Yamiche Alcindor: Possible Trump criminal referrals and fights over government funding.
The January 6th committee is prepared to urge the Justice Department to prosecute former President Trump on criminal charges.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): The continued resolution we passed yesterday will ensure that the government stays open.
Yamiche Alcindor: Congress averts a government shutdown for now.
Unidentified female: The American people are saying, look, this is too much money, we cannot afford it.
Yamiche Alcindor: But a longer term agreement for funding the government is in flux, as Republicans spar over differing strategies.
Plus - Joe Biden, U.S. President: The United States is all in on Africa and all in with Africa.
Yamiche Alcindor: -- President Biden seeks to strengthen America's ties with leaders of a pivotal continent, next.
Tonight, a big development, the January 6th committee is preparing to vote on urging the Justice Department to pursue at least three criminal charges against former President Trump.
According to multiple outlets, the charges under consideration are insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.
Meanwhile, there are just two weeks left of the 117th Congress and top lawmakers, well, they are scrambling to avoid a government shutdown and negotiating a one-year funding deal.
But a public split is emerging between the Republican leaders of the House and Senate.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who, by the way, is still looking to secure the votes to become the next speaker, well, he wants to wait until his party takes control of the House before Congress votes on a one-year funding agreement.
Here's what he had to say on Wednesday.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA): We've just had an election where we changed the course where the House is now going to be controlled by Republicans.
Let's do our next spending bill in the next quarter.
Yamiche Alcindor: But the top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, he had this to say.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY): We have a truly bipartisan full-year bill without poison pills is ready for the final Senate passage by late next week, then I will support it.
Yamiche Alcindor: All of this comes as a series of new polls show former President Trump's popularity is on the decline.
Polls from CNN, Quinnipiac, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, well, they all showed his favorability among Americans and among Republicans are at historic lows.
Joining me to discuss this and more, Monica Alba, White House Correspondent for NBC News, and here in studio, Carl Hulse, the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, Nikole Killion, Congressional Correspondent for CBS News, and Jonathan Martin, the politics bureau chief at Politico.
We also have to remind people we call J.
Mart.
So, I want to, of course, start, Jonathan, with the fact that your outlet, Politico, they broke this story about the January 6th committee possibly looking at referring criminal charges for former President Trump.
I wonder, what more do we know about what lawmakers are thinking and preparing to possibly refer to the DOJ.
Jonathan Martin, Politics Bureau Chief, Politico: Well, first of all, you have to take a step back here.
It is extraordinary that the U.S. Congress is considering urging the Justice Department, a separate branch of government, to pursue the most serious kind of middle charges against a former president.
We truly are in uncharted territory here in the history of the country, certainly in modern times.
I think from a political standpoint, Yamiche, I think this is going to be one more rock, if you will, and a pretty darn heavy one in the load that Trump is carrying as he goes into 2023 and 2024.
You flashed to polls there on your screen.
A lot of people in the GOP, come publicly, many more publicly, who really want to move on.
And I think this kind of indictment, even if there is not a conviction, if an indictment comes from the feds, one comes in Atlanta over the Georgia election dispute, I guess that it sort of -- it galvanizes that sense that among Republicans that let's just turn the page.
Yamiche Alcindor: And, Carl, you've been obviously on Capitol Hill for a long time covering this.
Jonathan is really calling this uncharted territory.
I wonder what you are hearing from lawmakers, but also, are they concerned that the DOJ could do nothing, that they could see these criminal referrals and just do nothing?
Carl Hulse, Chief Washington Correspondent, The New York Times: I was going to say, this is -- in some ways, it's symbolic because the Justice Department doesn't have to do anything.
But what a symbol, right, that the House is going to deliver these findings.
I think there is a lot of interest among lawmakers and certainly among -- Liz Cheney to disqualify Trump, make it so Trump is disqualified from political office from running, even if he never goes to jail.
And this is part of the effort to do that, to make him just not a credible candidate.
His taxes are an issue.
Right now in the House as well, as time is running out, what are Democrats going to do with those taxes they now have?
So, this is a really -- it's just striking, as J.
Mart said, that a select committee of the house is going to say that a former president of the United States mounted a coup.
Yamiche Alcindor: I mean, it is extraordinary, Nikole, when you think about just the fact that this committee could have come to this decision, could come to this decision on Monday.
