ERIC DEGGANS, HOST:
There's a new Congress in town here in D.C. Both the House and Senate swore in new members yesterday, with Louisiana's Mike Johnson retaining the speaker's gavel after some drama in the House and South Dakota's John Thune taking a new role as Senate majority leader. For the next two weeks, they'll be working with President Biden as he ends his term. NPR's senior Washington editor and correspondent Ron Elving joins us now. Good morning, Ron.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Eric.
DEGGANS: So first, these incidents in New Orleans and Las Vegas. The former appears to be an attempt at terrorism, while authorities are still looking for a motivation for the latter. What do you make of them?
ELVING: The FBI has yet to find any coordination or, as Ryan just told us, any meaningful link between the two. There are troubling parallels. The trucks came from the same rental platform. The men were both Army veterans. Both seem to have been troubled, as the authorities like to say, but not in necessarily the same ways. Right now, that seems to be it. Obviously, the New Orleans case is the more serious - so many dead, so many wounded. Will there be more of these latter-day ISIS sympathizers, such as in the New Orleans case, who are finding low-tech ways - if you will - to commit mass murder? There have been some similar incidents using vehicles to attack crowds in European countries in the recent past, so there's going to be additional focus on trying to prevent that.
DEGGANS: Well, let's turn to politics. I mean, what happened yesterday with Speaker Mike Johnson in the House?
ELVING: The embattled speaker survived. There was some turbulence, but he survived with some help from the president-elect. Now, the House Republican majority is historically slim. And on the first ballot, there were three Republicans who voted for someone other than Johnson. Six others withheld their votes until the very end of that ballot to register their dissent. And at that point, there was a pause in the proceedings. They didn't gavel the vote to a close.
Two of the three who had opposed Johnson went into a side room and apparently had at least one phone conversation with President-elect Trump, who was reported to have been reached on the golf course. And three plus six equals nine. That is not a random number, Eric. That's exactly the number that will be needed to force a vote on ousting the speaker if House Republicans wish to do so.
DEGGANS: So what does that tell you about how the House will function for the 119th Congress?
ELVING: It says Mike Johnson will be the speaker for all the administrative tasks and negotiating with the Democrats - everything that's associated with that office - the top job in the Congress, number three in the presidential succession. But the authority, the power of that office will belong in large measure to Donald Trump. If Johnson tries to go his own way, he is likely to find it leads him right out the door.
DEGGANS: Wow. So, meanwhile, the executive branch remains in Joe Biden's hands, and he's not exactly on cruise control, is he?
ELVING: No, not hardly. This week, he handed out major national accolades to the co-chairs of the committee that investigated the January 6 riot at the Capitol four years ago. That was Democrat Bennie Thompson. There was a lot of focus, of course, on the other co-chair, Republican Liz Cheney, who was honored for putting the people above party - not subtle. It's a gauntlet, really, thrown at the feet of Donald Trump, who has promised to prosecute the January 6 investigating committee, including Liz Cheney.
And on a more substantive side, Biden yesterday blocked the sale of U.S. Steel to a Japanese corporation. Biden had appointed a panel of his Cabinet members to consider the sales implication for national security, and their conclusions were inconclusive. But Biden also heard from the steelworkers' union and others in organized labor who saw the deal as devastating to the domestic steel industry and to their union members. One suspects Joe Biden did not want the final chapter of his presidency to include signing over such an iconic U.S. company as U.S. Steel to a foreign corporation.
DEGGANS: Well, finally, Ron, we've got new development in Donald Trump's legal problems. Can you tell us the latest?
ELVING: The judge in his New York state court hush money trial has set a January 10 sentencing date for Trump's 34 criminal convictions in that case. But the judge has indicated there will not be any criminal penalties such as jail time or probation or a fine, and he will give Trump what he called - the judge called - an unconditional discharge. Trump has tried mightily to have these charges dismissed, and his lawyers are still fighting this sentencing on the 10th. But Trump can now claim victory in this latest ruling and avoidance of further serious legal consequences for himself.
DEGGANS: Well, that's NPR's Ron Elving. Ron, thanks for joining us.
ELVING: Thank you, Eric.
(SOUNDBITE OF DEAN BROWN'S "BLUES ON THE BLVD.") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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