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Good morning.
It's Monday, November 25th.
It's nearly three weeks after Donald Trump won the electoral and popular vote.
Republicans control both houses of Congress.
The GOP calls that a mandate.
While Democrats say that with only a 1.6% difference in the popular vote and a razor-thin majority in the House, it's not.
This morning, we're asking if you think President-elect Donald Trump has a mandate.
If you do, what do you think that mandate is?
Give us a call on our lines by party.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can send us a text, 202-748-8003.
Include your first name in your city-state.
And you can post your comments on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
We're glad you're with us.
We're going to start with President-elect Donald Trump on Election Day, followed by House Speaker Mike Johnson claiming a governing mandate.
America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.
Republicans in the House and Senate have a mandate.
It's true.
It was a decisive win across the nation.
The American people want us to implement and deliver that America First agenda.
And we have to do that while we have that energy and that excitement beginning on the very first day of the Congress in the new year.
It's clear the American people do want secure borders.
They want to prevent terrorists and criminals from entering the country.
These things are common sense.
They want and deserve lower costs for groceries and gasoline.
They want us to project strength on the world stage again and not the weakness that we have projected for the last four years.
They want an end to the wokeness and the radical gender ideology and a return to common sense in our children's classrooms and corporate boardrooms and government agencies.
And we're going to ensure all that's true.
This leadership will hit the ground running to deliver President Trump's agenda in the 119th Congress.
That was Speaker Mike Johnson, and we're taking your calls on whether you think President-elect Donald Trump has a mandate and what, if you do, what that mandate is.
The numbers are on your screen.
Now we'll hear from Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, saying that it's not a mandate.
Despite the claims of some of my Republican colleagues who have spent a lot of time over the last two weeks talking about some big, massive mandate, I'm looking for it.
That doesn't mean that we don't have to make adjustments to make sure that we can get beyond fighting House Republicans with a national wave on top of us to a draw.
But the question about this notion of some mandate to make massive far-right extreme policy changes, it doesn't exist.
It doesn't exist.
And so in the new Congress, for anything to happen, particularly as it relates to an enlightened spending agreement or ensuring that America does not default on our debt and crash the economy and hurt everyday Americans for the first time in our nation's history, it's clear House Republicans cannot do it on their own.
That was House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
And we will go to the phones now and get your opinion.
Curtis in Maryland, Independent Line.
Good morning.
Hey, good morning.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
Go right ahead, Curtis.
So I just wanted to call this morning and give my opinion on the agenda of the next administration that's coming in.
I just feel as though from just observing the choices that the incoming president is making for the departments and all, for the federal government, I think his agenda is much bigger than what the American citizens even recognize.
I think that I still believe that he's up to trying to destroy the structure of the democracy that we have in this country as far as the institutions.
I think that their agendas may go too far to the right.
I don't disagree with all the agendas that, you know, all the example of something you think that's going too far to the right.
I think that them trying to shut down Department of Education, calling for a drastic cut in the federal government.
I think that some of the things that they're trying to implement won't be good for the country.
And I think that some of the things that they are trying to implement will be good for the country.
But like the, I think that was Hakeem Dreffery just speaking, I believe that they do need to consider the other half of the country because like they were saying, he didn't win the popular vote by as much as he think or they think they won.
All right, Curtis.
And this is on the front page of the post about what Curtis was just talking about, Musk's Doge, GERDS for Battle.
It says that some see Farfetch bid for massive federal cuts.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are interviewing job candidates and seeking advice from experts in Washington and Silicon Valley, pushing a sweeping vision for the Department of Government Efficiency past the realm of memes and viral posts into potential real-world disruption.
Tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead an advisory panel to find, quote, drastic cuts to the federal government, the billionaire Doge leaders have spent the past week in Washington and at Mar-a-Lago seeking staff and interviewing seasoned Washington operators, legal specialists, and top tech leaders, according to five people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
And here is Clyde in Queens, New York, Independent.
Good morning.
Good morning.
How are you doing?
Good.
Okay.
Let me start off by saying I think his mandate has a mandate.
His mandate is white supremacy, misogyny, and ignorance.
Period.
All right.
And this is James, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Independent Line.
Good morning, James.
No, definitely there's definitely no mandate.
But when you have a man in the White House who has a mental capacity of about a 15-year-old child, according to Mathis, he at least picks that this man is making in this 2025 mandate plan that he's got.
This is for all of you MAGA Republican voters.
Sit back and watch this man destroy this country.
And then two years from now, the Democrats will take the House back over and put this country back on the feet, like the Democrats always have to do clean up behind a Republican president.
Because I can go all the way back to Bush with the financial disaster.
Obama had to come in, put us back up on our feet.
Then Trump comes in, he destroys the country because he's not mature enough to have the pandemic.
And then here comes Biden.
He put us back on our feet again, signed five of the best deals that this country could ever have.
Number one is infrastructure.
He brought jobs back to this country.
Now, we're just going to sit back, and I'm watching this man, and he will.
He will destroy the United States.
All right, James, and this is on the line for Democrats.
Is Debbie in Social Circle Georgia?
Good morning, Debbie.
Good morning.
He won by less than 2%, and I don't think that that is a mandate.
And I happen to agree with the previous speaker, and I think that I'm very concerned about women's rights, and I'm very concerned about marriage being and divorce going backwards.
What do you mean by marriage and divorce, Debbie?
Domestic violence.
Domestic violence is a serious issue in our country.
And I certainly, I'm almost 70.
I certainly have seen it throughout my life.
It was terrible.
It used to be completely legal when I was a teenager for a man to do whatever he wanted with his family.
And it's not anymore.
And thank God for that.
And I'm afraid we're going backwards on that.
And that was JD Vance that I was worried about with that one in particular.
But I think that misogyny is definitely raising its ugly head, and that we all need to be very aware of that and fight very hard to keep the rights that we've earned.
All right, Debbie.
And here's Republican Senator Tommy Tubberville on the Senate floor last Tuesday, urging his Senate Republican colleagues to get in line on those cabinet approvals.
In addition to sending President Trump back to the White House, Americans delivered a mandate to every single Senate Republican.
They want President Trump's America First agenda, and they want it now.
As a result, Senate Republicans should embrace this mandate in supporting every single one of President Trump's cabinet picks.
You'd think this would be a no-brainer.
Not one Democrat broke from their party in supporting Joe Biden's nominees in 2021.
Not one.
However, over the last few days, I've heard some of my Senate Republican colleagues express concerns about who President Trump is picking for his team.
I would expect this from my colleagues on the left, not on the right.
What's surprising to me is that I'm hearing grumblings from Republicans.
My advice to them is get on board or get out of the way.
And this is from Mark on Facebook who sent us, absolutely, the mandate is to reduce the size and scope of waste in our government and return the rule of law to the country, beginning with immigration.
And Thomas said, yes, he has a mandate.
He's the first Republican to win the popular vote since the 2004 election.
And just to give you a couple of numbers to put things in perspective.
So as I said in the open, Mr. Trump won the popular vote by 1.6%, this time in 2024.
In 2020, Biden won the popular vote by 4.5%.
And going back to 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1%.
And here is Gloria in Roanoke, Virginia, Republican line.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I'd like to make a comment about your callers this morning.
It seems like everybody kind of got up with venom in their thoughts.
We need to move on.
We have a president-elect who will be coming into office.
Yes, he does have a mandate, but it might not be what everyone is thinking about an official mandate.
Maybe it is just something that he wants to do to improve this country.
This country has really gone down the drain.
It wasn't four years ago.
It's been going down the drain for quite some time now.
I'm a Christian, and I believe that every president, let's just say ruler, leader that gets into office, they need to improve things that have happened in the past, that they can improve.
Maybe we really do need to look at the budget.
Yeah, I was going to say, Gloria, like what?
When you say that the country has been going down the drain for a long time, explain what you mean.
Our budget.
The budget is out of control.
Spending is out of control.
I think our military needs to be raised up a little bit as far as our ability to deal with some of these things that are on the world stage, like wars, like hunger, anything that we can do to help other countries.
We need to do it.
So, Gloria, you'd be in favor of increasing spending for the military and also for humanitarian aid overseas.
What would you cut?
Wait just a minute.
Okay.
It is not only increase in spending, but we have to cut costs.
Let's be realistic.
You cannot, you know, if you had a pot of stew on your on your stove and you had 10 to 12 different people coming in from different countries coming in and taking a sip out of your stew, pretty soon you wouldn't have any stew in the pot for even your own family.
Like I say, I'm a Christian.
Please just turn to the King James Version of the Bible and read Romans 13.
It will tell you what our conduct is supposed to be when it comes to our leaders, both their conduct and ours.
And you have to have someone to prop you up.
All right, Gloria.
Same way that Social Security has to have someone to prop them up.
If you don't have workers out here propping up Social Security, Social Security will go down the drain.
All right.
And let's talk to Bob in Minnesota, line for Democrats.
Hi, Bob.
Hi.
I'm totally confused on politics.
We had a jury convicted Donald Trump.
We got a judge that refuses to sentence.
So until Trump is sworn in, then you don't have to sentence.
The country better wake up and take a look around.
There's something going on, and nobody is doing nothing about it.
I don't know who hired that judge, but he needs to interview removed from the bench and get somebody in there to take care of this before January 20th.
Thank you.
Let's take a look at what Jim Newell wrote as an opinion in Slate magazine.
He says this, which issues got Trump elected?
This is a much better question to ask and for his team to consider than whether he has a mandate.
Two things stand out.
Immigration was Trump's best issue all year, and he has strong support, including from a significant chunk of Democrats, for stricter policies at the border.
The other major issue on which Trump had a mandate was to bring the cost of living down.
What we do not see is a broad request from the American people to appoint a vaccine antagonist to oversee the vaccine department.
We don't see a desire to take a wrecking ball to the Justice Department and replace it with personal errand boys to the West Wing.
I am not seeing in the data large-scale support for a managerial novice from television to take over the Defense Department.
This is just the very, very beginning too.
Wonder what you think of that.
That's from Slate magazine, and this is Don in Montgomery, Alabama, Independent Line.
Yes.
Hello.
Hi.
There is a lot of things about America.
The way that the Constitution was written, and then the fact that I'm a person of color, the fact that some of the things that we're saying about all men being created equal, for instance,
but that when people realize that all men were men and they began to let it apply, we don't need a person to come into the highest office in the land and not be aware of what things work.
And that means that you have to actually talk with people in those different departments, find out what does for it, not to go and listen to someone just because he comes on a particular radio program that you listen to and they say something that you like, and you appoint that person to head of these large institutions.
You have to have someone who has sense.
Now, either this person that we unfortunately put into the top level position, either he is that misinformed or our enemies have told him to act as if he was that misinformed so that he could destroy America.
Thank you.
And we are taking your call for another 40 minutes on this question on what do you think President-elect Trump's mandate is if you think he has a mandate.
And take a look at what Jim Antel in the Washington Examiner wrote.
He says, Trump was only the second Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote since 1988.
He swept all seven battleground states, and he outperformed every Republican Senate candidate in a competitive race, with the exception of Larry Hogan in the blue state of Maryland.
There were noticeable shifts toward him in both red and blue states.
All talk of, quote, mandates, landslides, and realignment needs to be recalibrated for the post-2000 polarized national electoral environment.
Ever since that presidential election was decided by a few hundred votes in Florida, after a protracted recount fight and an unprecedented Supreme Court ruling, the race for the White House every four years has typically been close.
Mary Ann in Bayside, New York, Independent Line, good morning.
Good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
I would have voted for a Martian.
I would have voted for a gorilla if they had as their premise improving the quality of health care.
The quality of health care we have in New York is abominable.
It's atrocious.
It's taken over by big pharma, by idiots.
And having seen my parents.
Marianne?
Did we lose you?
Ben in Washington, D.C., Line for Democrats.
Good morning, Ben.
Yeah, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
So my main concern is who he is hiring to fill his cabinet.
I do think that he needs to hire people who are more experienced in the fields that he's assigning to them.
For example, Secretary of Education, zero experience in education, just as he did last time he was in office, Betsy DeVos, zero experience in education.
How do you put someone at the head of education who has zero experience in education?
I don't understand.
And then you have, I mean, someone running the health department for the entire country who has zero experience.
Is this something that, and then people support this, and I don't know how you would support, like if you were to hire somebody for a job, you would look at their qualifications.
These people don't have any experience in the fields from which they are to run an entire department for the country.
So, Ben, by chance, do you work for the government since you're in Washington, D.C., or do you work for a government contractor?
I do.
I work for the government, yes.
So, what are your thoughts on this idea of at least cutting the waste from government?
Have you seen in your professional life a lot of waste, a lot of programs, people that can be cut that would save money?
Downsizing?
Yeah.
It happens once in a while.
Yeah, they call it excess.
They get excessed out.
I think it's also used as a tool to get rid of people they don't want to be working with.
But those are just some of the things that are that happen even in corporate America, right?
Outside of government jobs.
But do you see a lot of waste in the government?
Oh, I see what you mean.
Well, sure.
It's hard to say, right?
It's one of those things where it's usually not in leadership roles, perhaps, but otherwise, yeah, I mean, even in any job, you're going to have people who don't know what they're doing, who don't care about what they're doing.
It's maybe not as common as like an office job or a corporate America job, but I don't know.
You're going to get that everywhere you go.
All right.
Well, let's take a look at, here's Republican Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Green.
She's been tapped to chair a new congressional subcommittee aimed at eliminating government waste under the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency.
