Politics & Polls #37: On the Same Team? Trump’s Dynamics with Congress

Mar 30 2017
By Julian Zelizer & Sam Wang (produced by Sarah M. Binder and edited by Bonelys Rosado)
Source Woodrow Wilson School
Shortly after the bill to replace the Affordable Care Act was pulled, President Trump called The Washington Post’s Robert Costa to discuss what happened. The President had a “defiant and even-tempered tone," says Costa.
 
The defeat in the House introduced Trump to the realities of the legislative process and Congress' factions. How will Mitch McConnell fare in securing the Senate votes needed to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court? What can these events tell us about Trump’s evolving relationship with and influence over Congress?
 
Professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang interview Robert Costa for the latest episode of Politics & Polls. Costa is a national political reporter at The Washington Post and a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.
 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Zelizer is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 
Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He has been one of the pioneers in the revival of American political history. He is the author of several books including, most recently, "The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society." Zelizer is a frequent commentator in the international and national media on political history and contemporary politics. He has published more than 600 hundred op-eds, including his weekly column on CNN.com

Wang is professor of neuroscience and molecular biology at Princeton University. He is known for his books "Welcome to Your Brain" and "Welcome to Your Child's Brain" and for his founding role at the Princeton Election Consortium, a blog providing U.S. election analyses. In 2004, Wang was one of the first to aggregate U.S. presidential polls using probabilistic methods. He has also developed new statistical standards for partisan gerrymandering. A neuroscientist, Wang's academic research focuses on the neuroscience of learning, the cerebellum and autism.