Full transcript: Political roundtable on "Face the Nation," Dec. 24, 2023

The following is the full transcript of the CBS News correspondents roundtable focused on politics with Robert Costa, Major Garrett, Nikole Killion and Ed O'Keefe that aired on Sunday, Dec. 24, 2023 on "Face the Nation." 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face The Nation. We want to bring in our political team. Robert Costa is our chief election and campaign correspondent. Major Garrett is our chief Washington correspondent. Nikole Killian is our congressional correspondent. Ed O'Keefe is our senior white house and political correspondent. Thank you all for being here, in your holiday best. 

ROBERT COSTA: Great to be here.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, 2023, Nikole kept you very busy. You had a new Speaker of the House, this record number of retirements, resignations, departures. And now we start the new year potentially, on the cusp of another government shutdown, will they be able to legislate in 2024?

NIKOLE KILLION: Well, I think that's the million-dollar question. You know, one would hope. But the reality is, it's going to be a very heavy lift for Congress in the new year. 

And of course, both Congress and the White House have a lot on their wish list. But nothing's getting done before Christmas, which means the Grinch is going to stick around afterwards. And that involves not only trying to fund the government, but also dealing with this unresolved issue of the national security supplemental, whether they can get an agreement on the border. 

You know, they have 10 legislative days before that first government funding deadline. So it really will be a race to the finish if they can find a way to work together and get it done, but there's a lot of skepticism about how quickly they can work to resolve all of these issues.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And the issues have very real-world implications. I mean, Ed, some of these border figures are pretty staggering. Ten thousand people per day at a time crossing. Does the president need to get directly involved to close this deal? Or is it too politically complicated for him to do so?

ED O'KEEFE: I think they're trying to keep him from having to engage in the particulars and trying to bring him in towards the end, the fact that in the closing days of the year, it was the Homeland Security secretary and the chief of staff doing much of the negotiating, that was a signal that they were working through the actual details and the mechanics of what it would mean at the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to get certain changes made and whether the lawyers were okay with it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: For the first time in decades. 

ED O'KEEFE: Exactly. And the politics of it, though, are so much more difficult for the president, he's going to promise first with Democrats, especially progressives, who don't want to see any semblance of Trump-era immigration policy re-enacted, but perhaps more importantly, on the margins, Latino lawmakers who say you're now going after a value proposition with a key bloc of voters that need to support you if you expect to win again. There was also concerns that they just weren't consulted at all in the beginning. 

But the fact that he has, for the most part, not only on this issue, but so many others this year, stayed away from the details where he spent the first year-and-a-half of his presidency, some would argue way too engaged in them, neither of them necessarily work to his advantage in the end. But this year, at least the — the theory was, and certainly here in the closing weeks, stay keep him out of it to avoid more political peril.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But there's a political incentive for him to close a deal here, Major.

MAJOR GARRETT: If he can. And what is important about this immigration conversation, Margaret, it's not like the ones we've gone through for the last 10 years where we're talking about comprehensive meaning, the right gets something and the left gets something. The contours of this current debate are all on what Republicans want and are demanding on a policy side, not even just about money. And that is a seismic shift. 

And it is something that the White House has come to terms with, but hasn't found a legislative solution, or a political way of talking about it. And if there has been one issue for this White House, that has been, I think, a blind spot, it has been immigration. 

The president's been behind the eight ball on immigration with Republicans, for sure, predictably, maybe. But with independents, almost from the beginning of his presidency. There was a sense that they didn't know what was going on there. And they weren't addressing it. And now all of that political upheaval is coming home to the White House. And they're on the cusp of, as Ed indicated, major concessions that will bring policy very close, if not identical to Trump policy, something inconceivable when Joe Biden became president of the United States.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And then he campaigned against it—

MAJOR GARRETT: And then he campaigned against.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But his own secretary of Homeland Security, said that the request for money was a tourniquet and they were begging Congress for these reforms, Nikole, so it was the specifics where this didn't really move forward. When you talk to senators about what this will look like, what do we know?

NIKOLE KILLION: Well, we don't know a lot. And that has been the concern primarily among a number of congressional Republicans because they feel like this is all being negotiated behind closed doors, and they're not getting any intel. 

