Speaker Johnson, Sen. McConnell Meet Biden at White House to Discuss Looming Government Shutdown

Good evening and welcome to the Capitol Report on Entity Television. I'm Steve Lance. Here's a look at what's coming up. The big four congressional leaders meeting with President Biden today at the White House. But there's no clear path to an agreement on government funding. And House Republicans have subpoenaed the Justice Department for recordings of President Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Kerr. What they're trying to find out and how Biden's latest response to age concerns sparking new controversy. In Georgia, Judge Scott McAfee ordering a witness back on the stand to tell what he knows about the romantic relationship between D.A. Fannie Willis and her top prosecutor Nathan Wade. Find out what he said and how it will impact the case. The big four congressional leaders meeting with President Biden at the White House earlier today to discuss funding the government. Speaker Mike Johnson describing the meeting as honest and in good faith. But four days before a partial government shutdown looms, there's still no clear path to an agreement. Our Washington correspondent Luis Martinez has the story. Thanks for all being here. Look, I want to thank the leaders for being here today. We've got a lot of work to do. We've got to figure out how we're going to keep funding the government, which is an important problem, an important solution we need to find. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has a crucial decision to make in the coming days in order to avoid a government shutdown. The speaker can look for support of House Democrats in order to approve the first four appropriation bills, or he could close ranks with House Republicans in order to hold out and achieve their policy objectives. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer emphasized Tuesday that Democrats do not want a government shutdown. That we made it so clear that we can't have the shutdown because it hurts so many people in so many different ways, even for a short period of time, was very apparent in the room, and the speaker did not reject that. And Senate Republicans share their counterparts' frustration. This is why I voted against the last CR. They've just been kicking this can down the road. I can't believe that they didn't get work done over the weekend. They've had months to do this stuff. I mean, my patience has run out. Senator Rick Scott from Florida laid out a third option for the speaker. The only way out of this is a CR through the end of the year and then start the budget process for next year. There have been six government shutdowns since 1990. The last one was in December of 2018, and it lasted for 35 days. The impasse then was over funding for the border wall, a policy objective Republicans had to abandon in order to get government funded. Congressman Byron Donalds, a House Freedom Caucus member, has expressed that he will not vote for further government funding until the border is secure, other members have demanded tighter constraints over food stamp beneficiaries and FBI and IRS spending. On Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson summarized his objectives to the president and congressional leadership at the White House. Let me say this. When I showed up today, my purpose was to express what I believe is the obvious truth, and that is that we must take care of America's needs first. Congress has until this Friday to approve the first four appropriation bills. The remaining eight are due on March 8th. And if all fails, on April 30th, the Fiscal Responsibility Act would come into effect, cutting government spending 1% across the board. Reporting from Washington, D.C., Eduardo Martinez, NTD News. Amid concerns about President Biden's memory, House Republicans now using subpoena power to demand details about the special counsel's probe into the president. Biden again joking about his age, sparking new controversy. NTD's Iris Tao has more from the White House. After complaining that the Justice Department was too slow in responding to an earlier request, House Republicans on Tuesday subpoenaed the transcript and any related recordings of special counsel Robert Hurst's interview with President Biden last year. Republicans leading the impeachment inquiry into Biden say they want to find out first whether any classified documents that President Biden may have retained are actually related to the countries that his family was allegedly dealing business with. And also, they say they want to see if the Justice Department was treating Biden and Trump even handily. In addition, Republicans say they want the American public to have access to the recordings that made special counsel Robert Hurst write in his report that President Biden had a, quote, poor memory. And President Biden on Monday again tried to push back against concerns about his age, saying this on NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers. Biden was referring to Trump's speech at CPAC last weekend when Trump said this. I call up my wife, our great first lady. She was a great friend. People love her. People love her. Oh, look at that. Wow. Mercedes, that's pretty good. But while Biden and the NBC host both noted... Mercedes? And you can't remember your wife's name? Trump was, in fact, apparently referring to CPAC host Mercedes Schlapp, who was sitting right in front of him. And I want to thank Matt and Mercedes Schlapp, two great people, along with the entire staff. As Republicans continue to demand more details about the special counsel's report, they are seeking to keep the question about President Biden's memory in the spotlight. In just three weeks, special counsel Robert Hurst is set to testify before lawmakers. And as part of Republicans' impeachment inquiry into Biden, Hunter