Powerhouse Politics

Don't call it a "State of the Union." President Joe Biden tonight will address a joint session of Congress, 99 days after being sworn into office. Powerhouse Politics speaks with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki about what the look, sound and substance of the speech will be.

For the guilty findings in connection with the killing of George Floyd to mark a true turning point will take much more than verdicts in Minneapolis. It falls now to a president elected on the promise of unity to both heal and advance policy in tense and still-uncertain times. ABC's Rachel Scott joins from Minneapolis to talk about the road ahead. Plus, Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today, talks about her newly released biography of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Guest: Susan Page, author of “Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power” 

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks because "it is time to end America’s longest war." Meanwhile, April 28th has been announced as the date of President Biden's first address to a joint session of Congress. Guest: Journalist, Neil King

Amid the fallout over Georgia's new sweeping elections law, Texas Democrats and voting rights activists are strategizing how to get some of the state's biggest employers to apply political pressure on lawmakers weighing restrictive voting bills in the Lone Star State. Plus, Governor Asa Hutchinson joins to talk about the Arkansas state legislature's vote on Tuesday to override his veto on a bill that would ban gender-affirming treatments for transgender youths in the state.

The $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill got more attention and its goals may matter more in addressing the challenges of the moment. But President Joe Biden's two-phase jobs and infrastructure package will carry a larger price tag along with potentially greater implications.  Guest: Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill), author of the new book, "Every Day Is A Gift"

Despite President Joe Biden's calls for quick action after another mass shooting and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer's vow to force votes on the Senate floor, the calcified politics of gun rights leave congressional action almost impossible to envision. Plus, CNN Tonight anchor, Don Lemon joins to talk about his new book and his experiences in covering politics over the last 5 years. Guest: Don Lemon, CNN anchor and author of the book, "This is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism"

Senior White House correspondent Mary Bruce joins to discuss President Joe Biden's exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos. Plus, Jonathan Karl shares some new reporting included in the just-released paperback edition of his book, “Front Row at the Trump Show.” 

President Joe Biden is about to have something very big to sell, with the House on track to pass his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill today (Wednesday). Guest: Former Chicago Mayor and current ABC News contributor, Rahm Emanuel

Guests: Jonathan Allen & Amie Parnes, authors of "Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency" There’s a new podcast we wanted to tell you about from our colleagues at ABC News. It’s called “In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson” and it’s full of new revelations about Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency and reveals the former first lady as LBJ’s closest advisor and most indispensable political partner. Drawn from over 123 hours of Lady Bird’s daily audio diaries, the podcast presents a surprising and original portrait of the former first lady, told in her own words. Hear how Lady Bird Johnson quietly shaped the future of our country and influenced the Johnson presidency — including the decision to end it. Search for “In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson” wherever you’re listening right now. And we’ll leave a link for you in the episode description, too. You can hear the “In Plain Sight” trailer here:  https://abcaudio.com/podcasts/in-plain-sight/

Tuesday's Senate hearing on the January 6 siege on the Capitol raised a series of questions that directly involve the previous administration. Meanwhile, Judge Merrick Garland plans to make Jan. 6 investigations his first priority after he becomes attorney general. And even with additional hearings Wednesday, Thursday and beyond, the concept of a bipartisan commission to investigate the events leading up to and during the siege is gaining traction on Capitol Hill. Guest: Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee

It's a plan the White House is lauding as "bold and ambitious." It's also grown less so through the early weeks of the Biden presidency -- and could reveal political vulnerabilities for the new administration as it pushes for a major COVID-19 relief bill. Guest: Congressman Jaime Raskin (D-MD), he also served as Lead House Impeachment Manager

Even an emotional prosecution and a mess of a defense may not change the Senate math. But while so many of the facts around the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump are settled, a key question is emerging that could matter beyond final votes on conviction. For all that is established about what rioters did, why they did it and even what Trump said to seemingly encourage them, what the then-president did in the hours that the attack was ongoing is a key piece of the case being assembled by House managers. Guest: Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR)

The impending impeachment trial guarantees refreshed memories of the horrors that took place at the Capitol less than a month ago. Any thought the trial would turn on narrow constitutional questions is effectively out, given Trump's strategy of defiance. Plus, Powerhouse Politics goes inside the White House to find out how these first weeks of the Biden Administration are progressing. Guest: Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary

The clock on bipartisanship is already ticking down. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is saying a vote on a budget resolution could come as early as next week -- before the Senate impeachment trial, and conceivably before any standalone COVID-19 relief bills make their way out of the legislative branch. Guest: Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY), co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus 

