CSPAN - Washington Journal 01/23/2025

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Jan. 23, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:53

Washington Journal 01/23/2025

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Main

carlos a gimenez

rep/r 09:45

john mcardle

cspan 20:18

Appearances

chuck schumer

sen/d 01:50

donald j trump

admin 01:54

marjorie taylor greene

rep/r 01:19

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justice neil gorsuch

scotus 00:09

sean hannity

fox 00:11

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		CSPAN's Washington Journal will take your calls and comments live.
		Then, USA Today Justice Department correspondent Mart Janssen will talk about President Trump pardoning January 6 offenders and former President Biden's preemptive pardons for members of his family, his administration, and supporters.
		We'll also talk about future policies under President Trump and other news of the day with Florida Republican Congressman Carlos Jimenez and Democratic Congresswoman Judy Chu and federal news network reporter Drew Friedman on President Trump's executive actions aimed at the federal government workforce.
		Washington Journal starts now.
		Good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Thursday, January 23rd, 2025.
unidentified		The House and Senate meet at 10 a.m. Eastern today, and we're with you for the next three hours on the Washington Journal.
		We'll begin on President Donald Trump's move to issue some 1,500 pardons for those who took part in the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, including the nearly 200 people who were charged and convicted of assaulting police officers that day.
		We're getting your reaction this morning on phone lines split this way.
		If you support the pardons, 202-748-8000 is the number.
		If you oppose, 202-748-8001.
		If you're unsure, a number for you too, it is 202-748-8002.
		You can also send us a text, that number, 202-748-8003.
		If you do, please include your name and where you're from.
		Otherwise, catch up with us on social media on XITs at C-SPANWJ on Facebook.
		It's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
		And a very good Thursday morning to you.
		You can go ahead and start calling in now.
		President Donald Trump was asked about the pardons in his interview with Sean Hannity last night on Fox News.
		This is what he had to say.
sean hannity ▲ ● ▼		The only criticism or pushback I've seen is about people that were convicted or were involved in incidents where they were violent with police.
unidentified		Why did they get a pardon?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		A number of reasons.
		Number one, they were in there for three and a half years, a long time, and in many solitary confinement, treated like nobody's ever been treated so badly.
		They were treated like the worst criminals in history.
		And you know what they were there for?
		They were protesting the vote because they knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote.
		And that you should be allowed to protest the vote.
		You should be allowed to.
		You know, when the day comes, you shouldn't be able to invade the country.
		No, ready?
		Most of the people were absolutely innocent.
		Okay, but forgetting all about that, these people have served horribly a long time.
		It would be very, very cumbersome to go and look, you know how many people we're talking about?
		1,500 people.
		Almost all of them are should not have been, this should not have happened.
		And the other thing is this: some of those people with the police, true, but they were very minor incidents, okay?
		You know, they get built up by that couple of fake guys that are in CNN all the time.
		What are you watching?
		They were very minor incidents, and it was time.
unidentified		President Trump, his sit-down with Sean Hannity that was taped at the U.S. Capitol, aired last night and was asked about a variety of topics, including the January 6th pardons.
		Plenty of op-eds in today's papers today focusing on this pardon move.
		This is Jason Willick in the Washington Post, the headline of his piece: Executive Restraint is Going Extinct to the pages of USA Today.
		It's Dace POTUS with his column: Biden and Trump show how presidential pardons are abused.
		And this from Jeffrey Toobin, contributing opinion writer with the New York Times, with CNN as well, and author of a new book coming about the pardon power.
		He writes, at a campaign event shortly before the November election, President Trump gave an answer that offers the best explanation for the pardons that he announced this week.
		Asked at a Univision Town Hall about the riot by his supporters at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, he said, quote, there were no guns down there.
		We didn't have guns.
		He says it's that pronoun, we, that gives Mr. Trump's game away.
		By pardoning the rioters, he was, in every real sense, pardoning himself.
		In simple terms, he writes, this means that in a few days there will be no one in prison or facing any sort of criminal penalty for the actions, their actions at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
		Jeffrey Toobin writing in the pages of the New York Times, plenty of op-eds on it.
		We mostly just want to hear from you in this first half hour of the Washington Journal, a busy Washington Journal today.
		A lot to get through ahead of the House coming in at 10 a.m. Eastern, and we'll, of course, take you there for gavel-to-gavel coverage when they do.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Phone lines are open, split by support, oppose or unsure about the pardons.
unidentified		And Marissa is up first out of Montana on that line for those who oppose.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		Good morning, America.
		I'm so grateful for C-SPAN.
		You're a shining light in the darkness, and we really, really need you guys now.
		Thank you so much.
		My name is Marisa, last name Godoy.
		And I'd like to say this to everyone.
		I went shopping yesterday, and the price of eggs was $9.75.
		And President Trump said he was going to lower the price of eggs.
		And now I have a few words to say to all Republicans.
		Never, ever, ever say that you are the party of the rule of law.
		Never say that you are the, you support the blue.
		I never want to hear that again.
		Another thing I never want to hear is do not declare, do not compare President Biden with Trump because they're completely opposed.
		And do not compare the Democrats with Republicans because they're completely different.
		I'm so tired of hearing that.
		All over there, everybody's the same.
		Wrong, wrong, wrong.
		The Democrats actually do stand up for the rule of law.
		So please, I'm tired of hearing all that.
		And President, all you Republicans out there, never again claim that you have anything to do with the rule of law.
		You have elected a man that is a convicted felon, a man that has, I can't even say all the stuff that that man has done because, and so one more word for Republicans, and I'm going to let you go.
		If any of you guys get into any kind of emergency, good luck, because he's not paying any attention to anything to do with you guys.
		All he's trying to do is just, I don't know what he's doing.
		Well, I guess we'll see what he's doing.
		But thank you very much.
		Bye.
		Marisa in Montana.
		Got your point.
		This is Neil in Louisville, Kentucky.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, line for those who support the pardons.
unidentified		Thank you for taking my call.
		Lord of mercy.
		I'll tell you, there's a lot in that.
		I hope you give me enough time as you gave her.
		It's a great day in America, and I believe he's done the right thing.
		And, you know, he didn't really pardon himself.
		He's pardoning the people.
		You know, Joe Biden, he parted himself and his family, you know, preempted that.
		So, you know, I can't understand the lady who just talked.
		She's so wrong with so many points, especially, you know, he just got in Monday, and he's supposed to get the groceries down overnight.
		This is such a mess, it's going to take years.
		He won't even be able to straighten out all this mess the Democrats made in the last four years.
		It probably takes about two to three terms.
		But it's a great day in America, and I'll be praying for all the Democrats to just loosen their hair, even the women.
		Thank you for taking.
		That's Neil in Kentucky, both our first two callers bringing up grocery prices.
		Senator Chuck Schumer on the floor of the United States Senate yesterday talking about grocery prices in relation to Donald Trump's choices at the beginning, at the outset of his second administration.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This was Chuck Schumer yesterday.
chuck schumer ▲ ● ▼		Nothing Donald Trump has done will help lower grocery prices.
		Nothing Donald Trump has done will lower prescription drug costs.
		Instead, President Trump's biggest accomplishment to date has been to issue unconditional pardons to 1,500 lawless rioters who attacked police officers and invaded the Capitol.
		Why on earth is the president already spending so much time focused on the past, focused on his grievances, instead of focused on costs and jobs and improving health care for the American people?
		The American people have to wonder: how on earth will pardoning January 6 rioters help me pay for food at the grocery store, help me get a lower cost for buying a home, or help me save money, more money for my retirement?
		How on earth will Americans feel safer if the president rewards lawbreakers who assault police officers by setting these criminals free?
		So much for focusing on lowering prices, pardoning lawless rioters is not what the American people signed up for when they voted for Donald Trump.
		They wanted the president to get to work quickly on issues that impact them, costs, safety, health care.
		The first three days of Donald Trump's golden age has been golden for everyone but working Americans.
		It's a golden age for big corporations.
		It's a golden age for pharmaceutical companies.
		It's a golden age for polluters.
		It's a golden age for lawlessness.
		It is not, not a golden age for hardworking Americans who want their costs reduced.
unidentified		Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer yesterday on the Senate floor of the Senate back at 10 a.m. Eastern today, gabble-gabble coverage on C-SPAN 2.
		We're taking your phone calls this morning, getting your reaction to President Trump's January 6th pardons.
		Virginia, Waldorf, Maryland, good morning on the line for those who oppose.
		Good morning.
justice neil gorsuch ▲ ● ▼		I only have one thing to say, and that is: how can any president pardon anybody that screams hang pence?
unidentified		I mean, he was our vice president.
		I just didn't understand anything this man is doing.
		That's all.
		Yvonne, Papuano Beach, Florida.
		Line for those who support.
		Good morning.
		Yes, good morning.
		Schmuck Schumer is a joke.
		All right.
		Please stop the name-calling Yvonne and just make your point.
		Moving forward, the Democrats and their selective outrage absolutely blows my mind.
		I want to know how many of you were super heated when those illegal aliens in New York City beat up New York City police officers and walked out of jail flashing their middle finger at the cameras.
		How many of you Democrats were outraged when BLM and other Democrats burned down an entire police department?
		How many of you Democrats were super upset when the Democrats burned down, what was that, Oregon or whatever that other place was and took over entire city blocks for the summer of love?
		You people really got a lot of nerve.
		You want to talk about hypocrisy, you put a capital H on it.
		As far as me supporting Trump is concerned, no.
		I don't necessarily agree with anybody beating up police officers.
		However, they've been four years, three and a half years.
		How long do you think they're supposed to serve?
		Life sentencing and the way those people were treated versus the way illegal immigrants were treated with beating up American citizens.
		I really want to know, what is your outrage, Democrats?
		You're so selective in your BS attitude, and I'm really sick of all of you.
		Seriously, you guys have a lot of nerve.
		All right, got your point.
		That's Yvonne.
		This is Bernice out of Detroit.
		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		I've called a few times, and every time I call, I'm still nervous.
		My point, I don't feel like I get it over, but I want to say that I'm listening to these people talk about the Black Lives Matter and the riots, but that was George Floyd's murder.
		And I think as many people watch that murder on TV as they did that riot at the Capitol.
		I'm really speaking to the Republican House of Representatives, the Republican senators that I watch run through the tunnel, being secured, being protected, when the majority of them that night turned around and voted.
		I'm listening, Bernice.
		Oh, I thought when the majority of them turned around that night and voted and said that Donald Trump had won the election, those are the people that had got protected that day.
		You know, I'm listening to these callers.
		There are some intelligent people.
		Pay attention, know what they're talking about.
		Every time you hear somebody say those Democrats, they're Trump supporters.
		I know they're watching.
		I know they're listening.
		Why are they not understanding anything that's being said?
		I don't understand.
		But they need to think about that.
		Just let them think about it.
		Let them talk to me.
		Let them explain to me how they're supporting Donald Trump like they're supporting Donald Trump and how everybody is a liar but them.
		That's Bernice in Michigan.
		You mentioned the members of Congress there on January 6th, 2021.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Marjorie Taylor Greene, Congresswoman Republican, elected in 2020.
unidentified		She was there in 2021 and was asked yesterday about Donald Trump's pardons by members of the news media gathered at the Capitol in the wake of one of those meetings on the House side.
unidentified		This is what she had to say in one of those hallway interviews.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I'm thrilled with President Trump, and I'm very thankful to him.
		You know, over 95% of Antifa BLM rioters were never prosecuted.
		They never served time in prison.
		And many of these communities that were burned to the ground, BLM never donated that money to help build those communities back.
		President Trump did the right thing in pardoning them.
		While Joe Biden pardoned his crime family, pardoned Fauci, pardoned Millie, pardoned January 6th committee members, pardoned rapists, murderers.
		That's what you should be focused on.
		Because I'll tell you what, you guys, the American people are sick and tired of everyone's hyper-focus up here in Washington, freaking out about a day where there was a three-hour riot and a lot of people walked through open doors in the Capitol.
		They don't give a damn about January 6th.
		They're happy these people have their lives back.
		You know what people care about?
unidentified		Border security, the economy, jobs.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		They care about they're sick and tired of the foreign wars.
unidentified		That's what people care about outside of this city.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		So the hyper focus by the media on January 6th needs to end because I'm hearing from people at home.
		I hear from people all over.
		They think you're pathetic because that's all you talk about.
		They think you're disconnected with the American people and they think you don't understand it.
		So everybody needs to put their big boy pants and big girl pants on and move on and actually care about what the American people care about.
unidentified		And it's not January 6th.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Marjorie Taylor Green, that was yesterday on Capitol Hill.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The House is back at 10 a.m. Eastern meetings and committee hearings happening today on Capitol Hill.
unidentified		You can watch them here on the C-SPAN networks.
unidentified		Marjorie Taylor Greene there was talking about Joe Biden's pardons at the final hour of his presidency and in some cases the final minutes of his presidency.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Coming back to Dace Potis' column in today's USA Today, this is what he writes.
unidentified		The headline, Biden and Trump show how presidential pardons are abused.
		He notes Joe Biden used his last breaths as president on Monday to pardon several of his family members alongside several other political targets of the incoming Trump administration.
		Just weeks ago, he used that pardon power to rescue his son from a possible prison sentence.
		He writes, though, don't get me wrong, Trump's abuse of power is more brazen, protecting hundreds of people who tried to violently overturn an election.
		However, he said, both sides are contributing to the effective degradation of the pardon power that was once held in such high regard under our current trajectory.
		There's no end in sight to the accelerating abuse of this pardon power, and our leaders have shown no interest in either party of taking the high road to the correct the course.
		This is Joe in New Jersey.
		That line for those who are unsure about the pardons that have been issued, go ahead.
		Hi.
		Hello.
		Good morning.
		I want to know what's the difference.
		Here they are talking about the Capitol being burnt and this and that.
		But what about the American flag?
		They burn it and they don't do nothing to those people.
		So, I mean, good God.
		I mean, they pledge allegiance to the flag.
		They bring the flag.
		Police have the flag on their arms and everything, right?
		And they're talking about the Capitol being, I don't know, a riot in it.
		And there's riots all over and cops got hurt.
		Here they complain about the cops getting hurt.
		Someplace else, they don't say nothing about the cops being hurt.
		So I don't know.
		And then plus the Democrats, they don't even know what's going on in the world.
		They got their head in it singing.
		And God knows what they're thinking about.
		They'll vote.
		If the devil was, what you call a Democrat, they vote for him, too.
		That's how stupid they are.
		Okay, thank you.
		Bye.
		That's John in New Jersey.
		Some of the numbers related to the January 6th investigations by the Justice Department as of the end of November during the Biden administration.
		Of course, these investigations now effectively over in the wake of Donald Trump's executive orders.
		But there were approximately 1,561 defendants that had been federally charged with crimes associated with the attack of the Capitol.
		About 590 charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement agents or officers or obstructing those officers during a civil disorder, including approximately 169 defendants charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.
		174 defendants were charged with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon.
		Approximately 18 defendants charged with seditious conspiracy.
		88 defendants charged with destruction of government property.
		67 charged with theft of government property.
		All defendants charged in the January 6th prosecution have also been charged with some form of trespass or disorderly conduct or violation of the federal criminal code.
		That's the numbers from the Justice Department release at the end of last year.
		This is John in Dearborn, Michigan.
		Good morning.
		Hi, good morning.
		I'm glad you went through all the charges because I support some of the pardons, but probably not all of them for everyone.
		Was there anyone there who was convicted for obstructing an official proceeding?
		Because I thought that was a charge involved.
		That was one of the charges involved as well, yes.
		Okay.
		Yeah, in my opinion, if someone was charged only with obstructing an official proceeding and they all got trespassing, I would pardon that, you know, because in my opinion, it was a Fed surrection.
		In terms of the insurrection part, that was a totally infiltrated, federally managed conspiracy.
		And it was also a riot.
		And Trump's a big hypocrite.
		He wants to come down hard on rioters that he doesn't like.
		And he says he loves the police.
		But, you know, maybe he should have just commuted their sentences for people who are convicted of more, you know, bigger crimes.
		A handful of commutations as well coming from the president when it comes to some of those bigger crimes that you talk about, including the leaders of the proud boys and the oath keepers.
		We'll get into that in just a few minutes here.
		Bart Jansen, Justice Department reporter with USA Today, joining us for a conversation on this and the Biden pardons as well.
		That coming up at 7:30 Eastern Time, but taking your calls until then, this is Earl in Reading, California.