Well, it's not just contracts.
Let's talk about federal employees that haven't showed up to work ever since COVID.
We're also looking at many, we have thousands of buildings that the federal government owns and pays for with over $15 billion a year.
But yet those government buildings sit empty and these government employees stay at home still to this day.
This is the exact type of waste, fraud, and abuse and failure, honestly failure.
See, I see the American people as the federal government's customers.
The federal government should be providing the top and the best customer service to the American people.
And the way to do that is to carefully spend their money.
The way to do that is to cut programs, contracts, employees, grant programs, you name it, that are failing the American people and not serving the American people's interests.
And that's exactly what we're going to do.
And another thing that you just said a moment ago is about sanctuary cities, about officials throughout the country who might be harboring illegals in this country.
Are you saying that sanctuary states and sanctuary cities will lose their federal funding?
If they use their police officers and their resources to harbor and protect illegal criminal aliens, then absolutely those secret, those sanctuary states and cities are in danger of losing their federal funding and rightfully so.
And back to social media, Barb on Facebook says about the mandate.
No, he doesn't.
He won by less than 1%.
Actually, it's 1.6.
She says, we are a 50-50 country.
Biden won by 4%, and he didn't have a mandate either.
And Linda says he did not even get 50% of the vote.
That's not a mandate.
He did not win in a landslide.
And now the whole country has to suffer because of all the crazies he wants in his cabinet.
His policies per all major economists will make things worse, not better.
And Judy in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, by tech said there is no mandate for a specific idea.
Some for immigration control, some for cutting the military, some for no LGBT advances, some for more private schools, a mandate to bring taxes down to a tiny amount.
And we'll talk next to Anthony in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Independent Line.
Thank you.
I want to thank C-SPAN for having this and giving us an opportunity to listen.
And I think everybody needs to just relax.
Let Trump do his thing and badhead his fans against Trump.
And I think everybody needs a relax or goal or sickness to take you a little vacation.
And one of the reasons I think that Trump got so much support is that the lower income people are suffering in this space.
In other words, this is not the time to give other people out of breath.
We love them.
We're doing the same as he informs, but this is not the time.
Thank you.
All right, Anthony.
And yesterday on this program, we had Cook Political Report founder and contributor Charlie Cook.
He talked about the 2024 election results and what he says about a mandate.
No, I think it's baloney.
I don't think he had a mandate in 2016 when he lost the popular vote.
I don't think Joe Biden had a mandate in 2020.
I mean, mandates come from, you know, it's number one.
How big was your margin?
You know, and it generally may be a landslide, which is, you know, 10 percentage points.
And what's very interesting is that in the, I think it was 21 presidential elections between 1900 through 1984, 14 of them were landslides, 10 points or more.
But starting in 88, in other words, after Reagan Mondale, 84, there hasn't been a single landslide presidential election, you know, at all.
And 1.6 percentage points is not a landslide.
No change in the House.
And one of the narrowest majorities in House history, that's not a landslide.
53 seats in the Senate.
That's good, but it's not a landslide.
There's absolutely nothing that someone could point to that would suggest that this was a landslide.
And to me, it's a cardinal sin for a political figure or a party to pretend or presume they have a mandate when they didn't.
And I think Biden and Democrats presume, pretended that they had one in 2020 when they didn't.
And Republicans, there's a danger of Republicans and Trump thinking they had one here when they don't hear either.
You know, we're just a era where two evenly divided parties where there aren't going to be mandates anytime soon.
And we are taking your calls for another half hour.
We're going to go right into open forum.
So if there's anything else you'd like to talk about, you can feel free to go ahead and do that, talk about that here.
We are on a much lighter note.
Here's ABC News about the turkey pardoning.
Peach and Blossom continue the White House turkey pardon.
The pair of Minnesota birds will be Biden's last Thanksgiving pardons.
And that's happening today at 11 a.m. Eastern Time.
You can see that ceremony on the White House South Lawn.
The president celebrates the 77th anniversary of the National Thanksgiving Turkey presentation.
He'll give short remarks, and you can see that here on the C-SPAN networks.
Let's talk to Donna in Cleves, Ohio, Democrat.
Good morning, Donna.
Good morning, first time caller.
Oh, welcome.
Remote workers since 2020.
Companies, including the government, are saving money by having all their workers remote.
Since being placed on remote in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic, my company has said we're never going back because we're saving them so much money.
We provide our own computers, we provide our own internet, we provide our own electricity, we provide our own phone, we provide our own toilet paper, our own water.
I could go on and on and on.
Not to mention the rent for the office buildings.
Exactly.
But do you feel that it's just as efficient?
You know, you no longer have the, you know, be able to pass by somebody's office or have these conversations, those kinds of things.
It's most definitely more efficient.
And as far as a mandate, no mandate.
He hasn't been given a mandate.
We are in, I'm a middle-aged woman, but I still watch TikTok.
We're in the FAFO moment of life right now.
Everyone is, they're getting ready to find out.
Not only is he going to destroy everything, he's going to destroy every American life that he can.
What is FAFO?
Unless it's obscene.
If it is, don't tell me.
F around and find out.
Okay, okay.
And that's what the American people are getting ready to face.
Also on the line for Democrats in Raymond, New Hampshire.
Ted, you're next.
Yes.
We're talking about government waste and stuff.
I used to work for a town for 30 years, and a lot of the times the budget, if they don't spend the money they allocate, they don't get as much the following year, the next year.
So I think a lot of this government waste all depends on how towns and states handle their budget money.
If a lot of it, they're spending it on things they don't actually need, that's something to seriously look at because I've seen it for 30 years.
And I've always shaken my head.
If you say anything, you're on the outside looking in.
And that's my comment.
All right, Ted.
And John in San Antonio, Texas sent us a text saying, I disagree with the slate article.
I 100% voted for Trump to take a sledgehammer to D.C. Time to drain the swamp for real.
And we are in open forum, and we'll talk to Scott in Kirkville, New York on the Republican line.
Yeah, first of all, I'd like to know what a climate consultant does for HUD.
I understand it's a $182,000 job, and rumors have it, Nancy Pelosi's niece works for HUD as a climate consultant.
So if there's waste in government, I'd like to know what a climate consultant does for HUD.
Other things, I'm confused.
Adam Shipp, who basically almost tried to bring down a president with false information.
We're still trying to wait for the blockbuster information about the Russian collusion, gets to be run as a senator.
No one questions that.
I mean, $40 million in two years of chaos in his first two years of office.
No one talks about the Democrats causing chaos.
It's always the Republicans.
As far as the mandate goes, I go by states.
Geographically, how many states did he win compared to the Democrats?
And we're never going to win California and New York.
So, therefore, geographically, and also he had 45% in New York State, which is incredible, even California.
So, yeah, he only won by 1.5%.
But it's amazing how when the Democrats are in office, it's always like, hey, they want us.
So, I'm just confused.
But once again, I'd like to know what a climate consultant for HUD is.
All right.
Well, here's on the front page of the Washington Times about energy.
It says Trump team to revile to revive fossil fuels and Biden policies.
Renewable energy advocates prepare challenges.
Oil production breaks record.
It says three Trump nominees plan to jumpstart the nation's energy production and reverse a slate of Biden-era policies aimed at eliminating fossil fuels.
Energy advocates are thrilled with Mr. Trump's appointment of Chris Wright to run the Energy Department, North Dakota Governor Doug Bergham to head the Interior Department, and former Representative Lee Zeldon to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Climate action groups, meanwhile, are preparing a slew of lawsuits to challenge the anticipated reversal of President Biden's green energy policies.
The three appointees plan to work in tandem to fulfill a top Trump campaign promise to restore and expand production of oil and natural gas, which Mr. Trump calls liquid gold.
The Biden administration's energy policies curtailed fossil fuel production in some areas.
Edward is next in Clarksburg, West Virginia, Independent.
Yes, this mandate, Trump won, he got a mandate.
He's the winner.
Now, does he have a super mandate?
No.
Number two, policy.
That word should be sewed out of the government.
Policy.
I have a law in my county, Harrison.
Speed limit down Main Street, 35 miles an hour.
The person calls a police station.
There's people going down Main Street at 60 and 70 miles an hour.
Yes, ma'am, but our policy is after 12 o'clock.
We ignore that.
The law doesn't say ignore it after 12 o'clock.
It's just a policy.
It's not a law.
And I had another one, but I'm 89 years old, and this doesn't slip by me.
But as far as Social Security, I've seen, I've been with you people for since ever, I think.
Social Security has changed.
Reagan changed it.
He's seen that big pile of money over there, and he just went crazy because he's a Roosevelt Democrat.
That Social Security money now goes into the general fund.
They can tell you, no, it don't, but it does.
And then they pass the law, spend the money in the general fund, and then they take how much Social Security paid in and how they used it.
So they write a little note, I borrowed, we owe IOSOU, Social Security.
Then they bring it here to Parkersburg, that little note, and put it in a safe box.
I'd like for you to sometime, I know you probably ignore this, just go and have somebody on there ask them how much does the United States government owe Social Security.
Thank you for taking my time.
All right, Edward.
And this is Dale in Riverdale, Maryland, Democrat.
Hi, thank you for taking my call.
I'm a long time well, not too long time listener, but you guys are very interesting.
The question about mandate, sometimes when I'm listening to you, I'd get on my computer and start Googling things, and I googled the definition of mandate.
And mandate, and you probably know this, has nothing to do with degree.
It's just an official order or an authority to carry out a policy.
So, of course, since Mr. Trump won, he has a mandate.
There's no question of that by definition.
Okay, this idea of degree, I'm not sure even why you guys brought it up.
I have to say, a little disappointed this morning.
But there is one thing I would like to tell you of a feeling I have about bad versus good.
In my life, looking back, I'm kind of an old guy.
Every bad thing that ever happened to me turned out to be good, which is, I don't know if that's a common experience with people, but I see what happened here in this election as being really bad.
But based on my experience, it might turn out to be good.
And I guess that's pretty much it.
So, Dale, I just want to ask you about 2016.
Since you're a Democrat, I would assume that you would have seen the election of Donald Trump the first time as, quote, bad.
And did that turn out, did you feel like that turned out good in the end?
Well, in the sense that he didn't get reelected, yes.
And, of course, there were so many bad things.
I mean, all the people that got hurt on January 6th, and just, I was watching it live, and I was horrified.
In fact, I have to tell you one thing.
My dad was a POW during World War II.
And he saw the German people.
They marched them across Germany.
He saw the average German people, how they lived in terror under Nazism.
And his biggest fear, you know, as I grew up, he would say, I'm afraid of a mob taking over the Capitol.
You know, all these protests back in the 70s and 80s, which, I mean, that almost happened.
It was just, as I'm watching this, I'm just thinking, oh my God, my dad would be flipping out if he saw something like this.
So, yeah, we live in scary times.
But, of course, I'm a big TED Talk watcher.
And I just watched TED Talk the other day regarding this situation, how you could have a population elect someone like this.
And this is a, you know, according to the TED Talk thing, it's a bad thing.
But down the line with artificial intelligence, this could look pale in comparison to what could happen to our freedom.
All right, Dale.
Let's talk to Vincent next.
Republican line in Camden, Maine.
Good morning.
Good morning.
First time, long time, kind of a political junkie, and please bear with me.
I'm a little bit nervous.
But I'm calling basically to talk about the gentleman earlier was saying how a mandate was supposed to be 10%.
Well, again, like people have called in, there is actually no percentage for a mandate.
And the gentleman was also saying since 84, Reagan was the last real mandate.
And since then, they've been so close.
And we're on the verge of AI now.
Now, here's what gets a little crazy.
So happy that Trump has put in some of the best people around him to kind of get us where we need to be, because just the fact that we haven't had a mandate since 84 shows me that maybe there's been a little bit of finagling.
I have friends from Chicago and you know that old story vote, vote early, vote off and vote affraud is absolutely.
It's not new, but I really feel that with the technology today, it's so easy to cheat that I just don't know where to go with this, because this election, even though I still say there was tinkering all over the place, it still happened to go the way I wanted it to go.
And I'm a lifelong independent.
My grandfather was a Democrat.
Most of the people in my family are Democrats.
I guess I went the other way.
But I really, I feel this country is the best country in the world, and I think most will agree with me.
Yet when we put ourselves compared with other countries that are established, we seem to be losing a lot of ground in every single aspect.
So basically, I just want to say to everybody out there, we need to cool down, relax.
I know it's easy for me to say because my side won, but it's not a matter of my side, your side.
We're all Americans, and I just want to see this country be what it should be, which is that shining beacon light on the hill, asking everyone to come here and be the best you can be and make America better.
And that's all I really want to say.
Thank you so much.
Have a great day.
All right, Vincent.
And this is Joe, at this time in Bitterford, Maine, Independent Line.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
Donald Trump's only mandate is Elon Musk.
He is his mandate.
This garbage talk about having policy as mandate.
So I don't know what you're talking about with mandates if you mean policy.
Which policy are we going to talk about?
Ending the Ukraine war in 15 minutes, ending the immigration problem in 15 minutes.
When the American people realize that it's a repeat of Trump won, where he was going to repeal and replace Obamacare, it's all lies.
So the Democratic Party has lost, and now the Republican Party has to govern, which they refused to do for four years.
They stopped for three weeks.
They just shut down the government for no reason except to do what Donald Trump told them to do.
Fire McCarthy because he wasn't going to put up with Trump's lies.
So the Republican Party from a Republican, not Joe O'Leary in Maine, this is from the Republican Party.
