Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
|
Time
Text
Batya Unger Sargon discusses her book, Second Class, How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women.
Watch live and join the discussion on Washington Journal Monday morning, starting at 7 Eastern on C-SPAN.
C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app or online at c-SPAN.org.
Today, President-elect Donald Trump gives keynote remarks at an event in Phoenix, Arizona, hosted by Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action.
That'll be live at 1230 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-SPAN.org.
Book TV, every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
At 1.15 p.m. Eastern, we go to Nashville, Tennessee for the Southern Festival of Books.
Authors will discuss Southern history, life on death row, American workers, and more.
And at 8 p.m. Eastern, former President Bill Clinton talks about life after leaving the White House in his new memoir, Citizen.
Then at 9.15 Eastern, Andy Puzder, former CEO of CKE Restaurants, takes a critical look at stakeholder capitalism, which he argues is a form of socialism that will hurt the middle and lower classes in America.
He's the author of the book, A Tyranny for the Good of Its Victims.
Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN, too, and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
C-SPAN is your unfiltered view of government.
We're funded by these television companies and more, including Comcast.
Oh, you think this is just a community censor?
No, it's way more than that.
Comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers to create Wi-Fi-enabled lifts so students from low-income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything.
Comcast supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy.
Good morning.
It's Sunday, December 22nd, 2024.
With the government shutdown averted, much of the work of Washington is wrapping up for the year, winding down the last of the Biden administration and preparing for President-elect Donald Trump's second term.
Our question this morning, how are you feeling about the next Trump presidency?
If you're feeling optimistic, 202-748-8000.
If you're feeling pessimistic, call us at 202-748-8001.
If you're not sure, that number is 202-748-8002.
You can also text us.
That number is 202-748-8003.
Just please be sure to include your name and where you're writing in from.
And you can also find us on social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
Now, there has been quite a bit of polling looking at how Americans are feeling about the incoming Trump administration, including reporting here in Fox News about a Monmouth University poll, finding a majority of Americans are optimistic about Trump's agenda, a poll finds, despite tariff concerns.
A majority of Americans say they are optimistic about the policies President-elect Trump will pursue in his incoming administration, according to a new poll from Monmouth University.
That poll found that 53% of Americans are either very or somewhat optimistic about Trump's second term.
Now, that's a slight rise from the weeks prior to his first term, when just 50% of Americans said they were optimistic.
The only segment of Americans who are less optimistic about Trump's second term than they were about his first term are Democrats, with just 10% saying they look forward to the next four years.
There's been other polling, as reported in Reuters, showing about how people are feeling about Trump more generally.
In a polarized America, 41% of Americans have a favorable view of Trump, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll.
Finding that about two in five Americans view President-elect Donald Trump favorably, fewer than when the Republican was on the cusp of his first presidential term, a new Reuters-Ipsos poll showed.
Some 41% of respondents in the three-day poll, which closed on Sunday, that's last Sunday, said they viewed Trump favorably, while 55% viewed him unfavorably as his January 20th inauguration approached.
That was down from Trump's 51% favorability rating in December 2016 after his stunning victory in that year's election, even though for months he had garnered ratings around 40%.
The post-election boost carried into the initial months of his 2017 to 2021 terms.
Now, those were looks at polling looking at both how people are feeling about Trump's policies as well as Trump in general.
President-elect Donald Trump himself spoke with reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Monday and says that he is now better able to enact his agenda this time around.
So we're inheriting big challenges at home and all over the world.
Again, we had no wars.
We had no problems.
We had no inflation.
We had no inflation.
We had it less than 1%, a perfect number.
And then we had inflation, the likes of which I say I don't believe the country's ever seen inflation like that.
They say 38 years.
I don't know.
I think it's probably ever, but we're going to take care of all of it.
We're going to get the prices down by energy.
The energy is going to come in.
We have more energy than anybody else.
We're going to use it.
We don't have to buy energy from Venezuela when we have 50 times more than they do.
It's just insane what we're doing.
So we will not rest until America is richer, safer, and stronger than it has ever been before.
And we have a big head start.
Last time we didn't.
And last time we didn't know the people.
We didn't know a lot of things.
But by the time we got it up and going, it was incredible.
Again, we built the greatest economy in history for that period of time.
And we'll do it again, I believe substantially more so, because we understand, number one, the people of Washington.
I know them.
I didn't know any of them virtually.
I relied on other people for recommendations.
Some were very good recommendations.
We had some great people.
Bob Lighthizer, I thought, was great.
We had a lot of great people.
But we had some people that I wouldn't have used in retrospect.
And now I know them better than anybody, better than they know themselves.
