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This is the Washington Journal for December 18th.
In her first major address since the election, Vice President Kamala Harris encouraged young people at a community college not to abandon a drive to fight for the country's future.
It was earlier this week President Biden encouraged his fellow Democrats to also keep vigilant in the days ahead.
With that in mind, for the first half hour this morning, we invite Democrats only to call in and tell us what you think is the future of the Democratic Party.
Here's how you can let us know your thoughts by phone for the Eastern and Central Time Zones, 202 -748 -8000.
For the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones, 202 -748 -8001.
Democrats only, if you want to text us your thoughts about the future of your party, 202 -748 -8003 is how you do that.
You can also post on Facebook and on X.
It was about a month ago that Pew Research did a poll of Democrats following the election, getting their thoughts on the future of the party.
I don't know.
It's about 10 points higher than after Hillary Clinton's presidential defeat to Mr. Trump in 2016.
Among Democrats, pessimism is more pronounced among adults under age 50.
That's at 55 % than among older people, 39%.
And liberal Democrats, 52 % of those at the time of this poll, are somewhat more pessimistic than conservative and moderate Democrats.
Weighing in at 46%.
That was about a month ago, following the election, the state of Democrats after the election, and what they thought about the future of the party.
It was the vice president yesterday speaking at a community college in Maryland, talking about not only the future, but amongst young people.
The New York Times tracks that speech, saying Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday suggested she did not intend to fade into the background after President -elect Donald Trump's November victory.
And used her first major post -election speech to urge young people to stay in the fight before an audience of students, activists, and recent graduates.
Ms. Harris called on the crowd to maintain their passion and resolve.
You can see that full speech on C -SPAN, but here's a portion from the vice president yesterday.
I ask you to remember that this struggle is not new.
It goes back nearly 250 years to Lexington and Concord.
Generation after generation, it has been driven by those who love our country, cherish its ideals, and refuse to sit passive while our ideals are under assault.
And now this fight to keep the light of America's promise and to ensure it burns bright Well,
this fight now, it continues with you.
You are its heirs.
We are its heirs.
So I'll end with this.
Get some rest over the holidays.
Spend time with the people you love.
You know, I believe family comes in many forms.
There's family by blood and there's family by love.
I urge you, then, after you have had some rest, In fact, I challenge you to come back ready.
Ready to chart our path to the future.
Chin up.
Shoulders back.
Forever impatient for change.
Again, the vice president from yesterday for Democrats only in this first half hour.
Again, what's the future of the Democratic Party in your opinion?
202 -748 -8000 for the Eastern and Central time zones.
202 -748 - We're good to go.
Um, then, uh, this is from John Cole saying, all our best people have left the party.
Tulsi, Manchin, etc.
We need to get rid of our party's platform of the regressive, quote, progressive agenda and start over.
We might not have a party at the rate we're in decline.
Uh, this is also from Diane on our Facebook page saying, young knowledgeable people are coming into their political selves with fresh ideas and new energy.
That will be the face of the Democratic Party.
Out with the old and in with the new.
It's the natural order of things.
Again, you can always post to our social sites and you can give us a call on the phone lines.
Let's hear from John in St. Louis, Missouri on the future of the Democratic Party for Democrats Only.
John, hello.
Hello.
I think that Democrats are going to be doing great because Donald Trump is committing the crime of the century still and Democrats are good.
Democrats have the right.
They work on the right.
Do you think after the last election, Democrats have to do things differently?
And we have to do better.
Okay.
John in St. Louis there.
This is Carolyn.
Carolyn in Ohio.
Future of the Democratic Party.
Carolyn, hello.
I think that younger people...
I'm a senior citizen, so this is strange for me to say, but I think we have to have younger people in the Democratic Party.
And I know Kamala Harris was out talking to younger people, and that's a start.
David Hogg, the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Thank you.
He's going after a position.
I don't think he's got it yet, but...
I'm all for younger people.
I know I personally am tired and I'm a senior citizen and I always want to be active and everything but there comes a point where you need fresh blood and you need younger people because they have all the energy.
I mean...
I don't know how else to say it.
Besides David Hogg, any other names in mind you think that should be pursuing those positions or these top positions?
Well, it seems like the people that are trying that are younger are getting beat.
I heard AOC got beat by Jerry Connolly and I heard he's going through what my husband died from which was the cancer esophageal cancer.
I think?
That we need more young people in there and give them a chance because they all seem like they're wonderful people.
Okay.
Carolyn there, thanks for the segue.
This is from the Wall Street Journal this morning talking about the New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez.
She made a campaign to become the head of the House Oversight Committee, defeated by Jerry Conley.
This from the Wall Street Journal saying, Representative Conley, 74, defeated Ocasio -Cortez, 35, for the top Democratic post on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, putting him in a position...
Hi, good morning.
I'm David in Irving, Texas.
Tell you, the future of the Democratic Party needs to go to someone like Jasmine Crockett.
And that may sound bizarre, and that may sound like I'm thinking out of the box, because that's what I'm doing.
When they go low, we need to go in the basement.
The fact is, Trump got elected because he gave the people something that they didn't have, or they felt like they didn't have, and a voice that wouldn't back down.
And that's what I see Jasmine Crockett as.
So the difference between Trump and Crockett We're good to go.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
And they got outmaneuvered.
That's exactly what happened.
Trump didn't back down.
He gave people this thought that, yeah, we got somebody that's going to fight.
Well, we need somebody like Crockett in there because Crockett, as you obviously can tell, is not going to take that crap.
She's not going to let them get away with crosstalk, not going to let them get away with blowing up events and making them think, making them a lot more than they appear to be.
Case in point, they're eating the pits.
Okay, so...
Crockett would have called them on that.
And she wouldn't have done it in a nice way, like the Vice President and President Biden tried to do.
They're trying to be politically correct.
But that way, it's over.
It's finished.
It's done.
It's time for us to start mudslinging, just like they do.
But the difference is, when we mudsling, we're going to get in their face, and we're not going to let them get away with it.
I mean, Hakeem Jeffries, he's another Mr. Night Guy.
I think, like, Gavin Newsom.
Gavin Newsom is somebody that really needs to be looked at as well.
He's very well spoken.
He ain't taking no crap.
He's young.
And he wouldn't let these Republicans get away with what they're doing.
Okay, David there in Texas.
It was President Biden earlier this week at a holiday event for the Democratic National Committee talking about the future of the party and where he sees the party going from here.
Here's the president from earlier this week.
Our time in office is coming to an end.
The America of our dreams is calling us to stay engaged.
Why not?
Jill and I, and I don't think Kamala and Dada are going anywhere.
We look to the future.
It's more important than ever to keep organizing, to keep talking to folks.
We all get knocked down.
My dad would say, when you get knocked down, you just got to get up.
Get up.
The measure of a person or a party is how fast they get back up.
And to know what we believe in is really worth fighting for.
That's the road ahead.
To never give up.
Again, that's the president from earlier this week, Democrats only, for...
For now, calling in, telling us what you think the future of your party is.
202 -748 -8000 for those of you in the Eastern and Central time zones.
202 -748 -8001 in the Mountain and Pacific time zones.
And then you can text us at 202 -748 -8003.
We'll talk about this with our legislators later on in the program, but did want to let you know that the short -term funding bill text was released yesterday to keep the government from going into default as of Friday.
It's a $1 ,500 -plus bill.
It was posted at 6 o 'clock yesterday, saying this from Axios all day, rank -and -file Republicans, even committee chairs, grumbled about the process and the policy.
This bill is not popular with House Speaker Mike Johnson's right flank.
Among the winners that Axios highlights for farmers, Johnson can point to a $10 billion in economic assistance for farmers and the inclusion of outbound investment restrictions on China.
There's an additional $100 billion in disaster relief for various parts of money.
And then for when it comes to Haiti, it says that Democrats want on getting a trade provision extended for duty -free imports and textiles and apparel from Haiti.
Amongst the losers that Axios highlights within the text of this bill?
Yes.
Just like the other fellow was saying.
Well, what do you mean as far as specifics when it comes to your party?
As far as what should they do now?
They didn't start calling Trump a liar until two years in while he was running for president.
They would talk about misspoke and all this, and the man's an outright liar.
You know, all that soft -talking Republicans is cutthroat.
They will lie on your face and laugh behind your back.
The Democrats need to be more cutthroat than the Republicans are and tell the truth about everything.
Right now, we're going to have the next four years of lying and thieving.
All he's going to do is steal money and get rich.
Richer than what he is.
Look at all the people running down there trying to buy him off.
They're going to buy him off.
And all these middle class clowns who voted for him, watch these prices go up.
Okay, Barney there in Florida.
This is from Lee on Facebook, adding to the mix when it comes to the future.
The Democratic Party has to stop whining about a loss.
And they need to create the New Deal 2 .0.
The Republicans had their plan 2025.
The Democrats have nothing except very poor leadership that takes care of themselves with insider trading, etc., but do not lead.
I'm still waiting for the New Deal 2 .0 plan that Americans can understand.
I think we can all agree on what the program should include.
But we've got to do it now.
We've got to do it before Trump destroys everything.
What programs should be included in this 2 .0 deal?
There has to be more effective control of the American capitalism in terms of the concentration of wealth.
We used to have, in 1960, we had well over 8 ,000 public corporations.
We now have only 4 ,000 and declining.
Consolidation continues, the consolidation of wealth.
We can no longer have real negative interest rates because the wealth will buy everything and consolidate it.
And that's exactly what Obama and others did with these extremely low interest rates.
While people think they're good so they can buy a house, they've done nothing except raise the price of houses.
They're no further ahead.
It's a ridiculous policy, and we need to address these types of things.
To identify with the average American person.
We don't do that in the Democratic Party because we have leadership that I believe with Citizens United has been co -opted by the money.
And we need to, the Democratic Party has to stand up.
We need an FDR level reform that will change the party and we're not going to do it with the current leadership in the Senate or the House.
It has got to change.
Now I'm very happy to see Okay.
Okay, that's Mike there giving me the segue to this News Nation story, taking a look at the current race of who will be head.
The new chair of the Democratic National Committee, this is from News Nation, saying that the current chair, Jamie Harrison, deciding not to run for the position again.
There are currently four candidates running.
Ken Martin, the chair of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party.
Martin O'Malley, former Maryland governor.
James Skoufis, New York State Senator.
Ben Wickler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
According to News Nation, for a party that some describe as one in disarray, There's quite a lot of agreement and overlap amongst these four candidates and the diagnosis of what went wrong in the 2024 election and where the party needs to go.
All four readily acknowledge that Democrats failed to make a strong economic argument.
They clear, and they're all clear, that it's important also to focus on down -ballot races.
More there from that News Nation piece.
One of those folks, I believe it's the New York State Senator, Jim Scuba, is set to join us later on this week in the program.
Problem with a lot of...
Even the Democrats and the Republicans, that they don't really, even though they like who's running, but the people don't really understand our three branches.
And so therefore, they just believe who they're voting for, that's fine, you know.
And I think everybody should understand the Constitution.
So if that's the case, what changes do you think specifically need to be made to the party if that's the case?
Pardon me?
If that's the case of what you just said, what changes do you think need to be made to the party?
Individuals need to learn more about the, you know, everything, all three branches.
I don't think a lot of people understand the Constitution, what the, you know, the branches.
Yep, got that.
Let's hear from Randy.
Randy in Michigan, go ahead, you're next up.
Good morning, Pedro.
I'd like to start by thanking you and all the other men and women it takes to bring us this great program, and I wish you all a happy and safe holidays with the family.
Thank you.
I don't necessarily believe we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
This election was quite unusual.
We do have some improvements.
I think they should get on the radio.
I live out here in rural America.
