| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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Getting started. | |
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| Charter Communications supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Coming up this morning on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | ||
| And then Wall Street Journal White House reporter Natalie Andrews discusses week one of the Trump administration and veteran journalist Marvin Kalb on his new book, A Different Russia, Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| It's Sunday, January 26, 2025. | ||
| A three-hour Washington Journal is ahead. | ||
| And we'll begin this Sunday morning by getting your thoughts on the role of religious leaders in today's political disputes. | ||
| Do you think faith leaders should get involved in politics? | ||
| Phone lines split this way for our first hour. | ||
| If you say yes, 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you say no, 202-748-8001. | ||
| If you're not sure, a phone line for you as well, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also send us a text. | ||
| It's 202-748-8003. | ||
| If you do, please include your name and where you're from. | ||
| Otherwise, catch up with us on social media on XITs at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| On Facebook, it's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And a very good Sunday morning too. | ||
| You can go ahead and start calling in now. | ||
| This past week, Washington, D.C. saw several events where politics and religion came into close contact, from the inaugural services and prayers on Monday to the March for Life on Friday. | ||
| And on Tuesday, it was the National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral here in Washington. | ||
| It was there that the Episcopal Bishop Marianne Buddy spoke directly to President Donald Trump in her sermon. | ||
| This is what she had to say. | ||
| Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. | ||
| Millions have put their trust in you. | ||
| And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. | ||
| In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. | ||
| There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families. | ||
| Some who fear for their lives. | ||
| And the people. | ||
| The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. | ||
| But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. | ||
| They pay taxes and are good neighbors. | ||
| They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, wadara, and temples. | ||
| I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. | ||
| And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. | ||
| Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger. | ||
| For we will all want strangers in this land. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. President, what did you think of the sermon? | |
| What did you think of the sermon? | ||
| What did you think of the service? | ||
| What did you think? | ||
| Did you like it? | ||
| Did you find it exciting? | ||
| Not too exciting, was it? | ||
| I did think it was a good service. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you, Press. | ||
| Thank you, Press. | ||
| They can do much better. | ||
| Donald Trump there that day on Tuesday, talking about that sermon from Bishop Buddy at the National Cathedral here in Washington. | ||
| The next day, he took to his True Social account to add to his reaction. | ||
| He went on to say, the so-called bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a radical left hardline Trump hater. | ||
| She brought her church into the world of politics in a very ungracious way. | ||
| That is part of Donald Trump's True Social post the next day. | ||
| We saw several events here in Washington where politics and religion met. | ||
| One of them was just on Friday, the March for Life here in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall. | ||
| Here is one of the prayers that day from one of the Catholic priests present. | ||
|
unidentified
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I especially welcome all of you who have gathered in this vast crowd as we stand together to proclaim our belief in the dignity of the child in the womb and to witness to the sanctity of all human life. | |
| This is why we march. | ||
| And so let us pray. | ||
| Almighty and eternal God, author and sustainer of the gift of human life, we, your sons and daughters, and Jesus, your Son, come before you as stewards of this great gift. | ||
| Hear our humble and heartfelt prayer. | ||
| May we never fail to protect and value human life from the first moment of conception through to the moment of natural death. | ||
| May our efforts rightly include legal protection as well as constant prayer. | ||
| May we continue to do penance for the cruel and tragic offenses against the divine dignity of human life, especially by abortion. | ||
| May we be instruments of your love and compassion for any pregnant mother in need and all those who have been wounded by abortion. | ||
| We turn to you, Father of us all, for your grace and power to fuel anew in our time the ever-present need to build up the culture of life. | ||
| May this culture of life bring fresh energy for pro-life initiatives in every part of our nation. | ||
