come out originates with some sort of Opposition Research. What is important to remember, and thats not always the case, i know this personally and i know a lot of reporters who spent a lot of time just going and looking, digging through the Campaign Finance reports, digging through the advertising spending reports. I spend more time than i would care to admit any federal Communications Commission public vile just looking for things that dont seem quite right. It is a solid mix. Something to remember there is that as reporters we have a responsibility first and foremost to the truth. It doesnt matter what anyone calls us up and says. You should really look into this guy spending or this guys account for this or that. Thats just the beginning of the process, right . It is days, months, weeks, however long it takes to fully excavate and understand if this is a story. Is this true . Is this as damaging as the other side is trying to spin it . Its been widely accepted for the last hundred years. There are three dozen steps in the process after that first, hey, you should look out for this, they intervene before you get to a published story. Good reporters, reporters who care about their work and their craft, are going to be taking every step and precaution to make sure that no matter what they write, no matter where it began, it is true and thoughtful and comprehensive. That was a nice defense of the campaign reporter. I am sure they will appreciate that. Abby in washington, d. C. Is next. Hi, good morning. Its great to see jacob on. He does great work at inside elections. I want to ask about the president ial race in the context of recent, i guess, news regarding congress. I think you mentioned joe biden would be 86 years old by the end of his term. Lately, theres been a lot of scuttlebutt about Dianne Feinstein and her ability to complete her duties in congress. I wonder if you think that that means there will be more conversations about bidens age or if you think they are separate. He doesnt have the kind of current acute Health Crisis that feinstein has. Bringing viewers up to speed on feinstein California Democratic senator diane feinstein, as abby was saying, is the senior senator from california. Shes one of the older members of the United States senate. Shes been out of it for the last couple of months as she recovers from a case of shingles. They are been consistent questions about the state of for Cognitive Health and her ability to continue doing her job a senator. There have been several members of congress who have called on her to resign her post and allow governor gavin newsom of california to appoint a replacement. I think its a good point about the larger question of age in volatility. This is one that is clearly on a lot of minds when you ask voters why they dont want joe biden to be president again. They invariably will bring up his age as one of the major reasons. I do think that specifically to senator feinstein the number of people who are tracking her progress, tracking the judicial confirmations which are moving or not moving because she is absent from her spot on the Judiciary Committee is a far smaller slice of the population that the people who are aware of and care about joe bidens age. Finally, to your last point, we are seeing the same kind of acute questions about joe biden that we are about senator feinstein. I think there are a number of significant differences between the two cases. Overall, yes, we are seeing as people live longer, as members of Congress Stay in office longer, we are seeing an increased focus on the question of aging politics. Tony, independent, and new york. Youre on with jacob rubashkin. Good morning i follow cspan just about every day. Its great without any fast food ads and all this other stuff. I got a question and possibilities. We have such a long time before the election. Im going to throw two names out there that i would support on the spot. I think its all about integrity. We need a brandnew cast of characters here. I think liz cheney as president and Amy Klobuchar as her running mate, as a Vice President , what do you think about the possibility of that happening since we have so much time left . I think these two ladies would have a tremendous following from the silent majority. I think they would strain now everything we are dealing with in this country. I think the worldview i really think it would be great for the international community. I think this would be a strong match. They are just good people. Lets talk about it. Yeah, those are two women, both of whom have either expressed interest or running they actually have ran for president. Running for the democratic nomination in 2020, being initially on the list of potential Vice President ial nominees along with now president biden. This clearly is something that both of them have considered,. Liz cheney talks a lot about if she will run for president either as a republican in the primary or as an independent potentially. Look, i think the problem with these kinds of unity tickets is just wondering who the constituency is, right . Is there a Critical Mass of people who will overlook such distinctions in political ideology to go for an independent ticket which is comprised of such disparate elements . We sometimes forget what liz cheney was quite a conservative member of congress before she became the number one antagonist in the Republican Party of then president trump. She was on track to be the first republican woman to be speaker of the house one day. Thats what people were saying about her. We now think of her as this hero to the left in many ways because of the ways that she stirred up trump. Voters ultimately care about a lot more issues than just questions about donald trump, questions about the integrity of democracy and the assault on the capitol on january 6th and trumps attempts to overthrow that election. I think they go on about that. They also care about the many bread and butter issues where someone like senator klobuchar and congresswoman cheney diverge based on their political affiliations. I think there are a lot of people in this town who will get excited by the prospect of that. I do think that it is an open question as to just how many people when push comes to shove would pull that lever for that kind of unity ticket knowing especially all