We've been made a party of liars.
We have to say that Trump is our cult leader and all of the Republican people that have been lifelong Republicans, they're all Democrats now.
So I just want to say one more thing.
Thank you for listening.
But what do you think the guy who buyed paid off Justice Thomas, that gentleman who's paid his mother's rent for 50 years, whatever the story is, gave him a $330,000 loan, told him he don't have to pay it back.
That guy.
What do you think he's going to say?
All the politicians, all the money in his lifetime, he's pumped into a Republican Party, and he's out.
Eron is now Trump's mandate.
Elon was at the UFC with Trump.
Everything.
He's in the White House.
He's running around making policy commitments.
He's not even a lifelong Republican.
He's not even a Republican.
All right, Joe, got your point.
And this is Helma in Georgia, Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I was just wanting to comment on what the lady said about FAFO, and I believe that as well because, I mean, and also what the gentleman said about not quite understanding that we have to rally around and support our president because he is.
But I was just curious and wondering what could have happened with his election, you know.
And also, because I don't know, Donald always, I used to love Donald Trump.
But then, you know, upon seeing how he was, I mean, I read about him, you know, envied when they did bring his children up and this and that, felt an attachment to him, actually.
You know, but then I was just so surprised at the lies and everything, you know, that that, you know, kind of turned me off.
But he was so confident in this election.
I was saying all along to my partner, he's going to win.
And my partner's like, no way.
You know, I'm like, yes, way.
He's so confident.
You know, there's something going to go on.
And I believe that, which I've accepted it, you know, I am a Democrat, but I've only voted like three times in my entire life and I'm in my 60s.
But so now I'm like, no, I don't want to be a Democrat.
It's almost embarrassing the way they could not get behind Joe Biden.
Joe Biden was too good to be president, I do believe.
You know, I'm like, what are you guys doing?
You know, support him, you know.
But from my perspective, from day one, he never ever got a chance to, you know, be credited for what he did.
So did you vote in this election?
I did.
I did.
I voted in 16.
That was my first time ever.
You know, I would be like, nah, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
But for Hillary, because I'm all about girl power.
I'm like, yes, yes.
And I thought she was going to get it, but she didn't, because I was like, I thought it was a joke because Donald was a locklong Democrat.
And I'm like, he's only doing this to help Hillary.
You know, they were all good friends.
So I thought, you know, I mean, here I am just home with my TV and my books, you know, but I'm like, he's just doing it to help power and had no idea.
I mean, I was so disappointed and surprised.
He did wake up the next morning to find that he was our president.
But you're in this electron.
I just, you know, again, you know, I was surprised.
You know, so got your points on the deck.
And here's James on Facebook.
Trump has slipped a fraction of a percentage point below 50% in his vote share.
Also, the election was conducted over a backdrop of significant polarization.
If a contestant's victory involves either of those two elements, margin of popular vote and polarization, the claim for having a mandate is very hard to make.
Trump's victory reflected both.
So obviously, he has the power to do a lot, but doesn't really have a mandate to do anything.
Linda says he did not even get 50% of the vote.
That's not a mandate.
He did not win in a landslide, and now the whole country has to suffer.
I think we read this one before, and this is, oh, sorry.
Michael in Plant City, Florida says, absolutely a mandate.
Harris spent a billion on her campaign and four years demonizing President Trump and still lost.
That is beyond mandate.
Let's talk to Don next in Henderson, Nevada, Republican.
Hi, Don.
Good morning, Mimi.
Morning, Don.
I'm just surprised how uninformed the callers are.
Everybody's trying in the Democratic Party is trying to delete Donald Trump's mandate.
Look at California allows illegals to vote.
New York.
There's nowhere in the country, Don, that allows non-citizens to vote.
Right.
And Trump's mandate is getting rid of people like the one in Hurricane Ravage North Carolina that told the people not to skip the houses that were damaged.
And listen, 100,000 new postal workers were hired.
And you know what?
It takes eight days for me to get mail from the other side of the country.
It hasn't changed one bit.
And the illegals are getting a lot of benefits.
And Trump promised no tax on Social Security for elderly people and disabled people.
He promised no tax on tips.
That's his mandate.
And the far left is persecuting all the conservatives that are mostly Republican.
That's a mandate.
All right, Don.
Well, take a look at Florida Congressman Byron Donald's.
He argued that President Trump does have a mandate.
He was on yesterday Fox News Sunday morning futures about the plan to deport a large number of people.
Well, first, you start with criminal illegal aliens.
They're easy to identify.
Working with law enforcement agencies all across the country, Tom Holman and his team, along with Secretary Noam and the Department of Homeland Security, will be able to get those people out of our country very, very quickly.
Then you have to move to people who already have deportation orders that have been given to them, but they simply have not left.
You move to that group of people to a secondary level.
Again, dealing with ICE, local law enforcement.
In my district in Southwest Florida, our local sheriffs are more than prepared to use the 287G program to help remove people from the United States.
That's how you do it.
I think the hyperbole of using the military, we're nowhere close to that.
Probably won't even need to do that.
Because the truth is, once you start deportation proceedings, illegal immigrants understand as well.
They don't want to be caught in our country and have to be deported by ICE.
Because if you are, then you're barred from returning to the United States for a decade.
So I think you're going to see a lot of self-deportation once this process begins.
Back to the phones now to Dorothy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Independent Line.
Good morning.
Hi, good morning.
What do you think, Dorothy?
All right.
And this is Ed in Stockbridge, Georgia, Democrat.
Good morning, Ed.
Yeah, good morning, Mimi.
Thanks for taking my call.
Just to comment on Don from Nevada, he should be in the dictionary.
He'd be a classic definition of an ignorant Republican.
And the definition ignorant is lacking accurate information.
Like luckily, you were able to shut him down right away there.
But I think, and the gentleman from Maine, where he said that Trump put in some real good people.
Well, if TV hosts are good people to run our Cabinet positions.
That's kind of boggles my mind.
But he didn't win by landslide.
It was a no-mandate.
They really need to really follow all the different news stations.
I'm not worried about Trump because a gentleman in Home Depot last week told me, when you worry, you're not praying.
When you're praying, no need to worry.
So let's see what Donald does.
He didn't do nothing the first time.
And let's see all the things he campaigned on, see if one of them comes to tuition.
But thank you, Dave.
Michael.
All right, Ed.
Let's talk to David next in Monaghan's, Texas, Republican.
Yes, it's kind of deceiving to say that he only won the popular vote by less than 2%.
Because if you look at the map of how many counties he actually won, even in the blue states, there was a lot of red.
And if it wasn't for just some big metropolitan areas, it's overwhelming the red.
And people act like he hasn't been there before.
He's been president before, and the country was never in better shape.
So he will do this country very well.
Thank you.
All right.
And let's talk to George next in Upper Derby, Pennsylvania, Democrat.
George, you're next.
Hi, Mami.
Nobody really cares who won the popular will vote, really, because Donald Trump did win, and that's a fact, and he's going to be our president.
So really discussing that part really has no relevance.
And I know you had a question regarding how do you cut the waste in the federal government.
I have seen, I serve in the federal government for 20 years, and I have seen people who just don't want to work.
And since COVID, they don't even want to come back to work.
And the thing is, the problem is that the good ones who do want to work, they have to do these other people, carry the workload, these other people who don't want to work, and they get burnt out.
So I think this Doge initiative is going to cut out these employees who don't want to work in the federal government.
And they're collecting a, they want to be paid $100,000, the GS 12-13 level, and take advantage of the situation.
And I don't really know if President Trump will be able to deliver on all the issues that he's listed in his mandate because we have to understand this.
We still have a Constitution.
And I don't care how many cabinet nominees he has.
Senate Republicans do have a responsibility to the Constitution.
And so does the Pentagon.
So we just have to wait and see what happens.
All right, George.
On the line for independence in New York, Aaron, good morning.
Good morning, Amy.
How are you?
Good.
I'm just confused here because there's no deep state because the Democrat or Biden didn't tell Trump to grab a woman by the private part.
They didn't tell him to call up the governor in another state and demand stuff from, you know, to find him a certain amount of vote.
They didn't tell him to take the document to his camping ground in Mar-a-Lago.
So I don't understand where the deep state is.
And if these people, when someone commits a crime and the police or the FBI or whoever is investigating those crimes and charging that person, doesn't matter who the person is, no one is above the law.
But apparently, this man is.
The Supreme Court gave him enough leeway to do whatever he wants.
So this mandate thing doesn't really mean anything.
It doesn't mean anything to me.
So these people calling up and talking about mandate, mandate, it doesn't mean much because the Supreme Court already gave him that initiative to go out and do whatever he wants.
So these people going around, now it's shifted.
Can you imagine if the Democrat have said, well, you know what, we lost and the election was rigged.
What would happen?
What if the Democrat did that?
I voted for the right side because I believe in a woman right to choose.
I believe in the rule of law.
I believe in the democracy.
I believe in the Constitution.
I believe in, you know, going, I want to take my kids to the park and walk and enjoy the highway in this beautiful country.
I want to go and don't feel like I'm dying just to breathe simple air.
So all of that, there's no shame here in voting for the other side because these are core beliefs that everyone should have.
All right, Aaron.
And last call, Dale, Columbus, Ohio, Democrat.
Go ahead.
Yes, good morning.
I just want to say I'm so amazed of the people that Donald Trump is picking forward to be in his cabinet.
And not one time, I try to do research on all these people.
And Robert Kennedy, he has had 14 years of being a heroin addict.
I didn't say marijuana.
I said he's a heroin addict.
He had it for 14 years after his father got assassinated.
It's just so amazing that there's nobody talking about this heroin addiction.
You know, I mean, the average person just can't get a job.
I do not understand how Donald Trump can, you know, after January the 6th, I do not understand how he can go down.
These cops in the Capitol were getting beat up, millions of dollars worth of damage.
And he goes down to the online or down to the Capitol and says, you were great patriots.
You know, and not one time he ever said anything, you know, I appreciate the police officers and securities that were getting beat up.
And then he's talking about he's going to pardon them.
How can anybody support this man?
This man flies around in $100 million jet, and then they send him money.
It's just so amazing.
But Robert Kennedy was a heroin addict.
All right, Dale.
And that's all the time that we've got for this segment, but a lot more to come because up next, we've got columnist and Mercatus Center senior research fellow Veronique Durougie discussing the incoming Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency.
And later, Dr. Anand Paraik from the Bipartisan Policy Center discussing key health care policy issues facing the U.S. We'll be right back.
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Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
We're joined now by Senior Research Fellow at the George Mason University Mercatus Center, Veronique DeRougie.
Welcome to the program.
Thank you for having me.
So we're talking about efficiency and this new Department of Government Efficiency.
Can you explain to us what the goals are?
So the goals is, and like the theory behind it, is that we have an enormous debt problem, which we have.
We're on a very unsustainable trajectory and something needs to be done.
But Congress has been unwilling to really do much on that front for decades.
And so they're creating this department and they are going to be, they say, cutting $2 trillion, whether it's annually or 10 years, it's unclear.
They're also going to work with Congress to find areas to cut, but in ways that can be done through the executive powers.
So Elon Musk has said he wants to cut $2 trillion from the federal government.
That's about one-third of total spending.
The budget's about $6 trillion.
He's called for a 75% cut in federal work, the federal workforce.
Let's talk about both those things.
The $2 trillion.
Can that be done just through cutting federal workers?
No.
No, it can't.
I mean, so would that have to go into entitlements or?
So, I mean, I think we need to back up a little bit.
Like, first, the question is, can they actually do it without going through Congress?
Right.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think there are questions about this.
I think it's a very untested theory.
I think along some margins, there's some things that they could do through executive power, no doubt.
Like what?
Give us a museum.
Well, I mean, I assume they can, well, they think they can direct Congress or even the agencies to not enforce some regulations and to prioritize others.
I assume they can do some of that.
So there are things that they can do and they certainly can work with Congress to figure out what needs to be cut.
But 75% of the workforce, I don't know that this can be done through the executive power or that it's even the right way to think about this.
What do you think is the right way to think about it?
So like leaving aside, like first, I think working with Congress is the most important thing because the power of the string, the power of spending resides with Congress.
So that to me seems really important.
And I absolutely agree with what is driving them, which is Congress has failed to do its job and doesn't really want to do its job because the incentives are against actually doing their job.
But the way I would try to think about it is first, there are two main ways.
The first one is thinking about the long term.
We're on an unsustainable path because of a few programs.
And I would work on making these, there are really three programs.
It's like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
And there are ways to actually put these programs on a sustainable path that actually preserves the benefits for those who need it the most, right?
But that's the long term.
It can be done by making reforms that are not drastic, but that actually make these programs more efficient.
And then there's making the government more efficient itself.
And along these lines, I would think about, for instance, what are the programs that the federal government is doing now and that it shouldn't do?
For instance, should we be subsidizing so many private companies?
Is it the role of the government to do this?
Subsidizing what?
Private companies?
Explain that.
Through subsidies.
For instance, green energies, but even fossil fuel energy, export subsidies for Boeing clients.
There's just lots of things that the federal government, even small business loans to companies that end up competing in a very competitive industry like restaurants, restaurants who could be competing next to each other with one who has a government loan, meaning like much preferable borrowing terms than others.
Should the government be doing this?
And if the answer is no, I would work on reducing this across the board, not just for specific, for specific programs that you don't like, or like explain to the public why, what's the logic, what is driving this move to reduce subsidies to the private sector.
