Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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cliff young
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mimi geerges
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mychael schnell
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bishop mariann edgar budde
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chuck schumer
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donald j trump
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marco rubio
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GOP Senators Criticize Trump Pardons00:04:27
unidentified
Michael Schnell, congressional reporter for The Hill, will talk about President Trump's meeting Tuesday with GOP leaders in Congress.
And Cliff Young, president of Polling and Societal Trends for Ipsos, discusses his organization's new survey on President Trump's policy agenda.
Then Associated Press Pentagon correspondent Tara Kopp with the latest on Pete Hegs' Defense Secretary nomination and the firing of U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan.
And later, Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason gives an overview of President Trump's latest actions and previews the day ahead.
On Monday, President signed a slew of executive orders.
And yesterday, he met with Republican congressional leaders to discuss his legislative agenda.
We'll update you on all the latest news.
But in the meantime, we're asking you this.
What would you like the highest priority to be for the Trump administration and Congress?
Give us a call by party.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can send a text to 202-748-8003.
Include your first name in your city-state.
And you can post to social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
We'll start with the Wall Street Journal with this headline about that meeting.
Yesterday, Trump meets with GOP leaders to map out congressional path.
Republicans are trying to quickly pass President's tax and border agenda.
We'll have a reporter to update you on that in about 15 minutes.
Also making news is the result of the fallout from the January 6th pardons.
Here is Politico.
GOP senators criticize Trump over pardoning violent January 6 riders.
It says several Republican senators are roundly criticizing President Donald Trump's pardon of January 6 riders, particularly those convicted of violent crimes like assaulting law enforcement officers.
This is Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska who says, quote, I'm disappointed to see that and I do fear the message that is sent to these brave men and women that stood by us.
And here's a quote by Senator Tom Tillis, a Republican of North Carolina.
Quote, that segment of pardons, I'm as disappointed as I am with all the pardons that Biden did.
Well, President Trump was asked about that with reporters yesterday.
Here's what he said.
unidentified
The leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers were free following their pardons yesterday.
At the time back in 2021, you urged them to stand back and stand by.
Is there now a place for them in the political conversation?
And we'll go to your calls asking about your priorities for the Trump administration and Congress.
We'll start on the independent line from Steamwood, Illinois.
Art, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
How are you?
Good.
I have an issue that I find very disturbing.
On the 20th, President Trump took an oath to protect the Constitution and hours later pardoned 1,600 people that actually attacked our Congress and tried to overturn our government.
Golden Age of Fossil Fuels00:07:13
unidentified
This, to me, I believe, is an impeachable act.
And I cannot understand why nothing has been said or done about it.
And Jamie, do you have ideas as to how you want to see those prices come down?
Do you have ideas as to policy that you want to see from Congress, from the president?
unidentified
Oh, I think that if we establish and get our petro dollar back up and we stop spending our money on all these foreign wars and everything else and start taking care of America, yeah, I think that prices will come down.
A lot of this is our dollar is not worth anything.
So it takes like $5 to make $1.
And once you start giving our currency backing with the petro dollar in other areas, then our dollar is going to be worth something again.
And, you know, can I say something about the January 6th?
On day one, Donald Trump signed over 150 executive orders dismantling years of progress on lowering costs for American families, on energy jobs, on lowering prescription drug prices, public health, and public safety.
With a flick of a pen, President Trump took steps to make it harder to enroll in health care and made Medicaid more restrictive.
He even made it harder for Americans to save on prescription drugs.
He made it a golden age for big pharma and big pharma executives.
He cleared the way for big oil polluters and halted leasing of offshore wind farms, making it a golden age for oil company executives.
Nothing, nothing that President Trump did on day one lowered grocery prices.
Nothing helped Americans achieve their dream of owning a home.
Nothing will help working families earn more and save more.
Who exactly is Donald Trump's golden age for?
Not for working Americans and not for your family and not for you.
President Trump's golden age is one for America's biggest drug companies who now can worry less about lowering their prices.
It's a golden age for America's richest oil executives who want nothing more than to kill clean jobs and deepen America's dependence on fossil fuels and raise the price for you at the pump.
It's a golden age for America's top 1% who want another trillion-dollar tax break, paid on, paid for on the backs of working families.
And sadly, it's a golden age for lawlessness and lawbreakers who were pardoned yesterday by President Trump.
There is no other way to describe President Trump's pardon of January 6th offenders than un-American.
It is so deeply un-American to do that, to pardon them.
And here is what's on the front page of the New York Times.
Pardoning rioters angers the police.
It says, when inmates are released from federal prison, the Justice Department places a call to their victims, notifying them that the defendant who attacked them is now free.
On Tuesday, the phones of U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. police officers were buzzing nonstop.
For Aquilino Gannell, a former Capitol Police sergeant, the automated calls began on Monday evening and continued into Tuesday morning after President Trump issued a sweeping legal reprieve to all the nearly 1,600 defendants, including those convicted of violent crimes in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
So, Richard, what would you, I mean, besides doing the opposite of what he's doing, what's your major issue, if you will, as to what you want to see done?
unidentified
I would say that I would say he needs to get his tax relief to the middle class where he can.
They ought to expand.
He said nothing about health care.
We need to expand health care, not make it harder for people to get.
We should have universal health care now anyway.
The only civilized country probably in Europe that doesn't have it.
And also, we have to have some kind of form of helping people get homes and building homes.
I mean, they're going to have to rebuild Los Angeles, right?
And you don't get out of a climate accord, start drilling oil, which is going to increase the situation that causes the fire and the weathers and the five hottest years.
I mean, I can go down the list, you know, of everything.
Hey, I got something for administration in Congress.
I got a prairie.
But before I do that, guess what I found at the library at the downtown library yesterday?
I got a book by Dick Rorty, What We Can Hope For.
Essays on Politics.
Prescient essays about the state of our politics from the philosopher who predicted that a populist demigod would become president of the United States in the 90s.
Anyway, so here, I got something for administration and for Congress.
I hope Senator Majority Leader John Soon does not impeach President Donald J. Trump.
I hope.
And, you know, when I was in middle school, you know what I used to do, Mimi?
I used to run around and say, hey, do you know what impeach means?
Do you know what impeach means?
Do you know what impeach means?
I used to do that all the time.
But I'm hoping everybody today has a great day.
And then maybe you should visit your downtown library.
So this meeting yesterday between President Trump and GOP congressional leaders that happened yesterday, what are you hearing happened during that meeting?
Yeah, well, we were told by Speaker Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise that there is some type of plan for how reconciliation is going to be carried out.
And look, that was significant because we know for the past few weeks there's been this debate in the Capitol.
Will Republican leaders try to pass one reconciliation bill of Trump's policies?
Will they split his agenda into two separate bills?
So that's been the main question here.
House members, particularly Mike Johnson and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, they've been pushing for one single bill.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been pushing for two bills.
And publicly, President Trump has made his preference for one bill known, but he's kept the door open to both of them.
So this has been sort of the first step that folks are waiting for a firm answer on before we can move on to what exact policy is going to be in this piece of legislation or pieces of legislation.
Majority Leader Steve Scalise came back from the White House yesterday and told us that the agreement was on one bill.
John Thune seemed a little bit more uncommittal to that when talking to reporters after the meeting.
So this is still the main question of one bill or two bills, but it seems like they have the outline of a plan of how they're going to attack reconciliation.
House leaders, Republican leaders say that they want to pass a budget resolution, which unlocks the budget reconciliation process sometime in the week of February 27th.
So time, the deadline, the self-imposed deadline to get this process started and have these key decisions made is quickly approaching.
Well, there are questions of, A, can Republicans even get one bill over the finish line?
The budget reconciliation process is, of course, significant in the sense that it takes away the need to get Democratic support in the Senate.
It brings the threshold from passing a bill from 60 votes to just a simple majority.
But the House is sort of its own issue.
And even though the House has only needed a simple majority, Republicans are grappling with an ultra-thin majority.
At some point, once Elise DeFonic leaves the House to go serve in the administration, the breakdown is going to be 217 to 215, which means Republicans can't even afford to lose one of their members on a party line vote.
Now, when they're planning to vote on reconciliation, the margin will be a little bit larger because some special elections would have happened by then.
But still, even if it's a one or two person majority, that's extremely slim.
So the concern in the House is that they're only going to get one bite at this apple, that if they get reconciliation over the finish line, it's only going to happen once because of the slim majority.