We're good to go.
So if that's the case, what degree do you think that's a messaging problem overall with the Democratic Party?
There has to be a counter -argument to that.
We had, I think, the economics going.
They're not going to beat that horse to death.
They should have talked more about it.
But we need the younger ones, I agree.
It's time for the change.
But you've got to get the communications to everybody.
And even that includes...
Yes, Pedro.
I mean, I'd like to see him come after this out here in the rural area a little bit more.
I'm not saying it's going to make a...
You're not going to change...
Okay.
Randy there in Michigan, thanks for the call.
Let's hear from Winter in Oregon on the future of the Democratic Party.
Democrats calling to tell us what they think.
Winter, go ahead.
Hi, thank you.
The future of the Democratic Party, in my opinion, has to be a populist party.
For an example, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez.
In my opinion, what we saw in November was a complete change in who the working class normally votes for, and they shifted right.
The economy was a big issue for most voters, along with immigration, and also Dems failed to put forth messaging that resonated with voters.
And also, Democrats have the chance to put a strong messenger yesterday in the Oversight Committee to lead them.
And in my opinion, they failed miserably by not putting Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez inside the Oversight Committee.
If Democrats, in my opinion, do not learn from their mistakes, they deserve to lose in 2028.
So do you think, how responsive or at least how receptive do you think the party as a whole would be to a more populist message?
Until the leadership changes and until the base themselves actually change, you know, whether the primaries or in the 2028 primaries,
it's not going to be receptive.
It's going to be the voters that will have to change it themselves.
So it has to be a whole working class movement to move the Democratic Party left.
Okay, that's winter there.
That's some of the similar thoughts from the group known as Third Way, a moderate group.
What voters told Democrats in 2024 is the recent piece, and they write this, saying, ultimately, the last 100 -day push to the middle by VP Harris was not sufficient to counter the weight of the party brand, despite the policies and messages she touted being popular.
Down -ballot Democrats who had longer runways to execute campaigns centered on moderation and popular mainstream policies fared better because they created their own brand and down -ballot Republicans could not match Trump's strengths.
While it is extremely unlikely that Trump will ever be on a ballot again, Democrats will still need a long -term plan to rebrand the party as one of sensible ideas that can be trusted to handle voters' highest priority issues.
Particularly economic and safety concerns.
If the party has any hope of defeating the MAGA forces now at the helm of government in the midterms and beyond, it needs to swiftly execute the shift to the center.
That's from the group known as Third Way.
Here's some similar thoughts from Seth Boltz and Massachusetts Democrats, who did a recent interview with CBS taking a look at the future of the party.
Look, I think the future for Democrats can be bright, and we will continue being the party that brings more freedom to America, that delivers civil rights, that delivers improvements in health care, and all the things that we have a proud legacy of doing for this country.
But we've got to start by looking ourselves in the mirror and admitting that we need to change.
We can't just make excuses for this election.
We've got to diagnose the problem and make some changes.
So what are those changes?
Well, first of all, we've got to stop this.
Too much preaching, not enough listening.
And we've got to do that in a very public way.
So I want to see leaders of our party and people like me just go out and genuinely hold town halls.
Don't do it by Zoom.
Do it in person and listen to Americans and their concerns and show that we're willing to take their ideas, not just shove our ideas down their throat.
One person who can set a great precedent for this is a new leader of the DNC.
So another thing we have to do is elect a change.
Again, that's Seth Moulton on CBS, Andrew from Perlin, Texas.
Texas saying the party needs to move more towards left -wing populism.
FDR's economic new deal, the enemies are the ultra -wealthy and corporations, and the Democrats need to lay that out for the American people.
He adding that Kamala failed to do that.
Ben Ballew from Facebook.
With the comment to embrace the Bernie bros when it comes to the party's future.
And then another texter, this is Audrey in Philly, saying, was a Democrat, now a left -leaning independent.
The party began its decline when Bill Clinton rejected the legacy of FDR and embraced corporatism.
Instead of blaming progressives, the DP who ran with billionaires and the Cheneys in defending genocide, they need to champion the working class again.
Thank you very much for having me on.
I think what the Democratic Party needs to do is to re -look at the platform.
The platform currently is based on the fact that we're somehow Upholding or saving democracy.
Of course, we all know that we live in an oligarchy.
It's been that way since the 1800s, that the rich had the most power.
They had lobbyists.
They have people who support them in terms of business, which in one hand is good for America.
It builds America in terms of its industrial base and all the rest.
But at the same time, it then shifts the money from the many to the few.
So those people have a lot more power.
So we see that with Bezos, with Musk and all the rest who now pay their way into certain positions within the government, which will only benefit them in the long run.
And unfortunately, all the Americans don't really see that.
And so I think the platform that we ran on was that, oh, we're saving democracy, but there is no democracy.
So in a sense, the platform is based on a delusional idea that we live in a democracy.
Even though that's the ideal, it's not the reality.
And then people suffer in the process, whether their prices are overinflated, they're overwhelmed with poverty, or having to work two or three jobs a day to make an American.
The Democratic Party did not listen to that.
Okay, David there in Maryland.
Last call.
Thank you for those who participated.
Several guests joining us throughout the course of the morning.
Up next, we're going to hear from California Republican Tom McClintock talking about federal spending deadlines, the new CR that came out, the short -term spending plan, and also other issues.
He'll join us next later on in the program.
We'll hear from Illinois Democrat Sean Kasten on spending immigration.
Also, his effort to release an ethics report on former Congressman Matt Gaetz.
That and more coming up when Washington Journal continues.
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Washington Journal continues.
Our first guest of the morning is California Republican Tom McClintock, a member of the Budget Committee, also the chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, Enforcement.
Representative McClintock, good morning.
Good morning.
A short -term spending package on the table.
What do you think of it?
I don't like it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that there's no serious work on a long -term budget.
I would support a strict CR.
If we were engaged in the budget process, if we were in negotiations and needed a few more days or even a few more weeks.
But we haven't been engaged in a serious budget process now in years.
And so we continue to go CR by CR down a fiscal road to ruin.
You say strict CR, just the issues at hand, or some of the other things that were added to this CR?
Well, that's the other thing.
They've added so much to it.
Yesterday, Mike Johnson reported it was 1 ,400 pages.
I understand it's now been reported out at 1 ,500 pages.
So 100 pages magically appeared in the last 24 hours.
And I'm looking at some of these numbers, and they're eye -popping.
$100 billion for disaster relief.
Well, no one begrudges disaster relief, but $100 billion, that's $800 taken from every...
To me, that sounds a little excessive and I'd want to go through that with a fine -tooth comb.
And now, as the process works, 72 hours usually to look at these things, or do you think there's going to be an attempt by the Speaker just to take it to the House floor and get a two -thirds vote out of it?
Well, I can't read minds, and I can't tell fortunes, so I don't know what the Speaker's planning on doing.
If that were the option, then how would you vote?
Well, I would vote no, for the reason I just stated.
There's no serious budget discussion going on, so a CR is simply kicking the can down the road.
What would you have liked to see instead of its place?
I suppose a resolving of the budget overall, but yes.
We have a perfect process to bring spending in line with revenues.
It's the 1974 Budget Act.
It's been in place for 50 years, but it is very rarely used as it's intended.
Both houses should agree to a budget resolution by April 15th.
That sets the spending limits on both the discretionary and the mandatory side.
The appropriators are bound by the 302 limits in the...
We're good to go.
I think?
If it goes to the floor, if it passes, and if it goes into the next Congress, how much more difficult will it be to resolve the issue of funding in a new Congress with a new administration in place, do you think?
Well, that depends upon whether they're serious about actually bringing spending in line with revenues.
If they are, we have a budget process that can do that.
It's difficult, and it requires pronouncing the word no, which is something that's very rare in Washington these days, and that's why we're running a historic deficit of over $2 trillion a year,
and a debt of $36 trillion.
Our guests with us, and if you want to ask them questions about these budget -related matters or other things...
Here's how you can call us.
And you can text us.
At 202 -748 -8003, do you think President Trump will tell Republicans to say no to some of these add -ons and go to a strict budget?
Do you think that's his philosophy or at least his thinking?
Well, that's why he has the doge.
And even though that's not going to be an official body, I think it's going to exert enormous pressure on Congress and give a lot of reluctant representatives permission.
To pronounce that word, no.
And that has got to be done, because otherwise market conditions are going to intervene.
We're going to see a sovereign debt crisis.
And that's a very ugly thing that few nations actually survive.
Because as history is screaming this warning at us, the countries that bankrupt themselves simply aren't around very long.
Because before you can provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare, you've got to be able to pay for it.
And the ability of our country to do so is coming into grave doubt.
If the Doge, as it's known as, makes these recommendations, it's going to be up to you and fellow Republicans in the House and the Senate to follow through with that.
What's the gut?
Well, again, I think that's the big question, and so far they haven't been.
But with the moral suasion that I think the Doge will be able to muster, I think that could change the equation, particularly if the president backs it to the hilt.
As a budget person, what would you like to see come out of this?
Any specifics, either the number of reductions of employees or whether certain agencies should be limited altogether?
What would you like to see?
The answer is yes.
We're good to go.
I think?
We're good to go.
There is another huge area for reform, and that, again, is hundreds of billions of dollars.
I think?
How much do those grants and subsidies compare to total spending by the United States?
Well, the estimate for grants, exclusive of Medicaid grants, is about $900 billion a year.
Subsidies, about the same.
So you're talking about an awful lot of money, and an awful lot of money that's not producing very much.
6 .2 trillion spent in 2023.
If you take a look at that big number compared to the grants and subsidies, is that a small amount?
Is that a drop in the bucket, so to speak?
No.
You're talking about nearly $2 trillion just in total grants and subsidies.
Let's talk about immigration for a second.
I think one of the things that you look at is this chair of the subcommittee.
First of all, tell us what the subcommittee does and your role in it.
When you hear that the president elects plans for so -called mass deportation...
What do you think of the reality of that actually happening?
I think the reality is very high.
In fact, it has to.
If you don't enforce your immigration laws, you don't have immigration laws.
If you don't have immigration laws, you don't have a border.
And if you don't have a border, you don't have a country.
So this is absolutely integral.
We're good to go.
I think?
We're good to go.
That's going to keep everybody busy for quite a while.
Let's tie the work of your chairship then to the work on the budget committee.
Is there an economic cost to mass deportation as far as the United States is concerned?
Is it going to cost?
Well, it's going to cost and it's also going to save.
Yes, it's going to cost because you've got, well, just since this administration took office, some 7 .6 million illegal immigrants who've entered the country, who've been allowed to enter the country.
Finding them and deporting them is going to be costly.
Finishing the border wall is going to be costly.
Much more costly because what this administration, the Biden administration, has done over the past few weeks to sell the material at pennies on the dollar.
We're going to have to buy all that material back.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
Gangs in the world into our communities and then making it difficult if not impossible to remove them from our communities even after they've served their sentences.
These are all enormous costs of illegal immigration and what's going to be required to restore the integrity of our borders and the sovereignty of our country is a fraction of that cost.
First of all, I'm highly skeptical of those numbers.
They're coming from an ideologically motivated source.
But more to the point, when you flood the labor market with cheap, illegal labor...
You depress the wages for Americans.
And if you want to know why American wages, real wages, have gone down during this administration, that's one of the principal reasons.
Let's hear from Nicole.
This is from Ed.
Ed joins us from Ohio, Republican line for Representative Tom McClintock.
Ed, you're on with our guest.
Good morning.
Good morning, all of you.
Merry Christmas, happy holidays, all of you.
This guy right here, right out of the money, I feel sorry for him.
He's the best one I've seen for years that's on TV I've finally seen.
