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Jan. 24, 2025 07:00-09:01 - CSPAN

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Washington Journal 01/24/2025

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unidentified		Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, your calls and comments live.
		And then Arkansas Republican Congressman Bruce Westerman, chair of the Natural Resources Committee, talks about the Trump administration's energy, environment, and climate policies and other congressional news of the day.
		And Max Steyer from the Partnership for Public Service will discuss President Trump's executive actions aimed at overhauling the federal workforce.
		Also, Dean Ball, a research fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, will give an update on President Trump's artificial intelligence infrastructure investment.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal is next.
		Join the conversation.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Friday, January 24th.
		As promised during the campaign, President Trump has signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship, revoking the right that any child born in the United States would be a citizen regardless of the parent's legal status.
		However, yesterday, a judge in Washington state ordered a temporary stop, calling the executive order, quote, blatantly unconstitutional.
		Give us a call this morning to share your opinion on that.
		If you support ending birthright citizenship, call 202748-8000.
		If you oppose the ban, it's 202-748-8001.
		And if you're unsure, 202-748-8002.
		You can send a text to 202-748-8003, include your first name in your city-state.
		And you can post your comments on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
		Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
		We'll start with a portion from Monday in the Oval Office where President Trump is signing that executive order, and then he gave a few comments to the press.
unidentified		This next order relates to the definition of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment of the United States.
		That's a good one.
		Birthright.
		That's a big one.
		What about that one in the court?
		That one is likely.
		Could be.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We think we have good grounds, but you could be right.
unidentified		I mean, you'll find out.
unidentified		It's ridiculous.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We're the only country in the world that does this with birthright, as you know.
unidentified		And it's just absolutely ridiculous.
		But, you know, we'll see.
		We think we have very good grounds.
		Certain people have wanted to do this for decades.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is what the Washington Post says.
		It says, What is birthright citizenship and which countries have it?
		President Donald Trump has falsely claimed the U.S. is alone in offering citizenship as a birthright.
		More than 30 countries do, but some have rolled it back.
		And this is from the Washington Examiner.
		Federal judge temporarily halts Trump birthright citizenship order nationwide.
		This is a federal judge in Seattle.
		His name is Judge John Coffenor.
		He's a Reagan appointee.
		He called the order blatantly unconstitutional.
		Quote, frankly, I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order.
		And here is the Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown yesterday on why he joined other attorneys in filing this lawsuit.
unidentified		Are thrilled that the judge issued a temporary restraining order directing the United States government to take no further action in enforcing and implementing the unconstitutional and un-American executive order attempting to eliminate birthright citizenship in America.
unidentified		This is step one, but to hear the judge from the bench say that in his 40 years as a judge, he has never seen something so blatantly unconstitutional sets the tone for the seriousness of this effort.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, in response to the judge's order to halt, that's a two-week halt until this plays out in court.
		This is USAI Today is reporting that Donald Trump has said, quote, Obviously, we'll appeal it on the birthright citizenship restraining order.
		He said this yesterday on Thursday, and he says, obviously, we'll repeal it, we'll appeal it.
		Sorry, they put it before a certain judge in Seattle, I guess, right?
		And there's no surprises with that judge.
		We are taking your calls this morning.
		Our question is about birthright citizenship, that attempt to ban it.
		If you support the president's action on that, it's 202-748-8000.
		If you're against it, it's 202-748-8001.
		And if you're not sure, we have that line at 202-748-8002.
		We'll start with Harold in Melbourne, Florida on the line for opposing.
		Hi, Harold.
unidentified		Good morning.
		The reason I oppose this is that this is obviously in the Constitution of the United States under the 14th Amendment.
		And the President of the United States is supposed to uphold and defend our Constitution.
		Here he's placing himself above the Constitution, stating that as the President, he can change the rules himself with an executive order.
		It's obviously unconstitutional, yet he doesn't seem to care about the Constitution.
		And I find this abhorrent as an American citizen, that somebody that's supposed to defend and uphold the Constitution would ignore it and blatantly go against it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Harold, would you be in favor of changing the Constitution?
unidentified		In this sense.
		I have no problem with the American citizens or legislature amending the Constitution.
		But when the Constitution is as it is, we are a country of law and order.
		And I think we have to go with the laws as they are until we were to change the laws in a lawful manner, not through an executive order, which is, I mean, it's just blows my mind that people watch this, shrug their shoulders and see this autocratic dictatorial tendency of Trump to just say,
		whatever I say is the right way and to hell with the Constitution.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Harold.
		Well, let's take a look at what the Constitution actually says.
		This is the 14th Amendment, Section 1.
		All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
		No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
		Here's Joe in LA J, Georgia support.
		Go ahead, Joe.
unidentified		Yes, I've been watching and calling him the C-SPAN for 30 years.
		You all do a fantastic job.
		I just want to say I totally support the ban.
		I support everything Trump's doing.
		I think he's the best leader in world history.
		I think we'll have the best stock market, the best economy in the history of the world.
		So I'm so fired up for Donald Trump, I'm having a hard time sleeping.
		But I think happy days to hear again.
		That's my theme song.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is Rory in Rancho Santa Margarita, California on the line for oppose.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		I oppose mainly because for practical reasons, if it becomes illegal, that's one thing.
		But if things stay that way, I believe Trump is going to make American-born babies stay here, but their parents forced to go back to their home country.
		I also believe if their parents choose to take their babies with them, there's going to have to be something set up for when they're 18 to come back to America.
		In other words, the whole thing really rests on chain migration.
		They don't want the babies here because then you get other relatives all the way down along the road with this.
		So you may have a bunch of orphanages where the mother will have to determine whether the baby is left here as an American or goes back and tries to come back 20 years later.
		That's what I'm stating.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Rory.
		And this is Glenn in Lakeland, Florida, also opposed.
		Hi, Glenn.
unidentified		How you doing?
		Good.
		Yeah, I oppose this situation because we all know what this is about.
		This is all about trying to rid this country of Hispanics, whether you're legally born or whether you're not legally born.
		And all he's doing is tying this up in the courts and going from the Supreme Court and lower courts and everything else just to make sure that at some point you're going to have enough Republican judges in place that are going to go with his idea of what he wants to do.
		But here's my real question.
		Please give me time to talk.
		Here's my situation.
		We're talking about immigration here.
		We're talking about getting rid of all the Hispanic people from this country, whether you're legal or illegal, legal or illegal, including what we're trying to do here.
		But what I never hear, or I never hear nobody talk about, is the amount of white, European, Canadian people that live in this country that are illegally here and they are not citizens.
		There's a lot of those people here, but you never hear about them.
		You don't ever hear what the numbers are.
		It's all about brown people and black people.
		So when are we going to start talking about the illegal Europeans and white people in this country?
		Because apparently they're not being targeted to be sent back to their homeland the way that Hispanics and blacks, like Haitians and Jamaicans are.
		So when are we going to start talking about that?
		When are the numbers going to come up?
		Because apparently, if you're going to make, if he's trying to make this happen, make sure that everybody that's illegal here that either birthright citizenship, what he's trying to do, or anybody that's illegal here, whether they came in a plan from Europe or whether they came from Canada across the border, why aren't they being targeted?
		Because when you start making all these moves, they need to leave too.
		I don't like the fact that he's trying to do this.
		But if you're going to do it, do it the right way.
		Everybody has to go.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Got it.
		And let's take a look at a portion of that executive order.
		It says this.
		The privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States.
		One, when that person's mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person's birth.
		Or two, when that person's mother's presence in the U.S. at the time of said person's birth was lawful but temporary, such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the visa waiver program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa.
		And the father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person's birth.
		You can read the entire thing at whitehouse.gov if you'd like to review that.
		And we'll talk to Helen next in Long Beach, California, line for support.
unidentified		Yes, I support it.
		And there was a person who called earlier who talked about how Trump was not upholding the Constitution.
		This was written in here, and we have to follow it.
		But the reason Trump was elected is because he doesn't follow the Constitution.
		He's an autocrat.
		And people knew that.
		We know he's an autocrat.
		We know he's not representing the Constitution, but he's representing the will of the people.
		And I guess I'm going to clarify is that our country under the Biden administration with the open borders and the preoccupation with Ukraine and so forth lost its legitimacy.
		The Constitution has lost its legitimacy.
		And people don't care that much about the Constitution as they care about the quality of life and they care about the future of their country.
		So Trump was elected because he's not going to respect the Constitution as we expect him to do, as prior experience has taught us, but because he's going to take action on what we see as a gross wrongdoing done to us by the last administration, who just flagrantly disregarded the will of the people.
		We are a republic.
		Our politicians are our servants who represent the will of us.
		So Helena wants to do that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I've got a question for you about that.
		Would you be okay with the next president, let's see, after the four years, if it's a Democrat or a Republican, the next president also disregarding the Constitution and just following what he or she thinks is the will of the people?
		What do you think of that?
		Or is this just specific to President Trump?
unidentified		It'll never be specific again.
		It will never be because the precedent's been set.
		And we have had autocrats in the past.
		They've always claimed national emergencies in the interest of the health, safety, and welfare of the public.
		We have had governments and presidential administrations who have disregarded the Constitution.
		So it's not that it's just popped up out of nowhere.
		This has been in motion for a while.
		So, well, what I'm saying is we don't, the Constitution doesn't hold weight as it did before.
		It doesn't matter as much.
		We need to take action.
		This is a man who promised to take action, and he was elected.
		And that's what the people want.
		Now, this is a dangerous road that we're going to be going down.
		As far as the Constitution, it still stands, but it doesn't stand very well.
		As I said, it doesn't have legitimacy anymore.
		But we are going down the road of autocracy, and we have to be wary of a dictatorship evolving into an empire-emperor dictatorship.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But it sounds to me that you welcome that path towards autocracy.
unidentified		Is that I voted for it?
		I voted for it.
