Lisa Blunt Rochester had a very different Jan. 6

Jan 07, 2025

What up, Recast fam! Welcome to 2025. Here’s today’s agenda:

Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester on her historic first days in office
Embattled NYC Mayor Eric Adams sees a path to reelection
And we honor the nation’s 39th president, Jimmy Carter

Photo illustration of torn-paper edge on photo of Lisa Blunt Rochester being sworn in by Kamala Harris.

Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) is sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris at a ceremony Jan. 3 at the Capitol. | POLITICO illustration/Photo by AP

Lisa Blunt Rochester is now the first Black person to serve in both chambers of Congress.

Four years ago, the Delaware Democrat found herself trapped on a balcony in the House chamber the day of the Jan. 6 insurrection. On Friday, she was sworn into the Senate by her fellow history-maker, Vice President Kamala Harris. And on Monday, Blunt Rochester voted to certify Donald Trump’s election as Harris presided over the process.

The vote, thought to be largely ceremonial until the events of 2021, lasted just over half an hour and was a stark contrast with four years ago. This time, there were no riots by the losing party’s supporters. This time, there were no objections from the losing party’s lawmakers.

And the gravity of her first few days in office was not lost on the newly minted senator.

“There was something about the moment that I raised my right hand and looked into [Harris’] eyes that made the moment real, made me feel alive, made me understand … the responsibility, the joy of service and the pride even standing there in front of her taking this oath,” Blunt Rochester said of her swearing in ceremony.

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Like many Democrats this past cycle, Blunt Rochester ran her Senate campaign on the premise of helping Harris win the presidency in order to protect America from Trump and his allies, painting them as threats to democracy.

“The election did not come out the way we had hoped it would come out,” the senator told The Recast following Monday’s certification of Trump’s 312-226 electoral college victory. “But I also felt proud of our Democratic Caucus for how we comported ourselves, recognizing that we were there to do our duty, and that was important to us.”

Lisa Blunt Rochester waves while walking onto stage.

Blunt Rochester walks on stage to speak during the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Harris, herself, underscored the importance of the proceedings, telling reporters on the Hill on Monday that it was “a very important day.”

“It was about what should be the norm and what the American people should be able to take for granted, which is that one of the most important pillars of our democracy is that there will be a peaceful transfer of power,” Harris said.

She’s not the first vice president who’s had to certify their own electoral loss. She does, however, hold the unique distinction of presiding over certification for an opponent who refused to do the same four years ago, choosing to lie to supporters about the 2020 election results — and who targeted her with several racialized and sexualized attacks during the 2024 campaign.

“She did that with so much grace, so much dignity, so much poise, so much backbone — it was a feeling of pride watching her,” Blunt Rochester said.

Democratic Party leaders are hoping voters will reward them in future elections for upholding the peaceful transfer of power. But they know that the “saving democracy” argument Harris and other Democrats tried to run on this past cycle needs to be reexamined, given Trump’s return to power.

Quote from Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester reads: "[Harris] did that with so much grace, so much dignity, so much poise, so much backbone."

“There is a growing sentiment among some folks in the party that we can't talk about it because [saving democracy] doesn't resonate,” a senior Harris campaign aide told The Recast. Still, they said it would be shortsighted to abandon this campaign message entirely heading in the 2026 midterms, arguing it still resonates with the base.

While Blunt Rochester agrees with the sentiment, the next elections are too far in the future to be her immediate focus. She’s one of five Black senators serving in the 119th Congress — a record-setting number — and she’s taking her seat alongside Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who recently became the longest-serving Black senator in U.S. history.

“In these next two years, we will see how these [Trump] policies work, whether it's tariffs, whether it's getting tax cuts to billionaires” — or if Republicans, who have a governing trifecta in Washington, try to enact overhauls to Social Security and the Affordable Care Act, Blunt Rochester said.

If they do, she adds, Democrats will have plenty to run on in the future.

We’ll see how this all plays out.

All the best,
The Recast Team

ERIC ADAMS ON HIS OWN POLITICAL FUTURE

New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a press conference at City Hall.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is up for reelection in June and heads to criminal trial in April. | Yuki Iwamura/AP

Embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams is not backing down in the face of myriad controversies facing his administration, and he detailed how he hopes to flip the script in an exclusive interview with our Sally Goldenberg.

Even with bribery charges, resignations in his administration, a setback in fundraising and a growing field of challengers, Adams said he plans to push for changes to the state’s bail reform laws and regulations surrounding how the government deals with people experiencing serious mental health problems.

And he plans to swing hard at an old rival rumored to be among his potential contenders for the mayoral post: Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned after sexual harassment allegations (which he denies).

Adams wants to remind voters just who signed the bail reform laws that he and some other moderates and conservatives blame for increasing instances of certain violent crimes.

“People who are running — they’re going to have to take claim for the stuff that they did when they were holding office. Who was there for the original bail reform? Who signed some of these procedures? You’re going to have to answer these questions,” the mayor said, when asked how he’d run against Cuomo.

Adams’ bribery trial is set for April, just two months before voters decide whether to send him back to Gracie Mansion.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, an Adams ally who heads the National Action Network, noted that the mayor still has a base in the Black community, though many supporters recognize he doesn’t have an easy road to reelection ahead of him. But Sharpton cautioned Adams against cozying up to Trump, who’s said he would consider pardoning the mayor.

“If I was between a rock and a hard place and the only one that could deliver me is Donald Trump I would be preparing for my bye-bye,” Sharpton said.

REMEMBERING JIMMY CARTER

Jimmy Carter, Patricia Roberts Harris and William Beasley Harris stand at press conference.

President Jimmy Carter (left) and Patricia Roberts Harris (center) stand at a news conference where she was announced as his pick for HUD secretary on Dec. 21, 1976, in Plains, Georgia. | AP

Jimmy Carter, the nation’s 39th commander in chief, is the only former president to have celebrated his 100th birthday.

History will remember him for being a humble Georgia peanut farmer, former governor and one-term president, who — despite a complex tenure in office — spent the next decades focusing on human rights and helping build nearly 4,500 homes.

His foreign policy legacy has been much discussed. But one aspect of his presidency is less well known: He elevated the careers of not only women in general, but several Black women while in the White House.

This includes Alexis Herman, who he tapped as director of the Women’s Bureau, an agency within the Labor Department that works to advance equity for women in the workplace. Years later, Herman was named Labor secretary under Bill Clinton.

There was also Hazel O’Leary, who served under Carter as general counsel of the Community Services Administration and later as economic regulatory administrator at the Department of Energy. She, too, would join the Clinton administration as a Cabinet secretary at DOE.

Patricia Roberts Harris served in Cabinet posts during Carter’s presidency, first as secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1977 to 1979 then as Health and Human Services secretary from 1979 to 1981.

And in 1977, Carter selected Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has represented the District of Columbia as a delegate in Congress since 1991, to be the first woman to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Carter’s remains are scheduled to arrive at the Capitol this afternoon. He will lie in state there until Thursday morning, when he’ll be transported to the Washington National Cathedral for a national funeral service.