| Archbishop Joseph Naumann, that was at the March for Life on Friday. | ||
| We'll show you more of those events this past week as we simply ask you what role faith leaders should have when it comes to politics should they get involved. | ||
| Phone lines if you say yes, if you say no, and if you're not sure, this is our topic of conversation this first hour of the Washington Journal today. | ||
| We will start with Joseph Joseph in Boston on that line for those who say no. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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More than peace guys. | |
| I'm totally against the religion or getting involved with politics because it tends to be a lot of cover-up. | ||
| You're not dealing with facts. | ||
| You're not dealing with the truth. | ||
| So people in high places of powerful money will use religious leaders as a tool to push their agenda and oppress other people. | ||
| Real quick, three moments I think this made America loses its value. | ||
| 1929, the monkey scope trial, where they want to teach interior evolution in school. | ||
| The Red Scare, the kids and Paul Robinson, WE Divorce, being so-called communist, and George Bush for religious organization after 9-11. | ||
| I think I said America back. | ||
| We should have separation of church and state. | ||
| America is a country that's beautiful with different diversity, different religious groups. | ||
| You've got to have separation of church and state because tyranny takes place when there's the absent of separation of church and state. | ||
| A religious organization just want to force their agenda on you. | ||
| A lot of bad things happen under religion. | ||
| That's Joseph in Massachusetts. | ||
| I'm that line for those who say yes. | ||
| Lewis, Illinois, Highland Park. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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I would say yes, because religious leaders interact with Americans every day in religious settings and also non-religious settings. | |
| They're very close to the heart and soul of America. | ||
| And I was watching that clip on TV. | ||
| I saw JD Vance's wife, Busha, so engrossed in those words of that minister that it almost brought tears to my eyes. | ||
| Those are heartfelt words and very important. | ||
| I appreciate having the time to speak. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Lewis, on those words, this was Speaker Mike Johnson on X the next day saying Bishop Buddy hijacked the National Prayer Service to promote her radical ideology. | ||
| This was an opportunity to unify the country in prayer, but she used it to sow division. | ||
|
unidentified
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I disagree. | |
| Those words are almost like a prayer for mercy, pleading for safety for human beings in our country. | ||
| These people make our country work. | ||
| If you go down the street and you see roads being fixed, they're not being fixed by white Anglo-Americans. | ||
| They're being fixed by immigrants. | ||
| These people are very important to our country and should be regarded as assets to our country, not liabilities. | ||
| That's Lewis in Illinois to Maurice in Michigan, Portage, Michigan. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| The question that we're asking this morning is: should faith leaders get involved in politics? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| What do you think, Maurice? | ||
| Well, first thing is, I don't think we should hamper anybody's right to speak for any reason. | ||
| The minister or the lady who was doing the talking, she had a point of view and she expressed it. | ||
|
unidentified
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There's no problem with hearing the other people's viewpoints. | |
| It should be the right of everybody to say their thought. | ||
| And this idea of you can't talk because you believe in this is bad for the country. | ||
|
unidentified
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Everybody should have the right to speak their mind. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Tony's next. | ||
| Indiana, Claypool, Indiana. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, no offense to the earlier caller, but JD Vance's wife, she's not running the country. | |
| If you looked at Donald Trump or JD Vance or anyone else that was on that screen, none of them looked like they were about to shed a tear. | ||
| They all looked disgusted. | ||
| I do agree with the first caller. | ||
| Separation of church and state. | ||
| Donald Trump, the only reason he got elected in the first place, in my opinion, was because he picked Mike Pence. | ||
| He knew that when the Access Hollywood tapes came out that he was in trouble. | ||
| That's when he picked Mike Pence to be his running mate. | ||
| He is not a religious or a godly man, and I don't think he sets a good example for Christians. | ||
| I don't think most of the Republican Party sets a good example. | ||
| Marjorie Taylor Greene, there are not many of them that do set a good example, and I don't think they should be church. | ||
| Church and state should be separate. | ||
| Go ahead, I'm sorry. | ||
| Do you think that the prayers at the inauguration on Monday last week were appropriate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I don't really. | |