And then the other big part is like the government, the federal government is doing a lot of things that are really purely state and local functions.
And I would work on reducing this by devolving some of these functions to the state.
I want to play something for you and get your reaction to it.
This is Elaine K. Mark.
She led a government efficiency project in the Clinton administration.
And she's talking about DOGE and that the goals are not realistic.
The federal government each year spends about $6.1 trillion.
Most of that money, more than half, is spent on what's called mandatory spending.
That means it's Social Security payments, it's Medicare payments, it's retirement payments for veterans, etc.
So you can't touch that unless you want to raise a great big political stink, which guess what?
I don't think Trump really wants to do.
I mean, I don't think he's going to be wild about cutting Social Security payments or anything like that.
So that takes more than half out of there.
Then you've got interest on the debt, and then you've got 1.7 trillion left for what we call discretionary spending.
That is the military.
That is the FAA.
That is the Justice Department.
That is the Education Department.
That's HUD.
That's all the rest of the government.
Now, Musk has said, and Ramaswamy have said they want to cut $2 trillion.
Well, that's more than the entire federal discretionary spending.
So what you have to ask them is, what are you going to cut?
What are you going to do without?
And this is where the devil is in the details.
Do you think, Elaine, I've heard some folks say, you know, what you should really target is the regulatory state, that if you really target that, you're going to find some good meat, plenty of government waste, duplication, inefficiency.
What do you make of that argument?
Well, but it's not in the regulatory personnel.
I mean, that's where this goes a little fluey.
We should be looking at regulations.
There is no doubt.
There's no doubt that we should take a look at permitting and all this stuff.
But that doesn't cut bureaucrats.
That doesn't save money.
The number of people who are involved in administrating, administering the regulatory state is really small.
It's bupkus compared to the money that's in the federal government.
That's a different exercise than cutting the government.
And I think until you understand that, we did that twice.
We did that with federal regulations and we did that with internal agency regulations.
It's a very good thing to do.
They did a little of this in the Bush administration.
They did some of this in the Obama administration.
So it's a very good thing to do.
But it doesn't save you $2 trillion and it doesn't cut 80% of the workforce.
What do you think?
Do you agree with that?
No, I agree with the fact that I think it's unrealistic to think that they're going to be cutting $2 trillion or even that it's a sound goal because politically it would be so difficult and so disruptive.
That said, I will disagree on one important fact, which is it is true that most of the money is on Medicare, Social Security, and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
That is absolutely true, but it's not true that we can't do anything about it.
In fact, if Congress doesn't do anything about it, legally by law, benefits, for instance, for Social Security, when the trust fund dries out will be cut by 21%.
So Congress is going to have to do something to make sure it preserves benefits for lower-income beneficiaries.
Because the 21% cut across the board would be very, very, very painful.
It's also not right to say that these programs, because they're on the mandatory side, shouldn't be cut because they are the driver of our future debt.
If Congress, what Congress decides to do when the trust fund expires is to pay all the benefits the way they are with borrowing, it means we're going to have just for Social Security and Medicare to borrow $115 trillion.
Just to give a perspective, this is almost four times more than we've borrowed in the entire history of the United States in just 30 years.
Who's going to be lending us all that money?
So it's correct to say all of the money is in these programs.
It is also correct to say that we have the last two years, the inflation, the rise of interest payment on the debt have made the problem even harder because we cannot default on these interest payments and they represent a bigger and bigger, bigger part of the problem.
But I don't think it's right to say, well, we just simply can't touch these programs.
Now, the question is whether you can do it through the way they want to do it and whether you get at it just by firing people.
And I think there's just, there's, there's, that's, that's, I don't think you can address this question this way.
But there's a lot, there's a lot we can do.
They have an enormous microphone, and they're bringing attention to the fact that we have a big problem.
And that's that's the beginning of a conversation.
And we are talking about federal spending and the new Department of Government efficiency.
If you would like to join our conversation with Veronique Durget of George Mason University Mercatus Center, you can do so.
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You mentioned state and local functions that the federal government is doing that you think needs to be offloaded.
Give us some examples of what you mean.
So, for instance, there's a fair amount of formula that's used, for instance, for Medicaid, where the share, the relative share of the federal government, what it pays in Medicaid compared to the state, that is a formula that hasn't been updated in like 75 years, I believe.
That is something that should be recalibrated because the way it is now, you have a lot of very high-income states that could take on much more of the burden of Medicaid for the people they put on the roles than they do now.
And basically, the federal government is taking a lot of that burden.
So, there are things like this that could be done to kind of rebalance the share of Medicaid payment going to the states.
Transportation.
Transportation, there's a lot that could be devolved to the states because a lot of the transportation functions are purely state and local functions.
They're also private functions, right?
So, things like this.
Education is something that, I mean, it's arguable whether we could actually save a lot of money, but education, lots of subsidy for K-12, that could be done more at the state and local level.
The advantage of this also, which is not, it's not just one about saving money.
It's also one of actually putting the incentives where they matter the most.
If the states are more responsible for the things that they actually spend, they have an incentive to think about whether this is really a program that is efficient, whether it's serving the population and needs to serve.
So, for instance, on Medicaid, because the federal government takes on so much of the burden of Medicaid for some of these states, they don't have much of an incentive to clear their roles, to rethink their eligibility to do things like this.
So, it's not just about the money, it's about actually thinking about how should we serve the people we say we want to serve.
I want to ask you about a posting you put on X, and you mentioned several things that you would cut or refirm, but you said reform the Department of Defense's entitlement system.
What does that mean?
So, one of the problems, so defense is a core function of the federal government.
It's an important function.
And the Defense Department has pretty much the same problem that the federal government has, which is it has an enormous entitlement pro, I don't want to use entitlement, they have their benefits, the benefits side of the program is actually eating up an enormous and growing share of their budget.
For military and civilian workers in the Defense Department.
And so they're going to have like a lot of people focus their attention on weapon system and this and that.
But it's like the scholar from Brookings said, right?
In the end, the part that's growing really fast in the Department of Defense is that part.
And if the amount you give to the Department of Defense isn't growing as fast as that part of the budget, you end up with less money going to the part that's actually about really building defense capabilities.
So I don't know how to do it, but I think this is something that the Department of Defense needs to focus on to actually put itself on a sustainable path too.
And you think that veterans, military veterans, their benefits need to be cut in some way?
That's not my area of expertise, but there are a lot of people who actually look at defense who say this is going to be a growing problem going forward.
How you fix it needs to take under consideration where those dollars are needed the most and how you can reform it without hurting how you cut the fat or how you reduce eligibility without cutting the muscle, right?
I mean, this is the hard part, and this is why it's not done much.
It's because it's really hard to do.
The problem is, do we have a choice going forward?
Can we afford to neglect the federal budget as we have?
And can we stay on this path and do nothing?
And the answer is no.
So something's going to have to be done, and it's going to be hard.
There's no doubt.
Let's talk to callers.
We'll start with David and Randolph Maine, Republican.
Good morning, David.
Good morning.
I'd like to say back in the, I think it was the early 80s when the government decided to go in and raid Social Security and they took out almost a trillion dollars.
I think it was $400 million the first time and $500 million the second time.
I'm not quite sure, but I think that's what it is.
And I think Marjorie Taylor Greene's going to do a hell of a job at taking care of fraud and abuse in the government, in the Doge.
Thank you for your call.
Thank you.
What do you think?
And also about Marjorie Taylor Greene and what that subcommittee in the House is expected to do.
So I'm not exactly sure.
We haven't seen much, but I want to comment on something that has been said about waste, fraud, and abuse.
I know people like to talk about waste, fraud, and abuse, but we're not going to really balance the budget on the back of waste, fraud, and abuse, in large part because this waste, fraud, and abuse is embedded in programs that are popular with special interest, right?
So it doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything.
So just kind of just throwing away waste, fraud, and abuse as this is a solution of everything doesn't remove the difficulty politically to address this problem.
That said, it doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything.
The Government Accountability Office looks at fraud in the federal government and has identified and has identified between $200 billion and $500 billion of fraud every year in the federal government.
A lot of it in Medicare and Medicaid, right?
It should be a priority.
We shouldn't tolerate fraud.
And the reason why it's there, it's mostly because of neglect, mostly because no one is actually really trying to go after the fraud.
And we need to do something.
But it just, it's not just, it's going to be hard.
It's going to be hard, but it needs to be done.
It's a real issue.
We've got a question for you on text from Sheila in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Could you please ask your guests who sets the interest rate for the government borrowing?
And why can't that interest rate be lowered to save money?
The global market does.
So basically, no, no one, you can try to artificially fix it, but ultimately it's not going to work because if investors think that the U.S. has become risky or riskier than it has been,
and what they really want to do is to basically get a premium for lending us money, meaning higher interest rates, and they're not able to, they're not going to lend us that money.
So we can't have a price control applied to interest rates because it's going to have real consequences.
Let's talk to Pete, New Haven, Connecticut, Independent.
Hi, Pete.
Hi.
Yeah, I'm very concerned about the deficit.
It's over $35 trillion now.
And the interest rate is $1 trillion every year.
So my question is, why do we always come up when somebody's running for president or re-election or the incumbent say that we're going to tax the billionaires more to get the revenue down?
Now, from what I understand, there's 1% of the population of the United States of billionaires.
And they control the whole country with that kind of money.
Why does it never get done to tax the billionaires every time they talk about it?
That's my question.
So the caller is right.
I mean, the debt has just crossed $36 trillion.
Our deficit is $2 trillion.
It's heading to a much higher number.
In the next 10 years, the federal government alone is going to have to borrow another $22 trillion.
I mean, these are like enormous numbers.
In 30 years, we're heading to 166% of debt to GDP.
It's enormous.
These numbers are not, we can't just fill the gap just by taxing billionaires.
And by the way, our tax codes is already very progressive.
It's just much more progressive than European countries, for instance, because the secret of European countries is that they tax the middle class and lower income people a lot in the way that the U.S. doesn't.
It doesn't mean there's not a lot of money on the revenue side.
We have things that we call tax expenditures.
Tax expenditures are tax breaks that are given to special interests.
Not all of them are to special interests.
Some of them are to prevent double taxation of income.
But there's a lot that can be done.
All these tax breaks that are given to special projects, all the tax, the Inflation Reduction Act has some green energy subsidies that are done through the tax code.
They were supposed to be $300 billion over 10 years.
They're heading to a trillion dollars of tax subsidies through the tax code.
And over $100,000.
You're saying that those are lost revenues because of those taxes.
And 4 trillion over 30 years.
We need to look at that side of revenue.
And by the way, it would do what the gentleman is asking because a lot of the time, these tax subsidies go to big companies who they like those subsidies, but it's not that they need them.
I've studied these type of programs my whole life, and I can tell you a vast majority of the subsidies and the tax breaks and the loan guarantees, they go to companies that are already doing the work, that would be doing the work.
And again, they like it, but this is where we should start first.
On the line for Republicans in Tennessee, William, you're next.
Thank you.
Go ahead, William.
Hi, how are you?
Thank you for your hard study of the economics of government.
I worked for the Los Angeles Air Force as a civilian chef, and they would take ovens out of the kitchen that were working very well and put in Mickey Mouse ovens and just let the good ovens rot on the loading dock.
Government waste is a big part of the problem because we have a huge number of military bases and they waste money like it's going out of style.
All right, William?
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of waste that is happening.
There's a lot of, there's a lack of accountability that is unquestionable in government.
And we should address these issues.
And I'm glad if the Doge is actually bringing attention to these issues of fraud, waste, and abuse.
But again, we're not going to be balancing and addressing our long-term budget or fiscal problem only on the back of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Again, it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.
We should do it.
But you know what?
The first step, start with the GAO.
They have reports about fraud.
They have reports on improper payment every year, $236 trillion the last time they looked.
And they've been putting out these reports every year.
And Congress doesn't do anything.
$236 trillion.
$1 billion.
Oh, billion.
I'm sorry.
A billion every year.
And improper payments.
A vast majority of.
Yes.
Companies, contractors.
This is mostly through programs.
Like the top improper payments go to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Congress doesn't do anything.
That should be a priority to actually look at how to fix this.
Now, I believe there's probably a technology problem.
There's probably they lack the ability to track these payments and maybe that's one way that Doge really can help.
And a lot of these issues...
But modernizing the technology would be a cost, not...
It would be a cost, but ultimately, listen, we're not going to do anything...
We're going to do anything in one year, right?
It's a long-term project.
And I am glad that these guys are bringing attention to the issue.
And improper payment is something I've been complaining about, and I've been horrified that Congress doesn't do its job and doesn't seem to want to address it.
And so a lot of this goes to people who are over, like it's overpayment.
Like I think it's 76% of it is overpayment.
Very little of it is underpayment.
That said, again, it's wrong for the federal government.
If someone is eligible for a benefit and They're making a mistake in the wrong direction, they should fix that too.
So it should be a priority.
And the problem that we have is that Congress doesn't do its job.
Congress has really abdicated a lot.
What do you think that is?
Because it's easier.
I think the incentives are to delegate a lot of the power to the agencies, to the executive branch, and they don't want to take unpopular decisions because voters don't want to hear that there is a problem.
And so, and people don't want to hear that really, ultimately, if we wanted to put the country on a sound fiscal path, it requires to look where the money is and where the money is: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
This is also the driver of our current and future debt.
And this is important.
Why?
Because we can't, again, we've talked about interest rates.
There is a moment where investors are going to be looking at the U.S. and say, you know what, for all of this debt, we'd like higher interest rates.
