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Jan. 12, 2025 07:00-10:02 - CSPAN

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Washington Journal 01/12/2025

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kimberly adams

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unidentified		Midco supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy.
		Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live.
		And then Evelyn Farkas of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University and Reed Smith of Stand Together discuss foreign policy challenges facing the incoming Trump administration.
		And NPR's Robin Farzat on the latest data on the U.S. economy and financial and economic stories to watch in 2025.
		Washington Journal starts now.
		Join the conversation.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Sunday, January 12th, 2025.
		We're just over a week away from the end of President Biden's term in office, and we want to know how you would grade his presidency.
		His response to the global pandemic that was raging when he was sworn in, the economic recovery his administration oversaw, the sharp divisions that continue to shape our national politics.
		Our phone lines: For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
		If you'd like to text us, that number is 202-748-8003.
unidentified		Please be sure to include your name and where you're writing in from.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We're also on social media at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
		Now, when President Biden was sworn into office amid even more political discord at the time, he called for unity in the country.
		Here's a bit of his inauguration speech from January of 2021.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		Politics doesn't have to be a raging fire destroying everything in its path.
unidentified		Every disagreement doesn't have to be a cause for total war.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.
		My fellow Americans, we have to be different than this.
		America has to be better than this.
		And I believe America is so much better than this.
		Just look around.
		Here we stand in the shadow of the Capitol Dome, as was mentioned earlier, completed amid the Civil War when the Union itself was literally hanging in the balance.
unidentified		Yet we endured.
unidentified		We prevailed.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		Here we stand, looking out on the great mall where Dr. King spoke of his dream.
		Here we stand where 108 years ago at another inaugural, thousands of protesters tried to block brave women marching for the right to vote.
		And today, we mark the swearing in as the first woman in American history elected to national office, Vice President Kamala Harris.
unidentified		Don't tell me things can't change.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		Here we stand across the Potomac from Arlington Cemetery, where heroes who gave the last full measure of devotion rest in eternal peace.
		And here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground.
		It did not happen.
		It will never happen.
		Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
		Not ever.
		To all those who supported our campaign, I'm humbled by the faith you've placed in us.
		To all those who did not support us, let me say this.
		Hear me out as we move forward.
		Take a measure of me and my heart.
		If you still disagree, so be it.
		That's democracy.
		That's America.
		The right to dissent peaceably within the guardrails of our republic is perhaps this nation's greatest strength.
		Yet hear me clearly.
		Disagreement must not lead to disunion.
		And I pledge this to you.
		I will be a president for all Americans.
		All Americans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		In that inauguration video, you could see people wearing masks and social distancing because the COVID-19 pandemic was still active in the country.
		It was in March of 2021 when President Biden took to the East Room of the White House to discuss the impact of the pandemic and also the signing of the American Rescue Plan.
		Here's a clip.
unidentified		An historic piece of legislation that delivers immediate relief to millions of people, includes $1,400 in direct rescue checks, payments.
unidentified		That means a typical family of four earning about $110,000 will get checks for $5,600 deposited if they have direct deposit or in a check, a treasury check.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		It extends unemployment benefits.
unidentified		It helps small businesses.
unidentified		It lowers health care premiums for many.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		It provides food and nutrition, keeps families in their homes.
		And it will cut child poverty in this country in half, according to the experts.
		It funds all the steps I've just described to beat the virus and create millions of jobs.
		In the coming weeks and months, I'll be traveling along with the First Lady, the Vice President, the Second Gentleman, members of my cabinet to speak directly to you, to tell you the truth about how the American Rescue Plan meets the moment.
		And if it fails at any pace, I will acknowledge that it failed, but it will not.
		About how after long, dark years, one whole year, there is hope and light of better days ahead.
		If we all do our part, this country will be vaccinated soon.
		Our economy will be on the mend.
unidentified		Our kids will be back in school.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		And we'll have proven once again that this country can do anything.
unidentified		Hard things, big things, important things.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Once again, our question this morning is how you would grade the Biden presidency.
		The Associated Press and NORC polling has some numbers on this, finding that in his final weeks in the White House, 39% approve of how Biden is handling his job compared to his predecessor.
		Fewer say he was a great or good president.
		If we scroll down here, we find that half of Democrats say Biden was a good or great president compared with only 10% of Independents and 4% of Republicans.
		A vast majority of Republicans view Biden as a poor or terrible president, along with 56% of Independents and 13% of Democrats.
		Overall, about 3 in 10 think Biden's presidency was average.
		The public had more positive views of Biden's immediate predecessors.
		As Donald Trump was preparing to leave the White House in 2021, 36% described him as a great or good president.
		And eight years ago, about half of Americans described Barack Obama's presidency as great or good.
		Now, before we get to your calls, let's get a quick update on the wildfires in California here from the LA Times website, which says that aerial assault keeps flames from invading Brentwood and Sino, but more wins are coming.
		There have been at least 16 deaths, and more than 10,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed.
		Firefighters made more progress on containing the Eaton and Palisades fires overnight, but the Palisades fire grew by about 1,000 acres, and strong winds are expected overnight.
		And four hours ago, an update that the Kenneth fire was 90% contained.
		And we will keep you updated on news about the fires as we get more information throughout the morning.
		Now then, for your grades on the presidency of Joe Biden, let's start with Melvin in Richmond, Virginia on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Melvin.
unidentified		Good morning, Kimberly.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Kimberly, without a doubt, I give Joe Biden a grade of A, really A plus, because he was and will go down in history as the last decent president of the United States.
		Trump will probably, once it's all said and done, will be shown to be a dictator and also that he probably, and then this is a little conspiratorial, did not win this election properly.
		You know, I got a feeling that this Elon Musk and his use of AI somehow has manipulated this election.
		That being said, getting back to the question.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So what do you mean, Melvin?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		There hasn't been any credible reports of any kind of election interference in the country.
unidentified		Exactly.
		That's why I only call it conspiratorial because I don't have any facts.
		It's based on just a feeling that I have because 81 million people voted for Joe in 2020 and only 75 million people voted for Kamala.
		Now, what happened to those 6 million votes?
		You know, and I understand that there are some votes, some people who will change, but 6 million votes.
		Trump didn't get the 6 million votes.
		Trump only got like an extra million from what he had last time.
		So you're going to tell me 5 million people sat on the couch and didn't come out and vote?
		I find that very hard to believe, even though I don't have any proof.
		I'll be the first to tell you that.
		But in this age of technology and with a quote-unquote man of a genius like this Elon Musk, if there's anyone who could manipulate the vote, he would be the one to do it.
		But getting back to Biden, if I give this one more time.
		Okay.
		Okay.
		Biden was a good man.
		He was a decent man.
		You know, Democrats, by the most part, are decent, you know, people who care about people while Republicans only care about the rich.
		It's so sad that the people who vote for Republicans, a lot of them who are poor Americans, don't see that.
		They see the world.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You were talking about how history might remember Biden, especially compared to President-elect Trump.
		Gallup has actually done some polling on this and found that Americans think history will rate Biden's presidency negatively.
		And perceptions of how Trump's first term will be regarded have improved considerably going down here.
		Many more Americans expect history to judge Joe Biden's presidency unfavorably rather than favorably.
		54% of U.S. adults believe Biden will be remembered as a below average or poor president, while 19% say he will be evaluated as outstanding or above average.
		Another 26% think he will be regarded as average.
		Compared with nine recent presidents included in the new Gallup poll, Biden rates most similarly to Richard Nixon, who has a negative 42 net rating.
		Biden receives more poor reviews than Nixon does, but Biden gets more outstanding or above average ratings.
		Brad is in Boyd, Texas, on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Brad.
		Oh, we've lost Brad.
		Let's go to Andrea in Louisiana on our line for independents.
		Good morning, Andrea.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Is my TV too loud?
		I'm okay.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		If you could turn it down all the way, that'd be great, but go ahead.
unidentified		Okay, hold on.
		Okay.
		I give Biden an A minus B plus.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Why is that?
unidentified		We had a good health recovery from COVID.
		What was your second thing you said?
		Oh, the economy.
		It's better than people realize.
		And the whole world has, you know, the whole world had us.
		The whole world had economic downfalls from COVID.
		And we've come back stronger than people realize.
		And a lot of people that were complaining were shopping for Christmas.
		So we're doing better than people are saying.
		But yes, he gets an A minus B plus from me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Andrea was mentioning President Biden's record on the economy.
		At a recent speech here in Washington, D.C., President Biden gave his own assessment of his economic accomplishments while in office.
		Here's a portion of those comments from early December.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		I've never agreed with Von O'Reaker's approach to the economy, although I got along with him very well.
		But I did agree with something he said.
		President Reagan said, and I quote, facts are stubborn things.
		Facts are stubborn things.
		They are.
		Here are the facts.
		A set mark of benchmarks, if you will, that we should measure the success or failure of our next four years.
		During my presidency, we created 16 million new jobs in America.
		Will the next president create jobs, or like Herbert Hoover, be the only president to lose jobs in his administration?
		During my presidency, will we see the lowest average unemployment rate of any administration in 50 years?
		Will the unemployment be higher or lower in the next four years?
		We have had a strong economic growth of 3% on average a yearly basis.
		Will the next president have a stronger or weaker economic growth?
		And inflation.
		Yes, inflation.
		We're battling through worldwide effects of the pandemic, Putin's war in Ukraine, and supply chain disruptions.
		Meeting the next president with an inflation rate that's near 2%.
		Where will inflation be at the end of the next president's term?
		Look, these are simple, well-established economic benchmarks used to measure the strength of any economy, the success or failure of any president's four years in office.
		They're not political or rhetorical opinions.
		They're just facts.
		Simple facts, as President Reagan called them, stubborn facts.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Senator Elizabeth Warren highlighted the recent jobs numbers, which came in pretty strong, and said that just like the first time around, Donald Trump is inheriting an economy with strong job growth.
		Back to your calls.
		Pat is in Boise, Idaho, on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Pat.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I give Biden an A-.
		I mean, living in an extremely conservative state, Idaho.
		I think someone said it was the most conservative in the nation.
		Then I look at what you put on this morning of Biden's speech, and I had forgotten how it was during COVID with wearing masks and being isolated.
		And now look where we are as far as being able to be free to walk around and go to the stores and hug our friends.
		And excuse me.
		I was so touched by his gentleness, his sincerity.
		I always have been.
		I don't think he's a showman.
		I was brokenhearted when the last debate, when he faltered a little bit.
		Well, he had been traveling.
		He is older.
		I'm older.
		And when you're exhausted, and he was exhausted for many good reasons, and then instantly it seemed like our nation judged him.
		You know, he used to, when he was younger, stutter, and he has shared how hard it was because people judged him so quickly.
		He's a kind man, and I used to teach junior high.
		And during COVID, I saw that the decline of attitude toward kindness, and it took its toll on junior high kids.
		And now if you look at our crisis, not only in our country, but worldwide, we have a crisis in depression among young people.
		We have young people and adults absorbed with their devices and talking incessantly on their devices.
		They're not having conversations eyeball to eyeball.
		You know, I was raised in the 50s.
		I had it easy, I think, in Moisey, Idaho.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You referenced that debate performance of President Biden and how the country responded afterwards.
		I'd like to play a moment from that CNN debate back in June, which is really when the panic on the Democratic side set in.
		Let's listen to a clip.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		What I'm going to do is fix the tax system.
		For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America.
		I mean, billionaires in America.
		And what's happening?
		They're in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2% in taxes.
		If they just paid 24%, 25%, either one of those numbers, they'd raise $500 million, billion dollars, I should say, in a 10-year period.
		We'd be able to wipe out his debt.
		We'd be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do, child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And then after that debate performance, of course, there were calls from throughout the Democratic Party for President Biden to step back from the race, which he eventually did.
		Rob is in Maplewood, Minnesota on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Rob.
unidentified		Hi, Kimberly.
		Hi.
		I think you do a great job on C-SPAN.
		I don't know how you vote, but I still think you did a great job on C-SPAN.
		I have to grade Biden an F.
		I know that's going to bother Democrats, but I can't see where he did anything for the country, really.
		I mean, the racism increased the last four years.
		Inflation increased the last four years.
		And COVID was really handled better by Trump than it was under Biden.
		There were mask mandates, vaccine mandates.
		People lost their job because of COVID.
		If they didn't get the vaccination, they lost their job.
		We allowed illegal immigrants into our country by the millions.
		Free taxpayer expense immigrants in our country.
		I can't give Biden a better grade than an F. That's the best I can give him.
		Now, a lot of it is not his fault.
		A lot of it has to do with the people behind him running the country.
		I don't think Biden was totally running the country by himself.
		There was a lot of people behind the scene.
		Maybe Barack Obama.
		I don't know.
		But it was a terrible, it was worse than people make it out to be.
		And I'm so glad we have Trump back in office today.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Next up is Michael in North Royalton, Ohio on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Michael.
unidentified		Well, good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		You know, I look back at this the last 15 or 16 years, and our country has been in decline, mostly because of the corruption and lying that goes on in our federal government.
		Barack Obama tried to divide the country.
		He was a terrible president.
		People want to put him on a pedestal.
		And he wasn't a good president.
		You really study it.
		He was terrible.
		Now, Biden, in this last presidential election, 2020, I have had friends in nursing homes that I visit weekly that were in better condition than he was when he ran for this presidency.
		He had no business running for his presidency.
		He's an incompetent fool.
		He is, I'm going to think 200 years ago, he would have been pulled up on treason and shot for what he's done to this country.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Michael was referencing whether or not he should have run for president.
		This came up in an interview that President Biden recently did with USA Today, where Susan Page did an interview with President Biden for USA Today and asked him, do you believe you could have won in November?
		And Biden responded, it's presumptuous to say that, but I think yes.
		Based on the polling that Page said, do you think you would have had the vigor to serve another four years in office?
		Biden responded, I don't know.
		That's why I thought when I first announced talking to Barack about it, I said I thought I was the person.
		I had no intention of running after Bo died, for real, not a joke.
		And then when Trump was running again for reelection, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him.
		But I also wasn't looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old.
		And so I did talk about passing the baton.
		But I don't know who the hell knows so far, so good.
		But who knows what I'm going to be when I'm 86 years old.
		Peter is in Texas on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Peter.
unidentified		How are you doing, Kim Lee?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		How would you grade President Biden's term in office?
unidentified		All right.
		I'm calling in reference to the guy that gave President Biden an F. Why don't we start with your grade first and then you can follow up?
		Okay, I'm calling in reference to that, right?
		I've been a Democrat ever since 1986.
		I was 18 years old back in 1986.
		That kind of can tell you how old I am, right?
		I never seen two unqualified presidents in my life ever since 1986.
		And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to give Biden an F. I'm going to give President former president or current president to be Trump an F plus, right?
		Because neither one of them are unqualified.
		Both of them are too old.
		President Biden, he waited too long to say he wasn't going to run for president, and he screwed it up for Kamala Harris.
		And he just screwed it up for her.
		So, like I said, I will give President Biden an F.
		I will give President Trump an F plus.
		Neither one are not fit to be president.
		They should have nominated somebody else.
		And that's all I have to say.
		You have a great day, ma'am.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		In reference to those comments that President Biden made to USA Today about his likelihood of winning in that election, on the show recently, Vermont Democrat Becca Belint was asked about President Biden's interview.
