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Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, your calls and comments live.
And then we'll talk about the 2024 election results, including former President Trump winning re-election with Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of the National Review, and Katrina Vandenhoe, editorial director and publisher of The Nation.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal is next.
Join the conversation.
Good morning.
It's Sunday, November 10th, 2024.
President-elect Donald Trump has won the state of Arizona, solidifying his Electoral College lead with 312 votes.
President Biden is promising a peaceful transfer of power and is scheduled to meet with the president-elect in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
It's unclear, though, what will happen with former President Trump's many outstanding legal cases, and some are suggesting that President Biden should pardon him.
We want to hear your perspective this morning.
Should Biden pardon Trump?
Democrats can call in at 202-748-8000.
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Now, one of those calls for President Biden to pardon President-elect Donald Trump is coming from the National Review.
Here's an article here: Biden should pardon Trump by Mark Antonio Wright.
It says, first here, highlighting this was written the day after the election, that Biden should invite Trump to the Oval Office for the traditional visit, which Biden has done, but then goes on to say: Biden should then move to use his constitutional authority to pardon Donald Trump of all pending federal charges and relieve special counsel Jack Smith of his duties.
He should then ask New York Governor Kathy Hochul to use her authority to pardon Trump for the crimes he was convicted of in New York State.
A bit more from that article.
Wise or not, a majority of the public chose to re-elect Donald Trump as the next President of the United States.
He deserves to enter that term in January 2025 with a slate wiped clean of the controversies of the previous era.
No good at all will come of an American president fulfilling his constitutional duties at home and abroad under the cloud of pending criminal prosecutions.
No good whatsoever will come of Trump himself ordering the Justice Department to drop the charges or by crossing the Rubicon in American life of self-pardoning.
Joe Biden has not often spent his time in office acting much like a statesman, but a pardon now of Donald Trump would be statesmanlike.
And such an act would go a long way towards ending the cycle of lawfare that, if left unchecked, will cause more harm and more damage to the body politic.
Now, White House Press Secretary Corinne Jean-Pierre was asked on Thursday about potential pardons in the last days of the administration, including pardons for not Trump, but Hunter Biden.
Does the president intend to pardon any administration officials or people that Trump has threatened with any sort of legal actions?
He's got 74 days, as you mentioned.
Yeah, I know pardons is going to be a big part of the questions that I get here over the next several weeks and a couple of months that we have.
I don't have anything to share or any thought process on pardons.
Once we have something to share, we certainly will share that.
Secondly, his son Hunter is also up for being sentenced next month.
Does the president have any intention of pardoning him?
We've been asked that question multiple times.
Our answer stands, which is no.
A bit more from that article in the National Review calling for President Biden to pardon former President Trump.
Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon is the precedent here, and it's a good one.
Ford's presidential proclamation 4311, delivered in September 1974, was politically unpopular at the time.
It enraged Nixon's enemies, but it was the right thing to do.
Ford's pardon put a bandage on a festering national wound and closed the door on a regrettable era in our politics.
Donald Trump should accept such a pardon if offered by Joe Biden.
Trump should then find a way to, at least rhetorically, extend an olive branch to the outgoing president.
Now, here's a portion of President Ford's speech to the nation in September of 1974 on his decision to pardon his predecessor, Richard Nixon.
I deeply believe in equal justice for all Americans, whatever their station or former station.
The law, whether human or divine, is no respecter of persons, but the law is a respecter of reality.
The facts, as I see them, are that a former president of the United States, instead of enjoying equal treatment with any other citizen accused of violating the law,
would be cruelly and excessively penalized either in preserving the presumption of his innocence or in obtaining a speedy determination of his guilt in order to repay a legal debt to society.
During this long period of delay and potential litigation, ugly passions would again be aroused, and our people would again be polarized in their opinions.
And the credibility of our free institutions of government would again be challenged at home and abroad.
In the end, the courts might well hold that Richard Nixon had been denied due process, and the verdict of history would even more be inconclusive with respect to those charges arising out of the period of his presidency, of which I am presently aware.
But it is not the ultimate fate of Richard Nixon that most concerns me, though surely it deeply troubles every decent and every compassionate person.
My concern is the immediate future of this great country.
Now to your comments on whether or not Biden should pardon Trump.
On Facebook, Matthew Crowley says, agree.
It's the will of the people and it's a smart move politically for Democrats.
The more they prosecute Trump, the more support he gets.
And then Magic MAGA says, what crimes did he do again that he needs a pardon for?
The way I see it, the Democrats need a pardon for falsifying charges against him.
Let's go to your calls now.
Vincent is in Gaithersburg, Maryland on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Vincent.
Yes, good morning.
It's getting more difficult for me to watch and observe C-SPAN.
You folks and CNN, ABC, CBS, et cetera, first of all, you don't go straight to the college.
Vincent, do you have an idea of whether or not Biden should pardon Trump?
There is no, he doesn't need Biden doesn't need to pardon Trump because Trump's cases have already been thrown out.
And they held these cases.
They charged him two years ago with these bogus cases, and they have been thrown out.
He doesn't have to.
What about his felony convictions?
Do you think Biden should pardon him for those?
Excuse me.
When I say cases, I'm talking about the felony.
All 34 had been thrown out along with the vote of rogue attorney Jack Smith.
Okay.
I think that's accurate.
Let's go to Mike in Montana on our line for independence.
Good morning, Mike.
Good morning, Kimberly.
Yes, you know, Biden can pardon Trump, and then Trump can pardon Biden.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
Trump didn't do anything wrong.
He is probably one of the most perfect presidents we've ever had.
And that wouldn't be justice.
I think justice would be, you know, let's go, JC, justice and clawback.
I think justice would be to not pardon, but to prosecute people like Fauci and the Como brothers, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler.
And then I think we need a clawback.
I want to get back for real justice.
Let's get back all the stimulus money that was printed.
Let's get rid of the IRS because if we can print as much money as we want, why do we need the IRS?
Ridiculous.
It's only a tool of power.
Let's get rid of the IRS.
Let's claw back all the insider trading for Nancy Pelosi's squeaky clean group.
Remember?
She said that her Congress is going to be the most squeaky clean Congress.
So, Mike, I want to hear a couple more folks' perspectives on whether or not Biden should pardon Trump.
So, let's hear from Tyrone in New York on our line for Democrats.
Tyrone, do you think that Biden should pardon Trump?
Tyrone, are you there?
Yes, I'm here.
Go ahead.
Hello?
Hello?
Yes.
No, they shouldn't pardon him, mainly because the Democratic Party needs to grow a spine.
You just have five instances where these people are saying it don't matter if he gives them a pardon.
Some of these people want to see us grind to dust.
They don't want us to exist with this mindset.
You want to pardon this guy, the same guy that had this same type of ideology, whereas they want to get rid of the Democratic Party.
They don't want us to exist.
And if he pardons him, it's not going to settle anything.
It's only going to embolden these people to do worse.
They don't appreciate somebody that had good intention and want to see this country move forward.
Okay.
Let's hear from Rob in Escamba, Michigan on our line for independence.
Good morning, Rob.
Good morning.
On the subject at hand, yes, Biden should definitely issue a pardon.
I was a Trump supporter, but I think he ought to issue a pardon.
It establishes three things.
It becomes Biden's legacy.