I'm from Ohio, I'm 30 years back, and I still work in the phone business.
Unfortunately, he's in California, our left state.
I mean...
Here's a book I've had since 1993.
It's just as relevant today.
And everybody in Washington amazes me.
You should have this as a manual the first day and memorize it.
I've had this book since 1993 from my father, from my whatever, my whole family.
It's called, by Martin L. Gross, A Call for Revolution, How Washington is Threatening America and How to Stop It.
This was made in 1993.
And this, we're $37 trillion in debt.
The voters in this country, until they get it, we need to, right, we can cut this down.
We have to make cuts across the board and everything.
That's not, and he's talking about all these grants and stuff.
There's no reason we can't cut down at least a million a waste a year.
And you have to do that for 30 seconds.
We're 40 % loss of power now.
We're still in high inflation.
It's not going to go down.
I mean, what's that thing in California going for years?
I have a question, Jeff.
Super trade they've been making for 30, 40 years.
How many billions they keep extending it because it's never completed?
That's not a grant.
But that's still going on in your state.
I had a lot of friends who live in California.
Most of them have left.
Your businesses are still going.
It's not your fault.
But this guy...
He's right on the money.
And the rhinos in the Republican, but the voters that are even Democrats, until they realize enough is enough, this book should be mandatory.
Gotcha, gotcha.
I got your point, Ed.
Thank you, Representative.
Well, he's absolutely right.
The socialist left has utterly destroyed the prosperity of California with the same policies that they've been using in recent years to destroy the prosperity of America.
That's what socialism produces.
Wherever they take control, you see the same social and economic pathologies.
You see sky -high taxes.
You see failing schools.
You see chronic shortages of basic necessities like fuel, water, electricity.
Sky -high prices for housing.
You see rampant crime, rampant homelessness.
You're seeing that in our greatest cities, San Francisco, Detroit, New York City, Chicago.
You're seeing it in what were once our greatest states like California.
The one consolation Californians have is that if things get bad enough, there's still 49 other states we can move to.
If we allow these policies to destroy our country, where will we all go?
And I think that was...
Good morning.
Good morning, Congressman.
Why is it that Republicans, every time they get into office, they always think about cuts?
And the main cuts that you guys want to do is Social Security.
Bernie Sanders had a hearing on Social Security about two years ago.
and if you have if you tax the social security the right way and have the billionaires and the millionaires to pay the proper amount of taxes social security will be will survive for 75 more years but you guys refuse and every time you talk about these cuts and and watch watch american people what they're going to do they want to privatize social security
Okay.
You made those points, so we'll let our guests respond to this.
My first response would be that if we do nothing...
Social Security will see a 17 % cut across the board in the mid -2030s.
So action has got to be taken, and time's not our friend.
The longer we wait to take action, the more draconian the actions will be.
Either higher taxes or lower benefits, or...
Of what I would prefer to see, and that is a slight extension in the age for qualification.
That's how we fixed Social Security during the early years of the Reagan administration.
But something has to be done.
But you're absolutely right on the other side.
And that is, it's not just entitlement spending, it's also the corporate welfare that's being handed out.
I mean, hundreds of billions of dollars of grants to green energy companies, for example.
That by itself is an eye -popping number.
So yes, we should be stopping all of the corporate welfare that we're doling out.
You know, the beauty of a free market system is that it's the most democratic possible way to organize an economy.
Think about this.
In a free market, every day, every consumer votes with every dollar they spend on what the economy is going to produce, who's going to produce it, and what price they're willing to pay for it.
Subsidies...
Replace the preferences of consumers with the preferences of politicians that diverts the flow of capital for their highest and best use for consumers.
To the highest and best political advantage for politicians.
And those are two very, very different things.
You get rid of the subsidies, people get the accurate price signals they need to make rational decisions in how they're going to spend their dollars.
And producers get accurate price signals in what needs they most need to fulfill.
That system works.
Subsidies destroy that and it costs us hundreds of billions of dollars in the process.
When you hear callers like her saying Republicans want to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, to what degree is that true in your mind?
Well, it's not a question of cutting, it's a question of reforming.
For example, Medicare, which will also go bankrupt very shortly.
There are better ways of organizing it that would assure its long -term stability, and that's the premium support proposal that's been around for years now.
That is essentially modeled on the Medicare Advantage plans, which many millions of Americans already prefer.
I'm a Medicare Advantage patient myself.
I'm with Kaiser.
That system then would allow us to subsidize those costs based upon how rich you are, how poor you are, how sick you are, how old you are.
When I say subsidize, I mean basically underwrite those costs.
Let's hear from Roger.
Roger's on our independent line.
He's in Milwaukee.
Hello.
Good morning.
How are you both?
Let's just take two areas that it seems that the Republicans really seem to stay away from.
The first is our wonderful military budget.
And are you aware that our military budget is larger than the top 17 countries in the world?
It's bigger than those 17 countries.
And yet we are paying $600 for hammers, $3 ,300 for toilet seats, and this is all well documented.
So there's one area that I think you could cut without question, and you could use those savings and put it into Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security.
The other thing is, why don't you Republicans want to tax the rich?
I am just floored.
That you let them get away with everything.
And we got all these billionaires right now being asked to be part of a cabinet.
And as we've listened, before they've even gotten in office, with Donald Trump and everything going one way, these guys are getting rich, hand over fist, and they're not really lifting a finger.
Well, let me ask you, what's...
Hold on, let me finish.
Okay.
He's fine.
What would you say is a fair rate of taxation for the rich?
Apologies, he's...
Oh, I'm sorry.
Okay, well then, let me make it a rhetorical question then and put it this way.
The top 1 % make about 20 % of all of the income in this country.
They pay 40 % of the income taxes.
So when people say, well, that rich top 1 % ought to be paying its fair share, what they're actually saying is we should cut their taxes in half.
We already have one of the most progressive tax systems in the world.
And the...
A dirty little secret is there are not enough rich people in the country to make much of a dent in the numbers that we're talking about in terms of federal spending.
That's the middle class that ultimately ends up bearing those burdens.
And I think it's important to note that every trillion dollars we talk about in Washington...
Think of that as $8 ,000 taken from an average family.
Divide the number of families into a trillion dollars, it comes to about $8 ,000 per family.
So a billion dollars is about $8 per family.
So every time you see these prices in Washington being thrown around so loosely, ask yourself, is that worth?
That billion -dollar program worth $8 for my family?
Is that trillion -dollar program?
Back to the CR for a second.
There's two bits of reporting I want to ask you about.
Bloomberg reporting that within the CR, if it were to pass, it would allow the cost of living raises for members of Congress to resume.
Is that something you could support?
Well, I think members of Congress have an obvious conflict of interest in even addressing that question.
I think that it should have been left at the...
Well, when I came in, we were receiving $174 ,000 a year.
That was in 2008.
We're still receiving $174 ,000, what, 16, 17 years later.
I think that the fair thing to do is simply to set it at the rate it was at in 2008 and then provide an automatic cost of living adjustment beyond the control of the Congress to increase or decrease and then just let it be.
Members of Congress should not be setting their own salaries.
That should go without saying.
Put it on autopilot and then leave it alone.
There's also provision if it were passed, it would allow members of Congress to opt out of Obamacare and then rejoin the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program.
What do you think of that proposal?
I haven't given any thought one way or the other.
Like I said, I'm a Kaiser patient, so that's where my attention is.
What other members do is up to them.
I also want to ask you about a standout feature of you.
There were attempts to release the House Ethics Report about Matt Gaetz.
You were the only Republican to vote for that to happen.
Why is that?
Well, it was a public report.
Prepared with public funds regarding the public conduct of a public official.
Of course the public has a right to see that report.
Do you think it will happen?
And why does it matter now, do you think, even though he's left Congress?
Well, as Louis Brandeis said, sunlight is the best of disinfectants.
The truth will out, I think.
People already have a general idea of what is in that report simply from the public reporting.
But ultimately, I think the public has a right to see it and then let the chips fall where they may.
Have you seen any elements of the report?
No.
Okay.
Let's hear from Tim.
Tim in Wisconsin, Democrats line.
Yes, good morning.
I think Mr. Representative McClintock seems like a pretty straight shooter.
But I'd like to ask him a couple questions.
I know, I mean, they want to cut the buzz and everything, but...
In a lot of ways, there's a lot of hypocrisy on the Republican Party when nine of the ten poorest states in the country are red states, and they get heavily subsidized because the simple fact is that people make very low wages,
so they don't pay much into the federal government per capita compared to a lot of states.
For instance, Arkansas gets four to one back, Mississippi and Alabama two, three to one back.
Do you see any way of evening that out?
Because it's not my fault living in Wisconsin that I should have to subsidize these states.
So do you see any way of getting parity in that so that if you pay $2 to the government, you get $2 back?
Thank you.
We're good to go.
Tim, thank you.
We're good to go.
Local projects that exclusively benefit local taxpayers should be paid for by those local taxpayers.
Among other things, that gives them the freedom to set their own priorities.
One of the things I've noticed in these huge amounts of local project grants, and therefore everything from transportation to homeless shelters to sidewalks to local schools,
those are all projects that benefit the local taxpayers.
But when they come to Washington for grants, what they're really telling us is these particular projects don't make our cut.
They don't make sense for us to pay for them with our own revenues.
They're lower priority items.
But we don't mind if we can stick somebody else with the tab.
So we end up funding lower priority projects with other people's money.
It's not fair.
And it also distorts, again, the priorities that we should be setting at the local level for projects that exclusively benefit our local communities.
One more call.
This will be from Anne in Florida, Independent Line.
Good morning.
You had made a comment earlier about you being a Medicare Advantage patient.
You say you're Kaiser.
You're using Kaiser Medicare, correct?
Yes.
That's an advantage plan.
Right.
The rumor I have heard is, and you indicated this might happen, was to revamp Medicare by turning everything into an advantage plan.
Is that correct?
Yes, that's the proposal for premium support.
Okay.
What safeguards are you going to put in for the public?
Because the current advantage plans do not adequately always meet everything.
I'm very unfortunate.
I am a federal employee health benefit.
My advantage plan is with Aetna.
A federal employee's health benefit has strict things that they have to meet.
What sort of protections are you going to put in for people that you're going to force to use Medicare Advantage?
Ann, thank you.
Will and Ariel Durant asked a question in their history of civilization.
What makes Ford a good car?
Answer, Chevrolet.
Competition.
And the idea behind the premium support plan is that Medicare negotiates a wide range of plans meeting a wide range of needs and then allows individual consumers to choose among hundreds of competing plans for the one that best meets their own needs and circumstances and then the federal government through Medicare would underwrite the cost of those,
again, based upon how old, how sick, and how poor they are.
To me, that makes perfect sense.
And it restores to individuals the freedom to select their own plans according to their own needs and assures them a wide range of choices from which to exercise their judgment.
When it comes back to the CR, one more time, what are you expecting from the week as we progress as far as whether we'll pass an answer?
Again, sadly, I was born without the power of prophecy.
I can't predict.
I can tell you what my vote's going to be right now, and it's no, and it's based on the fact that we're not in any kind of serious budget negotiations.
I sit on the budget committee for the past year.
We haven't been discussing the budget.
We've been discussing ways of passing the buck to other bipartisan commissions to handle the budget.
Well, the ultimate bipartisan commission is the Congress of the United States, and there's no substitute for our doing our job.
We hold the purse strings.
That's a responsibility that can't be dodged, and it can't be doged.
The buck starts in the House of Representatives, and we have to take responsibility for that, and we're not.
So simply another CR kicking the can another few months down the road without any serious attempt to engage a real budget process.
I think it's a travesty, and it is a path to fiscal ruin, and it's a path that's becoming shorter and shorter as time goes on.