		Many people voted for it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But then you said we have to be careful, careful of what?
unidentified		Yeah, we have to have when the crisis has resolved, which is what Trump is dealing with as an autocrat, when the crisis have resolved, then we may restore the Constitution.
unidentified		That's our hope.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		That's our hope.
		But is it President Trump then that decides when that crisis is?
		Because I think anybody could say, well, I still think prices are too high, or I still think my quality of life is not as good as it could be.
unidentified		Well, that's a slippery slope logic.
		What I'm saying is it will be restored when the people want it restored.
		And that's the difference in America.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Helen.
		Here's Randy in Millington, Michigan on the line for oppose.
		Hi, Randy.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		I'd like to start by thanking you, and along with all the other men and women it takes to bring this program to us.
		You're doing a great nation, the nation a great service.
		I oppose it because you start with this one part of the Constitution and eliminate it.
		When the next president comes in, maybe he'll decide that we can finally put an end to these shootings in the schools by eliminating the right to have guns.
		You can't just open up the Constitution and say, well, I'm just going to pull out this part of the Constitution.
		The person before me, you want to throw it out.
		There's no reviving the Constitution once you burn it because you've got 300 million people and you only had 70 million of them, 70-some-odd million vote for this criminal we have now as a president.
		And it shows you when you put a criminal in charge of a country, criminal activity just seems to flourish in a nation.
		You talk about one bad moon rising.
		We've got it rising right now in the White House.
		I thank you for my time, and you have a great day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Chris in Milford, Michigan, support.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Chris.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just wanted to say, I don't agree with that last caller.
		He says that we have a criminal in the White House.
		Was he charged?
		He wasn't charged with those 34 counts.
		He was not found guilty of those charges, first of all.
		Another thing I believe in the ban because people come to this country need to come here legally.
		They come here legally, then they're able to, then that baby will have citizenship.
		But if they're breaking the law, they're illegal, so therefore they don't deserve, that child should not deserve status as being here, as being a citizen of this country.
		That's what I believe.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Chris, I've got a question for you.
		And that is, I understand what you said about breaking the law coming illegally.
		This also applies to people that are here legally, but temporarily.
		So let's say you're doing, you're on a student visa, you're studying at a university, you get married to another student who is here temporarily and you have a child.
unidentified		Do you think that child should have citizenship or no?
		No, I still don't because they're not a citizen of this country.
		Their parents are not citizens of this country.
		That's what I believe.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So it should only be citizens and not Green Party holders.
unidentified		People that are living here full-time that are here legally.
		It should be anything else to me, in my opinion, doesn't matter if you're a student or not.
		It matters if you live here.
		You come here legally and you have a child, and yes, your kid will have citizenship.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's hear from Ann.
		You're done.
		Ann in Middletown, Connecticut.
		Go ahead, Ann.
		What do you think?
unidentified		Hi.
		I just want to say that this birthright citizenship, the 14th Amendment, I'm a retired American history teacher, and it was made after the Civil War.
		The 14th Amendment got rid of slavery, and the 14th Amendment says that if you're born here, you're a citizen.
		This was made because in the Dred Scott decision, which was one of the causes of the Civil War, they said that they tried to say that even if a slave was born here, he wasn't a citizen.
		So that's the situation.
		Now, I think that Trump is trying to get rid of this birthright citizenship because I think it's being abused.
		I think that people are coming here from other countries just in time to deliver babies so that they'll be American citizens and the American taxpayers are putting the bill for the rest of their lives.
		Okay, so this birthright citizenship, the way it's being used now, is not what the forefathers intended.
		Our forefathers, I think, are turning over in their graves over the way it's being abused.
		I think during Trump's last term, if I remember correctly, they raided some Chinese, the Chinese were coming here and just having birthing houses where they Chinese were coming here and having babies just to have citizens, to have citizenship.
		So the bottom line is I think something has to be done because I think the only reason why Trump is putting this forth, you're right, it's not what the Constitution says, but I think the reason why he's putting it forth is because I think this is really being abused.
		You know, I think people are coming here just to have babies, just to have citizenship.
		I think I agree with that other guy that if you're here legally, then you should have a citizenship.
		Or maybe, you know, if they're there like here for a year, living here for a year or something, but this is going to be determined by the Supreme Court in the end.
		So whatever the Supreme Court decides, that's going to be the final answer.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, and this is Representative Randy Weber of Texas, a Republican.
		He agrees with you, and he says, here's the truth.
		The 14th Amendment was never intended to serve as a blank check for illegal immigration.
		It was never intended to grant citizenship to the children of people who broke our laws to enter the country and birthright citizenships.
		And this is Representative Jimmy Panetta.
		Checks and balances are the cornerstone of our democracy.
		A federal judge has rightly blocked the unconstitutional executive order attempting to undermine birthright citizenship.
		I strongly oppose this EO and will continue to defend our Constitution.
		And Daryl in Altadena, California.
		Good morning, Darrell.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I've been watching you for years.
		I liked your look.
		Unfortunately, I'm an evacuee from Altadena.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so where are you now, Darrell?
unidentified		Well, fortunately, I have insurance, and I had to run with my wife on my back out of my house because we had about a half an hour notice to get out as the fire was coming down on us where I live in Altadena.
		My wife was unconscious, semi-comatose, and we barely made it out.
		I was able to get to the hospital and then ended up in Cheritos with my sister-in-law.
		Then my wife expired three days later.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I'm so sorry to hear that, Darryl.
unidentified		Yeah, but I just want to say I really like the way you look now, and you're a little bit more palliable to me.
		But just like the lady before me, the 14th Amendment was forced to make slaves citizens.
		It was not for these people.
		I retired from Maui County.
		Well, I went to another job after Ali County.
		50 years ago, we would get patients in from everywhere, known to man, mostly from Mexico, just to have a baby so they could have a kid that was born in America.
		And just like the previous caller, we had Chinese birthing centers.
		People abusing the system, which it was never meant to do.
		They need to have a constitutional amendment to amend that, not to be used like it's being used now for people that come in here illegally that have no right to be here to start off with.
		They're taking all our everything that is American citizens that I fought for in the Army in 1966 to use that have no right to use it.
		It's just not right.
		And people think that people think that Trump is a crook.
		Just look at the Biden crime family.
		You've got to be kidding me.
		Why would he pardon all those people if he thinks that Biden was such a good person for that other caller?
		And I'm just embarrassed about it.
		I'm mixed heritage.
		I'm embarrassed about veterans and people of color that want to support people using all of our assets that have no right to use them.
		It's just not right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Daryl.
		And have you heard what happened to your?
		Were you living in a house or an apartment?
		Have you heard what's happened?
unidentified		If you see the, it's amazing.
		You know, we still have the National Guard still up here.
		I went, my home survived, but all around me is gone.
		It's just amazing how the fire went.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, we wish you the best, Darrell.
		And sorry that you're going through that.
		Jim in Florida, good morning.
		What do you think about birthright citizenship?
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
		And the last two callers have executed right.
		I think actually it was in 1918.
		I've been binging on the C-SPAN the last couple of days.
		And you had one of your, just like you, have the picture of the Chinese guy.
		It was a Chinese, the irony in this thing, whose parents came here, had a child, and went back to China, came back, and the Supreme Court found that, yes, he was a American citizen.
		Now, things change.
		Again, back at the, but we have, like the lady said, birthright citizenship.
		You know, China's been sending their citizens here to have an American baby as you get one and go back.
		And then who knows all the spies that are going to be setting up for national security.
		And that may not be the case, but birthright citizenship.
		I can't believe the Democrats, particularly, or any American could stand for this.
		You have hospitals.
		We lived in San Diego for a while.
		We have hospitals along the southern border where they come in hours before they have a baby to have an American child.
		I read a news article at one time in my local paper.
		You had a woman farm worker in this country who had eight kids.
		And when Helena came through, the only thing she was, because she couldn't do the work because the fields were sort of destroyed or whatever, but she had eight kids.
		How could she be a farm worker and have seven or eight kids?
		And she was surviving on what her kids got from the American government for chips, chip, and wick, and all the other stuff that we handed out to these people.
		This has got to stop.
		It's amazing.
		Any American could be for this.
		And I'm a veteran.
		The guy before me was a veteran.
		And it's ridiculous that we, as veterans, we wouldn't just go after these people.
		And these American people got to get out more and learn about this.
		Birthright tourism.
		Think about it.
		People coming here.
		And our southern border, overrun, where they almost had to shut down her emergency room where these people were showing up and having babies just to get American citizenship.
		They come across the border every month, collect their check, and then go back to Mexico.
		You've got to wise up, America.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Jim, just to clarify what you were talking about before, the Supreme Court upheld the right of birthright citizenship.
		It was 1898.
		It ruled that Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco, but had been denied re-entry to the United States after a trip abroad because of his Chinese descent, was a U.S. citizen.
		So this is now Chris in Southbridge, Massachusetts.
		Good morning, Chris.
		What do you think?
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just wanted to say that I think they finally got on the awareness of it all.
		I think Trump writes all these executive orders so that people become aware of them because there's been control by the Democratic Party over the last four years to go in one direction, i.e. Schumer.
		And so now he's opening up this issue that's never been truly solved and needs to be revisited like a lot of stuff within the Constitution.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Hello?
		Yes.
		Yes.
		We're listening.
		Is that what you wanted to say?
unidentified		Yeah, I think it has to do with awareness because I don't think the Senate would have bought up the House in a million years.
		Now they have to.
		Now they have to.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's take a look at Republican Representative Brian Babbin of Texas.
		He has legislation that would codify Trump's birthright citizenship executive order into law.
		Here's a portion from yesterday.
unidentified		President Trump has made it clear that restoring fairness to our immigration system and defending the true intent of the 14th Amendment are central to his vision of making America great again.
		His historic executive order to end birthright citizenship marks a critical step forward.
		And now with the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025, we can solidify these reforms into lasting law and codify them.
		This bill is quite simple.
		Let me share with you the criteria for automatic citizenship.