He won't be remembered for anything else.
He'll look magnanimous in saying, Let's bring the country back together.
Let's start healing.
The second thing it accomplishes is Trump, according to a legal friend of mine, Trump remains a felon.
He's a convicted felon, but who received a pardon.
The appeals process ends.
He can no longer challenge his convictions.
And the third thing is Biden can thumb his nose at the DNC.
But the argument is that, gee, you replaced the only person that ever defeated Trump and selected a candidate who her own party rejected with zero votes when she ran in the primary in 2020.
She didn't even get any support from her own party.
So it's a way of him to put a departing jab at the DNC, keep Trump as a felon, and look magnanimous himself.
And, Rob, what about the state-level cases?
There are state prosecutions ongoing in New York as well as Georgia.
What do you think should happen there?
I think he should utilize whatever political power he has and say, we're going to quash this.
We are getting a blanket pardon.
Let's get back to the business of running the country and stop the banana republic type of prosecutions at whatever level.
Okay.
Carol is in Missouri on our line for Republicans.
What do you think, Carol?
Should Biden pardon Trump?
I think that he should because the Democrats are the ones that caused all the trouble to put him there in the first place.
Have they ever looked at each case to see exactly what he's done?
Or they just made up stuff.
They've charged him with stuff that the Democrats have done.
You know, here, you know, the Democrats are going crazy because he won, so they're counting the votes and counting the.
They said all kinds of stuff.
And the Democrats haven't gotten punished for anything.
But Trump just opens his mouth.
It's because he's so successful.
And it's so because he has changed, he changed the country.
Obama said Obama was in there and said he was going to change the country, and he sure did.
Now, Carol, what do you think would be the reaction if Biden does pardon Trump?
Well, what do you think the reaction would be in the country?
Well, I just think that it would be good for Biden to do it.
The only thing they've talked about is kill.
You can watch every show on Fox, CNN, and Biden goes on about kill.
And they have done nothing but try to destroy him.
That's exactly what they've done.
Let's go to a comment that we received via text from Kristen in Portland, Maine.
It seems apparent that Trump is going to get away with everything concerning his involvement with January 6th and stealing secret documents anyway.
Giving him a pardon at least would mean Donald Trump is acknowledging wrongdoing.
I'm not sure he'd accept a pardon.
Now let's hear from Jane in Louisiana on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Jane.
Hello.
Do you think Biden should pardon Trump?
Absolutely not.
Why not?
Well, because particularly the documents situation at Mar-a-Lago, it's very possible that he has tried to endanger our security by trying to sell these things.
Well, we will never know exactly what the special prosecutor knows if it gets, you know, if it gets pardoned.
The Georgia case with election interference is a singular case that needs to be at least prosecuted in court.
It's the nastiest form of manipulation.
Republicans know how to manipulate.
Basically, the fraud complaint, the fraud report cases have already been judged guilty, and so is the sexual assault.
I want to read a little bit more from that National Review article calling for President Biden to pardon President-elect Trump.
The writer's Mark Antonio Wright writes, I'm not naive enough to think that partisan rancor will not be a major factor in our national life in the next weeks and months and years.
But a newly elected president deserves a fresh start and a grown-up, gracious, and honorable approach to the peaceful transfer of power.
Trump didn't give his predecessor that courtesy the last time around, of course.
That's no reason, however, that Biden ought not rise above revenge to the level of the statesman.
Politico has an analysis of what may happen with Trump's legal cases, writing here, say goodbye to Trump's legal cases.
The criminal candidate will now effectively be his own judge and jury.
Donald Trump didn't just beat Kamala Harris.
He beat the system that tried to put him in jail.
He was already the first former president ever to be charged with and convicted of felonies.
Now he has become the first convicted felon ever to win a presidential election.
And his victory virtually guarantees that he will never face serious legal accountability for an avalanche of alleged wrongdoing.
Trump's imminent return to the White House shatters years of work by special counsel Jack Smith to convict Trump for his attempt to subvert the 2020 election and for the stockpile of classified documents he kept at his Florida estate.
It halts the prosecution he's facing in Georgia for his 2020 election plot as well.
It almost certainly allows Trump to postpone any sentence on his New York conviction for covering up a hush money scheme in 2016.
In short, the president-elect is now his own judge and jury, insulated from the criminal consequences he might have faced without the legal Forcefield of the Oval Office.
Now let's get back to your calls.
Robert is in Chesterfield, Virginia, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Robert.
Good morning.
It would be another big mistake that Biden would make to pardon him.
Biden made the big mistake of not keeping the border closed.
That's why they lost the election.
But the other reason they lost the election was because the lies, and I just can't believe the people that bought into that stuff.
Half of them was just sucked in.
The others just didn't care.
But the thing of it is, what Biden should do, he's got the power to do it.
He ought to hold Trump up there, charge him with treason because that's what he committed.
Put him up against the wall and execute him.
Okay, we're not going to talk about executions here.
Ray is in Ithaca, New York, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Ray.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I don't expect it to happen, but I think it would be a wonderful thing if it happened.
I think there would be some outrage on both sides.
But what would that mean you could also pardon Hunter at the same time?
I think in the long run, it would bring the country more together.
There was a lot of outrage.
I remember as a kid when Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, but now it is seen almost universally that it was the right thing to do.
And I think this would go a long way in terms of we seem to be each other's throats, and I think that's a terrible thing.
And people don't get along anymore.
And I think this would go a long way to just help this healing of the country.
Okay.
Ron is in Alton, Illinois on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Ron.
Good morning.
No, I think he shouldn't pardon him.
He should be held accountable for all of his deeds.
Democrats are too nice.
They play too nice.
Republicans don't play nice.
They think it's a shoe with another foot.
You think Trump would pardon him?
No, he would not.
So I don't think Biden shouldn't.
Trump lied about the people in Springfield, Ohio.
Was he held accountable for that lie?
No.
Talking about people eating cats and dogs.
He knew he was lying.
And them people's life was turned upside down.
Was he held accountable for that?
No.
He gets a chance to walk away.
He gets a mulligan.
He gets a chance to walk away with everything that he do.
No, do not pardon him.
Pardon Hunter.
That's what I would do.
Thank you.
Barbara is in Jeffersonville, Indiana on our line for independence.
Good morning, Barbara.
Good morning.
I think that Biden should not pardon Trump.
Trump did those crimes.
He needs it at a time.
What makes him think that he's any special person than any other person out in the world because he's a former president and that he convicted all these crimes?
He's been publicly milling me on the internet for so many years now.
Him and he almost they need to be held accountable for what they've done, what they've done to me.
They've done to my life.
They burnt my life.
I'm the public humiliating saint on TikTok.
I'm the FYP girl.
They can make fun of me.
They can call me names.
They just say, I need spanking.
I need daddy.
I need this.
They're disgusting pigs.
Michael is in Ashburn, Virginia on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Michael.
Hey, good morning.
I think that Biden will pardon Trump.
It's not the outcome that I would prefer.
I would prefer that he goes back to court and is completely exonerated.
It's almost like settling with an insurance company.
Somebody brings a lawsuit against you.
They go to court.
They have to decide if it's worth it for the insurance company to find more court or they just settle.
And most of the time, people, when they look at a lawsuit, it almost brings guilt back to them.