Now, in terms of the Democratic perspective on the incoming Trump administration, there's reporting here in The Hill.
Democrats recalibrate their resistance to Trump.
Democrats are not planning an all-hands resistance to President-elect Donald Trump, at least not in the 2016 style, when lawmakers, activists, volunteers, and millions of angry voters mounted a party-wide effort to curb his newfound influence in Washington.
Where so much was once unprecedented, Trump is now familiar.
Ahead of January 2025, the lack of a unified Democratic rebuttal to his second term is the latest sign that the party's just beginning to soul search, trying to figure out what went wrong before banding together to bash the GOP.
Now last week, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut spoke out against Trump's agenda and warned about an oligarchy of wealthy elites trying to take power.
Mr. President, I'm on the floor today to talk to my colleagues about something that is happening right in front of our eyes.
It's a set of events that aren't random.
They're connected to one another that threaten to destroy this country that we love.
Everybody can see it, but for some reason, maybe the exhaustion of the aftermath of a brutal election, maybe the distraction of the Christmas season, maybe just an instinct to flee instead of fight, there are far too many people that are denying to themselves what they are seeing.
What is happening right now is that Donald Trump and his billionaire advisors are unfolding for the country in real time a plan to transition this country from a democracy to a restrictive oligarchy where political opposition is silenced,
where the media isn't free, and where government just exists to enrich a small cabal of elites that surround the man in charge.
I know a lot of my colleagues do see how these dots exist and how they connect.
And I know in your gut, a lot of you see the specter of the disaster that is coming.
But if you don't, I want to spend just a few minutes laying it out.
And to make things simple, I'm just going to focus on three events that happened in the last seven days.
The recommendation by House Republicans that Trump critic Liz Cheney be subject to criminal prosecution, the lawsuit filed by Trump against an Iowa pollster in an Iowa newspaper, and the decision by ABC to pay Trump $15 million to get rid of a bogus lawsuit.
And now we're ready to hear your perspectives on how you're feeling about the incoming Trump administration, whether you're optimistic, pessimistic, or not sure.
Some comments we've already received from text and social media.
Sandy in Bloomington, Indiana says, I am quite pessimistic regarding Trump's presidency, beginning with his picks for cabinet members, et cetera.
And then on X, Deb Johnson says, I am very optimistic that our future is in the best hands.
However, the current administration is doing everything it can to take our country down before it leaves.
And another comment from X from Elvin Brown.
I'm very optimistic that Trump will bankrupt our nation.
Now to your calls.
James is in Fort Myers, Florida, and is pessimistic about the incoming administration.
Good morning, James.
Good morning.
Yes, I am quite pessimistic.
Now remember, I'm just one of these poor people out here trying to make a living and trying to, you know, live my life.
Try to be as objective and fair as I can be about things, but I will tell you, mark this day, of those of you who want to, that two years from now, he will be impeached.
He'll be lucky to even make it two years.
Now, James, what in particular has he pessimistic about the incoming Trump presidency?
Are there particular policies?
Well, there's not hardly anything about it that I find positive.
He's just chaotic.
This last deal with the passage of the CR and so forth.
He just threw a wrench in the works.
It's like he enjoys screwing things up as much as he can.
Now, I'm not saying that that was particularly right, but I doubt that he knew any more about it than I did.
The man, if he's talking, he's lying.
Okay.
Let's hear from Dan in Louisville, Kentucky, who's optimistic about the second Trump term.
Good morning, Dan.
Good morning.
I tell you, Trump derangement center is still strong and steady.
But the only way he gets impeached if he, you know, has a bunch of rhinos.
But I believe he'll do good just like he did the first term.
He got quite a bit done, content.
Being that he had to fight the Democrat, Republican, mainstream media, you know, he got a lot of things done.
I think he'll get a lot more done now this time because everybody's tired of the same old, same old.
And, you know, it's just like the last four years.
Every time I got the cost of living increase, they took more away than they give me on something else.
Just like this year, you get a $24 raise, they take $26 from your SNAP benefits.
So every year I get less and less, but under Trump.
Are you referring to your Social Security, Dan?
Yes.
I got a $24 increase, and then the SNAP benefits, they took 26.
It's been like that for the last four years.
I'd rather them not give me a raise, and that way I'm going to be at least breaking even, you know, instead of losing every year.
Under Trump, I always had extra.
Are there particular things about some of the policies that President-elect Trump has suggested that you're looking forward to?
Oh, yeah.
Deportation, closing the border.
Hopefully, you know, I'm hoping he could bring groceries down because I'll tell you what, it's tight for me.
I'm a diabetic, and I try to eat, you know, good.
