Capitol Hill battle lines drawn ahead of new Congress

The new Congress doesn't arrive until January, but the battle lines are already being drawn on Capitol Hill. Democrats are threatening impeachments and investigations, and the White House is firing back. Douglas Ader has more this morning from Washington. Good morning, Doug. Good morning. Republicans call it lawfare. Democrats say it's oversight. Either way, it's about to get pretty ugly around here. But we've also seen a lot of moderate Democrats come into this. Even interviewing new members of Congress, it's hard to ignore what everyone here is facing, the lame duck in the background. We have the opportunity to do something right now in a lame duck to demonstrate that we got it. In the lame duck, that odd period of time when the sun sets on the old Congress and then rises in January to the new one, Democrats are already preparing to flex their new muscles to issue subpoenas and investigate the administration. Donald Trump is clearly hiding something. We're not gonna be threatened or intimidated because we are demanding accountability and oversight. That came after a warning to Democrats from White House Counsel Will Scharf. Threats to executive branch officials designed to deter them from public service or process designed merely to abuse or instill fear in the recipient may cross the line into blatant criminality. Democrats, though, celebrated another improbable win yesterday in deep red Mississippi, securing yet another Senate seat in a close contest. They are undeterred and Republicans are bracing. There'll be a third impeachment. They can't help themselves. They're going to go after everyone in the cabinet. We've already seen that with Secretary of War Hegseth. And of course, the effort to impeach Hegseth failed this week, but Democrats are likely to try again next year. Desiree. Yeah, we'll be keeping our eyes on that for sure. And even though we're in this lame duck session, or period at least, are there any specific bills, any that are important or even funding deadlines that everyday Americans still actually care about even during this time frame? Well, yeah, I mean, there's government funding coming up. That's something they have to get taken care of here. The other issue has to do with confirmations, confirming judges, for instance. There's this brief window the administration has now while they still control Congress to get some things done before Democrats take over next month, excuse me, in January. Okay. That wasn't you in the duck suit, right, Doug? It was not. We don't know who was wearing the duck suit or what point they were trying to make, but it seemed apropos. Okay. Yeah, very. All right. Always good chatting with you. Thanks, Doug. Thanks so much.