Higher interest rates means higher interest payments.
A third of our debt needs to be rolled over every year.
So it means that when interest rates start going up, we feel that pain very quickly because every year we need, we have higher and higher interest payment.
We've seen it in the span of the last three years, right?
We went from over $200 billion in interest payment on the debt to close to a trillion dollars in just the span of three years.
Imagine that in the next 10 years.
So this is why we need to do it.
And the problem is that Congress so far has not signaled that it was ready to be serious.
We see it again with improper payment.
GAO put out this report and they have over 5,000 unused recommendations by the GAO about how to make government more efficient.
Things that could save money on average, it's like they said it's over a span of 10 years or so, but it'd be like $151 billion if you put up all these recommendations.
And GAO is the government accountability office.
Exactly.
They answer to Congress, not the executive branch.
Yes.
But again, these are things that we could do to improve efficiency and save some money, but ultimately to put us on a sustainable path, Congress is going to have to do its job in reforming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
And they can do it by preserving benefits for those who need it the most.
But they have to be willing to actually even talk about it.
All right.
Let's talk to Barbara in Oklahoma Independent Line.
Hi, Barbara.
I can't believe you're letting her filibuster her 10 minutes between calls and talk and lie about our.
This is not a tax on the government.
It's a trust fund that Reagan stole from first.
He put a trillion in his budget to the elite.
And now Trump did in his budget.
That was a trillion of our money.
And yeah, and he's going to do it again when he gets in there.
He's going to redo that same tax plan that gives it all to the billionaires and takes away from our, it's a trust.
It is not theirs to take a dime from.
Not one dime should go to them.
And also, I would like to say the border thing, Russia-Russia, all of his, all of his cabinet went to prison.
And then he pardoned them all.
They all went to prison.
That was no hope.
400 and something were indicted.
400 and something.
The house was hillary.
No one indicted there.
Okay, okay, Barbara.
Go ahead.
Yeah, so the trust is real, right?
It has real assets that were built with taxes collected on workers.
And it was basically the surplus.
Of.
So the way social security works is that we there's a payroll tax and we tax people who are working and with this, the the revenue we pay current uh retirees, and for many years, until 2010, there was a surplus.
Basically there were uh more revenue collected than than benefits paid and the rest would go to the trust fund.
And ever since 2010, basically there's been a gap between what was collected in social security and in the payroll tax and what needed to be paid to current workers, and we've been using basically the assets in the trust fund to pay that gap, and in 2033 there won't be any assets anymore.
No one is touching this.
I mean this is.
It's just that the the the reason.
The reason it's it's it's going away because it's being used right now.
And what a lot of people fail to understand is like, the money they pay in payroll tax is not going to an account with their name on it.
It's actually going to pay for current retirees.
Now there is a lot of the the tax cuts needs to be expended, because it would mean an enormous tax on on a lot of people that are going to be very unpopular, but they should be offsets.
There should be some offset either through the tax expenditures, as as we talked about, but also they could be cut through spending.
I don't think anyone is talking about taking the assets from the trust fund to pay for the tax, for the the, the extension of the tax cuts.
Next call is David in North Carolina Republican.
Hi David hi, good morning, can you hear me?
Yep yeah I, just some comments.
I Googled some statistics on government spending and revenue collections.
And if you go back to 2018, the government spending was $4.1 trillion.
The revenue collections were $3.4 trillion that year.
2019, $4.45 trillion spending.
2020, $6.75 trillion spending.
In 2024, it continues at $6.75 trillion.
spending.
Meanwhile, our revenue collections over that period went from 3.4 trillion in 2018 to 4.9 trillion in 2024.
There's been a complete refusal to address this spending problem and I know there's inflation over those years, but if we simply cut our budgets back to prior year, prior in Trump Era numbers, we would basically at this point have a surplus.
It's a spending problem and you have many uneducated people that call in and just don't understand that.
Thank you.
So we do have a spending problem and I would be all in favor of rolling back spending, putting a cap on spending.
But we have to understand like so in nominal terms between where we are right now and when we were in 2019, there's like $2.4 trillion.
If you do it adjusted for inflation, it's $1.5 trillion excess, right?
But again, interest payment on the debt have exploded.
They're roughly $900 billion and they're going up as we speak.
So right there, it's only you make, you do a saving just by rolling everything back.
You have a saving of $500 billion, right?
And again, as long as you don't control Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which are on effectively automatic growth, you're going to have a problem.
So it is true that we were in a much better fiscal situation, but we were still in 2019 having that long-term problem heading our way.
Now, I think the way Congress behaved and the administrations behaved during the pandemic has been very irresponsible.
They were throwing money at everything.
And after the pandemic ended, this is the first time we didn't do what we usually do, which is we spend a lot of money during emergencies and then we scale it back.
In fact, like when you look just at the part of the budget that is under control really of yearly of Congress, discretionary spending, so that's not Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, it's increased by 21%.
I mean, it's crazy.
It's an enormous increase.
We've got a question for you on X from a centrist guy who says, earlier today, one person mentioned cutting the federal workforce by 80%.
These people have functions and perform important duties.
Many of these duties save lives.
Everyone imagine eliminating 80% of the workers from your job or home.
How much would get done?
Very little.
What are your thoughts on that if they do, if DOGE does go through with what they're saying and cut the workforce by 75%, what kind of disruption might we be seeing?
Huge disruption, but again, can they do it?
I mean, I don't know.
Can they do it legally?
I'm not sure.
And this is why I would rather think about, for instance, take air traffic control.
1,800 workers, right?
You cut 80% of this.
It's like it makes the agency impossible to function.
However, there's an alternative, which is we could privatize air traffic control, which is what other countries are doing, have done.
Canada did it very successfully.
So there's a way to actually do what they want to do in a different way.
I think you can't just say we're going to cut across the board.
There are different options.
And again, privatizing air traffic control has been done in a lot of countries.
It should be done.
It's not as if air traffic control is not very problematic in this country.
We've seen it last summer and the summer before that.
And again, we should do that.
Same thing for Amtrak.
Japan has successfully privatized its train system.
We could do that.
That's a better than just saying we're just going to cut across the board the number of employees.
So I would actually go with a scalpel and just think this way about what needs to be done.
Dave, a Democrat in Larchmont, New York.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Traditionally, the Republican Party is the party of fiscal responsibility.
Yet in this situation, the biggest items of cost are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
And what I feel is that DOGE is a dodge because it's saying that there's some kind of special place where we can find loads of money that we can cut.
You just mentioned the example of the FAA.
Okay, perhaps that could be privatized and the air traffic could be reorganized that way.
But that's not going to get you to the goal of controlling interest rates in the end.
And so Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, I am on Social Security.
I'm a senior citizen.
Need to take a haircut.
And especially for those who are in better economic circumstances than those who are living day to day on their budgets.
So it feels unserious by Trump, and now he has the Republican Congress, if they don't cut Medicare, Medicaid spending, and not Medicaid, but Medicare spending, Social Security spending.
And do they have the will and the guts to do it?
Because in the meantime, Trump is playing Santa Claus.
He's saying, I'm not going to tax Social Security.
I'm not going to tax tips.
And so, and at the same time, I'm going to lower everybody's taxes, including the wealthy.
So it feels that there's not the political will to do this because they haven't brought it up in the campaign.
They're not serious.
All right.
What do you think?
I think this is the problem of politics.
Politicians like to give stuff away and they don't like to tell people we're just going to cut, we're going to cut spending.
But the American people is also responsible because as much as people talk about, and this caller is remarkably responsible, I will say.
You rarely hear this, right?
People say they want us to be on a fiscal sound path.
But when you ask them what they would like to cut, they just want to cut foreign aids and they want to cut little things, right?
And that's not the way it's going to be solved.
And politicians, and we've seen this on the campaign trail, everyone said, like whether it was VP Harris or President Trump, that they're not going to touch Social Security, they're not going to touch Medicare, and they're going to give, he's going to give a lot of tax breaks for tips and not Social Security.
He's even talked about not taxing the police and firefighters, I believe.
And that's just, that's not responsible.
That said, let's see.
That's what they do on the campaign trail.
Let's see what they do when they're in office.
The truth of the matter is that the debate in next year about extending the tax provisions that are set to expire at the end of the year, they have to follow a process, a process that is going to start first by setting a deficit goal.
And there are a lot of people who are going to want to make this as small as possible because there are actually a fair amount of people in Congress who care about not exploding the deficit.
I want to ask you, because some people make the argument that all the money that we're spending on illegals or migrants living in the country, if we stop doing that, we can save a lot of money and reduce the debt.
What are your thoughts on that?
I don't know.
Again, we're not balancing the budget on the back of illegal immigrants.
Now, if people who are eligible, not eligible for these benefits are getting them, we should make a stop to this.
But we're not going to fix our fiscal problem by cutting small things.
This is why I think we need to be more think more about how, what are the principles that are going to be guiding what we do.
And I, again, like there's no way around cutting entitlement spending, but also maybe look at what other countries have done.
What have they privatized?
There's a lot of things that the federal government does that could be privatized, right?
There's a lot of things that the state should be taking responsibility for.
And we're going to call from Helen in Long Beach, California, Republican.
Hi, Helen.
Hi.
Does anyone think it's strange that the officially unofficial first buddy of Trump, Elon Musk, is co-chair on Doge, which is the promise to cut government waste?
And what it is, it seems like from what I've been reading, the thrust of Doge is to deregulate, which is removing federal rules that would limit contracts, specifically military contracts and with Musk's SpaceX.
So this is what I'm seeing, is that a lot of this may just be for personal profit and not maybe just a lot of lip service to the public that we're going to cut wasteful spending and this will be returned to the taxpayer.
I really do have some doubt and I doubt the sincerity of Trump Doge government efficiency.
So anyway, what does your guest have to say about the deregulation of rules on federal contracts between private corporations and public entities?
All right, Helen.
I'm glad you bring this up.
There's a bipartisan support for deregulating.
There's a clear understanding in this country that we're not building things in large part because the government and government regulations that are completely outdated or overzealous are getting in the way.
And it is really a tall priority to actually look at all these rules that needs to go away to allow people who want to build in this country build.
And that will be beneficial to everyone because the more we can build, the more we can increase the supply of all sorts of things, whether it's housing, whether it's all sorts of infrastructures, whether it's innovation, is going to lead to a better world, but also lower prices.
And so I actually really will give Doge more than the benefit of the doubt that they are actually responding to a call that has been an alarm even that has been sent on both sides of the aisle to look at regulation, to deregulate where we need it the most to be a country that built and that innovates and produce for the good of everyone.
All right, that's Veronique Dirugi, Senior Research Fellow at the George Mason University Mercatus Center.
You can find out more at mercatus.org.
Veronique, thanks so much for joining us today.
Thank you for having me.
More of your phone calls after the break on Open Forum.
You can start calling in now.
And later, Dr. Anand Parikh from the Bipartisan Policy Center discusses key healthcare policy issues facing the U.S. We'll be right back.
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Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
We're in open forum.
You can go ahead and start calling in now the numbers: Democrats 202748-8000, Republicans 202748-8001, and Independents 202748-8002.
You can discuss any public policy or politics topic that's on your mind.
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We will go to your calls now for Open Forum.
Gary Allen, Texas, Democrat.
Hi, Gary.
Hi, how are you doing?
Good.
You just had a caller from New York call in and say that Social Security and Medicare are the biggest government expenditures.
I beg to disagree.
Our national defense bill is outrageous.
We have two accounting firms go into the Pentagon and redo the contracts and visit all the expenditures that are going out, pay them 10% of whatever they could save, and we could save $200 billion a year on just national defense.
So that's ridiculous.
All right, Gary.
Let's talk to Robert in Hollywood, Maryland, Independent Line.
Hi, Robert.
Hi, how are you doing today?
Good.
I was hoping to catch a guest on earlier, but I'm going to just spit it out here.
One, my wife works for the government, and with her past history of three years, she's the hardest worker I've ever known.
But what's telling me is your guest said that she kept saying that this won't solve the deficit.
This won't solve the deficit.
You know, a little bit here and there, it all adds up over time.
And if you show that you're actually serious about cutting the fat from the government, then the big programs might help too.
You know, they'll be more easy to get into it.
But the defense industry, and I hate to pound on the defense industry, but they've let company after company merge and merge.
So you only have a few players in it now.
And it's an open checkbook for whatever you want done.
And that's one of the biggest problems.
There's no competition.
Hey, Robert, you said that your wife works for the federal government.
Is she in the office or is she remote?
Well, she's remote, but she's had like two back surgeries in the past three years, and she sits at her desk in terrible pain and does her job better than I know of anybody that works.
You know, and and and to go to the earlier early point about getting rid of the people that don't want to do their job in the government, right?
So, Elon Musk has been saying that we need to put uh all the government workers back in the office and that that will cause some of them to quit just on their own.
Um, what would your wife say about that?
Um, she'll probably say I'm retiring.
All right, Robert.
Let's talk to Carol next in New Jersey, line for Democrats.
Hello, hi.
Oh, hi, good morning.
I wanted to say when Trump was president for four years, he took his vacations every weekend from Friday to Monday, and his daughter was sitting in the White House in his seat.
Now, he was charging a million dollars a year just for his guards for room and board for him to take a vacation.
And then he really didn't do anything for four years, except he ruined the farmers.
He ruined the farmers, and then he was how he messed up COVID.
All right, Carol, and we are in open forum until about 9:15.
We will take your calls.
The lines are Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
And we'll talk to Clark in West Virginia, Independent Line.