So I would prefer if he actually went back to court, went through the process again, and had the charges completely overturned.
Now, Michael, there's quite a few cases.
There's the special counsel's cases regarding interference in the 2020 election, as well as the documents case.
There's the New York cases on the Hush Money trial, as well as fraud.
And then there's the Georgia case.
What do you think it would mean for former President-elect Trump to actually go back through all of those cases?
I think it's the right thing to do.
I really think it's the right thing to do.
And I don't think it's going to happen because I think Trump, I believe Biden is going to pardon him because he wants to validate all of these charges.
Like I said, settle.
Everything is going to be settled, and nobody's really ever going to know exactly what happened.
I think it should always go through the process because I think a lot of people see now that a lot of people don't really trust in the justice system anymore, and that's the problem today.
Don is in Grand Blanc, Michigan on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Don.
Good morning, CESA, and good morning to America.
The election broke my heart to see that the country actually put Trump back in office after everything we've seen over the last but Don, do you think that Biden should pardon Trump?
It's a hard question.
At this point, we all know that Trump is above the law and so pardon him.
It makes no difference.
He's already going to pardon him.
So let me ask the question.
Can he Biden pardon a criminal in a state case?
But he could only pardon him for federal cases.
He could only pardon him for federal cases, but the National Review article actually calls for President Biden to then direct the state, like New York Governor Kathy Hochul, to perhaps pardon him as well of some of those state charges.
Like the Republicans, I always say state rights.
I think Biden feels that this criminal deserves a pardon.
Give him a pardon.
He should pardon.
Give him a pardon if he thinks that's the best thing for the country.
Because right now, I think the country is doomed for the next four years.
Last week, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who was running with Harris as the vice presidential candidate, talked about a path forward and finding common ground with people that disagree with him after he and Vice President Harris lost the presidential election.
But I will say and acknowledge this.
About one and a half million of our fellow Minnesotans voted for the other side in this election.
And while there might not be a place in our state for the most extreme elements of that agenda, there should be a place in our politics for everyone to be heard.
I think sometimes we can be quick to judge people who don't agree with us, to assume that they act out of cruelty or fear or self-interest.
I don't think that kind of judgment is helpful right now, and I don't think it's right.
I think we ought to swallow, and this is me in this as I'm speaking about myself, swallow a little bit of pride and look a little harder to find common ground with our neighbors who didn't vote like we did in this election.
Maybe we won't agree on every issue.
Hell, maybe we won't agree on any issue.
But maybe when the campaign signs come down, we all get a little break from the rhetoric in the TV ads and the fundraising texts, and I'm sorry about those.
Maybe when we get a little break from this campaign that we're in, we'll be able to look at each other and see not enemies, but neighbors.
And maybe we'll be able to sit down over a coffee or a Diet Mountain Dew and just talk.
Talk about our kids.
Talk about the lives we want to build for them.
Talk about the things that really matter, how we treat each other, how we look out for each other, and how we support each other in difficult times.
For my part, I'm going to try even harder to do that as governor.
Nobody, not the DFLers, not Republicans, nobody has a monopoly on good intentions or good ideas.
And now that this election is behind us, I'm going to try even harder to keep an open mind, open heart, and really listen to folks who don't support me or my policies, to work with everyone in the legislature to seek compromise and common ground.
Because that's how we come back together after such a long time spent fighting each other.
Back to your calls.
Penelope is in Indiana on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Penelope.
Penelope, go ahead.
Honey, I put in a wrong number, honey.
I'm trying to change it.
Okay, we'll come back to you.
I'm waiting on him to put the number back up there, honey.
Okay.
Debbie is in Rochester, New York on our line for independence.
Good morning, Debbie.
Good morning.
I think that Trump should go straight to jail.
I can't believe all these people that are saying that Joe Biden should pardon Trump.
Pardon him for what?
He needs to go to jail and all these stupid people.
It is really, really the shock of my life to hear these people think that that man is acceptable to be the president of the United States.
What the hell is wrong with people?
Keep the language clean, Debbie.
John is in Weed, California, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, John.
Good morning.
How are you doing?
Fine, thank you.
How are you?
Good.
Hey, listen, I don't think Biden should pardon Trump at all.
But the fact is, Trump didn't do anything wrong.
If you people think that paying somebody to keep their mouth shut for having sex with them is against the law, your low-information people should look at the law.
Okay.
There's a New York Post article about that case in particular with the headline: Judge in Trump's hush money trial considers tossing felony conviction after election win.
The Manhattan judge who oversaw Donald Trump's hush money criminal trial is expected to announce next week, that would be this week, if the president-elect's historic felony conviction will stand.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Meekum has already delayed sentencing by more than four months to come after the election and gave himself until next Tuesday to decide if the conviction should be tossed.
Trump's overwhelming election win will further embolden his legal team to make sure sentencing never happens.
That sentencing never happens, CNN Chief Legal Affairs correspondent Paula Reed noted late Wednesday.
Eve is in Grand Rapids, Michigan on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Eve.
Good morning, Kimley and C-SPAN.
I say H to the E double hockey stick for Trump.
You're just giving him just more power.
The thing about this is, Trump should be under jail.
He shouldn't be president.
Who are these people that say that he should be pardoned?
Pardon for what?
Some people go into the store and pick up something and they be put in jail.
And this man has done everything.
I will never ever forget the fact that he said the Saudis gave him a lot of money and he didn't care about Kachobi being chopped up and put in a suitcase.
Please, people, please, get a life.
Michael in Linden, Virginia sent us a text message.
It's a risk for the president to pardon the president-elect.
I imagine the president-elect rejecting the pardon and blaming all the prosecution on the president and the Democratic political party, kind of fueling the flames.
Or the pardon could be accepted with a Bandaid effect.
Crystal ball question.
And then another text message.
Well, we already read that one from Kristen Important.
Let's hear from David in Crab Orchard, West Virginia on our line for independence.
Good morning, David.
Yeah, good morning.
Yeah, President Trump doesn't need a pardon.
American people, majority of them, already pardoned him.
It's called an election.
It's called a landslide election.
He won the popular vote and he won the Electoral College.
And let it play out in court, and Congress needs to have the special prosecutor look into the warfare, legal warfare that they did to Trump.
And if Biden really wanted Harris to be president, he could make her president today.
He could resign, and she would be the 30 out of the 47th president.
Trump would be the 48th president.
She would serve two months, approximately.
Remember, the ninth president only served 30 days.
Have a nice day.
Mark is in Bolivar, Ohio, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Mark.
Good morning.
Probably for the good of the country, he probably should pardon Trump.
But personally, I hope he doesn't because I believe that all these cases were brought against him were political.
And that's pretty much what I have to say about that.
Okay.
David is in San Francisco on our line for independence.
Good morning, David.
Oh, morning.
Yeah, I am impressed by a couple of the female callers back.
They're dynamite.
I was just going to remind: pardons are an admission of guilt.
And that's in the legal sense.
And in a religious sense, a pardon comes after somebody begs forgiveness.
Now, has Trump admitted that he's guilty in order to deserve a pardon?
Or has Trump begged our forgiveness?
I think it's clear that Trump is, you know, 25th Amendment.
He's nuts.
He's over the wall, and we're stuck with Vance.
As to Vance, a little trick.
You remember how Trump ran to Florida and became a citizen of Florida with felonies?