		Citizenship will be granted only to children born in the United States with at least one parent who is, one, a U.S. citizen or national.
		Number two, a lawful permanent resident.
		And number three, a lawful resident who is serving in the military.
		This is about ensuring the citizenship, a cornerstone of our national identity.
		It is protected, respected, and aligned with the principles upon which this country was built.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And back to the phones now on birthright citizenship.
		Do you oppose the ban on birthright citizenship?
		Do you support it?
		And here's Anita in Fort Payne, Alabama.
		Hi, Anita.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning.
		I have a solution to this.
		All the people that oppose what Donald Trump is trying to do, they need to take all of these people home with them.
		They need to feed them.
		They need to pay their doctor bills and all of this stuff if they're so against what Donald Trump's trying to do.
		Let me tell you something.
		I will soon be 70 years old.
		I was raised in a cotton patch working like a man.
		I have worked like a man all of my life.
		Now it's my time to sit and reap the benefits of all the work I've done.
		I can go across the street to Walmart and there'll be a Mexican lady there and she'll have five or six kids and she'll have two, two shopping carts full of food.
		Let me tell you something else.
		My food benefit has been taken away from me.
		I was getting an allotment with my insurance every month.
		That has been taken away.
		And I have a hyenal hernia.
		I have stomach issues.
		I can't eat stuff that you eat.
		So now I'm having to reap the benefits for them.
		They have to be taken care of.
		And all of us people that were raised here, born here, and worked here all of our lives, now they are taking away from us.
		So if everybody opposes what Donald Trump's doing, you take them home with you and you take care of them because the United States of America is fixing to kick this in the rear end.
		You have to Cliff in Henrietta, Oklahoma.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're not sure, Cliff.
unidentified		Why?
		I'm not sure because at first I didn't know what was in the 14th Amendment.
		I thought that the ban may be contrary to 14th Amendment.
		But when you put that on there and it said the mother had to be a resident, that means she has to have, to me, it appears that she would have to be a legal resident, have legal residence.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hold on, Cliff.
		That's from President Trump's executive order, not from the Constitution, not the 14th Amendment.
		So 14th Amendment says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.
		What the executive, President Trump's executive order says that you're only a citizen if the mother is, if one of the parents is either an American citizen or is lawfully in the United States, so permanent resident.
		Does that clarify that?
unidentified		Yeah.
		That's the reason I wasn't sure.
		So that kind of clears things up for me.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here is Gordon in Kansas City, Kansas, on the line for support.
		Good morning, Gordon.
unidentified		Morning, Mimi.
		Happy New Year.
		I think the 14th Amendment was meant for black people that had been freed.
		And the black people all be calling raising hell about this because all the people that are coming into the country are taking benefits away from the minorities in this country.
		My God.
		And as for C-SPAN, people call, oh, how little C-SPAN, oh, how little C-SPAN.
		C-SPAN is writhing with Democrats, just like NPR is.
		And that's what we're going to get out of you guys.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is Betty in Alvin, Texas, on the line for opposed.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Betty.
unidentified		Hi.
		The reason why I oppose this, Trump only won by 1.2%.
		And in the Constitution, Section 5, it says, if you want to change an amendment, you need two-thirds of the House and the Senate and three-fourths of the states to ratify a change.
		So leave it up to the people because Trump did not win all of this country over.
		And I think it is wrong what he is doing.
		That's all I've got to say.
		I'm sorry.
		I'm nervous.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's all right, Betty.
		We got your point.
		And this is Steve in Mart, Texas, on the line for support.
unidentified		Hi, Steve.
		Yes, ma'am.
		i would just like to say i i think donald trump is doing the right thing very much so and a cousin a 14 year old dog or eight months ago and she broke her leg and they had to take her to the emergency room uh down there right close to the border and it was covered up with it
		Now the thing about it is is that all the I mean they paid taxes there for 50 years, you know, to build a hospital and then the one time that they tried to take my granddaughter there and needed it, it was covered up with illegals that hadn't paid not one tax, not one tax.
		Now I'm a loving, wonderful partner.
		I love Hispanic people.
		I think they're wonderful people good Christian, but the ones I know come across legally.
		They come across legally.
		This was covered.
		They paid taxes.
		These people hadn't paid one tax.
		Now they had to go 50 miles to another city to get my granddaughter's leg fixed.
		Now she could have bled to death because I think it had already cut an artery.
		So that right there tells you why.
		Because if you, if you don't pay taxes, that means you're not paying taxes for the roads, the hospitals, the schools, and you come over here and cover up the hospitals that we paid, that my cousin had paid for 50 years, you know, and on taxes, and their entire family has been paying taxes down there and the one time that they needed it they couldn't get in and my granddaughter almost died from him,
		you know it, because it was covered up with illegals.
		Yeah, I guess we lost him.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Uh, this is congressman John Rose of Um Tennessee, a Republican.
		He says this, the whole idea of birthright citizenship is based on a gross misinterpretation of the 14th amendment.
		The luck of being born on U.s soil should not alone make someone a citizen.
		President Trump calls that common sense.
		I call that Tennessee common sense.
		And this is representative Andy Biggs of Arizona Republican, who says the framers of the 14th amendment would be appalled at how abused the notion of birthright citizenship is today.
		The privilege of U.s citizenship is a priceless, Priceless and profound Gift.
		It should not be granted to those who abuse our laws.
		And this is Senator Ed Markey, who says, a federal judge just confirmed what we already know, that Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship is unconstitutional.
		Trump might be the president, but he is not above the Constitution.
		He doesn't get to decide who is an American.
		Let's go to Becky in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
		Good morning, Becky.
unidentified		Morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I'm opposed to this, but I have a completely different question than anybody's asked.
		My father, if he were alive, would be 101, and my mother is 91.
		She's still alive.
		But my father was born to an immigrant who acquired citizenship later on.
		If my father were alive, would he be deported?
		Is there some statute of limitation on this?
		I appreciate somebody answering that.
		There's got to be a lot of elderly people who are children of illegal immigrants.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you mean would it be retroactive?
unidentified		Well, sure.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I don't think so.
		I don't think so.
		I think it would just start applying to anybody, any baby born after the order would take on now on.
unidentified		Oh, okay.
		That was never clear to me.
		Okay, thank you.
		That's helpful.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here is Robert in Waldorf, Maryland.
		Good morning, Robert.
		What do you think?
unidentified		Good morning, ma'am.
		How's this global warming working out for you?
		A little cold out there, and it's messing up my golf game.
		I don't know about the rest of you.
		But I do, I do agree with Mr. Trump.
		I agree with everything Mr. Trump has done.
		The shocking thing is that these politicians have sold out the American worker, which is perfectly what they're doing here by selling out the American worker, bringing people in.
		If you take everybody's logic that birthright citizenship, then John McCain was a Panamanian.
		And on and on we can go.
		But to watch Trump force the federal government to have to go back to work is a beautiful thing.
		To find out that affirmative action was done in 1965 under an executive order by Lyndon Johnson, the amount of discrimination that the federal government has levied against a white man by doing this, no president had the balls to ever get rid of that affirmative.
		And here comes Donald Trump.
		He can blow up everything, make that place go to hell.
		Federal government, get your butt back in there, freeze your little tails off, and go back to the family.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, got it, Robert.
		Let's take a look at Democratic Representative Chewy Garcia.
		He was at a progressive congressional caucus news conference earlier this week talking about this issue.
jesus chuy garcia ▲ ● ▼		And in Illinois, two out of every seven U.S. citizen children have an immigrant parent.
jesus chuy garcia ▲ ● ▼		These are hardworking, mixed-status families that deserve to stay together.
unidentified		Instead, Donald Trump is abusing the power by trying to take away birthright citizenship.
		This is blatantly unconstitutional, evident by actions taken now by 22 attorneys general in cities across the country.
		Simply put, it's un-American to attempt to invalidate our immigrant contributions and histories.
		But let me be clear: immigrants make America great, and immigrants help keep America's economy moving.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we'll go back to the phones now.
		We'll talk to Mark, who's in Little River, South Carolina, on the line for support.
		Hi, Mark.
unidentified		Yes.
		Hi, Mimi.
		I'm actually first-generation Irish.
		My parents came here in 1965, and they came here legally.
		And when you have to come into this country legally, there's a few laws that you had to do.
		First of all, you have to be sponsored by someone that says they're going to support, you're not going to get any public assistance from this country by just coming here.
		That the people that sponsor you are responsible for you, and they would have to take care of you.
		The other law was you had to have vaccinations according to the United States.
		So when my parents were living in Glory Island, I had to take a two-hour ride all the way over to Dublin to be examined.
		We all did, to be examined by American doctors, and to make sure that we were up to date on vaccines that meet the United States things.
		Now, the way I look at immigration these days is it's like if you're waiting online to go to the movies, and it's a great movie, it's a big long line, and you see somebody walking ahead of everybody and not even pay and get in.
		And then, you know, would someone tolerate that at a movie line today?
		I don't think so.
		That's exactly what's happening, you know.
		So in order to keep this country from spending money that they're not even getting in, the rules got to be strict.
		You can't be just, no other country in the world, no other country in the world makes you a citizen of their country if you're born over there, unless your parents are citizens of that country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, that's not true, Mark.
		There's about 30 countries that allow that.
		But yes, I take your point.
		And this is David in Sacramento, California.
		Hi, David.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
		You know, I kind of think it's a catch-22.
		You know, it's been written, if you're born here, you're a citizen.
		Until you become of the age of, I guess it's 18, then if you don't want to be a citizen, you can revoke that.
		But I think that if you came here on the catch-22, my child was born in your country, and I'm obligated to be able to stay here.
		I think that they ought to become a citizen because that's what they came here to do, you know, for their children.
		And I think it's really controversial.
		And I don't think one person should have the sole decision of making that decision.
		I think the laws need to be amended because it's an old law, and everybody seems to don't think that it applies to everyone born here at a particular time.
		But it's a dameful deal.