| I just feel like I just feel like the entire, for the last eight years or ten years even, that the morals in our country have totally backpedaled even farther back than that. | ||
| I just, I don't see our country going in a good direction. | ||
| I think that things have taken a bad turn. | ||
| But on the role of religion in some of these ceremonies, Tony, I guess what I'm specifically asking, the president, whether it was Donald Trump or any president, at the end of their oath of office, they say, so help me God. | ||
| Is that something that should not be in this moment of a transition of inauguration of a new president in this country, the prayers and the so help me God? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, it should be, but it should be believed and heartfelt. | |
| And I think a lot of people just say it without believing in it or feeling it. | ||
| It's just a saying anymore. | ||
| It's not believed or felt. | ||
| I just don't. | ||
| Just like he didn't put his hand on the Bible. | ||
| That's Tony in Indiana. | ||
| Let me take you to Inauguration Day. | ||
| Franklin Graham there, the Reverend Franklin Graham speaking before Donald Trump was inaugurated. | ||
| This is some of what he had to say. | ||
| Mr. President, the last four years, there are times I'm sure you thought it was pretty dark. | ||
|
unidentified
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But look what God has done. | |
| We praise him and give him glory. | ||
| Let us pray. | ||
| Our Father and our God, thou hast said, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. | ||
| As the prophet Daniel prayed, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever. | ||
|
unidentified
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For wisdom and might are his. | |
| He changes the times and the seasons. | ||
| He removes kings. | ||
| He raises up kings. | ||
| He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. | ||
| Our Father, today, as President Donald J. Trump takes the oath of office once again, we come to say thank you, O Lord our God. | ||
| Father, when Donald Trump's enemies thought he was down and out, you and you alone saved his life and raised him up with strength and power by your mighty hand. | ||
| We pray for President Trump that you'll watch over, protect, guide, direct him. | ||
| Give him your wisdom from your throne on high. | ||
| We ask that you would bless him and that our nation would be blessed through him. | ||
| That from Inauguration Day back on Monday of this week, we're asking you this morning: should faith leaders get involved in politics? | ||
| Phone lines are on your screen. | ||
| This is Susie in Florida. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I didn't think I would get into all of this kind of nonsense going on, but the bishop was supposed to have a ceremony. | ||
| It was supposed to have been celebrated in the Church of Christ, correct? | ||
| It's the national prayer service. | ||
| It's an annual, or it's always on Inauguration Day, the Tuesday after the inauguration. | ||
| It's something that is not unique to last week, something that goes back years and decades. | ||
| Oh, well, I understand that part of it, but the point is Christ has been persecuted from decades, decades back, and taken out of our country, so to speak. | ||
|
unidentified
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They want to silence Catholics, especially for their beliefs. | |
| And I'd like that bishop to understand: if she read the Bible, she would know that Jesus came out and told everyone: a marriage is between one man and one woman. | ||
|
unidentified
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Man shall not lay with man, nor woman lay with woman, nor either sex lay with beasts of the field. | |
| And that includes dogs, pigs, whatever. | ||
| All right, that's Susie in Florida. | ||
| This is David in Port St. Lucie. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| I believe no. | ||
| My answer is pretty simple. | ||
| When churches start paying taxes, then they can get involved in politics. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Patrick, also in Florida. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Boy, for an outfit who trotted out Ralph Reed and Gary Bauer for eight years, and now you're saying, should faith leaders be involved in politics? | ||
| And that guy that rambled on about pro-life, I didn't hear him say one thing about pesticides and secticides in our food causing autism forever chemicals. | ||
| Mothers are using so much oxycotton that a new formula with oxycotton in it to wean the babies off and that Billy Graham, God Donald Trump in office, he's just like his father, cashing in on Christ. | ||
| You should read some of the letters that Mrs. Graham wrote to Billy Graham. | ||
| Please come home. | ||
| Our family needs you. | ||
| Nope, not going to do it. | ||
| His own daughter was in a lousy marriage, and he begged her not to divorce so he could go around preaching. | ||
| And that last lady that said, women shall not lie with that's an absolute lie. | ||
| There's no phrase in the Bible that says that. | ||
| If there is, C-SPAN, prove it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Patrick in Florida. | ||
| We'll head out to California. | ||