Thank you very much.
I listened to a person prior to me that was talking about cutting Social Security and Benefit and them things from those that's well off.
Now, that's kind of robbing the rich and give to the poor.
I'm probably one of the first guys that worked 80 hours a week in a coal mines, crippled up.
I went to work whether or not if I had to drag one leg, I'd done it.
No, and talking about the Pentagon and all these people that you can't watch a person at home to not to disrespect you, that other guy there, but you can't watch people at home and see how much work they're actually accomplishing.
So, maybe so, but we can't keep going the way we're doing.
And y'all, people lost the election.
Your party didn't win.
Quit grappling about it.
Let's get together.
Try to make this country.
I've never seen so much visceral hatred because of an election.
I'm 73, never seen anything like it.
People get over it.
Just come together and try to love one another like God said.
I mean, this is ridiculous.
All right, Clark.
And Alan in Huntington, West Virginia sent us this on text.
It will take more than spending cuts to significantly lower the debt.
It will take additional revenue, not tax cuts.
Republicans claim tax cuts will more than pay for themselves because of the growth they will stimulate.
No serious economist believes this.
It's fantasy.
Scott, Los Angeles, Independent Line, you're next.
Well, good morning to everybody.
And that's a timely act to follow because I'd like to say that when Bob Marley had a concert, he would always say it is so good and pleasant for brothers and sisters to be together in one identity.
And the reason I'm calling as a true independent, I mean the truest independent you're ever going to talk to, is I was trying to make a case up till the very end to vote for both of these folks.
And unfortunately, it just never landed.
I'm not a fan of the know-it-all, the haughtiness, you know, the person who knows more than everything.
I'm just never going to be a fan of that.
And unfortunately, Ms. Harris just never landed a blow in terms of what she dealt with.
And I'm calling in terms of to be informative.
After the election, I've surfed over to MSNBC as a true independent.
I listen and follow everybody.
They had sent a reporter into Arizona, and they found a Puerto Rican family.
And the lady interviewed the Puerto Rican lady in the household and wanted to know how she could still vote.
She had voted for Trump.
And she wanted to know how she could have voted for that in the face of the commentary at that rally in New York.
She said, didn't you feel disrespected?
How could you vote for that?
And the lady very calmly, and this is where I hope people pay attention, she said that no, she felt more disrespected by not being able to pay for her family's food.
And she felt more disrespected.
And please don't cut me off.
I see that long arm of the law heading over there.
Please let me get this out.
She said she felt disrespected when people come traipsing across the border and are put ahead of her family.
She said she felt disrespected when we were told all along that food had gone up 20%.
And when she, in her words, said food is up a minimum of 50%, which I will vouch for.
And she also said that some items have completely doubled, which is 100%.
Scott, I got to move on.
And just so you know, for your schedule, also the annual National Thanksgiving turkey pardoning is happening today at the White House.
Joe Biden will be doing that at 11 a.m.
You can watch that later today, again, 11 a.m. on C-SPAN.
And this is Colleen, Texas, Line for Democrats.
Patrick, good morning.
Yes, good morning.
So the researcher, fellow, very smart.
But we go back to Bill Clinton's eight years.
There's a balanced budget.
Three events after that is almost completely responsible for the deficit.
Two wars, the savings and loan scandal of 2007, 2008.
And then, let's see, the question, the open forum was about, she was talking about how we're going to get the deficit, which is over $36 trillion now.
Yep, the national debt.
No, I don't want to interrupt you.
But yes, she's done the research, but she didn't really get, okay, she gave lots of answers where you can take it from here, we could take it from there.
Oh, in 2033, there's going to be people that are living longer.
So that means there's going to be fewer people actually probably working where there's going to be Medicaid and Social Security benefits taken from their checks.
So I was just listening to it, and I was not really impressed because she didn't really give specific answers.
All right, Patrick.
Let's go to Staten Island, New York.
Republican Jill, good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.
You too.
Okay.
Well, you know, I was listening to a lady from New Jersey just a few minutes ago.
And I don't understand, first of all, this rhetoric going back with each other.
We should all unite together.
But, you know, when Trump was in, we didn't have wars.
We didn't have border.
The economy was great.
Trump never got paid by being a president.
So I don't know where this lady's coming from that he spent millions of dollars, went on vacation.
We have to stop this and we have to unite together.
This is the greatest country that we can live for, whoever it is.
We're all one in God.
We'd be all one and respect the president of our country.
That's all I could say.
And God bless everybody.
All right, Jill.
This is John in Capitol Heights, Maryland, Independent.
Good morning, America.
Good morning, C-SPAN listeners.
I've always been known as a problem solver in my family and amongst my friends and in my business constituents.
And I listen to everybody talking about how much money we owe and how much debt we're in.
And it's almost like we're in a conundrum and we can't find a way out.
Listen, how many individuals from the baby booming era started out as just common workers and then became rich as their life progressed?
Why are they still eligible for Social Security?
They can still get checks, even though they're rich and have wealth beyond the common person.
So how about we start doing one, a means test to find out who's eligible and who's not eligible for Social Security?
It was created to take care of our seniors and our elderly who's going to be in dire straits as they get older.
If you get older and you get richer, then you should not be eligible anymore.
Now, that's one.
Two, why don't we have a moratorium, a moratorium on the finances that we give to foreign countries?
I'm not saying to cut them off completely, but let's have a moratorium, let's say, for a year where we don't give you anything.
We use that money for our own structure here in America.
That's one.
And the last one, how about we have a moratorium on illegal aliens coming across the border?
How about we shut the border down for a period of time, process the ones that we have here, after we finish processing and deporting, and whoever we're going to do with the ones we have here, then we open the border up again, then take a tranche in, and then shut the border down again.
What that'll do is it'll solve our financial problem as it relates to giving money to illegal aliens that are here because we'll be able to distribute it in a way where we can take care of the ones that's legal until they get their self-together, deport the ones that are not here legally, and then that'll cut down on a whole lot of expense.
We have common sense things that we can do in America to straighten our budget out, but we just don't want to do it.
Thank you so much for listening.
And on the line for Democrats in Michigan, Donna, good morning.
Good morning.
What I would like to talk about is let's talk about politicians' pay.
Back in the founding fathers' day, they volunteered their time.
Now they're definitely not volunteering.
They're making good money and they make good money when they retire.
I think if you looked at some of that stuff, you'd find a whole lot to cut.
Try paying them minimum wage for when they work and not give them all those days off like they get.
That's my two cents.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Donna.
And NBC News has this.
Matt Gates says he doesn't plan to rejoin Congress after withdrawing as Trump's pick for Attorney General.
There was some question as to whether Gates, who resigned from the House after Trump chose him for Attorney General, would want to be sworn into the next Congress.
That's at NBC.com.
It says, here's his quote.
I'm still going to be in the fight, but it's going to be from a new perch.
I do not intend to join the 119th Congress.
Sal in New Jersey, Republican.
Yes, good morning.
I would like to say that I support the great Chip Roy of Texas, Representative of Texas.
He's got a good idea.
He said we should completely close the border completely and stop all immigration for the time being and get our act together, find out who these people are that are in here, deport all of them, get all the criminals out, and then when we get our act together, reform our immigration system and then reopen the border because we don't know who's coming in.
We have to have common sense immigration reform.
What kind of reform, Sal, would you like to see?
Excuse me?
What kind of reforms?
Tell me about the reforms for the immigration system.
Well, we should have more.
We should let, well, not that we should have reform.
We should just let people in here legally.
You know, we are a nation of immigrants, but we shouldn't let just people in here willy-nilly because we're a nation of immigrants, but we should let people in here that we know who they are, what their intentions are, what contributions they want to make to the country.
And we should also, many of these immigrants that are coming in now, they're bringing in diseases that have been eradicated years ago.
We don't know where they're coming from, what they're doing to this country.
And these Democrats that are letting these immigrants into this country, they're letting them in here because they want them to become loyal Democrats.
And the thing is, is that we have to just be careful who we let in here.
And here is Carrie in Spotsylvania, Virginia, Independent.
Good morning.
I have been a Democrat and I've been a Republican.
And I'm not sure if people remember, but I've been a defense contractor and a government worker.
And at one time, our government was very small.
So we had an enormous amount of defense contractors, which we used to call beltway bandits.
That's because they could charge whatever they want, and the government had to pay for it.
So I think if you actually went back and cut back the government again, that's what's going to happen.
You're going to have the defense contractors come in.
They're going to make this enormous amount of money.
And there's going to be a disparage among people.
That's my comment.
Thank you.
This is Mike in Floral Park, New York, Democrat.
Hi, Mike.
Hi, Amimi.
I missed the woman on or the person I was on that was talking about bouncing the budget or whatever Elon Musk and Vivek, whatever his name is, is going to do.
Why don't we go back to the last time that we had a balanced budget?
Of course, it was under Bill Clinton.
And we got there.
We did a little nibbling on welfare reform, and we increased taxes on the wealthy 3% more.
I mean, all of this stuff is like they don't want to get taxed 3% more.
You're a billionaire, and they don't want to get taxed.
A measly 3%, or corporations don't.
And they call it socialism, communism, or whatever.
But that's the last time the budget was out of balance.
I mean, Elon Musk makes all his money off of us, off the taxpayer.
We give him loans, we give him contracts.
He's going to end up cutting any funds given to competition.
Only one of Elon Musk's companies makes money, and that's the Kark company.
The rest is just done through stock options.
I mean, he's not a wizard.
He's a wizard as an engineer, but as a businessman, you know, all those companies take a long time to make money.
And, you know, they've tried this before with cutting stuff here and there.
And as soon as he takes too much out of a Republican area or a district, it'll stop.
I mean, even if you don't like how much they're paid, if you don't like welfare, that money is spent.
Those people buy groceries.
Those people buy cars.
Those people buy washers and dryers.
I mean, the economy is a living thing.
It's balanced all sorts of ways.
And let's talk to Eric in Palm Beach, Florida, Republican.
Good morning.
Thanks very much.
Glad to have this open forum.
I really enjoy C-SPAN.
I'm going to make a point and also make a request that you do some follow-up on the topic that I'm going to describe.
You know, it's an important topic.
It's the Russia-Ukrainian war and conflict.
I think people are getting an incomplete story of the full story of it, that Russia invaded for no reason.
I think the true history goes back to the early 1990s when the USSR broke up and became Russia.
At the time, there were negotiations between England, United States, and Germany where Russia agreed to do that, and there were negotiations, part of which there was an agreement not to expand NATO.
Later in the late 90s, NATO did start to expand on countries.
2004, they expanded further.
In 2008, there was the NATO annual summit in Istanbul, where at that point, they decided at one point Ukraine and other countries bordering Russia would be part of NATO.
And Russia resisted at that point and said that was a red line for them.
They would always resist it.
In 2014, there was a CIA coup d'état in Russia where they overthrew the president of Russia, who was favorable in terms of trade negotiations with Europe and with Russia in favor of someone who only wanted to trade with the Western Europe.
So there was a Minx treaty that is not mentioned in the context of this involving the Eastern provinces.
All right, Eric.
And regarding another conflict, this is the Times of Israel that says Israel said to agree in principle to Lebanon's ceasefire offer, though some issues remain.
It says Netanyahu holds consultation, reportedly focused on how to sell the agreement to the public.
U.S. envoy said to have warned, if no truce now, sides would have to wait for Trump.
And coming up after the break, a conversation with Dr. Anand Parake from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a former top HHS official for both Presidents Bush and Obama, will discuss key healthcare policy issues facing the U.S. Stay with us.
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Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
We're joined now by Dr. Anand Parak.
He is Chief Medical Advisor for the Bipartisan Policy Center, formerly Deputy Assistant HHS Secretary for Health under George W. Bush and Obama administrations.
Dr. Parak, welcome to the program.
Thank you.
Great to be here.
Tell us about the mission at the Bipartisan Policy Center and what you do there as chief medical advisor.
Yeah, so the Bipartisan Policy Center is a nonprofit organization founded in 2007 by four former Senate majority leaders, really to try to take the best points from both sides to promote health, security, and opportunity.
So we engage individuals on both sides of the aisle.
We tackle pressing issues, particularly ones that Congress is about to face, and we come up with expert analysis and recommendations for Congress.
I provide both the clinical as well as the public health expertise for the organization.
So really on the healthcare side as chief medical advisor.
You wrote a book called Prevention First, Policymaking for a Healthier America.
The second edition is out now.
This sounds kind of obvious, but why has prevention not been a priority?
Why has American healthcare focused on the cures and the medications instead of preventing the illness in the first place?
Yeah, and that's important as well.
But, you know, maybe we live in a pretty reactive town here in Washington, D.C., where there's a crisis, it seems like, almost every single day or week.
Prevention demands you be proactive.
So it's a whole different mindset there.
In my experience, I've also seen policymakers not always understand the evidence behind prevention.
And if you don't, then you can certainly have misconceptions.
You can think of prevention as the nanny state.
Secondly, as you said, we have a sick care system still in our country.
We're trying to change that, but the incentives, how you make money, harder to make money on preventing illness than treating illness.
So those incentives need to change.
And then I've also noticed we don't really have a grassroots movement in this country really pushing prevention.
But at the end of the day, my book, the chief thesis there, is that prevention ought to be our nation's top health policy priority.
And that's really because the majority of what afflicts us is actually preventable and the majority of health care costs are also preventable.
President-elect Trump has picked RFK Jr. to head HHS.
Can you, you work there under several administrations.