		I'm thinking if you came here and you wanted your child to become American citizen, well, yeah, then he is because he's born here.
		The law states that.
		But if you're going to stay here and raise your child here, then I think you ought to apply for citizenship and, you know, and uphold the Constitution and, you know, swear your allegiance to the country.
		You know, I don't think that you should, you know, be iffy about it.
		If you did it and it happened here, it doesn't grant you the right as a parent to stay in this country legally just because your child is born here.
		It's, you know, hey, you made that decision and you did it unlawfully.
		So, but if you're born in this country, we own you.
		You are a part of our country.
		You know, until you turn the age of 18, if you want to, you know, denounce your citizenship, that's your prerogative.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, David.
		And this is what Chris in Elgin, Illinois sent us by text.
		Many thanks to the caller from California for stating the truth that so many Trump supporters refuse to admit.
		Trump does not care about the Constitution at all, and they are perfectly fine with allowing him to literally become a dictator with no regard to the rule of law or the rights enshrined in our nation's foundational document.
		This is Michael in Plant City, Florida.
		I believe banning birthright citizenship is futile.
		The focus should be only on allowing people to enter legally, which would make birthright citizenship almost a moot point.
		And this is Mike in Hillsboro, North Carolina.
		Totally support Trump's position.
		Democrats have let immigrants run all over this country for years.
		And Teresa in Pendleton, South Carolina, I support the end of birthright citizenship.
		The executive order is clear.
		It appears to address the abuse of the law's intent.
		And here is Doug in Coco, Florida, on the line for opposing.
		Hi, Doug.
unidentified		Hi, Doug.
		Yeah, okay.
		Here it's me.
		You got kind of knocked out there for a second.
		Yes, I am totally opposed to this.
		You know, it was left in a week that Donald Trump swore to uphold the Constitution.
		Now he wants to change it?
		No, I got a better idea.
		Let's take his citizenship away, send all of his family the hell out of this country.
		Have a good day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Amber in Atlanta, Georgia, aligned for support.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Oh, good morning.
		Everyone is so energetic this morning.
		I think both sides of the aisle tend to waive the Constitution and talk about how important it is when they're not getting their way.
		But we do and we have seen abuse of immigration.
		And I think what's really sad is people have never seen what it actually looks like to watch someone become a United States citizen.
		How beautiful it is.
		How a majority of the people who come to this country and do it legally know more about our Constitution than most Americans who live on this soil.
		And not only that, but when we watch someone legally become a citizen, they are emotional.
		There's a celebration.
		There's a party.
		And there is an intrinsic appreciation of how they have become part of a country that now they have sworn an allegiance to.
		And I think the problem is that there are people who come across the border.
		And if we don't know their status, we can't protect them from abusers.
		We can't protect them from slave labor.
		We can't protect them from their rights and other issues being abused.
		So when I look at it, it's not in order to castigate or to hate.
		It's to protect.
		And as we've seen over and over again, most of America's industry was ripped out and taken overseas so that larger corporations could make a lot of money.
		And then they took that money and put it in offshore accounts.
		And now that tariffs are going to be presented, that means they want to replace that by not being hindered by those tariffs, bring their businesses back, but still have the slave labor where they don't have to pay a wage that is affordable.
		So, this is a very appropriate move that Trump has to make in order to not only bring industry back, but by keeping these larger corporations honest so that everyone gets a fair wage.
		Not a declared, this is what the wage should be way over minimum wage, but a declared wage where we can make sure that every employee is being treated decent and that they're not being abused.
		So, this is something that has to take place so that we can protect those that have come over the border.
		And that's why it's so important to put more emphasis on legal entry so that we can make sure not only do they swear an allegiance, but we are able to take care of their needs and they are citizens that we can protect under our Constitution.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Amber.
		This is James in Hamburg, New York.
		What do you think, James?
unidentified		Well, I believe I'm for it, but I'm a little confused.
unidentified		Did Trump say that anybody that was born here would not be American citizens or it just has to be one person?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		As long as one parent is either a citizen or a legal permanent resident, then that child would be a that's what the executive order says.
		The Constitution says all persons born, it does not stipulate the legal status of the parents.
		It says this: all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the U.S. and of the state wherein they reside.
unidentified		Okay, so subject to the United States.
		I would imagine that would mean that you have an allegiance to the United States.
		So, you would have to, you know, be in the green card process or something like that.
		But, other than that, I mean, this is not a dictator move, regardless of what people say, because it's going through the courts.
		He's not opposing what the court says and does what he wants.
		He's going through the court.
		But we shouldn't have people having kids that have an allegiance to say, I don't want to say like Mexico.
		That means that they're citizens of Mexico, so they have an allegiance to that.
		They have to have some kind of allegiance to us other than I'm just standing here in your backyard.
		Does that make sense?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		Here's Don in Salinas, California, on the line for support.
		Hi, Don.
unidentified		Hi, yeah.
		You know, Trump is not trying to ban birthright citizenship.
		So I wish people would quit saying that.
		What he is saying is there are limits.
		Okay.
		For some reason, the liberal mind cannot fathom that there are limits on this amendment.
		They certainly will limit our First Amendment.
		They certainly will limit our Second Amendment.
		But on this amendment, there are no limits.
		You can abuse it all you want.
		Somebody in China can pay $20,000 and get put up in a hotel, have a baby, and boom, he's an American citizen and everybody claps.
		Are you kidding me?
		How about some common sense put in here?
		If you're criminally coming here, conspiring to make an American citizen to anchor yourself here, you're a criminal.
		Do we want criminals in our country?
		I mean, please, people, all this stuff of Trump's a dictator and Trump's doing that.
		No, Trump is bringing common sense, bringing common sense into this fray.
		For anybody to say that the baby hits the ground, it's an American, no matter if it was the result of a criminal conspiracy.
		My God.
		I mean, get some sense in your head.
		That's all I'm asking here.
		There are limits to the 14th Amendment.
		Okay, there are limits to all of our amendments.
		Quit pretending like the 14th Amendment has no limits, and that if you say that there are limits, all of a sudden you're some kind of a racist and a fascist and blah, blah, blah.
		I mean, this gets ridiculous.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Don.
		Let's go to Aston, Pennsylvania on the line for oppose.
		Michelle, good morning.
unidentified		Hi, Mimi.
		I've been listening to C-SPAN for 10 years, and I've heard a lot of things that I agree with and don't agree with.
		And I had to call for the first time.
		The prior caller that talked about how the Constitution doesn't have as much weight anymore, and that's what they voted for.
		I was horrified, absolutely horrified, that anyone in this country would think that the Constitution is just a document now that doesn't have any importance.
		That's the whole purpose of our country and how our country runs and what the president swears an oath to.
		So that was the worst, most non-American thing I've ever heard in my life.
		And it really upset me that there's anyone in our country that thinks that other than Donald Trump.
		So obviously, I oppose this because it's constitutional.
		And if you want to change the Constitution, that's great.
		But to hear that people don't think the Constitution matters anymore, that's just disgusting to me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Michelle.
unidentified		That's what I wanted to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is Jerry in Crane, Texas, on the line for support.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		All right.
		I hope the lady gets control of herself there.
		It's going to be okay.
		Mimi, I don't think Trump is going to succeed at this because there's precedent.
		The 1898 case with the man from China.
		However, I think they're just trying to litigate it, trying to adjudicate it, bring it through the courts.
		It hasn't been brought to the courts to the best, it hasn't been brought to the courts to the best of my knowledge since 1898.
		And he just wants to bring attention to it.
		It's being abused.
		And the left-wing mind is just not being honest about this.
		Mimi, you played the clip from Mr. Chewy.
		That's just totally, intellectually dishonest.
		He didn't delineate between illegal and legal immigration at all.
		That's dishonest.
		Immigrants are good for our economy.
		Well, of course they are.
		But let's talk about whether it's ill, we're talking about illegal immigration.
		And a lot of the people on the left, they just can't, I don't know, they don't grasp that.
		That's the issue here.
		That's all I wanted to say.
		Thanks.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And let's go to Larchmont, New York, to Timothy on the line for oppose.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Timothy.
unidentified		Yes, hi.
		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I just want to preface by saying I'm a recently retired 30-year veteran, New York City High School history teacher.
		I taught at a vocational high school, which had a paralegal program.
		So in addition to teaching American history, world history, civics and economics, I was also tasked to teach classes in constitutional law.
		So the first thing I want to point out is the last time I called into the show, I pointed out the level of ignorance in this country.
		And when I say that, I'm talking as a, speaking as a retired educator, not a retired firefighter like my father.
		And it's just frightening.
		I mean, the Constitution is what it is.
		And as the judge said yesterday, this effort is blatantly unconstitutional.
		Let me get to my point because that's just full stop.
		It's unconstitutional, period.
		But let me just get to my other point.
		The callers who are calling in who would like to see birthright citizenship ended, they seem to be arguing always from an economic point of view.
		They're taking our jobs, the money, the cost.
		I'm just curious if any of those callers who are complaining about the money ever called in or ever wrote their congressman or senator during the eight years that we were in Iraq, where we spent, and I'm quoting actual numbers, facts, $10 billion a month, Congressional Budget Office numbers, every continuing resolution, $10 billion a month, 12 months a year, not just for one or two years.
		We were there for eight years.
		And I wonder if any of those, if that's over $2 trillion in debt, plus all of the veterans who come home with one leg, one boot, and need all of the veteran services which that war continues to cost us.
		And I don't want to hear anybody saying, oh, that was 20 years ago.
		It's all been added to the national debt.
		So those people who are crying that illegal aliens are costing this country money and putting us into the red.
		Stop and think about how much money we spent in Iraq and not a word was said.
		I never heard anybody complain about the money that we were spending there.
		And let's also just point out that we were bamboozled going into that war in the first place with your weapons of mass destruction nonsense, which was all proven to be true at the end.
		There was nothing there.
		Iraq was not a threat.