And then the strategy here is that Mike Johnson is thinking that, well, I have some folks who don't like A aspect of reconciliation bill, B aspect, C aspect, but there are some big sweeteners in there, namely the immigration and border portion of this legislation.
So House leaders are hoping that by putting those sweeteners in one single bill, some of those conservative Republicans who are against other areas of the legislation won't vote against it because they don't want to tank that immigration and border section.
That's the argument for one bill.
Two bills, though, is in the Senate, folks are saying that they want to give President Trump an early win on the border, on immigration, and then deal with the more thornier issues down the road.
But again, there's that concern in the House of, will we really get two bites of this apple?
Yeah, well, we're still waiting to hear what these real specifics are.
The members have been very tight-lipped about the actual policy that will be in there.
We've seen House Republicans for a few weeks now have a lot of listening sessions with different committees and different interest groups within the House Republican Conference, different factions within the House Republican Conference to kind of get an idea of what everyone wants to see.
So we still don't know what details and what policy in particular is going to be in this reconciliation bill, but we can already see what's on the president's mind.
We saw his executive orders the eve, the night that he got inaugurated, things like ending birthright citizenship, reinstating Remain in Mexico.
So we know where his priorities lie.
It's just a question of now what policy are we going to be seeing put into this GOP bill.
Yeah, that has sort of been something that was raised during the election to become the next majority leader of the Senate.
And we saw the candidates agree to it, including somebody like Jon Thune.
You know, it's just rather not agreeing to it, but saying that they would do everything that they can to confirm Trump's cabinet nominees in a swift manner.
We then hadn't really heard much about this idea of recess appointments.
There's a lot of questions about how this would actually look practically, logistically, with the legal concerns surrounding it could be.
But it's definitely something that I'm interested to see if that's more of a discussion up on Capitol Hill this week.
I will note, though, Trump did get his first cabinet nominee, Marco Rubio, confirmed it was a unanimous vote in the Senate.
And Senate leaders are getting ready or are teeing up more votes.
We're seeing some of those nominees be dispatched out of committee and likely going to make it to the floor soon.
John Ratcliffe for CIA director, Pete Hegseth to be defense chief.
So expect to see more of these nominee votes in the coming days.
The question of recess appointments, though, we'll see if we hear more about that this week.
Yeah, Democrats are outraged by this new development, this new affidavit that was given to lawmakers that then leaked into the press.
Democrats are concerned.
They have been concerned with Pete Hegseth's nomination this whole entire journey.
It's why his vote out of committee was on party lines.
Pete Hegseth's vote out of committee.
But I think the real question is, did this information come to the table just simply too late?
We've already seen Pete Hegseth's confirmation hearing.
We already saw his vote in committee.
One of those key holdouts, Joni Ernst, Republican from Iowa, had announced that she would support Pete Hegseth after that hearing.
I mean, there are still a few outliers, a few folks who haven't said where they lean one way or another.
Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, and Todd Young.
So, realistically, if all four of those Republicans vote against Pete Hegseth, you know, he will not be able to be confirmed as defense secretary in the Senate because of the margins there.
But I think it's a big question of will those four ultimately vote against him.
And I think that the other folks are pretty locked in.
They have said that they're going to support him.
And they don't know that they would backtrack on that after reading this affidavit.
Look, it's, of course, a possibility, but I think at this juncture it's unlikely.
And I think a lot of folks are going to be asking, well, did we receive this information just simply too late?
Yeah, he said that he hasn't had an ability to review it yet.
He didn't have a specific reaction, sort of deflecting the question to not comment.
We will try again today, assuming that he has had a moment to review the pardons that President Trump signed on the first night of him being in office.
But the reaction from the House Republican conference is mixed.
I heard spoke to a lot of folks yesterday who said this is the president's prerogative.
He has the ability to issue pardons and commutations as president, and this was his decision.
I've had a lot of folks who say that the January 6th rioters were being unjustly held and unjustly prosecuted.
And then I've heard some folks say that this was the wrong decision, and that particularly the violent protesters, people who were accused of violently assaulting police officers.
And I will note, there were more than 600 January 6th protesters who were accused of violently assaulting law enforcement officers who were released as part of the sweeping pardon.
There were some folks who said that this was not the right decision, and they wish it was looked at on a case-by-case basis.
So, truly, a mixed bag when you talk about reaction from the House Republican conference.
We did hear from Senate Republicans, the usual suspects, the more moderate folks who are not the biggest fans of Trump, express their displeasure with this decision.
But overall, a mixed bag for Republican reaction to that.
We're asking the question: what's your top priority for the Trump administration and for Congress?
And we'll talk to Jay now, an independent in Walnut, Mississippi.
unidentified
Yeah, good morning.
I guess probably one thing I want to talk about a little bit is pardons.
I hear a lot about the 15 or 1600 that say Donald Trump pardoned, but you're not hearing much about Joe Biden pardoning about 40 murderers on death row.
You don't hear much about the last move he made was pardoning his family and then riding off to California.
President's Pardons Controversy00:14:37
unidentified
You know, American people.
And something else I heard, I don't know facts or why I hadn't checked it up.
You might be able to look, yes.
Every who was the leader of the proud boys, he got about 20 years and he wouldn't even be in Washington at the time.
So Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders are out of prison after January 6th pardons.
This is ABC News.
You were asking about the Proud Boys.
That's Enrico Terrio.
They were released Tuesday from prison.
He was serving 22 years, 18 years for the Oath Keepers leader.
It sentenced Rhodes after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy the year prior for his and his group's role in the riot.
The Oath Keepers had stockpiled weapons at a DC hotel and organized the attack, according to prosecutors.
Rhodes himself did not enter the Capitol.
Okay, so this is Stuart Rhodes, did not enter the Capitol on January 6th and maintained that his group only intended to provide security and medical aid to those attending multiple protest demonstrations in the area.
Rhodes was convicted of leading members of the Oath Keepers in an attempt to use the violent capital attack to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
He says this was a bunch of nonsense.
I believe the 2020 election was unconstitutional.
It violated state election laws.
That's Rhodes.
Now, Terrio sentenced in 2023 on seditious conspiracy and given the longest sentence.
You're right, Jay, he was not at the Capitol on January 6th.
During his sentencing, prosecutors pointed to a nine-page strategic plan to, quote, storm government buildings in Washington on January 6th that was found in Terrio's possession after the riot, as well as violent rhetoric they say he routinely used in messages with other members of the group about what they would do if Congress moved forward in certifying President Joe Biden's win.
It says that former FBI Director Ray stepped down, described the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers as domestic extremist groups.
So that's about that.
And this is Jonathan, Grand Prairie, Texas, Democrat.
Hi, Jonathan.
unidentified
Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
FeastPen, you folks do a wonderful job with really providing accurate information about key topics.
Just wanted to, a couple of things.
Everybody wants to have Social Security protected.
We want to have good health care coverage.
I'd like to see Congress expand the Medicaid program, Medicare.
But more importantly for me, on a personal level, I'd like to see the Congress, Senators, lawmakers look in the mirror and really focus on morality.
What you're seeing in this country is a segregation of really the moral fabric in the United States for the president, the current president, to pardon 1,500, 1,600 people with really acts of violence, most of them, or half of them at least, and they broke the law.
We always hear about backing the blue and we're a law-abiding country, but let's not forget that they convicted a felony, 34-count felon as a president of the United States.
You're absolutely right, the previous college J. Half the people don't even know what sedition is.
Half the people don't even know what a tariff is.
The problem also is a lot of people are just simply uneducated.
And, you know, to be quite frank, I didn't watch the inauguration.
It was the first time in my history as a voter not to watch that.
I just couldn't stomach it.
I am hopeful that going forward, once this man is out of office, that we don't have other leaders come in with the type of baggage he had.
And let's not forget one last thing.
When COVID hit and he lied to the American people, that it was a hoax, it was fake news, and at least 300,000 people of the 1.1 million people that died from COVID lost their lives needlessly because they believed this lie.
He incited insurrection, and he'll go down to history and infamy, as well as the other people.
They're not on the right side of history on this.
At the end of the day, I can sleep just fine knowing that I made the right decision.
Thank you for taking my call and have a great day.
This is Jim, a Republican in Winter Park, Florida.
Hi, Jim.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
I just listened to Jonathan, and I think, you know, being the Republican and him being a Democrat, we have middle ground in a lot of places.
I totally agree that they should be fixing Social Security.
But my biggest problem at this point now is the fact that we had four years of somebody running this country that was not Joe Biden.
Because I don't care what anybody says, if you watch that man, he never took a press conference.
