Politics: 2025Talks - January 1, 2025
Politics and views in the United States.
Political experts examine the future for Democrats. Economists consider what will happen during Trump's first year back in the White House and advocates want Biden to pardon 'deported veterans.'
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to 2025 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.
That's lowering costs for consumers, increasing wages for workers.
I think these are all places where Democrats have shown real willingness to work with Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
Political experts like Naveen Nayak with the Center for American Progress are looking at how Democrats should approach the incoming Republican trifecta.
Some in the party favor working with the incoming administration where possible.
But others say they plan to oppose the president-elect's entire agenda.
Though neither party has seemed eager to seek bipartisan cooperation, it might be necessary given the GOP's slim majority in both houses.
President-elect Donald Trump says his top priorities include mass deportations of illegal immigrants and shrinking the government.
He's also pressing for more power over the budget by raising or eliminating the debt ceiling and expanding presidential authority to not spend money appropriated by Congress.
But speaking on MSNBC, voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams says she's anticipating a different kind of fight.
Our responsibility is for decency to show those who stayed home, those who stayed silent, there is a place for decency and a place for them.
That's the work that has to be done.
Inflation and the economy were top issues in the election, but some economists say Trump's proposals could make them worse in 2025.
Jason Miller with Michigan State University notes his tariffs could increase prices or spark a trade war, and he says the first major supply chain story could involve the expiring union contract for the International Longshoremen's Association.
We may see court strike round two.
No one is clear yet on how the incoming Trump administration would respond to that.
Would they evoke the Taft-Hartley Act to end that strike, or would they let that play out?
Although he shunned it during the campaign, some Trump loyalists are now moving to enact the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, including its hard line on gender and abortion.
Along with ending access to medication abortions through Mifepristo, and it calls for restricting access to abortion care even in emergencies and attacking contraception.
Rebecca Sussman with Keystone Progress says progressives are bracing for other culture war battles stemming from it.
Conservatives have already begun implementing it, with one example being the addition of an anti-trans health care rider in a military spending act this summer that was right out of the Project 2025 playbook, and it passed out of committee.
With less than a month left in his presidency, advocates want Joe Biden to pardon deported veterans.
Nationwide, nearly 100,000 veterans don't have citizenship.
Despite serving in the U.S. armed forces, many already have been or soon could be forced out of the country under mass deportation.
Denisa Jones is with Repatriate Our Patriots.
And these are the same veterans who fought alongside his son.
We owe it to them to act.
It's a shame that we are good enough to serve and die for this country, but not good enough to live and get a second chance in this country.
I'm Edwin J. Vieira for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.
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