Now, the state of Florida allowed him to vote.
Now, I would say that if Trump, if Biden had his guts about him, or Congress had their guts about him, yank every delegate from Florida from the electoral vote.
That they committed fraud by allowing his vote into the pool.
I think that's a good solution.
Just yank every Florida electoral vote.
Okay.
Cheryl is in Brandon, Florida, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Cheryl.
Yeah, I don't think he should be pardoned.
It's horrible at what our country's come to to have criminals running up.
And then he's going to put more criminals in the White House.
Thank you for your time.
Stephanie is in Irving, Texas, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Stephanie.
Hi.
I don't think Biden has a straight of decency to pardon President Trump, but he should.
He started all of those false allegations and false lawsuits.
So he should, but I don't think he has a straight of decency to do it.
Okay.
Thank you.
One of the outstanding cases is in New York, and where an appeals court could determine whether Trump pays $500 million in civil judgments as president.
This is a story from the Washington Examiner.
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to be relieved from his criminal prosecutions as he makes his return to the Oval Office, but pending appeals in civil cases might be his only hope to break free from more than a half billion dollars in civil judgments against him.
Trump is poised to owe more than $500 million in penalties due to New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud case and two defamation lawsuits brought by former Elle Magazine columnist Eugene Carroll.
Without speaking about the nearly $500 million civil fraud case she brought against Trump, James made general comments about Trump's election victory on Wednesday.
Let's listen to some of those comments.
I congratulate the president-elect Donald Trump.
And if possible, we will work with his administration.
But we will not compromise our values or our integrity or our principles.
We did not expect this result, but we are prepared to respond to this result.
And my office has been preparing for several months because we've been here before.
We faced this challenge before.
And we use the rule of law to fight back.
And we are prepared to fight back once again.
Because as the Attorney General of this great state, it is my job to protect and defend the rights of New Yorkers and the rule of law.
And I will not shrink from that responsibility.
One of the comments we've received on X from none: I know I will lose respect for the law and this country if he gets a pass.
Our question this hour: Should Biden pardon President-elect Trump?
You can also reach us if you want to text us on 202-748-8003.
Our line for Democrats, 202-748-8000, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
Let's now hear from Darlene in Louisiana on our line for independence.
Good morning, Darlene.
Definitely no.
He is a player and he played the American people.
He's just a player and definitely a no.
And like the man said, we need to grow a spine.
And a definitely no on that, you crazy sickle Trump.
So, Darlene, do you think, what do you think it would do to the country, though, if he enters office with all of these charges hanging over his head and convictions?
I don't care because he already ruined the country anyway.
And that's, you know, it's already unlawful because he got away with it.
And all he has is crooks that's following him.
And what he did for January, January 6th, he got all those people to do the dirty work for him.
That's what he did.
So let's now hear from Bobby in Mayfield, Kentucky on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Bobby.
Morning.
Do you think that Biden should pardon Trump?
Yes, I do, ma'am.
I sure do.
Because I watched on national TV the Capitol Police opening the doors and letting all them people in.
We don't actually know if they were Republicans or Democrats plan to be Republicans.
We don't actually know.
Okay, a couple of folks now have mentioned the January 6th defendants, and the New York Times reports that some of them are already angling for pardons from Trump.
The president-elect said during the campaign that he would grant clemency to some of those who took part in the assault by his supporters on the Capitol nearly four years ago.
The legal consequences of President-elect Donald J. Trump's victory start with the likelihood that the cases against him will sputter out, but could also extend to the cases of hundreds of his supporters who are being or have been prosecuted for storming the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump repeatedly promised to pardon some of the 1,500 people charged in connection with January 6th, sometimes suggesting that his clemency might extend to the leaders of far-right groups like the Proud Boys and to other defendants who assaulted police officers.
Alan is in Wilmington, Delaware, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Alan.
Good morning, C-SPAN.
Absolutely not.
Should he be pardoned?
Actually, when you look at it, he's been pardoned by 70-plus million people who voted for him.
And having Biden pardon him in addition to that, it's absolutely ludicrous.
I mean, he has already, he's done, I don't know how many different crimes that he should have been in prison for.
And the fact that the question is even asked, should Biden pardon him?
Absolutely not.
And Biden should not, and he should, as somebody just said, grow a spine and say no to him.
Absolutely not.
Will he be pardoned?
Kevin is in Attleboro, Massachusetts, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Kevin.
Good morning.
I am an independent, but I say absolutely not.
To do that solidifies that he is above the law and that just should not be allowed.
They reached out to him repeatedly after he left office.
You've got these documents.
Send them back.
And repeatedly, up until a year and a half later, he still had them.
And that's why they had to go and get them.
And then when they did the investigation, his own people that were working for him said that he told them to hide the documents.
And that's why they came after him.
For January 6th, he sat there.
I just heard somebody say, well, they opened the doors.
Well, maybe some of them did open the doors, but not all of the people working at the Capitol opened the doors.
And it got out of control.
And his own people, Republicans, contacted or tried to contact him and said, you need to stop.
You need to call these people off.
And the people working in the White House said he ignored them.
And when you told him, and he was watching on TV and took three hours while people were running for their lives, absolutely not.
He needs to be, oh, yeah, so the cases will go away.
The federal cases will go away.
But those other cases, absolutely not.
You cannot tell our young people that we have equal justice under law.
Yet, if you get to be the president and you commit all kinds of crimes, well, we're going to forgive you.
So, Kevin mentioned the documents case that Special Counsel Jack Smith was pursuing.
There's another article in Politico that Jack Smith has taken the first step to halt Trump's prosecution, citing the unprecedented circumstance of the criminal defendant's election as president.
Prosecutors got a judge to cancel upcoming deadlines.
Special Counsel Jack Smith has postponed a series of deadlines in the Washington, D.C. criminal case against Donald Trump for seeking to subvert the 2020 election.
The move Friday was Smith's first public acknowledgement that the case cannot continue in light of Trump's imminent return to power.
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkin promptly granted Smith's request for postponement.
She gave him a little more than three weeks to decide on his next steps.
In a terse one-page court filing, Smith acknowledged Trump's victory.
Tuesday has upended the case, prompting prosecutors to ask for more time to determine how to proceed.
Patrick is in Canton, Georgia on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Patrick.
Thank you.
Yeah, you know, it's a hard answer for me because personally, I don't think that if it wasn't Donald Trump, he wouldn't have been brought up on all these legal cases.
But I think that for the pardon thing, I think the time to have done that would have been like two or three weeks before the election.
Joe Biden could have pardoned Donald Trump and Kamala Harris could have taken the credit for that.
Maybe that would have swung someone that was never Trumpers over to her side and she could have won the election.
And the other thing I wanted to say was about the documents case.
You know, it's just, it's amazing to me.
People call in and say, oh, he should go to jail for the documents case.
But Joe Biden got away with having documents in his possession for years, and nobody wants to talk about that.
So, you know, I think it's a hard call.
I don't think it's going to happen.
I don't believe it will happen at this point.
But like I said, the time to have done it would have been before the election, so Kamala Harris could have taken credit for that.
So thank you very much.
Julie is in Lafayette, Indiana, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Julie.
Hi.
Yeah, I don't think you should pardon criminal activity, no matter who does it.