		And here's some of what she had to say in response to Biden's comments.
unidentified		You know, every indication that we had as Democrats in the caucus was that the president was on a trajectory to lose, and most specifically, that we were going to lose many, many House seats because of that, meaning that the Democrats would lose House seats.
		And so we have a very, we have a situation where the Republicans have a very narrow margin of victory.
		It's just one or two seats now when we look at who's being appointed to the administration.
		And it is incredibly sad and discouraging that when you look at all of the work that the president has done on behalf of the American people and all the investments that were made, that that message did not get through.
		But it did not get through and it was not getting through.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's get back to your calls on how you would grade President Biden's administration.
		Betty is in Chester, South Carolina on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Betty.
unidentified		Yes, I can't even give him an F. He's the worst president I have ever seen.
		And these people, the ladies said A plus, they must be blind.
		All these people, he ain't done nothing to destroy this country.
		And Trump, I'd give him an A and an A plus because when he was in there, everything was fine.
		And these people keep saying he's the good president.
		See, what has he done for the American people?
		Nothing.
		Nothing.
		He hates us.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So some of the accomplishments that President Biden, at least his administration, is putting out of what he did for the American people are listed here in a piece in the Hill: Five Accomplishments Biden is touting before leaving office, among several, navigating the pandemic.
		Biden and his staff have made a point to remind voters about the situation they inherited, taking office in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic with cases surging again in early 2021.
		Jeff Zeins, who eventually served as White House chief of staff, led efforts to coordinate the distribution of vaccines while Biden elevated Dr. Anthony Fauci after he had been sidelined and largely criticized by Republicans during the Trump administration.
		Moving on, he signed the American Rescue Plan.
		Additionally, other items that the Hill highlights the Biden administration is pushing out as their accomplishment, bipartisan bills, including the CHIPS Act, the infrastructure law, as well as bipartisan legislation signed in late 2022 that safeguarded marriage equality, codifying federal protections for same-sex couples.
		Moving on, also, they highlight the appointment of Katanji Brown Jackson, making good on a key campaign promise when he nominated Katanji Brown Jackson to serve on the Supreme Court.
		She became the first black woman to serve on the highest court.
		And then finally, on student loans, another of Biden's most high-profile campaign promises was to forgive student loan debt.
		And while the effort was caught up in various lawsuits, he ultimately found ways to deliver relief to millions of Americans.
		That story from thehill.com.
		Sal is in San Diego, California, on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Sal.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for having me.
		As far as the grade goes, I give him an F for failure.
		And it's just been horrible.
		I live in California.
		We pay the highest taxes in the U.S.
		And now we're burning to the ground.
		And all the Democrats have done is pass the buck.
		In fact, Biden started wars again.
		And warmongers are running our country.
		So that's the main thing.
		After that, I believe that he should, you know, I have nothing against the man.
		You know, he served our country for a long time.
		And he deserves better than what was done to him by his party.
		So, yeah, I've been a Democrat.
		I've been a Republican.
		I became an independent thinker.
		And I think that's what we need to do.
		In California, we can't look to the D or the R next to the name.
		We have to look for the person if they're qualified.
		We have the worst governor in the history of mankind running, and all he does is look good and try to pass the buck.
		In fact, he's passed the buck to the local LA.
		But he's the man in charge, and Mr. Biden's the man in charge of America.
		So I wish him well in his retirement.
		Like I said, he deserved better.
		But yeah, I give him a D for dementia, and that's about all I can say at this point.
		But I wish that he would reach out to the red states when there's a disaster.
		He's ready to cover all the expenses of Hollywood.
		You know, they're the people that can afford to rebuild on their own.
		In fact, I've been a realtor for a long time, and I can't even place insurance on people anymore.
		My insurance rates are going up, but they can only go up 7% a year.
		Otherwise, I'd probably be paying a lot more.
		Where I live, you know, we live near Mexico, and the border is another issue.
		These people get more money.
		You know, I live by a transit system and, you know, free phones and everything, and these people are coming in.
		So San Diego now is the number one border town where they're passing through the desert.
		And our mayor here, I hate to say this, he's probably sheltering these people, which is a crime.
		I've talked to a Border Patrol agent, and he says they call him, where do we leave the bus load today?
		So they'll take them all around San Diego, give them money, and send them places.
		So yeah, the Democratic Party has become the party, I hate to say it, of illegal crime disaster.
		So I'm sorry, but that's all I got to say today.
		I wish the people in LA were praying for him and oh, the school systems.
		They're not teaching them any math, English, or history.
		In fact, the Democrats are tearing down our history.
		They're inventing new words.
		You know, there's a man, a woman, and then there's people.
		Thank you very much for taking my call.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Richard is in Port Washington, New York, on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Richard.
unidentified		Yeah, hi.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I'll give Joe Biden an F minus, but I'll give Barack Obama a plus.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry, I missed the last bit of what you said.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You said you'd give Joe Biden an F minus and then what?
unidentified		Barack Obama an A plus.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Why would you give Joe Biden an F minus?
unidentified		Okay, because his policies, I think, are horrible.
		I mean, I had to vote for Cameron Harris because the alternative was worse, but that's not a good reason to vote for someone.
		What Joe Biden does, he just loves to spend money.
		Let's use an example: the college loans.
		He just paid all these college students all this money.
		And what about the students that worked their way through college, that paid for their own college?
		I think a far better solution would have been: let's hire these college-educated students to tutor these elementary school students that lost a year.
		This way, you've solved two purposes instead of just giving money away.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Derek is in Zwalla, Louisiana, on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Derek.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I give Joe Biden an F minus, but I give him A minus in treason.
		He should have been home years ago.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's not call for violence.
		Anwar is in Washington, D.C., on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Anwar.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Just to be very clear, I think the question is not so much whether Joe Biden gets a good grade or not, it's whether or not we as a country have a decent grade.
		And I would give the United States of America an F, double F, based on their policies if they care about money.
		And the fact that you would re-elect a man who allowed 700,000 roughly to die of COVID and still think that that man is qualified to be president shows me that the American people are have an F. As a group, as a nation, we've lost our way.
		We have people who, as they recall, we couldn't even go to their funerals.
		But somehow, this country has become avaricious, greedy, capitalistic, and have forgotten our dead.
		And they have no right to question what Joe Biden did, because what he did was for the country.
		I give the man a B.
		I think he was doing the best he could with what he had.
		But as a country, we are in the dumps.
		We are an F and everyone that calls up here talking about lynch him.
		This is what they were doing down at the Capitol, January 6th.
		They wanted to lynch the vice president.
		They brought gallows.
		And black people should know about lynch mobs.
		And this is the same thing.
		Every call you get that's below the Mason-Dixon line.
		You can hear it in their voice.
		They haven't changed.
		They haven't changed since the Civil War.
		And that is our main problem.
		We are going to have to deal with racism, capitalism.
		And now that they've got these additional racists, Elon Musk from South Africa, apartheid, and Peter Thiel, we are in trouble.
		So I give this country the F.
		I don't give Biden an F.
		I give this country an F because they are the ones that are putting him, putting this man back in office who killed so many of our loved ones, of which none of these people seem to care about anymore.
		And that's my statement.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Next up is David in Monks Corner, South Carolina on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, David.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm going to try to make a few quick points before you cut me off.
		Since we have new genders, I'm going to create a new grade E. I'll give President Biden E- basically because of the treatment of the border and depletion of, near depletion of the strategic petroleum reserve, which will be very expensive to replace.
		And I want to make some quick points to give a perspective mostly to independents and Democrats, if you could bear with me.
		I think we've seen Obama's fundamental transformation of America has its roots in the establishment of identity politics, where race seems to matter as much as anything else.
		And I notice, and then another is we've established the reversal of JFK's call not to ask what your country could do for you, but what you can do for the strengths of the country.
		It's now become where Washington, D.C. is expected to take care of lunches and babysitting.
		And that's probably not thought of by our founding fathers.
		And there's another thing, some other things that have taken place because of the speed of media, principally the internet and high-deaf video, we've seen the expansion of the reach of the nation's capital of D.C. at the expense of the strengths of the states.
		And there's a movement underway to basically eliminate states.
		We can't forget that our country is the United States of America.
		We are really diverse colonies that joined together to form a common central government for protection of the country.
		So there's a move to eliminate states, and you can see this with Medicare for all, the desire to eliminate the Electoral College.
		So I also noticed that the points you just made from the print there about Obama's accomplishments or Biden's accomplishments, most of those were about the redistribution of wealth and the propagation of identity politics.
		It's not the government's role to redistribute wealth, and that's become the primary mission of D.C., it seems, if you look at all the agencies.
		The last thing I want to say is with the incredible growth of the national debt, there will have to be short-term pain coming up.
		And I want people to understand that there has to be a rein in on spending.
		It will cause pain.
		We're addicted to debt spending.
		We have to get over the addiction and going.
		Withdrawal is always painful.
		So we need patience, need to understand this.
		We need HRS prototype charts again.
		Just to say what's happening, I thank you for your time, and I think you do try to do a fair job, although I think I know how you vote.
		I say you're very gracious all the time.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Next up is Paul in Houston, Texas on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Paul.
unidentified		Yes, I'd like to give Joe Biden a B plus.
		And the reason for the B is the border.
		I think he could have done a better job on the border, but for the country, I give him an A plus.
		The things that you read off, I'm a beneficiary of that Biden's American Rescue Plan.
		It saved my pension.
		Right now, I'm living better than got more income than I ever had.
		I'm living good, and all these stupid people calling in, talking about how they can't afford this and can't afford that.
		That's all a perception.
		I mean, I think that some of these people let people tell them how they are doing.
		This country is fine.
		And the only thing that's on the rise is all these bigots calling in.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So I don't think we need to insult our other callers, but go ahead, Paul.
unidentified		Well, I apologize for insulting, but that's my opinion.
		And I can see it on the rise.
		And with Trump, it's going to really rise.
		And that's my comment.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		On his own legacy, President Biden, also in that interview with USA Today, said, I hope history says that I came in and I had a plan to restore the economy and reestablish America's leadership in the world.
		That was my hope.
		I mean, you know, who knows?
		And I hope it records that I did it with honesty and integrity, that I said what was on my mind.
		And I think the only advantage of being an old guy is that I've known every major world leader for a long time.
		And so I had a perspective on each of them and their interests.
		And so I think it helped me navigate some of the fundamental changes taking place, whether it's in Europe, in Latin America, in the Middle East, in the Far East.
		And anyway, that's what I hope anyway, that I'm viewed in that context.
		That was with President Biden's interview with USAID today.
		David is in Los Angeles, California on our line for independence.
		First of all, David, I hope you and yours are doing all right in these fires.
unidentified		Yeah, I'm doing just fine.
		I've actually been able to avoid the fires.
		I just wanted to give Joe Biden an A-.
		If not for the border, he would go down as the best president we've ever had.
		By any stretch, if you measure all of the statistics, we have record low unemployment.
		We have record high stock market.
		We have manufacturing jobs are booming even in the Midwest.
		They even renamed the Midwest that's now called the Battery Belt because of all of the manufacturing plants that are being built due to the bills that you previously mentioned, the infrastructure bill, the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act.
		Joe Biden just also signed the Social Security Fairness Act.
		Many of your callers that are criticizing him, the poor Anglo-Southern people that are calling in are probably beneficiaries of that Social Security Fairness Act.
		That's kind of our irony.
		And then if you look at oil, Joe Biden signed the can you do me a favor, please check this while I'm talking so that the people know that I'm telling the truth.
		Joe Biden signed the Willow, excuse me, the opened up oil drilling in Alaska.
		It's called the Willow Project.
		You can check that online right now.
		That's supposed to produce 10 million barrels of oil for the next 10 years.
		That's ConocoPhillips.
		And for the gentleman that was talking about Joe Biden releasing oil from the Strategic Reserve, yeah, he sold it at $95 a barrel, and they recently brought the oil back at $70 some dollars a barrel and refilled the strategic reserve, netting us a profit.
		I could go on and on and on on the Biden successes, but with all due respect, if you look at the comparing us to any other modern nation in the world, we have had the fastest recovery of any nation.
		So if you're looking at all of those facts, Joe Biden is probably the best president we've ever had.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So following up on two points that David just made, he referenced the willow oil project in Alaska.
		Here's a story on that on CNN.com.
		This is from March of 2023 that the Biden administration approved the controversial willow oil project in Alaska, which has galvanized online activism.
		And this, the Biden administration approved the massive willow oil drilling project in Alaska, angering climate advocates and setting the stage for a court challenge.
		The Willow Project is a decades-long oil drilling venture in the National Petroleum Reserve, which is owned by the federal government.
		The area where the project is planned holds up to 600 million barrels of oil, though that oil would take years to reach the market since the project has yet to be constructed.
		Now, David also mentioned the outcome or some of the building that's happening in the Midwest related to the Chips and Science Act investments in October of 2010, excuse me.
		And at his speech on his economic accomplishments at the Brookings Institution, President Biden spoke about signing the Chips and Science Act.
		Here's a portion of that from December.
		Time, let's go to Anna in Alameda, California, on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Anna.
unidentified		Hi, thank you so much for letting me give my opinion.
		I think this was an incredible presidency that Biden gave us.
		We coming out of a pandemic, a world pandemic, we have done better than the entire rest of the world.
		And right here in the United States, every single month that Joe Biden was our president, our job grew every single month.
		We have come out of an incredible situation.
		The way misinformation and hatred and angst informed our people of just lies.
		I am really scared.
		I'm really sad for our country.
		Do you think Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden, would ever want to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico?
		would ever want Greenland.
		Thank you, Joe Biden.
		All right.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So let's go ahead and listen to that clip of Joe Biden talking about the Chips and Science Act that I referenced earlier during his speech at the Brookings Institution back in December.
unidentified		When I came to office, semiconductor manufacturing had moved overseas.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		I was determined to bring it back so we wouldn't be at the end of the supply chain, but the beginning of the supply chain.
unidentified		And that's what we've done with my Chips and Science Act, which has attracted $350 billion in private sector investment in America, including from Korea and from Taiwan.
unidentified		I remember we went to digress, I shouldn't because of a long speech, but to digress just in a moment, went to South Korea.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		And I met with Mo Yoon and I met with Samsung.
unidentified		I said, why are you making these billions of dollar investments in what we call the field of dreams outside of Columbus, Ohio?
		He said, because you have the most capable workers in the world, and it's the safest place in the world for me to make my investment.
		These investors are building what they call new fab.
		You all know this, a fab is new factories, but they're these giant, giant things, biggest football fields.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		And guess what?
unidentified		When they're built, they employ thousands of people.
		And guess what?
		The average salary?
		$102,000.
		And you don't need a college degree to do the job.
		These investments, massive chips factories, these fabs, these size of several football fields.
		As I said, in the field of dreams from all across America, from New York to Ohio to Arizona.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you know, and when I ask these companies why they're investing, again, not a joke.
unidentified		I give my word, and you all know that.
		You're businesswomen, man.
		You all know it.
		I think we have the most qualified workers in the world.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Next up, we are going to hear from Michael in Tyrone, New York on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Michael.
unidentified		Yes, as far as, you know, grading our presidents throughout history, I think that when you look at Joe Biden's track record on the economy, like the gentleman said earlier, he brought us back from a disaster.
		I mean, you've got to remember when President Trump was president the first time, okay, he drove our trade deficit up enormous.