| Michael, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Yes. | ||
| I think that people should have a right as an American to exercise their freedom of speech. | ||
| I remember a while back there was a congressman in Boston. | ||
| His name was Robert Grun. | ||
| And I thought he was a very good congressman. | ||
| I think the problem with that prayer thing was that that woman would have been much more effective had she grabbed Trump personally one-on-one and made her comments to him directly rather than give him the appearance she was lecturing him. | ||
| And he didn't have a chance to respond. | ||
| I have no problem with what she said. | ||
| It's the way she said it. | ||
| It came across very political. | ||
| And later in the day, she was all over cable television being interviewed by MSNBC and others. | ||
| And it just appeared to be a full-frontal attack on the guy the day he was in office. | ||
| But nevertheless, people of faith have just as much an opinion as anybody else. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that little clip that you showed of the guy at the pro-life rally, well, what do you expect? | |
| He's a Catholic. | ||
| He's a man of faith. | ||
| That's not political. | ||
| He's expressing his faith to his flock and to those who are there who are pro-life. | ||
| I have no problem with that at all. | ||
| That's Michael in California. | ||
| You talk about Bishop Buddy's media appearances after her sermon at the National Prayer Service. | ||
| This is from her appearance the next day on The View. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You seem to strike a nerve. | |
| President Trump initially said yesterday it was, quote, not a good service, unquote, but overnight he took to social media to say you were a, quote, radical left, hardline Trump hater, unquote, that you brought the church into politics and that you owe your church and the public an apology. | ||
| Now, given your role, it doesn't seem surprising that you would speak out for the marginalized, as anyone who's read the Bible and knows the path of Jesus. | ||
| But do you think your message is being misconstrued and politicized? | ||
| Oh, well, sure. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But I think if you read what I said, and I mean, how could it not be politicized, right? | ||
| We're in a hyper-political climate. | ||
| One of the things I caution about is the culture of contempt in which we live that immediately rushes to the worst possible interpretations of what people are saying and to put them in categories such as the ones you've just described. | ||
| That's part of the air we breathe now. | ||
| And I was trying to speak a truth that I felt needed to be said, but to do it in as respectful and kind a way as I could. | ||
| And also to bring other voices into the conversation, which voices that had not been heard in the public space for some time. | ||
| Bishop Buddy from Wednesday on her appearance on The View, more reaction last week to her sermon to President Trump from members of Congress. | ||
| From Ohio, Senator Bernie Moreno wrote on X, as a Catholic and legal immigrant, it's outrageous that some woke bishop would lecture President Trump about deporting illegals. | ||
| It's an insult to all of us who came to this country the right way. | ||
| And one more from Congressman Andy Barr of Kentucky saying, as a conservative Episcopalian who supports President Trump and his agenda, I'm profoundly disappointed that Bishop Buddy politicized the inaugural service of prayer for the nation by disregarding President Trump's appointment of Scott Besant, a brilliantly, openly gay man to serve as Treasury Secretary, and Elon Musk, a genius first-generation legal immigrant to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency. | ||
| Bishop Buddy's gratuitous criticisms ring hollow. | ||
| Sadly, the only message that Bishop Buddy delivered through her unwelcoming and hypocritical words to the president was that the Episcopal Church's motto of all are welcome apparently doesn't apply to the majority of Americans who voted for Donald Trump. | ||
| Congressman Andy Barr. | ||
| Taking your phone calls in this first hour of the Washington Journal, getting your thoughts on the idea of politics and religion, especially for religious leaders. | ||
| This is Chris in Arlington, Texas. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| As far as with the bishop, as far as what she was saying, you're talking about a prayer dinner. | ||
| It seems like where we come, the way we come up as a society now is everybody wants to politicize something negative that's negatively said about Trump. | ||
| This bishop didn't say anything negative about Trump, though. | ||
| She was just asking about, you know, acting to show compassion. | ||
| Because when you really want to be technical with it, we are all immigrants. | ||
| Even Trump, if you go back to the lineage, I mean, everybody's an immigrant to the United States. | ||
| We're doing something new here. | ||
| And to, you know, get mad at her asking for compassion for scared people because you don't believe, you know, in what she. | ||
| I mean, I just don't get it. | ||
| He's basically just saying, hey, show compassion. | ||
| People are scared. | ||
