The Politics Hour: After a mistrial, what’s the political future of Ward 8 D.C. Councilmember Trayon White?

Before we get specifically into D.C. Council business, Tom, let's talk a little bit about the fact that there was a bill that was presented in the Senate for preventing demolition of the Kennedy Center.

However, it needed unanimous consent.

That's a process by which the entire Senate has to approve of it.

It was called the Protecting Presidential Memorials Act.

And then one senator, Mike Lee, Republican, Utah, voted against it, and so it blocked

it.

We briefly mentioned this last week.

Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, said, you know, there's all this fear and concern that Trump is going to put a wrecking ball to the Kennedy Center, whatever happens to it next.

And so he wanted the Senate to say, all right, you cannot— do anything to this Kennedy Center, which is a living memorial to the former president, or any other memorial without congressional approval.

And Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, raised his hand and objected.

Now, other senators wanted to, there was another bill to block the president from doing this gigantic arch, 250-foot arch, and Senator Lee also raised his hand and stopped that so you're right you have to have unanimous approval and just one of the 100 senators can block it so and also i'll just point out for the local people senator mike lee of utah has in the past said he would like to just abolish the entire local dc government so not quite a friend of the city

Get a comment on that, Chairman Mendelsohn?

Well, I think it's very disappointing.

I think it's disappointing that we've seen that the majority party in the Senate and the House have been unwilling to stand up to any of the abuses that we've seen.

And I think we're all familiar with Some of those abuses, like when they screwed up our budget a year ago with the continuing resolution, the way the ballroom has gone through, and it's just really disappointing that there's just this unwillingness to stand up.

Before we get specifically into D.C. Council business, Tom, let's talk a little bit about the fact that there was a bill that was presented in the Senate for preventing demolition of the Kennedy Center.

However, it needed unanimous consent.

That's a process by which the entire Senate has to approve of it.

It was called the Protecting Presidential Memorials Act.

And then one senator, Mike Lee, Republican, Utah, voted against it, and so it blocked

it.

We briefly mentioned this last week.

Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, said, you know, there's all this fear and concern that Trump is going to put a wrecking ball to the Kennedy Center, whatever happens to it next.

And so he wanted the Senate to say, all right, you cannot— do anything to this Kennedy Center, which is a living memorial to the former president, or any other memorial without congressional approval.

And Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, raised his hand and objected.

Now, other senators wanted to, there was another bill to block the president from doing this gigantic arch, 250-foot arch, and Senator Lee also raised his hand and stopped that so you're right you have to have unanimous approval and just one of the 100 senators can block it so and also i'll just point out for the local people senator mike lee of utah has in the past said he would like to just abolish the entire local dc government so not quite a friend of the city

Get a comment on that, Chairman Mendelsohn?

Well, I think it's very disappointing.

I think it's disappointing that we've seen that the majority party in the Senate and the House have been unwilling to stand up to any of the abuses that we've seen.

And I think we're all familiar with Some of those abuses, like when they screwed up our budget a year ago with the continuing resolution, the way the ballroom has gone through, and it's just really disappointing that there's just this unwillingness to stand up.