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Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | |
| We'll also hear from Politico tech reporter Christine Moy on the Supreme Court decision to uphold the ban on TikTok, which is expected to take effect on Sunday. | ||
| And then USA Today Bowdoin College government professor Andrew Rudelevich discusses the presidential power of executive orders. | ||
| And United Policyholders Executive Director Amy Bach will talk with us about the impact of climate disasters on the U.S. insurance market and consumers. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| This is Washington Journal for Saturday, January 18th. | ||
| Yesterday, the Supreme Court announced a unanimous decision to uphold a federal law effectively banning the popular social video app TikTok. | ||
| And just a few hours later, President-elect Donald Trump announced his inauguration will be moved indoors due to dangerously cold temperatures expected in Washington, D.C. Monday. | ||
| For this first hour of today's program, we want to hear your thoughts on those two stories. | ||
| Here are the lines: Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text your comments to 202-748-8003. | ||
| Be sure to include your name and city. | ||
| You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for being with us on this Saturday. | ||
| Again, one of the stories we're following this morning for the first hour is the announcement from President-elect Donald Trump that his inauguration will be held indoors. | ||
| Looking at the front page of this morning's Washington Post, there's a photo, the caption, A Worker Catches His Breath Friday at the National Mall as he and others remove the chairs that had previously been set up. | ||
| The headline, Icy Blaston's inauguration inside the article saying that President-elect Donald Trump on Friday ordered his inauguration moved indoors for the first time in four decades. | ||
| A sudden weather-induced change that forced a scramble for hundreds of thousands of people who spent months planning for the swearing-in of the nation's 47th president. | ||
| Law enforcement officials called emergency meetings. | ||
| Members of Congress learned about changes in the media, then fielded hundreds of calls from confused constituents who had tickets to the festivities. | ||
| Workers inside the Capitol Rotunda, where Trump will now take the oath of office, quickly got to work assembling a new podium. | ||
| And scores of people from across the country who had brought flights and booked hotels reconsidered their trip to the nation's capital. | ||
| It goes on to say that 220,000 tickets distributed by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, a bipartisan group responsible for planning the event, will now be commemorative, the House Sergeant of Arms said in an email Friday to lawmakers and Hill staff, adding that, quote, the majority of ticketed guests will not be able to attend the ceremonies in person. | ||
| The Capitol One Arena, where Trump said supporters could watch the swearing in, can seat up to 20,000. | ||
| We'll have more on that story as well as the other story we're talking about for this first hour. | ||
| That is the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the ban on TikTok. | ||
| Joining us now to give us more details about the decision is Christina Mui. | ||
| She's a tech reporter for Politico. | ||
| Christina, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thanks for having me. | |
| Why don't we start with the decision by the Supreme Court? | ||
| It was unanimous. | ||
| What did they focus on? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, they focused on, the justice really focused on specifically there were two concerns that Congress had when it passed this law. | |
| The first was the potential that, you know, Chinese control of ByteDance, which is TikTok's parent company, could compel the company to basically hand over American sensitive data for 170 million Americans. | ||
| The second was the potential that they could somehow manipulate the content on the platform. | ||
| So alter the algorithm in some way that pushes pro-China, you know, anti-American propaganda. | ||
| And the justices, even when they heard arguments at the Supreme Court last week, were a lot more concerned about the data risk than the content manipulation risk. | ||
| And that came across in their ruling, which was essentially that even just based on those data collection, that threat alone, they find that the law passes muster. | ||
| It does not violate the First Amendment, as TikTok and a group of its creators has been arguing throughout the courts all the way up to the Supreme Court. | ||
| And Christine, I apologize. | ||
| I think I got that wrong earlier. | ||
| What has been the reaction to the decision from TikTok, from the White House, and from creators? | ||
|
unidentified
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There's been a flurry of reactions from the White House. | |
| Their reaction really started actually on Wednesday and then following into Thursday. | ||
| But the reaction to like they preemptively, there were some murmurings that the White House might consider issuing an extension. | ||
| The president has authority in the law to issue a one-time 90-day extension. | ||
| And then that was kind of struck down. | ||
| And their immediate reaction was that, and that was replaced with a new possible option that President Biden could use, which is that he could choose not to enforce the law is what it sounded like they were saying. | ||
| And that's basically the reaction that we saw repeated on Friday from the White House that given the timing of the law taking place on President Biden's last day and just one day before incoming President-elect Trump comes in, they'd be passing off the implementation of the law to the next administration is how the White House process secretary put it. | ||
| Trump's reaction was that Supreme Court's decision must be respected. | ||
| Then he also kind of left the door open for him to take other action. | ||
| And he said, you know, there's more to come, stay tuned. | ||
| And then TikTok's reaction was similarly, you know, the CEO, Sho Chu, jumped on his own platform and he posted a video doing two things. | ||
| The first was also previewing more to come. | ||
| That's how he ended the video. | ||
| And the second was kind of appealing to President-elect Trump, who has said before that he wants to save the app. | ||
| He's made a request to the Supreme Court to buy it more time for a sale. | ||
| And he said, you know, he wants to broker a deal that would keep TikTok running in the U.S. | ||
| And Chu said, you know, he thanked the president for being on the platform himself. | ||
| He referenced President-elect's reach on the platform. | ||
| That's something Trump has referenced himself when talking about his plans to save the platform. | ||
| And he also said, you know, they're going to try to keep the app thriving for users for years to come. | ||
| So it was a little ominous. | ||
| And then last night, TikTok came out with another update that they had not received enough assurance from President Biden about whether the administration would enforce the law on day one and that they were going to go dark. | ||
| And so that's been the flurry of updates so far. | ||
| It's been a whirlwind day. | ||
| And your most recent headline in Politico TikTok pressures, Biden at last minute says it will go dark. | ||
| The app is set to go into, that is set to happen tomorrow if the ban does go into effect. | ||
| If Biden doesn't step in, if President Biden doesn't step in, what will users and potential users see if that were to happen? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, so by TikTok saying it's going to go dark, that headline was referring to last night's update from TikTok. | |
| That could be the more to come that its CEO had previewed in its TikTok. | ||
| There could be even more to come. | ||
| But my interpretation of that is, you know, it's confirming an option that recent reports have said that TikTok has been considering, which is that it would switch off the app tomorrow for all users. | ||
| So I think the assumption before was that even if was that how the app is enforced, it's enforced against App Store and other service providers. | ||
| So they are the ones that would have to have the responsibility of taking TikTok down tomorrow. | ||
| And in that case, you can't, there can't be new downloads of TikTok, but if you already have TikTok on your phone, it's not going to go away immediately. | ||
| Saying the app is going to go dark appears to change all that. | ||
| That implies that TikTok itself is going to make it so, you know, even if you already have TikTok on your phone, you won't actually be able to access the feed. | ||
| And those recent reports suggest that it would replace that feed with a pop-up informing about, you know, the ban, the law. | ||
| And the way around a potential ban is for ByteDance to sell TikTok. | ||
| What do we know about any potential buyers or what the requirements are for somebody who may be interested in buying the app? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, that would be the easiest way for this to go away for TikTok. | |
| We do know some about some of the potential buyers. | ||
| Frank McCourt, he's a billionaire. | ||
| He's founder of Project Liberty. | ||
| And also, he's talked about his plans about coming out with a bid with Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful, Shark Kick Host. | ||
| And they said, they confirmed yesterday right after the Supreme Court decision that they have, you know, they've made their bid and they have a formal offer on the table. | ||
| That being said, ByteDance all this time has said that they have no intention to sell. | ||
| And it's also, you know, Chinese law prohibits the algorithm itself, you know, the very thing that makes TikTok so popular and that would make it compelling for a buyer to be exported out of the country. | ||
| So it's not clear even if TikTok is so, like what version of, you know, U.S. TikTok can still kind of exist. | ||
| But there's been no indication that public indication at least that that bid is being accepted by ByteDance and that they would be willing to sell. | ||
| And, you know, if that was the case, again, there'd only be one day. | ||
| But that alone would unlock a potential option that people have been talking about that President Biden could put to use. | ||
| And that is that the law, like I said before, offers a one-time 90-day extension. | ||
| And the requirements of that is that he needs to make that, President Biden, if he wants to use it, would need to certify to Congress that there had been significant progress made to divestiture. | ||
| And so, you know, having a real offer like that would make that true. | ||
| But that would also need to include the relevant legally binding documents, the contracts or whatnot. | ||
| A lot would have to come together at the list minute. | ||
| And maybe, you know, some of it is coming back together behind the scenes. | ||
| But at least publicly, we have no indications that a last-minute sale is going to pull together. | ||
| Christine Lee is a tech reporter for Politico. | ||
| You can find her work online at politico.com and on X at Politico. | ||
| Christine, thank you so much for your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thanks for having me. | |
| The TikTok ban is one of the topics we're talking about for this first hour, along with the announcement that President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration will be moved indoors. | ||
| We'll be taking your calls up until for about the next 50 minutes on those two. | ||
| We'll start with Greg in Tallahassee, Florida, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Greg. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I hate to burst the bubble of a whole bunch of gang zeers, but this is reminding me of NAPS here, 1991, where you have some people who are receiving income from this source versus, you know, copyright protection and national security, especially for those under race, similar to the Texas law about porn hub. | ||
| So I think they are going to find a buyer of Chinese descent. | ||
| In other words, Andrew Wong, call your office. | ||
| That's Greg in Florida. | ||
| Stephen in Portland, Oregon, line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Stephen. | ||
|
unidentified
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Morning. | |
| I got no problem with having the inaugural inside. | ||
| That way, all the people are going to be safe. | ||
| And it's going to be cold outside, but everybody at least be safe. | ||
| And is that the main thing, you know, safety? | ||
| President Trump gets through this without being shocked. | ||
| That was Stephen in Oregon. | ||
| Herbert in Michigan, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Herbert. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Yeah, my comment was on the inauguration movement indoor. | ||
| What I don't understand is why the Orange Jesus just didn't use his Sharpie to change the weather. | ||
| It wouldn't be the first time. | ||
| We'll go to Paul in Nampa, Idaho, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Yes, I feel as though I have no interest in TikToks. | ||
| Therefore, it doesn't affect me, but it does affect me because of the espionage aspect that people are experiencing and not knowing it from using that, the help that it's been giving this CPC for a long time. | ||
| And that's about all I have on TikTok. | ||
| The other thing I would like to make a comment on is I think that the drones that have the capability of flying distances quite far could have caused them to take that indoors into the Capitol. | ||
| And I think that was a wise move on their part, whether or not there's drones that were available to them to be able to harm them. | ||
| And the President of the United States and the other dignitaries, I think it was imperative that they moved it indoors. | ||
| I think they may have to look towards the future. | ||
| And whether or not it's cold or not, I think they need to have a cover over their heads. | ||
| That's all I have. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Paul in Idaho. | ||
| We'll go to Raymond in Washington, D.C., line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Raymond. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, Ms. Captain Raymond, Randy Henderson of Southwest Airlines and Texas T Guard Air Shows. | |
| I very much welcome the opportunities that have been afforded me. | ||
| I'm not quite sure what I'm doing here, but I've been appointed to President-elect Trump's advisory board for all things aviation because I'm the highest time pilot in the world. | ||
|
unidentified
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And I am curious as to what, how this, if I'm going to be able to get into the Rotanda on the tickets that I have. | |
| Raymond, I believe I have a story about that that I'll find and share, but I don't believe that they are allowing individuals inside other, into the Rotunda other than staff and Hill staff and members of Congress. | ||
| I'll find that story and read it soon. | ||
| Our other story that we're focusing on is the Supreme Court upholding the ban on TikTok from today's Wall Street Journal. | ||
| This headline, what's next for TikTok and the app's users, it says that President-elect Donald Trump and his advisors are working on options to delay a ban according to people involved in the discussions. | ||
| Trump posted Friday on Truth Social, quote, the Supreme Court decision was expected and everyone was expected and everyone must respect it. | ||
| My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but we must have time to review the situation. | ||
| Stay tuned. | ||
| Shortly after, TikTok CEO Shou Chu posted a video to the app thanking Trump for being committed to working to find a solution that keeps it in the U.S. Here is that video that the TikTok CEO Shou Chu posted shortly after. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi everyone, it's Sho here. | |
| As you know, we have been fighting to protect the constitutional right to free speech for the more than 170 million Americans who use our platform every day to connect, create, discover, and achieve their dreams. | ||
| On behalf of everyone at TikTok and all our users across the country, I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States. | ||
| This is a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. | ||
| As we've said, TikTok is a place where people can create communities, discover new interests, and express themselves, including over 7 million American businesses who earn a living and gain new customers using our platform. | ||
| We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform, one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process. | ||
| To all American users, thank you for making our TikTok community such a rich and vibrant space, for surprising and delighting us every day. | ||
| Rest assured, we will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives as your online home for limitless creativity and discovery, as well as a source of inspiration and joy for years to come. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| More to come. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| We'll hear from Ron in Maryland, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Yeah, I'm calling about the inaugural being moved indoors. | ||
| All I can say is what a wuss. | ||
| JFK's inaugural temperature was 22 degrees and Obama's it was 28 degrees with wind chills in the teens. | ||
| I guess Trump figures there isn't enough jail in the world to keep that, keep in place, whatever that is on the top of his head. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| That was Ron in Maryland. | ||
| Chris in West Virginia, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Chris. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, hello. | |
| How are you? | ||
| I just think all the Americans love TikTok. | ||
| People love it all over the world. | ||
| And it's just the problem is people are making money, and our government just wants to shut it down because they don't want anybody making money. | ||
| They got to have all the money. | ||
| So that's what I think. | ||
| And I just think it's ridiculous. | ||
| They just, they don't want us to have anything. | ||
| So, and they're going to really mess up with us already just by taking that down. | ||
| Anyway, thanks for hearing it. | ||
| Have a good one. | ||
| That was Chris in Lewis, West Virginia. | ||
| Again, we were talking about the Supreme Court upholding a ban on the app TikTok, as well as yesterday's announcement that President-elect Trump's inaugural ceremonies will be held indoors because of cold weather. | ||
| We will hear next from Sarah in North Carolina, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Sarah. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, good morning. | |
| I have more of a problem with the drones flying everywhere than I do TikTok. | ||
| The drones is I'm more scared of. | ||
| Sarah, what drones are you talking about? | ||
|
unidentified
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Any kind of drone that's flying around in the air, any kind of drone, that to me is more dangerous than all these balloons going at in this TikTok. | |
| So they need to look in the drones. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| That was Sarah in North Carolina, one of our callers just bringing up the issue of TikTok and the money that it creates from the New York Times business section this morning. | ||
| TikTok ban is set to deal a major blow to ByteDance. | ||
| The article says the ban, which was signed into federal law last year and upheld by the Supreme Court Friday, is a major blow to ByteDance, the world's second most valuable private technology company, worth $300 billion. | ||
| At least a chunk of the company's value is tied to its success in the United States, where TikTok has 170 million monthly users, according to analyst estimates. | ||
| TikTok has a larger audience outside the United States. | ||
| It has 1.2 billion to 1.8 billion monthly users around the world with its largest markets, including Indonesia and Brazil. | ||
| But the app's American users are the most valuable, analysts say. | ||
| TikTok makes money through ads as well as by selling goods through its TikTok shop, which pays influencers a commission to hawk beauty projects, beauty products, gadgets, clothes, and other items. | ||
| Social networks typically get their highest revenue per user in the United States. | ||
| TikTok took in an estimated $10 billion in revenue in the United States last year. | ||