Obviously, for the negotiators that are kind of keeping things close to the vest. We do know, for instance, that, you know, the White House has put on the table willingness to accept limits on asylum, expand detention and deportation efforts. But you know, there's also this big sticking point of parole which the Biden administration has been using particularly to help, for instance, Afghan evacuees, Ukrainians who are displaced by the Russian war. And Republicans feel that authority is being abused. So that really has kind of slowed down these negotiations. 

The other thing is there are just so many thorny issues just around the issue of immigration itself, as you referenced. And so there is a lot of concern about, well, what is this legislative text actually going to look like? So hopefully, there can be some type of product by the start of the new year. But again, that remains to be seen.

MAJOR GARRETT: I talked to one senator who is near these negotiations on the Democratic side, who saw this in the context of Ukraine and Israel aid and said, if we don't get the next batch, the next tranche of Ukraine aid that's a 50-year mistake, his words, not mine. 

Other things we can fix. He didn't say immigration, but that was the implication. From his perspective, the Ukraine aid had to be done. And if it wasn't done, it was a mistake of decadeslong significance. And that felt to me like an imperative to accept some things that you might not accept under normal circumstances, but in this context, be willing to do so.

MARGARET BRENNAN: President Zelenskyy said that it was an issue of morale, not just money. And it was a statement that the United States was backing away, potentially, from Ukraine, even if that wasn't the intention. 

What are you hearing from your sources on Capitol Hill, because against the backdrop of all these really important issues, we now also have some pretty tricky politics in the House that a new speaker would have to navigate if they get that deal in the Senate.

ROBERT COSTA: It's beyond almost something that's tricky. Politically, it's foundationally. Now complicated for President Biden as he interacts with the Republican Party leadership, because on one hand, he has a willing partner in Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who looks at Ukraine, as a traditional Republican on foreign policy, believes the United States has a role in Western Europe in countering Russian influence in the region. 

At the same time, President Biden is also dealing with this new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who comes from the Trump wing of the party. And that Trump wing is now fueled by this sense of nationalism, sometimes incoherent, but very certain in its direction in not wanting to give more aid to US allies, to NATO countries, and in this case, also to Ukraine. 

And that's something that's going to confront President Biden for the rest of his presidency, whether it's until the end of this term, or through a second term, the Republican Party in the House reflects where it is also on the campaign trail. And former President Trump for this, at this point, remains the Republican front-runner. And he's out there with this nationalistic message saying he's averse to more funding for Ukraine. 

It's going to be interesting to watch former Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has more of an internationalist approach to foreign policy, whether she can get traction, not just in the polls with voters in New Hampshire. But can she get traction for that McConnell-like traditional Republican view on foreign policy?

MARGARET BRENNAN: But part of this is just the mechanics, right, of what does Speaker Johnson want to do? Who does he want to be? He's from this more conservative element of the party, the Freedom Caucus. What are the choices he wants to- wants to make if he also could be ousted, like Kevin McCarthy?

MAJOR GARRETT: And what choices can he make? Based on a very narrow majority, more narrow than it was when he became speaker by two seats. And what will the caucus, or the conference rather, that used a tool to oust the previous speaker because he cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government open- what if Mike Johnson is in a position where to keep the government open, my goodness, he has to cut a deal with Democrats. How do you look at that existential issue?

NIKOLE KILLION: Well, we did see that to a certain extent when they passed this laddered, or two-tiered CR, right, actually more Democrats voted for it. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: The short-term funding deal that expires in January. 

NIKOLE KILLION: Exactly. And so you know, it's possible that may have to happen again. Now, Speaker Johnson has made clear that he does not want to do any more short-term fixes. And so if they can't figure out this appropriations process, then both Republicans and Democrats may have to accept across-the-board cuts, which neither side wants to do. But I think, you know, if you look at Speaker Johnson's leadership, he also has shown times where he's been able to wrangle Republicans together, most notably with the impeachment inquiry vote where Republicans voted unanimously for it. So it is a very narrow tightrope that the speaker has to walk. But ultimately, I think he showed that he can toe both lines when necessary. So we'll just have to see how he plays and things come the new year.