		Good morning.
		Good morning.
	I called in on a wrong line and got back in on the right line.
	So, hey, God bless America.
	God bless President Trump, his cabinet, and all their families.
	I'm a supporter of his.
	You know, I want to just give you a little history.
	I know you remember the Bundy Ranch deal in Nevada.
	Maybe people don't know the background on it.
	Senator Reed owned property all around Bundy Ranch.
	Bundy Ranch owned all the water rights, Virginia River going in, because it's an old Mormon family going into Lake Mead.
	That makes all Reed's land valuable if he could have that water.
	So what happens is Bundy's got a million dollars worth of cows on the ground on the hoof, and all of a sudden they come up with a bill for a million dollars.
	What a funny thing.
	And Earl, I remember the standoff at the Bundy Ranch, but take me from that to what's happening this week.
	I'm going there right now because I met Stuart Rhodes at that ranch.
	He was called when Bundy went, this is a comparison I want to make.
	They threw all of Bundy's family, all the men in prison and a lot of the supporters.
	Matter of fact, I went there.
	I was, by the way, I was military police top of my class.
	I commanded 100 men and volunteered in Vietnam.
	They were military police doggown.
	The point I'm trying to make now, so Stuart Rose took donated money with a crew and went out there.
	And when word got that they had a drone in the air from Nellis Air Force Base, his whole crew ran out and left us all there without supplies and without donated money.
	But that's another story.
	They threw those people.
	Why do the Patriots always get thrown in prison naked for three years without charges filed against them?
	That's what my question is.
	And you know what?
	If Trump would have wanted, I didn't go to that rally, but if Trump would have wanted the Patriots to come and take that Congress and take this country, all he had to do was say the word, I would have come.
	And I guarantee you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you're saying you would have committed violence?
unidentified		I said I would have come.
		If Trump would have called and said, we're taking the country back, I would have come.
		That's all I'm saying.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Earl in California.
unidentified		This is Leroy in Rosedale, Maryland.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
		You people elected the devil to put in the White House who thinks he is better than God.
		Well, what God did to show him that it is God, he threw the South into deep coldness that has never happened before.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Leroy, you think the weather is related to the January 6th pardons?
unidentified		I think the weather is related as far as the January 6th things, that Trump thinks that he is God.
		The January 6th was about Trump.
		Trump got those people to come to Washington and try to destroy everything because Trump thinks he is a God.
		That's Leroy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Josephine in New Jersey.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		My concern, I didn't want to go on to the January 6th part of it, but realistically, I watched C-SPAN on January 6th for six straight hours.
		I never forgot when former Governor Hogan called the White House and the Oval Office to say, I will, within a half hour of everything starting, it was on C-SPAN, so you could check it.
		And he basically said, I will send troops in.
		The president refused to talk to him or to accept the National Guard.
		That aside, my bigger concern is, yes, he did give those pardons out.
		Well, you know, a leopard don't change its spots.
		Look what he's already said about California.
		He does not plan to give not one dime to the state of California.
		Screw California.
		You know, they're only going through fires.
		He don't care.
		I mean, prescription.
		He just signed a little wand that said, screw the American public.
		We're going to raise the prices on prescription.
		You better watch.
		This is going to be in the next four years, sadly.
		Unfortunately, we've elected a man who's not going to be caring for us, but his own pocketbook.
		Frontline had a whole thing on Tuesday night, went through the whole Magilla of his lying.
		He does it because he protects himself.
		He throws it back on us because don't believe them, believe me.
		The only word is mine fiora.
		That's what he is, Hitler.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's Josephine.
		You mentioned California.
		We're going to be joined a little bit later this morning in about an hour by Congresswoman Judy Chu of Southern California, that LA area district that she represents in California.
		We'll talk about the latest when it comes to wildfires and some of President Trump's comments last night with Hannity on tying future aid to changes and how California manages its woodlands and forest areas.
unidentified		We'll talk about that in about an hour.
		This is John in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
		Good morning.
		Yeah, good morning, John.
		Three quick points.
		Number one, I was in Washington, D.C. on January 6th.
		A lot of people say they were at Woodstock.
		They saw the moon landing.
		I was actually on the mall.
		I was standing by the Washington Monument.
		I was there.
		There were thousands, hundreds of thousands of people protesting a stolen election by the Democrat Party.
		That's why they were in Washington, D.C.
		And while I was there, John, I saw a lot of people walking around in ninja suits with baseball bats.
		And I thought to myself, as a guy that was there protesting a stolen election, I said, why are these people here wearing black outfits and bats?
		Well, we found out later.
		The whole process was set up by the deep state to break down the constitutional process of checking into the election in about seven states.
		They were going to check and kick some of those votes back to the states and say, was there fraud or not?
		They needed to stop.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You still don't believe the results of the 2020 election.
unidentified		Do you believe the results of the 2024 election?
		Absolutely.
		Absolutely.
		What made you more confident about the federal system of elections in 2024 than 2020?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Because Donald Trump won?
unidentified		No, not at all.
		Not at all.
		The reason the 2024 election wasn't fraudulent is because the Republican National Committee actually was a Republican national committee, and they fought back against election fraud in all the swing states.
		So the people that talk about, well, they shouldn't have freed the J-6 prisoners, they should have freed every single one of them several years ago.
		And the proof of that is Biden leaves the White House.
		What is the first thing?
		One of the first things he does, he gets all of his J-6 committee people, gives them a part that they don't even deserve because they weren't charged with anything.
		What he was doing is protecting them because they destroyed evidence.
		I'll say it again, John.
		I was there with hundreds of thousands of other people.
		I didn't go to the Capitol.
		I stayed at the Washington Monument and listened to Trump speak with hundreds of thousands of people who were there to do one thing, to protest a stolen election in about seven states, which is their right as a citizen.
		That's John in Pennsylvania.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Donna in Lawrence, Kansas.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hello.
		Yes, I've been listening.
		I'm just shocked at some of the reactions.
		I watched that whole thing when that happened on that day from the beginning to the end.
		And it was on the lower, you know, the regional, CBS, ABC.
		I mean, it was on the, it broke in.
		I mean, people, it was the most shocking.
		I felt sick to my stomach what had happened.
		And nothing like it has ever happened.
		That is our house.
		That is like a cathedral to our country.
		All the history and what they did and to act like it was a little protest and nobody got hurt?
		Are you kidding me?
		My God.
		They had a news out to try to hang my pants.
		I mean, some of there was a lot of policemen hurt.
		A lot of policemen hurt.
		You know, lost their eyes.
		One guy lost his eye.
		Some had their back hurt and some had strokes.
		One had tasers over and over and caused him to have a heart attack and was, you know, jabbed with spears on the end of flags.
		I mean, this wasn't no little protest or a little people getting voicing their protest.
		This was an insurrection.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Donna in Kansas, our last caller in this first segment of the Washington Journal.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Stick around, though.
unidentified		We'll continue to talk about pardons, January 6th pardons, Joe Biden's pardons at the end of his presidency, and the Justice Department in general.
		To do that, we'll be joined by Bart Jansen of USA Today Justice Department reporter.
		And later, it's Florida Republican Carlos Jimenez who will join us to discuss the latest Trump executive actions and congressional news today.
		Stick around.
		We'll be right back.
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		Then at 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures and History, Duke University professor Cecilia Marquez discusses Latino migration trends in the 20th and early 21st centuries and how Latinos shaped the culture, development, and economics of the American South.
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		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		USA Today Justice Department correspondent Bart Jansen joins us now amid a week where there's been no lack of news on your beat.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I want to start on the January 6th pardons.
unidentified		At this point, is there anyone who's been convicted of some crime related to January 6th that hasn't had their sentence pardoned or commuted by President Trump?
		I think that's right.
		I think it's all of them.
		The wording of the pardon was very broad, basically pardoning anyone associated with actions on January 6th at the Capitol, with the exception of the 14 commutations.
		And he said he might review those and come back and perhaps pardon those people later.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What is a commutation?
unidentified		What's the difference?
		Pardon is just full release from the charges and any punishment that stemmed from them.
		Commutation is basically a shortening of the sentence.
		There were folks, maybe hundreds of people in jail, and so all of prison.
		And all of them were or are in the midst of being released.
		We've heard many times how the January 6th investigations were the biggest Justice Department investigations in Justice Department history.
		Are there any cases still pending?
		Are all of those now wiped away as well?
		As I understand it, all of those charges are also being wiped out with the pardons.
		There was actually a trial underway here in D.C. on Monday and Tuesday.
		They go to trial on Monday.
		On Tuesday morning, the judge, without comment, dismissed the case.
		And so that was a father-son team.
		And so their case was over.
		They had said after it actually happened on Tuesday that they had, when they heard Trump's announcement late Monday, that they cracked open a bottle of champagne to celebrate.
		So yeah, the trials, all the court action is also ending.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You said the judge did it without comment, but there have been judges who've been making comments leading up to January the 20th, the inauguration of President Trump and the expected clemency for January 6th, people who have been convicted of crimes.
unidentified		What did some of those judges say?
		Well, that's right.
		Several of the judges, they've been going through these cases for four years.
		They have seen the details of the accusations.
		And in fact, more than 1,000 people were convicted, most by pleas, more than 1,000 by guilty pleas, and another 260 or so by contested trials.
		So the judges, even Trump appointees, expressed frustration with essentially freeing, ignoring, abandoning these cases, particularly with a blanket pardon, because this pardon just said anybody charged from the January 6th riot would be pardoned.
		And typically with pardons, most pardons are handled by an individual case-by-case review.
		That doesn't appear to have happened in this case.
		And so judges expressed some frustration from the bench as they were completing cases, issuing sentences, because many of the defendants were asking, hey, he's about to take office.
		He has said he will pardon us.
		Can't you postpone this to see how it turns out?
		The Justice Department lawyers said, well, that's speculative.
		We don't know what he's going to do.
		Well, he did what Trump did, what he said he was going to do, and they have all been pardoned.
		Also, reaction from the police unions, including police unions that supported Donald Trump in campaign 2024.
		Yeah, that's right.
		We had a statement issued yesterday from the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police.
		They said that they have been supporters of Trump, that they have a good relationship with him, but they expressed disappointment with the pardons.
		They said nobody who attacked police officers should have been pardoned and that they should have served their full terms.
		There was something like 600 of the defendants were charged with either assaulting or interfering with police on that day.
		And about 140 police were injured during the riot.
		So there's some frustration and disappointment among police officers who were defending the Capitol on that day.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Also, those unions, though, frustrated by some of Joe Biden's pardons at the end of his presidency, including Louis Pelletier.
unidentified		Who's he?
		He was an activist in Native American affairs who in 1975 was convicted of shooting to death two FBI agents.
		And he has been serving a life sentence.
		And he was given a commutation, I believe it was.
		So his advocates had said he was suffering poor health, and so he is being released after 50 years in prison.
		One of the op-eds in today's papers about that specific pardon coming from Richard Stout in the pages of the Washington Times, just to show viewers, Biden kicks the FBI in the teeth on the way out the door, thumbing his nose at the cause of justice, writing about Louis Pelletier.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Staying on Biden for a second, these last minute pardons from President Biden, how unexpected or expected were they?
unidentified		And what is the point of a preemptive pardon?
		Well, preemptive pardon is to prevent any potential future charges against the person being pardoned.
		The big case that people will remember was when President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor Richard Nixon to avoid any kind of lingering charges or trial out of the Watergate era about 50 years ago.
		In this case, Biden extended pardons for nonviolent, potential nonviolent crimes since 2014 for a handful of his relatives.
		The most significant would be James Biden, his brother, had been investigated for his overseas business deals with and without the president's, former president's son, Hunter Biden, in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere.
		The other pardons went to his wife, the president's sister, Valerie, and her husband and another brother, Francis.
		But the one that had faced accusations was James Biden for those business deals.
		The main accusation, House Republicans urged the Justice Department to investigate and potentially charge him for lying to them about a meeting that he says he didn't attend.
		Other witnesses said he did attend in, I believe it was 2014 or no, 2017 for that meeting at a hotel in Los Angeles.
		And he said he wasn't there.
		The other witnesses said he was, and there's some documentary evidence that he was.
		And so if you wanted to investigate that, that is something that the former president has eliminated.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Whether it's the Biden pardons or the J-6 pardons, what's been the most interesting reaction that you've seen?
unidentified		We've shown viewers some of the op-eds in just today's papers.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's been the most interesting for you to watch?
unidentified		The reaction to the Biden pardons, House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters yesterday that he found that shocking and unbelievable.
		And he said lawmakers were going to be investigating it, see if there's anything they can do.
		That's a tough nut to crack because pardons for the president are written into the Constitution.
		So I'm not a lawyer, but it seems like you'd have to have an amendment to the Constitution to change that authority.
		And that might be a tough hill to climb.
		You mentioned Speaker Mike Johnson, shocking, unconstitutional about the Biden pardons.
		This is less than a minute.
		He was asked yesterday about his reaction to the Trump J-6 pardons.
		So look, everybody can describe this however they want.
		The president has the pardon and commutation authority.
		It's his decision.
		And I think what was made clear all along is that peaceful protests and people who engage in that should never be punished.
		There was a weaponization of the Justice Department.
		There was a weaponization of the events following the prosecutions that happened after January 6th.
		It was a terrible time and a terrible chapter in America's history.
		The president's made his decision.
		I don't second guess those.
		And yes, it's kind of my ethos, my worldview.
		We believe in redemption.
		We believe in second chances.
		If you could, you would argue that those people didn't pay a heavy penalty having been incarcerated and all of that.
		That's up to you.
		But the president's made a decision.
		We move forward.
		There are better days ahead of us.
		That's what we're excited about.
		We're not looking backwards.
		We're looking forward.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Bart Jansen, the president's made his decision.
unidentified		I don't second guess those about the Trump pardons.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Very different reaction than his reaction to the Biden pardons.
unidentified		That's right.
		Talking about redemption and saying that it sounds like a good decision because particularly he was mentioning peaceful protesters.
		That's something Republicans have mentioned repeatedly that a lot of the folks they've been compared to walking through the Capitol as if they were tourists.
		But hundreds of people were charged with violent offense, convicted of violent offenses on that day.
		They were wielding baseball bats, flagpoles, beating police, spraying them with chemicals.
		And so several of the police who were injured that day, forced to retire from their injuries, have been voiced great upset at the pardons.
		And one in particular, Michael Fanon, suffered a heart attack, concussion, was tased repeatedly.
		He says he feels betrayed by the country.
		Phone lines for this segment with Bart Jansen, USA Today Justice Department reporter.
		As usual, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, we'll throw him on the screen for you.
		He's with us for the next 15 or 20 minutes.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So get your calls in.
		Bobby, Oklahoma, Democrat, good morning.
		You're up first.
unidentified		Yes.
		If it would have been me and I would have been them cops up there when they come up there to try to take me out like they done them on after Trump sent them up there, they would have looked like hood ornaments hanging off them damn off the side of them damn walls.
		So Bobby, what's the question, Bobby?
		The question is, why is people so dumb to vote for a man like Donald Trump and turn around and let him fooled people on he was going to get the price of milk down, the price of eggs down.
		He ain't going to get the price of nothing down because he's a liar.
		It's Bobby in Oklahoma.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You said a minute ago, Donald Trump doing exactly what he said he was going to do when it came to January 6th pardons.
unidentified		Yeah, he'd been talking about pardoning at least some of what he calls hostages for years.
		He said at various times that they would at least be the nonviolent or the people who had not assaulted police.
		As it turned out, it wound up being all of them.
		But he spoke repeatedly about issuing pardons on Monday in his return to the Oval Office.
		He said these hostages were treated outrageously and that their lives had been destroyed.