| You may not like the messages she's saying, but all she's asking is that you show compassion for scared people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's not politicizing anything negative. | |
| That's not putting politics into church. | ||
| I mean, that's not putting church into politics. | ||
| Chris, did you feel the same way that he was just giving a message when it came to Franklin Graham's comments and prayer for Donald Trump at his inauguration, talking about his enemies, talking about God bringing down kings and raising up kings? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Well, as far as what that inaugural address, you know, everybody's going to have their own opinions. | ||
| But regardless of who's saying what, you know, it seems like if Trump says it, it's okay to everybody. | ||
| You know, I don't believe in everything. | ||
| I don't believe that a lot of stuff that Trump says is right. | ||
| I don't believe what the bishop said was wrong, you know. | ||
| But we are a nation of immigrants. | ||
| I mean, it is what it is. | ||
| But yes, I mean, you really should keep church and politics separate. | ||
| That's Chris in Texas. | ||
| This is Ronald in Louisiana. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
First of all, people don't misunderstand about the separation of church and state. | |
| The original forefathers had that so that we would not become one particular religion. | ||
| We wouldn't become Catholics. | ||
| We wouldn't become Church of England. | ||
| We wouldn't become this and that. | ||
| Just stop and think about it. | ||
| When John F. Kennedy was running for president, everybody was so worried that he was going to worship the Pope instead of ruled the United States by the Constitution. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| The LBJ turn around and put this into law about the separation of church and state that preachers couldn't talk about politics on the pulpit. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| That wasn't the whole idea. | ||
| Remember, no particular one religion rules the United States of America. | ||
| Now, going back to what you originally was talking about, that woman preaching, she had the right to talk about what she wanted to talk about because that was her sermon. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| If I like it, if I don't like it, that was her sermon. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Everybody has the right to talk about religion the way they want to talk about it, certain beliefs. | ||
| I heard one woman talk about not laying down with man and woman and without animals and this and that. | ||
| That's her belief, okay? | ||
| And some people don't look into enough to see that, all right? | ||
| But that's how she believes. | ||
| Religion is a belief in a God, okay? | ||
| And I believe that God is only one God, okay? | ||
| We have Jesus Christ, they have Muhammad, they have Buddha, and all this and that. | ||
| I believe in the movie, Oh God, there was a question about who's your son, and he gives all the particular people. | ||
| We all God's children, okay? | ||
| So the separation, going back to what I was saying, the separation of church and state, that's what the original plans were. | ||
| Wasn't that politics and religion can get into each other? | ||
| They have the right to get within each other. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| But what we don't have the right is to be in one. | ||
| We can't be all Catholic. | ||
| We can't be all Baptist. | ||
| We can't be all Protestant. | ||
| We can't be all Episcopalians. | ||
| Ronald, got your point. | ||
| In Louisiana, we've been showing some of the reaction specifically to Bishop Buddy's sermon to President Trump last week. | ||
| Here's more on that. | ||
| It's from Guthrie Graves Fitzsimmons, Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Interfaith Alliance, writing a column in MSNBC. | ||
| Guthrie Graves Fitzsimmons writes, Buddy isn't the only religious leader calling out Trump's mass deportation agenda. | ||
| Pope Francis has named a new Archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Robert McElroy, who unequivocally declared mass deportations incompatible with Catholic doctrine in his first news conference earlier this month. | ||
| Buddy's message was a reflection of Jesus' call to love our neighbors, to care for the oppressed, and seek justice for the marginalized. | ||
| The fact that it's gone viral across social media is proof that mainstream Christians are hungry for truth-telling, justice-seeking Christian leaders to step up at this critical moment for our democracy and our faith. | ||
| Just some of the reaction, getting your reaction this morning, this first hour of the Washington Journal. | ||
| We're coming up on 7:30 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| This is Judy in Nebraska, York, Nebraska. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for taking my call. | |
| It's my opinion that the church has not become involved in politics, but the politicians have gone to the place where the purpose of that church was to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. | ||
| I feel that the bishop did that in love and compassion. | ||
| She did not threaten. | ||
| She did not control. | ||
| All she asked was for us to think about how sad the marginalized people are. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Kurt in Minneapolis, good morning. | ||