And I don't think that the president should be any exception, or the law doesn't mean anything.
And as far as the documents go, it wasn't the fact that both of them had documents.
It was the fact that one of them refused to give the documents back after repeated requests.
So that's the part that some people that worship the guy want to just glaze over.
But honestly, we've just elected a thug.
I say, fine, you can't prosecute.
Don't pardon.
Wait four years and pick up where we left off because that's absolutely criminal and that cannot be ignored.
That's all I have to say.
Anwar is in Washington, D.C. on our line for independence.
Good morning, Anwar.
Good morning.
I have several thoughts I just want to make.
If we believe, again, that the law is level and for all people, then he absolutely should be charged.
Black people make up 10% of this population, but they make up 70% of those in prison.
When you have a man who says, find me 12,000 votes, we have that on tape.
When you have a man who authorizes a lynch mob, and people don't really understand that they brought a rope and a scaffold to the Capitol to hang his own vice president, Ann Pelosi, and he did nothing about that.
And when you have this same person decide that he's above the law and there's nothing we can do, and you want to validate that by giving him a pardon, that you cannot tell anyone in this country that they should abide by the law.
He should absolutely be put in jail.
And personally, he should have been put in jail by what he did with COVID.
We lost a million people.
And I've heard 700,000 of them Trump could have saved had he been at least an honest person about what was going on.
This country really has forgotten those folks.
We've lost a lot of souls, and he's responsible for those.
That alone is a reason for him to be locked up.
Edward is in Belliot, Wisconsin, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Edward.
Good morning.
I'd just like to say Democrats amaze me.
Everybody knows by every legal standard that Hillary Clinton should have got 10 years in prison.
They let Joe Biden off for the same crime because he was mentally deficient, and yet he's still president.
The people that rioted the Capitol on January 6th are my heroes.
But, Edward, do you think that Biden should pardon Trump?
No, I think he should fight all these bogus claims.
The people of January 6th stole the Capitol are my heroes, and everybody with an ounce of intelligence knows that that election was stolen.
Julio is in Brooksville, Florida on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Julio.
Good morning.
How are you doing?
Good, thank you.
Anyways, well, let's get James should be barred.
Jack Smith should be sued by Trump for the false affusations he put on him.
And for people to come out and say Biden is God, that he's doing great, look at the things he's done.
Is he going to pardon Hunter?
You bet you will.
And look at the stuff Hunter done.
But anyways, I was a Democrat, but I'm garbage now because he called half my family and half my friends garbage.
So that turned all of us garbage.
And any Democrat that thinks he's great by calling you garbage, you're garbage.
Have a good day.
Julio mentioned Hunter Biden.
Trump has revealed whether he'd consider pardoning Hunter Biden.
This is an article in Newsweek saying that former President Trump said on Thursday he would consider pardoning Hunter Biden if he wins the 2024 election.
I wouldn't take it off the books, Trump told the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview.
See, unlike Joe Biden, what they've done to me, where they've gone after me so viciously, Hunter Biden has been a bad boy.
All you had to do is see the laptop from hell.
But I happen to think it's very bad for our country.
I could have gone after Hillary.
I could have gone after Hillary Clinton very easily.
And when they say lock her up, what did I do?
I always say take it easy, just relax.
We're winning.
I could have had her put in jail, and I decided I didn't want to do that.
I thought it would look terrible.
And that is on Hunter Biden.
Let's hear from Rich in Schenectady, New York, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Rich.
Yes, hello.
I'm just amazed.
I'm amazed at the ignorance of these people in this country.
I mean, this man is the biggest scammer, schemer that's ever took a breath of air.
It amazes me that these people want to let him go.
I mean, is he above the law?
Obviously, they think so.
How he, I just came in.
I just can't believe how these people just like they can't see through what this man.
This man is like so transparent.
And do you think that President Biden should pardon the president-elect?
Of course not.
That just tells everyone that he's above the law.
Why is he above the law?
He's not above the law.
He's a man.
He's not above the law.
He's just like anyone else.
He's just got a title, a title as the President of the United States.
That's all it is.
It's nothing.
The man is only a man.
And by letting this man go, just like I'm ashamed.
I'm ashamed to say I'm an American, and I have nothing else to say.
This country disgusts me.
Thomas is in 29 Palms, California, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Thomas.
Good morning, ma'am.
How are you today?
Thank you for taking my call.
And thanks to C-SPAN for all of the things that you do, being absolutely non-policy.
There are a few points I would like to make and acknowledge setting points that I already listened to.
There was a call from San Francisco.
The caller said that he talked about how people earn forgiveness or pardon and all of this stuff.
Thomas, before you respond to the other callers, do you think that Biden should pardon President-elect Trump?
I think so.
I say yes to that question.
Yes, definitely.
But I think what we should realize is that the elections have spoken convincingly.
People knew of all of these problems and they still voted convincingly for the president-elect.
Tim Waltz made a very good point.
And we should realize as a nation that an eye for an eye would definitely leave everybody blind.
I think somebody should be the adult.
I think it's about time that we stop all of the bakery, all of this stuff that's going on, and let's just put this country back together.
Because this country is bigger than one party.
It's bigger than any one person.
And it's bigger than any one organization.
It's about time that all of this stuff.
I do understand, to be honest, if Trump was to lose these elections, there was never going to be peace.
I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be this peaceful after Tuesday.
But let's be honest, this country needs healing.
We need to be healed.
And all of these stuff, these comments people are making, it's about time we all stop and take a deep breath and think about what Tim Waltz said.
He said there should be healing.
We can't all agree on everything, but we have a country to save.
And that's what I wanted to say.
Thank you, man.
Roseanne is in San Diego on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Roseanne.
Hi, thank you.
No, Biden should not pardon Trump because Trump deserves to go down in history as the criminal that he obviously is.
He made a lot of crimes against the people of America.
And even though he won't be tried, he won't be convicted, he won't be sentenced, he should go down in history For being what he is, which is not honest.
I think that Biden should treat Trump exactly the way Trump treated Biden four years ago, which was pretty, pretty nasty.
You know, I think Biden is going overboard to be nice.
He doesn't need to be.
And Trump should have already been in jail.
He could have won the election anyway and governed from prison.
But all of that's over with now.
That's fine.
But he does not deserve a pardon at all.
That would be a betrayal to every single one of us who cares about this country.
So that's all I have to say.
Thank you.
Lewis is in Pensakin, New Jersey on our line for independence.
Good morning, Lewis.
Good morning.
If I was Trump, I wouldn't take the pardon because all these cases are going to be overturned.
I watched the appeal on C-SPAN, and those judges just attacked the prosecutor.
And as far as the felonies with that crazy lady, the judge gave unconstitutional instructions telling the jury that if one person finds him guilty on a charge, then he'll be found guilty on specific charges.
34 felonies.
They found him guilty on 34 felonies in less than a day.
Please, come on.
And Trump doesn't think he's above the law.
Thank you.
Shirley is in Greenfield, Tennessee, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Shirley.
Good morning.
You know, some people may disagree with me on this, but it seems like the root, with the exception of a few callers that I heard, it seems like the root of a lot of people's political polarization is causing a lot of animosity and end fighting.
I even had a Democrat friend of mine cuss me out because Trump won.
Personally, I think that whether people think Trump's guilty or not, in order to put the past behind us, Trump should go ahead and get pardoned by Biden.