You know, I like salads, but all the stuff you're getting for salads, it's awful high, you know.
But once prices are up, you know how hard they are to come down.
You know, he'll have a better chance bringing gasoline down than groceries.
People, you know, they things like, well, they're used to it now.
Just keep it that way.
Well, you know what?
If it's going to be like that, the real poor people, they're having a hard time, especially us as elderly and, you know, having the benefits cut.
You know, I don't know how they figure it.
You know, they say, well, it's because you're LGE, you know, your gas and electric bill.
Well, they check, they take it at fall.
Well, during the summer, you're not using that much heat and air.
During the winter, my bills double.
Why don't they take it during the winter?
That way they wouldn't be gouging me, you know, taking more from me than I'm getting.
All right.
I'm going to go to another caller.
Let's hear from Vincent in Gatorsburg, Maryland, who's not sure.
Good morning, Vincent.
Well, I'm not sure about what's going to happen in the future, except that based on Trump's past history, I am sure that it'll be a lot better than right now.
And the last call, Trump is not going to.
Social Security will not be cutting Medicare, alveeting.
Everything will be in place.
C-SPAN, ENN, MSNBC, Fox, et cetera.
You folks, my concern is the maltreated.
He's an old man, elderly.
No, I don't go along with Biden, but he's still a senior citizen.
Your own Wall Street Journal say he is not fit to function.
Yet you people and you C-SPAN are supposed to be on top of all of these things.
Seems to me you're covering this up.
Trump would do fine.
My concerns are on national security.
Biden can't even sign the bill into effect.
So who is going to sign it for?
It'll look like he's signing.
Who is running our country now?
One last thing.
One caller said he was appalled that unelected officials are running.
Well, let me tell you something, Carla.
We have elected officials right now running our country.
It is not Biden.
And C-SPAN, you just deny these facts.
Anyway, everybody have a Merry Christmas.
And everything's going to be fine with Trump.
Certainly a lot better.
Take care.
Charlie is in Oneida, New York, and is pessimistic about the incoming Trump administration.
Why is that, Charlie?
I just feel that he knows the game a little better now than he did when he was first elected.
And I think the GOP is more willing just to roll over and do his will than before.
I don't see any Republican with a backbone that can stand up to him.
And his agenda is it is taking us back to a place where we really should not be as a country.
We should be going forward.
All right.
Let's hear from Paul in the UK calling all the way from England, who's not sure.
Good morning, Paul.
Hello there.
Hello there.
Yes, I think hopefully Fingers Trust will have a peaceful world if Mr. Donald Trump does get does sort of give Will peace of the next few years.
If not, let's certainly peace after 2013 beyond all that time because the world deserves peace and also peace of all right and let's hear from Paul in Cornwall, New York, who is optimistic about the Trump administration coming in.
Good morning, Paul.
Hey, good morning.
I'm very optimistic about the Trump administration, the new Trump administration coming in.
It's going to be a lot better than what we got.
Well, what's supposed to be in the White House right now because no one knows really where Joe Biden is or Kamala Harris.
So as far as I'm concerned, Trump is president.
He's already taking control.
And I want to thank them very much for noticing that 40% pay raise that Congress wanted to give himself and they put the kibosh on that.
No way through a 40% increase.
I mean, I don't believe it was a 40% pay raise.
If I'm not mistaken, I believe it was 6%.
But let me pull up the exact detail so we can get that number right.
But continue your point while I look for that.
I'm looking forward to seeing the border finally getting secured and getting the fentanyl out of this country.
You know, the Democrats are screaming, oh, drug addiction and this and that, but they do nothing about it.
And as far as everybody else saying, well, the GOP is going along with Trump's agenda.
Well, what do you think the Democrats would do if Harris was elected?
They'd go along with her agenda.
That's just the way this is played.
So, Paul, before I let you go, Paul, I just want to read about that 40% number.
So there is a fact check on that in Reuters saying that the bipartisan stopgap spending bill did not include a 40% pay raise for Congress.
The temporary spending bill scuttled by opposition from President-elect Donald Trump would have made U.S. Congress members eligible for a 3.8% salary increase, not 40% as suggested in posts online that misinterpret a report on congressional salaries.
So those posts refer to the bipartisan deal unveiled on December 17th.
That was the original continuing resolution.
The revised stopgap bill does not have the pay raise, but did that version included a raise to the national debt ceiling.
So I'm trying to find the exact detail here.
The bill would have ended a long-time pay freeze, allowing lawmakers to be eligible for a 3.8% salary increase in January, which would have been equal to $6,600.
So that is the detail on that there, Paul.
Did you have any other points before I let you go?
Fact-checking me.