I wonder what you are hearing overall about their decision-making with some outlets saying that maybe the decisions have been final but with others saying that the decisions have basically been made.
Also I'm wondering, when you think about the overall report that's going to be released next week, sort of what is the impact there?
Nikole Killion, Congressional Correspondent, CBS News: Well, I think this is not completely and totally unexpected if we do see these criminal referrals made next week when the committee holds its business meeting and then subsequently releases its final report.
At the end of the day, the committee sends it at the end of the year.
So, they have to produce a product.
But also, I think the committee has been building the case from day one.
I mean, you'll remember that long stretch of hearings that we saw over the summer, where they methodically laid out their case then against the former president.
And this is also in line with some rulings that we have seen a federal court judge with respect to those Eastman emails, John Eastman, of course, being that controversial attorney who authored this memo to overturn the elections.
So, in that legal battle, there was a federal judge that actually suggested that the former president may have had some potentially illegal activity, whether that was conspiracy to defraud the federal government or potentially obstruction.
So, this is also in line with at least what one federal judge has previously ruled in that Eastman case.
So, again, not a huge surprise form the committee but certainly part of the outcome and product of their work.
And to Carl's point, I think, the big question is whether or not the DOJ will pursue action, if and when they make these referrals go -- Carl Hulse: They may have their own investigation going on themselves and can incorporate this.
And maybe this gives them some momentum but -- Jonathan Martin: Yes.
Because they are looking at a number of issues, including the aftermath of the election and the lead-up to January 6th, but also the classified documents issue.
We know the feds are looking into that.
So, there are the sort of two parallel tracks already set up.
What the feds are going to be looking into and now what this committee is going to try to turn over to them.
I would just say real fast, I think the bigger surprise would have been if the 1/6 panel hadn't referred criminal charges after all of these months and months and all of these hearings and investigations.
I think it was pretty clear from the start where this was headed, and it was headed directly at Donald J. Trump.
Yamiche Alcindor: And, Monica, J.
Mart gives us this imagery, all the rocks that former President Trump is carrying is just getting heavier and heavier.
I wonder what former President Trump -- or I should say, I wonder what President Biden, rather, and the White House officials that you are talking to every day -- I know that they all want to be independent of the DOJ, but they have to be looking over at what the January 6th committee is doing, especially as former President Trump is running for president again.
So, Monica, what are you hearing?
Monica Alba, White House Correspondent, NBC News: Certainly, Yamiche.
And this is a White House that is content to sit back and watch this all unfold and continue to be problematic for the former president.
That is absolutely their top line, that they're not going to comment on matters, that the Department of Justice continues to investigate and they don't want to at all appear to be directing or giving any influence in that, whether the president or the press secretary.
That is something we have heard time and time again.
But just yesterday, you saw this was a White House that was happy to troll the former president, that major announcement that he had teased that ended up being those digital trading cards.
They put out their own tweets saying, okay, we have some major announcements here as well, highlighting some of the work of the administration in the last week, bringing Brittney Griner home, keeping gas prices low.
So, they are happy to have a tongue-and-cheek approach to some of that, but when it comes to the matters of incredible importance and preserving democracy, in the words of President Biden, that he has talked about January 6th repeatedly, not wanting to give his comment on the investigation specifically, but how important that is as a theme.
That was a huge theme that Democrats, and he tried to really push in the final weeks of the midterms.
So, when I talk to the White House, they say that they are very happy to just continue to watch this, that polling that shows former President Trump fading away, that there isn't much appetite potentially for him to be the nominee again.
They're okay.
They say, hey, we can let that go and we're going to continue our plans no matter what.
Of course, that brings into questions of 2024, inevitably.
And as President Biden continues to mount what all signs point to as a reelection, they are prepared whether Donald Trump is nominee or not, because they believe they're going to really paint this, whoever the Republican nominee may be, as ultra MAGA Republicans, which they felt was a dominating message that helped Democrats defy expectations in November.
Yamiche Alcindor: And I definitely am going to get to the digital trading cards and the polling.
But, Carl, I want to have to come to you because there's also the issue of government funding, right?
There is this big issue looming over here.
I want to put up for folks, we should put it up, the tweet that -- from Manu, our friend, Manu Raju at CNN.
He tweeted about Senator Lindsey Graham, who was talking about what's going on there.