Tell us about the extent of the agencies and the programs that would fall under his purview if he's confirmed.
Yeah, vast number of programs, hundreds of programs, 10 large agencies.
A lot of the three-letter acronyms that the public is familiar with, the FDA, Food and Drug Administration, the NIH, National Institutes of Health, the CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Those are just a couple of examples.
But 80,000 employees, majority of which are career civil servants, as you would expect.
So really a massive organization there that RFK is currently nominated to lead.
A couple of issues that RFK Jr. has brought up, and one of them that I want to ask you about is fluoride in the drinking water.
This is an AP report with this headline.
U.S. government report says fluoride at twice the recommended limit is linked to lower IQ in kids.
Break this down for us.
How do we know what is considered too high?
What's twice the recommended, like what do we know about the levels of fluoride in the drinking water now?
What effect they might be having and what they should be?
Yeah, so this is one of public health's greatest achievements in the 20th century, ensuring that our water has fluoride.
It's had tremendous impact in preventing oral cavities and promoting oral health.
The question now is, do we still need that fluoridation in our water, given that we can get fluoride from other sources?
And there are an array of studies out there.
Some are suggesting at higher doses than what we currently get in water, there can be potentially neurodevelopmental impacts, particularly infants.
And I think that that's really the scientific issue here, where I think we want our scientific agencies like NIH and CDC and EPA to take a look at this.
But right now, our water is currently safe.
The dose of fluoride in the water is absolutely fine.
And it is, as intended, reducing oral cavities and improving oral health.
And so, I mean, if that were to be taken out, what can we expect to see either among dental health or also these IQs and the allegation that these are lowering IQs in children?
Yeah, so again, the majority of these studies are using doses much higher than are currently what we drink in the water.
In terms of other jurisdictions around the country or in other countries that have said, you know what, we're not going to fluoridate anymore, many have seen increases in oral cavity infections, increased hospitalizations, health care costs as well.
So I think this is a study.
This is a complex issue that deserves, I would say, more study.
Probably not a day one knee-jerk blanket recommendation that we ought to stop fluoridating our country's water.
But those decisions are actually done at the local and state level.
They are not done at the federal level.
That is correct.
So if the federal government were to say, stop putting fluoride in the water, would anything happen?
Or would it just be a matter of people just saying, well, maybe this is dangerous.
Maybe we should ask our local officials to make a change.
Absolutely.
I think that's exactly what would happen.
And again, you wouldn't see that uniformity that we see.
And we don't see complete uniformity right now in the United States.
But yeah, you'd see jurisdictions then approaching it in many different ways.
And I think what we'd rather want is let's get the best scientists together and let's see where we're at.
Let's study this.
We are talking about health policy with Dr. Anand Paraik of the Bipartisan Policy Center.
If you'd like to join us, you can do so.
Our lines are bipartisan.
So Democrats 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
You can start calling in now.
I want to ask you about vaccines because Mr. Kennedy has been a skeptic on vaccines.
What's your take on that?
Yeah, I mean, I think this is going to come up in the confirmation hearings.
And I think you're going to hear it from both sides.
And I suspect there are going to be some threshold questions.
You know, do vaccines cause autism?
No.
Have childhood vaccines saved millions of lives?
Yes.
And Mr. Kennedy is going to have to be unequivocal on those statements.
And if not, I think he's going to get pushback again on both sides.
So first he's got to say the correct things that are science-backed.
But then senators have to believe him because he's got a track record and a history of making these types of statements.
So I think it's going to be really interesting.
Let's see how the confirmation hearing goes.
I think it's perfectly fine for him to say, you know what, we spend a lot in terms of vaccine procurement and development.
Do we need to spend more on vaccine safety?
Are there some research questions there?
Do we need to better coordinate our vaccine surveillance systems?
I think all of those are fine points.
But if he starts questioning the basics in terms of what we know from a science perspective, I think he's going to have a hard time on both sides of the aisle.
The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that childhood vaccination rates continue to decline as Trump heads for a second term.
Why do you think childhood vaccination rates are falling?
You know, I think it's unfortunately some spillover effect from the COVID pandemic.
And we know that that was a pandemic that was very much polarized.
But we're seeing, particularly for vaccines like measles, mumps, and rubella, in 14 states across the country, less than 90% of childhood kids taking these vaccines.
Why that matters is we are seeing more and more outbreaks across the country.
And science tells us that you need kind of about 95% of a vaccination rate to ensure there's herd immunity in a community.
So there are many people who can't be vaccinated.
So to protect them, it's important to keep that vaccination rate high.
I want to ask you about the COVID vaccine that has been on a lot of people's minds.
Dr. Deborah Burks served as the White House coronavirus response coordinator in the first Trump administration.
She was asked about concerns about RFK Jr.'s comments about that vaccine, and here she is, and I'll have you respond to it.
So it's not good enough for us to just say vaccines don't cause autism.
It's us finding what is the cause of autism.
Well, and Burke would absolutely agree that it is ridiculous that there isn't a lot of research and established causation of autism.
But what he has said in the past is that autism is caused by vaccines.
And there's no scientific basis for that conclusion, as I understand it.
That's correct.
And so that's why when he talks about transparency, I'm actually excited that in a Senate hearing, he would bring forward his data and the questions that come from the senators would bring forth their data.
What I know for sure is he's a very smart man who can bring his data and his evidence base forward and we can have a discussion that many Americans believe already is a problem.
So until we can have that transparency and that open discussion from both sides, I know the members have incredible staffers who will bring great questions from their constituents.
And that hearing would be a way for Americans to really see the data that you're talking about, that we can't see that causation right now.
But what is causing it?
And so you're absolutely right.
Addressing what the cause is will be critical.
And I think what has confused people is we weren't clear about what COVID vaccines do and don't.
And so now people are questioning, well, what do my childhood vaccines do and don't?
And they don't understand that some of the vaccines that their children are getting protect them from both disease and create herd immunity.
And some of them that they get are just for their child, like H flu and NUMAVAX to prevent their child from getting very serious illness.
What do you think, Dr. Parikh?
Yeah, no, I agree with Dr. Burks, agree with that dialogue.
You know, during the pandemic, we were learning as we were going.
And as the science changed, I don't think we always communicated well with the public to keep them up to speed.
They heard missed messages, and I think that affected public trust.
But these are important things.
And I think all of the topics that were raised really need to come out in this confirmation hearing.
HHS is a massive, massive department.
Can't really pick and choose what you work on.
You've got to work on both chronic diseases and infectious diseases.
And so let's see how Mr. Kennedy does.
One more question, and then we'll go to calls, and that's about drinking raw milk.
That's something that Mr. Kennedy has brought up.
Can you explain why do we pasteurize milk?
What are the risks?
What are the benefits of pasteurized versus raw milk?
Well, the main benefit is to reduce the risk of infectious disease transmission that could potentially occur in the milk.
Pasteurization heats the milk to such a degree that you're really reducing the potential of a microbe or an infectious disease to be transmitted.
Right now, that's important given the H5N1 avian influenza outbreak, particularly in dairy cattle.
And therefore, the public health recommendations are that you not drink unpasteurized raw milk.
Are there any benefits, health benefits to raw milk that we might be missing out on by pasteurizing?
Yeah, it's a great question.
It's not an area that I'm an expert in, but particularly on the infectious disease side, it is pretty important.
All right.
And here is Mary.
You're up first in Wisconsin on the line for Republicans.
Good morning.
Good morning.
This is Mary.
And, you know, that prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that's the last to mature is in the late 20s for boys and girls.
And prior to that development, the only thing important for them is peer relationships and societal acceptance.
And the part that seems to mature in the late 20s is responsible for decision-making.
They're trying to give puberty blockers to kids in their teens and early teens.
And those kids will get to their late 20s and say, why did you do this to me?
So we are taking it sort of an abuse society, taking advantage of kids to change their sex when they really don't even can't make that decision on their own.
So we should, as parents, all be informed about that so that we can help our children grow and be beautiful human beings that God wants us to be.
Dr. Perrick, what do you know about puberty blockers?
Yeah, well, I think this broader issue of gender identity is also going to come up during the confirmation hearings of RFK, and it was an issue during the presidential election as well.
And, you know, there are issues related to science.
There are issues related to families and culture here.
So there are an array of complicated issues here where I think we'll have discussion.
And certainly in a Trump Health and Human Services, you're going to have different policies than you had during the Biden administration as well in terms of flexibilities and what is allowed and what's not allowed.
Here's Richard in Oceanside, California, Democrat.
Hi, Richard.
Hi, Mimi.
Thank you for taking my call and being there today.
You look great.
So does Dr. Anand.
And for Dr. Anand, I would have this question.
We're talking about fluoride in the water.
We're talking about pasteurization of milk.
We're talking about vaccinations.
And it amazes me, for instance, on the vaccinations.
I know a fella up to speak for me, 30 years Marine Corps veteran.
When you go in the military, they vaccinate you left, they vaccinate you right, and then they make you do a thousand push-ups, figuratively speaking.
It hurts like the devil.
Well, he believes against vaccinations now.
And I asked him, I said, how did you survive 30 years in foreign countries where it lives malaria, typhoid, and everything else imaginable?
And you were vaccinated up to yin when you went in.
How can you not believe in vaccinations anymore?
People have changed.
Well, fluoride in the water.
I don't know what year they started doing fluoride, but I was born in 1947.
And I had a lot of cavities when I was a kid.
My teeth are a mess, but I still got enough to chew a little bit.
And my entire family lost their teeth, the older people that were born back in their 20s and stuff.
I'm the only one of the whole crowd who's got any teeth left at all.
And there's a lot of them.
So there's a lot of us people around here that remember these things.
And they used to teach in the schools about such matters, fluoridization, pasteurization.
I wonder now, Doc, do they teach this stuff anymore in the schools to little kids about Louis Pasteur and his miracle about fluoride in the water and so on?
What do you think, Dr. Perrick?
Yeah, you know, I hope so.
And I wish that's the case because I think we've forgotten a lot.
You know, we take public health for granted.
It's saving our lives, has saved our lives.
In the last century, public health is credited for raising our life expectancy by 25 out of the 30 years.
So all of these things, whether it's vaccines, illnesses that we don't see anymore, fluoride in the water, preventing or enhancing oral health, these are all very, very important things.
And I think education is absolutely critical.
And now with science changing as well, I think we have to keep up with the science.
So it's always important to do research, but always important to remember where we came from and why all of this is so important.
Axios is reporting that a quarter of Americans suffer from chronic pain.
Why is that?
What's causing that?
An array of conditions cause chronic pain.
Some primary, others secondary based on, let's say, you're in a motor vehicle accident.
Let's say you have a particular neuropathy like you have in diabetes.
So there are many, many different reasons why people suffer chronic pain.
Some estimates are about 100 million Americans actually suffer chronic pain.
And there's been also a lot of focus on how do you best treat this chronic pain, trying to ensure that individuals also don't just get prescribed opioids, for example, willy-nilly, given the risk we know of addiction there.
So a really important public health challenge faced by millions of Americans.
Let's talk to Jennifer in Evans, Georgia, Independent Line.
Jennifer, you're next.
Hi, yes.
I have a question for Dr. Perry with his book, which I think is really timely at this point.
You talk about how preventative health will help our health care industry, and you're tying it.
If Robert Kennedy is the health and human services head or whatever, what would be the three things you would like to see him do when it comes to the American diet?
Because my belief is that it's the American diet that is causing a lot of this economic issue and the health issue, and we could save a lot of money if all Americans tomorrow decided to go on a healthy diet, we would save a lot of money.
We talk about inflation, and when you look at the cost of inflation in terms of food, most of the inflation is higher in things like fats and processed meats.
Inflation for fresh produce and unprocessed meats is much lower.
We eat so much more than we need to.
And all these statistics say that like 30% of Americans are overweight, 42% are obese.
Children born today have a 50% chance of being diabetic.
So your book, I think, is important in covering that, how it could help us from a healthcare cost perspective, but an overall economic perspective.
What would be the three things that you would suggest to Robert Kennedy to get implement right away policy-wise?
Yeah, thanks so much for that question.
And I think it's really important to note for the public that poor diet now is the leading risk factor for mortality in the United States.
It surpassed cigarette smoking in 2019.
So I agree, probably the most important, arguably, health policy issue that we're facing.
So to your question, what are a couple of specific policy issues?
Number one, I think we need more healthy food financing initiatives.
We need to ensure that the healthy food is not the most expensive food.
We need to make sure, for example, in underserved areas, we can get grocery stores in those areas.
We need to also continue working with the industry to significantly reduce what I call the hyper-palatable ingredients in the food supply.
So the added sugars, the sodiums, the saturated fats, really driving the chronic disease epidemic in this country.
I think we need to look at agricultural subsidies as well, particularly with Congress looking at farm bill reauthorization next year.
They were supposed to do it this year, didn't get it done.
And then we ought to look at tax policy also.
Why is it that marketing of unhealthy food to children leads to tax breaks?
Should we be perhaps taxing certain types of food?
And so I think there are an array of policy issues there that the next HHS secretary, whether it's RFK or not, take a look at because it's a really, really important health policy issue.
Dr. Parak, Carol in Boston, Massachusetts sent us a text on the shortage of primary care physicians, which is something you talk about in your book.
She says that many don't have PCPs.
How can we better incentivize doctors to become primary care physicians?
For example, should medical schools take the initiative to reduce tuition for those committing to the practice for at least 10 years after graduation?
