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Today, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell testifies on the agency's response to recent hurricanes.
You can watch this House Oversight and Accountability Hearing live at 2 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org.
We're in open forum here on Washington Journal for the next half hour and taking your calls on anything public affairs related, politics-related, anything happening with the transition.
Phil, you're up first in Jupiter, Florida, Independent.
Hi, thanks for C-SPAN and taking my call.
I was hoping to get in on the last segment.
I would like to continue the discussion on the U.S. funding of Israel's war in Palestine, number one, and if possible, U.S. funding of NATO's war in Ukraine.
I think that the American people— You said NATO's war in Ukraine?
Or U.S. funding of the war in Ukraine, excuse me.
But I would like to go back to Israel, and I want to tie this back to our economy.
You know, that every dollar, you know, that we're allocating to funding these wars is, for the most part, being borrowed from the Fed, and that does affect our economy.
But I do, you know, as far as inflation and all, but before that, I want to say that I wish you would have somebody like Allison Weir of If Americans New KNEW.org on the panel,
or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the panel to talk about the U.S. funding of the war in Ukraine and how that all started back in 2014.
But the other thing is Allison Weir of If Americans New KNEW.org talks about the history of how Palestine did become Israel.
And it's a shame you don't have her on the program.
I'm saying this more for the listeners and the viewers.
And I don't think we're getting the full history.
We appreciate the input.
And here's Deborah in Burlington, Vermont, Republican.
Republican, sorry about that.
Maybe I called on the wrong line.
Okay.
I just wanted to say I am really alarmed to hear the amount of people who are advocating for turning in your neighbors and your citizens and think that military deployment on U.S. soil is a good idea.
It sounds like Stalinist tactics, and it's extremely scary.
All right.
And in Wisconsin, on the line for Democrats, James, you're next.
Yes, I think people listening should be aware that I did read a book on this and that the CIA, when it was set up, people's argument was the CIA would be valuable because it could make our foreign policy much better than our State Department, our Congress, and the White House.
And so now we're kind of seeing these guests we had on here today are trying to fulfill that idea that the CIA is better qualified to decide foreign policy.
And look at Russia.
They have the KGB running their country.
We don't want the CIA's valuable, but we don't want them making our foreign policy.
Thank you.
And on the line for independence in St. Paul, Minnesota, Bobby.
Hi, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
Excuse me.
I think it's been lost in a shuffle, and it's about the Melendez brothers out in California.
So folks that are not aware of that, they were the brothers that cold-heartedly shot their mother and father in cold blood.
They were considering or may be considering changing their sentence because of a Netflix special and also that they were very good prisoners.
But the bottom line is they shot their parents in cold blood.
Number one, it was premeditated.
Number two, I realized that there was a problem with the dad, was a sex offender, a sex fiend, and they decided to kill both their mother and their father.
And when they came in, they shot them both, and then they went back out again.
And at that moment in time, they could have rationalized and say, look what we just did, because their mother was still alive.
No, they reloaded, went back in, and shot their mother.
And I would just say to them, one question.
Was your mother's eyes, the woman that brought you to this life, the mother that raised you as babies, the mother that took care of you to your adolescent age, were her eyes open when she saw you actually kill her at that point?
Great, Bobby.
And this is Joe in St. Clair, Michigan, Republican.
Good morning.
Morning.
You have had, you do a good job, by the way.
You have had on the show people talking about farm workers, immigration, who's going to harvest the crops.
I farmed 1,200 acres of vegetables.
Did.
I'm retired now.
I had 212 employees.
About 190 of them were Hispanic or Haitian.
When anyone gets hired in this country, including you, Mimi, you have to fill out an I-9 form.
If you pull it up on your computer, you'll be able to read the form.
You have to provide proof that you belong in this country, whether it be a passport, whether it be a birth certificate, whether it be a green card.
If the employer questions any of your evidence that you give him, he's guilty of discrimination.
So whatever, if they give you a green card that the ink is still wet on, you cannot scrutinize that card.
Also, no farmer is going to plant a crop and put a million and a half dollars out into the field without a stable source of labor to harvest that crop.
You can't hire illegals.
So, Joe, would you be in favor then of E-Verify being the law of the land?
Absolutely.
When we hire people, we use a program called H-2A.
It would be nice if you could have a show and get an H-2A expert on there to talk.
You have to buy a permit from the government.
They don't tell you that they're going to allow you to bring in H-2A workers until your crop is already planted.
You don't know until you've got a lot of people.
So what do you think should be done, Joe, as far as the agricultural workers that are not legally able to work in this country, let's put it that way, that are being hired, that are working.
What should happen to them and what should happen to their employers?
Well, if an employee gives me phony documentation and I'm going to get charged with discrimination for scrutinizing it, then I have to take it at face value, whatever he gives me.
The right thing to do is to use the H-2A program.
Now, just so you know, the H-2A program, the requirement to pay people in the state of Michigan is $18.50 an hour, plus you have to pay their travel expenses from wherever they come from, and you must provide them with a house.
So you end up, your cost ends up being about $22.50 an hour for each employee.
Do you think, Joe, given your experience with agricultural work and having your own farm, that once a deportation plan gets underway, do you think food prices will go up?
No, because there's not that much food grown in America anymore.
Most of the food we get comes from Mexico, from Chile, from Honduras.
Mexico can take over for the American farmer with the exception of a few crops.
Kate in Michigan, Line for Democrats.
You're next.
Well, good morning.
That was a great call.
And I don't know what I was going to say.
I listen to C-SPAN all the time.
There's always all kinds of things I want to say.
But I worked in migrant camps.
I was a social worker.
I'm 71 years old.
And so I know that side of it, too.
I've seen how people have to live.
And then many of them have settled in our community.
And they're so welcome.
And we celebrate our Hispanic community here.
And it's worked out really well.
But the one thing I just kind of wanted to say was that listening to all this and watching the footage this morning and seeing the boardrooms and there are no women.
Well, so Kate, I just wanted to ask you about the migrant camps that you worked in.
Can you explain where they were, why the migrants were there, and what's the status of those migrants?
Had they crossed the border illegally?
Are they asylum claimants?
Actually, to tell you the truth, I worked with them for 40 years, but I never quite understood how it all worked.
And I knew that we had families in Head Start that didn't speak English, and we had to get interpreters, but I didn't quite know how all that was.