		So I don't think he's made any secret that he thought they were treated badly.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Virgil Richmond, Kentucky, Republican, go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, I have a question regarding just how fair the media at large is, whether we're talking about a newsprint media or TV media, about the pardons between Trump and Biden.
		Biden, in his four years, had issued over 8,000 pardons, including the pardon of someone that murdered two FBI agents.
		But yet Trump is being attacked for his pardon of a little over 1,500 J6 people who didn't actually kill anyone, even though the Democrats to this day are still portraying the lie that officers were killed on January 6th.
		There is just this great big disconnect between the reality of the pardons Trump has issued and the pardons that President Biden has issued.
		Yeah, in terms of the police deaths that have been linked to the January 6th riot, one of the officers, Brian Sicknick, died the next day.
		He had been sprayed with chemical spray, and his death was ruled natural causes.
		But his mother and others feel like he died because of his treatment on January 6th.
		In addition, a handful of officers who were defending the Capitol on that day wound up dying by suicide in the days and weeks afterwards.
		So sometimes you'll hear sympathetic lawmakers saying that they died as a result of the attack.
		But no, the rioters on that day did not shoot or kill police officers at the Capitol building.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Arista Toulouse, San Diego, Independent, good morning.
unidentified		You're next.
		Aristotles?
		Go ahead.
		Yes.
		I was wondering why he would pardon some people, you know, when they're actually extremists.
		You know, I was shot in the head in 1991 by a drug dealer.
		You know, so I can sympathize with his feelings for these people, you know, being scared or something.
		But if they pardon them, I was wondering why would he pardon someone that's an extremist?
		And, you know, and that's the way I feel about that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Bart Jansen, oath keepers, Proud Boys leaders, commutations for them coming.
unidentified		Explain who those folks are.
		Yeah, there were two far-right militia groups that were considered to be organizers or instigators of the riot on that day.
		A total of 18 people were convicted of seditious conspiracy, basically the accusation they were trying to overthrow the government on that day.
		Oath Keepers is a group of former military officials or law enforcement officers.
		They were ones wearing camouflage outfits and helmets and riot gear and entering the Capitol in what they called a stack formation and sort of a military deployment.
		The Proud Boys was the other group, a group they call themselves Western chauvinists, basically supporting America.
		And so in both cases, the leaders of both groups were given the harshest sentences handed down.
		Stuart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers got an 18-year sentence, and Enrique Terrio, the leader of the Proud Boys at the time, got a 22-year sentence.
		Terrio was pardoned.
		Rhodes was given a commutation, so he actually left federal prison out in Cumberland, Maryland, just after midnight on Tuesday morning.
		So the harshest crimes have also been forgiven by Trump.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Alexander, Brooklyn, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Just give me a moment before I ask my question.
		But I just honestly feel that this election just completely demonstrated the collapse of both parties, Republican and Democratic parties, for people to actually vote for a person so flawed as Trump and his cabinet, you know, like Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, Hegseth.
		I mean, we can go on.
		But as far as these pardons, what concerns me the most is that basically Trump now has a paramilitary.
		He has several extremist groups that now have been given green light to be able to put a great deal of violent pressure on anybody that they want.
		And now they know that Trump will pardon them if he has to.
		And so my question is, how is whatever you want to call this?
		People say it's a republic because they want to turn this into a further autocratic system or democracy.
		How is this system literally supposed to survive when the actual people or half of the people in this country want this violence?
		They want this transactional type of a government.
		And there is really no more law and order because you can bend the will, the rule, any way you want to get what you want.
		And Democrats are not going to be able to stop this.
		They just really won't.
		So what is your sense of where we are historically towards a system that just seems to be collapsing because the laws are bent any way that you want in order to get your end results?
		Well, it's a little hard to talk about the end of democracy in a brief television appearance like this.
		What I would say is that Trump would say he won with a strong majority in the Electoral College with an actual majority of the popular vote, which Republicans had been hard-pressed to find in the last couple of decades.
		And in addition, they won the House and Senate.
		So as you say, the entire government now is in the hands of Republicans.
		So I guess I would say he says that he has a strong mandate to carry out his priorities, including handing out these pardons.
		He said he was going to do it on the first day.
		He did it on the first day.
		He says he wants to increase drilling along the coastlines.
		And presumably he will pursue that.
		So what you're going to see over at least the next two years is Trump and his Republican allies in Congress pressing their agenda.
		And the difference would be if enough people get upset or disappointed with his priorities, then perhaps we will start to see some changes in 2026.
		But for now, you've got two years waiting to see what the Republicans will accomplish when they control both branches of government.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned Donald Trump's priorities.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is one of the headlines from today's papers.
unidentified		This is the Washington Post.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Justice Department is given the job for much of Donald Trump's to-do list.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Can you just explain what's happening at the Justice Department right now?
unidentified		What happens at the beginning of a new administration?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We hear terms like beachhead teams.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Pam Bondi hasn't been confirmed yet, but Donald Trump's Donald Trump staffers are in charge of the Justice Department.
unidentified		So what's happening this week?
		Yeah, during the transition between the election and the inauguration on January 20th, the incoming administration sends in its own staffers to evaluate priorities and staffing in all of the federal agencies.
		And so the Justice Department is a high-profile agency.
		Trump has named top leaders for that department in the months.
		He named them very early.
		And so Pam Bondi has had her confirmation hearing.
		She is a former Attorney General of Florida, an 18-year prosecutor.
		So it's not so much that her credentials would have been challenged, but that just her priorities and her allegiance to Trump, which is the political questions, as we wait to see how the Senate Judiciary Committee will be voting on Wednesday on her nomination, and then we'll see about the full Senate.
		But so in addition, he has nominated other top leaders in these political posts that govern the priorities or the policy direction of the department.
		Among those, the Deputy Attorney General would be Todd Blanche has been appointed.
		And we knew him from the Donald Trump trial in New York.
		Correct.
		Blanche and his partner Emile Bove were his criminal lawyers and represented him in several of the cases.
		And so Blanche would be Deputy Attorney General.
		Bove would be principal deputy attorney general.
		And so those folks are, Bove is now acting as Deputy Attorney General.
		And so he, for instance, sent out a memo on the 21st saying, you know, they want to enforce immigration laws.
		Immigration was one of Trump's top priorities during the campaign.
		He has said he wants to conduct mass deportations.
		He wants to strengthen the border.
		Many of those functions pass through the Justice Department because they technically oversee the immigration courts and they would be pursuing any of the legal remedies as they pursue these deportations.
		So Bove put out a memo saying, you know, keep track of who is cooperating with the federal government, the Department of Homeland Security's agencies, which would actually be rounding up people, the immigration and customs enforcement, customs and border protection, the border patrol.
		And some states and cities have what they call sanctuary laws where they say they would not cooperate with this federal law enforcement to detain or deport migrants.
		Bove's memo said, well, keep track of that going on, and if we need to, we may investigate folks who are not cooperating at the state and local level with this federal law enforcement.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Just a few minutes left with Bart Jansen, covers the Justice Department for USA today and taking your phone calls.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Barbara.
unidentified		She's been waiting in Knoxville, Tennessee.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Independent, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I hope y'all are doing well today.
		My question is during the press announcement yesterday, Mike Johnson was very upset because Biden pardoned his family, even though everybody knew that they were going to go after Biden's family.
		Okay.
		Well, they said they were going to look into it and do something about that.
		How can they do that when it's supposed to be absolute?
		You're absolutely right that the pardon authority is absolute.
		There are no apparent restrictions on it in the Constitution.
		What some lawmakers have talked about in the past, and this is one of the big advocates in the last week is a Democrat, who would not be aligned with Mike Johnson on many issues.
		But Steve Cohen of Tennessee has talked since at least 2017 at the federal level and previously at the local level in Tennessee about adjusting the pardon authority so that a president could not pardon relatives or top aides or people with potential financial relations.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Would that take a constitutional amendment?
unidentified		Well, again, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems like if you're tinkering with the Constitution, that you could pass legislation, but then the first challenge to it would try to wipe it out as being unconstitutional.
		So the law, the legislation also hasn't moved out of committee during the years that he has introduced it, but he says he's going to pursue it again this year.
		We don't know what Speaker Johnson was talking about in taking a look at it, but it's possible Republicans may also be looking for ways to adjust that authority.
		But it would be interesting to see how the Supreme Court may respond to any eventual challenge because in the immunity decision that it reached in July involving the Trump criminal charges,
		they said several of the things that you just absolutely can't criminally charge a former president with are the core powers of the presidency, and that's pardons, vetoes, and the appointment power.
		So it's something that's only held by the executive, and other branches are usually reluctant to step in and try to tinker with the powers of the other branches.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		90 seconds left this morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What else are you watching for in a really busy week on your beat that we haven't talked about yet?
unidentified		Well, I'm focusing a lot on immigration and waiting to see how these enforcement actions will play out.
		They've already talked about rounding up hundreds of undocumented immigrants.
		And there are an estimated 11 or 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country.
		Half of those are people who overstayed their visas.
		There's also the border security.
		Basically, I'm watching to see how do they pursue these folks, how do they round them up?
		The volume could be huge.
		They've begun deploying active military to the border.
		1,500 troops are being sent.
		That is not entirely new.
		Active duty troops have been sent to support customs and border protection for a couple of decades now.
		So we're waiting to see how Trump's actions will be new and what he says will be more aggressive to secure the border.
		Bart Jansen, Justice Department correspondent with USA Today, USAToday.com is where you can go to see his work, and we do always appreciate your time.
		Thanks very much for having me.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Up next, we'll be joined by Florida Republican Carlos Jimenez.
unidentified		He serves on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee.
unidentified		We'll discuss Donald Trump's executive actions this week, Congressional News of the Day.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Stick around.
unidentified		We'll be right back.
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john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We take you now to the Cannon Rotunda on Capitol Hill.
		Joining us is Florida Republican Congressman Carlos Jimenez.
		He's a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
		And Congressman, want to start with the reporting today about President Trump preparing to send about 10,000 troops to the southern border to support Border Patrol agents there.
unidentified		That's the banner headline in today's Washington Post.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Where are they going?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What will they be doing?
unidentified		They'll be supporting Customs and Border Protection agents in securing our southern border.
unidentified		I think that's exactly what they will be doing to make sure that our border, our southern border, is secure.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What does that mean?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Support them how?
unidentified		Support them in whatever way the customs and border protection agents need support.
unidentified		And so, you know, that's what they're there for to make sure that our southern border is secure.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, what the specific mission of each unit is going to be, I'm not privy to that.
unidentified		As of now, U.S. troops are prevented from performing law enforcement duties on U.S. soil.
unidentified		Something called the Passe Comitadas Act.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Why is that?
unidentified		Is that something that could change?
		Are those troops needed to do law enforcement inside the U.S.?
		It could be.
		Well, probably because we've had an invasion in the southern border.
		Customs and border protection has been overwhelmed.
		And in order to secure America, we need to have armed forces down there and also to show a strength that we mean business to the people that are importing these immigrants.
		You know, the southern border is actually on the other side.
		It's controlled by the Mexican cartels.
		We have just designated them as a terrorist organization.
		And so, yeah, you're going to need some show of strength in order to show the resolve of the United States to protect our southern border.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What does designating cartels as a terrorist organization, that was one of the first executive orders, what does that do?
unidentified		Well, it says that they're a terrorist organization and that we can take some extraordinary action against them.
unidentified		And so I've been calling for that for a number of years.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		I know that about three years ago, I had then former director of the FBI, now former director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, in front of our committee.
unidentified		And I said, what's the difference between the Mexican cartels that are killing tens of thousands and now hundreds of thousands of Americans and al-Qaeda who killed 3,000 people on 9-11?
		After they did that, we went 6,000 miles and waged 15 years of war in order to try to wipe them out.
		The Mexican cartels killed far have killed many more Americans than al-Qaeda did, and they're right across the border.
		What's the difference?
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And he just said there's some kind of legal issue as to why we couldn't call them terrorists.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		I call them terrorists.
unidentified		They've been killing Americans for a number of years.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		We need that to stop.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you think we need to wage a war, wipe them out?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And does that include war on foreign soil?
unidentified		It means that what we need to tell the Mexican government is that we're very serious about it, that we're not going to tolerate their cartels or their lack of control of their side of the border to continue to kill tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of Americans.
unidentified		And then if they can't do it, then yeah, we may have to go there because you know what?
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		The number one job of the federal government or any government is actually to protect its citizens.
unidentified		We know who's doing it.
		We know where they're getting their chemicals from that produce the fentanyl.
		That's coming from communist China.
		And so, yeah, we have to protect our citizens.
		And if that's what it takes to protect our citizens, then yeah, we need to go over there and wipe them out because they have killed far too many Americans and we have done very little about it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Another Donald Trump executive action this week, revoking a Biden administration decision to remove Cuba from that list of state sponsors of terrorism.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What does that do?
unidentified		Well, by removing them, it allowed them access to financial markets.
		It's given them a little bit of oxygen for that regime.
		Putting them back in limits that, then restricts them from accessing markets.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		There are sanctions that are imposed to countries that are sponsors of state sponsors of terrorism.
		So I'm very happy that President Trump did that.
		It was in the final days of the Biden administration.
unidentified		Again, I'm not a big fan of President Biden.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		I thought that he was just, his decisions were just not in the best interest of America.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And I'm glad that President Trump reversed that and put Cuba exactly where it should be as a state sponsor of terrorism.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You live in Florida.
unidentified		How would you describe the U.S.-Cuba relationship right now?
		Well, I mean, the U.S.-Cuba relationship should be as frosty as possible.
		We should impose as many sanctions on them as possible.
		We should probably start restricting travel to Cuba.
		You know, that regime is in deep trouble.
		It's on the cliff.
		It's been oppressing its people for over 60 years.
		There's no freedom of the press, no freedom of religion.
		They have over 1,000 political prisoners.
		They haven't had free elections in over 60 years.
		So I consider it to be illegitimate.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		They can't even provide electricity for its people.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		There's rolling blackouts in Cuba every day.
unidentified		And the people of Cuba need to be free.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And we, the United States, have to be the champions of democracy and freedom.
		And the people of Cuba have not been free for over 60 years.
		I'm here because of that.
		My parents fled to the United States back in 1960 to obtain freedom.
unidentified		And thank God they did.
		I live in the greatest country in the world.
		But I'm not going to forget the people of Cuba.
		We need to turn Cuba from an enemy into a friend.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And the only reason they're an enemy is because you have this illegitimate Marxist government down there that remains in power through the use of force.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Carlos Jimenez with us until the bottom of the hour at 8:30 Eastern Time, taking your phone calls on phone lines as usual.
		Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
		DJ's up first out of Rising Sun, Maryland.
		Line for Democrats.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
unidentified		Thank you for taking my call.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's your question for the Congressman?
unidentified		I was calling this morning in regards to the parties that were issued.
		How many of those that were issued have had previous criminal histories and were they part of Charlottesville?
		And there were probably an oath keepers with the riots when George Floyd was going on.
		So, how many of those that were released were part of those riots and previous criminal history?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Jimenez.
unidentified		Part of the George Floyd riots, is that what you said?
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		I don't believe any of them were.
unidentified		I really don't have the specifics on each individual.
		What I do know is that President Trump campaigned said he was going to issue the pardons for the January 6th folks that were involved here in the Capitol.
		And he kept his campaign promise.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		Unlike Joe Biden, who said he wasn't going to pardon his son or wasn't going to pardon his family, who did just that.
unidentified		And so President Trump kept his promise, and President Biden broke his promise.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Tom, Percival, Virginia, Independent.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Well, good morning.
		Congratulations, Congressman.
		You're dwelling on the fact this week that you've been sworn in.
		You've been sworn out, just sworn out in this short amount of time.
		You've got two years.
		Is there going to be a lot of whatabout-ism every time there's a criticism?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Tom, you're going in and out.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Just talk into your phone.
unidentified		Is there going to be a lot of whatabout-ism about what?
		Everything.
		Anytime there's a criticism of Trump, what about Biden?
		Well, he.
		I'm sorry.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Tom, you are going in and out.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		But if you got that, Congressman, you're welcome to respond.
unidentified		Otherwise, we can move on.
unidentified		I really did not get that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Then we will go to Tennessee Republican line.
unidentified		Ron, good morning.
		Yes, I want to thank Mr. Jimenez.
		I'm from, I lived in Hollywood for 40 years, and I've seen the corruption and the voting there.
		And, you know, I have to thank all the Latinos that voted for Trump because, you know, these people have actually seen communism and, you know, they know what's going on.
		This administration we just got rid of, the DOJ was nothing more than the Gestapo.
		I mean, you know, these people destroy evidence and they just, you know, everything they did was like illegal.
		And then the media picks it up and just propagandize everything.
		So they don't even know what they're talking about when they call in.
		When I hear Democrats, I hear a bunch of emotional basket cases that really don't know what they're talking about because the media just isn't giving them any truth.
		And I hope we fix that, you know?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How do we fix that, Ron?
unidentified		What's that?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How do we fix that?
unidentified		Well, you know, they eliminated the fairness doctrine when Obama came in, and that's when this propaganda started.
		And, you know, they just maybe bring back the fairness doctrine.
		I don't know.
		I don't, you know, I wish journalists could just be journalists instead of activists.
		And that's what they've turned into.
		You know, this is incredible what's going on.
		This is like Pravda.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Ron in Tennessee.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congressman, what do you want to pick up on?
unidentified		Look, I think that, you know, it's borne out by the polls that we live in a time now where the media and people's perception of the media is at an all-time low.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And it's frankly, it's their fault.
		Because I think I do agree with the caller that said they've turned into activists instead of being just journalists.
		I remember at a time when it was who, what, when, where, how, and then you just reported that, and then we, the reader, would make up our minds.
		Right now, everything's slanted one way or the other.
		And so I do agree that we need to get back to basic journalism.
		As far as what he talked about early in the conversation about the people that have lived under communism, et cetera, is a great example in southern Florida.
		Look, in 2016, Hillary Clinton won Miami-Dade County by, I think, 300,000 votes.
		And then in 2020, I think Joe Biden won it by about 7%.
		This time, Donald Trump won Miami-Dade County.
		And so for the first time in a number of years, why?
		Because we have so many people that have lived under communism, have lived under dictatorships, and they know what weakness is all about.
		And they rejected how and what the Democrats were doing.
unidentified		So now we're pretty solid red.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And those are people that, like people from Cuba, people from Venezuela, people from Nicaragua, that have been oppressed and that they understand that the only way to attain freedom is through strength and not through weakness.
unidentified		And President Biden has just demonstrated weakness throughout his entire presidency.
unidentified		How should we deal with people who are oppressed trying to seek freedom, asylum seekers in 2024?
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		I think what we need to do is what we need to do is go after the regimes that are making them asylum seekers.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And if you did that, you wouldn't have asylum seekers.
unidentified		And so that's what we need to focus on.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		We need to turn Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from enemies that are actually harboring the Russians and the Chinese Communist Party, Iran, and North Korea is actually in our hemisphere now and turn them into friends.
unidentified		And the way to do that is through strength and put through pressure.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And pressure to our friends, supposedly friends that are dealing with those totalitarian regimes that are oppressing their people.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And there hasn't been enough focus, frankly, in the American media of what is actually happening in South America.
unidentified		This is our hemisphere, the hemisphere we live in, and we should be the champions of democracy and freedom in our hemisphere.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And that hasn't been focused on enough by the media.
unidentified		In South Florida, we do look to the South.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And Miami is the gateway to the Americans.
unidentified		It's the capital of Latin America.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		So we're much more focused on that than the rest of the country.
unidentified		But it's really important for America to be the champion of democracy and freedom in our, and at least in our hemisphere.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		I know we are around the world, but we need to pay more attention to what's happening here at home.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Mentor Ohio Kevin Independent.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hey, good morning.
		Hey, Congressman, I just have one question.
		Purdue Pharma, why in the spec family, why aren't they not in prison?
		They primed this drug crisis in this country.
		Okay.
		And what do they do?
		They pay a few bucks?
		Answer my question, please.
		Why aren't they all behind bars in federal prisons?
		The families that have been devastated by this poison.
		That FDA employee that gave the stamp of approval pushed that poison through.
		Why are they not in prison?
		Those people that violated the law should be in prison.
		And those folks that created addicts, say they should be in prison.
		And so I can see the emotion in this phone call.
		Obviously, sounds to me like you've been touched by it.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		But also, they created some addicts, but the cartels down in Mexico, They really took advantage of what was happening here in the United States, but they also, they're the ones that were killing our people.
unidentified		And so we've had tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people killed by fentanyl that was manufactured by those cartels and then transported across the border by those cartels, and they knew exactly what they were doing.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		Those cartels, you know, first of all, they got you hooked on a drug because they laced it with fentanyl, and eventually, eventually, your luck runs out.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		You take a drug that laces a little bit too much fentanyl, and you pass away.
unidentified		I don't know of any family that hasn't, that doesn't at least, or a person doesn't really, at least doesn't know of, either it's touched their family or knows of a family that has lost somebody.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		Look, fentanyl poisoning, overdose, was the number one cause of death from adults 18 to, I think, 34 in the United States.
		And that was directly attributable to the Mexican drug cartels.
		And so, yeah, we need to do something about that.
		And yes, sir, big pharma, if they are also guilty of hooking and making addicts of people, those people responsible need to be brought to justice.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Auburn, New York, David, Republican, good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, C-SPAN.
		I'm in agreement with the policy to seal that border, to stop all the infiltration.
		Let's strengthen it and stop this infiltration of people from all over the world that we don't even know about.
		So I'm totally in agreement with the congressman.
		And having said that, I'd just like to say one more thing about this last election.
		We had an election, which is the best, that's the only solution we have.
		And we compare it to candidates, and Trump came out on top.
		He was compared with Kamala Harris and whatever her regime was going to be.
		And people made a decision because the border was a big issue for people.
		It was for me.
		So I guess what else are you going to do?
		Now in an imperfect world, you don't get a perfect solution, but we've got the best solution we could have had under the circumstances.
		So I'm looking forward to seeing the rest how this new administration is going to play out and solve problems.
		Thank you very much.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congressman, any thoughts?
unidentified		Look, I mean, the gentleman is right.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		There was an election, and elections bring consequences, and the direction of the country is going in a completely different direction than we had under the Biden administration.
		And I'm happy about it.
		You know, most of the steps that President Trump is taking, I'm in complete agreement with.
		I'm not in complete agreement with 100% of it, but I am, we're going in the right direction.
unidentified		And so, you know, it is America.
unidentified		You have a right to disagree.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		But, you know, I voted for this president.
		I support President Trump.
		And I think he will be putting America in a much stronger position.
		He will be securing our border.
		We will be now energy dominant.
		I'm sure we're going to work on the ways that we're going to strengthen our economy, bring jobs back to the United States, keep the Trump-era tax cuts flowing, incentivize new investment in America.
unidentified		And I believe that the things that he is doing are the right things for America.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What are the areas of this administration's agenda that you disagree with?
unidentified		Look, one of the things that I agree in birthright citizenship.
unidentified		And I think it's well-established law.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		It's a 14th Amendment.
		It was reaffirmed in 1898.
		I think the problem that they're trying to address is migrants coming in and then giving birth here in the United States.
		And the way to avert that, if you want, is to control the border.
		Once you control the border, you don't have that problem anymore.
		But I think that birthright citizenship is something, if you're born in the United States, you're a citizen of the United States as far as I'm concerned.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Does changing birthright citizenship require a constitutional amendment?
unidentified		I believe so.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		The argument is that somehow a migrant is not under the authority of the United States.
		And so the 14th Amendment says anyone born under the authority of the United States is a citizen, is a natural born citizen.
		And so the case that I'm referring to in 1898, there was a Chinese individual born in the United States, two Chinese immigrants.
		They were illegal here in the United States.
		The parents went back to China, apparently took their son with them.
		When he came back, the U.S. said that he was not a citizen.
		The Supreme Court affirmed that he indeed was a citizen and that he was born under the authority of the United States and therefore he was a citizen.
unidentified		I think it's pretty well established law.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And so in order to change that, you will need a constitutional amendment.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		I doubt sincerely that we'll have three-fourths of the states ratify something like that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're talking about the case in the United States, the Wong Kim Ark, 1898, the National Constitution Center, with an entire page on the history of that case, a case decided 6-2 by the Supreme Court.
		It's constitutioncenter.org if you want to study up on that case.
		This is Eugene Grantsville, Georgia, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		First of all, I understand, Congressman, that you were a big advocate for the banning of TikTok.
		We spent billions of dollars to do it.
		You thought it was very, very important to do that.
		That probably was the most bipartisan piece of legislation that came out of the last section, I would think, with both Congress parties voting for it.
		It passed Supreme Court muster First Amendment challenges.
		I haven't heard a word from you since it's been extended for 90 days.
		If it was important enough for us not to pass all this legislation, could I even have it on my phone?
		I haven't downloaded it since the freeze came.
		I'm scared to because what kind of reaction are we going to get from China?
		That's my first thing.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Eugene, that's a big topic.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me let the Congressman jump in on it.
unidentified		I guess you haven't been watching too much because I have been on it.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		I said that I believe we need to comply with the law.
unidentified		And I know what President Trump is doing, put a stay of about 75 days on it.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		I will give him the benefit of the doubt on that.
		But at the end, I expect the law to be complied with and to be followed.
		We banned TikTok, and it needs to be either sold to an American company or it needs to be banned in the United States.
		And so I expect that to be followed up with, and I expect that the full intent of our law to be complied with.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		For people who are trying to understand what this legislation means, what does banning it in the United States mean?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That you can't download it or that you can't use it at all?
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		You can't download it if you can't download it.
unidentified		It also can't be supported by our tech companies.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		In other words, when you go to TikTok, you won't get anything because it's not supported in the United States.
unidentified		And so I expect that to happen.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		Either sell it to an American company or it's going to be banned.
		That's the law.
		It was upheld by the Supreme Court, and I expect that at the end, that's what needs to happen.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		About five minutes left with Congressman Carlos Jimenez, Republican of Florida.
		Sean is in California.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Great topic.
		I have three quick questions.
		Let's remember the 14th Amendment comes after the 13th Amendment.
		And Mr. Jimenez, does this also apply to your family since they came here in 1963 and your parents were not born in the U.S.?
		Secondly, discussing the drug cartels.
		I understand we need to go after them for drugs.
		However, when you made the statement earlier in the show that we will go after them, yet we will go after them.
		That is meaning to me that you're saying that we're going to go in a country and we're going to war.
		So I need to be you to clarify.
		Are you saying we're going to war?
		Finally, how have you went after the cartels, I feel, American citizens who are putting these drugs on our streets for our children to be dying of?
		Because we do know fentanyl is being made right here at America by American citizens.
		And the drug cartels are the ones that are actually getting away with it.
		Go back to 1980, Ricky Waters, and a drug cartel that got away, and he was an American citizen.
		He did 20 years.
		Now, we're supposed to go after the criminals.
		However, that drug cartel from Colombia should have also been in federal prisons.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Sean in California.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A lot there, Congressman.
unidentified		Okay, first of all, my parents came here in 1960 and brought me here in 1960.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		They became residents, legal residents, and then became citizens.
unidentified		I became a citizen in 1975.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And so, yeah, the 14th Amendment, you know, I wasn't born here, but I'm a naturalized citizen.
unidentified		And so I am a citizen of the United States.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		Obviously, I can't be a member of Congress that I'm not a citizen of the United States.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		As far as the cartels are concerned, Al-Qaeda attacked the United States in 9-11, killed 3,000 Americans.
unidentified		They were housed in Afghanistan.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		We went 6,000 miles and waged war in Afghanistan for 15 years in order to get rid of al-Qaeda, which, by the way, they still exist.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		The Mexican drug cartels have been killing hundreds and tens of thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of Americans, and they're right across the border.
unidentified		And so I don't see much of a difference between if you, you know, we die, they died from a plane crashing into a building or they're just poisoning us.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		And so they are poisoning us, and they're doing it on purpose.
		And yeah, they're now a terrorist organization, and so we need to go after a terrorist organization that is killing Americans because the number one duty of the American government is to protect American citizens.
		And yes, the fact that they happen to be in Mexico, well, al-Qaeda was in Afghanistan.
		You know, the Hamas is in the Gaza Strip.
		But the duty of government is to protect its citizens.
		And so, yeah, I expect this government to do everything possible to eradicate the Mexican drug cartels that are killing Americans.
		And I know it's a strong position, but I feel really strongly about what those cartels are doing.
