What the next president will actually be able to accomplish

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are making promises about what they will do if granted access to the White House. What can they realistically accomplish in the first term of their presidency?

That's the question host Kerri Miller posed to four guests for special coverage of the 2016 election.

Our guests were:

Marc Fisher, Washington Post senior editor and co-author of "Trump Revealed."

Russell Berman, senior associate editor at The Atlantic.

Reed Galen, Republican strategist who served in the Bush White House.

Daniella Gibbs Leger, senior vice president for communications at the Center for American Progress and formerly a special assistant to President Obama.

Below are excerpts from Kerri's conversation with Gibbs Leger and Berman. If you want to hear all four guests, select the audio player above.

On the Supreme Court nomination, or lack thereof

Gibbs Leger

"Given where we are with this Supreme Court vacancy being open for so long, with so much controversy around the fact the people are saying they're not going to appoint anybody if Hillary Clinton happens to win, something tells me that among the first things she's going to do is either put up a new nominee or say that they need to go ahead and put [Merrick] Garland through."

"If you look at what's happening with the Supreme Court a couple of cases have been decided four [to] four because they don't have the nine-person court. And there are a couple cases that are going to be coming forward that you really want a full court there."

Galen

"A lot has to do with the outcome of the Senate races next week. If there is a Democratic Senate, and it sounds like the members of the Democratic leaders there say, they may very well do with the filibuster that has for so long held up a lot of either legislation or judicial appointments specifically. And we can't overlook the fact that maybe, again, if the Republicans lose the Senate they might just try to get Garland through in the lame duck."

On working across the aisle

Galen

"What we've already seen since [House Speaker Paul] Ryan took over ... is that he has already had to go across to leader [Nancy] Pelosi several times to cobble together enough votes because he couldn't get the right wing. And I don't think we're going to see that change."

"If there's one thing we know about former President Clinton and Secretary Clinton, they are very savvy political operators. They know if they want to get a deal done, they're going to have to give something up to Republicans or to conservatives that is likely going to drive their base crazy, but that is something that they've been willing to do in order to get something major done in Congress and it would not surprise me that they know...that Ryan will see an offer that is too good to pass up...and if he has to go and get Democratic votes which will likely be there they will want to help president then Clinton. That very well might happen."

Gibbs Leger

"I think over the last 10 years what you've seen is a lack of cooperation ... a lack of willingness to work across party lines. And that comes from, when you send people from very gerrymandered districts where they're being elected by a group of people where there's not a lot of diversity and opinion and they feel like they have to toe the line to the folks who elected them and they're worried about maybe getting challenged from the right, more often than getting challenged from the left."

"When [these representatives] get on these committees that there's no desire to actually work together..across the aisle and I think that's really the biggest problem with Congress."

"The American people sent a bunch of people to Congress that have the idea that government is broken and that they're going to do everything they can to make government not work, and then we're surprised when government doesn't work. Well these are the people we elected. And they're just doing what they said they were going to do. It's not surprising that over the past decade you've seen, especially at the committee level, where things were generally more congenial grind to a halt."

On the power of the voters

Gibbs Leger

"I do think there is an opportunity for folks to make their voices heard and say, look, we're putting you on notice. This has been one of the ugliest elections we've ever lived through but now we're expecting you to step beyond that and put the benefit of the American people ahead of everything. And if you can't do that, then there will consequences at the ballot box. Will it work? I don't know but again I'm going to hold on to a little bit of hope that it actually will."

Galen

"These are two of the less popular nominees in modern political history ... and so what I think you're also going to see is an opportunity for candidates and people outside the traditional political duopoly who are going to be able to start standing for election. And they may not win in 2018, and they may not win in 2020 but ... the two-party system at this point is not getting a heck of a lot done at the federal level for the American people."

"I would say that you might start seeing voters look for another choice and I don't think hat's necessarily a bad thing. I don't know if it's a third party, I think it'll probably be something on a district by district or state by state basis. Remember in the United States Senate it doesn't take too many independents who decide to caucus on their own to really start create a block where neither party can get something done without them."