		I mean, we didn't have the fair trade going on.
		A lot of companies were going overseas.
		Joe Biden, he brought that stuff back.
		So that being said, an $8 trillion addition to the national debt by Mr. Trump during his term, the people forget that.
		And I tell you, I'm a Republican, but I'm a conservative Republican.
		I look at finance and things that these administrations handle and how they will handle the trifecta that's now in place in our government.
		God help us.
		We need to have some good fiscal policy taking place domestically and across the pond because it's not happening at a rate yet that we need.
		And Mr. Biden has been working on that.
		And I just want to tell people Republicans, I'm changing party.
		I was watching Fox News.
		I'm going to stop watching it because they're spewing nothing but lies to the people, to the public.
		And that's probably one of the reasons why there's so much hatred going on in this country.
		You look at the one person that just called in and said they wanted to hang the president.
		Are you serious?
		Come on.
		You guys need to wake up.
		Who's the one that has hate?
		I could see it right.
		I could hear it right in their voices.
		And that's the problem.
		We've got to bring our country together.
		We have to have a uniter, somebody that brings us together.
		I'm sorry.
		I don't see that happening in the next four years.
		Not when they're talking about jailing adversaries, you know, because they found Mr. Trump guilty of something.
		And the Supreme Court is very corrupt.
		I mean, we've got corruption all the way through all three branches of government, folks.
		And we have to change that at the ballot box.
		Sorry about saying all this stuff, but I'm a Republican, and I'm going to be changing to Democrat.
		I swear to God, because they're the ones that only really make sense out there, quite honestly.
		And thank you for letting me get on.
		I love C-SPAN.
		It's a great commentary, and you guys are doing a great job.
		Let's just pray for our country.
		We've got a guy that's in office now that is going to lead us down a terrible path.
		I could see it coming.
		It's a precursor to what's to come.
		But we have to unelect these people.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Next up is Benjamin in Illinois on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Benjamin.
unidentified		Good morning, Kimberly.
		How would you grade President Biden's term?
		I would give him a passing grade, nothing extreme.
		I feel like so many folks right now have extreme views, believe that the president deserves something on the A or the F range.
		We've had almost 250 years as a country now.
		I believe a little bit of perspective, long-term perspective, could probably benefit the majority of us, as the previous caller from New York just alluded to, the folks taking things seriously.
		President Biden appears as much of an institutionalist as he is and has been to have taken the job seriously and has not been a term arsonist firefighter that some folks seem to want to have as leadership in our country.
		I would rate him in the middle, B minus, B, something like that as a president.
		But I believe that we have a significant issue where we have hyperbole, the extremism seeping into our everyday lives to such a degree that we can't see the forest for the trees.
		That politicians who take things seriously, who attempt to govern responsibly, you know, we have a consent to be governed.
		That's the agreement that the population has with our leadership, is a consent to be governed.
		And the reason why we consent is because they take the job seriously and do an honest, upfront, accountable performance for their term.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Next up is Selena in Rochester, New York on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Selena.
unidentified		Good morning, Miss Kimberly.
		My grade for Mr. Biden is A-plus.
		And the reason that I give him an A-plus relates directly to where I am in the United States of America or the economy is I am a low-income person.
		And being in the position that I'm in, I am a SNAP recipient.
		And during the pandemic, it was the first time in my life that I was not food insecure because the Democrats and Mr. Biden, they took care of people because I saw people being taken care of who had jobs and who lost them.
		I saw them on TV and they drove up in cars and people were throwing their food in the back of their cars.
		So somebody may accuse me of being biased calling Mr. Biden, giving him a plus grade.
		And I will accept that.
		But what I'm saying directly relates to how the pandemic and Mr. Biden took care of all the poor people because, you know, nobody ever really thinks that much about really, really poor people like me.
		But the last thing that I would like to say is that even though I'm on here and people hear me talking about being poor and snap and all that, I'm college educated and then some.
		So they should not just think that, oh, these dumb, stupid, ignorant poor people, they always want something for free.
		But, you know, sometimes we get educated and then life throws us a curb and then we're poor again.
		And one last thing, Ms. Kimberly.
		I think that you are so poised and graceful.
		And whoever hired you, I hope that they saw that you had both the temperament and the judgment to do the job.
		So I saved that for last so that you wouldn't cut me off.
		I know you don't need that, but thank you.
		Goodbye.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Michael is in Wisconsin on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Michael.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would say he gets a flat F for sure.
		You should pull up in your archives at the DNC.
		His own Secretary of Commerce got called out that the job numbers were $800,000 less than what they were telling us.
		And he was also in charge of getting us out of Afghanistan.
		That was a disaster.
		All the Afghans ever hanging off the airplanes.
		That's not real leadership.
		Let's see.
		He's got us in two foreign wars that he's just writing blank checks to Ukraine.
		Meanwhile, we have people in North Carolina that are still trying to get their stuff together.
		California is on fire and he's willing to pay for them because they're known Democrats.
		You know, it's just, I don't know why you Democrats keep thinking that he's doing a good job.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So, Michael, I want you to finish your point, but I just want to add some additional context for the number that you gave about the 800,000 jobs, just so folks know what you're talking about.
		Here's a story about this from NBC News.
		U.S. added 818,000 fewer jobs than thought, adding to concerns about the economy.
		The annual change had been anticipated by market observers who fear the Federal Reserve should have cut rates sooner.
		This was a story from back in April when the Commerce Department did its annual revision of jobs numbers.
		And it said that U.S. job gains over the 12 months ending in March were revised downward Wednesday by 818,000, a significant revision that adds to recent concerns that the economy has been slowing.
		The change means that roughly 2.1 million jobs were created in the U.S. in the past year compared with about 2.9 million prior to the revision.
		The new figures do not represent job losses, merely new estimates of how many jobs were actually created during the period in question.
		Go ahead, Michael.
unidentified		And you know that just reading an article doesn't even do what I'm talking about justice.
		I'm talking about at the DNC when she was interviewed, and she called it Trump disinformation.
		Meanwhile, it came from a reliable source.
		It came from the Department of Jobs or something, and she got called out on it.
		And meanwhile, right after the election, Biden's going to Africa with all these world leaders wandering around aimlessly because he's so demented.
		I mean, that's not our president.
		He's falling asleep at meetings with African leaders.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So, Michael, I encourage you to stay tuned to our next segment where we are going to be discussing foreign policy and Biden's record on it.
		I'll also mention that tomorrow, President Biden is scheduled to deliver a capstone address on his foreign policy legacy as he makes way for Trump's return, as is reported here in the Associated Press.
		And we will, of course, be carrying that speech live on C-SPAN.
		Last call for now, David is in Liverpool, New York, on our line for independence.
		Good morning, David.
unidentified		Good morning.
		To the guy in Wisconsin, he just spewed out basically a lie, you know.
		But Joe Biden deserves an A-plus.
		The border was a problem, yeah.
		But from what he got from Trump, our last president, who did a very bad job, we had a very professional administration.
		Even handed some problems, but he got us through.
		Ukraine, he brought the world together to back Ukraine.
		We don't need another third world war that Russia's trying to instigate.
		But Donald Trump, he would be for Putin.
		Again, Joe Biden did an excellent job.
		I can't say that enough.
		And the American people, it's sad to say that they could not vote for a good man, and they put a traitor in the White House again.
		Thank you very much.
		Have a good day.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you to everyone who called in with your thoughts this hour.
		Coming up next, we're going to hear from the McCain Institute's Evelyn Farkas and Stand Together's Reed Smith to discuss foreign policy challenges facing the incoming Trump administration.
		And later, business journalist and host of NPR's full disclosure, Robin Farzad, will be here to discuss financial and economic stories to watch in the year ahead.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		This week on the C-SPAN Networks, the House and the Senate are both in session.
		The House continues work on the Republicans' priority list of 12 bills focusing on border security and immigration policy.
		The Senate continues work on the Lake and Riley Act, legislation to require Homeland Security Department officials to detain migrants for theft-related crimes.
		Also, stay tuned to the C-SPAN networks for comprehensive coverage of confirmation hearings for President-elect Trump's cabinet nominees.
		On Tuesday, Pete Hegseth, nominee for Defense Secretary, will testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
		Wednesday, South Dakota Governor Christy Noam, tapped to lead the Department of Homeland Security, will appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
		Florida Senator Marco Rubio, nominee for Secretary of State, heads to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
		Also, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, nominated for U.S. Attorney General, will begin her confirmation hearings.
		She'll testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee across two days, Wednesday and Thursday.
		Watch this week live on the C-SPAN networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app.
		Also, head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime.
		c-span democracy unfiltered sharon mcmahon host of the here's where it gets interesting podcast and author of the small and the mighty is our guest tonight on c-span's q and a
		She profiles lesser-known Americans who've changed the course of American history, including retail pioneers Richard Sears and Alva Roebuck, former slave and philanthropist Clara Brown, and others.
		If you ask people, who is the best person that you know, almost never will they say Jeff Bezos, right?
		Almost never will they say some TV star.
		They'll almost always say somebody that has impacted them in some really, really important way.
		And very often those people are not famous.
		They're not rich.
		They don't have daddy's money.
		They don't have their name on the side of a building.
		And there are thousands of Americans who have shaped the course of history, who have changed who the United States has become through their actions.
		But for a variety of reasons, their stories have not been recorded in those bold face fonts in the history textbooks.
		Sharon McMahon with her book, The Small and the Mighty, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell has spent 40 years in the United States Senate, 17 of those as leader of his Republican colleagues.
		That's the longest any senator has been at the top of the leadership rung in either political party.
		Senator John Thune was elected a few weeks ago to head up the Republican majority in the Senate in 2025.
		Meanwhile, journalist Michael Tackett's book, A Profile of Senator McConnell, is called The Price of Power and subtitled, How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party.
		Mike Tackett, the Deputy Washington Bureau Chief of the Associated Press, conducted over 50 hours of interviews and was granted access to never-before-released oral histories.
unidentified		Journalist Michael Tackett, with his book, The Price of Power, How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party, on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts.
		Washington Journal continues.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		Here to discuss some of the foreign policy challenges facing the country and the incoming administration.
		We are joined by Evelyn Farkas, who is the executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		As well as Reed Smith, who is the Foreign Policy Vice President at Stand Together.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Thanks for having us.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		First of all, Reed, can you talk about Stand Together, the background of your group, who you're affiliated with, how you get your funding?
unidentified		Sure.
		Stand Together is a philanthropic organization that also works towards policy advocacy and change.
		We were originally founded by the businessman Charles Koch, although we now benefit from a community of donors that share certain principles and commitments to advancing a better America.
		One of the dimensions of our work focuses on foreign policy, where I have the good fortune of leading our portfolio focused on defense, foreign policy, trade, and veterans affairs, broadly understood, not just at the VA.
		And do you have any affiliation with the incoming administration?
		No, we're technically nonpartisan, although I acknowledge a certain valence that some people might suppose of the right.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And Evelyn, can you talk a little bit about the McCain Institute and similar information about that?
unidentified		Sure, Kimberly.
unidentified		So the McCain Institute was founded by the McCain family and friends in cooperation with Arizona State University.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		So that's our mothership.
unidentified		But we are here in Washington, D.C.
		We operate independently.
		We're a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on democracy, human rights, and leadership.
		And it's really kind of with the spirit of John McCain advancing internationalist foreign policy and again in order to strengthen democracy here and around the world.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Reid, I want to talk to you about a piece you recently had, you recently co-authored in Foreign Affairs, Trump Must Not Betray America.
		First, the case for a foreign policy that eschews primacy and embraces restraint.
		Can you talk about how you expect President-elect Trump's foreign policy to differ from that of President Biden and what you think they should be doing differently in the incoming administration?
unidentified		Sure.
		So I think that most observers of American foreign policy would agree that President Trump has rather blithely parted ways with a lot of the orthodoxies assumed in Washington about America's role in the world.
		This dates back to 2016 where he was kind of busily slaughtering sacred cows on the way to the White House, talking everything about the obsolescence of NATO to the potential for nuclear breakout in states in the Indo-Pacific and kind of just questioning some of the received wisdom.
		And I think we saw more of this on the campaign trail in 24.
		And I think we heard more of this from his running mate JD Vance.
		Vance obviously parted ways with kind of the Republican caucus in a number of important ways on U.S. foreign policy, not least of all with respect to Ukraine.
		I think that some of those statements and commitments made by Trump and Vance helped propel their candidacy, especially in contrast to the Harris Waltz campaign, which frankly embraced a lot of the orthodoxies assumed by President Biden with respect to Ukraine or kind of campaigning with Liz Cheney, things like that.
		I think so there was a kind of a studied contrast between both campaigns and I think that Trump and Vance benefited from kind of breaking with orthodoxies.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Can you be a bit more specific about what you mean by the orthodoxy?
unidentified		Okay.
		I think orthodoxies assume a sort of almost indefinite assurance of kind of NATO, right?
		Not that I think Trump and Vance are talking about stepping away from the alliance, but asking more of our European allies and partners in terms of their commitments.
		I do think that Trump talking about ending the war in Ukraine presents a sort of studied contrast from President Biden's, frankly, bottomless support, at least rhetorically, to the Ukrainian cause.
		And I think, you know, with respect to, say, Trump's track record vis-a-vis, say, North Korea, right, where he's willing to deal and actually commit to summitry, right, that there are some differences here in Trump's application of foreign policy, the way he talks about it, the way he intends to go about it from President Biden, who I do think is, frankly, a kind of a mainstay of those foreign policy orthodoxies, as understood in Washington.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Evelyn, can you sort of talk, I know we've talked about the contrast between Biden and Trump now, but what are some of the top foreign policy challenges you see facing the United States in the incoming administration?
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, I think, Kimberly, first, just to add to the earlier conversation about the contrast, President Biden, President Obama, President George W. Bush, President George H.W. Bush, so as Brian said, the orthodoxy has always been America engaged, America leading a coalition of allies, working with our allies in order to create a world that is more prosperous, that fosters American foreign policy interests and our economic interests.
		And so the alliances have been important from that perspective because we're a lot stronger.
		And right now we're in an environment, and getting to your question, what are the biggest challenges, really the fact that we are in a standoff as a democracy.
		America is the strongest economic, political, and military power in the world.
		We shouldn't forget that.
		But we are in a standoff with autocracies that are China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, but they are now working together.
		And that is a distinction that is really important and really dangerous.
		So we are in a world where our government needs to be actively working internationally to reduce the threats and frankly countering those autocracies from a position of strength, increasing our deterrence, increasing our diplomacy.
		So that is the number one threat.
		Of course, there are still issues with nuclear proliferation related to that, climate change, these global threats as well.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We're going to be talking about several of those, but both of you have mentioned Ukraine.
		I'm going to point to a Reuters article, as has been reported in many places, that Trump says he sympathizes with Russia's opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine.
		And this President-elect Trump, Donald Trump, said on Tuesday, this was January 7th, that he sympathized with the Russian position that Ukraine should not be a part of NATO.
		And he lamented that he will not meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before his administration.
		He was asked about the future of the war in Ukraine and the role of NATO, as well as Russia's posture last week.