He said -- who's likely to back the omnibus bill.
He said that Lindsey Graham told him this when he asked him about sort of the GOP issues backing government funding.
They are having enough problems trying to find a speaker, much less pass a bill.
That's what Senator Lindsey Graham is saying, someone we have to remind people, is a Republican.
What are your sources telling you about sort of the concern that there might be a government shutdown?
And what do you make of that fact that we're seeing Republican-on-Republican fighting here?
Carl Hulse: Yes.
Well, I think that's going to be an interesting portent for the future.
I think that what's going on, this is Congress at its worst, but this is the way it works now.
You have to wait to the end of the year to jam everything through.
I think that they'll probably get a deal.
And it's the oldest reason in the books, it's pork (ph).
There bills have a bunch of earmarks for a lot of people, including the two top members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who are both retiring.
This is their last chance and they're taking advantage of it.
If you go with a continuing resolution, where you write a new bill next year, all of those earmarks disappear.
And to Lindsey Graham's point, I think Mitch McConnell is looking at what is going on in the House right now and saying, they can't elect a speaker, how are they going to pass a bill next year?
We don't want to deal with this immediately next year.
The Ukraine funding is in there.
Mitch McConnell wants to get the deal done.
The question for me, as a lot of people think Kevin McCarthy is a member of what we call the vote no, hope yes caucus, that he actually wants this to go through too and is just positioning himself like this for his speaker's race.
I don't know if that's exactly true, but I do think that the sense on Capitol Hill that I have gotten in the last few days is this will get done but it will be next Friday.
Nikole Killion: And I think the proof will be in the pudding because we know appropriators have been working on that long-term, year-long spending package.
We think we'll see some of that text, Monday.
But if we don't, that could potentially be a warning sign.
But we know the top line on that is $1.7 trillion.
So, again, if we start to get language, if we start to see what that actual one year funding bill looks like, then I think, hopefully, we will be on track to see action taken on that by the end of the next week.
Short of that, we could be in trouble.
Yamiche Alcindor: And, Jonathan, as they are talking about the spending bill, the thing that, of course, is looming over this is that House -- wanting to be House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, he does not have the votes to get that title yet.
I wonder what you make of the fact that we are seeing now this sort of open split between the House and the Senate on the Republican side while Kevin McCarthy is looking for the votes.
You told producers that the House and the Senate GOP, they even might be different parties here.
Tell us a little bit about that.
Jonathan Martin: Yes, no.
I think, look, the last session of Congress, because Democrats have majorities, Yamiche, in both chambers, this was kept under the surface.
But there is real tension between the House GOP and Senate GOP just on the sort of cultural and stylistic level, for one but also increasingly on policy as well.
There is an old line, the Senate is a country club and the House is a truck stop.
And I think we are going to see more of that reflected in this next Congress when the House GOP is in the majority.
And what Kevin McCarthy is effectively dealing with is trying to tame a party that really reflects two different parties.
It is effectively a sort of coalition government with both parties under the same umbrella, the pre-Trump party and the post-Trump party.
And I think even he gets the votes to be speaker, Yamiche, and he may get there yet, the actual way governing for him is going to be a big challenge because they're just not on the same page on a lot of issues.
And his majority -- this is important.
His majority is so narrow, because of the midterms, that he can't afford to lose many votes.
Yamiche Alcindor: Yes.
And I want to put up for folks, this week, a Quinnipiac poll showed former President Trump's popularity is declining, as Monica was pointing out.
Just 31 percent of registered voters have a favorable opinion of him and 59 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him.
That is the lowest favorability rating Quinnipiac has seen since 2015, and there's more.
Among Republican voters, 70 percent have a favorable opinion of Trump.
And that number, for the folks that are watching this, that number may seem very high, but it is, in fact, the lowest favorability among Republicans in Quinnipiac poll since March of 2016.
So, J.
Mart, I want to come back to you.
What are you hearing from Trump world about these poll numbers?
And also how real is this?
Because as someone who has covered Trump for years, we have seen him go -- we've seen him -- the Republican Party say, we can't deal with this guy and then they sort of run back.
Jonathan Martin: Yes, because the leaders have always followed the voters when it comes to Trump, at least since he became the nominee of the party.
And I think that's why you have seen so many moments where, well, this could be it, and they simply stick in line.