Donald Trump sat down and was signing executive orders 20 hours into being awake, and he was still talking to everybody in the press room.
He took a straight out, anybody could ask any question, and he answered them.
Joe Biden never did.
He was hidden away by the Democratic Party because they knew he was already mentally incapable of running the government for the four years that he was president.
Now, as far as the statement about the COVID, I get sick and tired of hearing people blaming Donald Trump for the COVID.
Yes, he made stupid remarks.
That's Donald Trump.
He makes stupid remarks.
Anybody that wants to listen to him should just listen and do whatever they want to do.
You're a free person.
You can do whatever you want to do.
But everybody throws numbers out.
And I remember sitting here watching television, watching Joe Biden run his campaign from his basement, flipping out an index card and showing how many people died on Donald Trump's watch.
And it ended at about 450,000.
We are at 1,002 right now.
And Donald Trump and Mike Pence went with Operation Warp Speed and got a vaccine that Biden got in his first day of administration.
And it was held back because they didn't want Trump in the office again.
My biggest problem at this point right now is I sit here and I watch your show every morning.
You listen to the Republicans that get up and talk, Mike Johnson, John Toon.
They talk about real problems.
They talk about what they want to do to fix it, what we're going to do to fix it.
Then you watch Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer come on, and all they do is throw vitriol lies and vile statements about Republicans, about the president, about the other side of the aisle.
They never talk about real problems and how they're going to fix them.
All they want to do is blame the Republicans for everything going on.
And it even did it while they were in power in the Senate and in the House.
So I'm over people saying that the Republicans are the problem in this country.
I want everybody to just start paying attention to their lives and hope that we can turn this country around, get all the bad guys that are in this country that came across the border out of the country before we have another 9-11.
So be specific, Sid, when you say some of the policies are anti-American.
Give me more specifics on that.
unidentified
Like leaving the border open and putting up these illegal migrants into hotels.
They've destroyed businesses, our communities.
They have released them with no justification.
And they're worried about this January 6 people being pardoned.
You know, I mean, our communities are unsafe.
In Chicago, Philadelphia, all of New York, people have been, U.S. citizens have had to pay the brunt of these criminal activities.
And not to forget those border towns near Texas.
Really?
Nobody's talking about that.
Even in D.C., the crime rate is out of control.
People are getting, I know people got stabbed right before the inauguration in northwest D.C. and northeast D.C.
And I read somewhere in Google that last night the Washington police officials pushed back on these pardons and they did not allow people to be released.
That is absolutely, that's not their call.
They've been pardoned and they need to be released.
And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God.
In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.
There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families.
Some who fear for their lives.
And the people.
The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation.
But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.
They pay taxes and are good neighbors.
They are faithful members of our mosques, synagogues, wadara, and temples.
I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.
And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.
Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger.
She brought her church into the world of politics in a very ungracious way.
She was nasty in tone and not compelling or smart.
She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our country and killed people.
Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions.
It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA.
Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was very boring and uninspiring.
She is not very good at her job.
She and her church owe the public an apology.
And here is Kathy in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Democrat.
Kathy, good morning.
unidentified
Oh my gosh, I didn't realize his response to that beautiful message, and his response was what you just read.
I mean, I'm so saddened by everything going on, and I hope I can get through this without losing it, but I'm just really saddened by all the pardons that he did.
You know, the police officers that were there to protect the Congress people and just his dismissiveness, the way he's acted since he's, he has no grace.
He lacks any shred of human decency or caring or humility.
He's like mortally bankrupt.
He doesn't care about anybody but himself.
And that was a beautiful message.
He should be gracious right now.
He's the winner.
He won.
And for him to act that way, and it makes me really sad.
And when I wrote to Officer Fanon, because when I heard his statement about him, he had to plead and plea out.
He said, I have kids.
I have children.
And he said, that's what stopped the attack.
I wrote him a letter because that pierced my soul.
And it's just sad.
It's sad to me that people think this is okay.
And I don't know.
I just feel like, and I actually blame the Republicans more because he wouldn't be allowed to get away with this behavior if they would have held him accountable.
This is Gary in Fletcher, North Carolina, Independent Line.
Hi, Gary.
unidentified
Hey, good morning.
Good morning.
I've got to do a little rebuttal to the last caller.
The minister was trying to put him on the spot.
You know, that was her dagger that she could pull out.
You know, she made racist comments about everybody that does manual labor is an immigrant and an illegal.
You know, it's kind of sad that my mother to create education walked behind potato plows in Maine.
And I, as a kid, raked blueberries.
You know, when these immigrants had migrant cards, the blue cards, when they came into the country, they didn't ask them, where are you going to go live?
They asked them, what are you going to do for work?
And Biden took away that blue card and gave them green cards.
Now the only fruit they pick is our jobs because why would they?
Not being racist.
They feel the same heat we feel.
They feel the same cold in the field, the same sun.
They don't want that job any more than any Americans.
To say that because they have a certain quality as a race that is different than other races or some kind of acceptable behavior or negative behavior is a racial comment, a racist comment, not racist.
We all feel the same pain and everything.
But when we select workers coming across the border for years, and I live in Apple Country in North Carolina, tobacco country, these folks been since the 60s would come in, make their money, go back home, live a better lifestyle.
You're allowed to work for a certain period of time and then you go back.
unidentified
Yeah, so you're here for harvest season and you're here for planting season.
Because all the other time in the middle, the local area schools have to pick up all the health care benefits, all the education benefits.
They have to do housing, Section 8.
So that salad bar that we go to doesn't really, there's no more free salad bars.
Now a salad bar is like $20.
And it's really more like $100 if you want to throw in that one worker, his whole family, that has to be supplemented and things.
So there's a lot of hidden cost in there that the businessmen in the Republican Party see that, you know, it doesn't go like the bleeding heart kind of.
I'm a Catholic, and these are my fellow parishioners.
I sit with them every day.
I love them.
And I see the trap that we're setting up for them.
We're setting them up for failure.
We're bringing in impoverished people.
We're importing poverty.
And we're a high-technical nation, high-technology nation.
We're moving in that direction.
And we have people that are not only illiterate in the English language, they can't speak it.
And it's one of the ploys to kind of keep benefits going, not being able to find a job once they get here.
I could see that they were moving out of the hotels and they were rotating in and out, and it was showing some success.
But they're getting in the hotels, and they've been there for a couple of years.
So this is showing failure in a farm country where I live.
I think that he's going to be in charge of selling some of the things that I can already see the lawsuits coming, and that's one of them.
I also think there's a serious now with, I guess, a clash that you can see from some, I would say, sports personalities on foreign policy seem to be more in LeBron James category, and now you have mega hats.
I think something important in the next week that will solidify the division is when people see the assistance that comes to the tragedy that happened in North Carolina, and he's going to visit Asheville, and then he'll be going over to LA afterwards.
On the bishop that we heard speak, I just think that we should pray for her.
And I also think that we'll see that Federman, through observing all of it, who I wish to continue, I wish to congratulate on his stroke recovery so far.
He doesn't seem to depend on his medical screen as we saw in the debates.
I think that he may change to the Make America Great Again agenda.
Okay.
Also, I think terrorists are, you know, a word that gets people's attention.
The cartels have been designated a foreign terrorist organization.
And so combining that with the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and the prospective acquisition of Greenland, I think that we have a lot of good options to do things in a humane way and we can fix a lot of problems I've mentioned.
Yes, the most important issue I feel that Trump passed was, you know, shutting the border wall down.
You know, there's just a lot of things that have been going on down there at the border and down in Mexico and down in South America that most people in this country don't even have a clue.
You know, you need to investigate these things and read about it.
But I'll just give you a few facts.
The cartel makes about $13 billion a year from all these illegal aliens crossing into our country.
When Joe Biden became president, the Border Patrol was told to stand down down there in Texas.
They were bringing raft loads of people across the river.
The Border Patrol was actually helping them bring them across because if they tried to stop them, they would throw one of the children into the river and let them drown.
So they did not want to do that because they didn't want to see another child die either that way or, you know, through abortion in the United States.
That's how much the Democrats care about the children.
Let me gather my thoughts here.
Liberty County in Texas.
There's a housing development down there.
I believe it's, I'm not exactly sure.
I can't think of the name of it.
But they have sold property, 30,000 properties to illegal aliens, which they are not allowed to do, which is against the law.
And the school district has went from 4,000 to 10,000.
There was 50,000 Spanish-speaking people coming in there.
The teachers do not come back after December.