		Let's listen to a clip of that.
david sanger ▲ ● ▼		On Ukraine, you said just before it was a lot more complicated now.
unidentified		Much more complicated.
unidentified		Do you believe that?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Because it would have never started.
david sanger ▲ ● ▼		Right, but it has started.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, not only started, the cities are largely knocked down.
david sanger ▲ ● ▼		To hold on the leverage in dealing with President Putin, would you make a commitment to the Ukrainians that you will keep supporting them during the negotiations?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I wouldn't tell you if that were the case.
david sanger ▲ ● ▼		Would you make a commitment to provide a security guarantee if they do enter into an armistice or a ceasefire along the lines of the French and the Germans?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		So you know, a big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years, long before Putin said you could never have NATO involved with Ukraine.
		Now, they've said that.
		That's been like written in stone.
		And somewhere along the line, Biden said, no, they should be able to join NATO.
		Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feeling about that.
		But there were a lot of mistakes made in that negotiation.
		And when I heard the way that Biden was negotiating, I said, you're going to end up in a war.
		And it turned out to be a very bad war.
		And it could escalate.
		That war could escalate to be much worse than it is right now.
david sanger ▲ ● ▼		They can never join NATO.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, my view is that it was always understood.
		In fact, I believe that they had a deal and then Biden broke it.
		They had a deal which would have been a satisfactory deal to Ukraine and everybody else, but that Biden said, no, you have to be able to join NATO.
		And that's always been, and nobody knows more about NATO than I do.
		You know, years ago when I first started this, I didn't know too much about NATO, but I got it right anyway.
		I said they're taking advantage.
		I'm the one that got in the Secretary General was here, as you know, two weeks ago, saying that if it weren't for me, NATO wouldn't even exist right now because I raised from countries that weren't paying their bills.
		At that time, 28 countries, 20 of them were not paying their bills, 21 to be exact.
		They weren't paying.
		Or they were paying a very small portion.
		And I raised over $680 billion, that was the number he gave, by saying, if you don't pay, we're not going to protect you.
		And as soon as I said that, the money came pouring in.
		But Obama could have said it.
		Other people could have said it.
		Bush could have said it.
		Nobody said it but me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, the Biden administration is expected to deliver about a $500 million weapons package to Ukraine before Trump takes office.
		Obviously, Trump has been reported to have a pretty close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin to Ukraine's disadvantage.
		Reid, what is your take on how Trump will handle the conflict in Ukraine?
unidentified		So I think, I can't, of course, speak to President-elect Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin.
		I do think what he's offering is an injection of honesty, which is long overdue.
		We have been making, frankly, hollow promises to the Ukrainians for dating back to at least the 2008 Bucharest summit when we provided a sort of gauzy pathway to membership for them, which frankly achieved the worst of all worlds, provoking Russia to the response of Putin and offering nothing to the Ukrainians by way of actual or material security commitment.
		So I don't think, I mean, we keep talking about our ironclad assurances to Ukraine and we offer our material support in this conflict, but the understanding has long been that the alliance would not accept Ukraine.
		And if President Trump is going to be honest with the Ukrainians, I think that does less moral and material injury to the Ukrainians than promising something that we don't intend to deliver.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What does an end to this conflict actually look like under a Trump administration, do you think?
unidentified		I don't know, Kimberly, but first of all, I think it's really important to kind of correct the record.
		There was so much there that President Trump said that was historically inaccurate.
		The most important thing to understand is that Vladimir Putin is an imperialist.
		He wants to refashion the Russian empire.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		I mean, it's not even just the Soviet Union.
		It's going back even farther.
		He thinks he is now the new Peter the Great.
unidentified		He does not believe the state of Ukraine, that the Ukrainian people have the right to determine their political and economic associations.
		That is what they have the right to do, and that is what they are asking for.
		They are afraid that if there's a ceasefire without a security guarantee, meaning without the United States or NATO saying, we will come to your aid if Russia attacks again, Russia will attack again.
		And why do we know that?
		Because Vladimir Putin is dead set on getting Ukraine under his control.
		We don't want to go back to a world of empires.
		So President Trump, if he wants peace, and he said he wants peace, right, the only way he's going to get to peace, even though both sides are tired, is to put pressure on the Russian government to allow some kind of security guarantee to Ukraine.
		It doesn't have to be NATO membership, but then it needs to be a bilateral U.S. Senate-ratified agreement, and only President Trump can deliver that right now.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I want to move on to another big foreign policy issue, which is the ongoing war in Gaza.
		A story here in the AP pointing out that earlier this month, Congress was notified that the Biden administration is planning an additional $8 billion in weapons sales to Israel.
		This would add to a record of almost $18 billion in aid that the United States has given to Israel since the Hamas attacks in October of 2023.
		What are you looking for in terms of U.S. policy in the Middle East under a Trump administration?
unidentified		Well, it's a little bit similar, Kimberly.
		We need to put pressure on our ally, our partner Israel, to come to a deal with Hamas.
		Certainly, we need to put pressure on Iran, and we need to demonstrate to Hamas, make it very clear that there's no future for them in the Middle East and in Gaza.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		If we can do that successfully, then we can at least get the hostages home.
unidentified		And we have seven Americans there.
		We need to get maybe it's about 100 or less hostages out of there.
		And then we need an agreement for peace.
		Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf countries can step in and help, but only if there's a ceasefire and a path towards a peace.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		And that means we have to be negotiating.
unidentified		We can't just give assistance to the government of Israel.
		We need to also make sure that they understand what our expectations are with regard to diplomacy.
		Make no mistake, the bad guy here is Iran and Hamas, but we need a peace deal, and we need the hostages to come home as soon as possible.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Reed, oh, go ahead.
unidentified		Well, my crystal ball is pretty murky on this one, frankly.
		It's difficult for me to predict with certainty.
		And I appreciate Dr. Farkas kind of jumping into the fray here to make some assurances, which I think all sound completely sensible.
		But looking ahead to the Trump administration, it's difficult for me to ascertain how he is going to approach this, right?
		You can imagine some callback to the Abraham Accords, which he obviously proudly conducted.
		You can imagine some throwback to maximum pressure on Iran.
		However, this is complicated by the fact that Trump has also talked about negotiating with Iran.
		He has a famous antipathetic relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu.
		So one wonders how his sort of personal style of diplomacy will engage with the myriad and complicated factors that play in the Middle East.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We're going to be taking your calls with questions for our two guests on foreign policy ahead for the Trump administration.
		For Democrats, the number is 202-748-8000.
		For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Another foreign policy, national security issue is climate change.
		We're looking at these terrible fires happening in Los Angeles and obviously hurricanes becoming more severe and a variety of threats in that regard.
		President-elect Trump said on Truth Social talking about this, the fires are still raging in LA.
		The incompetent Poles have no idea how to put them out.
		Thousands of magnificent houses are gone.
		Many more will soon be lost.
		There's death all over the place.
		This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our country.
		They just can't put out the fires.
		What's wrong with them?
		How do you two see the threats from climate change in terms of national security and our threats?
unidentified		Well, I would say climate change is actually probably the number one existential threat because people can die.
		Now, thankfully, so far, contrary to what the president-elect said, there actually haven't been that many lives lost, relatively speaking.
		I mean, 11 is too many, and there may be more lives lost, and that's horrible.
		But the reality is that we need to get a handle on mitigation.
		So, how do we strengthen our societies, our buildings, our communities, so that we can better withstand what is already happening?
		And then, how do we get ahead of the problem set?
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		We have an incredibly innovative country.
unidentified		We have policies that the Biden administration put in to incentivize business to come up with more solutions, to move us to electric cars, for example.
		We have Elon Musk, who clearly has an entire industry betting on this for the future.
		The president-elect, it's unclear exactly where he stands because he's made a lot of statements that kind of are really very retro.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		So, we don't really know what his actual policy will be.
		Hopefully, it will be forward-leaning.
		Hopefully, he will embrace the reality.
unidentified		I think the business community and the grassroots communities across America will be calling for more help from the federal government.
		President Trump is a resident of Florida, undoubtedly on the front lines of some of the biggest challenges confronting us because of climate change.
		I suspect that his concerns for real estate values and frankly, just the integrity of our material world will hopefully propel him in the right direction.
		I don't have a good sense of what this administration will shoulder in terms of the burdens presented by climate change.
		Just too soon to tell for me right at the moment, but again, second.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		But during his first term, he very famously withdrew the United States in the Paris Climate Accord, and there have been talks that he would do the same again this time.
unidentified		A non-binding treaty, and one which I think is perhaps more symbolic or moral in a sense than material.
		I do wonder about the impact of Musk in this relationship, the sort of the bet on Tesla and the proximity of him to the president.
		He does seem to have his ear right now.
		He does seem to be serving as something of a de facto diplomat at the moment.
		It'll be interesting to see, but again, it's too soon for me to tell.
		And there is a China competition aspect there, Kimberly, because the Chinese understand that the future is electric because of climate change, and they have pivoted, they've put so much of their resources behind it, which is a challenge to auto industries across the world.
		So, that's another aspect.
		Because, make no mistake, an electric car is a computer that could be weaponized, that could spy on you.
		So, there are implications here for our geopolitical contest with China.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I hope we get a chance to chat a bit more about China with our callers, but I do want to go to a comment we received via text message saying that Trump wants to buy Greenland versus China threatened to invade Taiwan, Russia invaded Ukraine, peace, not war.
		Dan in Pennsylvania referencing their statements from the president-elect on wanting to buy Greenland, also wanting to purchase the Panama Canal back from Panama.
		TheHill.com has a story about House Republicans introducing a bill that would pave the way for Trump to acquire the Panama Canal.
		And before I get to your comments, I do want to play a clip of President-elect Trump last week when he was asked for more specifics about his plans for the Panama Canal and Greenland.
		Let's listen.
david sanger ▲ ● ▼		Let's start, if we could, with your references to Greenland and Panama Canal.
david sanger ▲ ● ▼		So, can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion?
unidentified		Can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is?
david sanger ▲ ● ▼		Are you going to negotiate a new treaty?
unidentified		Are you going to ask the Canadians to hold a vote?
unidentified		What is the strategy?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I can't assure you.
		You're talking about Panama and Greenland.
		I can't assure you on either of those two, but I can say this.
		We need them for economic security.
		The Panama Canal was built for a military.
		I'm not going to commit to that now.
		It might be that you'll have to do something.
		Look, the Panama Canal is vital to our country.
		It's being operated by China.
		China.
		And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama.
		We didn't give it to China.
		And they've abused it.
		They've abused that gift.
		It should have never been made, by the way.
		Giving the Panama Canal is why Jimmy Carter lost the election, in my opinion, more so maybe than the hostages.
		The hostages were a big deal.
		But if you remember, and nobody wants to talk about the Panama Canal because, you know, it's inappropriate, I guess, but because it's a bad part of the Carter legacy.
		But he was a good man.
		Look, he was a good man.
		I know him a little bit, and he was a very fine person.
		But that was a big mistake.
		Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake.
		We lost 38,000 people.
		It cost us the equivalent of a trillion dollars, maybe more than that.
		Probably the most expensive, they say it was the most expensive structure, if we call it a structure, which I guess you can, ever built.
		And giving that away was a horrible thing.
		And I believe that's why Jimmy Carter lost the election, even more so than the hostages.
		Those two things.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Before we go to you, Reid, I will point out that here's a story in Fox News that the Panama Canal CEO has denied Trump's claim that China is in control of the Panama Canal and has said that the end of Carter Neutrality Treaty would mean chaos.
unidentified		Okay.
		So I think thematically, some of the things that Trump is talking about here relate to that sort of reorientation that we referenced in that piece that I wrote for Foreign Affairs with my co-author Dan Caldwell.
		What I think we're looking at right now is a broader reorientation of U.S. foreign policy that is more focused on the Western Hemisphere, right?
		So talking about Greenland or the Panama Canal as opposed to some sort of far-flung and distant theater that has more or less monopolized our attention over the past 30 years.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Please.
unidentified		Middle East, right?
		You know, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, et cetera.
		The thing that those places all have in common is probably less strategic value to the United States than either Greenland or the Panama Canal.
		Now, Greenland, there's a kind of rich history of America flirting with and courting acquisition of Greenland, right?
		This dates back to, frankly, Seward's folly and the settlement on Alaska.
		We at that time had investigated actually acquiring Greenland.
		Truman had looked into it.
		FDR during the Second World War actually more or less militarily annexed Greenland with the permissions of Denmark, who were unable to defend it.
		So there is sort of, I mean, we still have a military base there, right?
		So there's kind of a long history of America thinking about the strategic dimension of Greenland.
		With respect to the Panama Canal, there's probably no more vital strategic choke point in the Western Hemisphere.
		If we want to move naval assets from Norfolk to the Pacific, that's where they're going through.
		And the fact that Trump has expressed some concerns about Chinese holdings along the canal, including, I believe, at least one or two of the locks, is not completely incommensurate with, I think, legitimate strategic concerns that relate to, frankly, stuff that dates back to the Monroe Doctrine.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		So I think this is really a misguided message that President Trump is sending.
unidentified		Underlying it, yes, there's a rational concern, which is frankly the competition with China.
		There are rare earth minerals in Greenland, you know, magnesium, all kinds of things that are required, frankly, for the future of our industry, especially when it comes to electric vehicles, et cetera.
		So those rare earth minerals are important.
		There's also the Arctic Sea lanes.
		We are having Arctic Sea melting, and that means there's a transport area there, but it's also a military corridor, if you will.
		It's an area we need to watch because of Russia.
		And we do have our Air Force base there, our space base there in order to watch what the Russians are doing in terms of missiles, etc.
		So there is a geostrategic reason because the Chinese have been trying to make deals with Greenland to get the rare earth minerals, and also they are interested in having control and more access to that sea lane in the North Pole.
		In addition to that, Panama, yes, there is also a competition with China for influence, for trade, for ability to transit.
		But we don't need to use, to threaten military force against our partners and allies.
		In the case of Panama, we can do deals with the Panamanians.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		We are sending transport through there.
unidentified		They are not gouging us.
		The problem is that we need to keep an eye on what China's doing.
		China's been talking about doing another canal with Nicaragua.
		So let's just focus on what the threat is, which is China.
		With regard to Greenland, I mean, Greenland is part of Denmark.
		They have their own home rule.
		It's very complicated.
		And, you know, as Reid mentioned, they have their own, they have actually liked, they have historically enjoyed working with the United States to counterbalance the big government in Denmark.
		And so they will be very open to making a deal with us.
		And in fact, we have seen pushback against the Chinese.
		So I don't think the president should be threatening military force.
		I do think that he should be looking at the situation and making good deals in the interest of U.S. national security.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's get to some calls.
		Maxine is in Leavenworth, Kansas on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Maxine.
unidentified		Yes, I have a comment and a question for Mr. Smith.
		First of all, the comment is that the Abraham Accords were done without any negotiations with the Palestinians.
		And my question is, Donald Trump said on the campaign trail that he could end the war in Ukraine with a phone call.
		Do you think that he, when he made that statement, that he could actually do that?
		Thank you.
		Well, thank you for the question, Maxine.
		I wish it was the case that President Trump could end the war in Ukraine with a phone call, but I suspect that is not the case.
		I think, and I'd actually love to get Dr. Farkas' thoughts on this as well, too.
		There is going to be a lot to negotiate with respect to what those security obligations look like, what territory swaps look like, what prisoner swaps look like, what the contours of this deal are going to look like are anybody's guess at this point in time.
		I can reflect upon the Eisenhower administration and its negotiations to end the Korean War.