| He said, out of a total global revenue estimate of $20 billion to $26 billion. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Crystal in Pennsylvania, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Crystal. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| How is everybody? | ||
| First, let me just talk about the inauguration. | ||
| I could care less whether it's inside or outside. | ||
| I wasn't watching or going. | ||
| I'm not interested in that at all. | ||
| But I know other presidents stood out there in the freezing cold, including Barack Obama. | ||
| The temperature was just as low. | ||
| The winds were just as blowing just as hard. | ||
| So I think that Donald Trump knew that he wasn't getting all of the attention from the people that were coming. | ||
| So he took his self inside. | ||
| As far as TikTok is concerned, I barely use the app. | ||
| However, people were making money off of that. | ||
| These were entrepreneurs that were making money to supplement their income. | ||
| Some were making money as an income, making a lot of money. | ||
| And for the American government, all of the people on both sides to come together for once and say we don't need this is crazy. | ||
| I think it was about money. | ||
| Jeff Bezos was probably losing money. | ||
| The guy from Facebook was probably losing money. | ||
| But that's what it was about. | ||
| It wasn't about security reasons. | ||
| This app has been around for a very long time. | ||
| And if the people didn't care about their own security, why should the government care? | ||
| If they were making money, let them make some money. | ||
| Keep this app alive. | ||
| This stuff is crazy to say that we're a democratic country and then take something away from the people. | ||
| These Chinese people don't scare us, but what we did was go on to RedNote or Red Book and find out these people in China were living better than us. | ||
| Their homes were better than us. | ||
| They had health care. | ||
| And that's what the government didn't want us to know: that these Chinese people were living better than us. | ||
| And other people across the world, we became friends with them and we realized that they were not enemies either, including the Palestinian people. | ||
| You know, they didn't want us to know all of this stuff. | ||
| They want to keep us scared of the other people. | ||
| That's all this is about. | ||
| Thank you so much, and have a good day. | ||
| That's Crystal in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Charles in Florida, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Charles. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| TikTok is owned by the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| We are funding China's living over there by using TikTok. | ||
| TikTok is not covered under the First Amendment because it's a foreign corporation owned by government. | ||
| I believe it should be, they were told for the last year to sell or they would have to get out of the United States. | ||
| So for the last year, they haven't done anything. | ||
| Now, they want to ask Mr. Trump for a little handout, which is wrong. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Either they get sold to an American company or they get out. | ||
| That should be it, period. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Have a nice day. | ||
| That was Charles in Florida. | ||
| Matt, and also in Florida, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Matt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| So I think actually Charles is hitting it right on the head. | ||
| The Chinese Communist Party, they're gathering a lot of information and intelligence about Americans. | ||
| And a lot of people don't see the big picture. | ||
| We're giving away vital information of our infrastructure in simple things like your vacuum at home, which gathers the square footage and the layout of your home based on the Wi-Fi. | ||
| People have Wi-Fi refrigerators and washer dryers. | ||
| And why do these items need to be connected to the internet going right back to China, to China, and being documented in their server? | ||
| Same thing with video games like Pokemon Go. | ||
| And there's been comments about different ports of entries that have cranes and all this information is being gathered. | ||
| People walk around with personal drones or little DJI cameras and all that information is being gathered, the layout of America, the layout of our military bases, government buildings, and all this information is pertinent because we don't know what they want to do in the long run. | ||
| And when we all become a little older, when we're hitting our retirement years, and things are happening and we can't explain why, it's because we're giving away all our information, all our security. | ||
| And it may look not like a threat today, but down the road when it is a threat and we lose our infrastructure and our security, that's why this is an issue. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Matt in Florida. | ||
| Let's go to John in Georgia, line for Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, John. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Let me say this. | ||
| Biden, I'm in my 70s. | ||
| Biden is one of the best president that we ever had during my lifetime. | ||
| Biden cabin looked like America. | ||
| And let me say this. | ||
| And Obama, in Obama, he did well, but Obama, by him being the first black president or first African-American president, he could not afford to make a mistake. | ||
| If Obama had made just one mistake, he would have killed the whole entire black generation. | ||
| We used Trump for an example. | ||
| If Obama had done, if half not 30-foot count, but one count, he would have killed Kamala Harris and anyone else of color that would be running for the president of the United States. | ||
| So a good friend of mine always used to say the law is whatever the white folk wanted to be. | ||
| So we need to change these laws and apply all the laws for every generation, every person that who of color or none of color. | ||
| Because here's Trump that 34 counts. | ||
| 34 counts. | ||
| Now he's going to be our next president of the United States. | ||
| So America got to look at itself. | ||
| But let me say, you know, I lead through George Wiley, Eugene Bull Connor. | ||
| Let me say, Trump's going to do more for the black generation than you think because all our leaders now, such as Fred Shelawari, Martin Luther King, all of them going on. | ||
| But Trump. | ||
| That was John in Georgia and John talking about President-elect Trump. | ||
| Raymond, if you are still listening, here's some information from you. | ||
| For you, this is a tweet from Nicholas Wu with Politico. | ||
| He tweeted yesterday that all members of Congress can still get into the indoor inauguration per guidance sent to members and staff. | ||
| But the guidance recommends that your office relay to constituents that their tickets will be commemorative with some exceptions. | ||
| It has been about 40 years since an inauguration has been held indoors. | ||
| It was in 1985. | ||
| It was President Ronald Reagan's second inaugural. | ||
| Here is a clip from his indoor speech. | ||
| History is a ribbon always unfurling. | ||
| History is a journey. | ||
| And as we continue our journey, we think of those who traveled before us. | ||
| We stand again at the steps of this symbol of our democracy, where we would have been standing at the steps if it hadn't gotten so cold. | ||
| Now we're standing inside this symbol of our democracy. | ||
| And we see and hear again the echoes of our past. | ||
| A general falls to his knees in the hard snow of Valley Forge. | ||
| A lonely president paces the darkened halls and powers, ponders his struggle to preserve the union. | ||
| The men of the Alamo call out encouragement to each other. | ||
| A settler pushes west and sings a song, and the song echoes out forever and fills the unknowing air. | ||
| It is the American sound. | ||
| It is hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair. | ||
| That's our heritage. | ||
| That's our song. | ||
| We sing it still. | ||
| For all our problems, our differences, we are together, as of old. | ||
| We raise our voices to the God who was the author of this most tender music. | ||
| And may he continue to hold us close as we fill the world with our sound, sound in unity, affection, and love. | ||
| One people, under God, dedicated to the dream of freedom that he has placed in the human heart. | ||
| Called upon now to pass that dream on to a waiting and a hopeful world. | ||
| God bless you and may God bless America. | ||
| You can find President Reagan's speech in full on our website, c-span.org. | ||
| There's a dedicated page to all of the inaugural addresses dating back to President Harry Truman's 1949 address, as well as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1933 address. | ||
| And for Monday's coverage, we will have live coverage of the day's events. | ||
| It's going to start at 7 a.m. here on Washington Journal, followed by the presidential inauguration, the parade, which is now expected to be held in the Capitol One arena, as well as inaugural balls, which the new president and vice president are expected to attend. | ||
| You can watch that all live on C-SPAN and c-an.org as well as our digital platforms. | ||
| Get back to your calls on the topic of the president's inauguration, moving indoor, and the Supreme Court decision upholding the TikTok ban in just a moment, but also wanted to note an additional story. | ||
| It is, this is from this morning's Wall Street Journal. | ||
| It's talking about the Israeli agreement to a Gaza truth. | ||
| The article headline, Tough Road Lies Ahead for Fragile Deal. | ||
| It says the two sides haven't agreed on a host of issues, including the list of all the hostages and prisoners to be released, the timeline and extent of Israel's military withdrawal from Gaza, and how the strip will be governed. | ||
| Hamas has also demanded a guarantee to guarantee end to the war, something Israel officials have never agreed to and that key members of the Israeli government oppose. | ||
| Israeli Security Cabinet approved the multi-phase deal on Friday, and the full cabinet endorsed it later. | ||
| It says the pact calls for an initial pause in the fighting starting on Sunday. | ||
| That's tomorrow. | ||
| Haas would release some of the Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. | ||
| The days and weeks ahead could prove to be the most difficult. | ||
| The truth calls on Israel and Hamas to negotiate important aspects of the second phase of the deal. | ||
| One or both sides could find reasons to walk away from the deal after the initial phase, resulting in a resumption of fighting. | ||
| We have just under 30 minutes left in this first hour of today, or of this first hour, asking your thoughts on the president's inauguration, moving indoors, and the Supreme Court upholding the TikTok ban. | ||
| We'll go back to Kenny in Kentucky, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Kenny. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I agree on the moving inside. | |
| I mean, the man was just twice almost killed. | ||
| And yeah, I agree on that. | ||
| And then the guys in Florida, they're hitting on TikTok perfect because it's a China-run company. | ||
| So, I mean, really, I think they're talking about the cold weather, Obama and Kennedy. | ||
| Well, was they almost assassinated before they took the oath? | ||
| That's a big question right there is what I like to know. | ||
| But they wasn't. | ||
| Two of them was almost assassinated. | ||
| So that's all I got to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Kenny in Kentucky. | ||
| Bill in Florida, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| I'm going to tell you the truth right now. | ||
| I want you to notice that every single, the SEC used to be so dominant college football, but then as soon as they were legally allowed to start paying players, that's when the SEC started to play so poorly. | ||
| You know? | ||
| All right, that's all I got to say. | ||
| That was Bill in Florida. | ||
| Stephen, also in Florida, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Stephen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Nice to speak to you all. | ||
| And all I got to say as far as the TikTok situation is I'm a senior citizen and I really don't get it. | ||
| But I will say that I think the Supreme Court will give Donald Trump a victory so he can claim that he saved TikTok for all the young people. | ||
| But I want to talk about the inauguration. | ||
| I agree with the previous caller, the previous Republican. | ||
| I definitely think it's a security issue. | ||
| I think Donald Trump is afraid to be outside, and he should be. | ||
| And the second thing is I want to say is hell has finally frozen over, and that's where our country is. | ||
| Thank you and have a great day. | ||
| Stephen in Florida. | ||
| Andrew in Virginia, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Andrew. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I also agree with the previous caller about the TikTok ban. | ||
| This is going to make the president-elect look good when he says TikTok, if you will, because if there's an issue with TikTok in my mind, there would have been an issue with every other social media platform. | ||
| So I think this will be, this will give Donald Trump a win. | ||
| And this is also a win for the First Amendment. | ||
| That's Andrew in Virginia. | ||
| Mark in New York, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I agree with the last caller, but I also think that the American people allowed all this to happen. | |
| We opened up our information willingly, freely, and China owns more businesses in this country than we can even fathom. | ||
| So this little TikTok thing about gathering information, all they got to do is buy it from Facebook or X or whatever. | ||
| So I think it's the American people's fault. | ||
| We are ignorant. | ||
| We're ignorant to the fact that we let the politicians use us. | ||
| We're ignorant to the fact that we don't work together. | ||
| And it's just sad. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Mark in New York. | ||
| We'll go to Bob in Massachusetts, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you today? | ||
| Doing well, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm going to say a few of the other callers in the back having it indoors because there's 780,000 some odd people that live in Washington, D.C. Only 2,000 of them are Republicans. | |
| Those 2,000 Republicans are the staff members and the congressmen and the senators and their families. | ||
| That's all you have in Washington, D.C. for Republicans. | ||
| So he's not safe there. | ||
| No Republican is safe in that town. | ||
| They've already said a lot of the businesses said they're going to discriminate against Republicans. | ||
| So, if I'm a Republican, I stay out of Washington, D.C. | ||
| It is like probably one of the worst places in this country to be. | ||
| Have a nice day. | ||
| That's Bob in Massachusetts and Bob talking about the temperatures expected here in Washington, D.C. on Monday during the inauguration and whether the Weather Channel is talking, has an article looking at the temperatures. | ||
| The forecast high for Washington, D.C. on Monday is in the 20s. | ||
| Again, that prompted the inaugural ceremonies to be moved indoors, and it was below freezing in 1985, or once before in once before since 1985. | ||
| That was in 2009. | ||
| We can look at the historic trends of presidential inauguration weather on the national from the National Weather Service. | ||
| It talks about what is normal for January this time of year. | ||
| The normal high temperature for the day is 45. | ||
| The normal low is 30. | ||
| And the normal weather for 12 noon Eastern, that's the time when the president is sworn into office, is around 37 degrees. | ||
| It talks about some of the additional extreme weather for past inaugurations and has some photos looking at that include inaugurations where you can see there is a lot of snow on the ground. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| We'll go to Don in New Mexico, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Don. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd like to just say that this is a perfect issue to be in the Trump administration. | ||
| First of all, we see that there is conflict between democracy and the self-interest of Donald Trump. | ||
| First, Donald Trump was opposed to TikTok. | ||
| Then the election happened, and he used TikTok to get voters, and he suddenly became interested in TikTok. | ||
| But more importantly, the thing that happened was there was a major investor who came forward and he gave money to Trump's campaign, and then Trump became more interested in TikTok. | ||
| And what this same investor did next is this same investor invested into TikTok social media, Truth Social. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So here we have the perfect issue. | |
| The self-interest of Donald Trump, which is always going to win, are the interests of democracy and the interests of the free world. | ||
| So, in a way, the weather in Washington, D.C., is perfect. | ||
| This is a cold day in hell for democracy. | ||
| That was Don in New Mexico. | ||
| Kevin in Alabama, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Kevin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, thanks for taking my call. | |
| It's kind of amazing that C-SPAN will take my call, but an insurance company that I give money to every month will not. | ||
| So I appreciate that, C-SPAN. | ||
| My comment is about TikTok. | ||
| I'm not really a user of social media, but from my understanding, is that ByteDance is the company that owns TikTok, and they're banned. | ||
| So what users are going to do is just go over to other ByteDance social media platforms and use that. | ||
| So I don't really understand what the purpose of the ban is other than that it's stroking somebody's ego. | ||
| Thanks for your time. | ||
| Good day. | ||
| That's Kevin in Alabama. | ||
| Pete in Massachusetts, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Pete. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Yeah, the TikTok thing. | ||
| You know, the Supreme Court made the right decision, but now they're going to delay it. | ||
| Now The owner of TikTok is sitting with Donald Trump. | ||
| And also, I was in Iamework up for 40 years. | ||
| And I'd be, you know, 60, 80 feet up in the air. | ||
| And I live in Massachusetts. | ||
| I don't know if you've been there, but it's been very cold. | ||
| We got snow and everything else. | ||
| You know, I dress for it. | ||
| You know, they all could dress for it, but that's not happening. | ||
| They're not going to leave the constituents and, you know, the guys that voted for them. | ||
| It's kind of, you know, that's kind of cheesy. | ||
| But, you know, but he's a tough guy. | ||
| You know, I can hang out in the Rotundo, you know. | ||
| But I don't know. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| You have yourself a great day and God bless people in California. | ||
| That was Pete in Massachusetts and Pete talking about the temperatures. | ||
| They get up there in the Northeast. | ||
| It was a tweet from Meredith Lee Hill. | ||
| She's a reporter, congressional reporter for Politico. | ||
| She tweeted yesterday afternoon that ran into inaugural committee chair Amy Klobuchar. | ||
| She's a Democrat of Minnesota on Trump moving inauguration inside due to frigid temperatures Monday. | ||
| She just said, Yeah, we respect the decision of the president-elect and his team. | ||
| She adds no cracks about non-Minnesotans thinking 20 degrees is cold. | ||
| Back to your calls, Nancy in Missouri, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Nancy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think TikTok should be banned. | |
| I don't think it should be any type of TikTok because when TikTok came along in our world, it seemed like a lot of people, mothers, kids, seemed like they died from different things that they was learning from TikTok. | ||
| Trump, I don't care if they did drop all the charges. | ||
| He's still a criminal. | ||
| A criminal doesn't know what to do and don't know really what to say. | ||
| And all, and Trump is evil. | ||
| Elon Mark's evil. | ||
| His whole cabinet is evil because they're criminals. | ||
| He's still criminals. | ||
| That's all I got to say. | ||
| That was Nancy in Missouri. | ||
| Also from Missouri, Senator Josh Hawley. | ||
| The reporters caught up to him yesterday after the Supreme Court's announcement that they were upholding the TikTok ban. | ||