A small quaint town there called Plum Grove with about 3,000 people.
They've all left.
The mayor recorded July 4th in this housing development.
It sounded like a war zone.
Guns going off.
The illegal aliens play their music from Thursday night to Sunday, same channel, full blast.
They've sent out all the local original people that live there.
This is Mike in Oak Harbor, Washington, Independent.
Good morning.
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
I think first, I'd like to weigh in on the prayer breakfast or prayer meeting that they had in Washington.
The bishop was, in my opinion, totally out of line.
It didn't seem to fit into a prayer type of meeting, and it shouldn't have happened.
Beyond that, to the priorities, I think we have an issue in the United States that really has divided us.
It will continue to divide us.
It has been put to the Supreme Court, and they pundit it off to the states, and that is the abortion issue.
And I think this is an opportunity for our country through strong leadership to codify something that we, as the United States of America, could agree on as a compromise.
Otherwise, this is going to remain a continual cancer that's just going to come back and continue to divide us.
I just don't want to see our country go on like this indefinitely.
David, are there people that still don't have electricity?
I mean, do they have heat?
unidentified
They have electricity in limited areas still.
There's 18,000 bridges still out.
The roads are not complete.
So is there temporary housing for them?
No, FEMA left them.
FEMA, they're on vouchers now, and they've been granted some stays in motels, whatever they can find until the 25th of this month, and then they're out.
It's got to be the priority of our people as a nation to not forget this.
We had a very, very bad disaster that run through Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina.
And those people, they're not being rebuilt.
But I'm just saying, in Appalachian, there's a million people there.
And death is imminent for them if they keep living this way.
And this is Rich in Hickory Hills, Illinois, Independent Line.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
You know, the last gentleman that was just speaking about, you know, we have problems.
And part of the problem is with compassion.
That, you know, these other, when we needed these workers, you know, the big business was allowed to just run the rampage, just hire up the illegal, it's cheap labor.
And now it became such a problem.
Now we want to get rid of them.
And when that bishop was talking about compassion and all this love and care that, and now she's a bad, you know, time you just sent.
And that is all the time we've got for this segment.
But up next, we'll be joined by Cliff Young.
He's president of polling at Ipsos with a brand new hot off the presses results about how Americans are viewing the new Trump administration.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
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Okay, so we've got a lot to go through, but we were just talking about the January 6th pardons earlier, and a new poll suggests that 58% oppose pardons for January 6, 2021 protesters.
So let's talk about the question about Donald Trump's approval rating.
So the question was: do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his presidential transition?
And we've got the numbers here, and this also gives you an idea of previous presidents going all the way back to Eisenhower, who incidentally had the highest approval.
And so, presidents don't have a forever stamp on their approval ratings.
And they typically decline fairly quickly.
We like to say between 100 days and six months in office.
That's when you get your primary agenda through.
Obviously, at six months, everyone's looking towards the midterms already.
The average decline in those six months is about five points.
And so, Trump has to take action quickly.
And we've already seen that, at least with executive orders.
But when it comes to Congress, he'll have to do that as well.
And falling from 47% where he is today, if we take in consideration the average five-point decline for any president that puts him at 42, when you're around 40%, it's difficult to push your agenda forward.
So, right now, it's action, action, action, or should be at least for President Trump.
And we will take your calls for Clifford Young of Ipsos on anything related to the polls that you'd like to talk about.
Ask about the numbers: our Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans 202, 748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
You can start calling in now.
The question that I want to ask you about now is about which of the following issues are most important to you personally.
And the top issue, as expected, was the economy and inflation.
But it's interesting that the second one came in as health care.
Is there a difference when you ask what's personally the most important thing to you, or what do you think is the most important issue for the country?
Yeah, you have to be careful with question wording.
It can produce different results.
And if we had asked that question slightly differently, if we had asked about the problems in the country, most probably immigration would be in second place, and health care would be in third place.
We ask it both ways because it's good practice to get an idea to triangulate a bit about where people are.
How do I read the poll?
It's cost of living, cost of living, cost of living.
Donald Trump won on that issue.
People are concerned about that issue today.
Your own personal health, the health of your family, and you personally, together with immigration, those are the two competing issues today in Americans' minds, setting aside cost of living.
Once again, if we tweak the wording one way or the other, you might have a little bit different rank ordering, but those are the primary issues that Americans today are worried about.
So, we want to ask you about this question you asked about if we should pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate here at home, or it's best for the future of the country to be active in world affairs.
So, this came out to be 60% more towards pay less attention to overseas, 38% to yes, we do need to look at the other countries and be active in world affairs.
And then we'll take calls after this one question, which is about what do you think Donald Trump will actually do while in office and how likely is it that he'll actually do it?
81% says that they do believe he will increase tariffs on imports from China and Mexico.
But the interesting thing is only 46%, so less than half, believe that Donald Trump will make life more affordable for regular Americans.
If we were to show the breakout, Republicans believe he's going to resolve the issue.
Democrats believe that he won't.
I mean, there's a huge divide there.
But I also think it suggests overall that Americans understand it's difficult, you know, dealing with the economy, that the president, while he or she has lots of power, doesn't control all the levers when it comes to the economy, and it's a complicated issue.
This is Corey in Charlotte, North Carolina, Democrat.
Hi, Corey.
Good morning.
unidentified
Hi, yes.
I clawed in on the Republican line just to clarify.
My question is this.
Under the 14th Amendment, which was intended to give slaves the right to vote, what is our perspective on somebody flying from France that is pregnant, having a baby in our New York airport on their way to Canada?
Is that baby supposed to be an American citizen based under the 14th Amendment or not?
Here's Richard in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Republican.
Hi, Richard.
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
I got about two things right here.
It's been reported that 35 to 40 percent of the construction workers in California or the Los Angeles area are illegal aliens.
And now, how are they going to rebuild Los Angeles if it deports all of the illegal islands?
And I think that, you know, he really stretched this criminal element of the illegals coming in.
You know, I'll bet it's, if you take a poll on that, I bet you it's only about 2%, maybe 3% are criminals.
He's really painting a bad picture of the aliens.
And then on January 6th, I think he considered that the people that were in jail for January 6th have been punished, you know, but he didn't pardon about 14 or 12 or something like that.
You know, they still have their criminal record.
So he pardoned the rest of them because they were mainly trespassing.
And so first and foremost, when it comes to deporting illegal immigrants in general, you know, there is a fear among economists that it's inflationary.
You know, we've asked this question in the recent past, in the last couple of weeks.
And when you link deportation, mass deportation of illegal immigrants with the issue of economy and jobs and inflation, less than a majority of Americans agree with it.
And so it's always caveated, right?
American public opinion is nuanced.
It's sophisticated that way.
It can make allowances for those sorts of things that the caller mentioned, like Los Angeles.
Many of these illegal immigrants are important in terms of our economy.
And then ultimately, 87% of Americans are in agreement, whether it's a large amount or a small amount, 87% of Americans agree that illegal immigrants who are also criminals should be deported.
And I believe because of the difficulty, logistic difficulty of doing a mass deportation, the administration most probably will take a tack where they'll focus on symbolic specific segments like illegal immigrants who are criminals.
They both have support with public opinion, and it's easier from a policy perspective.
I think we live in, I think the viewer has a point.
We live in highly polarized times where different Americans live in different bubbles, red, blue, maybe some in purple, and they really filter their world through those bubbles, right?
Whether he would have a higher approval rating or not, that's another issue.
I think any president at this moment, because of the highly polarized times, would have problems getting above 50%.
But definitely, it is a sign of the times, this polarization and the ultimate effects of it.
We always hear, or we often hear after an election, that, well, during the last week of the campaign, internal polls told this candidate or that candidate he was going to lose.
And another thing was Chuck Schumer.
When he went to visit President Biden this year and asked him to believe he should leave the election, they said that his internal polls told him that only 5% would vote for him.
That's what he told Biden.
What I'm wondering about is why don't we, the public, ever hear about these internal polls until much after the fact, and why are they seemingly more accurate?
I think that we live in a world where a large majority of Americans believe the system is broken, don't believe in the establishment, don't believe it's functioning.
And so the media or some of our media partners pay us to do polls.
We do a lot of policy work to help governments improve public policy when it comes to citizens.
We work with the private sector as well that wants to understand, on the one hand, how to navigate society because it is a difficult place today, but also how you best sort of market and sell, let's say, coffee mugs.
And so we get our funding or we work with a variety of different sorts of clients for different sorts of reasons, but most importantly of which is to bring voice to people to understand how people think and behave.