		And if I recall correctly, that took about two years, and more Americans, in this case, died in those latter two years than had died in the preceding time.
		So I think there's a lot of bad laying before us.
		And I do believe Trump is committed to ending the war in Ukraine, but I don't think it can be settled with a phone call.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I should point out before you respond that you recently had a piece in the Hill pointing out that if he's able to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, this is one of the ways that President Trump could potentially win a Nobel Peace Prize.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		Right.
unidentified		I mean, if he really wants to bring peace, and I think it's admirable that he said he wants to, that's fantastic.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		But he cannot do it with a phone call.
unidentified		And he cannot do it if he eases up any pressure on Vladimir Putin right now, because both sides are exhausted militarily.
		The Ukrainians have more of a manpower problem than the Russians, mostly because the Russians have brought in North Koreans.
		Putin doesn't want to mobilize more of the Russian people.
		The Ukrainians have mobilized more, but they have fewer people to mobilize.
		And so right now, when both parties are tired, there is an opportunity to make a deal.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		But the thing is, what President Trump will soon figure out is that the Ukrainian people, I mean, it's a democracy.
unidentified		Ukraine is a democracy, unlike Russia, which is a nominal democracy, but not really a democracy.
		It's an autocracy.
		In Ukraine, if the Ukrainian president accepts a deal that doesn't offer a security guarantee, meaning a guarantee that Russia will not re-invade, then he will be moved out of power.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		There'll be demonstrations on the street.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		So Ukraine has to have some kind of security guarantee.
unidentified		That means putting pressure on Putin because Putin wants to control Ukraine, wants to be able to come back in.
		Can I just reflect on that really briefly?
		I do have some concerns about an American security guarantee, only insofar as I think we've already demonstrated pretty fulsomely that America is not willing to send its sons and daughters to fight and die in the Donbass.
		So I actually worry that any kind of American guarantee or security obligation would be dubious from its start.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So the alternative being that you would want to see that come from European nations, from Ukraine's neighbors.
unidentified		Or NATO.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Or NATO.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Which would also be the United States, though.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		That's correct.
unidentified		But the reality is I don't think we would have to put boots on the ground in Donbass to defend Ukraine against Russia.
		I mean, Russia right now cannot win the war against Ukraine.
		If NATO were to enter in militarily, it would be over.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		It would be over.
unidentified		We would defeat Russia.
		We don't want a war with Russia, though.
		But the threat of a war with Russia is what would make Russia back down.
		Do you worry about the potential for security escalation there, either vertical or horizontal, into something like nuclear war?
		I do not worry about escalation to nuclear war.
		The reason is because there are a lot of factors that mitigate against Vladimir Putin wanting to use nuclear force, even though he threatens it all the time.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		There would be literal fallout for him.
unidentified		He also doesn't know what it would mean politically for him inside of Russia.
		He's not in a very strong position politically inside Russia.
		Let's not forget it was about a year and a half ago when the Russian warlord leader Pergozhin marched on Moscow.
		And if he had had a real partner inside the military establishment in Russia, he could have taken Vladimir Putin down.
		Vladimir Putin was demonstrated to be very weak in that instance.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Earlier this month on Washington Journal, Representative Adam Smith, who's a top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, as you both know, he was asked about the incoming Trump administration and how a GOP-controlled Congress might approach the conflict in Ukraine and also our continued military assistance to that nation.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to play a clip of that.
unidentified		When it comes to support for Ukraine, additional weapons or money to buy them, what's your confidence level that that happens in the 119th Congress with Republicans controlling Washington?
		Yeah, it's not high.
		I'm really worried about the approach that Donald Trump and his supporters have taken to this.
		Look, we need a negotiated settlement in Ukraine.
		I completely agree with that.
		This war cannot go on forever.
		It has been devastating to Ukraine and devastating to the broader world in many ways as well.
		But you don't get to a negotiated settlement if you don't fund Ukraine, if you don't give Ukraine the power to defend itself.
		If Putin sees a defenseless Ukraine, he will not stop.
		So when candidate Donald Trump said he opposed an additional supplemental to support Ukraine, he was basically handing Ukraine to the Russians and Putin.
		Has he changed his mind on that?
		Is he going to give Ukraine the power to defend themselves?
		If Ukraine is strong, if Ukraine has security guarantees, then I think that forces Putin to the table.
		It forces him to negotiate.
		And then Donald Trump, the great deal maker, wants to go make that happen.
		Good for him.
		But there's going to be no deal to be made if we don't give Ukraine the power to defend itself.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		It was a challenge to get Ukraine funding through the Congress, even when Democrats were in control of the Senate.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What do you see ahead for funding for Ukraine moving forward?
unidentified		I mean, it'll still be a challenge, but there's still bipartisan support writ large, meaning in the Senate and in the House as well.
		It's just that there's a minority, a very vocal, powerful minority in the House, the House Republicans, and perhaps the Speaker himself has aligned himself with assistance to Ukraine.
		So it remains to be seen how that shakes out.
		I think it is possible to get aid through again, but it would be a very difficult way ahead.
		And of course, you could have a presidential veto if President Trump fails to understand that peace through strength, as the Representative Schiff said, not Schiff, sorry, Smith said, peace through strength means strengthening Ukraine to incentivize Russia to deal.
		So agree that it could be complicated.
		However, if President Trump wants to negotiate from a position of leverage with Russia regarding an ultimate kind of termination of the war, something that is both swift and solid, it may be that he will turn to Congress and request some sort of additional aid to demonstrate that leverage and to show Putin that he's not simply backing out.
		So I can imagine circumstances such that Trump, in the interest of war termination, goes to the Congress and says, this is what we need to get the job done.
		And this is what we need to provide Ukraine to assure its defense and to give us the best position at the negotiating table.
		So we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.
		But I actually think that that is not an unforeseeable hypothetical.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Dave is in Littleneck, New York on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Dave.
		Dave, are you there?
unidentified		All right.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I think we've got you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Dave.
unidentified		Oh, I'm sorry.
		Yeah, there's so many things to talk about.
		With the road in Venezuela, Cuba, this new triad of evil with North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, all working together.
		I think that poses the biggest danger in the very near term.
		And everything we can do to obstruct that relationship, be it through the relationship between Trump and Putin, whether the media likes it or not, that is a good thing because those guys will talk.
		People who have big egos, like Putin and Trump, can get along.
		I just hope that the media, the elitists, the orthodoxy or the military-industrial complex in this country who have been taking our ideology and have weakened this country, America needs to lead.
		I said I was going to talk about Ukraine, but there are so many issues in terms of what we do.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, Dave, let's take this point that you raised about, you know, kind of going back to Reid's point on orthodoxy and Trump's potentially unique ability to negotiate with some of these players.
unidentified		Yeah, this is a point that I think Dan and I relay in the FA piece.
		It's become unfashionable in Washington to negotiate and do diplomacy, especially with implacable foes, right?
		We don't like to talk to our adversaries anymore.
		This was once a hallmark of, frankly, Republican strength in foreign affairs.
		And I think Donald Trump and the art of the deal is willing to at least engage with adversaries, right?
		Be it Putin or Xi or Kim.
		He has demonstrated a willingness to talk, which is not a demonstration of weakness, rather, in some cases, a show of strength, right?
		That America can come and negotiate on behalf of our interests, our allies, and our partners.
		So I do think that this is an orthodoxy that Trump would do well to break from.
		I think just talking and meeting on the international stage is fruitless and actually it can be dangerous because what President Trump did in his previous administration was essentially bring the North Korean leader out of the darkness and make him appear legitimate by putting him on the stage with the number one political and economic and military power, which is the United States.
		And we got nothing in exchange for it, really.
		We got a little bit of a freezing of the missile development, but that was scrapped as soon as the North Korean leader realized he wasn't getting anywhere with the United States because President Trump, thankfully, didn't compromise anything that was in our national security interests.
		Same thing with Vladimir Putin, and there it was even worse when he met with Vladimir Putin.
		President Trump said, oh, well, Russia has told me they haven't interfered in our elections when our intelligence community had told him that Russia had.
		So he was siding, you know, very publicly with our adversary on the international stage.
		That is dangerous.
		Speaking with leaders is important, but you have to do a lot of diplomatic groundwork to get to the point where you're actually having a fruitful conversation.
		I would just, okay, on the North Korea front, I agree that talking without gaining is not, is for the birds, so to speak.
		But I do think actually achieving a cessation in nuclear and long-range missile tests was more than we'd gotten recently from North Korea.
		So yes, perhaps scraps, but no, not nothing.
		So I do think just the instinct to actually engage with these adversaries is of critical import moving forward.
		And I do hope that Trump will at least test their mettle.
		Can I say something about Venezuela, though?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, I want to let you say that, but also Rich in Southbridge, Massachusetts, made a reference to what you were just talking about.
		Our national security depends in part on sharing information with our allies, given Trump's famously careless approach to protecting classified information.
		How do you think this will affect our working relationship with our allies?
		I wonder if you can talk to me about that as well as Venezuela.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Kimberly, on the question, it's going to be a very slow start because the Allies are going to be looking, can we trust President Trump?
unidentified		We know that when he was in the Oval Office, he met with the Russian ambassador and the Russian foreign minister and gave them highly sensitive intelligence that was shared by us and our Israeli ally.
		And he gave it to them right there in the Oval Office.
		And we know because it was reported on.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		It was classified information.
unidentified		And while the president can certainly give classified information, because there's an idea that the president can declassify through his own power when he's in office, not when he's not in office, but that is something that allies will be really nervous about.
		Will President Trump just give away some classified information?
		There are also concerns about his nominees, including Tulsi Gabbard, who has basically made excuses for autocratic, brutal leaders like Basar al-Assad of Syria.
		Just a quick thing on Venezuela.
		That is an opportunity also for President Trump to make a positive difference in terms of helping bring about democratic change in Venezuela.
		And we know that the hopefully incoming Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is motivated also to work on this part of the hemisphere, on the Western Hemisphere.
		I have to mention that a McCain global leader, Jesus Armas, is being held hostage along with other Americans.
		So he's not American, he's Venezuelan.
		But there are many people being held hostage by the brutal regime in Venezuela, which is illegitimate.
		So that is, I just wanted to applaud the caller for mentioning it and add to it.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Let's get to a couple more callers.
		Jeff is in Hoboken, New Jersey on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Jeff.
unidentified		Hi, yes.
		Good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I want to just give you a little history of me.
		I'm a proud American.
		I come from a military family.
		My father fought World War II and it was awarded a Purple Heart, which I still have.
		I want to ask the caller, especially the doctor, a question.
		If Russia put missiles in Mexico, right, or Canada, how would we feel about that?
		You know, the whole thing about Ukraine, the Warsaw Agreement, they dropped that, and we kept going with NATO.
		We broke our agreement with NATO.
		The war on Ukraine never had to happen.
		You know, I'm not a fan of Donald Trump, but when he talks about Ukraine, he's speaking the truth.
		Okay?
		That's a war that never had to happen.
		All Russia is saying is they don't want NATO on their border.
		Okay, so you put yourself in that position.
		How would you?
		Well, let's let her respond.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so there's another side to the story.
unidentified		So the history is that the Cold War brought an communism collapsed.
unidentified		The Cold War meant that the Warsaw Pact dismantled because the Eastern European countries, which had been under the Russian Soviet sway, said we don't want to be part of the Warsaw Pact.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		We actually would prefer to be part of NATO.
unidentified		And NATO transformed itself in terms of mission as not being aligned against the Soviet Union because quickly there was no Soviet Union.
unidentified		Between 89 and 91, yes, there was a Soviet Union.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		But after that, there wasn't.
unidentified		What NATO said was, we're going to be a collective security alliance.
		We're going to provide security and stability so that there can be economic development.
		We're going to make sure that all the members, as we expand, make a commitment to not have war with one another.
		So it had as much to do with stability among countries that had border conflicts in the past, that had fought one another.
		And so it was about creating security and stability initially, not about Russia.
		Russia invaded in 2008 Georgia, a neighboring sovereign country, and then of course in 2014 invaded Ukraine.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		If you don't like NATO, the way to express your discomfort with NATO is not to invade other countries.
unidentified		So the problem really is Russia in terms of what to do.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		Ukrainian people, it's a sovereign country.
unidentified		It's a decision by Ukraine and the NATO members whether Ukraine enters or not.
		Not anything to do with Russia per se.
		Let me just reflect on the caller's analogy.
		I don't think we have to imagine circumstances whereby Russia or China places nukes close to us.
		We actually ran that experiment in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
		And we brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.
		So I think we actually know how America would react to provocations of a foreign nuclear adversary dropping a bunch of strategic bombs pretty close to our home shores.
		I am a little less swayed perhaps than Dr. Farkas regarding the benign neglect of NATO vis-a-vis Russia.
		I do think that when Russia watched as NATO was given assurance after assurance, Ukraine was given assurance after assurance that it would join the alliance, that they were concerned, alarmed, etc.
		And even if Ukraine was not going into the alliance, it did appear that the alliance was going into Ukraine by way of arms sales and interoperability and joint training, et cetera, et cetera.
		So I think those concerns were underlying Russia's determination to ultimately invade again.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Another question we've received from Text Message, John in Rockford, Illinois asks, is Israel guilty of genocide in Gaza?
		Several prominent human rights organizations have studied the situation and find them to be guilty of that horrific crime.
		Do you agree with them?
		Reid, do you want to take that one first?
unidentified		Oh, good.
		This is an easy one.
		Genocide is a term of art in international humanitarian law.
		It's also hotly contested and debated in academia.
		Outside of my expertise, I do think what has happened in Gaza is unprecedented, at least in my memory, and a tragedy on both sides.
		I'd probably leave my answer there.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, I would say the genocide, it does imply an intent.
unidentified		I don't believe that the Israeli government is trying to eradicate the Palestinian people, although there is a far right in Israel and in the Israeli government that doesn't want a two-state solution.
		They want a one-state solution, which means that there is not a good future for the Palestinian people in Israel.
		And the Palestinian people, we have said, the United States government time and time again, have the right to their own sovereign state.
		The way that Israel has waged the war in Gaza is appalling, frankly.
		I mean, it's overuse of military force without concern, sufficient concern for the civilian loss of life.
		The humanitarian costs, Cindy McCain, of course, she's from the McCain family.
		I work for the McCain Institute.
		She runs the World Food Program.
		They have said time and time again, they don't have enough access provided to them by the Israeli government to get food to the people in Gaza, water, humanitarian assistance.
		You know, right now there have been reports of freezing conditions there.
		So it's a humanitarian catastrophe that we haven't seen the Israeli government address properly.
		And that is another reason why we need to bring a ceasefire as fast as possible to address the humanitarian suffering and put us back on a track where the Palestinians can see a future for themselves.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		John is in Massachusetts on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Thank you.
		I hope you guys give me enough time to answer without cutting me off, please.
		I like to see that America is the master of the inside job.
		Great, terrific.
		You guys funded communism, fascism, and Zionism.
		I want people to listen to a book that Anthony C. Sutton written a long time ago.
		This war was funded by both sides, and it was created by the elites.
		It's like government and corporate fascism, disguised as capitalism.
		So your globalist elite want to create a one-world government.
		So that's why we're going to sit here and we're going to kill this economy, going to a crypto one-world government that your elite wanted, right?
		Your World Health Organization with Klaus, right?
		You will own nothing and you will be happy.