But I also think that Trump should pardon Hunter.
I mean, he had just lost a brother.
You know, he hit rock bottom.
He messed up.
I think that if Biden had pardoned Trump and Trump does pardon Hunter, regardless of what anybody else thinks about it when all the dust settles, it's going to let this country start healing moving forward and take the vicious political polarization out of all of this.
And let's just try to move forward, get our economy back together, and move forward to some civil governing.
I mean, that's my personal feeling on that.
John is in Arlington Heights, Illinois, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, John.
Good morning.
How are you doing?
It's good to see.
I love C-SPAN.
And some people might think C-SPAN is, you know, they don't know they wouldn't watch it, whatever, because it's not exciting.
But I disagree.
C-SPAN is good to see this morning.
C-SPAN has jokes.
Pardon Donald Trump.
Donald Trump, he wouldn't pardon the exonerated five in New York.
He wanted them to, he wanted them to be executed.
And they would, you know, this is a guy.
You only pardon people.
And I'm old enough to remember Nixon.
You know, Nixon resigned.
And you have to, to be pardoned, you have to do some type of act of contrition to, you know, don't just get pardoned.
And if he had lost, he would have gone to jail.
It's not like the president of the United States just used the government and sent soldiers to down Trump's house.
This was done in a legal way in Georgia, which is a red state.
In Florida, which is a red state, the prosecutor went to the people and he was indicted by a grand jury of his peers.
And what should happen if Trump had lost, what would have happened is Jack Smith would have went and got that case in Florida reinstated and Eileen Cannon would have been removed.
So Trump is guilty and they should put a time clock on it and when Trump gets out of office, restart it.
But I don't think it's, even if you pardon him, it doesn't matter because Trump is going to commit more crimes.
So there'll be another opportunity to prosecute him because he's not going to stop committing crimes.
That's who he is.
He's a criminal and criminal's crime.
So he's going to commit more criminals in jail anyway.
So the whole idea of pardoning Donald Trump, no, that just would embolden him.
And he doesn't do anything that should happen.
President Biden should pardon his son.
If he doesn't, I think that shows a weakness on Biden.
Hunter would never have been prosecuted for those crimes.
Nobody else has ever been prosecuted for such a low-income.
John, we're just about out of time for this segment where we were discussing the National Review article suggesting that President Biden should pardon President-elect Donald Trump.
And after the break, we're going to have National Review's editor-in-chief Rich Lowry join us, along with the Nation magazine editorial director and publisher Katrina Vandenhoevel, who will discuss those 2024 election results, as well as former President Trump's return to the White House.
We'll be right back.
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Tonight on Q&A, Stuart Eisenstadt, former domestic policy advisor to President Carter and U.S. ambassador to the European Union under President Clinton.
He shares his book, The Art of Diplomacy, in which he discusses his career and the impact the civil rights movement had on him.
We go to Eat, and black students from North Carolina Central are sitting in.
You can look at the, you can Google this.
That's when the sit-in started in Queensboro and Durham.
And I said naively to my fraternity brother for New York, why are they doing this?
And he said, what universe do you live in?
It's because they can't be served.
And it was like somebody lifted a veil from me and I saw the world in a very different world.
I had gotten so used to the segregated world, I didn't question it.
I became very active in the civil rights movement in the UNC.
And when I was with President Carter, we supported affirmative action and minority set-asides for black contractors.
So these kinds of transformative events when you're young can sometimes carry over into your career, and they certainly did for me.
Stuart Eisenstadt with his book, The Art of Diplomacy, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app.
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Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back to discuss the results of the 2024 election.
I'm joined now by Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of the National Review, as well as Katrina Vandenhoeval, who is editorial director and publisher of The Nation.
Good morning to you both.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I'll ask you both to start.
Did the election results surprise you and why or why not?
Katrina.
So they surprised in the sense that I believed that there would be a surge of women protesting the rolling back of women's rights.
I think of reproductive rights as an economic issue, a kitchen table issue.
That surge actually happened in 2022 when women really came out in strength after Dobbs, the Supreme Court decision, and the independence broke for Democrats.
Why I wasn't surprised is, you know, I'm a Bernie Sanders Democrat and I believe in speaking to people's economic concerns where they are.
And you could see the anger in the country.
You could see that this was a change election, that they sought a lot of people, there's not never one cause, but a lot of people were seeking answers to the economic troubles, pain in their life, to the inflation.
And instead of running with a compelling economic populist, progressive populist message, Kamala Harris ran a fairly, you know, not to the base, but trying to carve out those independent suburban women with a hug Liz Cheney campaign.
When you saw that Cheney trip, three days spent with Liz Cheney, you could think of what else Kamala Harris might have done in those three days.
So I have to say as someone who edits a magazine which opposed NAFTA and some of the trade deals, which are the original sin in so many ways, which deindustrialized parts of this country, which enraged workers who felt left behind, I think that much more laser-like focus on the economy, on a change election, would have made a difference.
There's not one cause.
The numbers are pretty strong.
I don't believe Trump has a full-out mandate.
Down ballot, you saw initiatives that were certainly counter to Trump's policies, whether minimum wage or reproductive rights passed, and some senators.
So I wouldn't say, you know, if it's 2%, it's a huge mandate.
But the popular vote can't question that.
And the electoral obviously went to President Trump.
But I do disagree, and I think there's a reckoning to be had about the campaign, kind of campaign Kamala Harris ran.
Rich, what's your take?
Well, I was a little surprised by the sweep of it, but I wasn't surprised that he won.
I favored him all year long just because the large conditions were obviously in his favor.
And he, look, people around him, he himself had this theory that you could go to the center on entitlements and on trade and then go further right on culture and you could broaden and deepen and diversify your coalition.
And that theory ended up being true.
And Donald Trump now, whether you like it or not, is clearly the defining political figure of our era.
And in terms of the Democratic recriminations, I think everyone has a point.
Everyone is to blame over on that side.
But ultimately, it all goes to Joe Biden, right?
He picked Kamala Harris, not an impressive vice president to begin with.
He misgoverned.
He didn't govern as a unifier or as a moderate or a centrist or someone who was competent.
And then he made this catastrophically irresponsible and selfish decision last year to run again.
When he was obviously in decline, everyone could see it.
All the polling showed it.
Democrats in the polling said it.
And the media and much of the Democratic elite, with some exceptions, went along with this absurd fiction that he could serve another five years as president, you know, the rest of this year and then four additional years.
And that fiction and lie really fell apart in the first debate.
And then they're stuck.
They can't have a competitive process, or it would have been very difficult to have one at that point.
He was at a 40% approval rating.
And then the choice is Kamala Harris.
It just wasn't an impressive candidate.
She wasn't confident.
She wasn't creative.
And she'd said all these things in 19 and 20, all these woke things that were just not survivable in a general election.
And she had to back off all of those, making herself seem insincere, phony, and weak.
And then I think in part as a function of that, she couldn't further back off of everything that happened the last three and a half years because that would be totally unsustainable.
So there's a choice to say, I was a little bit out of the loop, you know, I wasn't involved in everything, or to say, I was always the last person in the room, and I was responsible.
And that's what she did.
She achieved no separation from Joe Biden.
She hugged his policies and his record and had come up president at a 40% approval rating.