Thank you for taking my call and for this segment.
I don't know if I know how to put this as a question, but most polls I read are big picture polls.
So which is most important for you, the economy, etc.
And then there'll be something about tariffs.
And I'm interested in how things intersect.
So that would get more into policy.
And I'm going, do people who support tariffs understand, and specifically tariffs with Canada and Mexico, understand the cost of construction is going to go way up?
I don't know if it'll go 20%.
Some of the stuff will be sourced elsewhere.
But when you're talking about autos, when you're talking about electronics, when you're talking about fasteners, when you're talking about lumber, cement, you're talking about tariffs impacting the cost of those things, which will be passed on to people who build and then passed on to their customers.
And I don't know that most people can make that connection.
And part of it is, you know, polling matters and how people connect things to.
But I was concerned about or considered wondering about questions that pollsters ask.
And I'll give you an example.
Leading up to the inauguration, I was generally opposed to any pardons or commutations for the violent people who were convicted of violent January 6th crimes.
But then I saw Joe Biden pardon every witness, every participant in the J6 investigation, and it brought the whole thing into question and has changed my perspective a lot.
I was wondering, do pollsters really look at the questions or the facts they provide before asking the question?
I mean, why would Biden have to pardon everybody if this was on the up and up and these people were really the terrorists that they say they are?
My comment relates to the information that people have prior to responding to a poll.
And I'd like to tie it to the lady who called in the first block referencing the bishop that spoke at the breakfast yesterday in that she was so concerned about the Immigrants or migrants being scared about being deported, et cetera.
And she mentioned the children.
But what she doesn't know is that during the Trump first administration, they were doing DNA testing to make sure that the children being presented matched with the adults that claimed to be a relative.
And that then was disbanded during the Biden administration so that there was open season on trafficking children.
And the cages that they blame Trump for in his first administration were actually installed by the previous administration to Trump.
And I am so upset with people misquoting and therefore driving opinion in the wrong direction, such as going all the way back to Charlottesville and there are fine people on both sides, was reported over and over and over again without the qualifying statements that immediately followed Trump's statement that there were good people on side.
Then he qualified it with who he was not referring to, and yet that was seldom ever reported.
So it totally misshaped and misshaped their opinion, and that would have been reflected in the poll, regardless of the information that the pollster might provide prior to getting a response.
It is just disheartening to see such misconceptions.
The Trump administration comes in talking about unity, and then on the other end, they're doing away with DEI, which benefits white females the most, but we know they don't like women.
You might have already stated this, but I would like to know the percentage of Americans that disagree with Trump pardoning these 1,500 violent criminals, which he was, which he and his millions were barking and grunting the whole summer about crime being high and violent crime in general,
according to FBI statistics is lower.
And he goes ahead and lists 1,500 cop killers and going into our capital to defecate and wiping it on the wall.
Let's talk to Roy in Ackworth, Georgia, Republican.
Hi, Roy.
unidentified
Hey, how are you doing?
My question is this.
When you take a poll, you need accurate information.
And so our opinion has been formed by misinformation for the last four years.
Laura Logan did a documentary, and it was about the Ray Epps episode.
I know C-SPAN said it was misinformation.
But if you look at the video, you see Ray Epps pulling down barriers, encouraging people to go into the Capitol.
You see police officers urging people to go into the Capitol.
Peaceful people.
And then you see on the top of the building, you see police officers shooting rubber bullets into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators, throwing grenades into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators.
And the whole reason they were there is because Pence had led people to believe that he was going to challenge the election, like in Pennsylvania, I think Arizona, where they had changed the voting rules.
Different Worlds Filter Perception00:12:16
unidentified
They changed the rules for the election.
And so that's why the people were there.
And what Trump said, encourage your representatives to do the right thing.
That's why they were there.
And then a riot was incited by the Capitol Police and other authority.
So we asked this obviously because it was part and parcel of the campaign and also in the transition, there was a lot of talk about transgender issues.
Not on this poll, but if you look at polls in general, there's majority support for people who want to identify the way they want to identify, right?
Americans were very sort of accepting that way.
But when it comes specifically to competition in sports, biological male competing against a biological female, the vast majority of Americans, Republican, Democrat, Independents, don't think that should happen.
They don't think it's fair.
This goes back to the broken system.
A lot of the sort of ethos of the broken system is feeling that things aren't fair.
And this is a very symbolic issue that reinforces that sense that things aren't fair.
Yeah, those are the dual points of the transgender issue today.
Basically, competition in sports, chemicals, alteration.
Vast majority of Americans, doesn't matter your political persuasion, you know, don't think both of those should happen.
Again, those same Americans agree in transgender identity, that this is America and people should be who they want to be, but they're against those two specific issues.
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Democracy.
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It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted.
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This is your government at work.
This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy, unfiltered.
So we're taking your calls and a few things for your schedule later this morning at 10 a.m.
So right after this program over on C-SPAN 2, House Republican leaders, including Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, will talk to reporters about their legislative agenda and the incoming Trump administration.
That's live from RNC headquarters at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Again, that's C-SPAN 2.
Then on C-SPAN 3 at the same time at 10 a.m., we'll have Office of Management and Budget nominee Russell Vought will answer questions before the Senate Budget Committee.
He served in the first Trump administration in the White House Budget Department.
And you can watch that hearing live at 10 a.m. Eastern.
And we'll go to the phones now.
Actually, we will go to President Trump from yesterday.
Here's a portion.
unidentified
Are you planning to travel to the Middle East soon?
John, in Hager City, Wisconsin, Independent Line, go ahead.
unidentified
Yeah, I'd like to know why tariffs is going to help stop fentanyl because the average person just wants a living and not to pay more for expensive products.
Global Movement Against Fentanyl00:03:06
unidentified
There's so much money to be made from fentanyl.
How's tariffs going to stop fentanyl from coming into the U.S.?
Well, I think, John, part of the issue is the precursor chemicals coming from China, that there would be pressure put on China, at least the thinking goes, as a result of the tariffs to stop those precursor chemicals going to Mexico that would then be converted into fentanyl.
unidentified
Yeah, but it's never stopped drugs from coming into the U.S. All this tariff is just going to make products more expensive for us, the average citizen.
So in talking about changes at the Pentagon and the Defense Department, I want to start with the firing of the Coast Guard Commandant, Linda Fagan, first woman to lead a major military branch in the service, I should say, in the United States.
Tell us what happened.
Why was she fired?
unidentified
Admiral Fagan was appointed in 2022 and, like you said, was the first woman to lead one of the major branches.
And, you know, we have been expecting, because of all the campaign rhetoric, that some of the heads of the services might be fired.
The Coast Guard hadn't immediately come to mind.
But in announcing the firing, they said that she had focused too much on DEI initiatives and had not really shaped the Coast Guard to deal with any sort of migration crisis, not acquired the cutters fast enough.
That's putting an awful lot of responsibility on the head of an organization when honestly the acquisition of cutters is a complicated process that involves how quickly did Congress get funding?
How quickly could the defense manufacturers get the cutters in place?
But this might have been viewed more as symbolic.
Interestingly enough, the Coast Guard almost immediately on the 21st put out a press release announcing how quickly they were going to respond to some of the president's executive orders on border security and that they're going to surge cutters and personnel and aircraft not only to the borders which they call now the Gulf of America, but also around Alaska, Puerto Rico, the Marianas.
So you've seen just this rapid shift for the services to show that they can be responsive to the new commander-in-chief.
And there's still concern among the other service branches that some of their leaders may also be still in jeopardy.
So we'll talk about that, but I just want to go back to what does the Coast Guard actually do for the border?
Commander, Commandant Fagan had been very vocal about reducing sexual assault in the Coast Guard.
What do we know about her activities there, and did that influence the decision to fire her?
unidentified
That was one of the reasons in this lengthy press release, again, that she was fired.
The Coast Guard has been dealing with a sexual assault problem for years.
All of the services have.
A couple of news organizations, including ours, looked in depth at sexual assault allegations and how they were handled within the Coast Guard in the last several years.
And it was also the subject of multiple congressional hearings in the last several years.
And this was just one of the many reasons that were listed that she was removed.
And the heads of the other services, as far as Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, what are you hearing about the possibility of them also being fired?
unidentified
So everybody's just keeping really low profile right now.
There's been no media engagements.
We don't suspect there will be any media engagements right now among the uniformed chiefs.
So that's the chief naval officer, Admiral Fanketti.
That's General Alvin, who's the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.