| Here is an exchange. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Turns out the TikTok CEO is coming to inauguration. | |
| You know, has there some signal that he maybe wanted to try to keep the app? | ||
| Would you support if President Trump found a way to help us keep TikTok on the house? | ||
| Well, the best way for TikTok to continue to exist is for it to be sold, which the law explicitly allows for. | ||
| So the problem with TikTok from a national securities perspective is not the content of it. | ||
| Although, you know, people have raised concerns about it, and I have my own concerns, but that's not why you ban it. | ||
| Why you ban it is it is controlled by Beijing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So if it were sold or firewalled, that would be fine. | |
| What about the optics of the TikTok CEO being at inauguration for the app being banned? | ||
| Yeah, well, he's not my favorite guest to the inauguration. | ||
| But listen, if he wants a job, if he wants to keep his job, the TikTok CEO, I would suggest he go out there and sell his company, which, by the way, there have been multiple offers to do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Now, you asked about delaying the law. | |
| The president has the authority under the law to delay the sale or the ban, actually, by 90 days. | ||
| I suspect President Trump will invoke that authority when he comes to office to allow a sale to go through. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's fine. | |
| That's what the law contemplates. | ||
| Or perhaps President Biden in the next election. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, he could. | |
| He could. | ||
| Yeah, he could if he so chose. | ||
| Just under 15 minutes left in this first hour talking about the Supreme Court upholding the ban on TikTok, as well as the announcement that President-elect Trump's inauguration will be moving indoors because of cold weather. | ||
| If you want to call in to the conversation, the lines: Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| The inauguration is happening on Monday, but the inaugural celebration is kicking off today in Virginia. | ||
| The President-elect Trump is set to arrive at the Washington Area Golf Club, Trump National Golf Club, later today for an event there with supporters. | ||
| And tomorrow, there is an event. | ||
| President-elect Donald Trump will appear at a pre-inauguration, Make America Great again rally to celebrate his victory in the 2024 presidential election. | ||
| That will be at Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C. You can watch that live at 3 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Let's hear from Jan in Morton, Illinois, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Jan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have a comment about TikTok. | ||
| Personally, I'm an older adult. | ||
| I'd never use it. | ||
| However, I've used Instagram, I'm on Meta, Facebook. | ||
| I just wanted to say, from my viewpoint, this is a business decision, number one. | ||
| And all I'd really like to see as far as TikTok here in the U.S. is the diversity of their CEO and other high-level management people. | ||
| And there should have been a deal whereby, if ByteDance can create a firewall that will not allow personal data to go outside the country, i.e., back to ByteDance in China, if that firewall could also provide the updates needed to keep TikTok moving ahead, that would have been a great IT agreement. | ||
| If that agreement could have been reached, there's no reason why people in the U.S. could not use TikTok. | ||
| Because if everybody would actually look at the privacy notices that you get from any kind of platform, any kind of even business platform, if you buy Clinique or if you buy LL Bean or whatever you may buy, they all have privacy statements about selling your data to third parties. | ||
| And if you don't like that, then don't get on their website. | ||
| So I think if they actually reached an agreement with ByteDance, again, and a TikTok, I'd like to see TikTok's upper echelon as far as business. | ||
| Is there Chinese? | ||
| Are there other diverse people within the TikTok America? | ||
| And then if they built that firewall that allowed updates from ByteDance without any creepy things that could crawl in and get the data to go back to ByteDance, and if they could have prevented any privacy issues of American users, any of their private data, their banks, their personal information going back to ByteDance, I think everybody would be happy. | ||
| That was Jan in Illinois. | ||
| Lori in Wisconsin, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Lori. | ||
| Lori, are you there? | ||
| Lori, one more chance. | ||
| All right, Lori, if you're listening, give us a call back. | ||
| We'll go to Theodore in California, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Theodore. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning, all. | ||
| Yeah, what I think about it, it's like I'm pro-American, and it seems like the Republican Party is the only way about that. | ||
| They want to build and strengthen. | ||
| And I don't know much about TikTok. | ||
| I don't even have internet on my phone or at home. | ||
| And things can be used for good and bad. | ||
| And I'm just grateful that this country's taking a turn to go in a positive direction of healing itself. | ||
| And you guys are gracious enough to let us speak about that. | ||
| That's Theodore in California, Kendra in Glenn Allen, Virginia, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Kendra. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning, Tammy. | |
| I'm a black African American, and I'm an independent as well. | ||
| I consider myself an independent. | ||
| What is the reason, again, for the inauguration being inside? | ||
| Is it because of the cold or safety? | ||
| They said it was due to the weather. | ||
| It's supposed to be about 20 degrees. | ||
| Where's Glenn Allen from D.C.? | ||
| Kendra? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's about two hours away. | |
| Okay. | ||
| So I have a few things to say, so hopefully you'll let me say what I want to say today. | ||
| You know, I'm just wondering, you know, it's like two months after Trump won the election. | ||
| People are still calling this show, and they seem very angry about Trump winning, and it's very unhealthy to carry so much hate and anger. | ||
| So hopefully people will stop letting Trump live rent-free in their head for the next four years. | ||
| Now, Tammy, my next statement is not directly towards you, but I wonder why Washington Journal has so many topics about the incoming president, because all this does is cause more division, and it opens the door for people to call in with disrespectful comments of our soon-to-be president. | ||
| Washington Journal has been very respectful to Joe Biden by really never talking about him these past four years, even though there were plenty of topics to discuss about him and his administration. | ||
| So please do the same for Trump while he's president. | ||
| Now, the past couple of weeks, it seems like there were a lot of topics about Trump, like maybe I think the hush money trial, when, you know, there were never any topics like really about, you know, after Jimmy Carter's funeral occurred and, you know, like the interaction that we all witnessed between Trump and Obama, you know, that topic, that was never a topic, Jimmy Carter's funeral after it occurred. | ||
| And people that are still convinced Trump is a racist, please go to YouTube and look up interviews of Trump and Oprah Winfrey and Wendy Williams and watch how he interacts with them and their audience. | ||
| He is not a racist. | ||
| And there are also a few interviews on YouTube with Angela Stanton King, a very intelligent black woman who was pardoned by Trump. | ||
| And she talks about what Trump has done for blacks and brown Americans. | ||
| Let me just say a couple more things, Tammy. | ||
| We're running short of time, Kendra. | ||
| So if you can, I'll give you another 30 seconds. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For almost 10 years, we have been hearing Trump's name on a daily basis. | |
| And I have heard Trump's name more than more times in the last two months than I have heard the current president's name within his four-year term and also Obama's name within his eight-year term. | ||
| So I'm just hoping that, Tammy, as far as Washington Journal goes, I'm hoping that maybe, you know, I know people call in sometimes Republicans. | ||
| They feel like Washington Journal is being very biased. | ||
| It seems like they lean towards the left. | ||
| So hopefully that will change, you know, because people like independents and Republicans probably won't watch the show anymore because it seems like it's always leaning towards the left. | ||
| Okay, Kendra, we appreciate your comments. | ||
| We'll leave it there. | ||
| We do talk to a variety of guests, a variety of topics. | ||
| We do focus on President-elect Trump, especially right now, because, again, he's being inaugurated and coming into a second term here on Monday. | ||
| We have also covered President Biden and his administration extensively for the past four years. | ||
| It's very common for us to talk about the current or upcoming president during their administration. | ||
| Just a few minutes left. | ||
| We'll go to Mark in Manhattan, New York. | ||
| Well, on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| No, Donald Trump is not racist. | ||
| He gave more to the Justice Jackson's presidential campaign than anybody else did. | ||
| Now, about TikTok, the concern about TikTok is more so for me about the brain damage that it does to people. | ||
| I know people, very, very, very intelligent people, some people are specific, very, very intelligent people who use TikTok and they lost their attention span. | ||
| They couldn't even listen to a program like yours, like C-SPANS. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| That was Mark in New York. | ||
| Flute, Fluti in D.C., line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Oh, sorry, now you're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, my name is Flute from calling from Washington, D.C. | |
| And the thing is, I think there is timing. | ||
| Timing has a lot to do with it. | ||
| And I think Donald Trump, you know, I'm a Democrat, but I think the timing for him to be president is this is a good time right now because I think we need someone that's going to take us into a new transitional era because we have such, like the TikTok and the YouTube and the Facebook, we have such an outside influence now. | ||
| You know, we need someone that can centralize our direction that this country is going in. | ||
| I think we're getting pulled from so many different directions. | ||
| We need a centralized theme that's going to take over America as far as making America great again. | ||
| You know, I mean, it sounds good, but this is just what we need right now. | ||
| And I think as Trump, his resilience, you have to just respect that. | ||
| I mean, his first term in office, most of the time was spent being impeached, or he was under investigation, or he was charges with brought against something. | ||
| And then COVID came. | ||
| I mean, he had a rough four years more than any president that I've ever seen. | ||
| And I think giving a good shot this time with the country behind him, he had the Senate and the Congress behind him. | ||
| I think he can go in the right direction because we do have a check and balance type of system here in America where one man is not going to just overflow the thought process of American people. | ||
| So this is the right time for him, I believe, because we do need to get our country centralized because I think it's getting diluted. | ||
| Flute, it sounds like you're supportive of President-elect Donald Trump. | ||
| Were you planning on attending any of the inaugural events on Monday? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, being here in Washington, D.C., I know it gets cold. | |
| They say it's going to be cold. | ||
| It's going to be cold because that air comes off the Potomac River. | ||
| And we had one president before. | ||
| I think he, during inauguration, he took his overcoat off. | ||
| He didn't live 60 days. | ||
| You know, so it's just pageantry. | ||
| So they could be inside, outside, wherever, you know, but the thing is, let's do it safely. | ||
| You know, I remember one year that the Clintons had to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. | ||
| It was very cold, and the young lady took her coat off. | ||
| You know, it's just pageantry. | ||
| But what's important, we have four years to go with this man, and let's make it healthy and not let the pageantry decide, you know, what's best. | ||
| So not just this is a one-day event, you know, and it's ceremonial, but I think Bob is doing the job. | ||
| Put together a nice. | ||
| We'll leave it there, Pluty. | ||
| We'll go to Brian, our last caller for this hour in Alabama, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Brian. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| I think this country needs to come together. | ||
| It doesn't matter what political affiliation you are from. | ||
| We need to come together and we need to solve these issues. | ||
| These are big issues, issues of morality, issues of institutionalism. | ||
| We need to solve them and get on it. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| That was Brian in Alabama. | ||
| Our last call for this hour. | ||
| But next on Washington Journal, Bowdoin College Government Professor Andrew Rudalevich will join us to discuss the presidential power of executive orders. | ||
| And later, United Policyholders Executive Director Amy Bach will discuss how climate disasters are impacting the U.S. insurance market and consumers. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Get ready for Inauguration Day with a special 48-hour marathon on C-SPAN 2's American History TV. | |
| All weekend, relive 20 presidential inaugurations in full, from Franklin Roosevelt's address in 1933 to Joe Biden's speech in 2021. | ||
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| Don't miss this journey through history. | ||
| Watch our marathon of presidential inaugurals all weekend on C-SPAN 2's American History TV. | ||
| Mark the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States with a free commemorative inauguration button from C-SPAN. | ||
| It's easy. | ||
| Simply scan the QR code on the right or visit c-span.org/slash buttons to request yours today. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss presidents and the use of executive orders is Bowdoin College Government Professor Andrew Rudelevich. | ||
| Professor Rudilich, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great to be with you. | |
| We'll start by talking about an overview of executive orders. | ||
| Tell us what they are and what gives a president a power to use them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, executive orders are not in the Constitution explicitly, but they flow pretty directly from the president's power in Article II of the Constitution to faithfully execute the law, and of course, from the grant of the executive power to the president at the very beginning of Article II. | |
| Presidents have used them since the beginning of the Republic. | ||
| Every president has issued at least one executive order, even William Henry Harrison, of course, who died very quickly after taking office. | ||
| And so they are pretty well accepted. | ||
| They are essentially orders to the executive branch. | ||
| And executive orders formally are published in the Federal Register. | ||
| They are often produced with great pomp and circumstance. | ||
| But which you keep in mind, they're only one part of a whole category of executive actions and directives that presidents can use. | ||
| These include memoranda or national security directives. | ||
| They include even guidance documents to agencies about what kinds of regulations to issue. | ||
| So executive orders are probably the most formal of this category of presidential directives, but there are many others and often they get mixed up together in kind of a jumble. | ||
| This is a topic you're very familiar with. | ||
| You're also the author of the book, By Executive Order, Bureaucratic Management, and the Limits of Presidential Power. | ||
| Oftentimes we do hear that it's a president issuing an executive order, but there is a process. | ||
| There's a lot involved in the creation. | ||
| Talk to us about who's involved in putting together an executive order and what the process looks like. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, of course, the final product, what we see on TV sometimes is the president signing and then holding up, you know, perhaps a big Sharpied signature, a folder containing a new executive order. | ||
| But there's often a long backstory to that directive. | ||
| Anyone really can propose an executive order in the White House, out in the various executive agencies. | ||
| For a long time, since the 1930s, there's been a process sometimes called central clearance. | ||
| It's sort of a peer review process run by the Office of Management and Budget most often. | ||
| And that is a managerial agency that was created back in the 1920s and really has been a key presidential agency since the 30s. | ||
| And their job is to receive these draft executive orders from wherever they come, send them out to different agencies who might have an interest, get feedback, find out will this actually work? | ||
| Is it legal? | ||
| Importantly, the Department of Justice is supposed to take a look at all executive orders for, quote, form and legality to make sure that the order has been properly formatted, but also is legal under the president's powers. | ||
| It's worth noting that an executive order can only do something that the president has the power to do, whether that power is in the Constitution directly or has been delegated to the president through an act of Congress. | ||
| And so, you know, there are sometimes arguments about whether an executive order does, in fact, go too far. | ||
| Those orders often will go to court, in fact. | ||
| But the internal process is quite multilateral, right? | ||
| We think of this as unilateral action, but it's very rarely just the president sort of sitting down to issue that order. | ||
| There's a big bureaucratic backstory, and that's intentional. | ||
| It's to make sure that the expertise about the subject matter of an order is actually brought to bear on the order itself. | ||
| We are talking with Professor Andrew Redolevich. | ||
| He is a professor of government at Bowdoin College. | ||
| We're talking to him about the use of executive orders. | ||
| He'll be with us for the next 40 minutes or so. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now the lines, Democrats 202-48-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001 and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Professor Rulevich wanted to ask you, you mentioned it. | ||
| We may see it on TV, a president signing an executive order, maybe holding it up for the camera to see. | ||
| What happens once that executive order is signed? | ||
| When does it go into effect? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I hate to use the academic answer, but it depends. | |
| And it depends on what the order says. | ||
| Sometimes they are sort of self-executing. | ||
| You know, they might change something administratively within an agency. | ||
| You know, not all executive orders are very big or sweeping or even substantively important. | ||
| Or others may, you know, ask an agency to work on solving a problem and to look at an issue in sort of a whole of government sense, you know, sort of a planning to make plans kind of order. | ||
| And so those may not have much immediate impact at all, though they do serve the purpose of a president showing that he cares about an issue and wants to take action. | ||
| So it really depends on who's being ordered to do what in terms of what happens next. | ||
| But we do know that presidents often complain that executive orders are not fully implemented. | ||
| You know, obviously this is kind of hard to study because once the order leaves the public pages of the Federal Register and goes down Pennsylvania Avenue into one of the government office buildings, we don't quite see it, right, as academics or often even as members of Congress or political actors. | ||
| So we know that not all executive orders are fully implemented. | ||
| We know honestly that some are not meant to be fully implemented. | ||
| Some are kind of for show. | ||
