BREAKING: Goodbye, Mitch. Democrats Win the Senate.

The Mother Jones Podcast

NOTE: This episode was recorded just before violence erupted on Capitol Hill when pro-Trump extremists, inflamed by the president, rampaged inside Congress.
Goodbye, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Hello, razor-thin Democratic control of the US Senate, and the chance for President-Elect Joe Biden to actually get stuff done. After a pair of neck-and-neck runoff contests in Georgia on Tuesday, Rev. Raphael Warnock will be the first Black senator in that state's history and the first Black Democrat to be elected to the Senate in the South—beating the incumbent appointee, Republican Senator Kelly Leoffler. And 33-year-old Jon Ossoff clinched his race against incumbent Republican Senator David Purdue. It has been decades since the state sent any Democrat to the Senate, and the clean sweep will mean that, come January 20, Democrats will control the Senate with a tie-breaker vote from newly elected Vice President Kamala Harris. That's obviously huge news for President Biden's agenda: It will be the first time Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency since President Obama's first term. Joining host Jamilah King to discuss the political legacy of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and what Democrats can do first with this new found power, is MoJo senior reporter, Ari Berman, who says Congress's first act should be obvious: expand voting rights across the country. But first, he gives something of an obituary for soon-to-be-former Senate leader, Mitch McConnell.