You know, General George, the Chief of Staff of the Army.
All of the services right now are trying to show how they will be responsive and meet with the new team.
We had yesterday the halls filled with some of the acting secretaries who have been put in place and really saw some quick interactions on border.
I think in the next few hours, we're going to see the services kind of move forward on enacting President Trump's border security initiative, the last executive order he issued on the 20th, and just kind of put more detail in that as to how many forces and what kind of assets are going to be surged to the southwest border in response to his executive order.
There have been new allegations against Defense Secretary Pick Pete Hegseth regarding abuse of his second wife.
He denies those.
Have you been able to confirm those allegations?
unidentified
We spoke with both.
So I assisted with the story last night that was first reported by NBC News.
And we spoke with the attorney for Samantha Hagseth and then for Danielle Hagseth.
And they gave us the same statements they had provided to NBC News.
What's really disturbing about this, I don't know if you had a chance or if C-SPAN had a chance to see the affidavit.
It's one of the most disturbing documents that I've read in a really long time.
If you have a spouse that, you know, according to the allegations, needs a code word or a safe word to be able to communicate safely to a family member to help her get out of the house.
I don't know how that can just be, I realize that the incoming Secretary of Defense, if confirmed, has denied these allegations.
But that seems like a very far-fetched thing to just make up.
A lot of the other allegations in this affidavit kind of align with some of the reporting we've seen over the last weeks and months of incidences of problematic drinking and some of the things that the incoming Secretary of Defense, if confirmed, was alleged to say.
You know, we were just talking about sexual assault in the military.
And one of the most disturbing things to me in the affidavit was an allegation that under the influence of alcohol, he was saying that no means yes.
And that's the exact opposite of what the Defense Department has been trying to instill in its ranks, you know, that sexual assault is not permitted in any way, shape, or form, and trying to get this, you know, culture of intimidation out of the ranks.
Tara, do we know why these allegations are coming so late in the confirmation process?
unidentified
We do.
So, Senate Democrats have been pretty vocal in their level of dissatisfaction in the access to the FBI background check and just how deep the FBI background check for Pete Hegseth went.
And after the confirmation hearing, there was a request put out by the Ranking Member Reed for additional information.
I think several of the members kind of alluded to in Hagseth's confirmation hearing that they knew there was more information out there and that they were pursuing it.
And this affidavit was in response to a request for additional information from Senator Reed.
We talked about the confirmation for Pete Hegseth.
Currently, who is the acting Secretary of Defense and what do we know about him?
unidentified
Sure.
The acting Secretary of Defense is a man named Robert Salesis.
He has been a career DOD employee ever since just after the September 11th attacks.
He's a Marine, retired Marine who served in the Gulf War and earned a Bronze Star.
And once he became a defense civilian, he has really spent his time all over the Pentagon managing large portfolios, large numbers of people.
So he's, you know, a highly qualified individual, the kind of resume that you would expect to see for someone stepping into the role as basically a manager for now.
He did come from Washington Headquarters Services for his latest role.
That is basically the umbrella organization of all of the support facilities around the Washington, D.C. area that helps the Pentagon operate, whether that includes the Office of General Counsel, whether it includes literally the facilities folks, like thousands of people who work to get all of the office space up and running, all the communications directorates, even the Freedom of Information Office is under Washington Headquarters Service.
So he's overseen a lot of people for years at this point.
But depending on when the confirmation vote happens for Hag Seth, which it could happen as early as Friday, but most likely over the weekend, he won't be in the troll very long.
And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General C.Q. Brown, has said that he's going to be staying or he plans to stay in his post.
And he attended the inauguration on Monday.
What are you hearing about his future?
unidentified
I was asking about this yesterday, and defense officials in the building that I spoke to said that his interactions with President Trump at the inauguration were generally positive and left everyone feeling a little more confident that maybe General Brown will continue in the role.
As we have seen in the previous Trump term, everybody serves at the pleasure of the president, and he had some hot and cold relationships with all of his military officials and his civilian leaders.
So nobody's job in this building is secure when it boils down to it.
And I thank you guys for what you're, you know, giving us intel about.
My thing is that I'm a single, single parent.
And I'm 69 years old.
And I'm concerned about the executive order that requires all executive departments and agencies, ma'am, to deliver emergency price relief, you know, that's going to be consistent with the applicable law of the American people and the increase of property and things of that magnitude.
Because I have three children, ma'am, and I have custody of one and the other two in foster care.
I do work.
I am retired.
And I just, when I went to work yesterday, ma'am, the gas had increased out here to literally like probably almost 60 or 70 cents.
And the price of eggs is extremely high.
And I just want to know how expeditiously that this Mr. Trump, President Trump and the cabinet is going to try to, I know he's coming out here to Vegas, comes out here a lot of yes business connotations and things out here.
And I just want to know, you know, what's going to be accommodatable and things that are valuable for people who have been around for a while.
And I just wanted to say to the caller that called him an idiot, that's totally out of line.
You pray for people in authority and move on.
Those kind of things are just, you know, it's just unexplainable.
It shouldn't happen.
So I'm concerned about delivering emergency price relief, you know, for the American families and, you know, defeating the cost of living crisis.
You know, I mean, there's a lot of things that have been, you know, alluded to and executive orders have been implemented.
And I'm just concerned as an American.
My daddy was a Buffalo soldier.
He's buried out here in Boulder.
He fought for this country, just went to sleep in 2009 and didn't wake up.
He never got his purple heart.
He never got any of the medals associated with that.
He was over in Japan where he captured three soldiers, being a minority.
I mean, it's just a lot of, you know, things that I'm concerned with here in this country.
You know, and that's, I just need to know what's what's what any intel, any incident undertones that you may can give the American people about that.
And a previous caller asked about how preemptive pardons work.
This is the Christian Science Monitor that says this, while technically within the bounds of presidential pardon power, no president has issued so many late pardons to individuals yet to be convicted of or even investigated for committing crimes.
Supporters of the preemptive action counter that an incoming president never threatened legal action against his political enemies the way newly inaugurated President Donald Trump has.
In his inaugural speech on Monday, President Trump reiterated his view that his four criminal indictments and convictions on one set of the charges resulted from persecution by the department, the departing president, rather than his own actions.
And the president is quoted as saying, the scales of justice will be rebalanced.
The vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.
Well, I'll tell you what, I think a lot of people are very happy after the election, and we have to give Trump and the team a chance.
And I know the price of gone through the roof.
I paid $6.29 for a dozen eggs yesterday.
You know, it was crazy.
I don't know.
And then what about like eggs going to bakery props and then it's all downhill?
You know, price is going to go up again?
It's crazy.
So, anyway, I think you guys did a phenomenal job during the inauguration.
And I'm very happy that Marco Rubio became Secretary of State.
I met him several times.
And he's a good man.
He loves America and he's going to do real good.
And one thing I have to say more: Bob Woodward, a couple years ago, wrote in his book, and he said, oh, he said to his wife, how should I end this book, right?
And he said that Trump should be disqualified to be president.
And I think Bob Woodward needs to come on to C-SPAN and say, look, I apologize.
I was wrong because look at what the mess we just came out of.
It says egg shortages and higher prices spike as bird flu grows.
So there is an escalating bird flu crisis ravaging the nation's supply of eggs, leading to increased prices and presenting an immediate challenge for the Trump administration.
So some retailers are limiting how many eggs consumers can purchase, while others are having a hard time keeping shelves stocked.
It says a dozen large eggs in the Southeast and South Central will be north of $7, while Midwest eggs are $6.95.
That's just to give you an idea of the egg issue.
He also mentioned Marco Rubio.
So here is a portion of his remarks just after he was inaugurated as Secretary of State.
Today is my first day on the job, literally, but I am not a stranger to it.
I've interacted with many of you, both in my travels abroad and in our daily functions.
My job now is different.
And our job in some ways will be different.
In our republic, the voters decide the course of our nation, both domestically and abroad.
And they have elected Donald J. Trump as our president when it comes to foreign policy on a very clear mission.
And that mission is to ensure that our foreign policy is centered on one thing, and that is the advancement of our national interest, which they have clearly defined through his campaign as anything that makes us stronger or safer or more prosperous.
And that will be our mission.
That will be our job across the world is to ensure that we have a foreign policy that advances the national interest of the United States.
I expect every nation on earth to advance their national interests.
And in those instances, and I hope there will be many, in which our national interest and theirs align, we look forward to working with them.
This is in many ways, and again, it was referenced by President Trump yesterday in his speech that he designs that his overriding goal for global policy is the promotion of peace, the avoidance of conflict.