And I think this is not going to be any different.
If the Republican leaders see their voters abandoning Trump, then they'll follow suit.
If they believe that Trump still has the support of the rank and file of the party, they'll stick with him.
And the proof will be in the pudding in 2024.
If Trump does, in fact, run for president and he's winning primaries, then I think they're going to stick with him.
If he is losing left and right, they're going to say, Donald who?
Carl Hulse: Well, I think that's another difference between the House and the Senate Republicans, is that the House Republicans are more aligned with Trump, the Senate Republicans see Trump as the person who cost them the majority in two elections now.
Jonathan Martin: And they don't want to go out on a limb for his candidacy.
I had a column this week.
Some of the biggest Trump figures in the Senate, Yamiche, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, guess what, not one of them has endorsed Donald Trump yet.
In fact, of the 50 GOP senators, only one has endorsed Trump's candidacy a month after he announced.
That tells you a lot about the desire to sort of hang back, see where this goes, see where the indictments come, if they do come, and then make a decision.
Nikole Killion: And that also may be one of the points of agreement among House and Senate Republicans, because even Kevin McCarthy this week would not answer that question, saying, we haven't had that conversation.
Yamiche Alcindor: Just talking about hanging back, Monica, I want to bring you in.
The White House hearing another topic where they're seeing poll numbers declining for former President Trump.
They're seeing sort of him releasing digital trading cards as part of his big announcement, which was, of course, very perplexing, to put it lightly.
Monica, what are you hearing?
Monica Alba: Yes, exactly.
I mean, this is a White House that is happy too in the first year or so of the administration.
Remember, they would just call him the former guy and they weren't going to comment of every single thing that Donald Trump was doing.
That didn't shifted a little bit in the last three or four months, especially in the run-up to the midterm elections.
And as where you had the president come out and say, basically, I can't hold my breath or my tongue on this anymore.
I need to be calling out what he called a literal threat to democracy.
And these were some of the Republicans who were most aligned with Donald Trump.
But this is something also that we have seen Joe Biden say time and time again.
He likes to quote -- I believe it's his father, and saying, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative.
And that is the argument that he continues to make over and over again when talking about him versus Donald Trump.
But in the White House, they're very quick to remind you that the Democrats who were up against Donald Trump in the last elections, Joe Biden is the only who was able to beat him.
And so that is why they are argue he could do it again, if that's what the stakes end up becoming in 2024.
But as Joe Biden also likes to say, he's a big respecter of fate and things have intervened and plenty has changed before.
And who knows if that will actually be the Trump-Biden rematch that we see down the line.
Yamiche Alcindor: And, Nikole, I mean, you were jumping and I want to come back to you.
Talk about this digital trading card.
We covered Trump together.
We were on the lawn, right?
We watched this administration, the Trump administration.
I, for the life of me, have been asking the question, how is it beneficial to him as someone who wants to be a serious presidential candidate, how is it beneficial to tease a major announcement and then have digital trading cards featuring your picture?
What are you hearing from folks?
What's your own reporting tell you?
Nikole Killion: I mean, it is underwhelming, to say the least.
What it reads to me is just kind of an effort to stay relevant.
Because, quite frankly, since the former president's announcement that he was going to mount this 2024 re-election bid, we haven't really seen or heard much from him.
We have not seen him really back on the trail.
We have not really seen him put forth any specific policy proposals besides something pertaining to free speech.
So, on the other token, I would just say, it is still early, though, right?
And we know that the former president is full of gimmicks, and has been in the past.
So, yes, it was a little perplexing but I also think it's something we don't need to spend too much of our time and energy on because we still have a very long way to go in this race.
Jonathan Martin: Politically perplexing, financial lucrative.
He has already made a good chunk of cash in 24 hours on those tokens, which shows he's got a following in the grassroots, and, by the way, cash for himself, not for his campaign.
This is cash that he can use to liquid.
So, that's going to help, I think, with some of his future expenses.
But, of course, it is embarrassing for a lot people in the party to have him doing this.
It does seem beneath the office.
And it does raise questions about is there quality control at Mar-a-Lago.
Where are the advisers saying, no, sir, this is not going to be helpful to your winning the nomination again?
This actually is beneath the office.
And are they saying that or are they not saying it at all?
