Rep. Joe Kennedy on Why Penn.'s Special Election May Swing Blue
Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) thinks that Democrats will turn a long-red part of Pennsylvania blue on Tuesday.
“I look forward to calling Conor [Lamb] a colleague in about a week when he gets sworn in,” the Massachusetts Congressman told Cheddar in a recent interview.
The showdown for Pennsylvania’s District 18 U.S. House seat is between Lamb, an attorney and former United States Marine, and Republican Rick Saccone, who currently serves in the state legislature. The candidates are vying to fill the seat left vacant by Rep. Tim Murphy, who stepped down amid an extramarital affair scandal last fall.
The GOP has held the seat since 2002, and in the 2016 presidential race Donald Trump won the district by 20 points. But this special election is shaping up to be much closer. A Monmouth University [poll](https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_pa_031218/) released Monday showed Lamb had a lead over Saccone in three different turnout models.
Republicans, who’ve dumped about $8 million into the Saccone campaign compared to the less than $400,000 Democrats gave Lamb, are hoping to avoid an outcome like Roy Moore’s failed Senate run in Alabama last year.
And Kennedy said that if Lamb wins, it could send the opposing party a big message.
“It’s undoubtedly a warning sign for the presidency and for President Trump specifically,” he said. “I think it’s showing that there’s an awful lot of Americans out there that are recognizing the way that a Republican-led Congress is leading the country is not reflective of their values or visions or what they think is right.”
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/all-eyes-on-close-pa-special-election).
Face to face for just over two hours, President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin squared off in a secure video call Tuesday as the U.S. president put Moscow on notice that an invasion of Ukraine would bring enormous harm to the Russian economy.
Ahead of Instagram head Adam Mosseri's congressional hearing on the mental impact of the social platform on teens, the company announced a number of updates aimed at teen safety.
Troubled Chinese real estate giant Evergrande is once again nearing the brink of collapse. Shares of Evergrande sunk to a new record low on Monday, closing down 20 percent, as debt default fears resurfaced. Drew Bernstein, co-chairman at consultancy MarcumBP, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss. He said U.S. investors have to understand that "there is no company in China that's too big to fail, that's for sure," and that the Chinese government will be prioritizing the social welfare of the populace. Bernstein did note that it would be a managed collapse in some form.
Joan Greve, a politics reporter at The Guardian US, joined Wake Up With Cheddar to break down the implications of the Biden administration announcing a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing games in response to allegations of human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims. She noted the significance of the move, assessing the already frayed relationship between the U.S. and China. "The Chinese have said that a boycott would be politically manipulative, and now they are actually threatening countermeasures," she said. "And that will certainly have an impact on the spirit of the games at the very least."
The Biden administration has reached an agreement with the Mexican government to resume the "Remain-in-Mexico" policy under court order. By reinstating a Trump-era border policy, asylum-seekers will be forced to stay in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court date. The program is set to resume on Monday. Ryan Devereaux, a reporter for The Intercept, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
The U.S. announced it will not send any official representation to the upcoming Beijing winter Olympics. Cheddar's Hena Doba speaks with East Asia expert Michael Swaine about the reasons behind the diplomatic move.
COVID-19 is still battering the nation's criminal justice system, causing a massive backlog in cases and delaying verdicts for months on end. This, combined with the fear of crowded prisons during a pandemic, has prompted many defendants to plead guilty in exchange for time served or probation. Tina Luongo, attorney-in-charge of the Criminal Defense Practice, joined Cheddar to discuss the court backlog, the rise in plea bargains, and why this was an issue long before the pandemic.
With so many high-profile court cases taking over the media, from the trial over the murder of Ahmaud Arbery to the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse to the ongoing Elizabeth Holmes trial, Cheddar took a look at these cases and why there is such a big interest in them. Rachel Fiset, a white collar criminal defense lawyer and partner with Zeiback, Fiset, and Coleman, and Bryan Hance, attorney-at-law, professor, and academic program director of the pre-law and paralegal studies program at National University, joined Cheddar for a roundtable discussion on why there is so much public interest in so-called courtroom drama.
Carlo and Baker discuss the sweeping new vaccine mandate in NYC that will target all private businesses. Plus, Trump's media venture gets its CEO and more.