of the constraints on third parties in the american political system that we have. Biden for republicans. You are on with jacob rubashkin. Good morning. This is my monthly call. I hope i can make my points. First of all, the caller who called in about the Republican Party ive been our public in my entire life. The reason it appears racist sometimes is because of who gets in the news and who supports, the proud boys and all of these other things. I dont believe that they are racist. The second theory is he played an ad about the senator running. He said he would repeal his own bill. That was taken out of context. What is actual comments were is joe biden did not follow through. For the guest, i also like liz cheney. She was a true staunch conservative and showed that she had the wherewithal to stand up to donald trump. Gregory, you are a republican who also likes joe manchin . Is that fair . No, i just i am not a fox guy. I try to look at all of it. I did hear joe manchin to, all of his comments. I want to point out that you are taking his comments and portraying them incorrectly. For the guest, i really would like to know how he feels about tim scott and these other races. Are they a detriment . Does he feel. Like they are going to add anything or bring out issues . I will take my answer off at the end. We will take the question. Its a good question about some of these other candidates in the republican primary. Senator tim scott of south carolina, i think his candidacy is really interesting. He is one of the most back to republicans in the country. He is coming in with probably second to ron desantis. He has the strongest Financial Base of any potential candidate here. He has stockpiled more than 20 million in campaign cash. He can repurpose it to his president ial run as soon as he makes that official. Hes in this quasiofficial stage right now exploring a president ial run. We expect him to announce it within a couple of weeks. Look, he has a different focus than a lot of the other members of the party. His vision is a lot more optimistic in many ways, talking about his own story and the story of his family in america. President trump likes to talk a lot about the negatives and paint a very bleak picture of the country. He has a more sunny disposition. I think that more sunny contrast will be look, i think every candidate brings something a little bit different to this republican primary. When you have a figure as dominant as trump, its just a question of whether they can get that measured on, whether they can carve a lane for themselves, whether they have the former president who has a major force in the conversation. On political ads, comments out of context and political ads, is that light being a shock that there is gambling in this country . It is an unfortunate system that politicians and Campaign Committees and the people who do this for a living are going to go as far as they can to stretch the truth to serve their own needs. All i would say there is, you know, everybody has google. Everybody has the ability to do with a very basic background research. If you are kind of familiar, when someone makes a Statement Like that in an ad, they say, oh, joe manchin voted against this. Ted cruz voted for this. They have to include a citation. Its usually a small kind of faint font on the bottom of the screen. They will have a congressional record citation. It was actually this vote or it was from this newspaper clipping. You can plug it into google. You could find actual source material. Its not uncommon for me. You asked about the process of reporting. Wow, this is really insane. I cant believe this person did it. They go back to basics and find out, oh, this actually was a very different kind of situation. The one that comes to mind immediately is there was an Alabama Senate republican primary last year. There was a runoff between a guy and katie boyd brit was attacked on abortion, saying that she voted to provide abortion on demand to students at the university of alabama. I said, wow, she was the chief of staff to senator richard shelby. She is pro life. Shes made that a big part of her campaign. How did everyone miss this . I looked at the citation and there was a citation from the university of alabama Student Newspaper from over a decade ago. I went and i saw the article. It turns out it was about a Student Council vote when she was president. She didnt actually vote on it. There was a school of thought within the Student Community which potentially she had some sort of arcane power to try to stall or stop a resolution that would have providing plan b in the student pharmacies. That very convoluted, nuanced process became Katie Boyd Britt allowed on to its more in that 32nd campaign ad. It goes to show you that sometimes it is a little bit more complex than it is made out to be. She is senator brit now. She is now senator brit. The i didnt work. Good morning, baltimore, maryland. I would like to ask [inaudible] Artificial Intelligence in the coming election. Will it have an influence . What influence could it potentially have on the outcome . Thank you. This is an excellent question. A. I. Is all the rage these days. We have seen an intense amount of Media Attention about it, notably the Republican National committee, their first ad, their first web video attacking joe biden after he announced an entirely a. I. Generated advertisements. They were public about it. All of the images, they were generated holi by a. I. This set off a real conversation within the Political Community. It includes most of the Major Political consultant in this country, the people who make the ads, do the polling, do the mailers. They put out a statement and they said they reject this. Its entirely inappropriate. We will not consider this for recognitions or awards, anything that is created during a. I. Technology. It does not matter if you say upfront that you are using a. I. Its something that worries us. We are starting to see pushback. Its going to make that more volatile. We now have the technology to create not just visual but audio replicas of public figures. It will just make it much more incumbent on both the news media and the average news consumer to understand what to look for to verify whether what you are seeing or what you are hearing is legitimate, is real, is something that