That, to me, the question is what are the folks around him saying and are they going to have any pull this time around trying to control Trump?
Carl Hulse: It was the announcement that launched a thousand memes, but it also felt like the home shopping network, right?
The whole thing was just -- they should not have done it.
Yamiche Alcindor: Yes, that's one way to put it, Carl.
I also want to turn to the fact that this week, President Biden celebrated starting legislation protecting same-sex marriages and interracial marriages.
He also held a three-day U.S.-Africa summit focused on investing more in the continent, as China and Russia loom large there.
Joe Biden: The people of Africa are indispensable partners.
Africa belongs to the table in every room, in every room, where global challenges are being discussed, and in every institution where discussions are taking place.
Yamiche Alcindor: So, Monica, tell us a little bit about the timing of this.
Why is president focusing on Africa right now?
And how much is Russia and China and their influence on the continent, how is that sort of influencing his thinking here?
Monica Alba: Yes.
And the president was quick to say during his remarks this week that he didn't want this to be about strategic competition, but, of course, you can't ignore the fact.
And when you are talking about gathering nearly 50 leaders, neither almost 50 heads of state from the continent that came to Washington here for this major summit, it was significant.
But this was also something that some African leaders said they have heard this before.
They've seen the U.S. try to make this commitment and pledge to invest in Africa and then not having as much follow-through.
So, there was some healthy skepticism here, but, ultimately, the Biden administration pledged $55 billion in American spending over the next three years.
And one of the other headlines is that the president said that he, the first lady, some major cabinet officials, all will be visiting sub-Saharan Africa at some point in 2023.
So, that is significant and President Biden has spent a little bit of the time in Egypt in November.
But he hasn't, of course, spent much time there as president in the continent of Africa.
So, that will be a major trip to multiple countries.
We assume that we don't know when or many other details, but this is something that other past administrations, Democrat and Republican, have before tried to talk about this.
But this is in a different context in terms of White House officials I talk to who said, this is also a lot about rebuilding relationships that were damaged during the Trump-era foreign policy, particularly with countries that he insulted in Africa.
And so this was as much about restoring that kind of diplomacy as making a pledge in the future, whether it has as much follow-through, as some of these African leaders hoped, we'll see.
Yamiche Alcindor: And, Monica, in the last minute that we have here, could you talk to me a bit about what the White House is saying about the president's own polling numbers.
He has had a good couple of weeks here, if you think about Brittney Griner being home, inflation slowing, the big legislation on same-sex marriage, interracial marriages.
But the polls show that he is still struggling in a lot of ways in the polls.
What are you hearing about that and might that influence his big, seems like, holiday decision to run again?
Monica Alba: He is still underwater, Yamiche.
That is absolutely right, though, he has been climbing slightly since October.
And there have been a lot of legislative wins and administrative victories that they point too.
You mentioned a bunch of them in the last couple of weeks.
So, they feel like there is momentum, especially with the midterms that they have been bracing for something a little tougher.
They felt like that was really a bit of a turning point.
And that in the last couple of weeks, with gas prices lower than they were a year ago, with inflation possibly cooling a bit there, that they do feel that the economy and that outlook is improving as well.
All of that will factor in.
And we're just learning actually that in the last 24 hours, the White House had a series of meetings with key allies, key groups who would be hugely influential in a potential 2024 campaign, essentially bringing them to the White House and saying, look at our long list of accomplishments.
This is what we will likely build a 2024 campaign on.
Though, again, the intention is to run.
It is not completely official until it's all done.
They will huddle over the holidays.
And then I think we will learn very early next year what that decision is but -- Yamiche Alcindor: It's a big decision.
It is definitely a big decision and one I know you will keep watching and we'll keep learning from you about.
So, thank you so much, Monica.
Thank you, of course, to all of you.
We will have to leave it there.
Thank you for showing us and sharing your reporting.
And be sure to tune into PBS News Weekend for a look at the crisis afflicting the cryptocurrency market and ideas for how to regulate its future.
And, finally, I want to take a moment to mark that this is week was the ten-year anniversary of the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.
I covered the massacre a reporter for USA Today after a gunman killed 20 children and 6 adults there.
The devastation, the grief, the resilience of Newtown, it sticks with me a decade later.
My heart is with the families whose loved ones were killed that day, the survivors to carry on through their trauma and with the entire community.
Good night from Washington.