| You are next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, thanks for the call. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I disagree 100% with the previous callers. | ||
| I think that the venue wasn't the right place for that pastor to Preach her views and interpretation of the Bible to Donald Trump. | ||
| I mean, she can do that on her own. | ||
| And I don't think it was fair that Franklin Graham actually expressed his views either. | ||
| You know, the venue for Donald Trump, when you know, it's the inauguration prayer service. | ||
| It should be uplifting and not a, how do I express this? | ||
| Not something that should be political. | ||
| So, Kurt, take me to the third event that we were talking about this week on Friday. | ||
| It's the March for Life, the annual March for Life here in Washington, D.C., a gathering, a pro-life gathering on the National Mall. | ||
| Plenty of faith leaders going to that, speaking at that appropriate venue for them to talk to their believers at that event? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think that event's set up for that. | |
| It's not the inaugural prayer service. | ||
| It's set up for people at that event to express their views, and they can. | ||
| And there's nothing wrong with it. | ||
| By the way, you got Minnesota spelt wrong on your TV. | ||
| I apologize for that. | ||
| I'm assuming that's the graphic that says the state you're from. | ||
| I'm sure one of our producers is rushing to fix that right now. | ||
| Kurt, thanks for the call from Minneapolis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, thank you. | |
| Daniel in the Bay State. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how are you doing? | |
| I got a question, Corrie. | ||
| You put on the television of the view of her speaking at the inaugural church setting there for Trump and everybody else in the church. | ||
| But the one thing you guys missed, there's a clip in her past that she's at a rally and she's there telling all sorts of stuff. | ||
| And the one thing that was caught on this clip was, I hate Trump. | ||
| I want him out. | ||
| Now she's up in front of Trump in the church speaking the same stuff she was doing back then. | ||
| And so how is it in comparison to her anti-Trump rhetoric prior to her being able to speak in front of him? | ||
| And one last thing. | ||
| Do you think everybody in that church wanted to hear that? | ||
| Or did they come there to hear the praising of our country, of what just took place? | ||
| I don't care if it's Trump or Suzy Q, it doesn't matter to me. | ||
| That wasn't the proper place to do that. | ||
| And as far as Graham saying what he said, it's his faith that he's speaking to Trump, period. | ||
| It's not her faith. | ||
| That's not her faith speaking about these issues with immigrants. | ||
| There's a difference. | ||
| And this is the part that burns me up. | ||
| We need to understand why is that not her faith? | ||
| Why do you say that's not her faith? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because she didn't come out, right, and say, you know, I want to welcome everybody here. | |
| I know my church has dropped in patronage. | ||
| And then she was able to spews that. | ||
| No wonder why no one's going to her church. | ||
| You know, I go to someone that's inspirational, not degrading. | ||
| That's what I look for. | ||
| Daniel, are you finished? | ||
| That's Daniel in Massachusetts. | ||
| This is Boris in Cleveland, Tennessee. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You know, this is really, I will not speak against anyone, Trump, nor the lady that was speaking. | ||
| Flesh is flesh, and spirit is spirit. | ||
| And trust in God, let him speak to you. | ||
| Let him speak. | ||
| He will lead you in the right direction. | ||
| He tells us to put on the protection, his protection. | ||
| Because if we follow the world, spiritual law and worldly laws are two different things. | ||
| I could speak for a long time, brother. | ||
| Forgive me. | ||
| But spiritual law and worldly laws are two different things. | ||
| The world sees things fit for the world. | ||
| God sees things fit for God. | ||
| We have a jealous God. | ||
| No man is above God. | ||
| No woman is above God. | ||
| God speaks to you through your spirit. | ||
| If God's Spirit is with you, he is the spirit. | ||
| So, Boris, what happens when speaking about God happens at these very public national events? | ||
| Is that okay? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I don't think so. | |
| Because there are so many things to that. | ||
| If you speak, it's got to be through God's words that you speak. | ||
| When God speaks to the Spirit, and he does, trust me, I know. | ||
| I was a sinner. | ||
| I know you got so many more callers, but I was a sinner. | ||
| When God spoke to me, he told me about Corinthians. | ||
| I knew nothing. | ||
| I was a sinner. | ||
| I was scared. | ||
| I feared the word of God because I didn't know who he was until I heard his voice. | ||
| That's Boris in Tennessee. | ||
| This is Randy in Kentucky. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| About 20 minutes left in this segment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| This is something that faith leaders are, it's a law. | ||