Joe Biden today takes the oath of office on the same steps where just two weeks ago we saw violence and unrest. ABC News Political Director Rick Klein co-hosts this episode with ABC's newly promoted congressional correspondent, Rachel Scott. Guest: Steve Roberts, author, historian and ABC News political analyst

Ten is either a huge number or a stunningly small one, depending on one's views of the state of partisanship and President Donald Trump's culpability for his words and actions. Guest: Frank Luntz, pollster and political consultant

President Donald Trump is about to become the first president to be impeached twice. The second one, while unlikely to drive him from office early, will almost certainly be the one that matters the most. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) joins from the House during the impeachment vote to discuss the events of the last week and what it means going forward.  Guest: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)

In this special edition of Powerhouse Politics, Jon and Rick break down the events that unfolded in United States Capitol this week, discuss some new reporting from behind the scenes in the White House and look ahead to the final twelve days of the Trump presidency.

It’s clear how part of the story will end. President-elect Joe Biden will prevail over President Donald Trump again and perhaps for the final time. But the final public act of the post-election spectacle  -- set to play out in the House and Senate over an undetermined number of hours, starting Wednesday afternoon, even as counting in Georgia continues – will mark just a starting point for the broader debate over the future of the Republican Party. Guest: Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC)

In the final episode of 2020, ABC News Chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl and ABC News Political Director Rick Klein take a look at the extraordinary final days and weeks of Donald Trump's presidency and at what a post-Trump era might bring. They also reflect on a challenging and remarkable year that the American People will not soon forget. Happy New Year and thank you for listening!

On January 20th, the White House itself will undergo a major transformation as one President departs and a new one moves in to the People's House. Journalist and author, Kate Andersen Brower joins the podcast to discuss what that means for the new first family of the United States and the White House staff, including teams of ushers, butlers, cooks, and others. Guest: Kate Andersen Brower, author of "Exploring the White House: Inside America's Most Famous Home"

Many Democrats might laugh at the idea that Sen. Mitch McConnell or any Republican deserves credit for acknowledging a reality that's been apparent for weeks, and simply stating that Biden is president-elect. "I applaud Mitch McConnell for talking to Joe Biden today," VP-Elect Kamala Harris told ABC News on Wednesday. "It would have been better if it were earlier, but it happened, and that's what's most important. So let's move forward." Plus, Dr. Deborah Birx joins the podcast to discuss the coronavirus vaccine, COVID trends across the U.S. and share her recommendations for holiday preparations. Guest: Dr. Deborah Birx, Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force

It doesn't get as much notice amid the Trump show -- or, rightfully, in the midst in the dark phase of the pandemic. But intra-party rumblings about diversity and experience are more than background noise as President-elect Joe Biden builds out his governing team.  Guest: Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP

To be a Republican who believes President Donald Trump and his lawyers at the moment is to believe that he's been betrayed by yet another attorney general, the GOP governors of Arizona and Georgia, plus dozens of federal and state judges -- in addition to myriad other government officials involved in increasingly bizarre and far-flung conspiracy theories. To not believe them is to potentially sacrifice your future in the Republican Party -- and maybe a whole lot more. Guest: Anita Dunn, Senior Advisor to the Biden Campaign

In the days and weeks following the 2020 election the Trump campaign has been filing lawsuits in battleground states where the race has been extremely close. Former NJ Governor and longtime ally of Donald Trump, Chris Christie said this week, "...the president's legal team has been a national embarrassment." He continued, "the allege fraud outside the courtroom but when they go inside the courtroom they don't plead fraud and they don't argue fraud." Guest: Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), author of "Bigfoot...It's Complicated"

It's getting real now. From the top down and from the bottom up, the consequences of President Donald Trump and his Republican Party continuing to defy reality are making themselves evident. Trump firing a top Homeland Security official for contradicting his unfounded claims about the election, while local Republican officials in Michigan initially refused to certify results -- these mark new lows that threaten to shake the foundations of the electoral process. Guest: Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman

Jim Gray has won twelve National Sports Emmy Awards, interviewing the greatest of all time athletes from Muhammad Ali to Tom Brady. He has also interviewed nine US Presidents from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump, and played golf with most of them. He recently wrote "Talking with GOATS," sharing many behind-the-scenes anecdotes about his famous conversations.  Guest: Jim Gray, sportscaster and author

To rekindle an infamous discussion, taking President Donald Trump literally at this precarious moment means the president believes the election was rigged against him; that he believes he received more lawful votes than his opponent; that he believes the vote count in a series of battleground states is flawed and corrupt; and that there are election officials and state and federal judges that are ready to deliver him a second term. Taking him seriously at this moment ... might be even scarier. Guest: Martha Raddatz, ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent

After nearly 50 years in public life and three tries for the White House, former Vice President Joe Biden is the apparent winner of the presidency, defeating incumbent President Donald Trump in a victory delayed by vote counts and complicated by potential legal challenges. ABC News projects it was Pennsylvania that gave him the electoral votes he needed, and Biden, who was born in Scranton, has said his early life there has always been "a touchstone -- where I learned my values."