California Republican Tom McClintock for this conversation.
Thanks for your time.
Pedro, my pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
In a little while, we will hear from Representative Sean Kasten, Democrat of Illinois.
But first, before that, open forum.
And if you want to comment on issues of politics and policy, 202 -748 -8001 for Republicans, Democrats, 202 -748 -8000.
Independence 202 -748 -8002.
We'll take those calls.
Washington Journal continues.
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Washington Journal continues.
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This is from Ken, who starts us off.
He's in New York.
Republican line.
Good morning.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
I just came.
I don't know if he spoke that definitively.
I invite you to listen to the segment to see exactly what he said, but go ahead.
They just let them use the name Medicare back in 1991 when those plans started.
And they're for -profit companies.
So it sounds good at first, but then if you have something they turn you down on, which normal Medicare probably would not do.
You're just out of luck because they're a for -profit company.
They're there to make money.
They're not there to take care of you.
So if you have no choice but to be on Medicare Advantage plans, that means they're doing away with regular Medicare.
That's Ken in New York.
Let's hear from another New Yorker.
This is Jill, Democrats' line.
Hi, good morning.
Morning.
I had a question for the congressman.
He was stating about this whole issue of deportation.
I'd like to know, it seems like it's a bottom -up issue.
What about top -down?
For all the companies, people who are hiring illegal aliens to do the work, what's happening with them?
There seems to be no process or no...
Jill, there in New York,
the Federal Reserve, according to the Associated Press and others today, will likely signal a slower pace of interest rate cuts next year.
We're good to go.
The Fed is more likely to cut at every other meeting at most.
The central bank's policymakers may signal they expect to reduce their key rate just two or three times in 2025.
We're good to go.
Eric in New Jersey, Republican Line.
Hi.
Good morning, Pedro.
Hi.
Yeah, I live in the congressional district of the ranking member of the health committee, the health subcommittee in the House of Representatives.
His name is Frank Pallone.
And I asked him, he's a Democrat, and I asked him, if you are pro -choice on abortion, do you think that...
Anyone who wants to get an abortion should be able to do that in a safe way.
And there are places across the country where people who use heroin would like to use them in a supervised injection site.
There are cities from Boston to Portland, Oregon, and all in between.
New York City has opened them.
They're not covered under the pro -choice assurances that Democrats You know, you started off the Washington Journal this morning talking about the Democratic Party.
How is it that the Democrats are not for allowing states to do what they want with these scheduled substances in the case of supervised injection sites,
as well as psychedelics like magic mushroom therapy for people with addictions?
Okay.
Okay.
Eric Theron, New Jersey.
Let's hear from Vivian in Tennessee, Democrat's line.
Number one, I really think deep down in my heart, this wasn't a rigged election.
I'm 74 years old, because I noticed down here in Tennessee a lot of machines went out in black areas.
A lot of machines went out at a certain time.
But back to what I'm saying, they put Trump up there, a man who got 34 convictions, and got him about to attempt to rake money to pay back for those black...
I know what that means.
I lived in the Jim Crow area back at the end, when I had to sit in the back of the bus, sit in the back of the restaurants.
People, and then they go around, especially I live here in Tennessee, where the police officers had black men, they let out of jail, go robbing.
They were the ones who started that riot in downtown.
They paid them 25 black men to do it.
Okay, that's Vivian there.
And Vivian, just to clarify, the president -elect was charged with sexual abuse as far as that's concerned.
Let's hear from Independent Line.
This is Debbie.
Debbie up next in New York.
Hello.
I almost hear everyone talking about cutting Social Security.
They never talk about cutting welfare.
And my thing is, how about we create a program that pays people who work?
It would create more jobs and businesses.
I feel there are so many able -bodied people who can work, working under the counter, just to keep on the benefits on the subsidies.
And I know people that have The balance is on their SNAP of $8 ,000 and $17 ,000.
To me, these people are not needy.
I always want to help people, but there are tons of people just sucking off the taxpayers and I'm tired of working and paying for everyone else to work under the counter and hide their income.
And that's all I have to say.
But I think we should create a program that pays people that are actually working.
That would get the economy growing and create jobs and businesses.
Okay.
Debbie there in New York, the Washington Post reporting that it was the Electoral College convening in all 50 states yesterday to elect Donald Trump to be the 47th President of the United States over Vice President Kamala Harris.
That vote by 312 to 226, the gatherings unfolded uneventfully unlike four years ago when alternate electors for Trump convened in seven states that he had lost and where governors had certified the results for Joe Biden.
Although many of the 2020 alternate electors said they met only to preserve Republican legal options as they fought results in court, some Trump allies used their votes to try to persuade Congress to decide the election for him during the joint session on January 6th of 2021.
That effort became the focus of congressional hearings as well as criminal cases.
Although Mr. Trump won the Electoral College comfortably this time and he defeated Harris in the popular vote by 2 million votes, his share of the popular vote, when third -party candidate totals are included, falls slightly below a majority at 49 .9%,
according to data compiled by the Associated Press.
Eileen in New Jersey, Republican Line, hi.
Hi, how are you?
Merry Christmas to you.
I'd like to know, does the Democrats and Republicans get paid hospitalization?
I'm sorry, you're going to have to repeat that.
Does Republicans and the Democrats get paid hospitalization with their jobs?
What does that mean?
What do you mean by that?
I mean Congress or the Senators.
And do they get paid after they leave, too?
Because I'm thinking, you know, maybe they could cut that out and pay for their own like we do.
Two things I want to say.
Every man or woman that's been to jail and got out of jail, you should clean their records up like you did Trump.
So they can get a good job and Social Security will run over.
You will have more Social Security than you can have.
You can stand.
Or everybody will be able to go to work.
They'll be able to do a decent job.
Not only that, the politicians in Washington took money.
You took it.
You paid it back.
Money from Social Security.
When you gonna pay that back?
Thank you, sir.
Yeah, we want answers.
The response that I'm getting is that we don't know whose drones these are.
I was with the NASA administrator, Bill Nelson.
He said that these drones have been reported over military sites, military bases.
I would not think those are friendly.
I would think those are adversarial.
In fact, NASA seems to be picking up more than our military is with respect to the drones.
So I think Congress is going to pursue this.
I know the House Intelligence Committee is having a hearing on this.
We need to identify who is behind these drones.
My judgment based on my experience is that those that are over our military sites are adversarial and most likely are coming.
Do you think you'll be satisfied with what you hear today?
The ones flying over our military bases, by definition, I would say are adversarial.
We need to know who is behind that, because I believe they're spy drones.
And the PRC, Chinese Communist China, is very good at this stuff.
And we know they've bought land around military bases.
This will be very consistent with their policy over the last couple of years.
We'll hear from Joanne next in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Independent Line.
Governor of Nebraska.
When he did that, he formed their legislative and put it, they could have their election parties when they went to vote their candidates.
But when they came to work on what they needed to do, they were not allowed to separate into parties.
They were required to work as a unit and as far as I know that still exists in Nebraska and maybe a couple other states.
I think the same thing should happen on the Hill.
This, I mean, it's enough to get out there and say you six weeks give the information and elect your candidate but once they get
Okay, Joanne in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Let's hear from Phyllis in Illinois Republican line.
I can remember when, as a country, we produced our own steel, our own glass, our own clothing, many, many products that we produced ourselves,
and we had jobs for people to work at other than McDonald's.
We have become a country that...
Just has these little, you know, fast food jobs.
There are other jobs, of course, but so many of the products that we purchase, that we pay our money for, are products that are produced in China.
Everything.
So that's my question.
You know, why is that?
And why has this happened?
How has this happened?
Of course I know.
Money talks.
Concerns about the reporting practices, and particularly about Mr. Musk, who is SpaceX's chief executive, have triggered at least three federal reviews.
Thank you.
Eight people with knowledge of the effort said the Defense Department's Office of Inspector General opened a review into the matter this year, and the Air Force and the Pentagon's Office of Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security separately initiated reviews last month.
There's more there if you want to read more from the New York Times.
If you go to the...
Pages of the Washington Times this morning.
Former Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney in the focus.
The focus is part of a 128 -page report that was released Thursday by House Republicans on the panel of the January 6th riots at the U .S. Capitol accuses Ms. Cheney of witness tampering and calls for an FBI investigation of her regarding the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson,
a former White House aide.
Quote, it is unusual and potentially unethical for a member of Congress conducting an investigation to contact a witness.
Again, that's in the Washington Times.
Let's hear from...
Teresa, Teresa in Pennsylvania, go ahead.
Why do you think that would provide enough revenue?
The same percentage into it.
Think about that for a minute.
Okay.
Eric in Philadelphia.
Independent line.
Last call.
Go ahead.
Yes.
I think the Republicans are really going to touch Social Security and Medicare because they know if they do that, they're going to lose the House and the Senate come two years.
And I think where they need to really cut is the federal government and the Pentagon.
There's just too much waste, fraud, and abuse.
Why do you think that would change things?
A lot of them really don't even work, to be honest with you.
And the work is shared by the ones that do their work.
They get burned out, you know.
So I think they need to cut the fat, really not go after people's benefits.
It's not going to change anything.
Okay.
Eric there in Philadelphia.
One more bit of news from the Associated Press with President Biden outgoing in the next couple of weeks yesterday.
Endorsing a ban on congressional stock trading in an interview that's being released this week.
Belatedly weighing in on an issue that's been debated on Capitol Hills for years.
Quote, sorry, nobody in Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they're in the Congress.
According to Mr. Biden, the interview was conducted by Fesh Akir, the political advisor.
For Senator Bernie Sanders and published by a more perfect union of pro -labor advocacy and journalism organization.
It's unclear what impact Mr. Biden's statement could have coming a month only before.
His term ends.
Again you can find that story in the Associated Press.
Those coming up on Washington Journal.
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I think?
Washington Journal continues.
Our next guest in the morning is Representative Sean Kasten, Democrat from Illinois.
He serves on the Financial Services Committee.
He also serves on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.
Representative Kasten, good morning.
Welcome to the program.
Good morning.
Nice to be here.
Now that there's a text of the short -term funding bill, what do you think are the next steps in the process, particularly for Democrats?
We got 1 ,500 pages released last night at, I think it was about 7 o 'clock at night.
This is no way to run a country, and we're all furiously going through to figure this out right now.
None of us, certainly on the Democratic side of the aisle, want to shut down the government.
But this has been such a strange Congress, and I think it's important for your viewers to understand how unusual this is.
We're talking about a CR, a continuing resolution.
This is a normal function of Congress that when you've worked and you've figured out all the funding for the State Department, the Defense Department, the Education Department, the Energy Department, and maybe there's a few little I's and T's you need to cross and we're about to run out of money, you pass a continuing resolution,
typically for a month or two, that says let's just keep government running at current levels until we iron out those details.
That's normal.
The Republican House this term has yet to pass a funding bill in two years.
So we are basically agreeing on a continuing resolution that is consistent with the funding level set when the Democrats last controlled the House.
Now, as a Democrat, you know, those were my own funding priorities, and so I suppose in some small way that's a win.
But the world was very different two years ago, right?
We were coming out of COVID.
We had high inflation.
We had the situation in Ukraine.
It was before the situation in Gaza.
We should be funding the government today to the needs of today, not running based on where it was two years ago.
And so instead, because the Republican Party has been at war with itself, We're good to go.
I think?
Bringing bills to the floor to do that is, I think it's disrespectful to this institution and disrespectful to the American people.
Those whole other things you talk about, some of others describing this bill as a Christmas tree of sorts, does it make it complicated for you as whether you're supporting it or not when you look at those add -ons versus what should be done just to keep government functioning?
You know, on any given line item, we could go through pieces where, sure, we might have done it differently.