		That was a war of choice.
		And we spent that money like a drunken sailor.
		And that's just a fact.
		So any of these callers want to call in and complain about how much money illegal aliens are costing us, I ask them, look at the federal taxes you're paying and how much of that comes out of that Iraq war for eight long years.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Timothy.
		And this is Doug in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with a tax GOP moves like ending birth rate citizenship, shutting down immigration offices, punishing sanctuary cities, conducting ICE raids, et cetera, are all just the visible elements of the real proposal.
		Take away the rights, dignity, and humanity of quote, those people.
		The phrase, party of Lincoln, is a sad, cruel joke.
		And coming up next, a conversation with Republican Congressman Bruce Westerman, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, will talk about the House GOP's energy and environmental agenda.
		Later, Max Steyer from the Partnership for Public Service joins us to talk about the Trump administration plans to overhaul the federal workforce.
		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.
		And at 9:30 p.m. Eastern on the presidency, historian Lindsey Cherbinski speaks at the Boston Athenaeum about second U.S. President and Massachusetts favorite son, John Adams.
		His presidency unfolded against the backdrop of the politics and personalities of the new nation.
		Exploring the American story, watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/slash history.
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		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
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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.
		Democracy in real time.
		This is your government at work.
		This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered.
		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We're joined now by Representative Bruce Westerman.
		He's a Republican of Arkansas and chair of the Natural Resources Committee.
		Congressman, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
unidentified		Good to be with you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		As I just said, you are the chair of the Natural Resources Committee.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you talk about your priorities in this Congress and your goals?
unidentified		Well, we've got a lot of work to do in this Congress.
		And if you look at the jurisdiction of the Natural Resources Committee, a lot of that is energy and minerals.
		So energy production and mining are going to be a huge part of the work that we do.
		But we also have jurisdiction over federal lands and forestry, over fisheries.
		We also have Indian and Insular Affairs.
		So we've got a full workload, not to mention California water and wildlife and fisheries.
		So lots of things will be on our plate.
		But we had a good run last Congress.
		We got a lot of bills passed and signed into law.
		We got the Explore Act, which is the country's first outdoor recreation bill.
		And this was a large bipartisan bill that was so popular it passed out of committee unanimously.
		It passed out of the House unanimously, and then it passed the Senate unanimously, and President Biden signed it into law.
		So we're excited about outdoor recreation and access to public lands and meeting the growing needs of our country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You are the only licensed forester in Congress.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about the wildfires in California, but what does that mean to be a licensed forester?
unidentified		Well, I studied forestry in graduate school, and there's actually a licensing process, so you have to take an exam and do continuing education if you want to keep a license to practice forestry.
		I'm also, I did engineering for my undergraduate work, and I'm a professional engineer, and I've been able to keep those licenses up to speed while I'm here in Congress.
		But it's kind of neat to, I think, last Congress I was the only licensed professional engineer and the only forester in Congress.
		I don't know why they say licensed forester.
		I think I'm just quite simply the only forester, only person that studied forestry in Congress.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, can you talk about your views of the California wildfires and noting that President Trump has departed the White House and will be surveying damage there in California later today?
unidentified		Well, these are obviously devastating if anybody's paid any attention to the news.
		You know, it's just heartbreaking to see over 15,000 homes destroyed, 28 lives lost, and at last count, I think it was $250 billion of estimated damage.
		And it's very tough conditions out there.
		I've spent time in Southern California.
		I was out there in October flying over what was called the airport fire.
		It didn't make near as much news because it didn't burn near as many homes.
		But you have these steep canyons with what are called forests, but it's really just chaparral and kind of scrubby oak trees and brush.
		It gets very dry, and you get these strong winds that come through.
		And when these fires start, they're almost impossible to put out.
		And, you know, fire traveling uphill is the when it burns the hottest.
		If you think of a match and you strike it and hold it straight up, the flame's not very big, but if you point that flame down where it's running up the matchstick, you know, it'll burn your finger pretty quickly.
		And that's kind of what happens when these fires are going up slope.
		But when you look at the whole situation, there are things that we can do.
		We know what happens when you get this dry fuel and wind and fires.
		And we've got a lot of people living in what's called the wildland urban interface.
		And it's where the forest meets the neighborhoods.
		And those are the areas we really need to focus on to prevent the loss of life and property.
		And the Fix Our Forest Act has provisions in it where we can create these defensible zones between the forest and the neighborhoods.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Congressman, I do want to ask you about that Fix Our Forest bill, but going back to the wildfires, the mayor of Los Angeles and the Governor of California have come under considerable criticism for their response to the wildfires.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that criticism is appropriate?
unidentified		Well, there's always going to be criticism of public officials when you have disasters like this.
		Some's appropriate and some's probably not.
		When you look at the type of fire that they had, sure it started in the canyon.
		There's things that could have been done to mitigate these situations so the fires didn't get as bad.
		But once these fires got into the neighborhoods, we think of it as a wildfire, but it's really multiple house fires and they're trying to fight these house fires with conventional firefighting equipment and they just simply didn't have enough water or equipment or people there.
		And where does that blame fall?
		I guess it has to come back on the public officials because it's their job to provide fire protection services and to make sure that those systems are up to speed and can handle whatever comes at them.
		You know, when we think of the forest on fire, you think of tankers dropping water and dropping fire retardant and people parachuting out and fighting the fires.
		Well, you've got a combination of that going on.
		And I think instead of blaming everyone, we need to look at it and figure out what we can do better to prevent these disasters going forward.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Congressman Westerman, do you believe that climate change is increasing the frequency of wildfires and the intensity of wildfires?
unidentified		Well, that's a question that gets asked a lot.
		And we certainly see times when we have drier conditions, hotter conditions.
		But we also see that there are different places across the country that are experiencing the same conditions.
		And the intensity and number of fires are not increasing in these places.
		So regardless if it's climate change causing it or if it's weather conditions or poor management, we still have to ask the question, what are we going to do about it?
		And if we know that the climate's warming and that these conditions are going to get worse, the science of forestry tells us how to manage these lands so that we have the proper amount of vegetation on the land.
		And the big problem is we're getting these overstocked fuel loads.
		And when the fires happen, they're just catastrophic.
		And you can't put them out.
		They're so hot that they burn the organic matter out of the soil sometimes.
		And you can't even get trees to grow back.
		And it's an environmental travesty because we know that the forest fires put more carbon in the atmosphere.
		But they also, when you denude the land like that and the rains come along, which they eventually will in California, we're going to see tremendous soil erosion and mudslides and water quality issues.
		So by keeping our forests healthy and intact, it adds all kinds of public safety features and environmental benefits.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And if you'd like to join our conversation with Congressman Bruce Westerman, you can do so on our lines by party.
		Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		You can start calling in.
		He's a Republican of Arkansas.
		And Congressman, you were talking to us about the Fix Our Forests Acts that passed the House.
		I'll put that up on the screen.
		Give us a little bit more information about what that does and what you expect to happen in the Senate.
unidentified		Well, first off, Mimi, this is a very bipartisan bill.
		I worked on it with my colleague, Democrat Scott Peters from the San Diego area.
		Scott was an environmental lawyer, and he and I have been talking about forest health for several years now.
		We first wrote a bill called the Save Our Sequoias Act because we've lost 20% of the giant sequoias on the planet due to wildfire.
		And when you really look at the science of what's happened, it was because we've mismanaged those groves.
		But Scott and I worked together.
		We got a lot of Democrat co-sponsors and actually passed this bill out of the House last fall, but we couldn't get any movement in the Senate.
		And in light of these horrendous fires, we decided we can't stop.
		We got the bill back up and passed it out of the House yesterday with even more Democrat co-sponsors and more Democrat votes.
		So I think the House has spoken and we need to get the Senate off-dead center to take this bill up and pass it as soon as possible so that President Trump can sign it and so that we can start doing the work.
		It's going to take decades to get these areas back where they need to be.
		And, you know, we've seen the loss of 15,000 homes.
		But if you look across the country, there are 44 million homes in the same condition in this wildland urban interface where these catastrophic wildfires can break out.
		So there's a ton of work to do.
		We should have been doing this decades ago, but we need to get this bill passed so it can happen sooner.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Switching over to energy, Congressman, President Trump has declared a national energy emergency, and he's expected to roll back regulations, promote more leasing on federal lands for drilling.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think is the practical impact here of those actions?
unidentified		Well, we need more energy is the practical impact, and we need reliable and affordable energy, and we need the cleanest energy possible.
		And the U.S. is really good at producing clean, affordable, and reliable energy.
		If you just look at the numbers, we're seeing a growth in electrical consumption by about three times per year.
		It used to be a half percent per year growth, and now it's at 1.5%.
		It's projected to grow even more, and that electricity has to come from somewhere.
		And there's been a lot of wind and solar built, but there's no way wind and solar can meet the growing demands of our country.
		So I think the President's looking at an all-of-the-above energy approach, and I'm all for that.
		We've got a whole other issue with AI and data centers and the race on getting to the ASI, the super intelligence.
		We're in a race with China on that, and China's not holding back on energy development.
		They built 40 gigawatts of coal-powered plants just last year.
		If you put that in perspective, that's a big coal-fired plant every week, and they're not even turning some of them on.
		I believe they're building these plants so that they can have the energy available when they get to the next iteration of AI.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Congressman, you mentioned that we need more energy, and I want to read to you a quote from the Natural Resources Defense Council's attorney who says, quote, there is a bit of a hypocrisy in declaring a domestic energy emergency while we flood international markets with fossil fuels.
		We're the world's number one exporter of oil and gas, and we have an energy emergency.
		What is this based on?
		What's your reaction to that, sir?
unidentified		Well, I think that's a short-sighted comment that's put out there to probably get some clickbait on their website.
		But that's not looking at the whole energy picture.
		I talked about the growing demand for electricity.
		We're shutting coal plants down here, and we need to be creating more baseload energy.
		I'm all for clean energy, but we can't build nuclear power plants here.