A win isn't the same as a mandate. Waiting for a win is messier -- especially in volatile times. On the day after the day after Election Day, the math and the map clearly favor former Vice President Joe Biden, though he's not there yet.

President Trump led Wisconsin and Michigan for much of last night. But as mail votes are counted, vote totals there now show Joe Biden with the lead. However, Biden has a long way to go in Georgia and all-important Pennsylvania. And President Trump is looking to pull off a similar comeback in Arizona.  Guests: Brad Mielke of ABC's Start Here and MaryAlice Parks, ABC News Deputy Political Director  

Election Day arrives as a referendum on the man who has dominated the national conversation for four-plus years: President Donald J. Trump. We don't know when or how it will end. Former Vice President Joe Biden could clinch states early and start to roll; the night or early morning could bring a narrow but decisive victory for either Biden or Trump; or it could last a long while, with a tense nation forced to wait out legal fights and presidential tweetstorms over a period of days and weeks. Guests: Galen Druke, host of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast; Frank Luntz, Republican pollster and communications consultant

Ohio's Secretary of State, Frank LaRose joins to talk about the voting, tabulation and reporting processes for his state. LaRose also discusses election security and COVID safety measures at polling sites in Ohio.

"Everyone's paying attention and everyone's getting out there to vote." With just six days to go before Election Day, that's what Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, tells Powerhouse Politics about his state's absentee and early in-person voting. Guest: Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger

The second and final debate was a study in contrasts from the first. One thing that didn't change, though, was President Donald Trump's attempts to make former Vice President Joe Biden out as a corrupt and incompetent extremist. The plays that worked against Hillary Clinton, and may have worked against Bernie Sanders, have shown few signs of effectiveness against Biden. Biden sought to bring the conversation back to bigger issues and called Trump "confused": "He thinks he's running against somebody else."

"He wants to listen to Dr. Fauci," President Donald Trump told a crowd in Arizona Monday afternoon, the mention of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s name drawing boos from the crowd. It takes head-spinning logic to cast Trump's feud with Fauci as a winning campaign message for an incumbent who is down in the polls. The campaign is continuing to air ads that feature Fauci -- out of context -- appearing to applaud the president's decisions on COVID-19, even while Trump calls him a "disaster" and his fellow health officials "idiots." Guest: Ret. Army General H.R. McMaster, former National Security Advisor and author of "Battleground: The Fight to Defend the Free World"

With only 20 days until the election, President Trump is back out on the campaign trail and says he's feeling ”so powerful.” Meanwhile, this week’s hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett are odd in at least one respect: They appear unlikely to influence the decision of a single senator when it comes time to vote on her confirmation for the Supreme Court.  Guest: The Lincoln Project's Stuart Stevens

It's been eight short but incredibly long days since the first presidential debate. Since then, President Donald Trump has struggled to denounce white supremacism; refused to commit to accepting the results of the election; spread falsehoods about the voting process; been diagnosed with COVID-19, amid a full-fledged Washington outbreak; choreographed a triumphant return to the White House to urge the nation not to let the pandemic "dominate"; pulled the plug on further coronavirus relief talks until after the election and then reconsidered the move in some late-night tweets.  Guest: ABC's Katherine Faulders

The man a rival once warned would be a "chaos president" got a chaotic debate -- a wildly disjoined affair where both candidates insulted more than they explained. But almost as a throwaway topic, late in the debate, a discussion about election integrity drew critically important messaging out of the noise of this year's first presidential debate of the general election. Guests: David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, authors of the new book, Trump: America First: The President Succeeds Against All Odds

A tale of two campaigns is emerging ahead of the first face-to-face meeting in the general election between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden Tuesday night on the presidential debate stage. ABC's Martha Raddatz offers her unique perspective, having been the only person to have moderated past debates with both of these candidates. Plus, FiveThirtyEight’s Galen Druke on whether the debates have a real impact on polling or at the ballot box.  Guests: ABC's Martha Raddatz, FiveThirtyEight's Galen Druke