		Also, those cartels, not only are they producing the fentanyl, because they're the ones that are producing it, by the way, but they're also the ones that are the ones that are profiting from human trafficking here in the United States.
		They're the ones that are actually facilitating the flow of illegal immigrants on our southern border.
		So it's like a two-front war with those cartels.
		They are enemies of the United States.
unidentified		The Mexican government doesn't do anything about it.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		I would certainly hope that the Mexican government would take us seriously and say, hey, you're harboring a terrorist organizations.
		You need to do something about it.
		And if you don't, then we may have to take matters into our own hands.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Jimenez, we're going to have to leave it there this morning.
unidentified		I know you have a busy day on Capitol Hill, but thanks for starting it with us on the Washington Journal.
carlos a gimenez ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much.
unidentified		Coming up in about a half an hour this morning, the federal news network Drew Friedman joins us to talk about changes to federal employment policies, her reporting on Capitol Hill and at the agencies this week.
unidentified		But coming up next, it's our open forum.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now is your time to call in.
		Phone lines are on your screen.
		start dialing in and we'll get to those calls right after the break.
unidentified		Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		At 4 p.m. Eastern, Geometric AI founder Gary Marcus looks at the potential and risks of artificial intelligence and the prospective regulation of the tech industry in his book, Taming Silicon Valley.
		And at 5:15 p.m. Eastern, sociology professors Chris Benner and Manuel Pasteur discuss the discovery of lithium in California's Salton Sea region and the role of the mineral in the electric vehicle industry with the authors of the book Charging Forward.
		At 8 p.m. Eastern, Gib Kerr argues that Robert E. Lee has been unfairly canceled in America, including at Washington and Lee University, where Lee served as president from 1865 to 1870 in his book, On Cancel Robert E. Lee.
		Then at 10 p.m. Eastern on Afterwards, Democratic Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, author of It Takes Chutzpah, shares his thoughts on having the tenacity to pursue progressive goals through strong alliances, hard work, and focus.
		Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Time for our open forum now.
		Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, this is when we hand the show over to you and let you lead the discussion.
		Phone lines for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents as usual.
unidentified		As you're calling in, here's a schedule on Capitol Hill today.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The House and Senate return at 10 a.m. Eastern.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The House here on C-SPAN, the Senate on C-SPAN 2.
unidentified		On C-SPAN 3 at 10 a.m., you can watch the ongoing confirmation hearings.
		It's Agricultural Secretary nominee Brooke Rollins who will have her hearing today.
		Again, 10 a.m. C-SPAN3, C-SPAN.org, and of course, the free C-SPAN Now video app.
		And now, your phone calls.
		This is Bob up first out of Minnesota.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Line for Democrats.
unidentified		Bob, what's on your mind?
		It's open forum.
		Don't worry.
		Yeah, I think we can get this country back on its feet again.
		All we have to do is get a people's court set up to check out our judges.
		Our judges are just as crooked as the Republican Party is.
		So until then, we're going to be in big trouble.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What judges are you referring to, Bob?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Any judge in this country?
unidentified		All the judges need to be checked up.
		They're supposed to be working for the people, but they're working for Trump.
		Everybody saw it.
		But until then, we're going to have the same old thing day after day.
		Lies, more lies, more lies.
		That's Bob in Minnesota.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Don is in Dunkirk, Indiana, Independent.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah.
		I got three words to say about people that voted for Trump.
		They're idiots.
		That's Don in Indiana.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		David in Georgia, Independent.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, John.
		Good morning, John.
		Sorry, I missed Carlos.
		I'd love to spoke with them.
		But let me point out a little bit of Republican history, and y'all will figure out why I'm an independent by the time I get through.
		Now, when it comes to Cuba, the Republicans let that go.
		And then when it comes to other things, we just the Republicans have done us wrong at the border when it comes to the cartels.
		Nixon set up our drug policy that we have now.
		And that said we don't go after these folks down there in them other countries.
		Nixon set up China with all the industry that left the country in the 70s.
		And people forget that China is paying us back for what the richest drug cartel in the world, which is the Delano family, as in frankly Delano Roosevelt, did to China.
		And we're paying for it.
		But the Republicans keep turning their back on what things they have done that has set us up for the mess that we're in now because in 2018, the caravans were flooding the border after the Republicans cut off the money to keep them down there.
		So they go to the embassy.
		And sorry.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's David in Georgia.
		Keep calling in.
		More of your phone calls in this open forum, but we're going to take you back up to Capitol Hill to the Cannon Rotunda.
		We're joined by California Democrat Judy Chu.
		She represents that Los Angeles area-based 28th District of California.
		And Congressman, Congresswoman, just wanted to start first by asking about the district, how it's doing today, where the fires are in relation to your district right now.
unidentified		Well, my district is doing better now.
		The fire is 95% contained.
		However, the number of homes burned numbers in the thousands.
		In fact, there are 9,500 structures that have been destroyed and burned, and 17 people are dead.
		Finally, the evacuation orders have been lifted, so people are going back to their homes, but they are discovering that they are burned to the ground.
		And even if they have a home standing, that it's full of smoke and ash.
		So the period of recovery and rebuilding is starting, and it's going to be a very difficult one.
		In the meanwhile, there's a new fire that has started, the Hughes fire, which is north of my area.
		It is, I think, about 18% contained.
		So they are making progress over there.
		But people really have to obey the evacuation orders and make sure that they and their families are safe.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned the evacuation orders, a release from your office yesterday saying that you're demanding an independent investigation into the deadly evacuation order delays during the start of the Eaton fire.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Explain.
unidentified		I'm very, very concerned because the evacuation orders did not reach western Altadena for many hours.
		And as a result, there were those that did not leave right away.
		And actually, all 17 of the deaths that occurred were in that area.
		So I want to know what happened, who's behind this, why were those evacuation orders delayed?
		It's a tremendous tragedy, and we cannot have this happen again.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Delayed by how long?
unidentified		What do you know about the delays?
		It was several hours.
		Remember that most of the people evacuated within that first day.
		And the fire started on a Tuesday night at 6.30 p.m.
		Most people then were ordered to evacuate.
		That Wednesday they woke up to this fire that was coming towards our home.
		And We're talking about several hours where they could have been evacuated and had their lives saved.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What does recovery look like in your district?
unidentified		What do your constituents need from Congress right now?
		Well, right now there is hazardous removal by Cal EPA.
		They are making progress.
		The next step will be debris removal.
		It'll be a big job.
		And then there will be the process of rebuilding, of getting insurance companies to be able to assess the damage and then provide funds for that.
		But it will not be enough.
		And the job is enormous.
		There have been estimates as high as $250 billion as far as the damage to both Palisades and the Eaton area.
		So we definitely need disaster aid.
		We need disaster aid without conditions, which has been the case for every disaster aid package in our nation's history.
		These wildfires don't have any political affiliation.
		They don't have any political party.
		And when America's, when Americans are in their most desperate time, when they are in great, great need of help, we need to be able to help them.
		And this will be a very, very important time for us to give that aid so that they can recover and that the economy can return to what it was before.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		On disaster aid, President Trump was asked about disaster aid by Sean Hannity in that Fox News interview that took place up on Capitol Hill.
unidentified		This is about 30 seconds from yesterday.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I don't think we should give California anything until they let water flow down into there from the north to the south.
		This is a political thing.
		I don't know what it is.
		You know, they talk about the Delta smelt.
		It's a little tiny fish like this.
		They say it's an endangered species.
		Well, how is it endangered?
		No wonder it's endangered.
		It's not getting any water.
unidentified		That was Donald Trump in that interview with Sean Hannity.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Your response, Congresswoman?
unidentified		Well, it is based on tremendous misinformation.
		The situation with the Delta smelt in Northern California had nothing to do with the water supply in Southern California.
		In fact, we had enough water in both the Palisades fire and we had enough water in the Altadena fire.
		What we did have were 100 mile per hour winds and then fires where the embers were spread across a span of two or three miles.
		The embers landed on these homes and that's what made the fire spread so fast.
		So water was not the issue.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you have a sense yet of who President Trump is going to meet with or where he's going when he goes to the Los Angeles area this week?
unidentified		We've asked many and we can't get an answer.
		In fact, I would drop everything and accompany him.
		We've made inquiries as to whether that's possible, but we haven't gotten any answer from anybody yet.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What would you tell him if you did accompany him?
unidentified		I would tell him that we have helped everybody who has been a victim of a horrendous disaster in this country.
		In fact, it was just four weeks ago when I voted on the disaster aid for Hurricane Helene, which helped the people of the Tennessee, Carolina, and Georgia.
		And I certainly didn't look at whether it was a red state or a blue state.
		What I looked at was the fact that there were people who were in trouble and they needed our help.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congressman, I know you need to go get your day started on Capitol Hill.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What are you working on today before you go?
unidentified		Today there is the Fix Our Forests bill that will be on the floor.
		And I do plan to support it because it has some measures that will help in wildfire recovery.
		There's also the Born Live bill that will be on the floor.
		This is something I plan to oppose vociferously.
		Infanticide, that is, when a child is born and somebody kills that baby, that already exists in law.
		And what this does is spread misinformation about abortion, which is something that has been a right in this country, had been a right before the Supreme Court decision for 50 years.
		Women should have the ability to make decisions about their own body, and that is something that I will fight for.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman Judy Chu, Democrat of California.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's the 28th district, that Los Angeles area district.
unidentified		Thanks so much for telling us about it, and good luck to you and your constituents.
		Thank you.
		Back to your phone calls.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It is open forum, letting you lead the discussion.
unidentified		Any public policy, political issue that you want to talk about.
unidentified		About 20 minutes left to do that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Charles Waiting in New Jersey, Democrat.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, sir.
		Doing well.
		What's on your mind?
		What I'm going to say is that from two to two and a half years, Social Security will be running over with money and Medicare.
		Crime will be stopped.
		At least 65% of crime will be top stop from two to two and a half years.
		In two to two and a half years.
		All you have to do, all we have to do is the women and the men who've been to prison, get out, clean their record up.
		Let them go to get government jobs and good jobs.
		A lot of them can't get jobs.
		Some of them owe so much money for non-support.
		Try that.
		And then for the other 35%, I'll tell you how to get rid of 25% of that at a later date.
		Thank you, sir.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Charles.
		We'll hear from you down the road on the rest of that.
		This is Anita in Louisiana, Republican.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hi.
		Thank you for letting me call.
		I just want to talk about the illegal immigrants, especially deportation and the ones that have been here for many years and become parts of our communities.
		Not that I don't appreciate them.
		They do what they do and they do well.
		But it seems like if they want to be part of our United States, that some of them have been here for 20 years and they make no attempt to become citizens.
		I honor your last guest who he and his family came here and they all became citizens and now they are a vital part of our country.
		Is there any way someone can address this and make that become something in the forefront of our vision that these people are welcome here and welcome to stay, but they're also welcome to actually become part of our country if they choose to stay here.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So Anita, we've heard about that in some of these immigration debates, the so-called path to citizenship built into some of these bills, some of these negotiations, trying to find pathways to become a citizen, even if somebody came into this country illegally.
unidentified		What do you think about those pathways to citizenship?
		Well, I don't propose that they are just handed this.
		Many people have come and have worked and found out how to become a citizen.
		Why in 20 years these people can't do it.
		That's my thing.
		Also, I'd like to speak on what your last Senator just said about women's rights.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman Judy Chu.
unidentified		Women do have a right to their own body, but they choose to do things that procreate life.
		And so they give up the right to undo that because it's already done.
		And now they're given the right to kill someone else because they don't like what they did prior.
		But we're not taking their right away.
		They have a right to start off with.
		Don't do stuff that would procreate life.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Anita in Louisiana to back to the Garden State.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Stephen Clifton, Independent.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi, good morning.
		You know, when I listened to the debt, first of all, it's interesting.
		Last week we were talking climate change because of the warmth in California.
		Suddenly, because everywhere it's cold, we're not talking climate change this week.
		But in terms of the immigration issue, I just don't get it.
		I just don't get it.
		In the past, when a country wants to invade a country, they invaded the country.
		Now we can just send people across the border and invade the country.
		I mean, who is for illegal immigration?
		If you're for illegal immigration, you're for drug trafficking, you're for sex trafficking, you're for child trafficking, who is for it?
		And then the only reason I hear, oh, we need an illegal immigration, because basically we need slaves.
		We need people to pick our crops who get no money.
		I mean, like, the concept of illegal immigration is so inhumane, not only to us, but to the immigrants themselves.
		Who is for it?
		I heard that preacher talk about, oh, we have people afraid.
		They're working this, they're working that.
		First of all, if they're illegal immigrants, how are they working?
		So why are companies hiring illegal immigrants?
		If they're illegal, they shouldn't be able to work, period.
		And so this concept, oh, that they're working, yeah, they're working for slave wages.
		And I thought slavery ended in the Civil War.
		That's Steve in the Garden State to the Yellow Hammer State.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is John Democrat.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hello.
		Good morning.
		How are you today?
		Doing well.
		I saw a documentary film called Vigilante Incorporated.
		Have you ever heard of that documentary?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I have not, John.
unidentified		Well, it's a documentary about widespread voter suppression by a group called True to Vote.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Who is True to Vote, John?
unidentified		True to Vote is a group that go around suppressing people voting rights.
		It's a woman by the name of Pamela Rierton was over the True to Vote group.
		She also is a member of or supporter of Donald Trump.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, John.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Bring me to what you want to talk about here.
unidentified		Well, yeah, I was just answering your question.
		But what I want to talk about is the way in which the voter suppression was done with the vote between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
		Now, the way they have done that is that your name in Alabama here is James Brown.
		And you go to vote, and they tell you that you have the wrong address on your license and you can't vote.
		So you're questioned and your vote can't count until they clear up.
		Are you the person that's standing there?
		Well, the way Trudeau did it, that 925 James Brown live in the state of Alabama.
		So, what they do is everybody that named John James Brown, they cannot vote because they have a different address.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever had trouble voting in Alabama?
unidentified		No, my name is Noah.
		I've never had this problem.
		But what, let me finish this and then you can take your next caller.
		But now they do this through each state.
		They go into Georgia with Brian Kemp.
		He was a big supporter of it.
		When he gets a name, they go and they call somebody up in Tennessee.
		They call another person up in Texas.
		And what they do is now we have all of these people with the same name in all of these states, and they are disqualified from voting.
		And they do this with Jose Gonzalez, or they do this with John Williams, or they do this with Cynthia Fernandez.
		All throughout the United States, they take these names, and you can add up this about two to three million votes, people that can't vote because they're using this, true to vote is using this tactic to suppress people voting.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's John in Alabama to the Kingston State.
		This is Mary Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you today?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Doing well.
unidentified		Okay.
		I listened to Judy too say that the wildfires in California had nothing to do with the water.
		Is she claiming that the firefighters on the front lines who told us that they lacked water were lying?
		And I think the listeners would have liked you to push back on her a little bit and ask her that because they are the ones that told us they lacked water.
		That came from the firefighters themselves.