ROBERT COSTA: Just to quickly build on what Nikole said, such an excellent point about the impeachment inquiry, because the Speaker has supported that moving forward in the House- that casts a shadow over any possible deal, whether it's on Ukraine or on the border or on government funding. Yes, it gives him support with the right flank of the House, political capital that he can say, I'm doing what you want. I'm not someone who's just trying to cut deals with the President, I'm trying to move forward with impeachment. But that creates bad blood with the White House. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Exactly. How do you- how do you broker a deal– 

MAJOR GARRETT: –It's hard to ignore– 

MARGARET BRENNAN: –It's hard to ignore, even if it doesn't move forward–

MAJOR GARRETT: It's the- the- to use the logo of the party, the elephant in the room, for goodness sake, I mean, it is part of this attitude Republicans have taken harder than Senate Republicans have. Senate Republicans are not interested in this question, impeachment, at all, at least not currently. House Republicans are. So the question for the Speaker is "having had your conference strike a partisan pose on the impeachment inquiry, which many Republicans who voted for it said wasn't on the substance, 'I'm not prepared to vote for articles of impeachment, but we'll set the inquiry in motion.' Having done that, can you then legislate and cut bipartisan deals? Does that give you enough room to maneuver?" We do not know the answer to that question.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. And those in the Senate who are negotiating what you were laying out, Nikole are betting that this will have to be a bipartisan deal on immigration, or it just won't- it won't go anywhere. 

NIKOLE KILLION: That's right. And the reality is, though, they don't know, I mean, I'm talking to senators, you know, and asking them, "do you think the House is- you're putting all this time, all this investment in these negotiations- do you think the House is gonna buy it?" And they're just like, "I don't know. I don't know." So it–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –No one knows.

NIKOLE KILLION: Exactly. So it is a bit of a gamble.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I mean, we talk so many times about the level of dysfunction in Washington, Ed. And I don't think people at home realize how particularly complicated this exact moment is when we have so many issues of consequence: immigration, a war in Europe, a war in the Middle East, a potential conflict in Asia, the president's asking for all this funding for national security purpose, and there isn't agreement.

MAJOR GARRETT: And to keep the government funded all in the teeth of Iowa caucuses on the 15th of January, and the New Hampshire primary right after that, and South Carolina. All of that where a lot of political reporters and the candidates themselves are going to be elsewhere focused on that. Meanwhile, Washington, what does it do? How does it function? How does it fail to function?

MARGARET BRENNAN: To the campaign trail. Bob Costa, I know you've been out there a fair amount. What are you taking away from what people across the country are hearing? They've already written off Washington as broken a long time ago, right? But what are they focused on and concerned about?

ROBERT COSTA: Well, Republican voters are looking to see if former President Trump is going to remain in this front-running position through the Iowa caucuses and through the New Hampshire primary. It's evident, based on CBS News' latest polling and my conversations with New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and others in that state that Nikki Haley is getting a foothold in New Hampshire. 

The question is, in the coming weeks, can she move from around 25% to 30% of support among Republicans in New Hampshire to 45% to 50% to 50% plus? And really make New Hampshire a place where she gets a bounce into her home state of South Carolina, and then later into Super Tuesday. Talking to sources on Wall Street, there's likely going to be a migration of cash toward Haley in the coming weeks to help her survive late into the race. 

But ultimately, when I'm talking to Republican voters, they still have the same grievances in many cases that Trump has when it comes to the perception- perception of a political establishment, a legal establishment, they believe is aligned against the Republican Party. And those grievances are fueling Trump's support at this time, even as he faces so many other issues.

MARGARET BRENNAN: It's interesting that that sense of grievance, you're saying, is what's resonating above kitchen table issues, above national security issues? Where is that coming from?

ROBERT COSTA: It comes from how so many voters channel Trump's own anger over the 2020 elections. Some share his false claims that he won the election in 2020. He did not. And they believe he deserves a second shot. And it's so unusual to have a former president running for the nomination again. 

I mean, I can't even imagine Jimmy Carter running in 1984. George H.W. Bush running in 1996. It's historically almost inconceivable, but it's happening and Republican voters, for the most part, are looking at him. But, I have detected Margaret, the support for Trump in some places, especially in New Hampshire, noticeably soft. They like Trump, but they're not totally committed to voting for him at this late juncture.

MAJOR GARRETT: There is a component of Trump's message that does address the other two things. I'm not going to get you in wars. We didn't have any wars when I was president. That's on the National Security isolationist, or nationalist approach. And "better off with Trump." They just rolled that campaign slogan out recently, meaning economically, you are happier, more secure, felt better when I was there. So he is trying to address that. But the grievance is the thing that is the rocket fuel and has solidified him all through the long summer of indictments. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you surprised, because I am, that there isn't more discussion of how the former president handled the pandemic? That was a pretty big event on his watch. 