		All you globalist elite.
		Is that why Hollywood's burdened?
		Because all the pedophiles that you have.
		Well, like me to respond or okay, sure.
		I think that my fears of one world government are rather subdued at the moment looking ahead to President-elect Trump's next administration.
		If anything, I think he places great emphasis on nationalism and state sovereignty.
		So I'm not too concerned, but I'll do respect to the colour.
		Yeah, I think that that sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		I'm just going to call it out as such.
		There's no one world.
		Having said that, there is a lot of concern about elites versus regular people.
unidentified		And that did come out in this election.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		It's come out in elections around the world.
unidentified		The capitalist market, it needs to be tweaked in order to better provide for more people in a way that is perceived as more legitimate and fair.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Brent is in Hurricane, Utah on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Brent.
unidentified		Thank you so much for taking my call.
		I'd like to ask your very knowledgeable guests about their opinion on if Ukraine war ever were going to have been started or the Israeli conflict that we're in now if Donald Trump would have been elected to his second term.
		Well, I'll just start.
		The Ukraine war was ongoing, of course, when Donald Trump came into office the first time, and it was still ongoing when he left.
		So I don't think that Vladimir Putin is afraid of Donald Trump.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		And he knows Vladimir Putin has his interests and his objectives.
unidentified		He's an imperialist.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		He's not going to let Donald Trump stop him.
unidentified		So unfortunately, I don't think that would have happened.
		On Gaza, I mean, the Israelis suffered a horrendous attack across, you know, inside their country, but from Gaza into Israel.
		And then, of course, Hezbollah across the border from Lebanon into Israel.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		The Israelis had no choice.
unidentified		They had to defend themselves.
		And Donald Trump wouldn't have even tried to stop them from doing that.
		It's just the way the war has unfolded.
		Perhaps President Trump would have counseled Prime Minister Netanyahu and he would have listened.
		Having said that, President Trump didn't try to hold President Netanyahu or sorry, Prime Minister Netanyahu accountable or rein him in earlier.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		So it's really hard to predict what would have happened, but I can assure you, I don't think any of that sadly would have changed.
unidentified		Yeah, I tend to agree with Dr. Farkas in this case.
		I think notably, the first Trump administration did begin the provision of lethal aid to Ukraine.
		So I think there is a case or a claim that they can make that, in fact, they were more hard-nosed about Ukrainian security than preceding administrations.
		However, I can't say with certainty that this would have foreclosed the possibility of, given the reasons that I think underlie Putin's determination to go into Ukraine, I can't presuppose that that provision of lethal aid would necessarily have kind of taken that away.
		Meanwhile, in Gaza, difficult to say.
		I think part of the reason for the horrors of 10-7 occurring were the fact that Hamas felt like the Palestinian situation was being rapidly erased from the consciousness of their fellow Arabs.
		And if you saw further normalization between Israel and other large Arab states, that the Palestinian cause would simply cease to exist.
		So if you pursued additional treaty lines along the lines of, say, the Abraham Accords, then I can't say with certainty that that would have done anything to remove the concerns that perhaps motivated Hamas on 10-7.
		And Iran, of course.
		Sure.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		In the last couple minutes we have left.
		We'll take one more caller.
		Brian is in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
		Good morning, Brian.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'll let's go back to Israel, and I'd like to focus on the West Bank.
		You know, corporate media pays very little attention to what's going on on the West Bank.
		You know, I find it very galling that the Israelis are always asking for money, asking for money to support them.
		And then we've had multiple American presidents tell the Israelis, stop the settlement activity.
		And they don't.
		And then a few months later, we hand them another $20 billion.
		But what's your question, Brian?
		So, your learned panelists, why don't you tell America where are the Palestinians going to be at the end of Trump's term?
		Are we just going to allow the Israelis to just push them out of their country?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We're about out of time, so let's go ahead and let our guests respond.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		No, I'm glad he raised this.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		I was in Israel in June.
unidentified		I went to the West Bank.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		It's really pretty horrible.
unidentified		We have a history, and I think our caller alluded to it, under George W. Bush, under his father, under successive presidents, of course, President Clinton, who brokered the Oslo Accords.
		Every president has told the Israelis to stop building settlements in the West Bank because it goes counter to the Oslo Accords and the future that we promised the Palestinian people and the Israeli people in order to have peace there in the region.
		And that is a two-state solution.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		If they start making all these settlements in the West Bank, that's the territory that the Palestinians would have to have for their future state.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		There's going to be no hope for the Palestinians for a future state.
unidentified		And so the West Bank is also becoming an area where you could see Palestinians rising up.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		But right now, what's happening are the Israelis are forcibly removing people from their towns.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		And the United States government under President Biden was also kind of slow to act on this.
unidentified		They said no settlements, but they were very slow with sanctions.
evelyn farkas ▲ ● ▼		The government that's right now sitting in power under Prime Minister Netaya, who is a far-right government, and unfortunately, they do not, they are not fostering a two-state solution for a stable Middle East.
unidentified		I agree with all of the above.
		I actually lived in the West Bank when I was in grad school in Bethlehem, and the obvious impact of occupation and settlement was just impossible to ignore.
		It's gotten worse since then.
		That was back in 2011.
		It's only accelerated, frankly.
		Ultimately, to work some sort of viable deal, one would imagine between, say, Israel and some sort of triangular normalization with Saudi Arabia.
		You would have to imagine that Trump would insist on putting the brakes on settlements in the West Bank.
		Whether or not Israel's willing or able, frankly, to accommodate that term is anybody's guess.
		But he didn't do that in the first term, and many of his funders, unfortunately, are funding the far-right movement and the violent settler movement.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, we're going to have to end it there.
		Thank you both.
		We could talk for hours longer.
		Thank you very much, Evelyn Farkas, the executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University, and Reed Smith, the Foreign Policy Vice President of Stand Together.
		Thank you both for sharing your expertise this morning.
unidentified		Thank you.
unidentified		Thanks for having us.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And coming up next, we're going to hear from business journalist and host of NPR's full disclosure, Robin Farzad, to discuss the financial and economic stories you may want to watch in the year ahead.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		be right back.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell has spent 40 years in the United States Senate, 17 of those as leader of his Republican colleagues.
		That's the longest any senator has been at the top of the leadership rung in either political party.
		Senator John Thune was elected a few weeks ago to head up the Republican majority in the Senate in 2025.
		Meanwhile, journalist Michael Tackett's book, A Profile of Senator McConnell, is called The Price of Power and subtitled, How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party.
		Mike Tackett, the Deputy Washington Bureau Chief of the Associated Press, conducted over 50 hours of interviews and was granted access to never-before-released oral histories.
unidentified		Journalist Michael Tackett, with his book, The Price of Power, How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
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		Washington Journal continues.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are joined now by Robin Farzat, who's the host of Public Radio's Full Disclosure.
		Welcome to Washington Journal.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So let's get into a chat about the big economic stories coming in the year ahead.
		But first, what is Full Disclosure?
		Can you talk a bit about your program and where people can find you?
unidentified		It's an omnivorous show.
		We prepare it in small batches.
		It's artisanally sourced.
		You could find it on the NPR app, wherever you get your podcasts, actually, you know, Spotify, Apple Podcasts.
		And it's roughly about the business of culture.
		We delve into everything from markets, policy, media and technology, foreign affairs, whatever really fascinates me that I would like to hold the listener's hand in fascination as well.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So where do you see the economy headed in 2025?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What are some of the big economic trends that you'll be watching?
unidentified		Well, in one respect, I think we have a first world problem in that we keep creating way too many jobs for comfort.
		If you saw the reaction to this jobs report, more than a quarter million jobs created in the latest tally, which was about 100,000 more than expected.
		Now, this would be great because we've been, you know, crushing it coming out of the depths of the pandemic now for the better part of five years.
		But so many people had banked on the Federal Reserve finding enough weakness and enough of a pullback in inflation and job growth to cut rates.
		And the Fed seems to have everybody on hold for a while.
		They put that on the shelf.
		They put us on ice.
		So we're in kind of this, I don't know, I wouldn't call it purgatory, but so many people had expectations of rate cuts and clearly the sugar rush of market highs on the Trump win.
		But then there is the sobriety of valuations and potential for tariffs.
		What if inflation sticks around longer than we had imagined?
		So it's kind of tempered for the time being.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Speaking of the Fed, there was a lot of talk last year about whether or not the Fed had engineered a soft landing coming out of the economic recovery after the pandemic.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Do you think we are on track for that or something else?
unidentified		Where's the landing?
		We keep creating jobs.
		There hasn't been a pullback in jobs.
		There isn't any sign of deflation.
		You know, nothing like what we had in the first quarter of 2000, you know, when we had visited something like unemployment in the mid-teens within a couple of weeks.
		Of course, that was an extraordinary exogenous shock.
		But even if you think back to 2010 and 2011, the United States has been the envy of the world.
		And the Powell Fed has indeed so far been able to land this.
		In the past, when you had inflation, the likes of which we saw three years ago, you'd kind of have to hike in a way that would take the economy into a recession to break the back of inflation.
		You could look at what we had to do in the early 1980s under Paul Volcker.
		Indeed, the Fed did take up rates quite a bit in 12 months, in 15 months, but that did not crash the economy.
		It shows you how much money was still sloshing out there from the pandemic.
		It showed you how resilient this economy was.
		Having said that, you know, we are well into full employment.
		The problem is, is inflation remains stubbornly above the Fed's comfort zone.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		There are also members of the Fed, including Mary Daly, as mentioned here in this USA Today article, who warned that some of the policies of the incoming Trump administration could potentially contribute to inflation.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What are your thoughts on that?
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, who pays for tariffs, ultimately?
		If you get in that kind of multilateral warfare, is it U.S. consumers who already have to suffer through inflation price hikes?
		They still get sticker shock in the grocery aisle at Target, at Walmart, various things.
		I mean, the fear is that China has been exporting what would have been inflationary in China.
		They kind of need inflation right now.
		The economy is falling and it's stagnating and they need the manufacturing vessel to run on full tilt.
		So are they dumping their wares on the United States?
		That tends to have a deflationary effect.
		But if we're in a tariff war, certainly people are in no mood to feel that right now on top of the price increases and the product shrinkage, if you will, of the past several years.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What about one of the other big elements of Trump's agenda that he's talked about, which are mass deportations?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What impact could you see that potentially having on the economy if they roll out the way that Trump has said that they will?
unidentified		Well, talk to any diner owner, any restaurant owner, any small biz owner, where, you know, in the past, the Chamber of Commerce wing of the GOP would kind of look the other way with regards to all sorts of immigration.
		You're throwing a lot of baby out with the bathwater if you just have these mass deportations.
		It's going to have a chilling effect on even legal immigrants or people who are in the process of seeking that legality to step forward and take some of these jobs.
		I mean, there's still, we have a shock in the service sector at least.
		Look at hospitality.
		There aren't enough people out there, even if the wage prevails at something like $15 an hour, which is well north of the federal minimum wage.
		So is it going to have an even more chilling effect on the tight labor market right now, which is inflationary?
		If you're going to have to sweeten the pot and pay people more and then pass those through to menu costs or service costs or, you know, in some respect, as a great investor I spoke to said, another way we're taking the shock of inflation right now is with our time, the time it takes to get on board it, the time it takes to get seated or served at a restaurant or served at a professional services firm that is understaffed.
		That too is a tax of inflation.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We are going to be taking your questions on inflation and the broader economy.
		Anything you would like to ask Robin, our number for Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents at 202-748-8002.
		Before we get to the callers, are there any other big economic stories that you may be watching in the year ahead that maybe aren't getting the attention you think they should right now?
unidentified		I'm still fascinated by this kind of tipping tug of war.
		You saw a great piece in the Wall Street Journal this week.
		Are people, have they completely had it with tipflation?
		Of course, we saw hero pay and unbelievable generosity with tipping and whole new tip prompts, what with the advent of iPad payment systems and software across the industry.
		And now, I guess the mood, the prevailing mood is it's like too much.
		It's too omnipresent.
		Where do you draw the line?
		You know, did you add a cup of coffee?
		And it's also caused a chasm between management and labor.
		If you look at the difficult labor situation at Starbucks, which is trying to reorganize itself, the servers do want a more standardized tip prompt.
		They want something that's unified with the app.
		So there's a tremendous amount of tip fatigue right there.
		And I think it's endemic of people are just getting, you know, they're nickel and dimed everywhere.
		And I say in that same experience, if you were just to take a Starbucks, I mentioned it before, but shrinkflation, this idea that you could literally cut corners on a product and even charge more on it.
		And people are not dumb.
		They notice that the size of the cereal box, the size of the croissant at the cafe is just smaller and you're charging me more for it.
		And on top of that, I'm being asked to tip.
		So there is a breaking point.
		And one other headline for you is: I'm still fascinated by this return to office tug of war.
		You see JPMorgan and others mandating something like four or five days a week back at the office.
		I wonder if that results in some sort of perverse outcome where the cream of your performance review crop says, I don't have to deal with this.
		I will make myself available on LinkedIn and go elsewhere where maybe they're more tolerant of three-day work weeks.
		So there's going to be a haves and a have-nots bifurcation.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		But speaking of return to office, this is one of the things that Elon Musk and the potential Department of Government Efficiency group has talked about using a return to office mandate for federal workers as a way to intentionally reduce the size of the federal workforce.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What do you see as sort of the economic implications of some of the things that that group is calling for?
unidentified		Yeah, that's called managing people out.
		You make the job less pleasant for them.
		You know, you reduce the flexibility and they will leave.
		This is a big problem right now for federal office space.
		If you go into a Washington, D.C., if you go into downtown districts all across the country, the sidewalk level, it's just unbelievable, even in Manhattan.
		I mean, it's nothing like it was pre-pandemic.
		Even if you have people back at the office three out of five days a week, there are a handful of people who are doing coffee badging.
		They just show up, they sip the coffee, and they leave.
		There's this broad realization that you could be substantially as productive as you were back in the pre-pandemic normal without having to get on a commuter train, without having to deal with bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate.
		And I think that's a battle for the soul of labor right now between capital and labor.
		And I think, unfortunately, a lot of that clout will diminish for workers when and if the unemployment rate shoots up.
		You get a lot more honesty out of people in terms of what they're willing to do when unemployment is more kind of closer to twice where it is right now.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		James is in Akron, Ohio, on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, James.
unidentified		Yes, I have three items.
		One thing, I don't think the inflation is bad other than the cost of poetry product.
		And I think that has to do with the bird flu and things like that.
		We've been killing poetry by the millions, and that's caused that raise in price.
		And I think Donald Trump made it a political item and made it work for political purposes.
		The other thing that's inflation is causing a great problem.
		It's been going on for quite some time is the cost of insurance.
		My automobile insurance or homeowners' insurance has been constantly going up for about the last eight years.
		And the third thing that's really creating a problem is the ability of the big companies to kind of put a kibosh on Social Security instead of Social Security being something that's livable.
		It's for seniors.
		Most seniors, you have to be in poverty.
		Almost every senior that I know that's counting on Social Security, they're eligible for food stamps and everything else.
		And that shouldn't be when you look at the other 38 industrialized countries.
		That's not a problem.
		So I don't know why we have the problem here.
		But I wish you would address all three of those items for me.
		I'd appreciate it.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		So that's the inflation related to the price of eggs and poultry due to the bird flu.
