Politics and views in the United States.

Debates on presidential accountability, the death penalty, gender equality, Medicare and Social Security cuts; and Ohio's education policies highlight critical issues shaping the nation's future.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2024 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

This is about sending a message that no one better hold him to account in his second term.

No one better look at what he does, do their congressional job.

California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff says President-elect Donald Trump's threat to jail him and other members of the January 6th Select Committee is less about retribution than removing constitutional limits on his power.

Trump has also pledged to consider pardons for people who took part in the insurrection.

Nearly a thousand rioters have been convicted, with roughly two-thirds getting prison time.

Republican Representative Mark Alford of Missouri says Trump government efficiency efforts looking to cut $2 trillion from the budget must include Medicare and Social Security.

Alford told Fox Business given the national debt, Congress has to consider trimming or reforming the Health Care for Seniors program and raising the retirement age.

When people are living longer, they're retiring later, then on the front end we can move that retirement age back a little bit.

The two programs have long been considered politically sacred, but along with defense spending and interest on the debt, they're the biggest parts of the budget.

Democrats want outgoing President Joe Biden to commute the sentences of the 40 federal prisoners on death row to life without parole.

Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley says state-sanctioned murder is not justice.

The death penalty is a cruel, racist and fundamentally flawed punishment that has no place in our society.

The state says in his campaign, Biden promised to address the federal death penalty.

Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump term, calls for an increase in federal executions.

Another progressive, outgoing Missouri Representative Cori Bush, wants Biden to certify the Equal Rights Amendment before his term ends.

Bush says enough states approved the ERA to add it to the Constitution, and she says it's needed given limits to abortion access and gender-affirming medical care.

The ERA is one sentence that has the power to protect our future.

Conservative rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

That's it.

Ohio lawmakers are fast-tracking a state Senate bill to force the closure of schools with low standardized test scores.

But Melissa Cropper with the Ohio Federation of Teachers argues test scores are often tied to poverty and other systemic issues, not school quality.

Those students who are actually having trouble learning now get hidden because they're in a school where the rest of the school is doing better.

We need to figure out what are causing barriers to learning and how we address those barriers to learning.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy clashed with Georgia Republican Rich McCormick in a House Oversight Committee hearing Tuesday.

DeJoy gave himself an A grade for efforts to improve the agency's finances while maintaining services, but McCormick said he actually deserved an F.

You can't grade your own paper, sir.

I've been to medical school.

I got my MBA.

You can't.

I'm sorry.

DeJoy covered his ears during the criticism.

Filling in for Catherine Carley, I'm Edwin J. Vieira for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.