Biden will also testify in a closed-door deposition on this Wednesday. Reporting from the White House, I'm Iris Hao. And T.D. News. Americans from around the country reacting to the murder of Georgia student Lakin Riley, the alleged killer and illegal immigrant. Joining me now to discuss this tragic event is Congressman Buddy Carter of Georgia. Congressman Buddy Carter, thank you so much for joining. Thank you for having me. Congressman, you posted on X that Joe Biden, Alejandro Mayorkas, and this negligent and damaging White House are directly responsible for the death of Lakin Riley. The suspect in her murder is reportedly an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, Jose Antonio Ibarra, who was reportedly arrested for child endangerment in New York. Have you spoken with the Riley family, and do you think this tragedy will sensitize senators who will hold an impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas next week? Well, first of all, I have exchanged texts with the father of Lakin Riley. And as you can imagine, the family is very shaken by this. I can only imagine the grief that they feel at this point. Her father was quick to let me know that her mother is taking this especially hard. Evidently, she and her mother were very, very close. And our thoughts and prayers are with that family. But this is true. This should have never happened. This could have been avoided. Lakin Riley did not deserve this. And certainly if the administration, if this administration, had done their job, then we would not be in this situation today, and Lakin Riley would still be alive. And what a great person. Everything that we've learned about her. Just an outstanding young lady who was studying to be a nurse, to help people. But because of the policies of this administration and their ignoring the situation at the southern border, this animal was able to commit this violent act. And even after he had been arrested in New York City, but not detained in child endangerment, he was still released. And keep in mind now, New York City is a sanctuary city, as is Athens, Georgia. So this should give us an indication of just how bad this situation is. Every state, every city is a border state, is a border city. And yes, the Senate should take up the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, because he has failed. He has failed the American people. He's failed in his position. Congressman, it truly is a tragedy, and it makes it, I think, sting even more when you really look at the policies at the border and think about if this could have been avoided. The Associated Press reported that the suspect in Lakin Riley's murder was an Athens resident, not an illegal immigrant, and sort of framed the story around female runners. Politico's headline reported, quote, Republicans call for immigration crackdown after college students' death. End quote. CNN reporting the murder suspect was an undocumented Venezuelan migrant and that there was little evidence of a link between immigration and crime. What are your thoughts on the media's coverage of Riley's murder and the suspected killer? Again, this should have never happened. But don't think it's just this one isolated incident. Yesterday I was at an exchange club meeting in Savannah, Georgia. I had a father come up to me who told me that on Sunday afternoon, his daughter, 13 weeks pregnant, was rear-ended by an illegal immigrant who was drunk and had an open container in the car. And in total, both cars. Thank God the girl is OK. But immediately after it happened, he was knocking on the windshield saying no license, no police, no license. That's in Savannah. So this is an awful situation related to Riley, but it's not the only situation. Congressman, I have to switch gears here a little bit and get your thoughts on the looming potential of a government shutdown at the end of the week. Pressure is on House Republicans, who currently have the majority. What needs to happen, in your opinion, to avoid a shutdown? Well, obviously the Senate has got to negotiate, and we've got to get to a mutual understanding. I'm confident that we're going to be able to get the four bills done this week that have to be done by Friday. Next week's going to be more of a heavy lift and more of a challenge. But I am very confident from everything that I'm hearing, progress has been made. There are a few holdups right now, but again, I'm very confident we can get this done. Look, no one wants to see – I shouldn't say no one, but I don't want to see a government shutdown, and a lot of people don't want to see that. However, that's not the worst thing that could happen. The worst thing that could happen would be for us to continue this reckless spending that has led to $34 trillion in debt in this country. That would be the worst thing that could happen. Congressman Buddy Carter, as always, really appreciate you joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Terrence Bradley, former divorce attorney and friend to Georgia top prosecutor Nathan Wade, returned to the stand today. He gave more testimony about his knowledge of the relationship between D.A. Fannie Willis and Wade. We turn now to our legal correspondent Arlene Richards for the details. Arlene, good evening. What else did Mr. Bradley reveal today, and does this new testimony have any impact on his disqualification allegations against D.A. Willis and Mr. Wade? Well, just to give a little bit of a background, Terrence Bradley was on the stand twice last week, but he said that any testimony he had about the relationship was protected by the attorney-client privilege because he had represented Nathan Wade as his divorce attorney. But the judge spoke to Terrence Bradley and his attorney yesterday in a private meeting, and the judge determined that any conversations he had with Nathan Wade about his