| They're paid not to speak out against political and social issues. | ||
| Now, I want, God is everything. | ||
| God is politics. | ||
| God is social issues. | ||
| God is whatever you want to make God. | ||
| God is. | ||
| But they get, like I say, they get paid. | ||
| They're foul 501c3 corporations. | ||
| It's a law that they cannot speak out against political and social issues. | ||
| That's any pastor anywhere. | ||
| Now, the Pope, a while back, spoke out and he called Trump. | ||
| He likened him to the evil King Herod. | ||
| There's just so many of these people that speak out and they get paid. | ||
| Their religion, the Catholics, they're getting paid to bring in all these illegals and then they'll sit in their pews and they'll pay a whole lot more tithes and offerings. | ||
| And the Catholic Church will be like a state-sanctioned church, basically, because they've grown big and they'll probably be one of the biggest. | ||
| Do you want to revisit tax-exempt status for churches? | ||
| Is that what you're saying? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| I'm a Christian. | ||
| I don't want to pay for other Christians or other religions, religion. | ||
| Atheists don't want to pay for their religion either. | ||
| They don't believe in this. | ||
| But just have your house church. | ||
| All you have to do is simple. | ||
| Just pay all of your taxes. | ||
| Pay your property taxes. | ||
| Pay your taxes on your tithes and offerings. | ||
| Don't let that atheist pay for your taxes. | ||
| That is stealing. | ||
| That's communism. | ||
| That's evil. | ||
| Got your point. | ||
| That's Randy. | ||
| This is John in Princeton, New Jersey. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| This is a tough question, and I'm not sure I can get my articulated clearly enough. | ||
| My problem with religion and politics is politics getting injected into religion rather than the other way around. | ||
| Most religions teach a moral code that I could get behind. | ||
| But politicians have for thousands of years used religion to motivate jihad, crusades, slaughter. | ||
| Works the other way. | ||
| We'd be better off sticking to the basics of religion. | ||
| And so, yeah, that's a mix of politics. | ||
| Did Bishop Buddy stick to the basics of religion? | ||
| Did Franklin Graham stick to the basics of religion when they spoke last week at those two very public, very national events? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What I heard was more in the vein of love thy neighbor, which I can get with, and not in the vein of those people are evil, so let's kill them and take their stuff, which has been used to motivate all sorts of horrible things in the history of the planet. | |
| That's about all I got to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I love this show. | ||
| And I love the people that call in. | ||
| I wouldn't, I'd love to sit down with a few of you and have a beer and have a political discussion, but this is the next best thing. | ||
| Thanks a lot for that. | ||
| Tell me what, John, when you do that, if you do that, call in. | ||
| Let us know how it goes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I'll try. | |
| That's John in the Garden State. | ||
| Back to the Pelican State. | ||
| This is Russell. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, you guys. | |
| Yeah, as far as for intertwining the two, politics and religion, I don't believe that the pulpit is the place to just express your political views. | ||
| I think it's supposed to be used for love and goodness, in a sense. | ||
| I think like the bishop that spoke to President Trump on the immigrations and stuff, and I don't think that was appropriate. | ||
| I think that, in a sense, the Catholic religion, and I grew up a Catholic, I think that at some point I got discouraged with it because it seemed so hypocritical. | ||
| I think this lady bishop, maybe she would be better off using her time to talk about what we've been having going on down here for a very, very long time, which is Catholic priests molesting little boys. | ||
| They need to address that issue as opposed to their political views. | ||
| They can go outside the pulpit and demonstrate what they feel about the politics, and they certainly have the right to vote. | ||
| They can go vote and everything. | ||
| But on our local channel down here, Homer TV, we had two Catholic priests talking about child trafficking. | ||
| And that's, to me, that's hypocritical because you're leaving the wolf at the door of the sheep's den and I garden it. | ||
| I just don't feel that it's appropriate. | ||
| I thank you for your time, sir. | ||
| And Bishop Buddy, an Episcopal bishop, that's Russell in Louisiana. | ||
| This is Steve in Pennsylvania, York, Pennsylvania. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| What I have to say is this. | ||
| Over the years, they have fixed politics with religion quite a bit. | ||
| But the political people have done it in reverse of what you think. | ||
| Just take a look. | ||
| We talk about abortion. | ||
| That's become political. | ||
| Well, that's a moral issue. | ||
| Transgender and stuff like that. | ||
| Is there more than two different male and female? | ||
| God says there's male and female. | ||
| There's no other genders. | ||