And no agency will be more critical in that regard than this one.
In fact, it's its founding principle and purpose.
And that's what we endeavor to do, to promote peace around the world because that's in our national interest.
Without peace, it is hard to be a strong nation, a prosperous nation, and one that is better off.
But there will also be challenges.
We recognize that there will be those times, unfortunately, as humans interact with one another because of our nature.
But there will be conflict.
We will seek to prevent them and avoid them, but never at the expense of our national security, never at the expense of our national interest, and never at the expense of our core values as a nation and as a people.
And here is Steve in Ormond Beach, Florida, Independent Line.
unidentified
Hello.
Good morning.
Morning.
Yes.
I have a few things to mention.
The fellow that said we need to pray for each other, that was a very good quote.
The fellow that was asking about the drugs crossing the border, well, I saw this morning Tom Holman said, I guess the past few days, or I don't know whether it was today, they've apprehended like 750 people compared to many, many thousands every day.
And the drugs thing is slowing down too.
As far as the lady that was asking the question about the pardoning, well, what I've read on the pardoning is they have to be convicted in order to pardon.
That's everything I've been reading.
You can't pardon somebody that hasn't been convicted.
So that's going to be a problem there.
Trump's Support for Hegseth00:14:34
unidentified
Okay, I want to bring up, I'm an independent, okay?
And I've been very independent.
I mean, when Hillary and Trump were running, I didn't like either of them.
I put my own name in.
When Barack ran, I voted for Barack twice.
I'm a veteran.
When I was in the hospital and I had a heart attack, I had a $250,000 bill, and I had a lot of problems going on, and collection agencies coming after me, and doctors and things.
The VA I called up, I was fighting them, and they said, after months, they called me up.
They said, it's a good thing Trump's president.
He's helping you out here.
You know, they're going to pay this bill.
They're going to pay that bill.
And then they said, you can go to your own doctor now.
Okay, what I want to say is I did vote for Trump twice.
And Trump is not perfect.
He's a human being like we're all human beings.
And we all change all the time.
You know, we go this way, we go that way.
You know, we decide on things.
Trump's been tested since 2015.
They've been going after him, the left, continuously.
He's been tested so much.
And when I watch the news, to this day, they are still biased.
You know, I used to watch MSNBC and I used to watch CNN.
I put them on the child block thing now.
You know, I used to enjoy watching a little bit of it.
I don't like Morning Joe, but some things he said were good, you know.
It's just ridiculous to bias.
You know, this is another thing I want to bring up.
J-Sixers, okay?
Yes, maybe it was not an insurrection, in my opinion, but yes, maybe some of them did do wrong.
They were interviewing a person on Cuomo, this lady.
She has eight children.
It's a young woman.
And she has a big beam and she's breaking a window, you know.
That was wrong of her.
But when I compare it, you know, they never bring up George Floyd and the summer of love.
They never compare.
They should have the, they should have the, you know, they call it an insurrection.
I don't believe it's an insurrection.
And then they should have the summer of love.
Who got hurt more?
People were killed, cost-killed.
They burned down government buildings, police stations, and other government buildings during, and nobody was, nobody was nothing.
Nobody got in trouble.
But yet, the J-Sixers, I am so happy.
I've been praying for those people.
And that's my biggest thing.
The J-Sixers are now innocent, and things are going to turn around now.
There's a higher power.
A matter of fact, there's a scripture in the Bible, Matthew 7, 3 through 5, I think it is.
And it talks about, you know, judging, and there's a plank in your own eye, you know.
And, you know, recently I've been blind in one eye, so I'm thinking, yeah, I say too many wrong things a lot of times.
This is Patty in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, Democrat.
Good morning, Patty.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
Thank you for taking my call.
I'm really sorry that it turns out that I was able to get through on a day that you were on again because I love you and my ire is not with you.
But I am just extraordinarily, extraordinarily upset.
I think that the whole thing with pardoning the J-Sixers and listening to people talk about it, it's just insane because what it is, I've talked to you about Project 2025 and the fascism.
And this is it in action.
Project 2025 in action was firing the head of the Coast Guard and the fascist technique of what they call new speak.
They were able to somehow completely flip January 6th upside down.
People see some of them as patriots, patriots.
I was watching last night.
I turned it off pretty quick.
The proud boys marching and celebrating the streets as Enrique Terrio was released.
Stuart Rose, the head of the Oath Keepers, these people were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Folks, that means there was an insurrection attempted.
And to have the Republicans so spineless and so cowardly adopt the language of this pig and convince people that what happened was okay.
And now there are an awful lot of people that are in danger because they have been let loose.
Well, I know I personally was harassed, one of the convicted J-Sixers.
And there's an activist in Philly that I know that one of them that had been convicted had stalked her, had been arrested.
Officer Fanon's family, all of the officers who have spoken out, they and their families are in danger.
They were talking yesterday.
They've been talking nonstop for four years about this, how they themselves don't feel endangered because they feel they have the skills to protect themselves.
But their families, Officer Fanon's mom has had human feces thrown on her, 76-year-old woman by these freaks.
Let's talk to Ava in Columbia, Mississippi, Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
It's cold down here, COTIS.
I don't know if we've ever had any cold as much as 12 degrees in Mississippi.
We've got three or four inches of snow.
But I think it's nice for Mrs. Trump to be back as First Lady.
We got grace, poise, a lady that knows how to dress appropriately for any given occasion, who will be a helpmate to her husband and will not try to be a co-president.
I'm glad Jill Biden's gone.
She was so silly.
And I want to talk about this man that Joe Biden pardoned that murdered Ashley Babbitt.
Ashley Babbitt was the only person murdered on that day.
He should be tried for hate crime.
And those other policemen that testified late, they're dangerous for them to have a gun if they're so emotional they have to get up there and cry and carry on like that.
And I don't believe you can legally pardon somebody that has not yet been charged.
I think that's like going out and buying a car and driving it off before you sign the papers to it.
I want to close with one of Nancy Pelosi's statements.
She made the stupidest statement I've ever heard a politician make.
She said, I don't hate anybody because I'm Catholic.
I don't question her religion.
I don't question her faith, but I certainly question her honesty.
I pray that God will bless America and God will bless the Trumps and bless us all.
You had a chance along with the rest of the press score yesterday to talk to President Trump about his January 6th pardons.
What did he say about that?
unidentified
So I was actually in the Oval Office on Monday night when he did those pardons, signing the executive order then.
And then yesterday he spoke to reporters again at the White House in the Roosevelt room.
And basically his message both times when we asked him about it was that he felt number one that they were unfairly prosecuted and number two that those who perhaps did do something that deserved any kind of punishment had already served their time.
And he was asked specifically yesterday about people or one person in particular who had attacked a police officer.
And the president sort of dismissed that.
He said, we'll look at it, but he's not looking at it anymore.
He's already issued the pardons and the clemencies.
And the president did host House and Senate Republican leaders at the White House yesterday.
What was his message to them?
unidentified
Well, a couple different things.
We didn't get to go in for that meeting and didn't receive a comprehensive readout, but I saw some reporting that he was talking to them about the tax deal and budget deal that he's been working on since before he came into office.
And also there were some reports that he spoke to them about recess appointments.
He didn't really expand on that when he was asked about it later.
So we'll see to what extent that ends up becoming an issue.
He certainly has some cabinet members right now who are going through, or potential cabinet members, future cabinet members who are going through their hearings on Capitol Hill.
Well, speaking of which, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has some new allegations that have been leveled against him that he denies.
Has the White House reacted to that?
Do they think that his confirmation is still on track?
unidentified
I haven't seen a fresh reaction from Trump's folks from the White House about Pete Hegseth, but I think it's important to note that he has been, he being the president, has been a strong supporter of Hegseth throughout this whole process.
There was certainly a time at the beginning when some of these initial allegations were coming out when the president could have decided, ah, this isn't who I want or this isn't worth the bad headlines to go through.
But that's not the decision he's made so far, and he's been very supportive.
And the president also talked about reviving this idea of recess appointments.
What has he said about that?
And what do we know about that being a possibility?
unidentified
Well, I referenced that earlier.
It sounds like that may have come up in his meeting with lawmakers.
Don't really know a whole lot more.
You're right that he has referenced it or mentioned it before, and I think that that is a sign, perhaps, that he's not sure he's going to get all of the cabinet members through that he wants to get through.
But honestly, so far, he's getting everything that he wants.