ED O'KEEFE: DeSantis talks about it, when he tries to contrast the federal response with how Florida ultimately responded to it. Faults him for standing with Fauci before he eventually parted with him, but otherwise it's kind of one of those issues they've wanted to move on from because to do that is to remind these voters perhaps part of why Trump ultimately ended up losing. And to your point about you know, anybody else I've been struck in Iowa, how large some of the crowds have been for others. 

But I think part of the problem is the others haven't necessarily done a compelling enough job explaining why they would be different, why they are more future-, forward-looking, although part of the reason Haley appears to be catching on at least in New Hampshire is because if you look at our advertising, you look at her pitch on the stump, it's, that's all been chaos, we're not going to have a going for that very simple, forward-looking message contrasted against everybody else, maybe just enough to at least keep her competitive for- through the first few.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So Ed, tell me what the President's message for his reelection is. I was speaking to someone at the White House recently, he told me the two issues of most concern to him are gas prices, and the numbers at the border leading up to the election.

ED O'KEEFE: So it's an economic and sort of public safety government management argument, right? Is what they've been trying to make. That if you look at the economic indicators, inflation is going down, unemployment is staying low, consumer confidence is up. That's a good thing. 

Border security, crime are two issues that they certainly worry about, because they know on the margins, independent voters all over the country, the Republicans that might be compelled to vote for him could be dissuaded if they see those things, not necessarily handled. 

He also knows he has to deal with immigration because it is such a base issue of concern, not only an issue for independent voters. They fully expect it will be Trump, they fully expect to be able to throw up the contrast and say the economy's in better shape, the pandemic is over we're dealing with the global challenges that have occurred, he would do a worse job of it. And you should stick with this guy.

MAJOR GARRETT: And abortion and democracy. 

ED O'KEEFE: and abortion

MARGARET BRENNAN: That's what they're hoping creates— 

MAJOR GARRETT: They will be there. Those are acts second and third. Acts two and three. 

ROBERT COSTA: Vice President Harris is going to be out front on abortion rights based on my reporting. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. So can she motivate those young voters that they need to actually be excited?

ED O'KEEFE: There is evidence that she can. They came out of this college tour she did this fall quite impressed and pleased with the reaction. It's part of why there's now this plan for a college tour focused on abortion services, mostly in battleground states to draw attention to it. 

But absolutely, they saw something there that said, she can bring back Black voters, she can bring Back women, she can bring back younger voters and serve as that sort of partisan cudgel that a running mate often does and sort of demonstrate at least to the base, hey, yes, I've been busy in Washington breaking ties, and dealing with stuff like that. But now I can be out here and remind all of you why you have to support the president. 

NIKOLE KILLION: And that coalition is going to be key for Biden, if he's looking to be reelected in terms of young voters and voters of color in particular. But you know, some of that support has softened. And so while the Biden campaign argues, well, people just still need to hear our message, we need to get our message out, more people need to understand what we've done, and what we've accomplished. 

Part of that is using the vice president, I think, to convey that message, but it is one that they are going to have to hammer home because there are many voters saying we may just sit this one out. We don't necessarily like Trump, and we're not going to vote for him. But we may not vote for Biden. And I think that's going to be a big hurdle for the Biden campaign as they move forward into 24. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. Is it fear? Or is it excitement? Is it fear of the alternative? Or is it excitement about the candidates running— 

MAJOR GARRETT: They'll take both — 

ED O'KEEFE: Anything they can—

MAJOR GARRETT: Any combination of the two, in any ratio.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Major, I want to make sure that I asked you because I know you have spent a lot of time talking to election officials. We heard this incredible warning from Microsoft about foreign interference. But domestically, there's concern about security. 

MAJOR GARRETT: Foreign interference is going to be a concern perpetually. And it is. 

We all love campaigns. For most of my political coverage career, I took the process by which we run elections for granted. Overlooking the hundreds of thousands of Americans who do this work either as election administrators, as poll observers, or poll workers. I have a deeper appreciation for them now than ever before, after 2020. They're stressed. Many of them are retiring or just quitting under that stress. 

That is a problem for institutional knowledge in a lot of swing states. That is something that people in this space who watch election administration very closely are worried about. They're under-resourced. Our elections are decentralized. There's no federal management of elections. We have a lot of elections. They're costly. They're local, and they're complex. 