relationship with Fannie Willis was not protected by the attorney-client privilege. And that's why he was back on the stand today. Now, he was a very reluctant witness. He doesn't want to be there. He doesn't want to testify. He made that clear. But he eventually confirmed that the relationship began before November 1st, 2021. And this is important because the defense is trying to establish that Fannie Willis hired Nathan Wade in November 2021 while they were in a relationship. And this goes toward their ultimate thing that they have to show is that there is a conflict of interest. Now, it's not clear whether or not this judge will rule that there is a conflict of interest because they still have to prove that she financially benefited from it, and that's a harder thing to prove in this case. But this Friday, they're going to have closing arguments, and the judge will make his final decision likely next week as to whether or not to disqualify these two. Now, even if the judge doesn't disqualify them, there are some ethical issues that have been raised. This testimony today is contradictory to their testimony that their relationship started in 2022. So even if they don't get disqualified, which, you know, I would be surprised if they don't, but if they don't, then there will still be some ethical issues they may have to face. And I think it probably would be best for them to just step down. Steve? Arlene, thank you for that report. And coming up, the Michigan primary taking place this evening, and President Biden is facing a round of uncommitted voters from his own base over his support for Israel. How will the backlash impact the primary's results? And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now qualified to appear on the ballot in Georgia and Arizona. This says a political action committee is working to secure his spot in several other states. That and more when we return. Experience arts of history. Inspired by the divine. Experience Shen Yun. There's always a searching process for beauty. You know it when you see it. If you're watching this, I didn't make it. Thanks to people like you and the American Heart Association, my family never had to see this video. I was a healthy 47-year-old. No symptoms. But then my doctor discovered I had a bad heart valve that was beyond repair. The scariest day of my life was when I was sitting on a gurney as I looked and my wife was at my side. And my kids had me surrounded. Deep down you know, this could be it. This could be all there is. Not having him around for Riley to grow up with and have that pop-off figure in his life, that would have been hard. This little heart valve did something really big. It saved my life. I wouldn't be here today without it. The research for this heart valve was funded by the American Heart Association. And that's why I'm asking you to become a monthly donor for just $19 a month. When you do, you'll help fund the next medical breakthrough that could save your life or the life of someone you love. You'll also provide life-saving CPR training and help certify hospitals to give the best care to those who have had a heart attack or stroke. When you give $19 a month, we'll send you a t-shirt just like this one. From the moment you put it on, you'll help raise awareness for heart disease and stroke. Since my surgery, I had a son get married. I had a daughter graduate high school. I had another daughter give birth to a precious boy. I would have missed all that. And that's why it's personal for me. We're very thankful for everyone who is a donor because it gives us more time. Every 40 seconds, someone has a heart attack. The next person you help save could be someone you love or even you. Become a monthly donor today by calling or going to helpheart.org because it's personal. Welcome back to the Capitol Report. I'm Steve Lance. Voters today heading to the polls for the 2024 Michigan primary. There's a lot at stake for President Biden as a large number of progressive Democrats have vowed to vote uncommitted in the Democratic primary over his handling of the war in Gaza. The push for an uncommitted vote started in early February. It's received support from some officials, including Democrat Representative Rashida Tlaib. Michigan is home to more than 300,000 Arab-American Muslim voters, most of them rallying behind President Biden in 2020. Despite ongoing protest against the president's handling of the Israel-Hamas war, Biden is still expected to win the Michigan primary by a large margin. But a significant number of uncommitted votes could be an early warning for his campaign. The Michigan primary is the last major contest before Super Tuesday on March 5th. Another large voting bloc in Midwestern states, like Michigan, are the union workers, union leaders leaning Democratic. But how do their members feel? Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, joins us to assess. Mark Mix, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thanks. We're excited to have you, Mark. But we're going to talk about Americans' attitudes toward unions. The approval of attitudes appears, according to a Gallup poll, appears to be favorable. Sixty-one percent of those surveyed say that unions help the United States economy. However, union membership has been at a steady decline. Why is that? Where's the schism? Yeah, no, it's an interesting question and one that is important. You know, Gallup does a poll every year, probably in the summer, about favorability of unions. And they have reached an apex. I mean, I think two years ago it was 71 percent. But no one reports on the second question, Steve, and that is, how interested are you in joining a union? You may have a favorable opinion, but only 11 percent of the workers surveyed by that same Gallup poll that showed 71 percent approval said they had any interest at all in