		And I think listeners would have liked a little pushback asking her if she's claiming that those firefighters lied to us in this time of emergency, which seems unlikely to me.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Mary in Pennsylvania.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is John in the Magnolia State, Independent.
unidentified		Good morning.
		First of all, I'd like to address one issue.
		First of all, the 14th Amendment.
		The 14th Amendment was not meant for someone to come from China, have a baby, and be an American citizen and get all the benefits as to being an American citizen.
		Any other country, Europe, Italy, any other country.
		So all you Americans that call yourself Americans that have benefited from the blood and sweat of Africans have benefited from that, you ought to be ashamed of yourself because you're the same people that don't want people to have African Americans to have reparations.
		But meanwhile, you came over here and the government gave you 2 billion acres.
		They haven't given African Americans an inch.
		I'm starting to think that, and we fought every war from Christmas Aspok dying and the Boston massacre.
		I mean, it's just a shame.
		I mean, and you won't even give us free education.
		You won't even give us the very thing that got us killed, if we tried to put ourselves by our bootstraps.
		We didn't even have boots.
		You understand?
		And we've basically been free basically, what, 60 years since the Civil Rights Act?
		Because if you can't vote and if you can't live your life, you're not free.
		And so Jim Crow was a quasi-slavery.
		And so we've been slaved for hundreds of years and be out, what, 60-something years and not be given anything?
		Not only not be given anything, but have a government that has fought us tooth and nail with corn tail pro, putting drugs into our neighborhoods, everything, assassinating our leaders.
		I mean, come on, I'm backing somebody that's going to be down for America, down for the American citizen, and down for reparations for Africans.
		Because if we don't get that, America is just like any other country.
		It's like Stalin is like in I mean, Hitler did what he did, but he did what he did for a few years.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's John in Mississippi.
		This is Freddy in Indiana, Democrat, Indianapolis.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, John.
		I was listening to your congressperson you had on earlier from Florida, a Republican from Florida, and he was critiquing, it wasn't really critiquing, but how are you speaking harshly on the drugs that are flowing in this country come from the Mexican border?
		Now, I fully agree with him.
		You know, he sounded as though he ready to send the U.S. Army over there in Mexico to Mexico, you know, to stop that drug.
		Those drugs were coming here.
		But here's what I'm saying.
		I'm going to say this.
		Once an American set foot on Mexican soil, Mexicans should also have one Mexican set foot on American soil and destroy these American gun runners who are sending all these guns to Mexico, killing the Mexican people.
		Don't you think that'd be a good idea, John?
		Wonderful word.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Freddie in Indiana.
		This is Robert in the Pelican State Independent.
		Good morning.
		Robert, you with us?
unidentified		Yeah, this is Robert.
		But I'm going to make one statement clear.
		You had the guest on a few minutes ago talking about how this fentanyl is killing all these kids.
		And what the thing is, ain't nobody putting the drugs in these kids' mouths.
		America got a drug problem.
		So if you got a drug problem, they're going to have somewhere to sell the drug.
		Ain't nobody putting no drugs in them kids' mouths and make them take the drug.
		This is what I understand.
		Nobody never addressed it.
		But when he had a crack epidemic in this country during the 80s and 90s, it was okay because you were putting the drugs in the black neighborhood so the blacks can die off the damn drug.
		And right now, flipping in 2025, you've got drugs flooding this country.
		You've got fentanyl made in this country, but you want to blame everybody else for the drugs coming in the country, but you ain't addressing the problem.
		America got a drug problem.
		People that put drugs in their mouth freely.
		Ain't nobody forcing no drugs down these white kids' mouth or talking to these black kids' mouth.
		They're doing it on their own because America is a drug-habit country.
		Period.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Marion back to Pennsylvania.
		This is Larry Summit Hill, Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
		I'm a United States Navy veteran, and so are many of my family members.
		And basically, a little earlier, you had a representative on from California talking about the fires.
		And I want to thank you for taking my call.
		And basically, I want to thank all the firefighters in California, the volunteers, and other states who risked their lives to save the people and homes and animals, and especially the animal shelters and animal hospitals and veterinarians and saving and cheating these various animals.
		And that's about it, what I wanted to say.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Larry in Pennsylvania.
		Sharon is in the first state, Middleton, Delaware, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		Just a couple quick things.
		I think everybody in this country can ask themselves one thing.
		The last four years under a Democrat, Joe Biden, how was your life?
		Did you feel safe?
		Were you able to go to the grocery store?
		You know, did you have all these other issues?
		You have a Democrat, Gavin Newsom, running California.
		Trump told him years ago how to avoid this catastrophe that's happening out there.
		Biden, you know, of course, it was in the news, you know, we're going to do this, we're going to do that.
		They did nothing.
		They left behind the people in North Carolina, you know, after the hurricanes and some of the other states.
		The train derailment in I believe it was Ohio.
		You never hear anything else about that.
		You know, so let's give Trump a chance to try to turn things around and save the lives of our people, you know, with the drugs coming across, with the illegal crossings coming in.
		It just, to me, is so bizarre that everybody is just, you know, not going to not willing to give him a chance.
		He had four years and we had none of this going on.
		So I think everybody is in an upbeat mood.
		Or a lot of people that I speak with that didn't vote for him because of the changes that have already been made and I'm willing to give him a chance at it.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Sharon in Delaware, our last caller in this segment of the Washington Journal.
		Stick around, though.
		About an hour left this morning.
		Coming up next, we'll be joined by Drew Friedman of the Federal News Network.
		We'll talk about executive orders affecting the federal government workforce.
		We'll be right back.
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		Democracy.
		It isn't just an idea.
		It's a process.
		A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles.
		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.
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		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A focus now on the coming changes for the more than 2 million members of the federal civilian workforce.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Drew Friedman joins us, a reporter with the Federal News Network.
unidentified		And I want to start with two executive actions from the president's first day that's getting a lot of attention.
unidentified		It's the return to office directive and then the federal hiring freeze.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, how easy, how hard are these initiatives going to be for the Trump administration to actually enforce?
unidentified		I think a lot of it is really hard to predict right now.
		For the return to office mandate, agencies do have a lot of telework agreements, for example, with their unions, and federal employees have been, those who are eligible for telework, have been teleworking for many years, even before the pandemic.
		So, I think a shift to a fully in-person workforce will be a challenge, will probably take some time.
		And the executive order on the return to office kind of left a lot open to determine in terms of how that's going to be implemented exactly.
		Reaction that you've seen that's been most interesting to you, specifically to the hiring freeze.
		For the hiring freeze, I think there's definitely a feeling of uncertainty and concern among federal employees to some extent.
		I think that the hiring freeze wasn't necessarily unexpected.
		It's something that President Trump did in 2017, very early on in his first term.
		So, it's something that we're seeing come back again.
		But I think in terms of what agencies this is going to impact and how it's going to really play out is only time can tell.
		But there is definitely, again, a lot of uncertainty right now among federal employees.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What do we know about the numbers of federal employees that aren't in the office every day?
unidentified		The Washington Times points out a recent House Oversight Committee report: 10% of federal employees, roughly 228,000 employees, never go into the office.
unidentified		Some 1.1 million employees are allowed to telework.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do those numbers sound about right to you?
unidentified		That does sound about right.
		From the numbers that I've heard from different agencies and their reports to the Office of Management and Budget, it's about more than half of the federal workforce is entirely on-site because they hold roles like federal firefighters, law enforcement officers, TSA workers.
		So, there's a lot of different positions that require completely on-site work.
		For those who can telework, who are eligible to telework in the first place, many are spending about 60% roughly of their time in the office already.
		So, they're already about that above that 50% mark, which is what the Biden administration was trying to hit.
		But I think now with Trump's mandate on returning to the office, and there was also a memo giving a little bit more details on that last night, I think we might see that to shift towards more in-person work regardless.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		If all those 228,000 federal employees who are fully remote and then the ones who are partially remote, if they all tomorrow return back to the office, is there space for all those employees?
unidentified		That is a great question.
		There is definitely a big concern from a lot of federal employees about having enough office space.
		There have been obviously concerns from different members of Congress in terms of a lot of this office space sitting empty.
		But at the same time, federal employees in a survey that federal news network actually did recently, many were very concerned about not having enough space, having to potentially share cubicles.
		A lot of agencies, after the COVID-19 pandemic, started scaling down the amount of office space that they hold, and they have plans in the works to continue scaling down on their office space.
		So, that kind of leaves the question of, you know, if federal employees are pushed back to the office full time, yes, will there be space for them?
		It's hard to say, and it really depends on the agency.
		You mentioned those unions and their reaction.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is the American Federation of Government Employees, a statement that they put out this week.
		This directive, the return to office full-time, turns back the clock to before 2010 when Congress required federal agencies to expand telework by law.
		Congress took this action a full decade before the pandemic, recognizing that telework was an important tool for agencies' operational efficiency.
		Providing eligible employees with the opportunity to work hybrid schedules is a key tool for recruiting and retaining workers in both the public and private sectors.
		Restricting the use of hybrid work arrangements will make it harder for federal agencies to compete for top talent.
		Just some of the reaction.
		What is the American Federation of Government Employees AFG?
		How many government employees does it represent?
unidentified		It represents a couple hundred thousand federal employees, so it is the largest federal employee union.
		And they, and many other federal unions as well, have expressed very strong support of telework options for federal employees.
		None of the unions have said that federal employees should be entirely remote, and I think they are also saying the same thing that a lot of federal jobs require on-site work.
		But AFG has been one that is very vocal.
		And I think pointing to the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act kind of shows where the telework scene has been for the last several years.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Drew Friedman with the Federal News Network with us until the bottom of the hour at 9:30 a.m. Eastern.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead and get your calls in on this topic: changes to the federal workforce.
unidentified		In this segment, we'll have a special line for federal workers.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's 202748-8002.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Otherwise, the numbers, as usual, sorry, it's 202-748-8003 for federal workers.
unidentified		202748-8002 is for independents.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202748-8001.
		If I haven't confused you enough, go ahead and just dial in and we'll get to a call on the line that you call in on.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		As folks are calling in, what is Schedule F?
unidentified		So, Schedule F, this is another executive order that President Trump signed.
		It's one that was expected because it came at the end of his first term as well.
		At the time, it was once President Biden stepped into office, it was quickly rescinded.
		But generally, what the idea of Schedule F does is try to make federal employees who are in career positions, so non-political positions, put them in a new classification of federal employees and essentially remove their civil service protections.
		And in practice, that means they are easier to fire and gives agencies more flexibility in letting people go.
		So, the executive order that came back is kind of lays the groundwork for returning something like Schedule F.
		They changed the name of it this time around.
		But there was also a final rule from the Biden administration trying to prevent that from happening.
		So, there's a little bit more back and forth this time, I would say, than the initial executive order.
		It's hard to say how that's going to play out, but the goal there was to reclassify certain career federal employees.
		Is the expectation that this goes to the federal courts to determine that classification?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is this something that you think could make its way to the Supreme Court?
unidentified		Hard to say.
		The National Treasury Employees Union did file a lawsuit against the Schedule F executive order, which has actually been changed to schedule policy/slash career, but it's essentially the same idea.
		I think that that lawsuit shows that there are going to be strong pushes and strong questions on both sides of this issue, but something that definitely to watch out for.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And then before we get to calls, just one more topic to throw on top of this.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The government diversity, equity, and inclusion staffers.
unidentified		Just explain the latest of what's happened there this week.
		So there was a memo from the Office of Personnel Management just yesterday that asked agencies to put all of their employees who are working on DEIA or DEI projects on paid administrative leave.
		So at this point, it's hard to say exactly how many employees this is going to impact, but it is removing those employees immediately from working on their positions and working on DEI projects.
		So again, those sorts of roles focus on making workplace culture more inclusive, trying to make federal hiring more diverse, and that's definitely something that President Trump has pushed back strongly against and tried to, he's trying to kind of reverse some of those policies.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And this is President Trump from Tuesday, about 30 seconds on this effort on these DEI positions in the federal government.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We ended destructive DEI mandates across the federal government and returned our country to a merit-based system and a common sense system.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		As you know, the Supreme Court gave us a decision on merit where things in this country can be based on merit now instead of a lot of different rules, regulations, and things that really put our country at a big disadvantage.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		President Trump, on Tuesday, what's been the most interesting reaction that you've seen to that specifically effort?
unidentified		So I think there is a lot of back and forth in terms of what this is going to mean.
		Definitely federal employees, those who are in those positions, are certainly concerned about the future of those types of projects.
		Of course, that's going to be largely scaled back, largely dismantled in this administration.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Phone lines again for Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and a special line for federal workers.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Want to hear how these efforts are impacting you.
unidentified		But we'll start on that independent line.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Linda in New Jersey, good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Drew Friedman.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		I have a question about the executive order that Donald Trump signed on immigration with people having children in the United States.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And talking about birthright citizenship?
unidentified		Yes, because Donald Trump's father was never a citizen.
unidentified		He maintained his German status.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So Linda, we're talking about the federal.
		So we're talking about the federal workforce right now, Linda, and we've got plenty of calls on that topic.
		But I promise we'll have a segment on birthright citizenship very soon here on the Washington Journal.
		Let me go to Shirley in Louisiana.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		The reason why I'm calling is that I believe that they should return back to the office, and I'll give you my personal reason.
		Recently, I contacted the Social Security Office concerning Social Security because they passed a law that says Louisiana teachers that work could receive their Social Security along with their teacher painting.
		But in the background, they were having a birthday party.
		People were laughing, and I could hear them, and I could hear the dogs barking.
		And while they're there, other people in the household or friends that are visiting could actually see the computer open with your personal information if it's left open.
		Also, when I call the IRS, the same thing.
		They're not in a place by themselves.
		They had other people around them which could view your personal information.
		And with all of the identity stuff going around, I'm not saying that they would do it, but I was concerned that there were other people there that could see my information, and I think they should return back.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Got your point from Louisiana, one of those concerns about whether remote work is as secure for the sensitive information that government employees deal with.
unidentified		This is something that a lot of federal employees and agencies have been doing for a long time, this sort of remote work and trying to secure remote work.
		There are four types of positions that do require high security or deal with public safety.
		A lot of them are required to be on site in SCIFs or other secure federal facilities.
		But in terms of the Social Security Administration, that's certainly been an agency that's had a little bit of fire or questioning about their return to office policy recently in the House Oversight Committee.
		But yeah, it is a good point.
		And I think that her sentiment is not unique.
		There's a lot of people who do feel like the federal employees do need to get back to the office more.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Fred in Erie, Pennsylvania, line for Democrats.