Those are weaknesses and strengths. We do it pretty well. But this particular part of America that does this heroic work, oftentimes unnoticed, is under tremendous scrutiny, stress, anxiety and some are leaving. 

And that does create a gap of knowledge, a gap of experience that may not help us through 2024. It's an open question, but there are those in this space who are nervous about it, very much.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm sure they are, and very real threats, as we saw in the last election.

MAJOR GARRETT: Threats that manifest themselves in lots of different ways. But if you're an election worker, it doesn't matter if it's a text message or if it's a phone call that's left on a voicemail in the office. You feel threatened. 

They walk to their cars wondering should they be looking over- they actually are looking over their shoulders. And that's not a space we want our fellow Americans, our neighbors, our friends to be in when they're doing this work of helping us, cast, count, and certify our votes. 

That's why I fall in love with this space, because that's where the authority comes from. We all talk about the campaigns and the authority, but the in-between spot are these people who do this work for us. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: The public servants.  

MAJOR GARRETT: And they're stressed, and they shouldn't be.

ED O'KEEFE: And it is incredible. I mean, to your point about the brain drain, how I remember talking to the Arizona secretary of state about this, all of what happened in the last four or five years is coinciding with a lot of people just aging out. So it's not even that they're quitting because they're intimidated. They're quitting because it's time- time to retire. Time to not do this anymore and pass it off to the next generation- generation. Their concern is that the next generation is going to be wearing blue or red visors, and sunglasses while they're counting the votes. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we have to leave this part of the conversation here will be back after a quick big break. Let me do that again. Sorry.

We'll continue our conversation after a quick break. We'll be right back. 

We're back with more from our panel of political correspondents. This is one of my favorite parts. You guys get to predict the future. Ed O'Keefe your first-- 

ED O'KEEFE: One time a year we do it. 

MARGARET BRENNAN:  Well, yes and then we check- to check your accuracy. What do you expect in 2024?

ED O'KEEFE: Look, there's been a lot of talk about micro targeting and the ways that candidates are going to try to reach the voters. I predict however, one of the tried and true pieces of presidential campaigns will endure, and that there will be at least one televised debate between the Democrat and Republican presidential nominees.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Which would be standard fare, in- in any other year.

[CROSSTALK]

ED O'KEEFE: It would be. But despite the--

MAJOR GARRETT: But is very much uncertain.

[END CROSSTALK]

ED O'KEEFE: But is very much uncertain right now given concerns about the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. 

MAJOR GARRETT:  And the willingness of the potential nominees as we currently imagine them.

ED O'KEEFE: But if it's Biden and Trump, they can't help themselves, and they'll want at least one go at it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Anything's possible this year. Nikole, what about you?

NIKOLE KILLION: Well, if former President Trump ends up being the Republican nominee, I predict that he will pick a female running mate. And there are a number of females that are being talked about, female lawmakers, whether that's Elise Stefanik, who was just recently in Florida, I might add, for a fundraiser, and who got a lot of attention, of course, towards the end of the year with those hearings on college antisemitism. 

And so I think she's certainly a one to watch, she's been a strong backer of the former president, but you also have a number of other lawmakers, whether that's Nancy Mace, for instance, you have Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. These are names that Steve Bannon recently threw out in a recent interview suggesting that the former president may select a female running mate. And I'm not just putting it out there because he is, but you know, I think considering that Biden also will be running with Vice President Harris, it- it makes sense, potentially--

MAJOR GARRETT: Kristi Noem, possibly.

NIKOLE KILLION: Kristi Noem, another one, governor of South Dakota. So there are a lot of options, remains to be seen. But I think there potentially will be a woman on the ticket.

MARGARET BRENNAN:  Mike Pence, not the running mate, of course, for obvious reasons.

MAJOR GARRETT:  No, no, not the running mate. No. So my prediction is kind of 30,000 foot. I think we're gonna look back at 2024 as the year when our relationship to social media changed fundamentally, as a country, not only economics, politics, conversation, up until the- for the last 10 years, I think our net idea about it was ubiquitous and positive. I think in 2024, it will be still ubiquitous, but net negative. 

And elites are pulling away from social media platforms, there's more concern about children being on too much, too much distraction, too much data scraping, too many privacy concerns. 

There will be I think, behaviorally, a pulling back and a reassessment of social media and all of our behaviors and patterns. You beginning to see this with what used to be called Twitter and is now X, it's a completely different model now than it was even a year ago. And things in the tech space move very rapidly. And I think 2024 will be looked at as a year with all this is not only reassessed, but we pull back from.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We'll see. We'll see. Bob?