| If you look at the text of executive orders over the last number of years, really starting with the Obama administration, but ramping up pretty significantly under Trump and then continuing under Biden, you have very long sections at the beginning of these orders that are effectively press releases, preambles or purpose or policy sections that sort of lay out what the president wants to achieve. | ||
| And it's not always clear that it actually being achieved is the important part. | ||
| The president wants to say, hey, I am ordering that this be done. | ||
| And if it doesn't get done, well, there's some hope that the public might not notice that quite as dramatically. | ||
| An executive order is enforceable as long as the action is within the president's constitutional authority. | ||
| Give us an example of something that would fall within that and something outside that authority. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, a common, I mean, let me just say that, again, executive orders are literally orders to the executive branch. | ||
| So, you know, a member of the public would not receive an order from the president in that form. | ||
| Indeed, the president doesn't have power to order you to do anything unless you're an active member of the armed services. | ||
| But the general rule here is that presidents are relying on the power of the federal government to sort of have knock-on effects, right, that will have effects on the wider public. | ||
| So a good example is contracting procurement, right? | ||
| Presidents for a long time have taken advantage of the fact that the federal government buys an awful lot of stuff from the private sector to place conditions on those contracts. | ||
| So John F. Kennedy famously in 1962 issued an executive order designed to prevent any federal contracts going to those who discriminated in the area of housing. | ||
| And we've seen other uses of executive orders in the civil rights arena to try to sort of limit the contracts that go out. | ||
| So if you in the private sector want federal contracts, you have to pay attention to the conditions that have been placed on that. | ||
| So it's not a general order to the public, but it does have pretty sweeping impact when you're talking about half a trillion or more these days of funding that's going out from the federal government to the private sector. | ||
| President Obama, for example, didn't get a minimum wage increase through Congress, but he did order the federal contracts only go to contractors who paid a certain minimum wage. | ||
| And again, as the president is sort of contractor-in-chief, you know, that is within authority to do that unless Congress steps in and says, no, you can't. | ||
| Or, of course, if the courts argue that the president's gone beyond his role. | ||
| Maybe the most famous example of an order that was overturned is Harry Truman's back in the early 1950s during the Korean War. | ||
| He had ordered that the steel mills be nationalized effectively. | ||
| They be brought into American governmental ownership because there was a threatened strike. | ||
| And this is the famous steel seizure case results. | ||
| Truman had argued that a strike would really harm national security, that it would undermine the Korean war effort, and therefore, using his powers, he said as commander-in-chief, he could therefore order that the steel workers effectively became federal employees and therefore unable to strike. | ||
| This obviously went to court. | ||
| The Supreme Court famously ruled that, no, indeed, President Truman had overstepped his powers. | ||
| This was not something he could do. | ||
| And therefore, steel mills were returned to private ownership and labor negotiations proceeded on that basis. | ||
| So, you know, you can have some pretty high stakes, high drama confrontations over executive orders, or as I say, they can be really sort of administrative housekeeping. | ||
| It varies quite a lot. | ||
| We have callers waiting to ask you questions. | ||
| We'll start with Fred in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Fred. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| What I'd like to say is if a president uses executive orders to legislate his entire presidency as Donald Trump did his first presidency and intends to do it his second, he's going to bypass the House and Senate. | ||
| Now, if the Senate and the House are Republican and he has a Republican Supreme Court, he can get away with being a dictator. | ||
| And I think this is something that should be stopped immediately. | ||
| We should get rid of executive orders except in the case of environmental protection and a national emergency to protect the country, not to legislate his own personal agenda that he makes up in his campaign. | ||
| And this is what I'd like to say, and I'd like to get his opinion on this. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Well, I will say a couple things. | ||
| First, a big shout out to Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. | ||
| I used to live in Carlisle up the street. | ||
| And, yeah, the charge of dictatorship is a really longstanding one. | ||
| There was a book about Franklin Roosevelt called Roosevelt, Democrat or Dictator, you know, back in the 40s. | ||
| In fact, when I dug into the presidential libraries for my book research, I found that there were in some administrations form letters that they had developed when people wrote in saying, hey, this is a dictatorial action that you're taking. | ||
| And there was an explanation, not even so much of the action, but of the role of executive orders. | ||
| Again, executive orders are only legal when they are applying actual presidential power, when they are grounded in powers the president has. | ||
| One thing that has increased their appeal, I guess, to presidents. | ||
| First, of course, we know that Congress finds it hard to act, especially in its current polarized version. | ||
| But Congress has also delegated a lot of power to presidents over time. | ||
| And so, you know, often when we'll see a president using an executive order to try to guide the actions of a federal agency, you know, they're looking back to old statutes. | ||
| And, you know, there are plenty of those on the books, and some of them, honestly, should be reined in. | ||
| You know, when you think about the National Emergencies Act, you know, that grants the president an awful lot of authority to declare a national emergency and then to issue executive orders under some statutes that are unlocked by virtue of that declaration. | ||
| We could look at something like the Insurrection Act. | ||
| We could look at things going back, you know, on immigration. | ||
| When we looked at, for example, President Trump's travel ban in his first term, the first version of that, you know, that caused chaos at the beginning of 2017, was in fact sort of withdrawn, replaced. | ||
| It had not gone through the process of bureaucratic feedback that I talked about, and it didn't work. | ||
| It went through a couple of other iterations and finally emerged later as a proclamation, not an executive order, went to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said, well, this is okay because the way the law is written, I believe the phrase was, it exudes deference, unquote, to the president. | ||
| So if Congress is going to pass laws that exude deference to the president, I think we have to accept that presidents are going to take advantage of that. | ||
| So I would, you know, place a lot of the concern here with Congress being unwilling to fulfill its own constitutional imperatives in a lot of areas and instead handing off that power to the president. | ||
| Professor Rudelevich, this question coming in on X from Jimbo in Bakersfield, California, he asked, he's an independent, says, voter, what happens when a legal executive order conflicts with laws in a state like California? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, again, the executive order itself or any kind of federal directive is going to be to the actions of the federal government. | |
| There is a supremacy clause whereby if laws directly conflict, then the federal law would play out. | ||
| But there's a lot of play in those laws. | ||
| And, you know, we're going to see, I think, some interesting, maybe sometimes scary conflicts as we sort of run up against the bounds of federalism here. | ||
| If you think of President Trump's stated immigration agenda, for example, and then some of the states' lack of excitement, I think it's safe to say, about that agenda, we could see efforts by the federal government to try to overrule state action, but I'm not sure that's always going to work. | ||
| States do have a lot of autonomy over a lot of different policy areas. | ||
| And so I think this is going to be battled out. | ||
| But if the executive order is legal under federal law and there is a direct conflict with state law, I believe that federal law is going to prevail in those cases. | ||
| Let's hear from Alan in Mississippi line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning, ma'am. | |
| Am I on? | ||
| Yes, go ahead, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, because the gentleman's still talking on my television. | |
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| Don't pay attention to your television, Alan. | ||
| There's a delay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Well, isn't it amazing? | ||
| All of a sudden, now President Trump is going to become president that dictatorship of the executive orders has come to the fore. | ||
| It's really amazing how these Democrats can dig up these sort of programs. | ||
| When President Biden became president, his first day in government was to make nonsensical executive orders regarding energy, his agenda on green peace, and put this country into a four-year flat spin down. | ||
| Now, I'm sorry to say, says the Democrats, that President Trump is going to correct all them wrongdoings of the last four years and make America great again. | ||
| So all you controversy regarding executive orders is just pure Democratic publicity to try and put another spike in President Trump's premiership. | ||
| And thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Professor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, I mean, as I mentioned, dictatorship has been a very bipartisan charge against presidents for a long time when they've used executive authority. | |
| And so there is indeed, you know, if you go back, let's say to the Obama administration, 2014, when Congress had gridlocked, President Obama sort of promised he'd use his pen and his phone to move an agenda forward. | ||
| And indeed, he was accused of literally dictatorship. | ||
| There was a report I remember from the House. | ||
| The House was Republican at that time, and the House majority leader, I believe, put forth a report called the Imperial Presidency, all drenched in black, charging Obama with overstepping his constitutional bounds. | ||
| As I say, these are arguments that would go back to John Kennedy or Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan. | ||
| We have had, you know, effectively, you know, whenever, you know, in the polarized state of American parties, we do have the quite strong likelihood that those who like the current president will say that issuing executive orders is a function of strong leadership, and those who don't will say it's dictatorship. | ||
| And then when a president they like comes in, those positions will switch quite quickly and dramatically. | ||
| I would note that a lot of what executive orders do, especially at the beginning of terms, is to revoke. | ||
| The caller mentioned this and sort of promised that President Trump will do the same to Biden executive orders. | ||
| I think that's probably right. | ||
| You know, executive orders, while can be powerful, they're also fragile in the sense that they can be overturned by a subsequent president. | ||
| And this happens pretty frequently. | ||
| Some executive orders have a really long life over time, but many others, you know, only last for the duration of a presidential term and, again, can be overturned. | ||
| I think we'll see a lot of orders overturning past orders come January 20th, 21st. | ||
| Professor Eledge, something you pointed out at the very beginning of this interview is that every president has signed executive orders. | ||
| For anybody interested, the Federal Register has all of the executive orders issued by presidents since 1937. | ||
| It looks like President Biden has signed 160. | ||
| That includes 11 just this year. | ||
| President, now President-elect Donald Trump signed 220 during his term, Obama, 277, George W. Bush, 291. | ||
| You can go on to that website, find all of them broken down by year, and read what each of those are. | ||
| We'll hear next from Judy in Phoenix, Arizona, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Judy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, I don't have access to internet, but I was watching on the news within the past week or so Chiron at the bottom of the screen saying that Biden had announced a major opinion that the ERA has ratified enshrining its protections into the Constitution, a last-minute move that some believe could pave the way to bolstering reproductive rights. | |
| Does that have anything to do with your topic right now? | ||
| Well, in a way it does, because as I said earlier, a lot of things that presidents do that are executive actions are not specifically executive orders. | ||
| And often they get sort of jumbled up every time the president directs something. | ||
| It's an order after all. | ||
| And so it makes sense sort of colloquially to talk about a lot of things as executive orders that aren't. | ||
| You know, a lot of things happen through regulation in the different government agencies, and those are not conducted by executive order. | ||
| You know, even some of the things that we sort of, again, automatically think of as executive orders, DACA, for example, issued by President Obama. | ||
| That was not an executive order. | ||
| In fact, there's not even a presidential document technically associated with it. | ||
| It was done by the Department of Homeland Security, obviously at the behest of the White House. | ||
| So it's not unfair to talk about it as an executive directive, but it's not an order. | ||
| So the statement on the ERA that President Biden issued recently is sort of in this category. | ||
| It's a statement, not an executive order. | ||
| It's not going to be in that numbered category of federal registered pages that was just referred to. | ||
| It's a statement saying that he believes that the Equal Rights Amendment was in fact ratified, that sufficient states had ratified it, and that he thinks it should be therefore part of the Constitution. | ||
| That doesn't make it so. | ||
| It's sort of an intriguing claim to make a few days before leaving office. | ||
| And there are certainly legal scholars who agree that the deadline that Congress placed on the ratification of what would be the 28th Amendment, the ERA, the Congress didn't have the authority to place a deadline on that ratification. | ||
| 38 states needed was only reached quite a ways after the statutory deadline that Congress had placed. | ||
| And by the way, some other states had decided they didn't want to ratify it, too. | ||
| So it's very far from being a clear issue. | ||
| I suspect that President Biden's action in this case, right, is what I sort of referred to as almost a press release kind of order. | ||
| It's a statement of belief. | ||
| It's not, I don't think, going to have a lot of practical impact. | ||
| Let's hear from Dave in Hale, Michigan, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Dave. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Can you hear me? | ||
| Yes, Dave. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, thank you. | |
| Andrew, I kind of touched on what I was going to get at. | ||
| Who has the right to do amendments and at what length of time is there, time frames on these? | ||
| And what can be amended when it's reviewed and legalized? | ||
| And basically, you know where I'm getting at with that. | ||
| So just I'll let you carry on with that. | ||
| That's all I got. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, this is, again, not technically an executive order, but the process for amending the Constitution is in Article 5 of the Constitution. | ||
| Usually, in all our cases so far, in fact, it's come first through Congress. | ||
| A supermajority of Congress is required to vote on a resolution that then sends the proposed amendments to the states. | ||
| And then you need three quarters of the states to sign off on that as well. | ||
| And, you know, there have been some amendments that have reached that level of ratification after a very long time. | ||
| In fact, the 27th Amendment was originally sent out to the states as part of the Bill of Rights. | ||
| There were 12 amendments sent out way back in 1789, and only 10 of them became the Bill of Rights. | ||
| One of the extras was sort of rediscovered years later. | ||
| This is the 27th Amendment, which I know I don't need to explain to C-SPAN viewers, but for those just casually tuning in, make sure that there's an election intervening between a congressional vote to raise their pay and the actual pay raise so that voters can weigh in. | ||
| And that was adopted, I think, 1992 or something like that. | ||
| Again, long, long after it had been provided. | ||
| But in the case of the Equal Rights Amendment, when Congress approved it, they put a deadline on the ratification. | ||
| They said if it's not approved within seven years, then the ratification is over. | ||
| That's your time window for states to act. | ||
| It didn't get to that level. | ||
| When Jimmy Carter was in office, he proposed extending that deadline. | ||
| It was extended, I think, to 1982. | ||
| And again, not enough states got to that point by the deadline. | ||
| And so the amendment has been considered null and void, right? | ||
| It didn't become part of the Constitution. | ||
| There has been some argument about sort of what makes it part. | ||
| And the legal process technically is that the archivist of the United States, she does not have power to do anything on her own. | ||
| But when she receives the requisite number of certificates from states saying they've ratified, then we'd say, okay, yeah, it's done. | ||
| It's official. | ||
| It's now part of the document. | ||
| My understanding is that the Office of Legal Counsel and the Department of Justice has said that, in fact, no, that's not the case with regards to the ERA. | ||
| And so I think even President Biden's statement yesterday doesn't change that position. | ||
| There was no new guidance. | ||
| Normally, as I say, it's pretty clear. | ||
| You get to the right number of states and you know you're done. | ||
| But at this point, that hasn't been the case. | ||
| Bill, in Albany, New York, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd like to ask your guest, Andrew, regarding executive orders, please. | ||
| I looked up when President Biden put the pause on drilling of oil. | ||
| If you could help me out with that, because when I read it, it's you know, there's a lot of legal terms in there that I wasn't sure of. | ||
| But I did see that I wanted to know if that pause executive order is still on the books for not drilling in whether it's private or public land. | ||
| I couldn't really see that because I feel that when that went on, that's when the price of gas went up and that's when we started getting inflation because the trucks that delivered things to the food, to the stores, and they had to raise their prices dramatically, almost doubled or tripled the price of gas, and we had inflation. | ||
| Is that executive order still on the books, sir? | ||
| And if it is, what did it do? | ||
| And what does it say regarding inflation and gas? | ||
| And do you think President Trump can reverse that and get it off there on Monday? | ||
| Yeah, well, there's definitely, I mean, so, as you know, President Biden has been, has tried to limit offshore drilling. | ||
| And I think there was a subsequent order, you know, in the last couple of weeks that, in fact, expanded the ban on offshore drilling, though it's worth noting that American domestic oil production is actually way up overall over the last number of years. | ||
| So it hasn't affected the overall supply of oil, I think, so much as it has affected where companies can look for it. | ||
| Going back to the original order, though, yeah, I mean, these are basically Congress often passes pretty broad statutes that then give the president discretion to decide on the specifics. | ||
| You know, sometimes that power is granted directly to an agency or department. | ||
| Sometimes in this case, it might be the Department of Energy to issue regulations about how and when drilling might be allowed in certain places. | ||