actually happened, or if its something which was generated by an algorithm. Its going to make things much more difficult. I would not be surprised if we see people trying to stir things up by a malicious use of a. I. Here is a real story from the hill newspaper from wednesday. Congresswoman Yvette Clarke of new york, democrat, introduced a bill that would require political groups or campaigns to disclose the use of content created by Artificial Intelligence and political last. The upcoming 2024 election cycle will be the first time in u. S. History where a. I. Generated content will be used in political ads by campaigns, parties, and super pacs. Unfortunately, our current laws have not kept pace with the Rapid Development of Artificial Intelligence. If a i generated content can manipulate and see if on a large scale, it can have a devastating consequence on a National Security and election security. The bill would update federal Campaign Finance laws to include requirements for disclosure and it comes in the wake of the ad that you just mentioned. Look, this is a real pressing issue. Its on the minds of a lot of members of not just a Political Community but members of congress themselves. This is something that everyone is very concerned about. Look, i would say, weve had photoshopped for quite some time, right . I think we dont give ourselves enough credit for being able to discern what is real from what is fake. It is really about understanding that responsibility both cheney and. I dont know if that is a Winning Ticket or not but at least whoever runs for president , they should be honest. Now, my other deal is i think to qualify to run for president , you should be a veteran. Because well, when trump believed in putin more than he believed in his own military intelligence, there is something wrong there. Now, my other deal. Let me stop you there because we are running short on time. You have to be a veteran to be president of the United States. I dont think its you have to have met a certain residency requirement in terms of how long before you rarely have lived in the United States. Undercurrent interpretation, the Supreme Court has basically said when it comes to all federal offices what is in the constitution is binding. Its the only thing that anyone is allowed to use to determine whether someone is eligible for office or not. We have seen members of congress attempted to disqualify them because of criminal convictions, for instance, the famous case of powell versus mccormack. You cant expel a member who has been duly elected just because he was convicted of a crime because that is adding an additional requirement that the constitution doesnt state. The constitution does not say you have to be free of conviction in order to be a member of congress. Therefore, congress cant add that requirement. I think the only way to go about that kind of rule would be a constitutional amendment. There is a process for that. In this day and age, i think it is highly unlikely especially with the number of veterans in society on a downward swing as we move further and further away from the wars of the 20th century and to this overall military that we have had for quite some time now. Last call, louisville, kentucky. Good morning. You are on with jacob rubashkin. Good morning. I know your short on time. I will make this very quick. That cheney klobuchar ticket, that is something i think i could support. I think i would go for klobuchar cheney. Im going to give you one more offer now, one more possibility. I dont know if they can run together because its from the same state, but nikki haley and nancy mace. Nancy has endorsed nikki for her candidacy. I just think its time for a woman president. They both bring the funny. I think thats very important for a president to be able to bring the funny. Joe biden brings the funny. I just think thats important. Anyway, that is my comment. I would like to hear your comments. The importance of being able to bring humor to an election. Look, i think you asked about what Rhonda Sanchez has been struggling with over the last couple of months. One of the things that hes not a particularly funny person. He is running against or going to run against someone who and arnold trump can be quite funny, who is a natural entertainer who got his start in many ways in show business as the host of the apprentice in the wwe. This is a man who knows how to control the crowd, knows how to be on stage as opposed to desantis who has struggled at many point in his career to present that kind of image. We saw those images from his overseas trip where he was very taken aback and flustered by a lot of questions he was getting about his standing in the polls. I do think that charisma, humor are incredibly important. I think we should not under account the importance of joe bidens persona as Vice President in his rise as the president ial nominee in 2020. Muscle car driving, aviator wearing carrier that he leaned into. Hes a little older. Hes an older white man in a party that is increasingly diverse. I think that he really leaned into that charisma that he had as well. But it is incredibly important as something that i think desantis is learning the hard way. Look, maybe i discounted the appeal of a liz cheney Amy Klobuchar ticket. Three calls today i would say to miless point, this question, well, should it be cheney klobucharable which are cheney . The president is a lot more powerful than the Vice President. Depending on who you actually want setting policy directives, it could make quite a difference whether it is liz cheney in the oval office or Amy Klobuchar. I think that is the crucial question to any of these kind of unity tickets. A less crucial question, inside elections. Com, jacob rubashkin, reporter and analyst. We will have youetime between now and the next 500 days. All right. Hes being hands to your front row seat to the First National election. Watch for coverage of the candidates on the campaign trail, with announcements. Meeting greek, and advance. To make up your own mind. Campaign 2024, on cspan networks. Cspan now. Anytime online, cspan. Org. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. This afternoon, fbi director, christopher wray, and dea administrator, testified that Budget Hearing but a number of Law Enforcement issues. Live at 2 30 pm eastern