ROBERT COSTA: So often in recent months. I've called my sources inside the so-called Republican establishment, longtime donors, party leaders, and I've asked them a simple question: What happens if Trump is the nominee, and he's convicted of a federal crime or a crime in Georgia? Is there a plan B? Is there going to be some play at that convention, some independent ticket, some kind of idea that you could have a different candidate as the Republican nominee or the Republican standard bearer? 

And based on almost every conversation, as off-record as it gets sometimes, there is no plan B. If Trump is convicted of a crime, which is still a big what if, the Republican establishment, the Republican leadership in this country, my prediction is that they're not ready to put anyone else forward. They're just going to deal with the reality, however politically brutal it is, that their nominee is potentially a convicted felon. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: This sounds like an exciting convention this summer potentially?

[CROSSTALK]

ROBERT COSTA: It may not be that exciting--

[END CROSSTALK]

MAJOR GARRETT: We don't even know what that looks like. Try to deny Trump the nomination on that convention floor? Fisticuffs. It will look like '68, except the fight will be inside, not outside.

ROBERT COSTA: And you think any of those Trump delegates are going to want to switch over? These are diehards in so many state parties now are dominated by Trump allies.

ED O'KEEFE: And by the way, if he's a convicted felon, won't even be able to vote for himself. 

MAJOR GARRETT: Not in Florida. But you can serve in prison.

ED O'KEEFE: You can.

NIKOLE KILLION: And I did have voters in Georgia who told me they'd be fine with that. So there you have it.

ED O'KEEFE: There you have it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. underreported stories, Ed?

ED O'KEEFE: I come back to this every year. We've got to do a better job in this business of journalism, and I think as a country, in opening our eyes to the rest of the world and understanding why it is people continue to want to desperately come to this country. And given the numbers we've seen in recent months, it's not just focusing on Latin America, and why people are coming from Venezuela, or El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. 

But why are they now coming from Africa? Why are they coming from Asia and getting into Mexico and finding their way in? 

It's going to be a really tricky year to which to try to do that when we have so many domestic political concerns and questions about whether Congress and the White House really get along. But we have to do a better job of understanding and explaining why the world still so desperately wants to come here. And maybe through that can force some policy change and- and more of a focus on not only what's going on at the front door, but why it isn't the rest of the neighborhood they even want to come here to begin with.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Nikole?

NIKOLE KILLION: I would point to, you know, we look at the national security supplemental that we spent a lot of time talking about, but there hasn't been a lot of focus on specific domestic funding programs. And by that, I mean, you have many advocates out there warning of this potential childcare cliff, which we covered earlier in the year where funding ran out for the childcare industry. These were grants that helped a lot of childcare centers, in the wake of the pandemic, that money has gone away, it has not been renewed. And so Democrats in particular have been pushing for an additional $16 billion over the next five years. 

Otherwise, you have, for instance, the Century Foundation warning that you could have up to 70,000 childcare centers closed. And as parents that is a very daunting factor. 

The other is the women, infants, and children program. This is a nutrition assistance program, that also has not been fully funded by Congress and you have the White House really making a hard push in this next round of appropriations to approve that funding, same thing, otherwise, you will have millions of pregnant women, infants and others potentially in jeopardy of not being able to get the assistance they need if that's not renewed.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And no matter how often you tell people there are positive economic data points, they will tell you their lived experience and real life challenges like that. They have- they matter, politically. Major, underreported?

MAJOR GARRETT:  So, you're gonna say, Major, we didn't bring you here to run the IT desk. So I'm going to be in the tech space again, and I apologize for that. But I don't think it's possible to over-cover artificial intelligence, machine learning, integrated neural networks, and all the things they're going to change about our lives in the next five to 10 years. 

The pace of this accelerating technology is beyond comprehension. We couldn't over-cover electricity. We couldn't over-cover the railroad. We are in the fourth stage of the Industrial Revolution. And what all of these systems will do, in terms of labor allocation, available jobs, white collar, blue collar, pink collar, will be the greatest political, intellectual, economic and cultural challenge of the next decade. And I don't think we can cover that story too much. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: I agree with you. And it's a hard one. 

MAJOR GARRETT: It's a very hard story to get to. As much as I read the more I wonder where this is all going.

