Political science expert on new fallout from the midterm election

Newly elected members of the 120th Congress are in Washington, D.C. for new member orientation. They will be there for the next 10 days. They'll find out where in the Capitol complex they will have their new offices come January. To talk about the impact of the midterm elections and what comes next, let's welcome San Jose State Political Science Professor Emeritus Larry Gersten. Good morning, Professor. Welcome. Good morning. Before we get to Congress, let's talk about changes at the White House that have made some headlines this week. Stephen Miller is the president's new chief of staff. He's known as the architect behind the administration's mass deportations and aggressive immigration policies, which were arguably some of the reasons many voters turned against the GOP. What does the selection of Miller now tell us about what the president plans to do? Allie, it's a fascinating development, and I'll tell you why. As this election ended and we saw the success of Democrats, the question was, Will President Trump find a way to be conciliatory with them, or will he double down and be even more rigid than he's been in the past? And we get the answer. We get the answer with Stephen Miller, because as you mentioned, he's the architect of the deportation policy. He's the architect of a lot of policies that are very, very tough on a lot of people. And so with that, it's pretty clear that the president is going to just toughen it out and continue with his own approach. And with that, Democrats and Republicans are no doubt gonna slug it out in ways that some people hoped wouldn't occur. Is that a wise move politically? Because it almost seems like self-sabotage over the next two years. The president's going to be a lame duck president anyway, but this will kind of make the divisiveness between him and Congress even worse and less likely for anything to get done. You know, the last two years, the president pretty much did whatever he wanted. The reason he got away with it is because the Republicans had the majority in both the House and the Senate went along with it. That, you know, whatever you say, Mr. President, remember, this is the same person that is Donald Trump, who once said not so long ago, I'm the president. I can do anything I want. And so with that, this is what it appears is going to happen. He's going to continue to do anything he wants. And then the question is whether the Democrats will have the ability. The interest, the might to go ahead and offset him in some way or another is going to be a real tough two years. Well, let me ask you that question. Will the Democrats have the will and the ability to do anything to challenge the president? You can only go so far in Congress. The president, whatever you say, is the first among equals when it comes to power. So what the Congress could do is two things. Number one, they can invest. You've already heard that. You've already heard Robert Garcia, the chair of the investigative committee in the House, say lawyer up to all those people he feels have been. Doing the wrong to the Democrats. The other thing they could do is appropriate. In this Congress, they've appropriated, but the president's gone ahead and ignored the appropriation. So what Congress could do is basically sue the president. You know, this is going to be a very tough time. It's not easy to counter a president no matter what. And this time, going in with all the animus, with all the anger that we've seen develop up to this time, is going to be a very rough, cantankerous two years. Do you think there will be any Republicans in Congress or in the Senate who maybe work across the aisle with Democrats? They're going to have such an overwhelming majority in the House, especially the Democrats are. Or does the specter of Trump's wrath and punishment still factor in here with Republicans working with Democrats on any legislation? Good question. We know that a number of those Republicans who might have gone across the aisle to work with Democrats are gone, gone because the president basically pushed them out by threatening to go against them in the primaries, primary them they called it. There may be some. We're going to find out. There aren't that many left. We know this. It's a one sided victory, the biggest victory in 50 years for the Democrats. And so the Republicans left are going to be left with this very choice that you asked. Are we going to go and try to find some way to play ball? There are topics they can work together on. There are safe topics they can work together on. Raising the minimum wage is one example. That's not a hard one. Are they going to go ahead and do it? Or are they going to stick with President Trump and just follow his lead? It's going to be something very interesting to watch. Will the president doubling down on immigration and other policies that you mentioned, will that ultimately be good for Democrats? Because voters already rejected the president's policies in this midterm election. Will this just make it easy for them to do that again in 2028? This is the case the Democrats will make in 2028. We've tried all we could to get back health care, to fix the environment, to put together all the things that the president has taken away from you and us. But we failed because he would not go along with this. This is the kind of argument they'll make. And then the public has to decide, do we give the Democrats a break and allow them to get the presidency as well to see if they can do it together? Or do we say, you had your two years, we're going to go the other way? Again, all these things are up in the air. Everybody is calculating. They're putting together their positions, the various moves they want to make, the proposals they're going to make, and they're going to roll down, and we're going to see what happens as they do it. Yeah, a lot can happen in politics in two years. Professor Larry Gersten, thank you so much for your insight and for joining us this morning. Good to be with you. All right.