		We can't, it takes forever to get permits to build facilities.
		And also, we need to be exporting more energy because our allies around the world want it.
		And when we're not exporting energy, that demand is being filled by countries like Russia and Iran and others that are not our friends.
		And if you look at the two wars going on in Ukraine and with Hamas and Israel, Russia is funding their side of the war in Ukraine off of energy receipts, and Iran's funding these terrorist organizations off of energy receipts.
		So it's not only just energy security and energy dominance, but it's also national security when you look at the global energy picture.
		And the demand for energy globally is going up exponentially.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And you mentioned the competition with China.
		I want to ask about electric vehicles.
		Do you support the President's proposal to end the EV mandate and also the EV tax rebate for those that buy EVs that are manufactured in this country?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		And if you look at the science on that, if we could convert every internal combustion engine in the United States to an EV overnight, it would have less than a 1% impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
		And I like EVs.
		They're fun to drive.
		It's great technology, but the technology should stand on its own.
		We shouldn't be picking winners and losers and putting this false idea that it's going to save the world if everybody drives an EV when the numbers simply don't add up.
		The U.S. produces about 13% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, but only 27% of that comes from all of transportation, and then 57% of that comes from light-duty trucks and passenger vehicles.
		So you do the math and you're down to around 2% of the global greenhouse gas emissions are coming from U.S. light-duty trucks and passenger vehicles.
		And then you find out that about 40% of our electricity comes from non-greenhouse gas emitting sources.
		So again, if you could make every car an EV overnight, you've only decreased global greenhouse gas emissions less than 1%.
		And it's a huge cost and inconvenience that's being put on the American consumer claiming to have these great climate benefits when really it doesn't.
		And that 1% doesn't include the embedded carbon that it takes to do all the mining and build the components that go into an EV.
		And again, I'm all for EV technology.
		Just let it stand on its own and don't require a government mandate or government subsidy to make it work.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to callers.
		We've got a Republican in Canton, North Carolina.
		Terry, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you, Representative, for your time.
		My heart goes out for the people in California.
		But here in West from North Carolina, we're still suffering.
		I want to thank President Trump.
		Promise made, promise kept.
		If this is hard for me, give me a second.
		My town is totally nearly devastated.
		What happened?
		They still have cadaver dogs running up and down the rivers looking for bodies.
		My main question is, is there going to be an investigation into the Biden administration?
		Was there geoengineering of Hawaii?
		Was there cloud seeding to intensify this storm?
		We know for a fact that FEMA's been into Caucas County, Tennessee, trying to buy up land.
		I know they want the lithium deposits here.
		People are suffering.
		California, yes, has my heart, but they're the richest of the rich.
		They are some of the poor out there.
		I feel for them.
		But Malibu and the Palestines ought to pay.
		The millionaires ought to pay for their own.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Terry.
		Let's get you an answer on North Carolina.
		Go ahead, Congressman.
unidentified		Well, Kerry, first off, my heart goes out to you and everybody who's been affected by these natural disasters.
		And I think you've reminded us that there's a real side to these disasters.
		People are suffering.
		People are hurting.
		And we move from one disaster to the next, and sometimes it seems like we forget the previous disaster.
		had the opportunity to travel to places after these disasters and see the utter devastation and I know that when that's happening people who are affected they don't a lot of times care about the politics they're just trying to figure out how to get from one day to the next day and what the future is going to hold so as far as investigations into the Biden administration on the response to the the hurricanes,
		I don't know if that's going to happen.
		That's not my committee of jurisdiction.
		But I know that with Republicans in control, we're going to do a lot of oversight on all the areas where we have oversight of federal agencies.
		And if there's credible evidence of things that need to be investigated, I'm sure that the appropriate committees will have those investigations.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Mark in East Falmouth, Massachusetts, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Congressman.
		With regards to California, the insurance companies pulled out of there over the past, from what we've heard on the news, over the past few years.
		And then, of course, Florida insurance companies pulled out.
		Now, obviously, these insurance companies knew about impending danger and the liabilities.
		And is it worth going to the insurance companies and say, I've already done all the work and just say, wait, you know, can you give us your stuff?
		And then we can, you know, base our management based on that.
		And also, Florida specifically, I mean, they must suck up about 50% of FEMA's budget.
		And then just last year, the caller from Western North Carolina, Hurricane Helene, I think it was, that showed that, you know, areas on the coast aren't the only areas that are susceptible.
		I mean, inland areas can be devastated too.
		Thank you.
		Yeah, you bring up a great point on the insurance companies.
		And, you know, a few years back when the campfire happened up in Paradise, California, after the smoke cleared off of that and people were assessing the damages,
		I started getting a lot of requests from insurance companies to talk about forest management and forest health because they were seeing the handwriting on the wall and the fact that these devastating fires were causing their insurance rates to go up to the extent that people wouldn't be able to afford to buy insurance.
		And if you think an insurance company pulls out because they just don't want to be in a market, that's really not true.
		They want to sell as much insurance as they can.
		But when their actuaries look at the risks that are involved and they say, okay, if you sell homeowners' insurance here, the price is going to be this.
		And they look at it and realize nobody can afford the insurance.
		So they pull out as well.
		So they're losing on top of homeowners not being able to insure their property.
		When I was out in California in October, I did a town hall with Representative Young Kim, and we were talking to her constituents there in Orange County about this very issue.
		And it's not just homeowners, it's realtors that are worried about the real estate markets collapsing because if you can't insure these very expensive homes, you're taking on so much risk that it creates huge problems.
		So this is the fires are devastating, the losses are devastating, but it's also created a huge problem with insurance.
		And we're also seeing that all across the country where we're having these natural disasters.
		And I think it will push us, the markets simply will push us to, when we rebuild, to build things that are More resilient for the conditions.
		I mean, if you look at building codes in hurricane areas, a lot of times you have to do things for higher wind conditions.
		When we talk about building in the wildland urban interface, we should be looking at doing things like the government's firewise program suggests, where you have non-flammable roof material, where you have vents that always have covers on them, where you manage vegetation around the homes.
		There's things we can do to be smarter about the way we build when we rebuild.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Jim in Grayson, Kentucky.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning, Jim.
unidentified		Sarah, I just wanted to yes or no, I answered.
unidentified		I completely myself agree with Trump on the birthright issue.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you I guess he's asking about birthright citizenship ban?
unidentified		Yep, not really a natural resources issue, but I believe this is one of the orders that President Trump has made, and he's fulfilling his campaign promises to secure the border and get our immigration system under control.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Congressman, as you know, President Trump gave an interview to Sean Hannity yesterday and mentioned FEMA.
		And he said this: this is according to Axios' reporting, that quote, he plans to have a quote whole big discussion very shortly on FEMA because he'd rather see the states take care of their own problems.
		That's the interview from Wednesday evening.
		What do you think of that?
		Do you think that it should be the states that rebuild after a natural disaster, or should FEMA still have a role in that?
unidentified		Well, I think FEMA will have a role, but I think that role could change and we could do things smarter than the way we're doing it right now.
		You know, FEMA goes back to the Stafford Act.
		I'm also a member of the House Transportation Committee, which that's where the jurisdiction over FEMA lies.
		And we have some really archaic rules in the Stafford Act that require you to do things like building something back exactly like it was before it was destroyed in the natural disaster.
		And that gets to what I was talking about earlier: how we have to be smarter about how we rebuild things.
		So I don't see FEMA totally going away, but I could see where we have better partnerships with states and local communities so that we can work together on the specific needs in specific areas and create some flexibility and common sense so that we're building more resilient structures and built not building back.
		I'm just thinking of an instance I heard about a home I think down in Houston where it had been wiped out three or four times by a flood and they just keep rebuilding it back in the same spot.
		You see instances of things like that all across the country.
		So we've got to be smarter about how we do it and we've got to work more with the states on disaster relief.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		One more call for you, Republican Line Joe in Crofton, Maryland.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Joe.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Didn't we used to do control burns in California, the dry grass and all that, and then there was something about a rat or a rodent that was endangered and then they stopped doing all those control burns, which when we did that, we didn't have so many wildfires.
		Is that still going on?
		Is there still we can't do the control burns because of the endangered desert rat?
		Well, Joe, you're hitting right on the problem with forest management all across our country on federal lands.
		And if you look at pre-Europeans in the United States, the Native Americans used fire as a tool, and they did it oftentimes because they wanted better hunting grounds.
		And they knew that if they had fewer widely spaced trees, larger trees, and that they burned, that they would get that early successional habitat coming up on the forest floor that makes great wildlife habitat.
		And you would have fires all the time, but they would be low fires and low intensity fires.
		And really, that's what forest management is, is you're working with nature to create a resilient system.
		And control burning plays a huge role in that, but you can't control burn in areas where you've excluded fire for a century.
		And it needs to be thinned first so that you're not getting these horrendous fires that are going to occur naturally or whenever, you know, arson or whatever, when the fire starts, it's just hard to put them out.
		And the Endangered Species Act is one of the tools that has been used to stop forest management.
		And we've got some very well-meaning laws that were put in place back in the 1970s that people have figured out how to abuse those laws to push their political agendas.
		I really like what my colleague Scott Peters, who wrote the Fixer Forest Act with me, he said these weren't laws written on tablets by Moses, said they were put in place at the time to serve a purpose.
		And we still want to meet the objectives of that purpose, but we need to modify these laws to deal with the circumstances that we're dealing with today.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Representative Bruce Westerman, a Republican of Arkansas and chair of the Natural Resources Committee.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thanks so much for joining us today.
unidentified		Thank you, Mimi.
unidentified		Have a great day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Coming up next, Max Steyer of the Partnership for Public Service joins us to talk about Trump administration plans to overhaul the federal workforce.
		And later, we'll dig into that $500 billion federal investment into AI infrastructure announced earlier this week.