unidentified		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, what I wanted to ask, is there any plan by the federal workers' unions to reach out to the other unions?
		I was president of UAW local here in Erie, and my daughter's president of an ASME union.
		And we kicked it around that if something like this happened, where he went after unions, will we have a day of reckoning for Donald Trump where the unions just shut down for a day to show their solidarity for this type of treatment from the Trump administration?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Drew Friedman.
unidentified		What I can say is that, at least for federal unions, they have been pushing really hard back against some of the policies of the Trump administration so far.
		The National Treasury Employees Union, as I may have mentioned, they filed a lawsuit against the Schedule F executive order.
		The American Federation of Government Employees, the federal union that is the largest one that we have, they filed a separate lawsuit about the Department of Government Efficiency.
		So there definitely is a lot of pushback coming from federal unions already.
		I think we might expect to see the Trump administration issue some sort of executive actions around unions that like similarly to how he did in his first term that we haven't seen a whole lot of yet.
		And so it's hard to predict, but it's something that he has discussed as well.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do federal employee unions go on strike often?
unidentified		No, federal employee unions have kind of a different union structure than your typical labor union.
		They can't argue or they can't negotiate over pay rates because we have the general schedule and other kind of set pay systems.
		So what they do is focus more on different types of workforce issues.
		So that's why telework has become a very central issue for unions as well as Schedule F and this idea of civil service protections for federal employees.
		Those are really big topics for federal unions.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		For federal employees, do want to hear from you in this segment.
		202-748-8003 is the number to call in to talk about how these executive actions have impacted you and your agency looking for those stories as well.
		This is Katrina in New Orleans, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Hi, good morning.
		I'm a healthcare professional that was interested in working at the GAA hospital.
		And when I had looked at the jobs right before Trump was inaugurated, there were hundreds of listings because they need definitely skilled health professionals.
		And I was just wondering if you had any clarity or updates on how the federal freeze would impact the military and specifically the community health care system.
		It's a great question.
		There are certain exemptions to the hiring freeze for the federal workforce.
		So military personnel are not affected by the hiring freeze.
		Same with positions in national security and public safety.
		Those are exempt from the hiring freeze.
		And there can be other exemptions as well.
		So specifically for the VA, it's unclear at this point.
		I would imagine that there would continue to be at least some exemptions, but again, a lot is really unclear right now.
		We have just the executive order and a little bit of guidance from the Office of Personnel Management on that, but there are certainly going to be, it's not a complete hiring freeze of federal agencies.
		There are definitely exemptions there.
		Talking about the VA, it's more than 2 million member federal workforce right now.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The VA accounts for something like 500,000 members of the federal workforce, the largest by far, correct?
unidentified		Yes, they are.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Outside of the military.
unidentified		Yes, exactly.
		They are.
		They're the largest civilian agency.
		They have hired a lot over the last several years in the Veterans Health Administration, for example, and they have expanded hiring significantly.
		So if there is a hiring freeze on certain portions of that workforce, it would certainly bring some impacts.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And by comparison, the Department of Education, which has gotten so much focus in the lead up to Donald Trump taking office, something like just 4,000 employees.
unidentified		It's yes, definitely a much smaller agency.
		That one I would imagine would be under the hiring freeze.
		Again, we haven't seen a lot of details from agencies of how that's exactly going to play out, but yes, they are one that is definitely a much smaller workforce than the VA.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Taking your phone calls with Drew Friedman of the Federal News Network.
		This is Hannah out of North Carolina, Line for Democrats.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		A question and a comment.
		And my comment is that it seems that when at the beginning of the Trump administration, the first one, that there was a little grumbling among some of his supporters about government workers and how they weren't doing a good job and how we could do without some of them.
		And now, with this DEI piece, I think it identifies government workers as blacks.
		And if you've, and if we've watched over the years, we've seen the interaction between different agencies and the workers, how they work.
		And I see also that the federal government were the first to hire blacks, African Americans.
		And that created a middle class in the Washington, D.C. area, Philadelphia, New York, and places like that.
		So I don't, I take my hat off to these government workers.
		And I was wondering, is there anything that you see that has anything political, you know, in terms of just focusing on government workers now and whether they work at home or not?
		I think they do a great job.
		Yeah, thank you.
		Thank you so much for the question.
		I can point to a federal news network survey that we did of federal employees recently, and some of them did say they believed that there were political motivations behind the return to office for the federal workforce.
		Many have said that they actually feel more productive while they're able to telework and while they have those options, they have better work-life balance.
		And they said there's a lot of positives to telework, and I think that returning to the office is definitely a concern for a lot of federal employees.
		In terms of Trump's positioning on the federal workforce, he's certainly said he's planning forward some major reforms or changes, downsizing of the federal workforce.
		Again, it's at this point hard to predict how that's all going to play out, but the executive actions, the hiring freeze, the return to office, the Schedule F all kind of point to this just a very big overhaul or effort to overhaul the federal workforce.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The viewer was talking about where federal employees are located.
		Some 20%, I believe, of federal employees located in the DMV, as they call it, the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area.
		Other states, this is from the Partnership of Public Service map, where there's a vast, a large number of federal employees, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Ohio, and others.
unidentified		You can see the darker, the shading on that map where federal employees are located.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How do you expect the colors on that map to change four years from now?
unidentified		I think, to be honest, I think it will kind of stay pretty similar.
		A lot of federal employees work at these larger institutions like the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and a lot of those employees may not necessarily be relocated because they're working at different hospitals or medical facilities, for example.
		But I do think it, you know, there will be some sort of shift if we look at the memo that came from the Office of Personnel Management just last night about returning to the office.
		It gave a deadline of 30 days to get federal employees who are able to go back to the office right away, to get them back to the office, and also to change duty stations for federal employees who may be located far away from where their work site is.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Lynn is a federal employee in Philly.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi, my name is Lynn Cox, and I wanted to update you all on information.
		And I know Ms. Friedman, you're saying that people have to return to work.
		The federal workforce, as of January 1st, already had to return to work and increase their days in the office.
		And those that had a current telework agreement, they also, you know, had to basically update their telework agreement.
		As you said, telework has been in place, I think it was 1998 when it was first reacted.
		It was a home life balance that was put into place, you know, for people to be able to work at home, but also take care of their children, all that.
		There are strict rules to telework, and I say something about taking care of children.
		They cannot take care of children or the elderly.
		They have to use their leave.
		So it is an enforced program.
		I think what happened during the COVID era was that it happened so fast and that people went right on that it's full telework.
		We're over the COVID era.
		Well, we're not over it, but people think we're over it.
		So what they're doing is returning back to work.
		January 1st, they had to return back to work and increase their days.
		So I think there's too many myths out there.
		The IG, the Inspector General, has already done when they were doing the full telework and found that there was more productivity of federal workers while on telework than in the office.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Lynn, do you do any telework as a federal employee?
unidentified		Okay, right now I'm a retired federal employee, but I'm also a union president.
		But when I was a, I've been retired for five years, yes, I did telework.
		I did telework two days a week.
		And I've been doing it since when I rejoined the federal workforce in 2000.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What union?
unidentified		So it is something that's been going on for years.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What union are you involved with?
unidentified		AFGE, American Federation of Employees, Government Employees.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's your view?
unidentified		So the one that Ms. Friedman said that has, you know, following the lawsuit against the government, yes.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's your view, Lynn, of what the federal workforce will look like at the end of the Trump administration?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you expect it to be significantly smaller or changed in any way?
unidentified		Yes.
		I have this big fear in the unions.
		Everybody has a fear that they are going to, I mean, I came in under the Reagan administration that did the same thing when they actually got rid of my agency when I was under the Reagan administration.
		And I believe the federal workforce is going to have another hit like that where they're going to be reduced.
		What I worry about is majority of federal workers do about 12 different jobs.
		So if you reduce the workforce, you're actually going to reduce the productivity and the services to the public.
		And that's where the public needs to be concerned because federal workers do not do one single job like people in private industry.
		They do like 12 different jobs.
		If I gave you my resume, you wouldn't believe what I did when I worked.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you mind saying what agency you worked at, Lynn?
unidentified		I worked at HUD.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Lynn, thanks for the call from Philadelphia.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Drew Friedman, what do you want to pick up on?
unidentified		She brings up a lot of really good points.
		I think what stood out to me was pointing out that telework has been around for much longer than the COVID-19 pandemic.
		She pointed to the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act and that telework was even around before then.
		I also think it's important to what she said about that federal employees have already started returning back to the office more than they were in the pandemic.
		The Biden administration had a memo in 2023 that was asking agencies to go to about a 50% in the office presence for employees who were eligible for telework.
		So in a way, the push towards returning to the office has been a key part for both the Biden administration and now the Trump administration.
		The way that they're going to implement it looks pretty different, but I would say that the Biden administration was trying to push toward an end goal as well of returning federal employees to the office at least part of the time.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To South Windsor, Connecticut, this is Terry, Republican.
		Good morning.
		Thanks for waiting.
unidentified		Good morning.
		So I just had a couple comments.
		The first is about the, excuse me, telework, and I understand it was pre-existing back in the 90s.
		But the bulk of those that remained at home when we were sequestered due to COVID, I would think would be required to come back to the office for productivity's sake.
		As a businessman for over 40 years, there is no replacement of face-to-face interaction on a regular basis, in my opinion.
		So I would prefer that to be done.
		And then in terms of the government efficiency effort that's going on, under the USC Code 901, the president has the latitude to employ his discretion, if you will, to reduce the number of agencies to consolidate to increase efficiency.
		And that is something I think even the federal workers, I understand you're in a vulnerable position because it's your livelihood.
		But frankly, when the private sector is motivated by profit, the government section is obviously not motivated by money.
		And I think that's a key metric that has been void in the government, not that it will turn to a profit, but the motivation is different.
		And I think as taxpayers, the focus should be on efficiency and ability to reduce any redundancy that exists.
		And every company of any significant size always goes through periods of a deep dive, if you will, for efficiency and for synergies that can be created by consolidation and so forth.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So thanks for the call from Connecticut.
		Drew Friedman, we haven't talked about the Department of Government efficiency yet.
		What should we know?
unidentified		So that is, of course, a big effort from the Trump administration.
		He had an executive order on Doge, and it's also going to be involved in the scaling down of the federal workforce size.
		I think one thing that is important to know from that is that the hiring freeze executive order that Trump signed mentioned Doge in it, and the hiring freeze is going to last for up to 90 days since Inauguration Day.
		And Doge is going to be involved with the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management in putting together a plan for reducing the size of the federal workforce and making it what they said would be more efficient.
		So it's definitely something where we're going to see a lot more of Doge involvement in some government matters.
		And, you know, I think that's it's hard to say exactly what that's going to look like right now, but they're definitely being named in a lot of different areas.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Back to that line for government workers, Catherine's in the Mountaineer State, Harper's Ferry.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Yes, I was a federal worker.
		I'm retired now, but I'm calling about the thing, the Schedule F.
		And when you hear Trump talk about it, it's pretty obvious.
		He says that he's trying to get away from, that he's trying to return to merit-based federal employment.
		And what he really wants to do is to put in all his loyalists and everything.
		And we already have a civil service that's merit-based.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What kind of work did you do as a federal employee?
unidentified		I worked for Internal Revenue Service.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Did you?
unidentified		I was a revenue officer, and I was also a computer specialist.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Did you ever have the chance to work remotely?
unidentified		They had it back when I was there.
		They had a chance to work remotely, but it was very few people at the time that were allowed to work remotely.
		That was when I was a revenue officer.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's your view on remote work for federal employees today in 2024?
unidentified		I think it should be allowed.
		But I think we have to watch out for the Schedule F stuff, too.
		I mean, they're trying to put in all sorts of Trump loyalists, too.
		And that's going to have a big effect on everything else that happens, too.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's Catherine in West Virginia?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What more should we know about Schedule F?
unidentified		I think I'll say it again that during the Biden administration, they had this final rule trying to prevent Schedule F from coming back.
		The regulations essentially confirmed that career federal employees in policy-type positions do have civil service protections.
		And it also created a, or ensured that they would have an appeals process if those protections started to be removed.
		That regulatory process that the Biden administration went through took about six months for them to finalize that regulation.
		So it is, in theory, something that the Trump administration could reverse if they were to go through the regulatory process as well.
		But that is sort of something that's going to at least slow down the Schedule F efforts.
		The executive order was kind of just the first step in the process of that.
		And I think it's going to take time to actually see any of that come to light, really.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to try to get one more call.
		Susan's been waiting in Lady Lake, Florida, Independent.
		Susan, you're on with Drew Friedman.
unidentified		Susan, you're with us.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You got to stick by your phone.
		Then we'll get Rhonda in from New Jersey.
		Democrat, go ahead.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, America.
		When you were talking about the telework, it's telemarketing.
		I've done it all my life.
		I sold, I started at the age of 30.
		I quit at, well, I retired at the age of 62 because I adopted my granddaughter, so I know all about it.
		And as far as monitoring calls, they know every call you're on and how long you're on it and when you sign off or on.
		So there's no way of not doing your job if you're working from home because I've done it all my life.
		But what I'm taught, what I called it about this project 2025, which is available to everyone on YouTube, this is in their plan.
		They hired all these Trump supporters to replace the federal workers.
		It's all there.
		If you want to know what's going to happen to America, it's in Project 2025, available to you on YouTube.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Rhonda in New Jersey, Project 2025.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How much of what we've seen this week was in that document that got so much attention during the later months of the campaign in 2024?
unidentified		There definitely were some similarities.
		Schedule F is one of them that is something that was kind of discussed in Project 2025 and one that Trump has said that he has kind of had that desire for something like Schedule F for a long time.
		So there are elements for sure in Project 2025.
		It is a very huge document, so it's hard to say exactly what's lining up, but there's definitely similarities.
		Drew Friedman is a reporter for the Federal News Network.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's federalnewsnetwork.com.
		You can follow her on X at Dfriedman, W-F-E-D.
		Appreciate your time.
		Come back again.
unidentified		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		About 25 minutes left this morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		In that time, we will have more of your calls open forum.
unidentified		Your public policy, political issues, anything you want to talk about.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Numbers are on your screen.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead and start dialing in and we will get to those calls right after the break.