| Often, as I suggested, there'll be interagency discussion because obviously the Department of Interior and NOAA and others might have an interest, especially as you get out into public waterways about how that might work. | ||
| And yeah, it would apply almost certainly only to public land, but of course, as you get far enough offshore, it's all public. | ||
| So there is a, I think the order, as far as I know, is still on the books. | ||
| And there will be a process set in law for a future president to rescind that should he desire to do so. | ||
| And certainly President Trump has talked quite eagerly about rolling back that order and other things that he sees as limits on fossil fuel production. | ||
| Professor Ridletch, what are some other ways that executive orders can be rolled back, can be revoked? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they can be revoked by congressional action, right? | |
| Congress could say, no, we don't like what you've done. | ||
| And so we could directly overturn that order in statute. | ||
| Or, again, they could rein in some of the broad delegation and discretion that they had granted a president earlier. | ||
| And that can certainly happen when they decide, well, now I see what you can do with the discretion that we gave you. | ||
| I think we'd better shift that and rein it in. | ||
| Again, presidents have a little bit of an advantage here because they can act, whereas Congress has collective action difficulties and often takes a while to act, but it can happen. | ||
| Also, of course, courts can weigh in. | ||
| Executive orders are effectively instruments for executing the law. | ||
| President is commanded in the Constitution to faithfully execute the law. | ||
| And often, of course, in our system, the courts get to decide whether a particular kind of implementation is faithful with the text of the statute or not. | ||
| And they have weighed in lots of different ways. | ||
| We saw this was not technically an executive order, but President Biden's efforts, for example, to forgive student debt through some older statutes that they had found governing education department discretion in this regard. | ||
| That quite famously was sort of dismissed by the courts. | ||
| The court said. | ||
| Now, that's not what the statute was meant to be used for. | ||
| And so that's a pretty common process as well. | ||
| So besides presidents revoking their own predecessors' orders, Congress and the courts both have a way to weigh in as well. | ||
| Jonathan in Connecticut, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Jonathan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| Thanks for taking my question. | ||
| I'm a federal employee with Social Security, and the Commissioner Martin O'Neill signed an agreement to lock in our telework as it stands now. | ||
| Two-part question. | ||
| Could you talk about the limits and or the ability of the president to renounce that through executive order? | ||
| And then also the other strategy I've heard of is that if you want to work from home, you'll be paid at the all of United States rate, which does not include things like New York pay. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Yeah, I think actually dealings with the Civil Service and the Civil Service Act are going to be really interesting to watch play forward in the next few years. | ||
| You know, obviously the outgoing president is much more sympathetic, I think, to collective bargaining, certainly by government employees than the incoming president. | ||
| And so it will be interesting to see what actions are taken to try to overturn some of the ways that the Biden administration has sort of sought to bolster some of the agreements reached with federal employee unions. | ||
| I'm not an expert specifically on the telework question. | ||
| I've heard that mentioned as a possible way to try to sort of give employees incentives or to bludgeon them, honestly, into coming back into the office full time. | ||
| There are obviously a whole myriad of regulations that come out of the Office of Personnel Management. | ||
| And so, you know, it's going to be, you know, I do think you are going to see executive actions by the Trump administration to try to roll back some of the concessions granted by the Biden administration. | ||
| If those are written into collective bargaining contracts, I think they're fairly safe. | ||
| To the extent that they are in executive order only, they may be harder. | ||
| Though one thing that's worth noting is that courts do take a look at sort of the property rights, if you will, granted by a particular order, and they may require a longer process to repeal something that is going to, that has granted people rights and makes hard take it away. | ||
| I mentioned DACA, for example. | ||
| So, you know, President Obama put DACA in place. | ||
| President Trump, in his first term, tried to repeal it, but he did so effectively, again, by unilateral directive, not by a regulatory process that would require notice and comment and public input and a much longer period of deliberation before going into effect. | ||
| Supreme Court shot that down. | ||
| They said you did not follow the correct process because folks who are within the DACA program, you know, have these rights, and those rights can't be taken away without due process. | ||
| And that due process in this case would at least require, you know, a lengthy regulatory review, and that's not what happened. | ||
| So I think there will be, you know, quite a lot of questions about due process as it relates to federal employees. | ||
| There's a whole nother wave, which I'm sure the caller is familiar with, of questioning about so-called Schedule F, whether the president has the power to create a whole new class of employees within the civil service schedule, but effectively to make them exempt from civil service protections with regards to forecause dismissal and so forth, and to make a whole new group of employees effectively political appointees, serving at the will of the president. | ||
| That was something President Trump issued quite late in his first term. | ||
| It never really took effect. | ||
| President Biden rescinded the order, but I think we can expect to see that again, too. | ||
| And that will be, I suspect, heavily litigated as to whether the president has the authority, you know, under civil service law to make this kind of change. | ||
| It's a good example of the sort of the contestation over executive orders that so often occurs. | ||
| Pat in Keyport, New Jersey, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Pat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You just answered part of my question because I'd like some more information about DACA. | ||
| You said earlier that President Obama issued basically a proclamation, but what gave him the right to provide for illegal aliens rights that are not accorded to them by the Constitution and that go against immigration law. | ||
| So under what other situations can a presidential order not be rescinded? | ||
| Because I've heard people talk about the recent orders that Biden has given out in like the last week or so. | ||
| They said that the Trump administration would have a hard time undoing them. | ||
| So can you expound a little more on DACA and what other situations would prevent it? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| So with DACA, I mean, there was, again, not even a proclamation. | ||
| The president gave a speech, I think, and, you know, sort of said, this is what I'd like to do. | ||
| The actual sort of administrative process of doing that was under the Department of Homeland Security's protocols for, you know, how they dealt with deporting folks who could legally be deported, right? | ||
| Which included the DACA population. | ||
| But of course, as we know, it includes a lot of people. | ||
| Congress has never provided enough funding to actually deport everyone who legally could be deported. | ||
| It's a huge logistical effort, as well as a funding question. | ||
| And so, you know, President Obama never said that folks in the DACA category were citizens, of course. | ||
| He didn't have the power to do that. | ||
| What he did say is that they were at the very bottom of the list for being deported and that they would be effectively protected. | ||
| Now, Congress could have come back, called his bluff, and said, no, actually, we're going to give you enough money to deport everybody. | ||
| He did not. | ||
| So the president said, you know, you give me, you know, maybe 10% of what I need in a given year. | ||
| Therefore, I have to prioritize who among the deportable population is going to be deported. | ||
| And, you know, this group I'm just declaring is right at the bottom of the list. | ||
| And, you know, either formally or informally, pretty much every president has done that. | ||
| They've chosen priorities about immigration enforcement. | ||
| And this is all under the Immigration Nationality Act, you know, which is, you know, the current version really is a 1952 version that's been amended a number of times since then. | ||
| But, you know, these are cases where presidents are saying, well, I have to make choices. | ||
| I cannot implement the law entirely as written because of a lack of resources provided by Congress. | ||
| Therefore, I'm going to set sort of prosecutorial priorities. | ||
| And that's how I'm going to carry out the law. | ||
| So in that case, of course, as mentioned, President Obama sort of specified a group that he was, again, at the very, very bottom of the list. | ||
| It'll be interesting to see as President Trump comes into office, of course, he's promised much more aggressive enforcement of deportation. | ||
| And so he still, though, is going to have to make some calls about the priorities about who gets deported first. | ||
| Normally, those who have committed crimes, criminals have been at the top of the list, DACA recipients at the bottom. | ||
| And we'll see if some deal is reached. | ||
| As you're probably aware, there have been multiple efforts to try to sort of make to put the DACA program on a statutory basis, to put it into law. | ||
| And for various reasons, over the last six or eight years, those have never come to fruition. | ||
| But it doesn't seem that they are a top of the list for anyone. | ||
| It's a very sympathetic population who've made their lives here. | ||
| And so I don't think even on the GOP side of the aisle, there's a lot of eagerness to move them up the list, even as resources are expanded for immigration enforcement generally. | ||
| Just a few minutes left. | ||
| We'll go to Robert in Lake Jackson, Texas, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Robert. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mr. Ernest. | |
| Good morning, Professor. | ||
| I wanted to bring to your attention something that caused us all a great deal of concern because Russell Boat, who just had his confirmation here yesterday and who many say is the architect of Project 2025, is the thing, and had put together a series, a whole battery of at least 100 consecutive orders ready to sign on day one. | ||
| That was intentionally kept to kick off phase two of Project 2025, the phase which was intentionally kept offline in order to avoid oversight from watchdog groups, from the Acts of Congress and something. | ||
| We don't know what any, we don't know what those executive orders are. | ||
| I wanted to know if there was a way to find out what they are and how we can prevent that because Trump's being inaugurated on Monday and it's very likely that Mr. Bogz will be confirmed as Director of Office of Management and Budgets. | ||
| And that'll give him a great deal of power to advance the Trump agenda and the agenda of Project 2025. | ||
| Yeah, well, certainly, as you note, Mr. Bog was the director at the end of the first Trump administration over at OMB. | ||
| He's done the job before. | ||
| He has a pretty good sense of how to do it, I suspect, and was one of the folks who was sort of in the Trump government in exile, if you will, over the past four years, working on an agenda and a specific list of policy proposals that they could move forward in a new term if Mr. Trump were to win a second term. | ||
| Of course, having done so, there is a lot of question about what will be implemented. | ||
| I've heard that 100 executive order number as well. | ||
| I would guess it won't be 100 executive orders. | ||
| It may be a mix of memoranda and different kinds of directives. | ||
| Last time there were 100 executive orders issued in one year, by the way. | ||
| A whole year, not a day or two, was 1952. | ||
| You know, the average over the last 40 or 45 years has been about 40 a year, actually. | ||
| That's a more common number. | ||
| But clearly, there's some desire to sort of flood the zone with executive actions, partly, I think, not to, you know, to sort of make it hard for those who oppose those orders to be able to sort of organize themselves because there needs to be sort of so much that they'll need to deal with. | ||
| That is the advantage, right, of having been out of power is you have time to develop all of these orders, specifically drafted directives. | ||
| Now, there can be a downside, right? | ||
| You're not asking for input from the agencies that have to implement these orders. | ||
| This was a big problem at the beginning of Trump's first term back in 2017. | ||
| You know, it'll be interesting to see whether the transition has learned that lesson and really worked to vet these new orders and directives in a way that will make them workable. | ||
| Again, some may be more on the grounds of signaling. | ||
| Others will be revoking Biden directives, but some will be new in a variety of areas. | ||
| And some, honestly, we've heard talk of an executive order attempting to overturn the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship. | ||
| That seems like it's simply teed up to create a court case. | ||
| So, you know, again, there hasn't, I don't think, been the normal vetting process within the executive branch through OMB for these orders. | ||
| As we get further into the administration, one hopes that will return. | ||
| But it will be an open question as to, you know, how effective this new flood of orders is at the beginning of Mr. Trump's new term. | ||
| One last call for you. | ||
| We'll talk with Henry Rieta in Fort Pierce, Florida, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Henrietta. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, Andrew, and good morning, young lady. | |
| Question. | ||
| The illegal order for forgiving student loan, which was turned down by the Supreme Court, and Biden just disregarded that order. | ||
| Can those loan monies be clawed back? | ||
| I went to school and I paid my own way and I had to live in substandard housing. | ||
| I had to eat substandard food for quite a while, meaning didn't get to eat steak or hamburger. | ||
| And I want to know if that money can be clawed back as it should be. | ||
| And I'm wondering if you agree. | ||
| Well, I mean, there's a few questions wrapped up in that. | ||
| One is that order was, again, a directive to the Secretary of Education to use power that the administration thought was embodied in an older law, in one case in the 2003 Act, dealing with student loans in the case of national emergency. | ||
| And of course, at the beginning of the president's term, the pandemic emergency was still in effect. | ||
| And so they tried to sort of activate that older law to roll back a wide range of student debt obligations. | ||
| As the caller notes correctly, the Supreme Court said no, that was not the way that the law was intended to be used. | ||
| There were, however, other programs already on the books, some of which, you know, were kind of, again, newer interpretations of existing law, but others had been on the books for quite a while in terms of loan forgiveness. | ||
| The Biden administration, you know, tried a bunch of different things, right? | ||
| Having been pushed back on that one 2003 law, they went to another one. | ||
| That was pushed back. | ||
| And they ended up relying on a series of programs already in place for forgiving student debt, especially for those who have gone into public service, teachers, public servants in general. | ||
| And so, you know, those were already in place. | ||
| Those were established. | ||
| The Biden administration kind of ramped them up, was certainly much more aggressive in how it reached out to possible beneficiaries of that. | ||
| And so in the end, you know, did forgive a fair bit of debt. | ||
| I think to claw it back, if you wanted under those earlier programs, the ones that were turned down, you know, you would, I think, have to get an act of Congress to require that. | ||
| You'd have to go through a statutory means rather than a simple executive means. | ||
| So it'll be interesting to see, again, how strong a line the incoming Trump administration wants to take on that point. | ||
| They could certainly ask Congress to look into it. | ||
| And perhaps if they were, you know, didn't want any student debt forgiveness at all, they could change the statute to change the way that's done. | ||
| And so it'll be, I think, a real area of politics. | ||
| It's obviously, as the caller notes, a very contentious area and one that in the end, you know, I think the Biden administration didn't do as much as it wanted, but it did a fair bit. | ||
| And so it'll be interesting to see how much that stays on the table. | ||
| Andrew Rudelevich is professor of government at Bowdoin College and also author of the book By Executive Order, Bureaucratic Management and the Limits of Presidential Power. | ||
| Andrew, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Been a pleasure. | |
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Later this morning on Washington Journal, United Policyholders, Executive Director Amy Bach will join us to discuss the impact of climate disasters on the U.S. insurance market and consumers. | ||
| But first, more of your calls during open form. | ||
| If there is a public policy issue you'd like to discuss, you can start calling in now with the lines, Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A new chapter in U.S. history begins this Monday with the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump. | |
| Witness Democracy in Action with C-SPAN. | ||
| And for the first time since Ronald Reagan's inaugural in 1985, this extraordinary day will be held inside the Capitol Rotunda due to frigid temperatures. | ||
| Watch C-SPAN's live all-day coverage, where we'll take your calls, hear insights from historians, and speak with attendees in Washington, D.C. | ||
| This historic day begins at 7 a.m. Eastern with live coverage, including the outgoing president greeting the president-elect at the White House. | ||
| We'll bring you the swearing-in ceremony as Donald Trump takes the oath of office, becoming President of the United States, followed by his inaugural address. | ||
| See the departure of President Joe Biden, the presidential parade inside D.C.'s Capitol One arena, and later the inaugural balls. | ||
| Also, don't miss our special coverage on C-SPAN 2. | ||
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| Quantities are limited. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| For the next 20, 25 minutes, we are in open form. | ||
| One of the headlines from Politico DHS Secretary nominee testifies in Low Drama Hearing. | ||
| South Dakota Governor Christy Noam, Trump's pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security, had her confirmation hearing on Friday morning. | ||
| Governor Noam is one of several of President-elect Trump's nominees who had their confirmation hearings this week. | ||
| Here is part of Governor Noam's confirmation hearing talking about her qualifications and how she would approach the role of Homeland Security Secretary. | ||
| I've led South Dakota for the last six years with a focus every day on making our state safer, stronger, and freer. | ||
| I focused every day on making the best decisions, not just for right now, but for generations to come. | ||
| I've overseen a state budget of over $7 billion and a state employee workforce of more than 13,000, including more than 7,000 that report directly to the governor. | ||
| I've addressed important issues like cybersecurity, human trafficking, drug interdiction, and also natural disasters, the same challenges that are facing so many of you and the people that you represent back home. | ||
| I've secured our state and supported the rule of law. | ||
| And if confirmed as the eighth secretary, that is the same approach that I will take to leading the Department of Homeland Security. | ||