No, I'd like you to fact-check me on that.
I do appreciate that, but still, they don't even deserve that because the working class in America isn't even getting that.
So have a Merry Christmas, everybody, next year.
All right.
Carl is in Chicago, Illinois, and is pessimistic about the incoming Trump administration.
Good morning, and why is that, Carl?
Yes.
There's two principal things that concern me.
One is Trump's unwillingness to even acknowledge climate change, which is our only real existential threat in the world because humans are big animals and we need a lot of clean air and not a really warm world.
Secondly, there was a book written, How Democracies Fail.
And one of the principal parts of the book indicated that if the two political parties in Congress yet can cooperate, they can get the work of democracy done.
However, if they think of each other as totally the awful people, they will not manage to negotiate and conclude some logical things.
So I suppose those are the two biggest concerns that worry me about the Trump administration and the Congress we have seen.
Thank you.
Okay.
Arthur is in Winter Garden, Florida, and is optimistic about Trump's next term.
Good morning, Arthur.
Yes, ma'am.
If we can cut the waste in our government, all the wasteful projects, that's going to be a very big improvement.
If we can take care of America first and not get involved in everybody else's conflicts, that will be an improvement.
Thank you.
So, Arthur, before I let you go, President-elect Donald Trump has suggested and is planning to set up this new Department of Government Efficiency to deal with potential government waste.
What do you think of that proposal?
I think that's a step in the right direction.
Okay.
Jasper is in Memphis, Tennessee, and is pessimistic about the incoming Trump administration.
Good morning, Jasper.
Good morning.
Got a couple of things here, real quick.
Number one, I listen to these old poor Republicans live out in a rural area around these people, around these towns, all these people that these blacks and Mexican that voted for Trump.
Look at the last four years.
The last two years Trump was in office.
This country was in ruins.
We were out of jobs, people in food lines, nothing in stores.
These supply lines broke down.
He was in Mar-a-Lago golfing and trying to hide dollars.
You mean during the pandemic?
During the pandemic time.
The last two years now, they got it real good.
And now he's coming in with the same policy.
The first policy he wants to do is to bail out the farmers.
He the one went to China and they messed it up.
Why should the taxpayers mess up something that he went over and messed up?
You know what I'm saying?
And every time that they're talking about money, these all they'll say is about money.
There's nothing about community.
Every time that they get to him, I hear these old poll jokers calling from out in the country: money, money.
I had more money under Trump.
You did not have no money under Trump.
Trump gave you a tax break, but now your retirement, when you get Social Security time, you're going to have less.
See, Trump is not going to do nothing, man.
Six months, you're going to see the difference.
We're going to be going back in the depression and recession time because nobody, other countries, is going to want to work with Trump.
They already done told him.
So you're going to fly your little flag and bring this little stuff about, but we are hitting for a hard time, Erica.
I mean, a very hard time.
It's coming.
Thank you.
Jeffrey is in Greensboro, North Carolina, and is optimistic about Trump's second term.
Good morning, Jeffrey.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking the call and happy holidays.
She Stan does an excellent job.
It's amazing.
This is really amazing that the wonderful blessing of being in a position to everybody have their opinion.
But here's the fact: it is out just over the top that you have a man.
Nobody's talking about this.
It's fading away.
He has 34 felonies convicted.
You have persons, people out here that has maybe one infraction that can't even have an opportunity to survive.
So, Jeffrey, what are you optimistic about?
Absolutely.
What he's going to do is make sure, we are sure, the second time around, are we talking about the wall or stopping drugs?
No, he's going to make sure, absolutely, he's going to get his debt back from the pending charges or litigation on that civil aspect.
He's going to get his money back.
And as far as the drugs-wise, this is just another on a larger scale.
They really wanted to, from any president before him, wanted to stop the flow of drugs.
Think about how it was in the 70s in the communities, the black communities, that was destroyed, families destroyed right now to the present because of the drug infestation back then.
There is no way they're going to realistically fix that, which should have been the top agenda in America back then.
This is just now overlapping.
And as far as the people that administration has run in the country, it is just beyond that.
All these educators, the people who are bringing their reviews, are looking at that is no big deal.
Where can anybody else be a felon or convicted, went to federal prison and get a job like that?
So it seems like you're not actually optimistic, and you called it on the optimistic line.
So, but Jeffrey did mention policies around drugs, and there is quite a bit of, you know, reporting regarding various policies that the incoming Trump administration might do.
This is a poll from the Washington University, the University of Maryland and Washington Post, has done a poll looking at support for various Trump policies, including one of the things that Trump has associated with the drug problem in the United States, which is mass deportations.
