>> Democratic congressman
hakeem Jeffries is speaking out
about how he will be carrying
the party's agenda moving
forward now that has speaker
Nancy Pelosi is stepping back
from her state of the union.
One challenge as the likely new
minority leader, dealing with a
Republican controlled house.
>> There is going to be,
because of the narrow majority
that house Republicans are
going to have, the far right
wing, the Maga caucus is going
to be empowered and emboldened,
it's going to make it tougher
for Mccarthy to govern as
speaker if he does in fact
become speaker.
If Kevin Mccarthy needs votes
to pass essential legislation,
just keeping the government
open or raising the debt limit,
will Democrats be willing to
help him if the freedom caucus
votes, the Marjorie Taylor
Greene's of the world, refused
to participate.
>> It seems to me that that is
a case by case basis.
Democrats have always been
willing to lean on making sure
that we fully fund the
government, and Democrats have
always been willing to lean in
and make sure that we meet our
nations obligations, and do not
default on our debt for the
first time in American history.
I think it's also important to
point out, Jake, that we have
consistently fought against
extremism on the Republican
side, including when it
manifested itself during the
former presidents tenure.
All at the same time, being
able to find common ground to
make progress for the American
people.
>> Joining me now is a man who
has held many titles in his
career, including secretary of
defense, white house chief of
staff, and also served 16 years
in the house.
Leon Panetta, thank you for
being with us.
Let's start with president
Biden and what the Democrats
are facing.
Gop-controlled house where
Kevin Mccarthy, because of the
slim a jordi is facing pressure
from far-right members who want
to investigate everything from
the Biden family business
dealings to the Afghanistan
withdrawal, to the FBI search
of mar-a-lago.
If you claims at the white
house, what are you thinking
down Pennsylvania avenue right
now?
>> The most important question
to answer is whether or not the
Republicans are interested in
governing, or if they're
interesting in raising.
I think that the message coming
out of these midterms is that
the American people are tired
of extremism, they are tired of
undermining our democracy, and
really do want both parties to
work together in order to
govern.
And so I think it's very
important for the white house
to try to reach out to the
Republicans, obviously to the
democratic leadership, and see
whether or not there is a
willingness to work together on
major issues facing that
country.
That will be the test, not only
for the congress, but for the
white house.
>> And if not, could this be a
godsend to Joe Biden?
If he's thinking about running
for reelection?
>> I was chief of staff when
the congress went Republican
after the first two years of
the Clinton administration.
Although the president was
obviously despondent at the
time, he also recognized that
it might be an opportunity to
be able to work together with
Republicans, and try to get
some things done.
That's exactly what happened.
It led to the presidents
reelection.
And so I think that president
Biden understands that message.
I think that in his guts, he
wants to be able to see if he
can try to work with both sides
to get things done.
He knows that the purpose of
being president, the purpose of
being elected is to try to
solve the problems in the
country.
I think that president Biden is
going to try to explore
opportunities for trying to see
if there can be a compromise.
>> In a single week, we learned
the president Donald Trump or
his warning with president
again, and the special counsel
had been investigated his
actions around the January 6th
attack about his mishandling of
classified documents taken to
mar-a-lago.
Trump had this response, let's
listen.
>> This horrendous abuse of
power is the latest in a long
series of witch hunts.
They want to do bad things to
the greatest movement in the
history of our country.
In particular, bad things to
me.
>> Adding to that, his tweets
leading up to January 6th are
visible again, because his
Twitter account was restored by
Elon Musk.
What do you think?
Is this --
are we seeing the potential for
trump to wreak more havoc over
the next couple of years?
>> I don't think there is any
question, that's the way the
trump operates.
It's through chaos and threw
havoc.
As you heard in his remarks,
there is absolutely no kind of
argument with regard to his
innocence, with regards to the
charges that are being
investigated.
He's basically accusing whoever
is investigating him of being
political.
I think that the reality is
that this president, president
trump, has to be held
accountable for the things that
he did.
He has spent a lifetime
avoiding accountability.
He's going to try to do that
again, by trying to just raise
chaos in the political world.
I think that that game is being
overplayed by president trump.
I think the American people
recognize that, and I don't
think it's going to play the
same way that it has played in
the past.
>> Do you think the attorney
general was being a tad too
cautious in naming a special
counsel?
>> He was in a difficult
position no matter what he did.
If he went ahead with the
prosecution on his own, I'm
sure that president trump would
make the same accusations
against the attorney general.
On the other hand, I think that
frankly, in order to be fair
and objective in this
investigation, the special
counsel, I believe it's
warranted.
It's going to take some
additional time, I recognize
that.
I really do think that the
better course here would be to
have a special counsel handled
the prosecution on both
mar-a-lago, as well as January
6th.
>> I'll move to another story.
The U.S. Has determined that
the Saudi crown prince, should
be granted immunity in a case
brought against him by the
fiancée of Jamal khashoggi, the
Washington post journalist who
was murdered at the princes
direction.
The argument is that mbs is the
sitting government, and the
reaction has been fierce,
international's saying that the
U.S. Should quote, hang its
head in shame, this is nothing
more than a sickening deep
betrayal.
What is your take on this?
>> I think that what the
administration did with the
white house was to basically
follow precedent.
In this situation, with regards
to the world leader.
It doesn't mean that they have
to give up in terms of putting
pressure on the head of Saudi
Arabia.
Particularly with regards to
khashoggi.
I do think that there are other
ways to approach this in terms
of making sure that the full
story comes out as to what
happened.
I understand that the precedent
is the issue, when you start
deciding to prosecute the head
of a nation, it can backfire on
a lot of countries, including
the United States.
I understand the reasoning for
why they took the position that
they did, but it's not an
excuse for letting up on the
pressure that has to be brought
on prince Salman for what
happened with khashoggi.