| As we face the evolving threats of the 21st century, the mission and the success of DHS is more critical than ever. | ||
| We must be vigilant and proactive and innovative to protect the homeland. | ||
| The challenges in front of us are extremely significant, and we must secure our borders against illegal trafficking and immigration. | ||
| We must safeguard our critical infrastructure to make sure that we're protected against cyber attacks, respond to natural disasters, and also terrorism. | ||
| I firmly believe that we can meet those challenges head-on with resolve. | ||
| Innovation, we can use collaboration with federal and with state partners. | ||
| And senators, I want your input. | ||
| Border security must remain a top priority. | ||
| As a nation, we have the right and the responsibility to secure our borders against those who would do us harm. | ||
| And we must create a fair and a lawful immigration system that is efficient and is effective and that reflects our values. | ||
| President Trump was elected with a clear mandate. | ||
| He needs to achieve this mission because two-thirds of Americans support his immigration and border policies, including the majority of Hispanic Americans. | ||
| I was the first governor to send National Guard troops to our southern border when Texas asked for help and when they were being overwhelmed by an unprecedented border crisis. | ||
| If confirmed as secretary, I'll ensure that our exceptional, extraordinary Border Patrol agents have all the tools and resources and support that they need to carry out their mission effectively. | ||
| The same is true of my commitment to the outstanding men and women of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. | ||
| They are responsible for apprehending, detaining, and deporting illegal immigrants. | ||
| And getting criminal aliens off of our streets and out of the country will help American communities be safer again. | ||
| The bravery and the dedication of the Border Patrol and ICE are unmatched, and I will restore dignity to their work. | ||
| We'll start our calls for this segment with Diomia in New York on the Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Diomia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm calling in to say a few things. | ||
| And one was about someone mentioned about the loans with education. | ||
| And I firmly believe that in the United States here, where it's supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world, I think everyone should have a free education, including even if you're going to get a doctor's degree. | ||
| And the reason why is this makes it affordable for everyone to get an education if you want an education. | ||
| And if you don't want education, if you want other kinds of projects to learn, I think it should be available to you. | ||
| And actually, because someone else had to pay their education early is no reason why everybody should not agree that at this day and time that you should be able to have free education. | ||
| The only thing you could suggest is after you get free education, you could give back to your community, say, for about three years in some way or another would be helpful. | ||
| And the other thing is someone mentioned about someone is not racist. | ||
| You cannot say who's racist, who's not racist, because you're not that person. | ||
| You can only say and believe what you are. | ||
| And the other thing, I'm rattling here. | ||
| The other thing is about killing and whatnot. | ||
| Some people think you can kill over here, but you can't kill over there. | ||
| The scripture says I shall not kill. | ||
| It didn't say who, where, why. | ||
| If you do something wrong, if you're mentally ill, put you away and give you help and give you medication and help you out. | ||
| Don't leave it out here on the street and because you don't have any money or anything to get help. | ||
| And actually, my greatest fear is we should stop killing each other and stop trying to own this country. | ||
| This country belongs to God. | ||
| He made heaven and earth. | ||
| We don't own anything in it, and we're going out of here when we pass away and we can't take anything with us. | ||
| And stop being so greedy over money and whatnot. | ||
| Let's share and let's give more with love to everyone. | ||
| Love is the key. | ||
| And stop being greedy and wanting money because even if you have a lot of money being there, what are you going to do with all of it? | ||
| You have to decease at some point and leave it anyway. | ||
| So let's share it. | ||
| Let's spread more love. | ||
| Thank you very much for listening and thank everyone and may God bless everyone. | ||
| That's Damia in New York, Audi in Massachusetts, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Audi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you, C-SPAN Washington Journal, for taking my call. | ||
| I would like to start off by saying Merry Lake Christmas and Happy New Year to all. | ||
| I'm very thankful to be living in this beautiful America with a handful of leaps who just hate America and just wants to bring us down. | ||
| Hopefully they get what's coming to them. | ||
| I thank God that Trump is back in office. | ||
| I would also like to send my condolences to my birth home state, New Orleans, for the people that got ran down. | ||
| May God lift those souls and the guy who got shot down. | ||
| Rest in peace. | ||
| I do dare ask the corrupt establishment if they can give we, the people, an upgraded account system to where our young people, old people, can be going online to where they can see how much of Social Security, | ||
| income tax, 401k, can be invested into stocks or a small business, or maybe when a loved one expires, how can we dip into that account to bury our loved ones who has expired to invest in our loved ones' hard-earned money? | ||
| I also would like to send my condolences to the people in California. | ||
| It's hard to see that all those people are suffering from this burndown. | ||
| I'm from Louisiana. | ||
| I remember when Trump had to come to the rescue when Katrina hit, I was there in Katrina. | ||
| I remember seeing bodies flowing through the streets whenever the floods happened. | ||
| And we had to wait for the buses to come through with water and shelter to come through. | ||
| I'll end with this. | ||
| I thank God that President Trump is still here with us. | ||
| And I thought that I'll never be so happy to be looking forward to the next four years of my lifetime, dreaming big on the next four years of my life. | ||
| And I'll end with this. | ||
| I look forward to putting my money in the bank and donating to C-SPAN and watching like a bald eagle come January 20th to seeing Xi Jinping and other kings and world leaders at the inauguration of we, the people's 47th president, to be inaugurated back into the White House. | ||
| And are we happy with Trump? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| For your callers who say, are we happy with our pick? | ||
| Yes, we are happy. | ||
| Some of us can't even stop celebrating. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Audi in Massachusetts. | ||
| Mike in Washington, D.C., line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first of all, I want to say happy New Year's to everybody as we start. | |
| And also, I want to give a public shout out to Raleigh Gaines. | ||
| This young woman is so wise beyond her years that she understands that a lot of people who did vote for Donald Trump did not vote for Donald Trump because they believe in American First. | ||
| They voted for Donald Trump because as a protest vote against the insane, crazy policies of the left and the Democratic Party. | ||
| And for this young woman to put her life at risk, to only want to fight for women's rights, for women to have their own personal space, for women to be able to, you know, have the opportunities to compete in female sports. | ||
| There's a reason why it's called female sports instead of these men who identify as women taking opportunities away from them, which I think is appalling. | ||
| But the one mistake that Raleigh Gaines made when she was in Congress, Raleigh Gaines should have challenged every member of Congress that believes that men who identify as women have a right to invade women's personal space. | ||
| She should have challenged them. | ||
| Will you allow your wife or your daughter to take showers with men who identify as women or go to the bathroom with women? | ||
| And if any of them can't answer that question, then they need to just tell them that they need to move out of the way because these politicians need to practice what they preach. | ||
| The saddest thing about it is that journalism never asked Barack Obama that question because it started with him when the LBG2 community used their economic power to purchase political power, vote as a voter's block and buy a politician, which is the right thing to do. | ||
| I'm not angry at them for doing that. | ||
| But when Barack Obama came on his death and he was making these women go into bathroom with these men who identify as women, new journalists should have challenged him. | ||
| I don't believe that Barack Obama would have allowed his wife or any of his daughters to go to bathroom with men who identify as women. | ||
| And I think the journalists had an obligation to ask him that. | ||
| And the same thing right now, new journalists had to ask any member of Congress that. | ||
| Any politician that comes on this station or any other that says, okay, I believe that men has that opportunity, that boys who identify as women should have the right. | ||
| They say, okay, would you let your wife or daughter do it? | ||
| If they can't answer that, then they're not practicing what they preach. | ||
| I just find it really appalling in this year, I mean, that this has to be discussed in this year. | ||
| And then when you keep hearing the older black generation that calls this on a station whining and crying about one man, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, I don't see that with the younger generation. | ||
| I don't see young brothers out there in the street afraid of Donald Trump or even Brown brothers. | ||
| I like the fact that a lot of these young soldiers, these young men understand you negotiate the person who's coming in office right now. | ||
| I remember when I saw this Brown brother on PBX News Hour, and he was being interviewed, and the guy said that, well, you know, Trump is a dictator. | ||
| He said, well, look, we're not voting for Trump because he's a dictator. | ||
| We're voting for him because of his policy. | ||
| And before we even gave Trump our vote, he had to agree to certain things that we want before we gave him our vote, which is the way you're supposed to do it. | ||
| He said, well, Trump is a dictator. | ||
| Oh, Trump is going to lock your people out. | ||
| He said, brother, we can't. | ||
| I got your point, Mike. | ||
| We'll leave it there. | ||
| One of our callers earlier this morning, Judy, brought up the President Biden supporting the ERA. | ||
| This headline from the Wall Street Journal: Biden backs Equal Rights Amendment and Statement with unclear legal weight. | ||
| The article says President Biden moved to enshrine the Equal Rights Amendment in the Constitution, declaring that the measure to prohibit sex-based discrimination had cleared the necessary hurdles to go into effect after half a century of debate. | ||
| The announcement came just days before Biden is set to surrender power to President-elect Donald Trump, and it was certain to face legal and it's certain to face legal challenges and fierce objections from Republicans. | ||
| President Biden made comments yesterday about the ERA during a meeting with governors. | ||
| Here are some of his remarks: Just over 100 years ago, a pioneering group of women proposed the Equal Rights Amendment to enshrine the principles of gender equality in our Constitution. | ||
| Throughout my career, I've been clear: no one, no one, no one should be discriminated against based on their sex. | ||
| And in order for the amendment to be ratified, it requires three-fourths of the states to ratify it. | ||
| That benchmark was passed when Virginia ratified the ERA a few years ago. | ||
| Today, I affirm the Equal Rights Amendment to have cleared all the necessary hurdles to be added to the U.S. Constitution now. | ||
| The Equal Rights Amendment is the law of the land now. | ||
| It's the 28th Amendment to the Constitution now. | ||
| I consulted dozens of constitutional scholars to make sure there was all within the power to do this. | ||
| And the fact is, we did. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal article also says that a senior administrator, senior administration official, said Biden was stating an opinion that the amendment had been ratified. | ||
| It wasn't immediately clear if Biden's statement had any legal and practical weight. | ||
| Back to your calls, Maria in Atlanta. | ||
| Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Maria. | ||
| Maria, are you there? | ||
| We'll give Maria one more. | ||
| Hi, Maria. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi, how are you doing? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, yeah, I'm calling because I've been watching Washington Journal for 24 minutes. | |
| Now, I know what I see every morning when I call from 7 to 10 when I watch it. | ||
| And I want to know why y'all don't have Hollywood African American guests on there any longer. | ||
| And it's a true fact because I know who are your guests every morning from 7 to 10, and I know what I see and I don't see. | ||
| And I know what I've been seeing for 30, near 30 years. | ||
| And I want to know why they don't do it. | ||
| Because I get tired of listening to Caucasian opinions, to Caucasian facts, and to Caucasian lies. | ||
| And it's a different sea thing. | ||
| And I want to know why no African people who think this don't make a difference, I tell you what, you had three weeks of just African Americans and guests on there and see how they would feel. | ||
| You had diverse people calling in. | ||
| Why don't y'all have any African Americans? | ||
| Look at your guests this morning. | ||
| Look at them Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for the last three, four weeks. | ||
| Now, whoever took over, it's a disgrace to treat us like this. | ||
| We could tell it's no longer Brian Lamb. | ||
| And thank you very much. | ||
| That was Maria in Atlanta. | ||
| Maria, we do make every effort to get a variety of voices and people on the program. | ||
| We encourage you to continue watching. | ||
| And if you ever have a suggestion for somebody that you'd like to see on, you can go ahead and shoot us a tweet. | ||
| DeAndre in Baltimore, Maryland, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, DeAndre. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| It's always a pleasure. | ||
| Always amazing watching Ms. Haller. | ||
| So I just wanted to say this: we are seeing the death of the First Amendment, essentially the foundation of democracy. | ||
| Well, over the last several 15 months, we've seen journalists being physically removed from press briefings by Secretary of State. | ||
| We've seen the extreme suppression of protests that don't call capitalists. | ||
| And with TikTok, you know, the ban coming in, essentially, Americans, the average American, was able to see the split between what was happening daily in Gaza versus what the mainstream media has been reporting. | ||
| And because of this, the designists are trying to control social media, suppress free speech, like they do with mainstream media. | ||
| However, mainstream media customer base is dropping at a rapid race, a rapid pace. | ||
| And people are coming to platforms like X, formally, Twitter, and C-SPAN. | ||
| And we're witnessing what's really happening, and a lot of Americans are no longer in support of design and state. | ||
| And because of this, we would love to see our government leaders do the same and Donald Trump be for peace with Iran and not for war on behalf of Israel. | ||
| Thank you very much, and God bless. | ||
| That was DeAndre in Maryland. | ||
| Alicia, also in Maryland, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Alicia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and happy new year to everyone. | |
| However, the people in California and people who've gone through helling hard times, I want to let you know that our hearts go out to you. | ||
| I hope that things will finalize in a good way. | ||
| I'd like to remind everyone: when Pelosi was the speaker and President Trump was the president, the president said to Pelosi, I will give you DACA if you give me the money for the border. | ||
| And what did Pelosi do? | ||
| She went on vacation and never responded. | ||
| And this DACA business has been going on for a long time. | ||
| And I am sorry that at that time, when President Trump offered that to Pelosi, she didn't take it. | ||
| She was more interested in how she felt instead of feeling for the people who've been wanting to become citizens of this country. | ||
| And I hope that they find these children. | ||
| I know that when Obama was the president, there were about, I think, 40. | ||
| I am so old, I don't remember even my own name. | ||
| But anyway, we had some children come to Maryland. | ||
| No one has ever said anything about it after that. | ||
| Now, what are we doing to these children? | ||
| That was Alicia in Maryland. | ||
| Ursula in Spring Lake, North Carolina, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Ursula. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, C-SPEN. | ||
| I'm a registered Democrat, but guess what? | ||
| I voted for Trump. | ||
| And the reason I did this is we need a change in our country. | ||
| It is getting harder and harder. | ||
| But my call is a question to all the C-SPAN listeners because Trump is a registered felon. | ||
| And I believe that a lot of countries in this world do not allow felons to come to their country. | ||
| How are we going to work this with President Trump? | ||
| Please answer my question. | ||
| Have a great day. | ||
| That was Ursula in North Carolina, Tommy, and Kentucky, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Tommy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I don't understand how these people call in and say they voted for Trump and his policies. | ||
| Only policies I've heard him talk about is putting up walls against the Mexicans. | ||
| But the Ogre Guards from Russia can go into the Oval Office. | ||
| And he buddy-buddies so much with Putin. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| And to say the things that these Republicans are saying. | ||
| But I'll tell you this. | ||
| When their little parents and grandparents get cut out of their Social Security and their health care, it's in nursing homes. | ||
| I promise you, maybe some of them change their mind. | ||
| The majority that's calling in for Trump is hoping for the other billion dollars that he gave the first time around to the people. | ||
| Elon Musk, it might as well be the president. | ||
| He ain't elected nothing, but yet he's making decisions on things. | ||
| He's put $250 billion. | ||
| He paid to have people registered, people Republican. | ||
| That's buying boats. | ||
| How is Americans taking this? | ||
| Why are they taking it? | ||
| And I tell you why. | ||
| You've got that 1% of the rich that's making money hand over fist through Trump. | ||
| He has done nothing for the poor, and he ain't going to do nothing for the poor or the sickly or the aged. | ||
| And they sit back and try to act like he is a strong man. | ||
| He took six deferments to keep out of the military with spur heels. | ||
| How is that a strong man? | ||
| Tommy, we'll leave it there. | ||
| We'll go to Dave, our last call. | ||
| Dave, we're short on time. | ||
| We'll give you the last minute. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I am an immigrant, and I will tell you as an independent, what this country is going through right now is so bad in the sense that nobody elects people based on merits anymore. | ||
| If anybody thinks that Donald Trump had merit to be the president, he doesn't. | ||
| He's a felon, that's one. | ||
| Two, the country is so divided, and people vote against, they always say they vote against their own interest. | ||
| And I think that what's needed is education, know the policies, know what they're voting for, and so forth. | ||
| The last caller talked about DACA. | ||
| One of the callers talked about DACA. | ||
| The fact is, that should not be a bargaining chip if any president wants to give rights to those people. | ||
| It should be done. | ||
| It's not something to bargain with. | ||
| You don't bargain with people's lives and make policies based on that. | ||