I think on balance, a part of the challenge that Speaker Johnson has is that he's got a block of probably 60 to 70 Republicans who are going to vote against anything.
And so he really can't pass a bill without the Democratic support.
And so broadly speaking, this shouldn't be partisan, but broadly speaking...
In order for this to get to the floor, it needs to be something that will be attractive to the majority of the Democrats in the House, because he doesn't have a way to do that otherwise.
And so, structurally, I don't anticipate a lot of those items are going to be deal -breakers for a lot of my Democratic colleagues.
But again, that's not the way we should fund government.
Do you think that Democrats in return for support, if that is indeed the case, should they be asking for things as well from the Speaker?
Well, look, I think we can play that game.
I personally prefer not to because if we view this solely in an inside Washington game, you know, where the only thing that matters is the letter hanging off your name and, you know, I need something from your team, I guess we can do that.
But at the end of the day, if we don't fund government, things shut down.
You know, all of a sudden the national parks aren't open.
All of a sudden veterans who need health care can't get their support checks done.
Seniors who depend on Social Security payments.
The people who want to travel for the holidays, TSA isn't paid.
Our military is not getting paid.
These are not good things to do regardless of what your party is.
So the question I think all of us has is, is the alternative to keeping the government open
Our guest is with us until 9, and if you want to ask him questions, 202 -748 -8001 for Republicans, 202 -748 -8000 for Democrats, and Independence 202.
748 -8002.
You can text us your questions or comments at 202 -748 -8003.
Sir, you serve on that Science, Space, and Technology Committee.
I want to ask you, with the incoming of a new administration and Republicans controlling the House and the Senate, on those fronts of science and space and technology funding, what do you think is going to be the difference going forward next year when it comes to those fronts?
So in my time on that committee, it's been my privilege to run that committee for six years, and it's always been a very robustly bipartisan committee, whether under Democratic leadership or Republican leadership.
Frank Lucas, our outgoing chair, is just a wonderful gentleman from Oklahoma.
Brian Babin, I'm sure, given the district he represents in Texas, will be very focused on space issues because we do oversee a lot of the space program.
So, you know, I'm looking forward to the work of that committee.
I think the things that we are most concerned about with the incoming administration on the scientific front is certainly a lot of outright science denialism from RFK Jr.
What does that mean for NIH funding, making sure that we're prepared for future pandemics or diseases?
This is important stuff, and we need to fund scientific research even if it violates things that we might want to believe politically.
There has been talk about defunding NOAA, privatizing the National Weather Service, which in terms of our ability to monitor hurricanes and prepare for floods would be problematic.
Again, I haven't seen that formally, but it's a concern we have to be sensitive to.
And then, of course, we have an oversight function.
And Elon Musk is not a member of the cabinet, has not been proposed as a member of the cabinet, was not elected by anybody, but he has a massive financial interest in a company that has a lot of contracts with our space agencies and SpaceX and also has a lot of contacts with other foreign nationals and I think we have...
For us to be a co -equal branch, we need to be very vigorous and not presuming guilt, but making sure we're asking the hard questions to make sure that we are protecting our space resources and our national secrets from foreign adversaries where that might not always be in Elon Musk's financial interest.
This administration has spent a lot of time and money talking about green energy, so to speak, and making those investments.
Do you foresee clawbacks on that front next year?
So, I'm really proud of the work we did in the Inflation Reduction Act, as are my constituents.
I mean, I have never met anybody who wanted to pay more for energy.
And, you know, if you have a home that's got solar panels on your roof and you don't have to pay an electric bill, you're generally pretty happy about that.
If you have a house with an electric vehicle and an electric vehicle charger to pay gasoline, you're pretty happy about that.
When I say happy, you're happy in the sense that...
There's no scenario where we're going to say I'm going to shut down my solar panel because the power from the grid is cheaper.
On the other hand, if you have a coal plant, there's a lot of days where you might say I'm going to shut that down because it's cheaper.
What we did in the IRA was to provide incentives so that people who couldn't afford the upfront payment to buy that solar panel, to buy that vehicle charger, that that became more affordable so that all Americans could have access.
And we also were very intentional about trying to make sure we prioritize those investments, especially for the manufacturing, in areas that have historically depended on fossil energy to create jobs and local economy.
And as a result...
A lot of those investments have gone to very red parts of the country politically.
Not because we were targeting that, but because if you live in an area that depends more on extractive industries, where it's historically easier to permit things, you're probably, you know, in a more Republican community, if you live in an area that's more densely populated, harder to permit things,
depends on access to cheap energy, you're probably more likely represented by a Democrat.
So I'm...
I'm hopeful that there will be broad -based support to maintain those just because there's a lot of constituents all across the country who continue to want cheap energy and who continue to want to have the jobs that those investments are creating.
I think there will be a tension with this White House because the incoming White House, I think in a lot of cases, puts the interests of energy producers over consumers.
There are more consumers than producers in the country, but we just need to make sure that we keep reminding them of that fact.
This is Representative Caston joining us.
Sean Caston, our first call comes from Colorado, independent line.
This is Matt.
You're on with our guest.
Good morning.
Good morning, Matt.
Hi, good morning.
So I want to push back a bit on when you made a comment about how a continuing resolution is normal.
From my understanding, that's plan B from when you don't have the ability to actually make a budget.
My background is, I've worked for the DOD for 20 years, and every time there's a CR that comes through that puts up a question about how much money we're going to get to spend, when the money is going to come in,
are we going to shut down the government?
That shouldn't be normal.
And I tell you what, every year about this time, it causes about 25 to 30 percent of inefficiency in...
Okay.
Okay.
That's Matt there in Colorado.
In the event where you've done all the work and you need another week or so, that's why the CR is used.
Running for two years on CRs is deeply abnormal.
I completely agree with you, Matt.
Whether you're at the DOD or the Veterans Affairs, any agency should not have that uncertainty any more than somebody who works for any.
You know, if you're in the private sector and you don't know whether you're going to be able to continue a project you've been working on, it's really bad government.
You know, when we as Democrats were in the majority, we made a habit of always getting, not just the budgets, but the appropriations done by July, because we run into September fiscal year, so that we would have those out of the House, off to the Senate,
where the Senate could work them and get them back and get it done in time.
That is the way we're supposed to work.
We as Democrats don't have the gavels, and what's happened over the last two years is that in exchange for McCarthy getting the speakership, he granted positions on the Rules Committee that controls what comes to the floor to...
The nihilists in his caucus, to be very blunt about it, and they have not allowed any bill to come to the floor under regular order without having a bunch of poison pills in it that just make it not work.
So I agree with you, Matt.
We shouldn't be running this way.
And I'm sorry if you heard me say that differently.
But it's where we are because of the completely unusual situation created by the leadership on the Republican side of the aisle in this Congress.
Let's hear from Richard.
Richard in Georgia.
Republican line.
Hi.
Good morning.
Good morning, Richard.
Good morning, sir.
All this money that we're sending to Ukraine without Congress acting, why can't we take that same money and send it to the Americans first and give that money to North Carolina?
Put Americans first instead of some foreign country.
Yeah, so there's no reason we can't do both, but let's just talk about the consequences of failing to do both.
We have about $100 billion of aid for all those communities in North Carolina and Georgia that were hit by the hurricanes.
That's really important.
We should have got it done before now, but it is one of the additional line items in this continuing resolution.
It's important we do that, and if we didn't do that, we're leaving Americans behind, right?
That's the right thing to do.
As a separate matter...
What Ukraine has done is nothing short of heroic.
I would remind you that three years ago we thought that Russia was the second most powerful military in the world.
They've proven to be the second most powerful military in Ukraine.
We have not put a single American troop in harm's way, but the Ukrainians have held them at bay, have decimated their army and have reminded Europe that we still are here to defend the post -World War II order.
But if we were to allow, We're good to go.
Autocrats all over the world who would love to be able to go take territory from other people, I would point you to China's eyes on Taiwan.
If the United States does not oppose Russia's ability to taking Ukraine...
We're good to go.
Preserve the United States as the world's great and indispensable superpower, and I'm proud to maintain that title.
Representative Kasten, this is the headline that appeared in many fronts two weeks ago, saying that you introducing that privilege resolution to force the Ethics Committee to release the Matt Gaetz report.
Ultimately, what came about of that?
So what we tried to do on that was to remind our colleagues that there have been four times over the last 40 years when members of Congress have resigned while they were under ethics investigations.
In all four of those times, the Ethics Committee completed their work, and three of those four times the report was released to the public that you shouldn't be allowed to say you can resign to get away from investigation.
And what we wanted to do was to remind our colleagues that we continue that precedent.
Our colleagues unfortunately did not vote to compel the Ethics Committee to release that report.
The ethics committee, there's a few days left in Congress.
The ethics committee could still do the right thing.
They could still do what past ethics committees have done and vote to release the report, which my understanding is that report is completely finished.
And if it exonerates Mr. Gates, then it's in his interest to have it out there.
If it doesn't exonerate Mr. Gates, then I think it's in the interest of all future potential employers of Mr. Gates and the public writ large that if this is somebody who, you know, indeed did, as is alleged, accepted bribes, you know, We're going
to keep all options open at this point.
We don't need to...
Bang our head on the door and have the same result as last time, but certainly as situations evolve, we're preserving that option.
What other options would there be?
Well, the options would be to bring it to the floor again.
In the conversations that I've been having with other folks, what we're really trying to do right now is to really hope we can push the Ethics Committee to do their job and bring this forward, because that's the better way to get it done.
We shouldn't have to go to the floor to do this.
I'm also personally just very concerned that...
Good morning, Steve.
Good morning.
The legislative branch is a disgrace.
24 years now, no budget passed, continuing resolutions, omnibuses, and the MDA bill that you're just getting ready to ram through, that usually takes place when we're all asleep,
just the 24th or 25th when we're all in bed waiting for Santa to come.
I hope to God you guys aren't giving yourselves a raise.
In fact...
Your approval rating is always 13 and 14 percent.
That should be what you should be deducting from your salary.
In fact, you guys should be bringing your salaries down, because who gets in a raise when you're not doing your job?
And the disgrace of selling off this border wall for pennies on the dollars is unheard of.
And one final thing.
Everybody wonders about the problem with America.
Well, the legislative branch under Bill Clinton, with the senators and the House of Representatives, decided that outsourcing and offshoring would be a brilliant idea.
And as you can see, 40 years later, we don't have any jobs left in America.
And when you don't make anything, you don't contribute to the economy.
Okay, Steve.
That's a lot there for our guest.
But to the guest's first point, Representative, there is a provision reportedly in the CR that if it's passed, it would allow for cost -of -living adjustments to be resumed in a legislator's salary.
What do you think of that proposal?
So, let me give you a little bit of personal background.
I came to Congress after 20 years in the private sector, built and ran a number of clean energy companies.
I had the good fortune to make a little bit of money in the course of doing that, sold a company, and had the degrees of freedom personally that allowed You know, allowed our family for me to not work for a year to run for office and then go take a job where I cut my salary by 50 % and did it because I'm tremendously proud of this institution,
I'm tremendously proud of this government.
Of course it's not always perfect, but I felt the call to public service.
If you've never given members of Congress a raise, for 14 years they haven't had a raise.
And you can only attract people like me who made enough money in a prior line of work to be able to afford to come here.
And look, $174 ,000 a year, that's a lot of money to a lot of Americans.
I'm not dismissing that.
But to work in Congress, you have to maintain a house in two different cities.
You're traveling back and forth.
And I look at colleagues of mine like Katie Porter, who had two young kids in school and a single mom.
We're good to go.
For someone of these talents and abilities, how much could they make in another job?
And let's make sure we're paying them enough that we keep the best and brightest.