Yeah, I think there are lots of important solutions we should think about, loan repayments, scholarships, other ways to reduce debt, ways to reduce tuition.
You know, 50 years ago in this country, a half of physicians were primary care physicians like myself.
Now, today, it is less than a quarter.
The reason why that matters is that primary care is the one health care service that's been associated with better health, lower costs, and greater life expectancy.
So we're certainly in a crisis today where we have a primary care shortage.
Reimbursement policies don't support the team-based care that primary care could provide.
You can imagine a reimagined primary care system ensuring that Americans get their clinical preventive services, that they get their medications for opioid use disorder, that they are providing care for individuals who have both physical and mental health conditions.
That's what really primary care can do.
And that's why I think, although that obesity, I would put primary care there.
Those two issues, really fundamental to both a high-functioning health care system as well as saving lives in this country.
Let's talk to John in Memphis, Tennessee.
Democrat.
Good morning, Meghan.
Morning.
I'm concerned about that fluoride in the water.
I'm 80 years old, and a lot of my friends have died from brain cancer, stomach cancer, and bladder cancer, and all them different cancers, I think, due to the net fluoride water we have here in Memphis, I believe.
And I was concerned about that also.
But the main thing I'm concerned about, you know, kind of like to me, we got the fox dart, the chicken house, the hen house.
And, you know, we look and the fox load eating chicken, and that's where I see it.
You see, and, you know.
John, are you worried about fluoride in the water causing cancer?
Was that your initial question?
Okay, let's get you an answer.
Yeah, so I have not seen any scientific evidence for fluoride causing cancer.
I think what we're talking about here, particularly in infants, and I think a couple of studies had reported lower IQ scores and neurodevelopmental harms for individuals who are consuming higher doses of fluoride than you normally would get in the water supply.
That being said, I do think that this is an area that ought to be looked at.
We ought to get the scientists together, assess the NIH research, the CDC surveillance, the EPA efforts here, and really chart a path forward to better understand from a policy perspective, what's the best recommendation to make to states and localities.
You mentioned getting the doctors and the scientists together to really study this, but the Pew Research Center talks about public trust in scientists and views on their role in policymaking going down, especially if you break that up among party that Republicans have a much lower trust in scientists and Democrats having a higher degree of trust in scientists.
Talk about that and what impacts you're seeing.
Yeah, you know, that's really concerning.
I will say, sort of, the silver lining, I think, in Pew's latest poll for the first time since the pandemic, those numbers have come up, and particularly for Republicans, which I think is really important.
So we don't have that divergence by party.
But look, I think it's really, really important that there be trust in science, in public health.
And also, it goes sort of both ways.
So, how can scientists and public health officials and medical professionals, how can they better connect to the public?
How can they make sure they're communicating in the right way, that they're demonstrating empathy, that when the science changes, they're able to communicate that.
These are all, I think, really important lessons that we've all learned over the last few years.
Here's Cliff in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Independent Line.
Yeah, I'm just wondering if we're going to be able to get Robert Kennedy past Big Pharma.
They're the ones that don't like his books and don't like his opinions.
But then again, about Yvonne Musk, I've watched cost per pound for lunches go from 60,000 pounds down to 25,000 pounds.
So a person don't like Yvonne Musk, but he has a way of cutting costs and making a profit out of it.
But I'm all for RFK getting involved and stirring things up with big pharma.
What do you think?
Yeah, I suspect that's also going to be a topic in the confirmation hearing.
There are a lot of issues to talk about there from the costs of pharmaceutical drugs to how much we rely on pharmaceutical drugs for conditions that could be prevented in the first place.
So certainly I think that this is going to come up.
It's probably not the only sector that is going to be watching the confirmation hearing closely.
I think the agricultural sector, pharmaceutical sector, there are many sectors there that have special interests that are going to be watching to see what he has to say.
Wally in Naples, Florida wants to go back to the fluoride issue and asks, will toothpaste and mouthwash with fluoride work good enough to protect our teeth?
Florida is in the process of eliminating it now.
Yeah, you know, and I think many would argue that certainly because we can get fluoride from different parts of society now, that maybe we don't need it in our water.
And I think, again, this is one of the things that we need to look at very closely.
Other countries in the world do it differently.
Communities in the United States do it differently as well.
But we haven't really had really concerted analysis and science here.
Before we make sort of knee-jerk recommendations, let's take a look at this.
It's a complicated issue, and then we can go from there.
Let's talk to Robert in Far Rockaway, New York, Democrat.
Hello.
Good morning.
I have a question.
Where does fluoride come from?
I mean, what's its source?
And isn't it labeled in its original potato as a hazardous material?
I mean, it's a natural element, and it is critical for particularly, again, for oral health.
And it has been shown to improve oral health, reduce cavities, and providing fluoride to the population through the water supply for decades now has been shown to be a really effective way, again, to improve oral health.
So I think that's really the bottom line here.
And also, at what dose should there still be fluoride, if any, in the water, given what we just talked about, that you can potentially get fluoride now from various different sources.
John in Massachusetts, Independent Line.
Good morning, John.
This is what happens when you have doctors and corporations on the payroll.
They don't tell you real history.
The real history is that Florida was created from a derivative of oil processing.
The goulash during the days of the Bolsheviks used to use this to calm down the prisoners, dumb them down.
This is government corporate fascism, basically what it is.
Let's get a response to that, Dr. Peric.
Yeah, you know, I don't know really what to say to that.
I don't know that background that the caller is discussing.
I can tell you that what we know from the science is that community fluoridation, providing fluoride in the water for decades, has improved oral health in the United States.
I think it's perfectly valid to assess whether that fluoridation is now still required, given some of the studies that we've seen, particularly related to infants and neurodevelopmental health.
Again, those doses were higher than what are currently supplied.
So I don't want anyone thinking right now that the water is unsafe.
But let's study this.
Let's look at this and let's provide recommendations to states and localities.
This is on X from Tillman who says, after the COVID-19 period, we won't trust the, quote, science for a long time.
Don't need a mask, wear cloth, wear to, get N95.
Kids need to get the shot.
Wait, it may give them myocarditis.
Give them a shot, even if the kids had COVID-19 already.
Yeah, so the thing about COVID and the pandemic is we were learning as we were responding.
And I think as the science changed, I do not think that officials did as well as they could in explaining to the public that here's what we knew, here's what we know now, and this is what we think the best recommendation is.
At times, we were too definitive.
And then when the science did change, the recommendations did change, then people were rightfully so skeptical.
So, you know, there are a lot of lessons related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Leadership matters.
Crisis communication is critical.
Real-time data is important not only for situational awareness, but then convincing the public to take the right actions at the right time.
So a lot of things that we learned, I will say, and I write about this in my book, that the overarching lessons are still that of the 1.1 million deaths that we experienced in the United States, the majority were preventable.
And had we done nothing, millions more would have died.
And so I think it's important also to keep in mind those bigger themes.
But no question about it.
Could the communication and building trust with the public could have that gone a lot better, absolutely.
John in Virginia, Line for Democrats.
Hello.
Hello.
Thanks for taking my call.
Doctor, if I'm an engineer and I build buildings and I tell the people, this building will collapse by tomorrow if you don't move out.
People, they will move out.
You're dealing with people who don't believe science.
You have to understand one thing.
No matter how you slice it or dice it, they're not going to believe these people are sometimes they don't see the reality the way because we have a president who's been telling people lies day in and day out.
People they were saying yesterday, the hurricane in North Carolina happened created by Joe Biden.
So I understand what you're saying.
You don't have to explain anything for this because they don't even believe in science.
How are you going to explain somebody when I don't believe what you're saying?
It's ridiculous.
You know, it's a kind of ignorance that I never seen anything like this my entire life.
You know, and I'm sorry to say this because people, they think that they know better than you.
I don't understand this.
What do you think, Dr. Perik, as far as how do you overcome science skepticism?
Yeah, yeah, well, look, I think people's opinions matter.
I think life experience matters.
I think it's really important to have empathy when you're discussing scientific recommendations with the public.
You know, after all, we call it public health.
We focus a lot on that second word, health.
But that first word is public.
And so if you haven't built that trust with the public, even you can have the science totally right, but those recommendations are not going to be adopted.
So I still think, even though I understand what the caller is saying, that we as medical professionals, public health officials, scientific experts, we still have to try our best, try our best to build that trust, to speak with empathy, understand where people are coming from, meet them where they are, but then communicate the facts as we know it.
I still think that we have to do that, even if there's a segment of the population that just doesn't want to hear it.
There's the New York Times article that says Kennedy's vow to take on big food could alienate his new GOP allies.
It says processed foods are in the crosshairs of RFK Jr., but battling major companies could collide with President-elect Donald J. Trump's corporate-friendly goals.
How likely is it that some of these public health changes can actually happen given the enormous influence that big food companies have and big drug companies have?
Yeah, well, I think both of those, and those were the two sectors that I had highlighted.
I think there are going to be some senators who are specifically going to ask about that.
Senator Grassley from Iowa will absolutely be asking about how RFK's thoughts on big food might impact agriculture.
But these are, I think, the issues that we want to hear about.
We want to hear about his ideas, his answers.
It is not easy to take on these corporate interests.
So the question is, how do you work with these sectors to improve health in a way where you can get most policymakers and most of America behind you?
But that is going to be a big challenge for him.
What's going to be different this time around?
Other administrations, other HHS secretaries have come and said, you know, yeah, let's take a look at our diet.
You know, it's been more of a secondary than a primary issue.
He wants to make it a primary issue, but how is he going to do that?
I'm 75 years old and I've been hearing most of my life how important it is to pasteurize milk and orange juice and how important it is to treat foods that are going on the market in order to prevent the public from getting sick, et cetera.
And I'm wondering, are we overdoing it?
If you use too much antibiotics, the bacteria that you're trying to deal with gets worse over a period of time.
Is it possible that we are just doing too much to try to make food and drink safe?
And thank you.
And that's my question.
Yeah, so I think two issues that you've raised there, which are important.
One is I think from a food safety perspective, it is amazing the public doesn't hear about this, but how many foodborne outbreaks are prevented every year by the FDA and states that we never hear about.
And so I think actually that is really important.
You just think about the health and economic devastations that many of these foodborne illnesses can have.
But on the other point, I think it's an important point in terms of the amount of antibiotics we use in, for example, livestock and in agriculture that can promote then antimicrobial resistance also in humans.
And that is a big public health issue.
I mean, we take for granted all of these antibiotics that we currently have that we have had in the past to treat bacterial infections.
There may come a day where we don't have any more antibiotics because of this growing threat of antimicrobial resistance.
And therefore, I think we have to be very careful, certainly in the healthcare community, the judicious use of antibiotics, but certainly in the agriculture sector as well, being very judicious of how we use these antibiotics.
We have a question for you from Mike in Keyport, New Jersey.
Can you explain generic drugs?
When a pharmacist tells me, it's the same, just cheaper, it seems ridiculous.
Does anyone test those other filler and compounds used?
Yeah, no, they go through testing.
They are essentially like the brand name drugs, but the brand name drugs no longer have a patent, so manufacturers can take that chemical compound and make what's called a generic drug.
Those generic drugs are far cheaper than the brand-name drug, and in fact, have reduced healthcare costs by a significant amount over the last many, many, many decades.
And so, yes, generic drugs are critical, are important, and particularly to enhance the affordability of the drugs that we need.
So, they really are the same thing, just cheaper?
Yes, it's the same chemical compound.
And yes, essentially they're going to provide the exact same health effect, but they are substantially cheaper.
We've got a question from Tatiana in New York who says, shouldn't we also be asking if our policies are based on outdated and flawed data?
Why do we continue to promote eating four meals when research increasingly highlights the health benefits of intermittent fasting?
Similarly, the food pyramid, a cornerstone of public nutrition guidance, has been criticized as being scientifically inaccurate and a potential root cause of the obesity epidemic.
Yeah, so I think we use now my plate instead of the food pyramid, fruits and vegetables and grains.
And so, you know, I think this is a really important area how we educate the public about dietary guidelines.
Every five years, the government produces the dietary guidelines for Americans.
At the end of 2025, the next iteration would come out.
So if RFK Jr. is confirmed, he would be overseeing that process.
But how we communicate dietary guidelines, even healthcare professionals, my peers, don't always know exactly what are in the dietary guidelines because of a lack of nutrition education in medical school training.
So we need to do a better job disseminating, translating dietary guidelines as consumer education is absolutely important.
And with the changing times, to the caller's point, the science needs to be continuously updated as well.
As an advisor at BPC, what do you think are the public health issues that you think can gain bipartisan support and can actually gain traction and get done in the next few years?
Yeah, well, I think poor diet and obesity are really at the top of the list.
And RFK Jr. is talking about that.
Let's see if he's confirmed.
But again, poor diet is now the leading risk factor for mortality in the United States.
We need to change our obesogenic environment.
We need to do better consumer health professional education.
Healthcare sector has a role as well, whether it's downstream and ensuring that treatments for individuals who have obesity, that people are able to access them, all the way upstream to prevention.
So I do think that this area of poor diet, tackling our obesity crisis, is absolutely important.
Other areas such as behavioral health, particularly fighting the opioid overdose epidemic, absolutely critical mental health as well, both youth as well as adult.
So I think these are all public health challenges where we've seen premature mortality, we've seen drops in life expectancy because of a lot of these issues.
And I think they're prime for bipartisan focus.
All right.
Dr. Anand Parikh, he's chief medical advisor for the Bipartisan Policy Center, also former Deputy Assistant HHS Secretary for Health under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.