So my hats off to Donald Trump for what he's achieved.
Yeah.
She hugged.
I was just going to say, my hat's off to Donald Trump, but he wouldn't have won if Joe Biden had been at 50% approval.
But Joe Biden was at 40% approval and Kamala Harris achieved no separation.
No, I do think that the original sin was President Biden going back on his vow that he wouldn't run a second term.
I do think many of his policies, listen, it's a big word, time to stop using big words, but he broke with a kind of neoliberal consensus that had dominated Washington for years, whether it was Bill Clinton or George H.W. Its time had come.
And I think the investments he made in this country, the IRA, badly named, but will show up in communities in these next months and years.
And I think Kamala's campaign, the hugging, again, the alliance with neocons and dissing, in essence, dissing your base, was really key.
And I don't think that's a good question.
I don't think of these as recriminations, just to say I think it's about rethinking where the Democratic Party, the progressive community heads.
I want to listen to a little bit of President-elect Trump's victory speech on Wednesday morning, where he laid out some of his vision for America.
You know, we're the party of common sense.
We want to have borders.
We want to have security.
We want to have things be good, safe.
We want great education.
We want a strong and powerful military, and ideally we don't have to use it.
You know, we had no wars for years.
We had no wars, except we defeated ISIS.
We defeated ISIS in record time, but we had no wars.
They said, he will start a war.
I'm not going to start a war.
I'm going to stop wars.
But this is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
Together we're going to unlock America's glorious destiny.
We're going to achieve the most incredible future for our people.
Yesterday, as I stood at my last stop on the campaign trail, I'll never be doing a rally again.
Can you believe it?
I think we've done 900 rallies, approximately, from the — can you imagine?
900, 901 something, a lot of rallies.
And it was sad.
Everybody was sad.
Many people, I said, this is our last rally.
But now we're going on to something that's far more important because the rallies were used for us to be put in this position where we can really help our country.
That's what we're going to do.
Now, Rich, one of the things that will help President-elect Trump achieve some of that agenda is Republican control of the Senate and what looks to be, we're still waiting to find out, Republican control of the House.
What are you expecting in terms of that agenda?
Well, we've already seen some of it out of the box.
He added this statement about cracking down on censorship on social media and the cooperation between the government and pressure on the government on social media companies to police their content in accord with what the government wants.
We'll see a lot of deregulations, extension of the tax credits, energy unleashed, big military buildup.
And he, you know, the first time around, the Senate, Republican Senate, really influenced him and could block him at times.
Now he's a just total legend within the party and has an incredible grip on the party.
So I don't want to say he's going to get whatever he wants, there are limits, but he's going to get a lot of it.
And just to that clip, the media coverage in this campaign was so stilted and biased.
Yeah, Trump insulted people, and he could be harsh and negative.
He also could be incredibly positive and optimistic, almost wildly so.
And I think one thing that happened in this campaign was he occupied the center in important respects.
Now, Katrina and I disagree on abortion.
I'm a big pro-lifer.
But even if you put that aside, just the merits of it, what's the more moderate position that we're going to have abortion all the way through nine months and Catholic hospitals are going to have to perform them too, as Camilla Sarah said in an interview.
Or states should decide, and I think some of the states have gone too far and we have to be very careful.
Just on the, just objectively, the more moderate position is Trump's.
Trans sports, you know, it's portrayed as Trump as this radical right-winger.
All he's saying is biological males shouldn't compete in female sports.
This is one of the most important ads in the whole cycle.
And 10 years ago, if you'd said that's a right-wing position, people would have thought you're crazy.
They said, no, that's a common sense position.
Everyone believes that.
But the Democrats have gone so left on this woke stuff.
And the poor Democrats, a couple of them have popped their heads above the parapet and said, maybe we just don't need to be quite so out there on some of this stuff.
And they've gotten shot at.
The Democratic chairman in Texas had to resign after saying we don't need to go quite so far in all this trans stuff because he's called a hater and a transophobe and all this.
So this kind of lockdown that the woke left has on the Democratic Party is a huge problem.
And it appeals to a certain segment of people.
So affluent, rich people.
White people.
We're getting a bunch of callers coming in.
And so, Katrina, before we get to those calls, I want to ask you about a recent piece that you have in the nation, Executive Actions Biden Could Take.
We've talked about what Trump is likely going to do.
What do you think Biden should do in his remaining time in office?
Well, I feel very strongly about the futility and this disaster of U.S.-Cuba relations.
And I think, you know, there are no Castros, there are no Kennedys in government.
It's a very poor, destroyed country by the pandemic.
You can argue some of the country's own policies, but it's in crisis.
I think President Biden could take Cuba off the terrorism, the state terrorism list.
I think that he could do more.
I also think he could look at judicial vacancies and move really swiftly on that.
And, you know, there are pardons.
We were talking, you were talking about Hunter Biden.
Well, Rich's magazine, I guess, endorsed Biden giving Hunter Biden.
There are a lot of people.
My daughter is a criminal justice lawyer.
Katrina, just for clarity there, it was an op-ed in the National Review as opposed to- I respect that distinction.
We face that at the nation.
But wrongfully convicted people, those Trump has battered through his career.
But I think there's quite a bit that could be done through executive action.
Of course, it can get rolled back, but it's a signal.
I just want to say to Rich, the woke stuff, listen, it's social justice today.
It's overplayed by the media.
The numbers are small.
But the most interesting thing about Trump, I think, is he's going to be very disciplined.
He's brought in a chief of staff, first woman, who shows discipline.
He's learned from the first round not to bring in people who are not loyal to him.
But the thing that interests me is yesterday, I believe, Trump called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria.
You know, a broken clock can be right twice.
I think that's the expression.
The idea that he would stop wars, not start wars.
Let's test him.
Let's see if he can resolve the situation in Ukraine, the Middle East, or talk about NATO in ways that won't be scoffed at.
Because I think we're at a real dangerous turning point of becoming this militarized country.
And the support people need in this country is going to evaporate into wars that we don't need.
It is not isolationism.
It is what is in the interest of America's security.
And the Harris Biden foreign policy about indispensable nation.
I think a lot of voters may not be their first issue, but they've seen multiple deployed men in their communities, and they're fed up with this idea that we're the policemen of the world.
There's an alternative course, and I think that's going to be important if, if, if Trump shows the way.
We're going to be taking your calls for Christina and Rich.
Our line for Democrats is 202-748-8000.
For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
And before we get to those calls, let's listen to a portion of President Biden's remarks in the Rose Garden on Thursday on the peaceful transfer of power.
I also hope we can lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electoral system.
It is honest, it is fair, and it is transparent.
And it can be trusted.
Win or lose.
I also hope we can restore the respect for all our election workers who busted their necks and took risks at the outset.
We should thank them.
Thank them for staffing voting sites, counting the votes, protecting the very integrity of the election.
Many of them are volunteers who do it simply out of love for their country.
And as they did, as they did their duty as citizens, I will do my duty as president.
I'll fulfill my oath, and I will honor the Constitution.
On January 20th, we'll have a peaceful transfer of power here in America.
Now to your calls.
Sandy is in Florida on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Sandy.
Hi.
How are you?
Good.
What's your question?
I don't have a question.
I just think that Biden should let all this go and that let Trump start new.
