The Biggest Moments In U.S. Politics From 2023
Take a look at some of the biggest moments in U.S. politics from 2023 with TIME Senior Politics reporter Brian Bennett.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - All right, it's been quite a year in Washington.
00:11 So let's rewind the tape and look at the year.
00:13 The beginning of the year,
00:14 President Biden ended the federal government's
00:16 COVID-19 emergency measures.
00:18 Then in February, a Chinese spy balloon
00:21 traversed the entire United States.
00:23 President Biden had to decide what to do about it.
00:26 - On Wednesday, when I was briefed on the balloon,
00:29 I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday
00:32 as soon as possible.
00:34 - The whole incident led to a major rift
00:36 between the US and China,
00:37 two nuclear powers that had to find a way back to diplomacy.
00:42 Biden met with Xi Jinping, the Chinese president,
00:44 outside of San Francisco in November
00:46 to try to reestablish those communication ties.
00:49 Biden stood steady on Ukraine
00:50 and pushed for Congress to send more money
00:53 for Kiev to defend itself from Russia's aggression.
00:56 Now on Israel, Biden came out very strong
00:58 in support of the Israeli government
01:00 after it was attacked by Hamas on October 7th.
01:03 - In this moment of tragedy,
01:04 I want to say to them and to the world
01:06 and to terrorists everywhere
01:08 that the United States stands with Israel.
01:10 We'll make sure that they have the help their citizens need
01:14 and they can continue to defend themselves.
01:16 - But he's facing pressure within his own party
01:17 to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
01:20 - We need a permanent ceasefire now.
01:23 We need to end the mass murder of Palestinian civilians
01:27 and Palestinian children.
01:28 - So we demand ceasefire now.
01:32 Ceasefire now.
01:33 Ceasefire now.
01:35 - Ceasefire now.
01:37 - So to push forward on a support for Israel and Ukraine,
01:40 Biden made two dangerous trips.
01:42 One, he took a night train into Kiev.
01:45 Kiev is still within rocket distance of Russian artillery
01:49 and met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky
01:52 inside Kiev.
01:54 And then also shortly after the October 7th attacks,
01:57 he flew into Israel to meet with Israeli Prime Minister
02:00 Benjamin Netanyahu.
02:02 This was also the year that President Biden announced
02:04 that he was going to run for a second term.
02:05 He announced his candidacy formally in April.
02:08 - That's why I'm running for re-election.
02:10 - And he doesn't have any major challenges
02:12 on the Democratic side.
02:13 The primaries begin early next year.
02:15 That will create a major moment where Biden's campaign
02:19 will try to set up a contrast.
02:21 Assuming that former President Trump is a Republican nominee,
02:24 Biden will try to describe to voters
02:27 that he's been a steady hand in government for four years
02:30 and that Donald Trump would bring back
02:32 a pattern of disruption.
02:35 All right, let's talk about Congress this year.
02:37 Republicans took over the House at the beginning of the year,
02:40 and there's been a lot of infighting all year.
02:42 It got off to a rocky start.
02:44 It took 15 rounds of voting for Kevin McCarthy
02:47 to be elected the speaker in the first place.
02:49 - A speaker has not been elected.
02:51 A speaker has not been elected.
02:53 A speaker has not been elected.
02:56 A speaker has not been elected.
02:58 A speaker has not been elected.
03:00 Has not been elected.
03:02 Has not been elected.
03:03 Has not been elected.
03:04 Has not been elected.
03:06 Has not been elected.
03:07 Has not been elected.
03:10 - Well, Republicans in the House finally elected a speaker
03:13 post-midnight early on Saturday after Kevin McCarthy
03:16 acquiesced to the demands of the most extreme members
03:18 of his caucus.
03:19 - But he was ousted nine months later.
03:22 There were contentious speaker votes in October,
03:25 and Mike Johnson is now the speaker of the House.
03:27 - McCarthy didn't even want to finish out his term.
03:30 And after 17 years in Congress, said
03:31 he would resign at the end of the year.
03:34 - While I'll be departing the House at the end of this year,
03:37 I will never, ever give up fighting for this country
03:41 that I love so much.
03:43 - And this was also a year when the Senate Judiciary Committee
03:46 held a hearing on Ticketmaster and whether it
03:48 was acting like a monopoly.
03:49 It was Taylor Swift's concert and the trouble
03:52 that her fans had getting tickets that forced the Senate
03:55 to take up this issue.
03:57 The senators took that moment to use a lot of Taylor Swift song
04:00 title puns.
04:01 - As a ode to Taylor Swift, I will say, we know all too well.
04:07 - She's chair captain and among the bleachers.
04:09 Nice of Taylor Swift to have written a song
04:11 about this very situation.
04:12 - A few million Taylor Swift fans would respond,
04:15 this is why we can't have nice things.
04:17 People seem to think that's somehow a solution.
04:20 I think it's a nightmare dressed like a daydream.
04:23 - Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and say,
04:26 I'm the problem.
04:28 It's me.
04:29 - In May, House Republicans threatened
04:31 to let the US default on its debt.
04:33 And after a lot of brinksmanship,
04:35 Republicans and the White House came
04:37 to a deal that prevented the US from defaulting.
04:39 They punted the ceiling fight to after the presidential election
04:43 and the beginning of 2025.
04:45 In September, House Republicans decided
04:47 to launch a former impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden.
04:50 - Today, I am directing our House committee
04:54 to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe
04:58 Biden.