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		And at 5:15 p.m. Eastern, sociology professors Chris Benner and Manuel Pasteur discuss the discovery of lithium in California's Salton Sea region and the role of the mineral in the electric vehicle industry with the authors of the book Charging Forward.
		At 8 p.m. Eastern, Gib Kerr argues that Robert E. Lee has been unfairly canceled in America, including at Washington and Lee University, where Lee served as president from 1865 to 1870 in his book, On Cancel Robert E. Lee.
		Then at 10 p.m. Eastern on afterwards, Democratic Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, author of It Takes Chutzpah, shares his thoughts on having the tenacity to pursue progressive goals through strong alliances, hard work, and focus.
		Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Here's where we are in Capitol Hill today.
		The House returns at 10 a.m. Eastern.
		The Senate returns at 10 a.m. Eastern.
		You can watch them respectively on C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2.
		If you head over to C-SPAN 3 at 10 a.m. Eastern, you'll see the confirmation hearing for Agricultural Secretary nominee Brooke Rollins.
		That you can also watch on c-span.org and the free C-SPAN video app.
		Hope you stay with us today as we continue to cover all these confirmation hearings and, of course, the floor votes in the Senate as well, those coming up as they happen and perhaps more expected today.
		In the meantime, your phone calls for the next 20 minutes on the Washington Journal.
unidentified		Lines for Democrats, 202-748-8000.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about?
		This is Andy in Phoenix.
		Republican, good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Good morning, John.
		I was hoping to catch Ms. Friedman and share my comment with her, but it was on the obviously the remote work from home for federal workers.
		I'm a retired federal worker myself, 27 years.
		Never couldn't even think about remote homework with the job I had.
		Anyways, what kind of work was it, Andy?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Can you say?
unidentified		Well, it was a three-letter agency, and it started with the B.
		And anyways, that's about it.
		BOP, you could probably figure that one out.
		Gotcha, Paul.
		Yes, yes.
		So there was no remote work from home for us.
		We had to show up every day and do the job.
		And my only concern is with remote work.
		I just don't think it's as efficient.
		I was watching a hearing on your network with the former IRS guy who negotiated the deal with Biden for 29,000 IRS agents to stay home till 2029 remote work.
		And he happened to call the IRS that day, and he was on hold.
		When his questioning came up, he was already on hold for an hour and a half.
		So I don't know how effective that is.
		And my experience with not only government remote work from home, but private sector as well.
		Over the years, before all this remote work from home, it was a lot more effective, a lot more efficient.
		I've run into problems with private sector when I want to make a call, and it's just not as efficient.
		So, and I must say, the unions for federal workers, I was always bewildered why we need a union in federal government.
		There are so many protections for federal employees.
		It's almost impossible to get fired unless you're a really, really screw-up, so to say.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Andy, was there a union for the Bureau of Prisons?
unidentified		Yes, yes.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You didn't join?
unidentified		And I was a member early on, but through my career, I realized you really don't need union protection in the government because of all the protections you already have.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Why did you join the bank?
unidentified		Ones that wanted to be part of the union were, we had a name for them, Blops.
		And that's all I wanted to share.
		But Clay Higgins on the phone for an hour and a half with the Social Security Administration, that's just terrible.
		Downside.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go back and watch that hearing at cspan.org.
		Andy, appreciate the call from Arizona.
		This is James in the Granite State in Kingston, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		Glad to get through.
		I think as far as the jobs go with the unions and all that, the gentleman earlier before me touched on a lot of points that I'd like to say, but it's sad that anyone loses their job.
		Unfortunately, I think there's going to be some job losses here.
		But what about the average Joe that loses his job?
		And there's no one there for us as far as it's a great job if you can get a, of course, a government job.
		And I understand that.
		Some of your richest zip codes are around the Virginia prevents Pennsylvania area.
		And I understand lifting the middle class and all.
		But once again, they are union.
		They are good paying jobs.
		Like the gentleman said, it's very hard to release these people if they're messed up.
		And so I think there might be some fat there.
		I hate to see anyone lose their job, but we don't have these nice pensions and whatnot that some of these people have.
		We get these 401s where it really aren't worth a whole lot, you know, and whatnot.
		So once again, I don't hate to see anyone lose their job, sir, but I just think that I think the unions, maybe they've come and gone as far as different things.
		I mean, they live large than the average Joe out here, and we're actually paying the freight.
		So have a nice day, and thank you for hearing me out.
		Bye now.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Bowie, Maryland, Michael, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Okay, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I'm a federal worker.
		I work for the Department of Homeland Security, and I've been full telework since COVID.
		And I just wanted to express how much work that we do that we couldn't do in the office.
		I mean, I pull maybe 10, 11-hour days, especially when you don't have to commute to D.C. and then back, but you definitely work way more.
		I'm taking calls.
		I'm going to leave right now.
		And I'm taking calls on my cell phones.
		I'm working with applicants.
		And so telework is just not this thing where you're just sitting at home and it's, you know, you're just, you know, not doing anything.
		Like more is expected of you, and you do way more hours.
		Like I'll go pick up the kids and I come home and I'm back in the office for another three, four hours, pulling way over eight.
		And I could never do that if we were in the office.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Michael, when you say you're taking calls from applicants, what do you mean?
unidentified		The job that I work for, we deal with applicants.
unidentified		I didn't want to get too specific, but we applicants apply, and then we adjudicate these cases.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
		What do you think's in store here?
		Do you foresee being able to stay working from home, Michael, or are you going to go back?
unidentified		I think I will.
		I think we'll go back.
		I've seen a lot of emails recently.
		I'm going to leave, like I said, but I've seen a lot of emails from my work phone about the DEIA stuff is over.
		You know, anybody, if you even hear about that, you know, contact this email and we'll get it reported or removed.
		And so I foresee, my job is well, we do a lot of travel.
		And so I'm just not sure completely if we'll stay or we'll start going in maybe three, four days a week.
		I'm just not sure.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Michael and Bowie, Maryland, Tom, Rochester, Washington, Independent.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning to the West Coast.
unidentified		Thank you for taking my call.
		This is, I think, the third time I'm calling in, and I really appreciate your show.
		You're nice and fair and balanced.
		But I would like to point out that this isn't a 2025 thing or anything like that.
		But, you know, Trump was elected, and this is almost like either a revolution or a civil war with no shots fired.
		And right now, we're in a reconstruction mode, just like after the Civil War.
		And I believe it's needed.
		You know, a lot of people are upset about these not working from home and all this kind of stuff, but this is part of a big purge that's going on.
		I believe 25% of the federal government through all the agencies are going to be laid off, and it's needed.
		You know, that's how this money is going to be saved.
		The federal government has just got inflated and all that.
		And I just think people ought to look at it that this is more of a reconstruction or a realignment or a I hate to use the word purge because it's got dirty words, but this is a good thing.
		This is a clean out.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Tom in Washington.
		Gene, Palm Coast, Florida, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thanks for the call.
		I agree with a fellow from Washington, Tom.
		I think he said he was from Washington.
		As per Constitution, I voted for my wife and I voted for Donald J. Trump.
		And the first thing that came to our mind about him, of all the personal stuff that happened, that's in his personal life.
		He wasn't even in politics.
		He had nothing to do with the government.
		In fact, he was a big donator to the Democrats as well as the Republicans.
		And the number one thing, accountability, as per Constitution, limited government, fiscal responsibility, and term limits.
		And people could classify that, like that gentleman said, 2025 project.
		I never read out anything about it.
		I don't really care about it.
		I think it was a tool to weaponize against and try to bring Donald J. Trump down.
		But we got to get back to what the Constitution is founded by our forefathers, what they were saying about our government today.
		It's just, as the gentleman said, it's inflated, overinflated.
		And I'm a retired school teacher.
		So, and I've been enjoying the fruits of my labor.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What'd you teach, Gene?
unidentified		Industrial arts.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What grades?
unidentified		High school and middle school.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How are the kids today, Gene?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are you optimistic?
unidentified		I have been in the classroom for 21 years.
		So I've never had really any problem with the students.
		They were always industrious and they always wanted to get their hands dirty.
		They wanted to realize what working with your hands, learning skills and trades, and that's what we're losing that.
		We don't have vocational schooling to teach trades.
		We're losing a lot.
		That's why we have a lot of, this is related to immigration.
		A lot of the immigration comes here to work.
		And if you go around and you see a lot of the employees working, the construction, there are a lot of Hispanic folk.
		And they're very nice.
		I've spoken with them.
		Some of them can talk good English.
		Some of them can't.
		But we do have a problem where you have to worry about getting hired workers in our country to get things done.
		So I don't know what the real answer is, but I agree with the fellow, Tom, that we are overinflated.
		I never used the word purge, but limited government and fiscal responsibility.
		And of course, term limits.
		This all comes from a legislation.
		It's the legislation that make the tax codes and the laws.
		And they attack Trump about his taxes and stuff.
		And he told him, he said, you people in Congress make the tax laws and the codes.
		He said, I just followed them.
		So, you know, there's a lot of pushback.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Appreciate the call from Florida.
		Diane is waiting in New Jersey.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just have a few words to say.
		In this administration, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.
		Have a wonderful day.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Wilbert, Culpepper, Virginia.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, John.
		I would love for C-SPAN to have a segment on felonies across the country because we need to open this up because some felonies across the country cannot get post office jobs, police officer jobs.
		But the American people elect a felon.
		So we need to change the laws in this country to irregular citizen that came out of prison can get decent jobs.
		This is what we need to start talking about because it's unfair to regular people across the country who served their time, made a crime, and cannot get decent jobs across this country.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you know anyone personally who's encountered that situation?
unidentified		Yeah, myself, over 25 years ago.
		I did something.
		I had to go in serve my time, but I got it.
		I got my voting rights back.
		But this is an issue that you're talking about.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How many times did you serve, Wilbert?
unidentified		No more than about five years.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What was the mind saying what the conviction was for?
unidentified		It was an assault charge.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And what was the first job you applied for when you got out that you were not able to get?
unidentified		Well, really, I used to work on Capitol Hill.
		I was in Congress.
		But due to my activities, I had to leave Congress.
		And I worked for the U.S. House Representative and the United States Senate.
		But due to my drinking over the years, it led me to get locked up.
		I would just put it that way.
		But John, I think this is an issue that the American people need to come to grip with now because we need to change the laws.
		We got a felon up in the White House, but the American people can't get decent jobs.
		And I would love to hear when you answer when some of the Republicans call in over the line, ask them, did you voted for Trump?
		And how will you feel if a felon can't get a job across the country?
		I'd love to hear from them.
		Now they're going to try to have it both ways.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We'll take the suggestion.
		That's Wilbert in Culpeper, Virginia.
		This is Robert in Cedar Key, Florida, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, John.
		Yep, I just wanted to make a few comments.
		I was a lifelong Democrat and recently went independent.
		I did vote for Donald Trump this time, and I'm pretty happy with what I see so far.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Why, Robert?
unidentified		What makes you happy about what you've seen so far?
		Well, I think they're on the right track with our economy, with the flood at the border.
		They're trying to take care of that problem.
		And also, our infrastructure looks like they're going to do quite a bit there.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Robert in Florida.
		This is Arthur Utica, Michigan.
		Republican, good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		Yeah, I just want to make a couple of comments, you know, and how many federal money is going to these NGOs, you know, or anybody other than them, where the money goes.
		And also about making a comment.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What NGO are you most worried about, Erkenster?
unidentified		Well, I don't know.
		I hear on the news, you know, I just get what from the news, you know, on NGOs.
		And I mean, there's a lot of money being spent there, according to the media, see.
		And also, I'd like to know, you know, about all these pardons.
		You know, to be pardoned, don't you have to do a crime to be pardoned?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So are you talking about the preemptive pardons?
unidentified		Yes, well, all the pardons, you know, like he Biden pardoned everybody, you know, before 12 o'clock, his family.
		And, you know, I just wondered, is he saying they did a crime?
		If they didn't do no crime, then why do you pardon them?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Arthur in Michigan.
		This is Kathleen in Satellite Beach, Florida.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		I was calling about grocery prices.
		Ted Liu, the representative from California, reported on his, I think, Blue Sky account that 75% of the farm workers haven't showed up there in Bakersfield.
		And Bakersfield grows all kinds of carrots, tomatoes.
		They grow almonds.
		And if the people aren't showing up to pick the crops, they're going to rot in the fields and our grocery prices are going to go sky high.
		For me, I'm going to start buying and stocking up on frozen vegetables and canned goods.
		And I'm just really worried about it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Kathleen.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Alan, New York, Republican.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Not the Republican, but what I'm calling about, I'm a Democrat and retired federal employee.
		I must have called the wrong number.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I'll tell you what, Alan, just to keep it fair for the folks who do call in on the right line, let me go to a Republican Jeff in Fair Play, Missouri.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, America.
		What a great feeling it is to have a president who actually has his senses about him and has a game plan.
		Joe Biden was a complete blasphemous fool.
		I don't think that he ever had a foreign policy other than to demolish the American way.
		Flooding the border, you know, ending our pipelines, joining the Paris Accord, along with the WHO, silencing the Republicans on Twitter.
		There are so many things that the FBI has done that's crooked.
		The weaponization of our government by the Bidens and the Democrats is over.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Jeffy, you talk about the American way.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What is the American way?
unidentified		Hard work, love your family, love your God, love your country.
unidentified		Not necessarily in that order, but we do have to have sovereignty, we do have to have borders, and we need to start spending our money at home.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Jeff in Missouri.
		The House set to come here in just a minute or two.
		They are in at 10 a.m., so is the Senate.
		You can watch the Senate over on C-SPAN 2 on C-SPAN 3.
		It's another confirmation hearing for the Agricultural Secretary nominee, so plenty to choose from.
		We will go to the House floor when they do come in.
		In the meantime, this is Jude, California Independent.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
		On your first segment, you showed a clip of Marjorie Taylor Greene, and I agree 100% on everything she said.
		And as far as Mexico goes, Mexico has taken a big jump on the United States for many years.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Brenda in Charlotte, North Carolina.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Well, good morning, and thank you for taking my call because I've been trying to get on C-SPAN for a long time.
		And I hope you let me talk for a while because sometimes they cut me off.
		I'll tell you what, Brenda, the House is coming in soon.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So go ahead and make your statement, but we may have to go when the House comes in.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Well, I don't know what is wrong with the American people to elect Trump again because he's already signed a thing to cut people's Social Security.
		What is older people going to live on?
		I'm 78 years old, figures to be 79, and I have to depend on my little Social Security check and things.
		And he's going to do everything.
		He's going to destroy this country.
		And Juan is that old musk guy who gave him $3 million for his campaign.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Why is he a bit more than $3 million, Brenda, reportedly?
unidentified		Yes, it was.
		It was on the news and everything because I've been writing down everything that been up there that Trump said and that guy and everything else.
		And Trump, if people remember when he didn't get elected last time, he said if he ever gets elected again, the American people are going to regret it.
		And why does he have the right to change the name of Mexico?
		Because Mexico, they are proud people.
		I have managed hotels and restaurants at the hotels.
		Most of my employees was Mexican.
		And Mexican people will work and things for $3 or $4 an hour, but the American people have to have more than that.
		And what would these farmers have if they didn't have Mexican people picking this stuff?

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