| The country, Elon Musk, is making money head over fist just because he knows that putting in Donald Trump, he's going to be in favor of all the things they want to do. | ||
| We don't have a democracy. | ||
| We don't have anything like that. | ||
| What we do have is a mob system where everybody is going to kiss the ring. | ||
| All the Republicans, they went and they changed their whole views and everything just because Donald Trump will get them back elected in the Senate, in the Congress. | ||
| Anybody who goes against him, they know they're dueled. | ||
| And people need to realize what's going on here. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Dave in New Jersey. | ||
| Our last call for this segment. | ||
| Next on Washington Journal, United Policyholders Executive Director Amy Bach will join us to discuss the impact of climate disasters on the U.S. insurance market and consumers. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Witness democracy unfiltered with C-SPAN. | |
| Experience history as it unfolds with C-SPAN's live coverage this month as Republicans take control of both chambers of Congress and a new chapter begins with the swearing in of the 47th President of the United States on Monday, January 20th. | ||
| Tune in for our live all-day coverage of the presidential inauguration as Donald Trump takes the oath of office becoming President of the United States. | ||
| Stay with C-SPAN this month for comprehensive live unfiltered coverage of the 119th Congress and the presidential inauguration, C-SPAN. | ||
| Democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Mark the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States with a free commemorative inauguration button from C-SPAN. | ||
| It's easy. | ||
| Simply scan the QR code on the right or visit c-span.org/slash buttons to request yours today. | ||
| Quantities are limited. | ||
| Since his first interview on C-SPAN on BookNotes in 1993, Harold Holzer has appeared on the network close to 200 times. | ||
| Up to that year, he had written or edited six books on Abraham Lincoln. | ||
| Since then, Harold Holzer has added another 50 books to his name. | ||
| C-SPAN viewers and listeners have had the opportunity to hear Mr. Holzer talk about Lincoln's life from his birth in Kentucky in 1807 until his assassination in Washington, D.C. in 1865. | ||
| The following conversation is meant to be extensive. | ||
| The center of attention will be Mr. Lincoln, but in this case, also the life of Harold Holzer, a New Yorker for the past 75 years. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer talks about his life and work 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. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss climate disasters and the U.S. insurance market is Amy Bach. | ||
| She's the executive director of United Policyholders. | ||
| Amy, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Joining us early from San Francisco, we appreciate that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Why don't we start by talking about your organization? | ||
| Tell us about United Policyholders. | ||
| When and why did you start it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So actually, the original history came from New York. | |
| I was working in the New York State legislature on behalf of the Consumer Protection Board, where I was the insurance analyst. | ||
| And Hank Greenberg, founder of AIG, came up to lobby for a whole slate of reforms that would have made it harder for people to sue insurance companies. | ||
| And there was really no one there for the consumer saying, well, is that really a good idea? | ||
| Don't you need that check and balance? | ||
| And I said, you know, I could make myself useful. | ||
| So I got my law degree, came out to California. | ||
| And then I met a whistleblower who had come from State Farm and felt that they were not handling claims fairly. | ||
| We decided to form a nonprofit. | ||
| And right before we got, we were just getting going, the Oakland, Berkeley firestorm hit in 91. | ||
| Suddenly, people needed us badly to basically walk them through how should this claim process work? | ||
| How do I get treated fairly? | ||
| From there, we built our roadmap to recovery program, and then we built our preparedness program and advocacy. | ||
| So for three decades plus now, we have been providing information and a voice to people across the country and businesses across the country that have bought insurance and want the straight scoop and they want to be treated fairly. | ||
| And that's primarily what we're about. | ||
| And when you are talking about those issues, who are you working with? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So right now, California has been in the grip of an insurance crisis, which has been impacting a lot of other states. | |
| So while in the past we were heavily focused on disaster recovery, which we are doing right now in LA, we're deep in there. | ||
| And we have in recent years built a very robust work stream around advancing mitigation, advancing risk reduction. | ||
| And this is not just in California, helping people deal with insurance companies' increasing reluctance to insure homes for a price that people can afford in all across the country, but very severely in Florida and California and now a little bit Colorado. | ||
| So we have been thinking, well, strategies to help people take steps to make it less likely that their homes will be damaged and that will improve their insurability. | ||
| And that's been a huge part of our focus in the last few years because insurance companies were one of the first economic powerhouses to recognize that climate change is a thing and it's real and they've been moving fairly quickly, insurance companies, to protect themselves. | ||
| And my organization has been working to help consumers adapt to how insurers are changing. | ||
| And explain what home insurance is, homeowners insurance, what it is, and what it covers, what it doesn't cover. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So home insurance in California covers the peril of fire. | |
| So wildfire, regular house fire. | ||
| So unlike after a hurricane, people here don't have to worry about whether their insurance policy is going to cover them for fire. | ||
| And home insurance is supposed to put you back where you were before a loss, right? | ||
| It covers you for everyday adversity. | ||
| It also typically gives you a defense if somebody sues you. | ||
| But basically, it's supposed to give you money to be what's called indemnified, basically put as close as possible back to the position you were in before this bad thing that happened. | ||
| And that's the basic purpose of it. | ||
| And we've been hearing a lot about homeowners insurance this past this month and even late last year with all these climate disasters that we are seeing the cost of homeowners insurance like a lot of other insurances have jumped. | ||
| According to Lending Tree, it says state of home insurance in 2024 rates up 37.8% cumulatively since 2019. | ||
| What are some of the factors as to why the rates are increasing the way they are? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, the first one is that inconvenient truth that Al Gar talked about, that there is a price tag for the increasingly severe weather events associated with climate change, you know, higher winds and more, you know, more frequent hurricanes, tornadoes, strange events like wildfires in January. | |
| And so, that's number one. | ||
| Climate change, insurance companies are all over it. | ||
| They saw it coming many years ago and been making changes, which includes raising rates, saying we need to charge more because risk has increased and so we have to charge more. | ||
| So, there's that climate change. | ||
| There's also inflation that we've had since the early COVID era supply chain interruption phenomena that really drove up the cost of materials, construction materials, car parts, all the things that affect how much they get asked to pay out from on claims from their customers. | ||
| That's two. | ||
| Number three is the explosion in unregulated tech tools, insure tech, that insurance companies now buy and use to run their operations. | ||
| So, decide who they want to insure and what they're going to charge. | ||
| That includes aerial drone images, AI, data mining, risk scoring. | ||
| Just like everybody has a credit score, and that affects the interest rates they get charged when they borrow money. | ||
| People also have now an insurance score based on their claim history and their risk characteristics. | ||
| So, those things matter to insurers. | ||
| And now, instead of insuring a lot of risks more blindly than the way they used to, they've got TMI too much information. | ||
| They can see all the warts in your home or your business. | ||
| They can see it from the air. | ||
| They can read it in the stats they get. | ||
| And some of those tech tools are inflating risk. | ||
| They're exaggerating risk. | ||
| They're overstating it. | ||
| And that's where those projections that insurers are using, those catastrophe models, those predictive models that purport to crystal ball see the future, what's going to happen, they always seem to err on the side of guessing higher. | ||
| Like this risk is higher. | ||
| It's more likely that the insurance company is going to get a claim on this property. | ||
| And that information is really scaring insurers out of doing what they traditionally have done and what we expect them to do, which is to take on risk in return for money. | ||
| Our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is Amy Bach. | ||
| She's the executive director of Policy United, or I'm sorry, United Policyholders. | ||
| And we're talking about the impact climate disasters are having on the U.S. insurance market. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for her, you can start calling in now. | ||
| Wanted to let you know the lines are broken down regionally for this segment. | ||
| If you are in the Eastern or Central time zone, it's 202-748-8001. | ||
| Mountain or Pacific 202-748-8001. | ||
| And a reminder, you can also shoot us text at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Amy, a headline from CBS, thousands of Los Angeles homeowners were dropped by their insurer before the Palisade fire. | ||
| It's not just the increasing cost of home insurance, homeowners' insurance, it's also the availability. | ||
| Talk to us about what's happening there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So what's happening here is very similar to what has been happening in Florida for a number of years. | |
| The brand name insurance companies that people have been relying on to insure their homes for many, many years, businesses as well, have been becoming much pickier about which properties they'll insure and they have been shrinking their footprint, reducing their market share, basically selling fewer policies and being a lot more selective at the point of sale. | ||
| And so that is leading to some shifts. | ||
| First of all, coverage is becoming more expensive for people who have to go into a state-run insurer of last resort. | ||
| In Florida, it's called Citizens. | ||
| In California, it's called the California Fair Plan. | ||
| So we've seen more people lose their brand name policies and have to go either to a state-run insurer of last resort where the pricing is higher because it's a high-risk pool and the coverage is typically thinner, or they're having to turn to a new brand that they've never heard of that may not really have a track record of paying claims and or that may be very lightly regulated. | ||
| You know, insurance has traditionally been fairly well regulated and kind of treated a little bit like a utility, right? | ||
| It's not a luxury, it's a necessity, but it really hasn't been fully treated as a utility. | ||
| So insurance companies by law in California do not have to insure people they don't want to insure. | ||
| So there's no rule that says they must offer a policy, you know, to Mrs. Smith in the Palisades, right? | ||
| So it's their choice. | ||
| There are rules about when they have been insuring Mrs. Smith and they decide they don't want to insure her anymore, they have to give her 75 days notice to give her a chance to replace. | ||
| And they have to be fair in applying their, what are called underwriting guidelines, which are basically their internal criteria of what customers they want and don't want. | ||
| And then what they're going to charge customers based on their risk profile, right? | ||
| How, you know, are they a good risk or are they somebody that's likely to file claims? | ||
| So we are learning the hard way. | ||
| We didn't really treat insurers like utilities in the sense that they can pick and choose at will who they want as customers within some very narrow grounds. | ||
| Now we have a few exceptions to that. | ||
| We have in California, the insurance commissioner has the authority. | ||
| That's the regulator who keeps an eye on the insurance industry here in California, has the authority to, if the governor declares a state of emergency, which of course he's unfortunately had a lot of opportunities to do last year and going into this year, once he declares that emergency, that opens up the commissioner's ability to put a non-renewal moratorium in place. | ||
| And that puts pause on insurance companies dropping customers in the zip codes affected by that moratorium. | ||
| So that's one rule we've got. | ||
| But other than that, we don't have a whole lot to force insurance companies to insure people that they don't want. | ||
| We have the fair plan, which does require them to take a percentage of the risk of those customers they said they didn't want and share it amongst themselves. | ||
| And that's kind of what the scenario is, is that, you know, it turns out insurers don't always compete. | ||
| You know, we relied on them to compete. | ||
| We relied on competition to keep rates down and keep options open for consumers. | ||
| When they stop competing, it's a bad situation. | ||
| And that's what we've been in now. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Gary in Newport, Kentucky. | ||
| Good morning, Gary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, I'd just like to make everybody aware of a benefit that insurance companies offer you. | ||
| I mean, if you, and it has to do with homeowners, it affects your homeowners, but it has nothing to do with homeownership at all. | ||
| It's auto plans. | ||
| And the auto plan benefit, you know, like to come out and jumpstart your car, whatever, you know, in cold weather like it is here in Kentucky. | ||
| You know, they charge that as a claim. | ||
| And that goes into your whole policy. | ||
| And so, and I've talked to, and I've realized the lady said her benefits rates have went up, but mine have slowly been going up for the last four or five years, 30 to 40 percent. | ||
| I won't mention who I'm with, but their initials are L M and they explained that it's the cost of replacement cost. | ||
| So I said, well, in other words, you're charging me in advance for stuff that hasn't even happened yet. | ||
| So there's a lot of shell games going on here with the insurance company that they hide to raise your rates or whatever. | ||
| So, you know, one being that auto thing that's considered a claim. | ||
| Amy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, you know, spot on, as far as the fact that they're counting things on your record as a claim. | |
| And just like I was saying about people know they have a credit score, a lot of people don't know that they also have an insurance score. | ||
| And then there's something called CLU. | ||
| It stands for Comprehensive Loss and Underwriting Exchange. | ||
| And we tell people get a clue because there's a report on you. | ||
| You can get a copy of your Clue report. | ||
| And if you see things on there that are wrong or unfair, for example, you see a claim on your record that you're getting dinged for that actually wasn't your fault. | ||
| You know, you want to contact Clue and ask them to fix your report because that CLU report is a very important tool for insurance companies. | ||
| And the thing that's unfair about it is that no matter whether it's your insurance company or not, if you apply for insurance with a different company, they can look at your CLU report and they can see what your record was with a competitor of theirs. | ||
| They can see whether you filed claims and all that. | ||
| So the consumer is at a huge disadvantage now in the process. | ||
| You cannot control some of the information that's coming to insurance companies about you. | ||
| But that information really hits you in the pocketbook because insurance companies are using that clue report to decide, are you a good risk? | ||
| Are you not? | ||
| And what are we going to charge you? | ||
| Amy, we've all seen images of some of the climate disasters that have been happening recently. | ||
| The California wildfires, Hurricane Helene, the tornadoes in the Midwest, and Rand in Wisconsin. | ||
| Text in this question for you. | ||
| Why do all policy owners pay more for the few that choose to live in a high-risk place? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, there's a common, that's sort of, I hear that a lot, but the truth is that there are risks everywhere. | |
| You know, it's not just the disasters that insurers are, you know, having to adjust their rates to account for. | ||
| It's the everyday car accidents. | ||
| People are distracted with their driving, you know, and that's what's happening all over the country. | ||
| So, pointing the finger of blame to me about, you know, why should people inland, you know, subsidize the coast? | ||
| There are, you know, that the whole nature of insurance is we all have vulnerabilities. | ||
| We all have risk. | ||
| We throw ourselves into a money into a big pot. | ||
| The insurance companies pool it. | ||
| We're all in this together. | ||
| So, you know, saying that I'm shouldering the burden for other people, it's really not the case. | ||
| It's all a big, big pool of risks. | ||
| So, people in the Midwest have tornadoes and derechos. | ||
| You know, we don't have those in California. | ||
| You know, similarly, hurricanes, but people in the Midwest don't often have wildfires. | ||
| So, we kind of, the whole beauty of insurance, when it works the way it should, is that we're all kind of helping each other out with this, these risks that we all face. | ||
| And it really doesn't matter where you live, there are risks, you know, and they do sort of just balance each other out, these different risks depending on where you live. | ||
| You know, they have in the Midwest, you know, there are there's frosts, there's droughts, there's um flooding, you know, again. | ||
| So, really, no place in the country is immune from some level of risk. | ||
| I mean, just the way that insurance has always been relatively affordable is this smoothing out, this sort of pooling of what we throw we throw in together. | ||
| So, you've got old and young people, you've got older homes and newer homes, you have younger drivers and older drivers, and all of that kind of, you know, when you put it all together, it creates this pool of diverse risks. | ||
| And honestly, that's kind of what makes it work. | ||
| So, every time we try to pull something out, it reduces people's protection. | ||
| So, for example, in California, we had a big earthquake 1994. | ||
| The insurance company said, you know what, if you continue to make us include earthquake coverage in our home policies, we out, right? | ||
| So, the legislature said, Okay, all right, we'll change it. | ||
| You don't have to. | ||
| And now, I think like 8% of Californians have earthquake insurance because once you pull it out, and people in Florida know this as well, now you don't have coverage for high winds in a home insurance policy anymore. | ||
| Insurers were successful lobbying to say no. | ||
| Now, you have to buy two policies when you used to only have to buy one. | ||
| That's the same thing with flood. | ||
| And if you don't buy that separate policy, you're out of luck if you have a claim for something that got coverage got cut out of your policy. | ||
| So, we're really cautioning public policymakers to stop this trend of insurers removing coverage for a specific peril and then requiring that property owner to buy one or two or three more policies just to have that whole cloth protection that they used to have in their home policy. | ||
| Let's hear from Roderick in Scottsdale, Arizona. | ||
| Good morning, Roderick. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Amy. | |
| Kudos on the work you've done. | ||
| I'm a native of Sacramento and was actually at Marine World at age 11 when that fire that you referred to happened. | ||