		That conversation with Dean Ball from the Mercatus Center.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
		This weekend at 6.45 p.m. Eastern, we'll visit George Washington's Virginia home, Mount Vernon, to tour recent renovation and preservation efforts at the historic property.
		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.
		And at 9.30 p.m. Eastern on the presidency, historian Lindsey Chervinsky speaks at the Boston Athenaeum about second U.S. President and Massachusetts favorite son, John Adams.
		His presidency unfolded against the backdrop of the politics and personalities of the new nation.
		Exploring the American story, watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history.
		Democracy.
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		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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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We're back at Washington Journal and we're joined now by Max Steyer.
		He's president and CEO for the Partnership for Public Service.
		We're talking about the overhaul of the federal workforce by the Trump administration.
		Max, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Mimi, it's great to see you and great to be here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Just a remind us about the Partnership for Public Service, its mission and its funding.
unidentified		Absolutely.
		So we are a nonpartisan organization dedicated to a better government and a stronger democracy.
		Anyone who's operated a nonprofit organization knows that funding is always the hardest part.
		We get our money from philanthropy, corporations, fee-for-service work for government.
		And we started originally from a gentleman named Sam Heyman who had this idea 25, some odd years ago that we needed the nonprofit sector helping our government work better because you make your public institutions better.
		That raises all votes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Explain why you think it's important to focus on the civil service as opposed to political appointees.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why is that important to your organization?
unidentified		So we actually do focus on both.
		We originally started just for civil servants because there was work that another organization was doing on the political appointees.
		But the reason why our strong emphasis is on the civil service is that at the end of the day, the political appointees are setting the policy agenda for our government, but they come and go and it's part of the democratic process.
		You have elections, presidents get elected, they set the agenda.
		They have a set of political appointees.
		I would say way too many of them, 4,000, more than any other democracy, peer democracy in the world.
		But at the end of the day, it's the career civil servants that are getting the work done day in and day out.
		There are about 2 million of them.
		85% or so work outside of the DC area.
		Something like a third of them are veterans because they are mission-oriented people.
		And many folks, when they leave the military, want to keep serving the public, and the civil service is the way to do it.
		And for 140 years, it's been apolitical and based on the idea that you need the most competent, merit-driven people focused on getting the work done for the public.
		We had a spoil system before that change, and it led to corruption and incompetence, and ultimately assassinated president in Garfield.
		I'm sort of collapsing everything into one quick thing here.
		But for Republicans and Democrats for 140 years, that notion of a career professionalized civil service has been fundamental to the success of our country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And President Trump has signed an executive order mandating all federal workers back in the office in person.
		Elon Musk tweeted out or posted on his network X saying this, pretending to work while taking money from taxpayers is no longer acceptable.
		What's your response to Elon Musk?
unidentified		So, I mean, the response is start with the facts.
		About half the federal workforce never was able to work remotely.
		Even during the worst of the pandemic, they were on the front lines.
		They were putting themselves at risk as they do in so many different ways.
		If you look at the numbers today, and we have a fact sheet on this, anyone wants to see it at ourpublicservice.org, the truth of the matter is that federal employees are pretty similar to the larger private sector workforce in terms of their percentages that work remotely or that telework.
		The real question isn't whether you're working in the office or you're working in some other location.
		It's how good your work is.
		And federal employees, by and large, do a very strong job.
		There are definite ways that things can be improved.
		The idea that the right thing to do is to drive everybody back into the office is not actually going to deliver better results for the American people.
		And I give you a really quick example: the Patent and Trademark Office.
		We are the envy of the world in terms of the innovation climate that we have in our country.
		And the Patent and Trademark Office is really the heart of the system that protects and grows our intellectual property, that supports innovation.
		And it has been, you know, virtually exclusively a remote workforce, telework workforce, you know, for I think over two decades with incredible productivity.
		You follow through on that executive order of saying that they all have to come back into the office.
		There are no offices for them because they've been working for two decades, not in the office.
		And you will throw into turmoil that core engine of innovation for our country.
		I can't imagine that Elon Musk actually wants that to happen.
		It would be disruptive to his world in profound ways and to the economic vitality of our country.
		That's an example.
		Let's manage smartly, not by the edict that is across the board the same thing.
		There are different parts of our government that need different kinds of management.
		And that's what good leaders do is they understand the context and they make choices based on evidence and thoughtfully.
		This has not been thoughtful.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we'll take your calls for Max Steyer on the federal workforce.
		Our numbers are Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents 202748-8002.
		If you're a federal worker, we have a line for you, and that is 202-748-8003.
		Max, the Trump administration, as you know, has directed all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion staff to be put on leave.
		Layoffs are expected.
		Can you first tell us what those DEI offices in the federal government were doing and why they were there in the first place?
unidentified		Certainly.
		And again, not to take too long on this, because there's sort of a substantive issue, and then there's another process issue, a little bit like the return to the office edict.
		You asked what the offices did.
		It's a wide range of different activities.
		Many of them were very much involved in trying to create workplace environments that maximize the engagement of the people in the federal workforce.
		And when I say that, it's the basic proposition of how do you create a workplace that enables your workers to do their best in the work environment that they have.
		You know, sometimes people focus just on the D. When you look at equity, inclusion, and accessibility, again, it's about trying to make sure that our federal environments are serving the public better through creating environments that enable workers to do their work the best they can possibly do it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But Max, can't that be abused?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Because the criticism here is that hiring is prioritizing less qualified people just because they are either women or minorities, et cetera.
unidentified		Yeah.
		You know, look, absolutely.
		You ask, can it be abused?
		And the answer is absolutely.
		And those abuses should be addressed and addressed seriously.
		And so this is, again, an example of, you know, trying to resolve this through an across-the-board rule without any understanding of any nuances is generally not good.
		And honestly, the reality of this is the Trump administration has the right, you know, President Trump was elected president of the United States.
		He does get to set the policy of our government within certain legal constraints.
		And these are choices that he can make.
		I want to focus on the how it's being done and the fact that the how is actually wasteful of public assets and hurtful of real people.
		And when I say that, what I mean is that the civil servants that were working in DEIA spaces, they were following the prior administration's priorities.
		President Biden said this was a priority for himself and for his administration.
		And the civil servants do what civil servants are supposed to do.
		They're supposed to follow the lawful directive, policy directives of duly elected leaders.
		They should not be punished for doing their job in the way they're supposed to do it.
		And you have President Trump's administration arguing that civil servants are not following the policy views of the elected leaders.
		And the reality is here they did.
		They should not be punished for it.
		It is, again, President Trump's prerogative to choose a different direction.
		But immediately shutting down the offices, putting all these people on administrative leave and telling them they're all going to be fired is cruel and it's a waste of public resources.
		Many of those people are in those DEI offices, not because they only do DEI stuff.
		It's that they were asked to do that work.
		They might be HR professionals that could apply their skills in many, many other contexts.
		The right thing to do would be to say, we're no longer focused on this as a priority.
		We're going to move away from it.
		We're going to assess the talent that we have to think about is there another place that they can really contribute to public outcomes that we do care about and to communicate in an open and embracing way of those people.
		These are real people.
		It has been unbelievably traumatic and unnecessarily traumatic to them.
		And this is but one of many, many examples where the humanness of the federal workforce is being ignored.
		So again, entirely appropriate to choose a different direction.
		The way it's being done is hurting people and frankly hurting the American public.
		They're losing out on great talent and our government is being disrupted in ways that are going to preclude Americans from frankly being safe.
		Quick example, 160 or so folks from the National Security Council, the best experts we have on counterterrorism, on Russia, on China, sent home in order for there to be a review of whether they're sufficiently loyal.
		Not smart, puts us at risk and not the way to do this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to callers now.
		Joe is in Baltimore, Maryland, Democrat.
		Hi, Joe.
unidentified		How you doing?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good?
unidentified		I have just one question, and a couple parts of that question.
		Are the lines that the people use from their house, are they secure when they talk over the phone?
		Second, that one question.
		How come you got to wait 36, sometimes 24 hours to talk to a person?
		And then when you talk to them, you hear the dogs in the background.
		And I joke with them.
		They talk about, and I ask myself, you got tuna fists on your hand and your hands.
		In other words, it has to be some balance.
		And thirdly.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, Joe, just to clarify, when you say, are the lines secure, you're talking about when you call the federal government asking for help, let's say if you call the IRS or if you call Social Security, that kind of thing.
unidentified		Joe?
		In that house, that person in that house using their little laptop or whatever they're using.
		Is that line secure from that house to you?
		Aren't other people listening?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And then you wanted to know why it takes so long for somebody to answer your call in the government.
unidentified		Correct.
		In other words, if we can get rid of a voicemail, if we can get rid of a whole bunch of things that are logistically stupid, other words, if I have a problem and you tell me, call you back in 24 or 48 hours, that is counterproductive.
		And one more thing: people are people.
		Why do you have all these buildings?
		And it's like going into countries like North Korea where you have buildings with no people in it.
		Come on now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Max Dyer.
unidentified		Well, so, number one, 100% agree that the public, including Joe, should be able to expect high customer service from federal agencies.
		That's the responsibility of our government.
		We really need that oftentimes critiques of the career civil servants, we actually need leaders to help make sure that that's a priority and that the investments that are needed to achieve that are actually being done.
		A good example of this is the IRS.
		They had incredibly low response rates prior to the more recent investments in the IRS.
		And those response rates went up to, I believe, in the 90-plus percent category.
		And there was intent to take them even better.
		So we do need a government that is changed.
		So I share Joe's view that we should be able to expect good customer service, phone calls that are answered, good technology and responsiveness that you see in the kind of best-in-class private sector organizations that exist today.
		And there are all kinds of ways in which better and better is possible.
		In order to have that happen, investments are going to be needing to be made in our government and in the technology infrastructure that we have today.
		And frankly, those investments don't usually occur.
		In terms of the security of the lines, it depends on, I think, the interaction.
		I don't really think I can speak to that specifically.