I've seen too many good people leave Congress because they've said, I've got to put some money aside so that my kids can go to college.
I've got to put some money aside for my retirement.
I'm just not doing that here.
That doesn't make Congress better.
And we saw there was a wonderful case study in Singapore.
About 15, 20 years ago, where Singapore did a fairly significant raise to all their parliamentarians, every measure of corruption in the Singaporean parliament collapsed afterwards because all of a sudden you didn't have people who were making other choices.
I'm not justifying the corruption, but I'm saying the problems that your caller raised about low congressional favorability, Congress not always doing the things that they want to do, well, you get what you pay for.
Good morning.
Thank you.
With regards to the spending in the budget, Representative, I have two areas I think that a lot can be saved.
First of all, the Space Force.
Which was started by Trump.
I think it's, I don't know, $80 billion.
And it was formerly part of the U .S. Air Force Space Command.
And then second of all is Guantanamo Bay.
I don't know how many billions of dollars it costs to keep that open, but I was reading the other day that there's only 25 prisoners there now.
Thank you.
So, yes, the Space Force, I'm not sure it's a huge line item.
As you point out, this was inside the Air Force before it moved out into a separate division.
We need that group overseeing the near -Earth orbits and overseeing our...
China is rumored to be targeting other satellites.
We need to make sure that we have a military presence in space.
It's more a shift in where those monies are spent than an additional resource.
I agree with you ethically about Guantanamo.
I agree we never should have gotten in there in the first place.
Not a huge line item relative to a $6 trillion federal budget, but from an ethical perspective, yes, we should be shutting it down.
The big muscle movements in the budget are...
Social Security, Medicare, and Defense.
If you're not touching those three things, you're really not doing much about the spending side of the budget.
The other piece, which is really, really important, and notwithstanding the prior caller, is the revenue side does matter.
The huge tax cuts that were provided the last time Trump was in office essentially grew our deficits by $2 trillion, more than that with interest.
That stuff really matters.
The reason why in the last term we included in the Inflation Reduction Act money to fund the IRS is because the IRS has told us that the gap every year between taxes due and taxes collected is almost a trillion dollars.
That's not saying we need to raise tax rates.
That's just saying we don't actually fund the police, the white collar police, well enough to go through and make sure that we collect the taxes that are due.
And what the IRS told us was that when they don't have the resources, The people they don't audit are rich people, because rich people have complicated taxes that are expensive to audit.
So it disproportionately benefits the people who could most give.
So let's fund the IRS.
Let's make sure we have a consistent tax code.
And once that's done, if we need to have a hard conversation about Social Security and Medicare defense, we can do it.
But let's not start there, because we created this self -inflicted wound.
I think this is a place where there's a lot more smoke than fire from everything that I've seen.
When you see people say there's unidentified aircraft in the sky, you can only see them at night, you can only see them in blurry pictures, and they look a lot like an airplane at long distance, but if you assume that they're closer distance, maybe it's a drone.
I think you should have your skeptical, spidey sense tingling.
Maybe there is something else going on, but I think the Occam's razor suggests that this is probably people seeing things in the sky that they are assuming is something else.
And if we get information to the contrary, of course we'll be open -minded about it, but this feels to me like, like I said, a lot of smoke and not very much fire.
And from your background in the Financial Services Committee, what do you think about the potential of another cut from the Federal Reserve?
I think it is important for the Federal Reserve to remain independent of political pressure, and so I want to be very careful about what I say here.
We have done, I think, the Fed's done a very good job of engineering a soft landing.
We've had historic rates of job creation really for the first time.
Maybe in forever.
We've seen surging job creation and declining inflation.
Those things usually don't happen.
Usually when job creation is going up, people are in a position to negotiate for higher wages.
We've actually seen upward pressure on wages.
And that's been a careful dance with the Fed and rate cuts.
Obviously, they're going to be looking at inflation very closely.
I think one of the challenges that I think, and I've talked with Jay Powell and others at the Fed about this, is that...
We're good.
If we push rates down to make houses more affordable, but then houses get more expensive on the back end and people can't afford housing, we should be looking at that trade as well.
And the Fed has it in their discretion to do that, but historically they've not taken that piece in there.
So I think it's going to be tense as we think about some of those pressures over the upcoming quarters.
Tom, on our Republican line, Oklahoma, we're running short on time.
Tom, so jump in with your question or comment.
Hello, Tom.
Yeah, there was an article I read the other day that said President Joe Biden, two days after President Trump was elected, that he waived $2 billion worth of sanctions to Iran.
Why would he do that?
Thank you.
I'll take my answer offline.
So there was an issue.
This was not an issue of sanctions per se, although you're close on it.
There was a bunch of money that was tied up.
We had the joint...
The JCPOA.
There was an agreement under Obama that said that the Iranian government would agree to We're good to go.
We're good to go.
Some better communication and undo the downside effects of that maximum pressure campaign.
It was not a lifting of sanctions.
I realize it's a little bit complicated, but I appreciate the question because sometimes the sound bites confuse the truth.
Representative Sean Kasten, Democrat from Illinois, joining us for this conversation on Washington Journal.
Thank you for your time today, sir.
Thank you very much.
And to the question of those legislative questions about drones and those sightings, where our next guest represents the association that deals directly with unmanned vehicles, Michael Robbins of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems.
Joining us next to talk about federal, state, and local concern over drone sightings.
We'll have that conversation when Washington Journal continues.
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Edward Aldrich with his book, The Partnership, George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the extraordinary collaboration that won World War II on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
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Washington Journal continues.
This is Michael Robbins.
He's the president and CEO of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems, talking about the recent news concerning drone sightings in the United States.
Mr. Robbins, thanks for your time.
Thanks so much for having me, Peter.
What's your organization?
Yeah, so AUVSI, as you said, the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International.
We represent companies that work in the uncrewed system space, so that's the air, ground, maritime domains, in both commercial and defense.
And we are sort of their...
We're good to go.
Yeah, so we view this as an opportunity to talk to the American people and have a conversation about the beneficial uses of drones, of which there are many.
Drones are an awesome tool for public safety, precision agriculture, medical delivery.
There are many use cases that are being employed right now, including in New Jersey, where there's lots of infrastructure inspection happening.
Roads, bridges, pipelines, power lines, drones are doing inspection of all those things on a regular basis.
So there's a lot of positive use cases for drones.
But at the same time, there are some pretty serious gaps in both drone enabling policy as well as in the policies that enable UAS detection and mitigation, or drone detection and mitigation.
So we view this as an opportunity to start having that conversation or continue a conversation we've been having.
What do you think of the level of concern that has been expressed,
not only about the vehicles themselves, but the origin of the vehicles?
And where's the truth in what's being said?
We're good to go.
To what's in the sky at night and misidentifying what is maybe a crewed aircraft, maybe it's a star, maybe it's a satellite, and sort of thinking, well, that's there at night.
It looks a little different.
It's not moving really fast.
It must be a drone.
And often that's not the case.
That's not to suggest that there aren't some legitimate, compliant drones operating along the eastern seaboard at night.
There are.
I mean, there are lots of missions that drones are undertaking compliantly and within the law.
I think what we've seen from the videos posted online, the overwhelming majority of them are either a hoax or just people misidentifying aircraft, including some very legitimate officials, members of Congress and others,
who think they saw something that they misidentified as a drone.
What misinformation have you heard?
Yeah, so there's definitely been people, like with anything that happens in the news, where people are trying to take advantage of the situation and suggesting that you know whether it's you know that the government is controlling these drones and and or you know, I'm not gonna repeat all the various hoaxes and myths, but but there's definitely been a lot of misinformation, and look that that comes without any situation.
Right when we had, you know, dramatic hurricanes earlier this year, you know people suggested that that government was controlling the weather.
You know there's there's been an online hoax that that you know, birds aren't real.
So you know there's all kinds of things that occur, and that Michael Robbins joining us for this conversation.
If you want to ask him questions about drones and their use, 202 -748 -8000.
If you live in the eastern and central time zones, 202 -748 -8001.
If you live in the mountain and Pacific time zones,
And you can also text us at 202 -748 -8003 if you want to post your, and you can also post your questions on Facebook and on X.
When it comes to oversight of how drones are operated, how much comes from the federal government?
Yeah, right now, drone, all airspace is federal.
So let's clarify that.
So all aircraft, whether it's a drone or a commercial aviation aircraft or general aviation, Only federal authorities are regulating those aircraft once they take off.
Local state officials do have some say around where they take off and land, with zoning permitting and things of that nature.
But once the aircraft is airborne, it's entirely federal authority.
And so then who exactly, what branches of the government deal with their regulation or their oversight?
Yeah, so it's primarily the Department of Transportation and more specifically the Federal Aviation Administration on the safety and operations side.
And on the security side, there's also a role for the Department of Homeland Security.
Is there enough being done, or is there enough manpower being done to make sure proper oversight is done on how these drones are used?
Sure.
Well, when it comes to drone policy, I think we look at it two different ways.
One, there's the sort of enabling regulations.
That's what's allowing people to fly in the airspace right now.
And I would suggest that the policies that are in place right now...
Are not enough to allow drone operations, particularly on the commercial side, to scale so that people start seeing on a more regular basis all the benefits that come with drones, whether again that's for public safety missions, search and rescue, or providing law enforcement,
tactical intelligence, or critical infrastructure, doing infrastructure inspection, using thermal or electrical optical cameras to inspect power lines and pipelines and such.
So many great use cases, but a lot of that is limited because the rules for enabling drones to operate at scale are not yet in place.
And I think that's part of what this challenge is, is people are seeing maybe drones and they're like, oh, that drone, should it be there?
Because they're not used to seeing them all the time.
And when drones become more commonplace, when the rules are in place to allow for drones to, oh, I need an onion for dinner, I'm just going to order one on my phone and it's going to be delivered seven minutes later.
Instead of having to get in my car and get on unsafe roads, when things like this start occurring more regularly, people won't have the same sort of reaction that they have now when they see a drone in the air, particularly at night.
Because it is still somewhat new and novel, despite the number of drones that are in the airspace.
On the other side, Congress hasn't updated the federal authorities for UAS detection and mitigation since 2018.
So a long time has passed, more than six years.
Since Congress last addressed federal authorities for UAS detection and mitigation.
And right now there's no authority for state, local, tribal, territorial governments at all.
So it only resists the federal level, and even that authority is extremely limited.
The Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense are the only four agencies that have that authority.
And it's not a standing authority.
In order to actually use that authority, they need to get...
There has been a national action plan released by the Biden administration in April of 2022.
That has not been acted upon by Congress.
There's a bill in the Senate that has strong support, has passed the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
There's a bill in the House that passed the House Homeland Security, but they did not come together to reconcile those bills.
As you know, they're leaving town in the next 24, 48 hours or so.
So it looks like it'll be at least January of 2025 when we have an opportunity to address expanding the authorities for UAS detection and mitigation.
And potentially delegating some of that authority to state and local governments so that they can have better airspace awareness.
I think airspace awareness is key.
When you have better awareness of what's actually in the sky and say, oh, that is a drone or that is a commercial aircraft or that is a helicopter, you give people a degree of comfort that's lacking right now.
This is Michael Robbins of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems.
He serves as their president and C .E .R.
First call is from Susan from New Jersey.
Okay, great.
Susan, good morning.
You're on with our guests.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
I have a call for Mr. Robbins.
Question.
If you're having dinner with your family outside, your kids and your grandparents and a person literally sitting on a drone or a drone who you don't know came and hovered right next to your table, how would you feel?
Because I see that coming and right now I found out that under U .S. law that's totally allowed and the police would not even be able to make that drone leave.