joining a union. And a large majority said, you know what, we don't think it's necessary anymore. Because here's what's happened. Employers have gotten a lot more sophisticated with the shortage of labor. Certainly, you know, people are looking all over the country for people to come to work for them. And if you're not taking care of your employees, they will go someplace else or you won't get them. So the idea of forced unionization, compulsory unionization, is an antique. It's a dinosaur. And unions have to change with that. But they haven't, so the growth rate in jobs has increased and the union density, to your point, Steve, has decreased down to just 6 percent of the private sector workforce. And I think one of the reasons is because the difference between union officials and rank-and-file workers is growing wider and wider all the time, particularly on a political front. You have a whole host of rank-and-file workers who believe in, you know, secure borders and smaller government and lower taxes and less regulation. But you have the union officials here in Washington, D.C., promoting candidates and ideas that dramatically expand government power and break down those institutions that most rank-and-file workers support. Why do you think there's a schism between unions in terms of political parties? How will unions play into specifically the Michigan primary that's approaching tonight? The United Auto Workers Union, obviously, about three weeks ago, I guess, were here in Washington, and the 14-member executive committee decided they were going to endorse Joe Biden for the presidential race. Interestingly enough, the president of the United Auto Workers, Sean Fain, showed up on television shortly after that endorsement, and he said this, and it's almost a verbatim quote, Steve. He said, quote, They're going to vote their paychecks. Now, that was kind of one of those open-your-eyes stunner when he literally announces something out loud that he wasn't supposed to say. But if you go back and you look at an NBC poll from January, it said that comparing Donald Trump to Joe Biden on management of the economy and management of your paycheck, Trump wins overwhelmingly from a broad base by 22%, 23% of the people, saying he's better positioned and in a better position to help us with our economic issues. So what Sean Fain said was a great majority of our members are not going to be voting for Joe Biden despite the fact they endorsed him for president. They're going to spend literally millions of dollars to get him elected. Let's get to Sean O'Brien. Sean O'Brien is the new Teamster president, and he ran on this kind of transparency issue, and he decided that basically they need to continue to play footsies with the Republicans because he knows that a large majority of the Teamsters across the country are on board with the Trump agenda that won the presidency in 2016 in Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio, and Pennsylvania, the states that Trump won. He knows that he's got to play to those people because the political efforts of the Teamsters, I think ultimately they will endorse Joe Biden. They will do that. And $45,000, as my grandma used to say, she used to have this little pin money, she called it. It was in a little can, and $45,000 in politics today, Steve, is pin money. It went to the convention fund. No one is reporting except you and us today that an additional three times that same amount of money went to the Democrat convention fund, Democratic Political Action Committee, all in basically the same day. So it's a big story that the Teamsters gave any money to the Republican Party, but it's not really that big of a story when you look at it in context. How do you think Biden's push for EVs settled with the UAW rank and file? The CEO of Ford and others have indicated that it takes 40% less labor to produce an electric vehicle. So if you're a UAW member, and you only, actually you're only about 48% of the UAW membership now because the 380,000 UAW members, about more than half are health care professionals and graduate students out in the California State University system. I think GM has as many UAW members as the California State University system. So the dichotomy of the membership of the UAW is drifting to the left through its academic exposure. But the automobile manufacturers, if you're looking at it as a UAW member, you say, hey, if we continue on this path and support Joe Biden, he gets reelected, and they push this EV thing, look around because four out of 10 of us are going to be out of work by the time they implement that. So I think there's a big disconnect. The fact that Biden has basically indicated through the media that he's drawing back on it is an indication there's a political point here. And unfortunately, Steve, we know that everything in Washington ends up having a political point. Mark Mix, really appreciate you joining us. Appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. And still in the 2024 presidential race is third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now qualified to appear on the ballot in Arizona and Georgia. American Values 2024, a political action committee, said it's collected enough signatures to secure his ballot access. Moving forward, the PAC says it will continue to gather signatures in 10 other states, including those with higher thresholds, such as Texas, California, and New York. Having Kennedy's name on the ballot could shake up the dynamic in major swing states. As of now, Kennedy is already on the ballot in Utah, and he has enough signatures to qualify for the ballots in New Hampshire and Hawaii. And that is all we have for you this evening on The Capitol Report. Thank you for watching. From the nation's capital in Washington, D.C., I'm Steve Lance. Have a nice evening. See you back here tomorrow.