		I will say that, frankly, many federal employees I mentioned earlier have never been able to work anywhere but in the office because of that very question.
		If they are in dealing with classified information, they have to work in a skiff in an official government building.
		Last point that was raised there, I think, was the empty federal buildings.
		And a lot of agencies have been reducing their real estate footprint because they've moved to a situation where fewer employees are coming into the office.
		One of the real challenges will be that if they're all forced to have everyone come back into the office after they've reduced that footprint, there's nowhere for those folks to actually work.
		So again, the transition time has to be thought through.
		Otherwise, you're going to have disruption to the services that Joe and many, many other Americans expect rightly to have.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Gregory is on the independent line in Nashville, Tennessee.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Listen, this is so funny.
		Trump wants to hire people that he says are merit-based, but yet he's hiring people that are not qualified for the job.
		As a matter of fact, to be honest with you, he's not qualified to be president.
		And the other thing is, why don't the Democrats speak up and say something about the people that he's hiring?
		I mean, just be like, really blunt with it, based on what he's saying about people being merit-based.
		And one more thing: when I call a help desk, I always get somebody from India.
		I have nothing against Indian people.
		But the thing is, why don't the people who have these companies hire Americans to be on the call, be in the call centers to help Americans?
		I mean, this is one thing that Trump could probably do.
		If he just, you know, change that system, make his the people that are sitting behind him, because they're the ones who are hiring these people, these people who are, you know, running all these tech companies.
		They're the ones who are hiring these people in India to do the job because it's cheaper, of course.
		Why don't he tell them to hire Americans to do their jobs?
		Okay, that's all I have to say.
		Thank you very much.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Gregory.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Max.
unidentified		Okay.
		So on the question of hiring for merit, the caller has the same views that virtually all Americans and the polling that we've done demonstrates.
		So whether you're Republican or Independent or Democrat, we have found in our polling that Americans actually do want a merit-based, apolitical civil service.
		So it's great to see that that is the consensus across the country.
		And the question is, how do you best get that?
		And there are real changes that should take place in the way our civil service is managed, in the way that it's hired, the way in which civil servants are accountable.
		We actually have a sort of aggressive full plan about what we'd like to see done.
		The reality, though, is that the current plans of the Trump administration would take us the absolute opposite direction.
		I mentioned earlier there are 4,000 political appointees.
		Truthfully, as the caller noted, we should have very high standards for those folks as well.
		The focus should be on their competence and their character.
		But the president has a lot of latitude in selecting who those folks are.
		The Senate has its voice by the Constitution for some 1,300 of them.
		But the broader, you know, 2 million federal workforce is a career workforce.
		It is currently merit-based and needs to stay that way.
		The Trump administration has issued an executive order that would really overturn that.
		And it's a real problem because, again, we will wind up with less good government in a very profound way if, in fact, that's carried through.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Your organization put out a press release, Max, quoting you as saying that you were encouraged by some of the executive actions taken by the Trump administration, specifically as it relates to federal hiring processes.
unidentified		Right.
		No, very important.
		And look, at the end of the day, we all should be looking for places to come together to be constructive.
		There's too much fighting, and that's not how we're going to actually make progress.
		So it is very encouraging to see that the Trump administration, in one of their executive orders, is focused on trying to improve the hiring process.
		You know, an example of that is to move more towards skills-based hiring, understanding what kind of capabilities people need as opposed to degrees.
		So we believe that that is actually, again, very encouraging.
		And more broadly speaking, I think the emphasis on focusing on how we can make our government better is something that we think is exactly where the attention should be.
		We obviously have the Doge effort.
		We're quite interested in seeing where that goes.
		There's no doubt that there are opportunities of very large measures to improve the technology infrastructure of our federal government, and that can deliver way better results for the American people.
		The way you do that, though, is fundamental.
		Our challenge typically in government is less the ideas than executing them effectively.
		And honestly, the only way you do that is by engaging your workforce and creating environments that allow them to do their very best.
		And that is what we're trying to encourage today.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		On the line for Democrats, Fred in Blakeslee, Pennsylvania, you're next.
unidentified		Thanks for taking my car.
		Mr. Steig, don't you think that Donald Trump is using DEI in reverse?
		Because Pete Hedworth is a perfect example.
		He's the postal boy of someone who is white.
		And as far as his merits, his content of his character is deplorable.
		Pete Herworth is like a perfect example.
		Pete Herworth works on the Assembly line in General Motors.
		And then he gets picked to be the president and CEO of General Motors.
		The whole issue is that it's above his pay grade.
		And Donald Trump is just using DEI in reverse.
		Thank you.
		So, look, I think this comes back to the point I was trying to raise earlier.
		Just because someone's a political appointee doesn't mean that you actually don't need somebody who has the competence and the character to do the job extremely well.
		Really, the political appointees give the president more latitude about the process in which they can select people, but the standards that we ought to hold them to should be at least as high as it's true for the career civil service.
		You know, quick point on something that you're raising, which is every single career civil servant is supposed to have and should have a performance plan outlining what is it that they're supposed to do in their job, and they should be held accountable for doing that.
		Political appointees don't have that same requirement, despite the fact that they are the leadership of our government.
		So, one of the areas that we've advocated for is actually having transparent, clear, and substantial performance plans for all the political appointees.
		And we would have a better government if we actually had that.
		We do have 4,000 political appointees.
		As I noted earlier, most peer democracies count their political appointees in tens, maybe 100.
		You know, John McCain had suggested cutting that number in half.
		Unfortunately, that did not occur.
		But I think at the end of the day, a president is responsible for running a very, very complex, large organization that has a lot of responsibilities to the American people, most importantly, keeping us safe.
		We need people in those most senior jobs who have large organizational experience and especially who can take their experience and use it effectively in the government context.
		And that's been a challenge.
		I think if you look over time why our government isn't doing better, it has more to do with leadership gaps over time than anything else.
		And the short-term nature of the leaders in the political jobs.
		They're not around long enough to actually be incentivized to focus on the health of the organizations they are, in fact, responsible for.
		But that may be taking us beyond the brief of your question, so I'll stop there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And the caller mentioned the vote for the Hag Seth nomination for Secretary of Defense.
		That is scheduled for today in the Senate.
		You can watch that on C-SPAN too.
		We're seeing reporting that that should be at 9 p.m. tonight.
		That vote, so be sure to be watching that if you're interested over on C-SPAN too.
		This is Hirsch in Lexington, Mississippi, Independent Line.
		Good morning, Hirsch.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Can you hear me?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go right ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, my name is Hirsch Doshi.
		I'm a practicing physician, and I am a naturalized citizen.
		And I think number one thing is all the naturalized process should be very well organized so that the backgrounds and everything is checked.
		Number two, in the federal government system, I had several encounters with the IRS and the government I work for.
		These situations are so complicated before COVID, during COVID, after COVID, that to get an appointment takes forever, to talk on the phone forever, and the people don't want to listen to the customers' problem.
		That's number one problem.
		Number two is this bureaucracy everywhere has gone out where people like me who work on the front line of the COVID-19 are left out and the decisions by the hierarchy who have no idea.
		Third thing is when the calls are sent outside, which must be given to the Americans, they don't know the difference between Jackson, Mississippi Airport and Jacksonville, Florida.
		Yes, Americans should be given the jobs even if it costs more than the cost-saving efforts.
		I'm done talking.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think, Max?
unidentified		So I think that the caller is exactly right that Americans should be able to get great customer service from their government.
		And it requires a real investment.
		I mentioned earlier that the investments in the IRS were beginning to pay off, that the call responses had increased dramatically.
		The satisfaction had gone up.
		This is the second time we've heard the issue about non-Americans answering calls and call centers.
		Actually, to work in the federal government, you do need to be a United States citizen.
		If you're abroad, there are foreign nationals that are hired in embassies, but the general rule is you have to be an American citizen.
		Private sector companies and contractors can hire non-Americans, but that is not generally an option inside the United States government.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Daniel, Great Falls, Virginia, federal worker.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Daniel.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		So I think there's a number of issues with the way that this is going here.
		First of all, the federal government is the largest employer in the country, and I don't even think it's close.
		And we have to ask ourselves, how does that happen?
		The federal government has come to become largely a jobs program.
		And I've worked for the federal government for a long time.
		And I can tell you I've seen a lot of different things in the federal government.
		But when the new administration came in, one of the first things that I saw in my department, the State Department, was a document of the priorities of the new administration.
		It's a two-page document.
		I suggest that if you can, you pull it up.
		But the three big takeaways are everything that we do in the department should be to make America stronger, safer, and more prosperous.
		And I don't think anybody in their right mind could really argue with that.
		Every dollar we spend, every action we take should be in furtherance of those goals.
		And, you know, this DEI thing with all the DEI and the government, it's a divisive thing.
		And it's the left, ideological left, waging their culture war within the federal government.
		And it's not enough for them to wage it within the federal government and here domestically.
		They wage that overseas.
		In our embassies overseas, they're waging the culture wars, flying the alphabet mafia flag, flying the BLM flag over our embassies overseas.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Daniel, let's get a really quick response.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Max.
unidentified		Sure.
		So 100% right.
		U.S. government is actually the largest employer in our country.
		I think it is close in other places, though, Walmart, maybe Amazon.
		But what's interesting here is that's in absolute numbers.
		The size of the federal workforce is about the same size as it was in the 1960s.
		As a percentage of the workforce, it's way down.
		And, you know, more broadly, 100% agree that we can do better and we should expect better from our government.
		And we need leaders who are focusing on the management capability.
		Love your point about saying, hey, new administration comes in.
		They get to set the priority.
		That's our democratic process.
		So thanks to all the callers and thank you, Mimi, for letting me in for this conversation.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And thank you, Max.
		Partnership for Public Service, President and CEO.
		You can find his work and his reports at ourpublicservice.org.
		Thank you very much.
unidentified		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we are going to take you over to the House for a very quick pro forma session.
		We will come back right after they gavel out.
		So don't go anywhere.

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