And I think we ought to forget all this garbage of he, she, the, and just move on and do what needs to be done to keep our country safe and make our country great again.
So, Rich, why don't you respond and add any other detail you'd like to add regarding that call that was in your newspaper, in your magazine as an op-ed for President Biden to pardon former President Trump?
I'm not sure how likely that is.
It would not be taken kindly by President Trump, obviously, because there is a suggestion of guilt in the implication, strong implication of guilt in such pardon.
But I think the pardon that definitely will happen is of Hunter Biden.
And this will be self-dealing and kind of corrupt on a certain level, but very understandable on a human level.
So I think maybe the play that Biden is engaged in here is unwinding these investigations and prosecutions so Trump doesn't have to go in and do these hugely controversial firings right out of the top and squash these investigations.
At the same time, he pardons Hunter and hopes that Trump is glad that the prosecutions have been unwound and won't blow him out of the water over the Hunter pardon.
That's my guess, very speculative, but that's my guess of what's going on.
Katrina, what's your take on the idea of Biden pardoning president-elect?
I think it would rouse a tough spirit in much of the country.
There is a strong view that there's accountability and that justice is to be done.
So I don't see it in the cards.
I do see Hunter Biden for the reasons, main reason is a human reason.
But I certainly don't see Biden pardoning Trump.
And I'm not sure.
There are a lot of indictments.
So I think that's not, I don't see that in the cards.
I do, again, come back to the point Biden could give pardons to a lot of wrongfully convicted people who are languishing in our prisons.
Kyle is in Clearwater, Florida, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Kyle.
Good morning.
So I think Trump, different from the Trump campaign, was very effective because the election really became about lower propensity voters, lower information voters, and the attack on trans and the migrants are eating the dogs and cats and dogs and are raping your babies and Dems are commies that are trying to groom your babies.
I think what's more important kind of post-that is kids that came into the Trump era as toddlers have had 10 years of this, 10 years of MAGAism, 10 years of their parents fighting, their neighbors fighting about Trump.
Every day, everything is about Trump, and that is going to continue and continue.
So, those 15-year-olds that have been so damaged by their damaged parents talking about their idolatry or hate of Trump is going to be amplified.
And what is going to happen to those children?
Children, there was a children are resilient creatures.
My daughter's about to have a baby.
That baby will see Trump, Trump, Trump.
I'm not sure Trump is going to do the big rallies.
He's going to have to govern.
Governing can be boring.
Will he not govern?
Then that's a sin, too.
I want to pick up on what you said about education.
You know, there's a lot of talk about social mobility, how good we are.
This country's failing on social mobility.
There's a lot of divide between educated and uneducated voters.
What about apprenticeships in this country?
It's something we see around the world.
Good jobs.
Not everyone four-year degree.
It's not about second-class citizenship.
It's about a reality that this world is facing.
And I think the jobs, unemployment, social mobility is a critical factor for a civilized society.
Let me just say, party of common sense, as Trump said.
Well, I mean, the idea of deporting 11 million people.
I mean, that's insane for economic reasons, obviously for moral reasons.
It's going to cause inflation.
You know, there are all kinds of factors.
That is not common sense.
I agree that we need a party that pays attention to the economic struggles, pain, and ambition of millions.
But, you know, they're going to have to hunker down and do some real work and not just rallies if that's going to happen.
Senator Bernie Sanders was exposing similar views on X and wrote, it should come as no great surprise that the Democratic Party, which has abandoned working-class people, would find the working class has abandoned them.
First, it was the white working class.
Now it is Latino and black workers as well.
While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change.
And they're right.
Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?
Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing?
Let's now...
Secular amen.
Alan is in Rhinelander, Wisconsin on our line for independence.
Good morning, Alan.
Hi, good morning.
So I've got a nuts and bolts piece of information, a critical error that the Democrats made.
In 2020, 40 million people who were losing sleep at night over their student loans voted for Joe Biden because he promised not only to cancel student loans, but to return bankruptcy to student loans.
He did neither of those things.
He faked it.
And interestingly, it was a billionaire liberal elite, Mary Swig, who whispered in Nancy Pelosi's ear and got Nancy Pelosi to turn against his very lame student loan cancellation initiative.
So that's 40 million people who put Biden into office, who Kamala completely abandoned and ignored.
And more importantly, the DNC has taken the return of bankruptcy protections out of their party platform.
Now, this is not something that I would imagine a friend of Lynn Rothschild, a billionaire Manhattan social person like Catherine might understand.
But I do know that Rich, you wrote an article calling for the return of bankruptcy to student loans a couple years ago.
So, Alan, let's not attack our guests.
Also, her name is Katrina.
And Katrina, I'll let you respond first and then follow up with Rich.
Just very briefly, social mobility, you know, again, student loans, something the nation has supported even beyond what is on the table.
I believe there was Republican stops to it, you know, that it couldn't be moved as effectively as Democrats want it to be.
The issue of bankruptcy is something Senator Elizabeth Warren, and you may not like her, has really played a lead role on.
And it's very important for people who live paycheck to paycheck, week to week, to have the bankruptcy possibility.
That's not the great resolve and solution, but it's real.
And I think, just again, to come back to Bernie Sanders, the connection to working people, and you can throw around Rothschild, connection to working people is something that any ordinary person, any person can develop as they, you know, it's part of their.
So I, you know, Bernie Sanders is someone we endorsed in 2016.
I think he's, you know, an older person now, but still feisty and scrappy.
We need to find new Bernie Sanders of their generation, whether it's down ballot and states, bench, who will see the mobility as a serious issue and treat class concerns in the working class of all kinds as a real with dignity.
Rich, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this argument about what happened with Democrats and working class voters and also what, if anything, you think the president-elect might do on student loans.
Yes, so I do not recall that article the caller attributed to me, and I have a total different interpretation than he does.
Biden was obsessed with doing this.
It had to, it's a major spending program.
It should have been passed through Congress.
That's a fundamental of our system.
But he was so determined to do it, he dispensed with that and repeatedly attempted these lawless executive actions to forgive student loans.
And these are loans that people took out and should have to repay.
And it's also just a message to all the people who don't have four-year degrees, didn't do this, and are going to have to play a role in paying for this, that they don't matter as much as people who went to college.
And this is just a huge problem.
I agree with Katrina when she was talking about apprenticeships earlier.
A lot of people in the political elite, you mentioned young people, and they think of their own kids.
Oh, yeah, this is someone with a backpack going to Dartmouth.
That's not what most young people are.
You know, a lot are just high school grads who go into trades honest days' work, and they should be respected too.
And we don't do enough to do that.
And on Bernie and his interpretation of the election, I think he's more right than a lot of other Democrats.
I think of Bernie Sanders of 15, 20 years ago, obsessed with class to the exclusion of racial or woke concerns, skeptical of open borders.
That's an approach to be much better for Democrats than what they have now.
Now, the fact is, Biden was as far left as he could plausibly be on economics, given the constraints he had in Congress.
It wasn't popular, it didn't work, the spending helped, it wasn't solely responsible, helped stoke the inflation that more than anything else sank him and Kamala Harris.
But the woke issues are just a killer.
Again, there's a reason Kamala Harris gained among a couple groups, you know, white college grads and seniors.
So Democrats are becoming, I emphasize becoming, that's a complicated picture, much more of an affluent white party.