There are about 40 days to go until Election Day, and this week the United States reached a grim milestone as the number of Americans who have died from coronavirus tops 200,000. Meanwhile, President Trump is telling his supporters that the virus affects "virtually nobody" as he continues to hold campaign events with no social distancing and very few masks. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) joins the discussion as the Republicans vow to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court before Election Day.  Guest: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)

ABC News' Tuesday night town hall with President Donald Trump showed a few different sides of the president, and found him comparing his own leadership during the coronavirus pandemic to that of Winston Churchill's leadership during World War II. The forum also showed Trump engaging in his own version of a politics of hope. Plus, Jaime Harrison joins the discussion to talk about his campaign to unseat Senator Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.  Guest: Jaime Harrison, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in South Carolina

Eight weeks from Tuesday is Election Day. Labor Day weekend was overtaken by anonymous quotes offered by former administration insiders, as published in The Atlantic. While former Vice President Joe Biden was in battleground Pennsylvania on Monday, Trump was at the White House, where he used a news conference to push back on the story -- and to suggest he isn't supported by Pentagon brass who "want to do nothing but fight wars." Plus, Brian Stelter joins the podcast to talk about his new book, Hoax, the twisted story of the relationship between Donald Trump and Fox News. Over the course of two years, Stelter spoke with over 250 current and former Fox insiders in an effort to understand the inner workings of Rupert Murdoch's multibillion-dollar media empire. Some of the confessions are alarming. Guest: Brian Stelter, CNN anchor and author of the new book, "Hoax: Donald Trump. Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth"

In early July the Department of Homeland Security withheld publication of an intelligence bulletin warning law enforcement agencies of a Russian scheme to promote “allegations about the poor mental health” of former Vice President Joe Biden, according to internal emails and a draft of the document obtained by ABC News. Just one hour after its submission, however, a senior DHS official intervened. Guest: John Cohen, former Acting Undersecretary for Intelligence at DHS

A rising GOP star, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron speaks to "Powerhouse Politics" about his speech at the Republican National Convention, Joe Biden's comments about race, and the status of the Breonna Taylor case. GUEST: Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron Start Here, the daily news podcast from ABC News: https://bit.ly/2Y8Cu8U FiveThirtyEight Politics, nightly reaction and analysis: https://bit.ly/2DXwwB4

As President Trump prepares to accept the GOP nomination on the final night of the Republican National Convention, unrest grows from the aftermath of the Jacob Blake shooting and the landfall of Hurricane Laura. GUEST: RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel Start Here, the daily news podcast from ABC News: https://bit.ly/2Y8Cu8U FiveThirtyEight Politics, nightly reaction and analysis: https://bit.ly/2DXwwB4

The Trump family took center stage on the second night of the Republican National Convention, with Eric and Tiffany giving speeches before Melania’s keynote from the Rose Garden. Start Here, the daily news podcast from ABC News: https://bit.ly/2Y8Cu8U FiveThirtyEight Politics, nightly reaction and analysis: https://bit.ly/2DXwwB4

While Sen. Tim Scott’s “From Cotton to Congress” speech offered an optimistic view of the country's future at the Republican National Convention, others spoke more to grievances. GUEST: Political consultant Frank Luntz Start Here, the daily news podcast from ABC News: https://bit.ly/2Y8Cu8U FiveThirtyEight Politics, nightly reaction and analysis: https://bit.ly/2DXwwB4

With the start of the Republican National Convention, President Trump’s campaign seeks to offer its vision of a second term. GUEST: ABC News contributor Gov. Chris Christie Start Here, the daily news podcast from ABC News: https://bit.ly/2Y8Cu8U FiveThirtyEight Politics, nightly reaction and analysis: https://bit.ly/2DXwwB4

On the day Joe Biden is expected to accept the Democratic nomination for president, former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon is arrested and indicted on charges of fraud.  GUEST: Kate Bedingfield, Deputy Campaign Manager and Communications Director Start Here, the daily news podcast from ABC News: https://bit.ly/2Y8Cu8U FiveThirtyEight Politics, nightly reaction and analysis: https://bit.ly/2DXwwB4

The second night of the Democratic National Convention featured a touching testimonial from Dr. Jill Biden, wife of presidential hopeful Joe Biden. A virtual roll call brought the audience to different parts of the country, including the "Calamari Comeback" state.  GUEST: Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham Start Here, the daily news podcast from ABC News: https://bit.ly/2Y8Cu8U FiveThirtyEight Politics, nightly reaction and analysis: https://bit.ly/2DXwwB4