| So, I've worked as a PR manager in CNA and Cigna. | ||
| But my question comes to you in regards to, I worked in the Forest Products Association about 20 years ago. | ||
| And, you know, we were putting out industry reports about California on fire in 2020. | ||
| We're getting laughed out of rooms in Sacramento and by legislators in Sacramento, my hometown. | ||
| And I know you're familiar with the area. | ||
| Who's going to lead the moratorium, do you think, on looking back at some of these policy decisions, like saying, oh, there's just one of they want to do forest management to make money for timber harvesters and loggers and some of these things that now in hindsight were completely off base. | ||
| Does that come from the insurance company? | ||
| Does that come from Sacramento? | ||
| Does that come from organizations like yours? | ||
| Like, who's because I haven't seen any, not even one forest management person being interviewed over the last 10 days, right? | ||
| So it's concerning because you're doing the same thing, right? | ||
| You're passing blame, not accepting responsibility for a lot of legislation decisions that were made in Sacramento. | ||
| Who leads the after action or the moratorium on we made a lot of wrong decisions and what can we do moving forward? | ||
| Or do they just keep living in denial? | ||
| Well, I don't think anyone's living in denial anymore, honestly, certainly around wildfires. | ||
| But, you know, it's easy to simplify things, but in reality, it's complicated. | ||
| And to be, you know, to be honest with you, we've got a conflicting public policy situation around housing and development. | ||
| And, you know, one of the things that's happened, I mean, forests have to burn. | ||
| They've always burned, right? | ||
| We often will stop a fire to save homes, right? | ||
| So we prioritize home ownership and people very often over nature. | ||
| So that means that we've been allowing people to continue to live. | ||
| And also we've been allowing development to go deeper into what's called the WUI, the wildland urban interface. | ||
| So, you know, blaming environmentalists for like this is kind of honestly, I think it's really off base. | ||
| I think the complicated reality is that there's a lot of people that need places to live. | ||
| They are moving out of cities. | ||
| Developers are building in these areas and people are living in these areas. | ||
| And it just creates this dynamic. | ||
| And, you know, another thing, sir, people love their trees. | ||
| And, you know, I don't like to point the finger of blame, especially after a horrifying disaster like the one we are now in the process of tackling in LA. | ||
| But, you know, we tell people, experts tell people, you need to create defensible space around your home. | ||
| You need to take out those trees and bushes and give firefighters that clear space. | ||
| And people are really reluctant to do it. | ||
| So we also have a problem with money. | ||
| You know, the forests, the U.S. Forest Services, I believe, I think they are in a big budget crisis. | ||
| They just not enough money. | ||
| You know, I mean, the city of Oakland's talking about closing five fire stations. | ||
| I mean, we've got a lot of challenges today. | ||
| I know you know that. | ||
| But I will say this about the insurance industry, at least in recent years, we've been seeing some movement of insurance companies being willing to reward people for the risk reductions. | ||
| That's incredibly important. | ||
| So we've seen some progress, certainly in California. | ||
| We have now standards for what you can do to make it less likely that your home is going to burn and also community-wide type of standards. | ||
| Like how do we get critical masks in a WUI area, an area that where people are living right up against nature? | ||
| And then we've seen some insurers starting to embrace that and incentivize risk reduction by saying, if you reduce risk, then we will continue to insure you. | ||
| That's the kind of progress we were starting to see before this horrible disaster. | ||
| And that's what we are going to have to continue to push. | ||
| It's like, we're human, so we've got the smarts. | ||
| We got to be less, in my opinion, less busy pointing fingers and more busy looking at the things that are working and making those things work better for more people. | ||
| And that includes risk reduction. | ||
| We know a lot more now about things people can do with their roofs and around their homes and things that need to be done on public lands, shaded fuel breaks and control burns. | ||
| There's a lot we can do. | ||
| We just don't always have enough money on hand to do it, and we don't always have the will there to do these things, but we know what we have to do. | ||
| Timothy in Anchorage, Alaska. | ||
| Good morning, Timothy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, thank you, Amy. | ||
| This is very helpful information. | ||
| Yeah, my question, I guess, is twofold. | ||
| One is based on something someone just said. | ||
| With regard to the banks, I have a problem with being concerned with them continuing to rebuild or put more money back in places. | ||
| I know part of an insurance policy is to bring you back to where you previously were, but if you continue to build back in places that were already dangerous, it seems kind of counterintuitive. | ||
| I don't see why the financial institutions allow the insurance companies to continue to put these buildings back into very precarious places, whether it's on beaches or in rivers or on sides of the hills. | ||
| It seems to me that they should kind of have an opportunity to say, hey, we really shouldn't invest here. | ||
| I mean, if you wanted to invest money in your nails and you said, hey, I think my nails are worth $5 million. | ||
| And someone says, well, I really don't think that's what it's going to be. | ||
| Then you really couldn't get that policy. | ||
| But here we are not really pricing in properly. | ||
| I know we don't do that towards flood insurance at all. | ||
| You keep talking about 500-year-old floods, but we're not really pricing in what things actually cost, not just the replacement cost, but what it costs actually just builded in the first place. | ||
| And as you were talking with the WOU, we just keep building out and out now. | ||
| We don't really build an infrastructure for a lot of these things. | ||
| The thing in California, I think, is going to go the same way. | ||
| They're just going to rebuild on those same hills because they probably, you know, this is what the insurance company is redesigned to do. | ||
| Timothy, we'll get a response from Amy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| You know, some good points in there. | ||
| You know, there's a lot of, been a lot of conversations about, you know, should people continue to be able to live in places right on the beach or, you know, up in the Tahoe area or, you know, places that are vulnerable. | ||
| And, you know, the answer is like, well, they do. | ||
| So should or shouldn't, that's where they live. | ||
| You know, and it's what we see after a lot of these, the wildfires, and my organization has been bringing our recovery resources to wildfire impacted households and businesses now for over three decades. | ||
| So, you know, we've seen all the bumper stickers, you know, Boulder Strong and, you know, Sonoma Strong. | ||
| And, you know, the drive for people when they lose their homes is very, very often is, I'm coming back, you know, and we're going to rebuild. | ||
| And that's a powerful kind of human American optimism that I don't think you stop that, right? | ||
| Think that insurance companies are definitely sending those signals. | ||
| And environmentalists have been sort of asking them to and saying, you know what, the cost of insurance in these places should be a price signal to people that this is a risky place to live. | ||
| And if you're going to choose to live here, you're going to pay more for insurance. | ||
| That is happening. | ||
| It's not happening as much as it maybe should in places like I hear people say, you know, I had somebody say to me, oh, you know, we bought a condo in Florida and, you know, the insurance wasn't too bad. | ||
| And we're like, you know, a mile from the beach. | ||
| And I'm like, okay, that's interesting. | ||
| So I think, you know, insurance companies, obviously, they're for-profit businesses. | ||
| So they are behaving like rational capitalists here. | ||
| They are trying to put rate increases into effect. | ||
| And they are saying that we need to be charging people a lot more. | ||
| And of course, that's causing a reaction. | ||
| You know, I mean, people don't, you know, they don't, they don't want to pay more. | ||
| And I get that. | ||
| A lot of households can't. | ||
| You know, and one of the things that we are, there's a couple of news announcements that we're all waiting for very nervously out here in California. | ||
| One of them is how many people that lost their homes in these tragic wildfires don't have insurance at all because the market's been bad and they couldn't afford the premium. | ||
| I mean, we're hearing people talk about $18,000 premiums. | ||
| That's not something that most households can just sort of tack on to their budget. | ||
| So we definitely have this complicated dynamic of people want to live where they live. | ||
| They want to, you know, that's where they live. | ||
| And insurance companies are saying, well, you know, in most cases, unless we are feeling particularly competitive and we want to insure condos in Florida, you're going to be paying for your choice. | ||
| And that is happening. | ||
| And it's very, very painful. | ||
| Amy, on the caller's point, there was a recent opinion essay in the New York Times. | ||
| Their headline is, we have to stop underwriting people who move to climate danger zones. | ||
| And in the piece, they argue or they suggest putting in place a federal reinsurance program. | ||
| The federal government has a very limited role right now in insurance regulation. | ||
| What would that do? | ||
| Would it help? | ||
| Would putting in place a federal reinsurance program help? | ||
| What would it look like? | ||
|
unidentified
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So I think we do need that, at least for the state-sponsored insurance plans of last resort that are take-all comers. | |
| So they are that safety valve, right? | ||
| I mean, the wheels of real estate transactions need to keep turning. | ||
| You know, it's part of our economy that people continue to build, buy, sell homes. | ||
| And in order to make that happen, there needs to be insurance available for people. | ||
| So we have these state-supported fallback plans. | ||
| They have to generally insure anybody who comes to them. | ||
| Now, they can charge what they charge and it can be that higher rate for that higher risk pool. | ||
| But those plans and insurers in general are, they have to buy what's called reinsurance, right? | ||
| That is the insurance that insurance companies buy for those kind of LA wildfire, you know, multi-billion dollar price tags, you know, the Hurricane, Ian, Milton, Helene, Katrina, those kind of price tags. | ||
| Reinsurance is key, right? | ||
| That that, because when the claims go into that level of dollars, that's where reinsurance kicks in. | ||
| Reinsurance pricing is unregulated. | ||
| Reinsurers charge what the market will bear. | ||
| Many of them are international companies offshore. | ||
| A lot of them are in Bermuda and all that. | ||
| So reinsurers have their own little bubble of what they get to charge, and that is not regulated by the states or the feds. | ||
| So because of this, reinsurance is one of those things that's driving home insurance costs up. | ||
| And it's also one of those things that's making it hard for some of these state-supported last resort plans that are a fallback so people can continue to have financial security and buy and sell houses. | ||
| Because they have to buy reinsurance and it's not regulated, they have to charge more because of what they have to pay for reinsurance. | ||
| So it's a little complicated, but the bottom line is if we have a federal reinsurance facility of some kind that would provide some sort of supplement, then these for meaning supplemental catastrophic risk exposure for these state-run plans or even insurers in general, they would be able to buy less reinsurance that will bring the costs of the premiums down. | ||
| And reinsurance only kicks in if there's something really big that happens. | ||
| So most of the time, the facility would sit there unless there's been a disaster that really hits a high dollar mark. | ||
| And then there would be this some pot of federal loan guarantees that would be available. | ||
| Again, it's a little complicated, but that is an idea that is probably one of the lowest hanging fruits that we've got on the table right now. | ||
| Some kind of federal reins. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because the states alone don't have that kind of financial strength to really be that backstop. | ||
| And also because reinsurance is such a big cost driver for consumers, they don't know about it. | ||
| But down in the food chain, consumers are the ones that are paying for these higher reinsurance prices. | ||
| And as we see these, you know, as we see climate change, reinsurers are cashing in because, you know, now they're much more in the game. | ||
| And so they're setting some of the rules. | ||
| And they're saying you're going to be paying more for this high-dollar claim paying capacity that they bring because we're seeing more of these high-dollar events. | ||
| Let's hear from Daniel in Scranton, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Good morning, Daniel. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| First of all, thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I think that one of the most important points, and I know that Ms. Fox organization probably says this all the time, is that since most insurance, not all, but most insurance is regulated by the state legislatures and the states, you're talking about your local state legislator has maybe won by maybe a few hundred votes. | ||
| Or maybe they're in California and they're solidly them, but they won their primary by less than a few hundred votes. | ||
| You're talking about people that if you take the time to email and say, look, this is a really complicated situation. | ||
| I understand that, but I'm in pain. | ||
| It's taking away the entire idea of the American dream. | ||
| I cannot accumulate wealth to build my family's wealth, and these people are ripping us off. | ||
| Now, if you can write a more nuanced letter, that's great. | ||
| If you can provide details, wonderful. | ||
| But I'm telling you, as a political scientist, there is nothing that will wipe a smile off a lobbyist's face fast enough when they sit down with their rep and the rep's like, look, Nick, I want to help you out. | ||
| But, I mean, I got 40 letters on this last month alone. | ||
| I mean, I only won by like 250 votes. | ||
| And that's the thing about these state legislatures, and it's the saddest thing, especially in states like Florida. | ||
| Insurance is generally not regarded as a cultural existential issue by most legislators. | ||
| They will be amenable. | ||
| They will respond. | ||
| Okay, just, you know, I'm not saying you should write and threaten them or something, but say, hey, listen, man, this is causing me a lot of distress. | ||
| And I want to see you do something about it in a meaningful way. | ||
| Okay, Daniel, we'll get a response from Amy. | ||
|
unidentified
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So the caller is correct. | |
| The federal government, Congress, has very little control over insurance companies. | ||
| It's in a unique, we have a unique scenario in the United States where the states regulate insurance. | ||
| So each state has its own system. | ||
| Each state has its own system for whether insurance companies can just file and use whatever rates they want or whether they have to seek prior approval from the regulator. | ||
| So we have a patchwork of rules around the country. | ||
| And there is this dynamic that the last caller refers to between affordability and availability, right? | ||
| So, you know, we started this conversation. | ||
| I was talking about how, you know, thinking about insurance as a necessity instead of a luxury. | ||
| But we have been relying on a for-profit sector to provide insurance now. | ||
| And it was working when they were competing more and they didn't have as much information as they have now. | ||
| And they were more willing, you know, to insure risks than they are now. | ||
| And we're in a situation, a very challenging situation with this now because a perfect example is California, right? | ||
| We regulate rates here. | ||
| So when insurance companies want to charge more, they've got to get permission. | ||
| And we have a process for that. | ||
| And insurers had been saying it was taking too long for them to get their rate increases. | ||
| So the commissioner took action and made a whole suite of reforms last year to make it easier for insurance companies to do business in the state of California. | ||
| You know, that said, you know, we can't just let them charge, you know, whatever they want. | ||
| We do have to kind of keep things in balance because they are for-profit entities. | ||
| A lot of them are shareholder companies. | ||
| And so, you know, when they have some extra money on hand, you know, they don't just sit, they don't give it back to their policyholders in the form of rate reductions. | ||
| They give it to their shareholders. | ||
| So we have this system where we're relying on a for-profit sector to provide something that people now recognize. | ||
| It's not just something that you can buy or not buy. | ||
| You need it to buy a home, to own a home, to stay, to get back on your feet after you've been knocked down by some bad thing. | ||
| And so we're in this Catch-22. | ||
| We want to regulate more. | ||
| We want to make it harder for insurance companies to just drop people based on some picture that some company took of their roof. | ||
| But to do more mandates now when insurance companies are already saying, you know, we got one foot out the door feels too risky for public policymakers. | ||
| So it's a really tricky dynamic for lawmakers now. | ||
| Do we put new restrictions on insurance companies knowing that they might be able to just say, fine, then we're going to go to another state, which is kind of what has happened in Florida. | ||
| You don't see a lot of the brand names there. | ||
| You see names you've never heard of. | ||
| So the market has been changing there. | ||
| We're trying to hold our market together here in California. | ||
| And so we have this balancing act to do. | ||
| You know, the moratoriums are great. | ||
| Insurance companies don't like them. | ||
| They're really important. | ||
| But every time the legislature talks about forcing insurance companies to take customers that they otherwise want to reject, They hit a wall because they're afraid if they do that, the insurance companies are just going to say, Bye. | ||
| You know, we're going to go somewhere else. | ||
| So it's not, you know, I don't want to say there's no solutions. | ||
| The solution is reasonable restrictions. | ||
| So we are advancing a legislative proposal that would require insurers to be more transparent about their rules for your roof and your, you know, the age of your plumbing and your electrical so that you know the rules and you can make your decisions accordingly as a homeowner. | ||
| But right now, and then to give people a chance, if there are things at the house that are out of compliance with their guidelines for who they'll take and not take, give the homeowner a chance to do the work. | ||
| And then if they do the work and they send you pictures and say, look, I fixed this, then you must give them a renewal policy. | ||
| We want to advance that. | ||
| We're trying to advance that across the country. | ||
| It's been advanced in Massachusetts. | ||
| I think we'll see some other sort of similar things in Colorado. | ||
| But, you know, insurance companies have a very powerful lobbying structure all over the country. | ||
| Thousands of lobbyists. | ||
| In many states, you'll see the most powerful lobbyists are the ones for the insurance companies. | ||
| So they're going to resist regulation and public officials are going to have to find that balance to really keep there being affordable, available insurance, but also address the fact that insurance companies are for-profit. | ||
| So we have to kind of do some adjusting. |