And so, in terms of the using the U.S. military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, 42% of people in the poll supported that idea versus 54% opposing that specific idea.
Let's hear a little bit more from President-elect Donald Trump when he was speaking at his news conference last week about another one of his policy proposals: tariffs.
We took in $600 billion and more in taxes and tariffs from China.
No other president took in 10 cents, not 10 cents, not 10 cents.
And no, well, we're going to be doing things.
We're going to be treating people very fairly.
But the word reciprocal is important because if somebody charges us India, we don't have to talk about own, if India charges us 100%, that we charge them nothing for the same, you know, they send in a bicycle and we send them a bicycle.
They charge us $100 and $200.
India charges a lot.
Brazil charges a lot.
If they want to charge us, that's fine, but we're going to charge them the same thing.
The senators, some of them aren't necessarily business people.
When I give that to them, they say, that sounds fair to me.
Are you concerned that tariffs might hurt the stock market rise that you've seen in the economy more broadly?
Make our country rich.
Tariffs will make our country rich.
Properly used.
No, well, I didn't have any inflation and I had massive tariffs on a lot of things.
We put tariffs on steel.
If I didn't put tariffs on steel, 50% and more, they were dumping steel in.
China and others.
I put tariffs on and it stopped and we took a fortune.
We made a fortune on it.
Tariffs, properly used, which we will do, and being reciprocal with other nations, but it'll make our country rich.
Our country right now loses to everybody.
Almost nobody do we have a surplus with.
There are a couple of countries and they're embarrassed by it.
Now back to your comments about whether you're feeling optimistic or pessimistic about the next Trump presidency.
We've heard from several of you via text message and on social media.
Larry in Milford, Michigan says, I'm excited about Trump's second term.
The U.S. first policies will lead to more prosperity and security.
Also, Larry from New Jersey saying, I am very pessimistic.
Trump is very transactional and easily distracted by flattery.
Alan in Huntington, West Virginia.
As someone that loves our form of government, checks and balances, free and fair elections, and peaceful transfer of power, I'm very pessimistic.
All the signs are right in front of us.
The president-elect doesn't respect these, and a substantial percentage of his followers don't.
And then Kristen in Portland, Maine says, pessimistic with hope for optimism.
Trump destroyed the economy with his mismanagement of the pandemic.
You judge a leader by their actions during a crisis.
If we have another unforeseen disaster, I believe he will fail again.
Let's hope he can just coast off Biden's accomplishments, the infrastructure law, the American Rescue Plan, Chips and Science Act, and more.
And on X, BC Venice says, I was pessimistic the first time and I was right.
It'll be worse this time, guaranteed.
It's a government of, by, and for the oligarchs now.
Good luck getting it back.
And now let's get back to your calls.
Dan is in Atlanta and is pessimistic.
Why is that, Dan?
Good morning.
And good morning.
Like, how are you doing?
I just want to let you know the reason why we have to bail the farmers out is because of the tariffs that Trump imposed on China.
Of course, the American people are actually paying the bill.
And also, just to these callers, this is a fact that you can look it up and fact check this.
Trump added all over about $7.5 trillion the last time he was in office.
And these people are worried about spending.
Trump is going to add about another $10 billion, correct you, another $10 trillion to the economy.
And the reason why he wanted the debt limit raised is so he can add even more.
And all those congressmen who are sitting there, you know, during the last session, trying to keep the government open, all of those Republicans, you know, talking about spending, those are the same guys who voted for that $7.5 trillion the last time.
But when the Democrats come in, all of a sudden they want to be fiscally responsible.
They just setting the country up for another massive tax cut.
And during the last administration, outside of the tax cuts, what else did the Congress do?
It was infrastructure week.
They never spent anything.
The only thing Trump did in that first term was just the tax cut.
This is the only piece of legislation that he's going to be concentrating on now is just giving the billionaires another tax cut.
And this is crazy.
I just hate to say this.
And also, and this is in the face of America having under Joe Biden the strongest economy in the history of the world.
And this is just crazy.
All right.
Joel is in Mountain Home, Arkansas, and is not sure.
Good morning, Joel.
Yes, good morning.
Merry Christmas to our country and everyone.
Well, I sit here and listen to all these crybabies calling in, and it's just disheartening.
They think the government owes them a living.
I've never taken a dime from the government.
I served in the military.
I retired from the military.
I fought in two wars, Korea and Vietnam.
I served in Germany in the Cold War.
But I don't understand why these people are crying so much here at Christmas time.
They should go to church today and thank the good Lord they have food on their table.
So, Joel, what do you think of Trump's next administration?
Are you optimistic?
Why are you sort of on the fence about how you're feeling about Trump's next term?