		And there's a story here in the Washington Post that egg prices continue to climb amid the bird flu outbreak, empty shelves and eye-popping prices aren't going anywhere, experts say.
		And then maybe we can circle back on home insurance and Social Security.
unidentified		I don't think that a person at the grocery store who kind of is anchored in this memory of 99 cent a dozen eggs, a lot of stores, I mean, they sell them as lost leaders, Aldi, Kroger, others.
		This is something that kind of gets you in the door to buy prepared foods and other things that are much higher margin in a low-margin business.
		So it's not like anybody likes charging $3.50 or $4 a dozen for eggs.
		It's something that is subsidized through the agriculture industry.
		It's a very wasteful industry, the culling that you have.
		And in the same tone, I would say that nobody, very few people actually stop and look at that print of, say, $3.50 and say, oh, you know what?
		But it's because of bird flu.
		I think that they're angry now that this has sustainably had price hikes that taking your kids out for breakfast or pancakes has more expensive eggs.
		I mean, you talk about we have the cliche of bread and butter issues.
		I mean, eggs is a corollary.
		It's adjacent to that.
		So I don't think people are as forgiving.
		And the longer this persists under President-elect Trump, they'll, you know, they'll blame him as well, even though much of the inflation happened as a result of the interventions, the economic interventions for the pandemic.
		Insurance is something that really creeps up on you.
		A lot of people out there, whether car insurance, home insurance, they only check their statements every now and then.
		They might be billed once or twice a year.
		And these companies have strategically pushed through premium hikes.
		And that is annoying people.
		They group that, I think, increasingly with greedflation.
		This is, you know, Fortune 500 companies, financial services companies increasingly squeezing them at a period that was not really great for them.
		You've had a drop-off in drivers, a drop-off in commuting.
		And there's a tremendous amount of anger right now towards the insurance industry writ large, as we've seen over the past month and a half.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, speaking specifically about home insurance, this has become quite a big story in relation to the fires raging in Los Angeles.
		There's a story in the LA Times here.
		They lost their home insurance policies.
		Then came the fires.
		We're seeing people being dropped from policies in fire-prone areas, hurricane-prone areas.
		This is becoming an increasingly affordability issue for many homeowners.
unidentified		That's right.
		And you look at my hometown in South Florida and Miami, and if something were to happen akin to a category five or category five hurricane, or you had constant atmospheric rivers, these flooding situations happen, or the sea level rise situation becomes so inexorable, you are going to have insurance companies pulled out, and the state has to become the insurer of last resort.
		And we know that those are expensive, they're prohibitively priced plans, and they're very stingy in terms of the payout.
		And I think some economists would argue that the market is working in that case.
		If you're going to live in an area which has a disproportionate brushfire risk or flooding risk, which is increasingly across the coast, various coasts across the boundaries of the United States, where you look at the Gulf region, you look at the Mid-Atlantic areas of Virginia Beach that are increasingly prone to flood.
		This is happening in New England.
		We saw it happen in New York with Superstorm Sandy.
		So no one is immune to the effects of climate change, which you have to subscribe to.
		And the insurance industry is going to cover itself first.
		Very briefly on Social Security before we get back to the calls.
		You know, I felt that very personally last year, my father's decline and realizing what you have to have to have a dignified kind of end-of-life care in a facility.
		And the caller really spoke to it beautifully.
		You have to show poverty or you have to be very wealthy.
		And so those who are out there on Social Security inevitably, we see nine out of ten times, seem to rely on other government programs to support them.
		There is a very afraid safety net in this country for older people.
		People are living longer.
		There are more lonely people out there.
		The system is so aggressively means-tested that you can't really buy a great long-term care insurance plan anymore because the solvency of that industry is really questioned.
		So there's a real cliff that I think fellow Gen Xers right now are feeling with respect to their parents, which is going to confront them as well in 20, 25 years.
		So that has to get in line with so many other pressing issues that are going to confront this administration in Capitol Hill.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Bruce is in Summitville, Indiana, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Bruce.
unidentified		Yes.
		I had a couple questions on the tariffs and also on the last comment about the health care.
		Nobody ever seems to talk about tariffs that are given against our products, which has caused in the past us to lose market share and the production that employs people.
		The other thing about Social Security, which I've never heard anybody talk about, is how many people are passing away before they have a chance to take their benefits.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		That's a really good question, Bruce.
unidentified		Or if they pass away before they use all their benefits, where will that money go?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's let Robin respond on tariffs on U.S. products as well as where all that Social Security money is going.
unidentified		You know, the big dividend coming from NAFTA, it's already kind of a 30-year-old thing with Clinton signing NAFTA into law with all these former presidents of both parties, you know, looking on.
		And there was a tremendous amount of bipartisanship before that.
		And Donald Trump, of course, in his first term, came in and retooled NAFTA and rebranded it.
		There is a big dividend to enjoy.
		If you go into a Walmart, which by itself would be one of the largest trading nations on the planet, you can buy things that you were not able to buy, say, 20, 30 years ago at a certain price.
		So that is something, or you know, you look at the availability of produce, the availability of avocados.
		If you go into a Chipotle, the fungibility of the Haas avocado whose demand has exploded over the last 20 years, these are all functions of free trade without not being larded up and gummed up by tariffs.
		So the evidence is really out there to see which industries here have been protected successfully by tariffs.
		I mean, we do know that there's some sort of asymmetric warfare and that China has national champions.
		China backs certain telco players, certain car players.
		You don't know where the public sector in China ends and the private sector begins, and that's kind of more pronounced in the United States.
		But then the Chinese could say, hey, well, look, you bailed out General Motors in 2008 and 2009.
		So there's stuff all over the place here.
		Even Elon Musk, who is, I don't know, we want to call him something like a prime minister or a gray eminence for President-elect Trump.
		His company, Tesla, has benefited greatly from government largesse and benefits and backing.
		And maybe not to the extent that it's a national champion the way one of the big two or big three is, but still here he is right now, one of the wealthiest people on the planet, if not the wealthiest.
		It toggles day in and day out, and he has used his money to have an outsized megaphone with the president.
		So that should be a case study unto itself.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And did you have any thoughts on Social Security?
unidentified		The question about what happens to benefits before?
		There are survivorship benefits, but I think it's just increasingly confusing for people.
		Overwhelmingly, you get the impression, you know, we have had a blip in life expectancy coming out of the pandemic.
		But as people live longer, as their children have to understand the nut of what it takes to house mom and dad, to pay for groceries and the like, there's a tremendous amount of confusion over it.
		And you can speak to any widow about this, any family that's trying to decide between the pension that overwhelmingly no longer exists because 401ks have, if you have a benefit plan at work, have replaced so many defined benefit pensions.
		More and more people are depending on that Social Security check.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		John is in Shingle Springs, California on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Jonah.
		Excuse me.
unidentified		Hi, how are you?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Alan is in Old Saybrook, Connecticut on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Alan.
unidentified		Good Sunday morning to you and to Mr. Farzad.
		Now, my question is this.
		Right down the street from me here in Old Saybrook, there is a Charles Schwab, and they offer go ahead and manage your own portfolio.
		I would like to have his opinion on what professional expertise that a professional wealth manager or professional investment strategist would have, like somebody with, Schwab does it as well, but T-Row Price, I use Oppenheimer, rather than doing it yourself.
		That industry right there, I mean, this is an interesting question.
		I can't recommend clearly advisors or stocks or strategies, but what has happened very quietly over the last five to six or seven years is kind of the death of the equity commission.
		You know, time was you had to call a broker, pay a lot.
		The bid-ask spread was fat.
		There was a lot in terms of waste in terms of what would happen.
		And the industry has moved enormously to self-directed investing and people in index funds and in ultra-low-cost exchange-traded funds, which are liquid.
		And the democratization of investing, what I'm saying, is fascinating.
		Having said that, there's a multi-trillion dollar transfer of wealth happening from the boomer and the greatest generations down on to Gen X and millennials.
		And overwhelmingly, generations that have not been tuned into the stock market, they've actually tuned it out.
		If you look at the volatility and the letdowns of the past 20, 25 years.
		So there is, I think, a huge demand in Wall Street to find out how you get to the heart of these investors.
		If you go to Silicon Valley, some of the young investors, the young moneyed class, they're into robo-advisors, which are kind of, you know, even with the benefit of AI right now, you can have very dispassionately managed, computer-managed portfolios.
		It takes the human element out of it.
		There are others who love the handholding, who want to be able to call a financial advisor and sob when the market is down 10 to 20%.
		So it's wide open out there and self-directed.
		And then the complication with crypto.
		We don't even know.
		I mean, that's broken heights that we have never seen.
		It would have been unimaginable to a person holding crypto in 2012 to see where that crossed $100,000 recently.
		And there's a debate out there whether you should own crypto assets.
		And so advisors, I think there's more of an emphasis right now for that handholding.
		Of course, are you willing to pay what these firms are asking?
		I mean, that's the trade-off you get.
		It's ultra-cheap, ultra-do-it-yourself if you're out there indexing or buying ETFs.
		But sometimes it can get lonely, especially when volatility is back.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Julian is in Meridian, Connecticut on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Julian.
unidentified		Hello.
		Actually, the previous question leads into my question perfectly and regarding the democratization of financial services.
		And my question is regarding the new administration and its crypto currency policy.
		The Biden administration has been quite anti-crypto, and there is a stark difference in the Trump administration with regards to the attitude towards crypto and crypto policy.
		If you could talk a little bit about what you think might happen in 2025 regarding how crypto policy may impact the actual economy and what that would mean for Gen Xers and the baby boomers as well.
		Well, Mar-a-Lago, you know, White House South is in South Florida, which is a crypto epicenter.
		And Elon Musk and the broligarchy, they seem to attract a lot of crypto-adjacent attention.
		And so that has been a great vibe as evidenced by the movement in cryptocurrency since Trump's election in November.
		I don't know what in the way of policy other than taking down SEC or NASD impediments to more easily marketing or transacting cryptocurrencies.
		It's amazing how history rhymes.
		We're nearing the 100th anniversary of the great crash in 1929.
		There was a tremendous amount of unprotected speculation and people hawking all manner of products before there were securities industry adequate regulation and transparency.
		And we've now had 100 years of learning the hard way through Enron and WorldCom and crash of 87 and junk bonds and insider trading, how many protections you have to have.
		And I'm not convinced that the folks in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives or some of the regulatory bodies are up to speed on something as newfangled and hard to explain as crypto.
		So it's susceptible to a lot of volatility on the upside and the downside if various things happen.
		If you see a crypto exchange fail, which we've had with the Sam Bankman-Freed saga a couple of years ago, how is that going to affect the market?
		There's a lot of psychology at play right now, and I just think a lot of exuberance that you have a crypto-friendly administration finally, but that has to play out over the long term.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		There's a story here in Bloomberg, how Trump came around to crypto and what crypto wants in return, which says in part, President-elect Donald Trump was once skeptical of digital assets, saying Bitcoin seems like a scam and that crypto's value was based on thin air.
		Times have changed.
		During his latest presidential campaign, Trump pivoted to a crypto cheerleader.
		A July speech at the Bitcoin 2024 conference capped his complete about face.
		Since his reelection, cryptocurrency prices have surged, especially Bitcoin, which hit a record high above $108,000 in December amid expectations that his incoming administration will pursue a pro-crypto agenda.
		Let's get back to the calls.
		Kelly is in Clinton, Louisiana on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Kelly.
unidentified		Hey.
unidentified		Good morning.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		I would just like to say I have full confidence in President Trump.
		I think he is a great man.
		And I don't want to be unfair.
		It seems we're bypassing President Biden.
		Are you there?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		What do you mean?
		Who's bypassing President Biden?
unidentified		Well, we're not speaking of what the last four years have what's happened under President Biden.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What specifically are you talking about?
unidentified		All the stuff that's happened negative.
		Let me just say that we are under a dark cloud since Biden was elected.
		And that's a true fact.
		And so I have full confidence that the light of President Trump is going to shine through.
		Now, Kelly, in terms of all Americans, whether you're Democrat, Republican, Independent, now there are those that want to stop the light.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, Kelly, in terms of actual economic policies and how the economy is doing, what specifically are you talking about under the Biden administration that you think didn't work that you think will be done differently under Trump?
unidentified		About the beginning when he sat at his desk and he had a stack of executive orders that he got rid of when he tried to sell the wall, the border wall.
unidentified		All of these things were negative.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I think we got the idea.
		Let's go to Matthew in Dearborn, Michigan on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Matthew.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning, sir.
		I think one of the things, you talk about the food inflation.
		Well, I think one of the things we could do is 40% of our crap land is used to raise ethanol.
		Well, we don't need ethanol.
		We pump oil like crazy.
		We could use that land to grow food.
		And if they want to subsidize it, because they subsidize the ethanol production for the farmers, we'll subsidize the food instead.
		And that would be a great thing.
		I mean, that would lower food prices.
		Yeah, especially when oil breaks a certain level and gasoline breaks a certain level, you start to see this debate of food versus fuel.
		It's zero sum.
		If you're devoting acreage and photosynthesis to the growth of corn that is going to be an input for biofuels or biodiesel or ethanol, that has been a very difficult, how would you say, beneficiary to kind of tune out for the last several decades.
		Various independent presidential candidates have run against it.
		The problem is you have influential Midwestern states and farmers who are loath to give that up and candidates who are loath to kind of speak truth to it.
		But I think the market in the meantime works.
		If you have low gas prices, if you have an overabundance of hydrocarbons coming out of the shale formations of the United States oil patch, then you really don't have much of a market for ethanol that is going to waste, that this corn is actually very much needed in a time of food inflation, where it makes sense actually to commit this to grains and cereals and foodstuffs, if you will, corn syrup, whatever you want to describe.
		So I think right now, I mean, this has kind of been eclipsed because food has been so costly and it's worthwhile.
		I mean, certain farmers, certain assets, if you look at cocoa, if you look at certain other commodities, it makes sense to grow that and increase production of that and sell into that as opposed to diverting it for the production of fuel for vehicles.
		But again, test that when gasoline breaks $4 a gallon.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Leroy is in Detroit, Michigan, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Leroy.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
		Well, you mentioned the General Motors buyout bailout.
		However, what y'all don't seem to get is that China has almost unlimited or they have an excess production capacity.
		They're sharing it with Africa and they're sharing it with Central America, South America down in that area in the Panama Canal.
		And you guys really don't, you know, I don't know if you just don't see it, but you don't mention it.
		So what I like for you to do is consider that and discuss it.
		And I'll hang up and listen.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		The big concern right now with respect to China, and I think it's especially fascinating in the proximity of Tesla CEO Elon Musk to the president-elect, is this enormous fear and loathing in Detroit among the big two and a half and even among Tesla of these ultra-cheap Chinese vehicles.
		We've done various episodes.
		BYD, the Chinese EV maker, which stands for build your dream, I can turn these things out.
		I don't know if it's profitable or not, but $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 vehicles.
		You might think back to the smartphone era and how there's a premium smartphones, but there are certain smartphone-type models or tablet-type models that you could buy at a CVS or Walgreens that kind of get the job done.
		And the fear is that if the Chinese are able to inundate the United States with these vehicles through a loophole, through Mexico, or I mean, certain production limitations in terms of having to have vehicles substantially manufactured in the United States, there are union protections.
		That's something I think you can go and look up.