Because in 2016, the FAA took control over all airspace, including the air just above your backyard grass, and there's nothing to stop drones from flying over there.
I live in New Jersey.
I spend a lot of time outdoors.
I watch the birds.
I watch the stars.
I understand the companies you represent are working on dedicated drone corridors to support delivery routes.
We all like delivery convenience, but will those routes be over my house?
You know, Europe has already figured this out.
They have geo -zones and countries worked out, you know, where industry, local governments, real people, they have an organized system, and drones can't fly over your house unless they get permission.
And we don't have that yet.
And, you know, I think people need to think about, do I want drones over my backyard?
How close at all?
And to speak out, because right now, I think big tech is...
Susan, we'll leave it there for our guests to answer those concerns.
Great question, Susan.
And certainly, I respect the perspective that you're bringing to this conversation and a very thoughtful question.
Currently, whether it is a drone taking pictures of you or someone using binoculars or a cell phone camera or a telephonic lens, all of those have privacy violations.
A drone is just a tool no different than a camera phone that I have in my pocket and that you likely have at home or binoculars that you have.
And if someone is spying on you and invading your privacy, the same privacy protections that protect your home from a cell phone camera...
I don't know.
We're good to go.
I think?
They go out of their way to meet with the community and sort of dispel myths and concerns that the community may have.
And certainly at times there is a little bit of trepidation because this is new and people don't necessarily understand what these drones do and what they don't do.
But what we have found overwhelmingly is that once drones start working in the community, again whether it's for delivery or public safety or infrastructure inspection, they are very much welcomed.
And in fact in certain areas of the country like in North Texas where drone delivery has really taken off, We're good to go.
What drones do and what drones don't do.
So thank you Susan for that question.
She talked about airspace over houses.
Do you have a certain amount of privacy that way as far as the airspace over your house?
Sure.
So again, all airspace is federally regulated.
But again, in the same way that if someone was invading your privacy with a cell phone camera, those same privacy protections would extend to someone using a drone invading your privacy as well.
Let's hear from Wayne in Pennsylvania.
Go ahead.
Yes.
I don't know how many classes they send these people to to learn how to answer these questions, but 850 ,000 drones and it's just funny that we haven't seen any of them or any reports for forever.
Now all of a sudden there's thousands of them in the skies and I understand there's a container radioactive material mission in New Jersey and they could be looking for those, but why all of a sudden is there all these reports and all these drones flying?
So, thank you for that question, Wayne, from Pennsylvania.
So, according to FAA data from about 2023, so it's a little bit dated right now, on a daily basis, in New Jersey, for example, there are about 1 ,400 to 1 ,500 flights per day.
That's a lot of drone flights.
And you're right.
Maybe people didn't really pay attention to them anymore.
Drones are very, very small, typically.
They're very, very quiet.
And when they're operating at day or night, most of the time, people don't even notice that they're there.
So now, I think what we're seeing in New Jersey is maybe a few drones were spotted, particularly at night.
The drones that have been identified as actual drones.
Certainly we're operating compliantly.
They have lighting on them, indicating that they're not seeking to be there secretly, not seeking to be there stealthily.
If you were seeking to do some sort of nefarious mission, you wouldn't have navigation lights and strobe lights on your drone.
So I think people, to my point earlier, are just starting to maybe look up and pay attention a little bit more.
And then clearly there's been a lot of misidentification of other aircraft or stars or...
I think that tells you that an overwhelming majority of those sightings were not...
In those conversations with federal officials, what are you asking?
What are they saying?
You know, a lot of your callers are asking, and the American people are asking, you know, what is happening?
Is it, as it seems, which, you know, to me, which is that there are a few compliant drones, maybe some uncompliant drones, or is there something, you know, larger going on here?
And by and large, you know, the overwhelming response has been, you know, no sightings of any uncompliant drones.
What about other countries?
Are they flying these drones?
Have you heard anything on that front?
You mean here in the U .S.?
Yes.
I have not heard anything on that front.
We are certainly aware of other forms of intrusions into our nation, whether you have individuals seeking to break into military bases.
We certainly have a very serious cyber problem that's been well reported in the news.
You know, Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon, where foreign adversaries, particularly the People's Republic of China, are probing our networks into our telecommunications, into our water, into our electrical infrastructure.
Those are all very serious problems that we can verify right now.
Is there the potential that foreign adversaries, foreign nations are using drones or other technologies to attempt to probe our military bases and others?
Sure, that is possible, of course.
But there's no verification of that right now.
Let's hear from Michael in Florida.
You're on with our guest, Michael.
Go ahead.
Hi, good morning, gentlemen.
I enjoy the program.
I have a couple statements and a few questions.
My first statement is...
I feel that it's an insult to the American public to say that, oh, in general, you look up, you really don't know it's a drone, we're not used to looking up in the sky.
I don't buy that.
I think that within a day that the federal government could find what these drones are and just not find what they are, where are they originating from and what are they doing?
That's my statement.
My question is, I hear that they may be looking for radiation exposure.
That may be true or not, but I just feel that a general question and a general statement saying that the American public doesn't really know what a drone is.
A drone, it flies so slow, or it doesn't have a lot of space when it's going over a certain neighborhood.
And the size of these drones.
I just feel it's such a downplay to the intelligence of the American population to say that they don't really usually a public does not look in the sky.
They don't really know what they're seeing.
I feel that it's a little bit more just because of the actual quantity and the actual size of these drones.
What do you think about that?
And one more thing.
How many deliveries are...
You doing at 9, 10 o 'clock at night.
Do we have deliveries going on at that time of the hour?
Okay, Michael.
Thanks.
Yeah, great questions, Michael.
So I'll address your last question first.
There's not a lot happening on the drone delivery side at night, but certainly there are a lot of other missions that are occurring at night, whether it's public safety, most crime occurs at night, so a lot of local law enforcement use drones as tactical first response.
The governor of Maryland.
Certainly a well -informed individual.
We're good to go.
What he was actually viewing were commercial aircraft on approach and landing.
There's something in the night sky called the parallax effect.
When you're looking at a light, it's very hard to tell how far away it is, how fast it's moving or not moving at all.
There's optical illusions with lights at night.
So when you have that parallax effect occurring, things that could be mistaken as drones are clearly now being mistaken as drones when they're actually something very, very different from drones.
Take those two examples from two very well -respected elected officials and extrapolate that many, many times over throughout the American public.
And I think that is what's leading to this sort of...
Yes, thank you so much.
I really appreciate this segment.
So I was actually just wondering, there's been obviously a lot of videos circulating online.
There's videos of potential drones or UFOs over the Capitol.
I wanted to see if you have any tips or suggestions for citizens to remain literate around as more of these videos circulate.
Can they be generated by AI or are they real videos?
Are there any suggestions you have for that?
Sure.
Yeah, great question, Shannon.
Thank you so much.
I know that some social media sites do designate a video if it's clearly been used, generated with AI so that folks can make informed decisions.
I have seen a few videos myself that are very clearly altered or fake.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
Everything should be looked at with a certain degree of skepticism when it's posted online, particularly not from verified sources.
If the authority for drone operation ultimately comes from Congress, what should Congress offer to clarify what's going on currently and to resolve some of the issues that are going on currently?
Yeah, I think there's a couple things Congress should do.
One, they should hold the FAA accountable for instituting the rules that will normalize drone operations so that...
We can get past this sort of, you know, this is rare, this is unique, and drones become part of our regular everyday lives like many other forms of technology and many other forms of transportation so that we don't have this sort of skepticism of drones in the future.
Congress needs to update UAS detection and mitigation policy.
As I mentioned, it's been since 2018 since those rules have been updated.
A lot has changed since 2018.
And that is leaving a lot of state, local, federal, state, local, tribal, territorial We're good to go.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
We are under -investing and investing in some cases in the wrong things with our national airspace.
Whether it's our air traffic control towers or our air traffic controllers using paper strips to control air traffic the way they did in the 1960s, 95 % of air traffic controllers are still controlling air traffic using paper strips in 2024.
That's wild.
And I think it's indicative of the fact that we're spending a lot of money on our air traffic organization keeping...
This is Don from Wyoming.
Hello.
Hey good morning fellows enjoying the show so so my questions are this I'm a part 107 license holder and part of my curriculum pointed out highlighted that in order to operate a drone over traffic over public spaces where people were present you had to file a flight plan with the air traffic control request an exemption
I'm baffled by the notion that we don't know where these drones are coming from because if the flight plan isn't approved by the air traffic control or the exemption granted by the FAA
Thank you, Don.
Yeah, Don, first, congratulations on getting your Part 107 certificate.
What is that, by the way?
Yeah, for those that don't know, that is essentially the license to be able to operate drones in the U .S.
Beyond sort of just the recreational flying, you're really doing some sort of a service, a commercial drone operation.
So congratulations to you.
I think you're absolutely right in that there are certain segments of the airspace where you do need to have FAA approval to fly.
And that approval, Lance, is very easy to get.
It's typically done online.
You get approval from the local tower in relatively short time span.
And I think that actually speaks to the fact that because we have some rules and regulations in place, we certainly do need more.
But, you know, compliant operators like yourself, 107 operators are following the rules and they are doing things the right way, which is giving federal authorities, you know, the ability to understand what's in the air and have airspace awareness.
I think where there is a shortcoming is when you do have people that are not operating under 107 or are not, you know, seeking lance authorization and they're flying in airspace or maybe they shouldn't.
I think that happens uh, you know, very rarely.
It's not something we hear happening on a regular basis despite, you know, sort of this uh this, this current um, sort of speculation that drones are doing more than what they really are.
In those cases, you do need to have the, the UAS detection and mitigation technology and policies in place that i've been discussing to give all levels of government, you know, better airspace awareness.
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Washington Journal continues.
Again, it's open forum.
You can talk about anything when it comes to policy or politics.
202 -748 -8001 for Republicans.
Democrats, 202 -748 -8000.
Independents, 202 -748 -8002.
Speaker Johnson yesterday talking about that short -term spending deal that Congress would like to see passed before the deadline this week.
He talked about some of those details of the proposal yesterday.
We worked really hard to achieve consensus on a bill that responsibly funds the government into March of next year.
It'll go to March 14.
And that date was chosen because it coincides with the calendars of the House and Senate and it makes sense for us to get the appropriations done.
But our aim is to do it early in the year, not wait until March and all the...
Appropriators and the people on the committees of jurisdiction are already working to do that.
We've been working around the clock to get the CR done.
It was intended to be, and it was until recent days, a very simple, very clean CR, a stopgap funding measure to get us into next year when we have unified government under the Republican Party.
But a couple of intervening things have occurred.
We had, as we say, as we describe them, acts of God.
We had these massive hurricanes, as you know.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
Axios reporting that Elon Musk has come out today against that CR bill for funding the federal government.
The bill has just days to pass until that 20th December deadline.
Some Republican lawmakers have rallied against it and quote, this bill should not pass.
Close quote, said the richest man in the world.
He wrote on X to his over 2 million, 200 billion followers and then adding, ever seen a bigger piece of pork?
Yes, I'm calling about A place in Texas called Liberty County, Texas.
There is a big housing development being put in there.
They have sold 30 ,000 land things to illegal aliens.
There's two guys, they had grew up in that area.
It was a small quaint town.
All of a sudden about 50 ,000 Spanish people showed up.
And these two guys are trying to start a development.
And it's called Torre Nose.
I can't...
Okay.
And what they're doing down there is they're loaning money to illegal immigrants to buy property, like one acre lots.
They're filling it all up with trailers, side by sides.
And what they're doing is they're charging these people 13 % interest.
Did you say this took place in Texas?
Sure.
The reason I ask is, you're in Ohio, why are you concerned?