MARGARET BRENNAN:  I know. It's totally fascinating. Bob?

ROBERT COSTA: Politically, one underreported story remains Democratic governors. So often when we're covering the Democratic Party, we're obviously talking about President Biden, but the biggest faces in the party are those sometimes out in the states who are building the next generation of the Democratic Party. 

And because there's so much coverage of former President Trump, of President Biden, sometimes these democratic governors get overlooked, but I've been paying close attention to Pennsylvania's Governor Josh Shapiro, he's become a real voice on antisemitism. Michigan's governor Gretchen Whitmer - Michigan such a battleground after that United Auto Workers strike earlier in 2023. 

Emerging stars for the Democrats like Jared Polis, in Colorado, and of course, Andy Beshear from Kentucky, who won in the South as a Democratic governor in 2023, one of those key off-year elections. They deserve more coverage, because it's a real indicator of where this Democratic party could be going. Yes, it might be moving in the direction of Representative Ocasio Cortez of New York and Senator Sanders, but it could maybe be moving in a more moderate, centrist direction as well, if some of these governors continue to rise.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. And this year, we have a new idea which is to try to find something good and something positive. 

ED O'KEEFE: It was hard.

MARGARET BRENNAN: It was — you know, for people at home, it is overwhelming. It is overwhelming for us in this industry as well, the amount of change, and what a difficult year it has been. Ed, do you have a glimmer of hope?

ED O'KEEFE: Took a few days, Margaret, I'm not gonna lie. But I did- I did come up with a story that I was reminded of that happened here in the Washington region, to some extent. 

There's a guy named Don Scott, who was poised to become the Speaker of the House of Delegates of Virginia next year. He would become the first African American man to hold that position. But more importantly, he'd be the first former felon. 

He went through the process in Virginia of getting his record cleared, and it was cleared by a former Republican governor, became an attorney, got elected into public office, and now has risen through the ranks of the state legislature to serve in that role. Set his partisanship and the other history aside, it's just nice to see somebody given a second chance to do something, and to try to do it in the public realm. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: New beginnings. Nikole?

NIKOLE KILLION: Bob and I both spent a lot of time at the beginning of this year in Georgia, and Plains, Georgia, more specifically, when we got that scare about former President Jimmy Carter, when he entered hospice care. And the fact that he was able to make it for the better part of this year, made it to his 99th birthday, made it to the peanut festival in Plains, Georgia. And obviously, the tragic news of his wife's passing, but even made it to that trip in Atlanta to watch her memorial, I think is just a testament to his strength and his grit, and continues to be an inspiration for a lot of Americans. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Continues his public service in many ways. Major?

MAJOR GARRETT: My positive story, my good news story is forbearance, and the power of concessions. We had two gubernatorial elections in 2023, in Kentucky and Mississippi. The Republican in Kentucky lost, conceded, wished his victor well. In Mississippi, Brandon Presley, the Democrat, lost, wished his Republican well, on behalf of the state. 

Both of those races were closer than Michigan and Pennsylvania were in 2020. And they both conceded willingly, eagerly, and importantly, wished their opponent well on behalf of their state. That is a fundamental strength of our democracy. It's coming back. It needs to be encouraged everywhere it's seen. I saw it, I encourage it. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Positive reinforcement. Bob?

ROBERT COSTA: I'm hopeful about younger people in this country, teenagers, college students. So often, they're portrayed in the media, frankly, as people who are addicted to their phones, living on TiktTok and Instagram. But when we're on the campaign trail, we're often encountering younger people who are attending events, who are knowledgeable about politics, following their civic culture in wherever they live. 

And I'm hopeful whenever I meet some of these younger people, that not everything is going to be negative, that the younger generation does care. We just got to listen to them more. And sometimes they have different issues they're focusing on, whether it's gun control, or climate change, but just hear them out and encourage people to continue to study civics, history, politics. A

nd when you see somebody out there, whether it's on the campaign trail, or in your own town, say, hey, that's great. You're here, how can we listen to you? How can we get you involved? Because I really believe all can be better with in terms of younger people getting involved, if we just give them a chance and encourage it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: It's the only way democracy continues to function, if you continue to participate in it. It's a good bright note, Bob, thank you. Thanks to all of you for that. We'll be back in a moment.

And we're back with more from our panel of political correspondents who we asked to go find us some good news that happened in 2023. Ed?

MARGARET BRENNAN  

And we'll be back in a moment.