		The CEO of Ford is hanging on to a special Chinese model that he recently borrowed, and he's refusing to let it go because he's so fascinated and ostensibly spooked by this.
		The fact that you can make it and make it profitably.
		So, there's a huge concern right there.
		And it's going to bring up, you know, kind of protectionism versus green versus progress versus would we rather just flood the plane with ultra-cheap EV vehicles, making that possible that would accelerate the adoption of charging infrastructure.
		It would de-exoticize it for people, much like the iPhone's introduction, what was it, 18 years ago, completely changed the phone market, the mobile market.
		Did I say 18 years ago?
		Yeah, it was 2007.
		I remember Steve Jobs visiting Business Week back then.
		It would have been unthinkable.
		People are holding these things and saying, This is great, but why do we need a better phone?
		And you might similarly say that, well, I have a dumb vehicle right now, or I used to have a dumb phone, and I want a smart vehicle.
		And there is concern over that.
		And is the protection going to be enough to keep those cars out of the system in the United States?
		Already, you're seeing Nissan potentially talking to Honda about a merger.
		You have other secondary and tertiary players pulling back, and that distress is going to extend to Detroit as well.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Terrell is in Owings Mills, Maryland, on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Terrell.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Happy New Year.
		I saw that interview with Bloomberg with Donald Trump about crypto.
		That's an old article.
		Okay, but anyway, what I want to ask the gentleman is: how much did crypto contribute to Donald Trump's campaign?
		Do you know that answer?
		I don't know how much we could.
		Are you talking a financial amount of crypto donated to the campaign?
		Yeah, when he changed his mind, now that interview that Bloomberg did, I heard Donald Trump say that he didn't know much about crypto and that he would prefer the dollar.
		If that's the same article that Kimberly was talking about, I saw that article about a year, a year and a half ago.
		It's a fair question.
		I think his proximity, his popularity with young, maybe non-college-educated males, as evidenced by, you know, he went on the Joe Rogan podcast.
		He was very good and smart about going on these shows and espousing Elon Musk and the galaxy around Elon Musk, the people who are approximate to him.
		Elon Musk has had dalliances, I think, with Dogecoin and other things in the past.
		So, this general patina that it gives off, that we are open-minded to this, we're friendly to this.
		By dint of even going on a Joe Rogan podcast, I think you think about crypto bros in Miami or in other parts of the country, and they would find that amenable.
		The fact that he would go on a podcast that's popular with young men and talk and hold forth for several hours.
		I mean, that's really without precedent in electoral history.
		It used to be so guarded.
		You be careful, Larry King, or 60 Minutes.
		And that's one of the bigger stories coming out of this election: the access, the podcast that some of these candidates went on, and where the attention, especially for younger Americans, younger voters, has shifted to away from legacy media.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I wasn't able to find a more recent article, but there was a story from CNBC back in October that found that Trump's PAC had raised about $7.5 million in crypto donations since early June of that year.
		Obviously, that was with a little under a month to go before the election.
		And, you know, we're waiting on more recent numbers since then.
		Well, that's all of the time that we have, but thank you so much for your time, Robin Farzad, who is the host of Public Radio's Full Disclosure.
		Thank you very much for joining us this morning.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And thanks to everybody who called in with your questions.
		We're going to be back shortly with open forum ready for your questions and comments.
		And other thoughts about foreign policy, domestic policy, whatever is on your mind.
		Our phone numbers are on your screen.
		You can start calling in now.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
		I'm Harry F. Furlin.
		I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.
		The office of President of the United States.
		At will to the best of my ability.
		And will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend.
		Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		The Constitution of the United States.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		So help me God.
unidentified		Congratulations, Mr. President.
		Watch C-SPAN's all-day inauguration coverage on Monday, January 20th, including the historic swearing-in as Donald Trump takes office as the 47th President of the United States.
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		Weekends bring you Book TV, featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
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		Journalist Adam Chandler with his book 99% Perspiration, a new working history of the American Way of Life, argues that hard work is not enough to obtain the American dream.
		He's interviewed by author Alyssa Quart.
		Watch Book TV every weekend on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Attention middle and high school students across America.
		It's time to make your voice heard.
		C-SPAN Student Cam Documentary Contest 2025 is here.
		This is your chance to create a documentary that can inspire change, raise awareness, and make an impact.
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		Washington Journal continues.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We're an open forum ready to take your comments on whatever public affairs issue are on your mind.
		But first, an update on the ongoing fires in Los Angeles.
		Hear a story from the Associated Press.
		Los Angeles wildfires death toll rises as crews fight heavy winds to save homes and landmarks.
		With the story saying that the death toll from the wildfires ravaging the Los Angeles area rose to 16 as crews battled to cut off the spreading blazes before potentially strong winds return that could push the flames towards some of the city's most famous landmarks.
		Five of the deaths were attributed to the Palisades fire and 11 resulted from the Eaton fire, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office said in a statement Saturday evening.
		Obviously, terrible images coming out of those fires.
		And the previous numbers of confirmed fatalities before Saturday was 11.
		But officials said they expected that figure to rise as teams with Gadaver Dogs conduct systemic grid searches in leveled neighborhoods.
		Authorities have established a center where people can report the missing.
		Following up on our previous segment about the economy, we did receive one message on X from Suki, who points out that the stock market and the average citizen have different goals, especially when it comes to the economy.
		Now, then, your thoughts in open form.
		We'll start with Tony in Beaumont, Texas, on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Tony.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yes.
		I wanted to speak on the gentleman that was there before about if a person dies.
		I came on the back end of that conversation and I missed out on what happens if a person dies.
		I was on Medicare or whatever.
		Now, my next question is: it appears that the insurance companies have changed from our Medicare to it's either Aetna Medicare or Humana Medicare.
		And my question: what happened to Medicare paying 80% and your supplemental insurance paying 20%?
		Now, all that has changed completely.
		So, I'm in confusion.
		I'm a senior citizen and I'm trying to find out what in the world is going on.
		I'm sorry to bring this this early in the morning, but I thank you for the call.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for your call, Tony.
		I believe what you're referencing are the Medicare Advantage plans that are run through private insurance companies to supplement Medicare.
		And Medicare.gov has a page with some information about that that describes those Medicare Advantage plans, along with some suggestions for how to navigate that.
		So, if you go to Medicare.gov, you can find some information about those and how they're different from regular Medicare.
		Rodney is in San Antonio, Texas, on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Rodney.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yeah, I just want to talk about Roe v. Wade.
		I'm just glad it went back down to the state.
		Let the 50 governors figure out what's going to go out of it.
		And I don't just want Roe v. Wade.
		I want it all to go back down there.
		I want the federal government to go back to foreign policy.
		I don't want them to go really doing anything.
		I mean, we've only had FEMA since Jimmy Clarter was president.
		ETA, all those things.
		California has their own ETA.
		Let them decide what they're going to do with their state.
		Let the governor of Texas decide what he's going to do in his state.
		They're closer to the people than the federal government, which is in Washington, D.C. Anyway, that's my opinion.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Bob is in Sacco, Maine, on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Bob.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'd like to dovetail back to the economy and the segment you just had before.
		There's a book that I read recently called Finding Our Compass: Setting a Course for Democracy to Succeed.
		It's written by Robert Raymond.
		And in there, he puts forth an economic theory called Oak Tree Economics.
		And in that theory, he talks about the redistribution of wealth and points out that capitalism itself is the redistribution of wealth from the consumer to the business owner or service provider.
		And in order to get that money back down to people who spend it, he points out it needs to be done through social programs because we can't keep printing money.
		We can't keep extending credit to people who Don't deserve the credit in order to float the economy.
		And a lot of times when Republicans get in office, they float the economy through federal spending.
		You look at Reaganomics, and he doubled the entire federal budget and tripled our debt during his years of Reaganomics.
		And if we're going to do a sustainable, and OT Economics talks about, if we're going to do a sustainable economy where it can feed itself, then you have to reduce the distribution.
		distribute some of the wealth from the top back down to the bottom to be spent again.
		I just wanted to make that point on the economy.
		And that's a great book if anybody wants to look at it.
		Thank you.
		Gordon is in Cincinnati, Ohio on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Gordon.
unidentified		Well, here, I would like to know, they want to extend the budget $4 trillion for Elon Musk to take $2 trillion away from the spending.
		And if you look at the stock market, I've been watching it because I'm getting ready to retire.
		And I keep losing money every day.
		And that's just because Trump is talking about tariffs and all the other stuff he is talking about.
		Trying to, you know, Canada countries and the whole bit.
		I don't know.
		But a rich man don't want to help a poor man out.
		And that's basically what we're looking at.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Frank is in Silver Creek, Georgia, on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Frank.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I just want to make a few comments.
		Tried to call in when you had your talking heads on.
		Two of them.
		One, Ms. Fargus, and she's with the McCain Institute, I understand.
		And she talked about NATO and how it would promote social, I mean, economic development in Europe.
		And I thought, well, let's see here.
		Russia, 140 million people.
		They are no threat to America.
		They are a threat to Europe, however, Western Europe, because when Will Clinton was president, he pulled 200,000 troops out of Europe and did not make NATO backfill those troops.
		Had they put those reinforced, put the troops back in Europe, Europe should have done their part.
		Russia would have seen, well, I better not mess with Western Europe because they mean business.
		And Joe Biden is responsible for pushing Putin in a corner to develop the allegiance with North Korea, China, and Iran.
		All right.
		The second point I want to make is the economy.
		The economy has always been based on GDP, not how many jobs you create.
		Those jobs are for people retiring and leaving the workforce.
		Now, he's going to bring chip-making companies from Taiwan and China to America.
		Okay.
		We've already got foreign investors in this country at the galore.
		And what's going to happen when they say, okay, we're going to close up our factories and pull out of your country now?
		That's economic warfare setting us up.
		Give it to a Democrat and they will screw it up.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Steve is in Florence, Alabama on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Steve.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, Kimberly.
		Thanks for C-SPAN and for allowing us to give our opinions.
		I just wanted to say a few things briefly.
		There's an old, wise old saying in the Talmud that says, if you control what a man knows, if you control what a man knows, you control what he thinks.
		It has occurred to me listening to Washington Journal over a lengthy period of time, especially in the last year or two, the reference to facts and the fact-checking.
		I've noticed that sometimes there is a qualifying word.
		The listeners should listen carefully.
		There's so many lawyers that will argue about this as a fact and that's a fact.
		Our country is overran with lawyers, and they can be one qualifying word in a statement that can render a statement which misleads people to say, well, this is the fact, so you're wrong about this or you're wrong about that.
		If you understand what I'm getting at, beware of legal speak when it comes to fact-checking.
		The other thing is, I'm very distressed about what Israel is doing with the Palestinians, but I'm horrified, horrified by what the international elites are doing to the citizenry, principally the white citizenry of Russia and Ukraine.
		Their militaries, all those men dead, as was pointed out by Trump, by getting them to fight and kill each other.
		America, listen, do not allow yourself to be tricked into volunteering for military service.
		Do not allow yourself to be drafted to leave your home and family and go to some foreign land where you will be pitted against your own kind in order that you be eradicated.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Ron is in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Ron.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		You know, I'm going to try and touch on a couple of these things.
		A guy earlier came on, I believe he was from Texas, said that Roe v. Wade should be decided by the states.
		I don't believe any state in the United States should have say-so over a woman's body.
		I don't care what state it is, and tell a woman that she has to give birth to anybody.
		This last thing, Ukraine, Russia, nobody attacked Russia.
		Russia attacked Ukraine.
		And it's always, as far as I know, it's always been in America's best interest, sort of our credo, to hold up democracies.
		And this is a fledgling democracy that was attacked.
		And it has a lot of repercussions for our friends over in Europe.
		And yeah, I think we're doing the absolute right thing.
		And I got to say, I'm so proud to have a convicted felon as my leader now again.
		Yeah, that is so great.
		Somebody with no moral standards, ethics, values, somebody that every American should look up to.
		This country is going to crap, and the Republicans are taking us right to it.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Pat is in Velvin, North Dakota, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Pat.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just want to say that I would like to, I'd like C-SPAN to have something on air about digital, our money going digital.
		I tried to buy some check blanks the other day, and they're not allowing you to have as many check blanks.
		And sometimes when you pay your statement, they charge you a fee if you pay by mail.
		And so they're just trying to force you into going online to do your banking.
		So I would just like to, I think the American people would like to have something to say about this, and they're not consulting us at all.
		That's all I have to say.
		Thanks.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Pat was referencing the decline in the use of checks.
		This is something that's actually been tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, which found that global data tracks the decades-long decline in check payments from around the world.
		We have more evidence that people are shifting from checks to other means of non-cash payments.
		Using data from the Bank for International Systems, they found that from 2012 to 2021, in all 20 countries they examined, the number of checks declined as the number of cashless payments increased.
		Since checks are cashless payment instruments, it's notable that the total of cashless payments increased even as a component of this calculation declined.
		Wanda is in Chico, California, on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Wanda.
unidentified		Okay, this is an incident I'm just calling about in California.
		I was walking my dog down the sidewalk about a month ago, and there was a fire right in the middle of the sidewalk.
		And it was right after several school buses had stopped by to pick up a bunch of kids.
		So it wasn't a very big fire, but it would have been because there were dead leaves all around it.
		And I stomped it out and I called the police about it, and I don't know if they did anything or not, but I think a lot of these fires are arson.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		John is in Madison, Wisconsin, on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Hello.
		I have family in Utah, Colorado.
		And I love Wisconsin because of cheese and soybeans and corn and so on.
		And I'm originally from Illinois, and Illinois is going to become a great state in the near future, I think, because of J.P. Pritzker and because Los Anders doesn't have much water, and I think that Chicago is going to become a lot bigger city.
		And thank you.
		Bye.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Well, thank you to everyone who called in for Open Forum and all of our other segments on Washington Journal today.
		I'll point out that tomorrow, President Biden is set to deliver a capstone address on his foreign policy legacy as he makes way for Trump's return.
		As reported here in the Associated Press, this is going to be the outgoing president is expected to use his address at the State Department to highlight his administration's efforts to expand NATO, rally dozens of allies to provide Ukraine with a steady stream of military aid to fight Russia, forge a historic agreement between Japan and South Korea to expand security and economic cooperation, and more,
		according to a senior administration official who requested anonymity to preview plans for the address.
		Biden also picked the State Department for his first major foreign policy speech at the start of his presidency nearly four years ago.
		I'll point out we'll be carrying that speech, of course, live on C-SPAN as well as on our website, c-span.org.
		Thanks to everyone who joined us today for Washington Journal.
		We'll be back again tomorrow with another edition at 7 a.m. Eastern.
		Have a great day.
unidentified		C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington and across the country.
		Coming up Monday morning, Punch Bowl News Andrew Desiderio previews this week's confirmation hearings for the president-elect's cabinet picks and key stories on Capitol Hill.
		Then, Ben Freeman of the Quincy Institute discusses their new report on how so-called think tanks are funded.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
		Join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Monday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now or online at c-SPAN.org.
		Tuesday, President-elect Trump's Defense Department nominee Pete Hegseth will appear at a confirmation hearing.
		The former Fox News host previously served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the Minnesota National Guard and worked for a veterans advocacy group.
		He also earned a master's degree in public policy from the JFK School at Harvard University.
		From the Senate Armed Services Committee, you can watch live Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org.
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