We're trying to move the illegals out of our country, but if you've got illegals in here that are owning land, that's going to give them an anchor also.
It's going to make it harder to get them out of here by letting them buy property.
And these guys, there's a couple brothers that grew up in that area.
Okay.
You said that's all.
I'll leave it there.
Let's hear from Jay in Maryland, Democrat's line.
Hello.
Hi.
So, Trump, like...
Nixon was the first Republican.
A Republican could go to China.
A Democrat couldn't.
Reagan, with Gorbachev, almost eliminated all the nuclear weapons.
That was in 1986 at Reykjavik, Iceland.
That almost happened.
So Trump could do the same thing.
As a Republican, he could get away with it, cutting nuclear weapons.
Now, if you say we shouldn't get to zero through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, okay, then under 500 for the world makes it a lot safer.
And, you know, anyway.
Just a quick item, too, is for DOE, Department of Government Efficiency, Musk and all those guys, what they need to do is go after all the thousands, tens of thousands, maybe more people that keep their money in offshore places.
They hide their money from the IRS.
They don't pay taxes on it.
The Isle of Man, all kind of places like that.
Check the Panama Papers from a few years back.
So they should not cut IRS people.
They should increase the staff so they can go after the rich.
Okay.
That's Jay there in Maryland.
Speaking of the president -elect, the Des Moines Register reporting this morning that the president -elect has sued the Des Moines Register and its parent company, Gannett.
Over the publication of a poll before the election that called, quote, fraud and election interference for saying that he called that, for saying that he trailed his Democratic rival, the Vice President Kamala Harris in Iowa.
The lawsuit filed on Monday in Polk County District Court asked for unspecified damages under the state's Consumer Fraud Act.
It seats, quote, accountability for brazen election interference committed by, quote, the newspaper and pollster J. Ann Selzer.
Hi, how you doing?
I listen on C -SPAN radio, so I don't know what anybody looks like.
I wanted to talk to the drone guy, but I got in too late.
National Public Radio, a couple of weeks ago, did a story on drones in Gaza that are loaded with weapons that are shooting just civilians,
like on the streets and stuff.
And nobody's following this story, and I'm kind of flabbergasted by this happening.
They call them quadcopters, and NPR is getting actual stories from people who've seen this happen, and nobody's following it.
It's kind of disturbing because, you know, it could be happening here.
From what I read online, they are built in Florida and then sent to Israel.
So we're building these weapons here and sending them to Israel.
Just wanted to say that.
Maybe somebody else has read that or heard this someplace.
Thanks a lot.
Curtis there in Wisconsin.
In the pages of the Wall Street Journal this morning, a story about Canada's efforts when it comes to border security.
This is by Paul Vieira.
Canada unveils a border plan to avert the Trump terror threat.
Saying that the administration of the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday would spend 1 .3 billion Canadian dollars or the equivalent of 900 million over six years for border security.
The additional cash would be used to acquire dogs, drones, helicopters and mobile surveillance towers and deploy hundreds of new border agents.
According to the most recent documents, Canada's government spends about 2 .2 billion Canadian dollars a year on border enforcement.
I was just calling about the possible government shutdown or continuing resolution.
If you will look at most federal employees, I would like to know the amount of employees that are under a six figure that are not like our constituents that are in D .C.
I would like to remind you that we do have family and we do have
If I may ask, being there in Oklahoma, do you work for the federal government?
I do.
Have you been through this before as far as shutdowns?
Well, it impacts you because if you have a family to take care of or mortgages or expenses, it impacts you if you don't get a paycheck.
I know with ops funding, they get reimbursed, but in franchise funds, we don't.
There's Angela giving her perspective on that possible shutdown.
Again, legislation released yesterday to try to avoid that.
Let's hear from Christina in Illinois.
Democrat slide.
Yes, good morning.
My statement for today is with Trump trying to sue this newspaper lady in Iowa.
I mean, is it going to get down or he's wanting to shut down?
You know, news agencies.
Well, that's, you know, in the First Amendment, the freedom of the press.
And I find it quite worrisome that, you know, he's already trying to be a dictator and following, you know, other dictators' orders.
I mean, it seems like the last person he talks to is, you know, that's a good idea, and he goes with that.
And this is kind of frightening.
And that's all I wanted to say today.
Thank you, and everybody have a happy holiday.
Bye -bye.
Speaking of the president -elect, he said Tuesday that he would nominate the former NFL player and one -time Georgia Senate candidate, Herschel Walker.
Hi, good morning.
I just wanted to bounce back off of the subject about the drones.
Um, and I truly believe that a lot of the American citizens and a lot of loyal patriots are concerned about what those drones are and where they're coming from, and I believe that we deserve 100 full transparency on what they are, where they're coming from and exactly what they're doing every single drone, and I believe we should know why they're up there in real time.
And the reason I believe that we're worried is because what's to say that those very drones can't be used against the very people if the people don't 100 % agree with the powers that be and can be labeled terrorists?
Especially people that are currently American patriots.
What's to say that we won't do any harm to them?
I'm just worried about everybody and everything and I believe that full disclosure is important.
The vote, which had not been previously reported, amounts to a stark reversal for the panel after it voted along party lines in late November not to release the results of the investigation.
Thank you.
The decision to release the report suggests that some Republicans ultimately decided to side with Democrats on the matter, and it is unclear if the committee will once again change course now that it has voted.
Again, so look for that reporting.
Look for that to possibly happen in the days ahead as the Congress finishes out.
Let's hear from Eileen.
In Florida, Democrats line.
Hi.
Good morning.
Two topics.
The first one is the defamation lawsuit that Trump is brought against ABC and now against the, I guess she was a poller.
She predicted the polls.
You know, if anybody had a right to sue Trump for defamation, it would be Obama.
Because Trump claimed he had proof that Obama wasn't born in America.
He also said, called Obama the leader of ISIS.
So if anybody had a right to sue Trump, it would be Obama.
And I wish he had, and maybe he still can.
The second thing regarding drones, we have what, almost a million weapons in our country floating around the streets?
I'm a lot more worried about weapons.
Paul is next in California, Independent Line.
Yeah, I'm worried about Elon Musk and SpaceX.
These satellites that he's sending up, we don't know what they're doing.
We do know they can cut communications.
We've got to be careful that Elon Musk doesn't own the skies and be able to cut our communications whenever he wants, wherever he wants.
That concerns me.
Thank you.
Charles joins us from New York, Republican Line.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I'm just getting sick and tired of hearing this crap about all they're going to cut Social Security and Medicaid and all that crap.
It's all a bunch of crap.
They've been preaching this stuff for years, the Democrats have.
The ones that put the tax on it was Joe Biden.
He's the one that put the tax on your friggin' Social Security.
So I don't understand these people.
They're just ignorant.
Thank you.
One of the things that took place on the House floor yesterday was the last speech of Democratic Representative Jennifer Wexton of Virginia.
This is reported by local radio WTOP.
She is a three -term congresswoman representing North Virginia, delivering her final speech on Tuesday as she steps away from Congress due to a severe illness.
She decided to leave politics after she was diagnosed with progressive supernuclear palsy, an aggressive neurological disorder similar to Parkinson's disease that impacts many aspects.
But the speech that she gave yesterday was made by a computer in which she communicates through because it has an artificial intelligence program that replicates her voice.
Here's a portion of that speech from yesterday.
Why would you want to?
It was a very serious and sobering moment, but in truth, I had plenty of answers for him.
Above all, I did and still very much do believe in the possibility to bring hope and make change in the lives of those we serve here.
As I battled this disease which robbed me of my ability to move and speak, I wanted to make the most of my platform to bring some good out of this terrible situation.
As I mentioned, my best ideas for legislation often come from personal stories constituents share with me.
Now, it was my own struggle that I hope to help turn into meaningful change in policy.
One of my proudest moments in Congress has been successfully helping lead the bipartisan national plan to end Parkinson's Act, to become law.
The most consequential legislation ever passed to tackle Parkinson's and related conditions like my PSP.
It will go a long way toward improving and saving lives.
This has been a journey which has been so challenging, yet one which I am proud to have stood strong in and done my part to give hope and comfort to others facing similar battles.
Our disabilities and our health struggles do not define who we are, and I feel more strongly than ever that it is so important to share that truth with the world.
Representative Jennifer Wexton from yesterday.
Let's hear from Ron in Pennsylvania, Democrat's line.
Go ahead.
I would never stand for the American flag again as long as...
Donald Trump's in office.
He's a convicted felon.
We got a HHS guy that throws dead bears in the Central Park.
He hauls the whales on his roof.
We got a WWE woman that's going to be education.
We got a Fox News guy that's going to be head of defense.
I mean, this is going to hell.
So that's all I got to say.
Bye.
You heard about the final, at least the events of the final days of the president.
His wife also being highlighted in the Washington Post this morning about the end of her tenure at Teaching Community College here in Northern Virginia.
This is from the Post saying that First Lady Jill Biden's taught her last class at the college, which she joined as a professor in 2009, while Second Lady and later as First Lady.
Biden, an educator for 40 years and a longtime community college's advocate, announced she was stepping away from NOVA during a virtual thank you event.
It goes on to say that Biden, who is known to her students as Dr. B, taught English and writing full -time at the Alexandria, Virginia campus of NOVA while serving as first lady, the first to fully maintain a professional career while in the White House.
Education advocates have seen her as an ally who can make sure teachers and students were top of the president's mind.
That's in the Washington Post.
Let's go to Florida.
That's where James is.
Republican line.
Yes, good morning.
I just wanted to make a comment on your previous guest, the congressman from Illinois.
We got on space and technology.
I wanted to just make a comment to compare and contrast whether the incredible success Elon Musk has had with SpaceX is sort of Launching satellites and space technology relative to the once great NASA,
which has now been overcome under its new administrator, or current administrator, Senator Nelson, who I'm familiar with being a Floridian, and I used to interact with him when he was our senator,
at the altar of DEI and how An incredible organization like SpaceX can do the things they've done, and that's all they're concerned about is promoting incompetent people because of the color of their skin and their sex.
The best book ever written about SpaceX rights in our NASA was written by the late writer, the great brilliant writer Tom Wolfe called The Right Stuff.
We went to the moon and beat the Russians and had 50 years ago with white...
Paul, let me stop you there.
John, in New York, in Syracuse, New York, Democrats line high.
The listening audience, open borders is going to cost the Democrats the election.
And they hung their hat on abortion, which is a winning issue for them.
But I said all along, you can't have open borders.
You had caravans, caravans of these thousands of people invading this country, and the Democrats thought, that's fine, that's fine.
They blew it when they opened the borders.
Take a stance on immigration that the American people support, and they do not support open borders.
That's how they blew it.
Rita is in Kansas, Independent Line.
Hi.
Hi.
Americans seem to have an awfully short -term memory process.
When Trump was president, gas was almost a giveaway due to COVID.
Then he writes checks out to Americans.
I donated half of my checks to COVID supplies.
He's a poor leader.
He is going to be worse this time around.
Four more years, I don't think I can do it without a support group.
He will never be my president.
So I wish people would think about that when they think he is so good on the economy.
This was Rita in Kansas.
Tina joins us next.
Tina from North Carolina.
Democrat's Line.
Yes, my concern is letting all those darlings out that caused murder and invasion in the Capitol.
I was hoping President Biden could put a stop to that.
Trump already getting away with murder and convictions of bad things that he has done, never been charged with anything.
And another thing, President Biden had the right to let his son be free because Trump already talking about picking at that family.
As a president, we don't need that.
We don't need no one to pick at other people.
We need somebody to get these guns off the street that's killing these...
Good morning.
I can't believe you cut corners earlier.
You shut him off.
I mean, how did we get here to this point to where that fellow was saying that he wanted white men?