04:59 - House Republicans are trying to make the case
05:01 that Joe Biden somehow profited from his son Hunter Biden's
05:05 overseas business deals.
05:06 But so far, there hasn't been evidence of that.
05:08 Also in September, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez,
05:12 who represents New Jersey, was indicted
05:14 on federal corruption charges.
05:16 Prosecutors filed the charges.
05:17 They also showed photographs of gold bars and stacks of cash
05:22 that prosecutors say were bribes to Menendez.
05:25 - And then there's George Santos.
05:27 The first-term Republican from New York
05:28 was expelled from Congress in December.
05:31 It took three votes to get there.
05:33 In the end, 105 Republicans joined Democrats in the House
05:35 to expel Santos.
05:37 There were concerns over him fabricating his resume,
05:40 lying about his past, and also he
05:42 faces federal charges for money laundering, theft of public
05:44 funds, and making false statements.
05:47 Santos denies wrongdoing.
05:48 - A disgraced former congressman is receiving hundreds
05:51 and hundreds of requests to record personalized videos
05:53 on the website Cameo.
05:54 - My favorite T.S. song is definitely going to be "Trouble."
05:59 (SINGING) I knew you were trouble when you walked in.
06:03 That's me.
06:04 Bye.
06:05 - There were big changes in the Senate this year.
06:07 Senator Dianne Feinstein died after a groundbreaking 30 years
06:10 in the Senate.
06:11 California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed LaFonza Butler
06:15 to fill her Senate seat.
06:16 Butler has been a powerful union organizer in the state
06:19 and was the head of EMILY's List,
06:21 a group that works to elect women candidates who
06:24 favor abortion rights.
06:25 Joe Manchin said he wouldn't run for re-election.
06:27 This is a big deal because the West Virginia
06:29 senator is a Democrat who's been winning in a largely red state.
06:34 And his bowing out of the race in 2024
06:37 could lead to another Republican seat being added in the Senate.
06:42 The Senate is narrowly divided right now,
06:44 and that could affect the balance of power.
06:46 Also this year, the campus debates over free speech
06:49 came to Washington.
06:50 Universities have been criticized for failing
06:52 to protect Jewish students from an increase
06:54 in anti-Semitic attacks during Israel's war in Gaza.
06:57 Three university presidents were called
06:58 to testify before the House Education Committee.
07:01 The University of Pennsylvania president
07:02 resigned under pressure after her responses to questioning.
07:06 Why does that professor still have a job at your university?
07:10 I'm very troubled by what you're describing, Congressman,
07:14 that kind of--
07:16 You're speaking out of both sides of your mouth.
07:18 You're defending it.
07:19 You allow these professors to teach at your college.
07:22 You create a safe haven for this type of anti-Semitic behavior.
07:26 Here's a few cases to highlight from the Supreme Court
07:32 this year.
07:32 Supreme Court ruled that mefepristone, an abortion drug,
07:35 can remain on US markets.
07:36 The decision is seen as a victory
07:38 for the national abortion rights movement.
07:40 The court overturned Alabama's election map,
07:42 saying the state had diluted the power of Black voters
07:44 by drawing a map with only one Black district.
07:47 The court also ruled that race-conscious admission
07:49 processes at Harvard and North Carolina were unlawful.
07:53 This could have sweeping impacts on admissions
07:57 at universities across the United States
07:59 as universities try to find out how
08:01 to have student bodies that reflect
08:03 the makeup of the country without running afoul
08:06 of the Supreme Court's decision.
08:08 The court also ruled that a web designer
08:10 has a right to refuse service to same-sex couples, which
08:13 was a setback for LGBTQ+ rights.
08:17 The Supreme Court also dealt a blow
08:18 to President Joe Biden's effort to forgive large amounts
08:22 of student loan debt.
08:23 The court ruled that the HEROES Act, a law that President Biden
08:27 was using to allow people to delay payments on student loans
08:32 and forgive large portions of them,
08:34 did not grant the president the right to do that.
08:36 And so the president has had to go back to the drawing board
08:39 and find new mechanisms within the role of the executive.
08:43 -I'm announcing today a new path consistent with the days
08:47 we're on to provide student debt relief
08:49 as many borrowers as possible, as quickly as possible.
08:53 We will ground this new approach in a different law
08:55 than my original plan, the so-called Higher Education Act.
08:59 -A major story this year,
09:00 the Supreme Court wasn't even about the rulings.
09:03 It was about the justices.
09:05 News reports showed that Justice Clarence Thomas
09:08 hadn't disclosed luxury trips with Republican donor
09:10 Harlan Crow and other transactions
09:12 going back 20 years.
09:14 So the justices, under pressure, came up with an ethics code
09:17 that they released, but there's no mechanism to enforce it.
09:20 It's really on the justices themselves
09:22 and an honor system to abide by that.
09:25 ♪♪
09:27 And also this year, former President Donald Trump
09:30 walked into this courthouse
09:32 and became the first former president
09:34 to ever be formally indicted and arraigned on federal charges.
09:39 He's facing charges here for trying to overturn
09:42 the 2020 election and setting in motion a series of events
09:46 that led to the January 6th violent assault
09:48 on the US Capitol.
09:49 President Trump is also facing charges
09:51 in three other courtrooms, not one charge, but 91 charges,
09:57 and the outcome of those cases that will play out
09:59 over the next couple of years could very well determine
10:03 Donald Trump's political future
10:04 and how the justice system can deal with a former president
10:08 who is also running for office
10:11 and facing charges at the same time.
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