Of course, Marco Rubio was confirmed as the Secretary of State earlier this week, and the confirmation hearings for even controversial picks such as Hegseth so far are getting the Republican support that they need.
But if that changes, and with regard to Hegseth, if these latest allegations perhaps lead to any shifts in momentum for him, then perhaps that's a strategy, the idea of a recess appointment that the president will pursue.
But for right now, it's just kind of floating out there as a possibility and hasn't come to the point of being a reality because so far his cabinet picks are going through the process.
And the new White House press secretary is Caroline Levitt, youngest ever at 27 years old.
What are you expecting from her and her team?
Any changes to the White House press briefing approach?
And have you worked with her in the past?
unidentified
I have worked with her in the past.
Caroline worked in the Trump White House in the first term towards the end in 2020, I believe is when she came.
So I have, and I may be wrong about that exact date, but yes, I worked with her.
And, you know, I think we're just eager to see her brief.
And I know that she plans to brief.
What kind of changes she may have in mind or what her style of briefing will be is something we'll have to wait and see once she gets behind the podium.
And Tavares, sometimes I lean because my back hurts from sitting in this chair.
So I really don't mean anything by it.
But Amin is in Temple, Texas, Democrat.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
First of all, I like to say that I, when I graduated from high school here in Austin, Texas, my father told me, I asked him, what should I do now that I'm out of high school?
And I did pretty good in high school.
He said, there's two choices you can do.
One choice is you can get out and try to find something that you're real good at, and you can use that to build your life with, or you can go into the service.
Now, my father went into the service when he was 15 years old.
And he went in then because they wasn't really checking birth certificates and things like that, because a lot of black people didn't have that.
And my father stayed in the service for 30 years, and we had a comfortable life, and we had a good life.
And I appreciated that.
So I joined the service.
And I went to Vietnam.
I had been soldier of the month everywhere I was.
I read up like my father told me to do.
And then Vietnam.
And when I got to Vietnam, it was nothing like I ever expected.
It's like the weather is here now in Fort Greeley, where I flew from the States to Vietnam.
And when I got to Vietnam, it was 95 and pouring down rain, and I thought I was back in Texas.
But the thing about the president and the government now is everybody that was there, the soldiers were kind and they did everything for each other.
And believe it or not, there wasn't any prejudice.
Everybody was brothers because we were fighting.
And then when I came back to the States, the first thing was a lot of the soldiers had got hooked on drugs and stuff because it wasn't a beer war like World War II and World War I. What was there was drugs.
And if you, you were two, three kinds of troops.
There was the pray boys, the ones that pray all the time.
There were the drunks, the drinkers of beer and alcohol.
And then there was, like me, somebody who was trying to do as good as he could so it'd be easier when I got out.
I'd just like to say, you know, how refreshing it was how he signed these orders, you know, while talking to the press, you know, transparency there.
Everybody knows what he's doing.
You know, when Biden did this, I had no idea he was going to open the border.
They didn't tell anybody anything.
I mean, President Trump in the last three days has done more and spoke more than Biden did in years.
It's amazing, you know, and I think it's great.
And as far as the pardons go, you know, that's another thing.
It's ridiculous what he did, you know, in the last 15 minutes or whatever to, you know, pre-pardon people for something they haven't even been convicted of.
You know, as far as the January 6thers, I mean, people look at it this way, too.
It wasn't an insurrection.
Nothing got overthrown.
But the way I look at it, I mean, how much better would we be off if something did happen to where, you know, Biden did it didn't even happen these last four years.
There'd be a lot of more people alive, you know, and just not the big mess we're in right now.
You know, and plus, you know, like the other caller said, the Black Lives Matter riots were way worse.
Trump pardons creator of Silk Road Drug Marketplace, Ross Ulbricht, was serving a life sentence for creating a site in a shady corner of the internet to sell heroin, cocaine, and other illicit substances.
It says that Mr. Trump fulfilled a promise that he made repeatedly on the campaign trail as he courted political contributions from the crypto industry, which spent more than $100 million to influence the outcome of the election.
Bitcoin pioneer, Mr. Ulbricht, age 40, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2015 after he was convicted on charges that included distributing narcotics on the internet.
And this is Beverly calling from Huron, Ohio.
Democrat, good morning.
unidentified
Hello.
I'm very upset about his pardons of the January 6th people.
They destroyed the Capitol.
They did millions of dollars of damage.
And he pardoned them.
And they wounded and almost killed the policemen.
And then besides that, then he's going after, he calls them illegal aliens if they steal something.
And he says that they came from prisons and insane asylums.
That is absolutely false.
That is not true.
And he pardoned all the January 6th people, and then he's going after these migrants, hard workers, immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers.
If they steal a watch or something, it does not make any sense.
And he does not make any sense.
And I have a question.
Have any more hostages been released?
And Biden and Blinken worked hard on that.
They worked hard on it.
Blinken did everything to get the hostages released.
And so did Biden.
And now Trump is taking all the credit.
And as far as I know, only three have been released.
And a couple of things for your schedule for after this program, right at 10 o'clock over on C-SPAN 2, we're going to have House Republican leaders, including Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Scalise, and Majority Whip Emmer.
They'll talk to reporters about their legislative agenda and the incoming Trump administration.
We will have that live from RNC headquarters right at 10 a.m. Eastern.
So in about 10 minutes over on C-SPAN 2.
Also at 10 a.m., but on C-SPAN 3, Office of Management and Budget nominee Russell Vought will answer questions before the Senate Budget Committee.
He served in the first Trump administration in the White House Budget Department.
And that hearing will be live at 10 a.m. at C-SPAN 3.
Both of those on C-SPAN now are video app and online at c-span.org.
And we are in open forum until the end of the program when we'll take you over to the House of Representatives.
This is William, a Republican in Winfield, West Virginia.
unidentified
Yes, thank you for allowing me to talk.
In 2016, Trump made a statement that said that he could go to Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and we'd be immune.
It looks like the Article III folks, the Supreme Court, decided he was right.
And just to be clear, this is what Donald Trump said.
This is NPR.org is reporting, that in 2016, he said, quote, I could shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters.
So you can go back and check that as well.
Samuel in South Pasadena, California, Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
Thanks for having me.
I was just thinking I was happy that Trump won the election because, well, the man speaks very well.
He seems to have it together.
And he always talks to the press, you know, and they'll ask him questions and he'll answer.
I mean, Joe Biden wouldn't do that.
And they always call him the Biden crime family.
I was thinking, well, I don't think Joe Biden's doing this and stealing it.
But man, he pardoned all these people, his family and people, and all this other stuff he did and everything.
And God, I mean, he's so guilty behind it.
And I think Trump's going to do a great job for this country.
And I want to say that the family of the Biden family and then the people that come over the border, the illegals come over that are pregnant, the women, and they want to become an American.
Let them have their babies in Mexico.
And then file for American citizenship in America.
But don't just come in and have the kid and think you're welcome to this country because, you know, we have a lot of departing to do here, getting all these gangs and everything out of this country.
And then the people that were killed and everything.
And it seems like Biden, the Biden administration, they never even cared about what happened.
This is the Independent Line in Binghamton, New York.
John, you're next.
unidentified
Good morning.
I just wanted to call in because I've been hearing a lot about the topic of the insurrection coming up, and it always goes to the whataboutism of Black Lives Matter.
Well, the big difference, there's a huge difference in that.
Like in the Capitol, you have the state-of-the-art, most advanced camera in the world.
Facial recognition, if you're there, camera catches you, they know who you are.
That's the difference.
Now, with Black Lives Matter, that's wrong.
Bad.
But what do you got?
You got a gas station camera, like moving, circling back and forth, catching a person in a hoodie.
Wake up, people.
You know, I'm getting tired of this whataboutism crap.
It has nothing to do with it's okay to go to the Capitol and commit a crime because look what happened with Black Lives Matter.
But I just want to say another point I want to make is about them killing DEI.
I mean, if they want to do that, that's fine.
But a lot of people who think that seem to think that DEI means you're going to hire people who are unqualified.
I think it just means that you're going to look to diversify your employment workforce.
15 Cases to Diagnose00:00:50
unidentified
I want to give you an example of what happened to me as a black guy attending college in the 1980s.
I was in a course called Small Business Management.
I majored in business administration.
And in that course, we had 15 cases where you had to diagnose a small business, you know, diagnose its problems and provide your solutions to how they could improve their business.
Then that you could also justify why your solutions would work.
And in that course, we had 15 cases.
And I had my first two cases I responded to in-class tests.