| How about the borders in God's word? | ||
| Each nation has a border, has a rule of law in their country. | ||
| We have lost that. | ||
| We have politics has gotten to the point where they're involved in religion because they know that they need a certain percentage of so-called religious people to vote for them. | ||
| But I see that happen in Lamb 78 in a couple of days, back actually on Tuesday. | ||
| And this is what's happening. | ||
| But you look at the issues, they are moral issues. | ||
| And the one thing is about Jesus. | ||
| It was not a social gospel. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| The hub of his talking and his preaching was to go into all the world and preach the gospel. | ||
| The gospel is a good news: that Jesus Christ was born and a virgin born, suffered our sins on a cross, died, was resurrected, and someday he's coming back. | ||
| Our faith as Christians should be in the Lord Jesus Christ and not political leaders because they do feel because they are sinners. | ||
| And I want to thank you for your time. | ||
| But let me ask you before you go. | ||
| We've talked about this before: church religious institution attendance in the United States falling over the decades. | ||
| 42% of U.S. adults back in 2000 said that they attended religious services weekly or near every week. | ||
| By 2023, it was down to 30%, a 12-percentage point drop, a pretty steady decline. | ||
| Why do you think that is in this country? | ||
| Why is there a decline in church attendance or religious sometimes? | ||
|
unidentified
|
One is, I think our families today, a lot of families are a one-parent family. | |
| That's one thing. | ||
| Two is they're being taught in schools socialism in itself. | ||
| Another thing is there are some people in the pew that are not truly Christians. | ||
| They're Christians in name only and not in their hearts. | ||
| And if you're a Christian, people that are not Christians should see a difference between a Christian and a non-Christian, how they live, how they treat other people. | ||
| And I think you're seeing that decline because a lot of Christians put a face mask inside their building, but when they go out, they're different. | ||
| They're not what they should be. | ||
| And people can pick it up very, very quickly. | ||
| So I want to thank you for your time. | ||
| I do appreciate it. | ||
| You have a rest of your day. | ||
| Have a good one. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| Steve in York, Pennsylvania, the dispatch with a recent column, Beauty, Truth, and Goodness, Catholicism's Answer to Gen Z. | ||
| That story says that the well-documented rise of the nuns, those who claim no religious belief or affiliation, has fueled theories that politics is taking the place of faith. | ||
| Even so, some generation Zers are turning towards the Catholic Church for the tradition and community often lacking in modern institutions. | ||
| Harvard University's 2023 cooperative election study showed a significant increase in just one year in the percentage of millennials and Gen Zers identifying as Catholic from 6 to 20% for millennials and from 15 to 21 percent for Gen Zers in the years 2022 to 2023. | ||
| This unexpected shift, they write, suggests that for some young people, the Catholic Church is filling a void left by modern society. | ||
| A study on young people and religion. | ||
| That's in the dispatch, the story by Victoria Holmes from Today, published January 26th, if you want to read it. | ||
| This is Mike in Illinois. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I don't think religious leaders should get involved in politics if they want to teach the faith and then affect people by voting individually. | |
| That's great, but I especially don't think that the Catholic Church should be involving in anything because it seems like every 10, 15 years, there's a big flare-up of priests molesting kids, and they haven't rooted it out. | ||
| And I don't think that they have the moral authority to say anything to the government or anyone else. | ||
| That's Mike in Illinois. | ||
| This is Bonnie in the Buckeye State in Cincinnati. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Go ahead, Bonnie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I believe they need to have church into politics. | |
| I am so afraid. | ||
| This is the first time in my life. | ||
| I'm 66 years old that I've been afraid. | ||
| My husband is so afraid. | ||
| He can't watch the news. | ||
| They have to have some kind of balance, and they need help because Trump is not who he appears. | ||
| And people are, they're scared, and I am too. | ||
| For the first time, I'm afraid. | ||
| And that lady, I think her name was Budded. | ||
| Buddy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Booted or something. | |
| Bishop Buddy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bishop Buddy. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, Bishop Buddy. | ||
| She told the truth, and it hurt him. | ||
| She said, have mercy. | ||
| And that's what this world needs. | ||
| It has to have some mercy. | ||
| It needs some balance. | ||
| And it's getting out of hand. | ||
| And I think, in my heart, if history is repeating itself and people don't see it, they look into their pocketbooks. | ||
| That's all they see. | ||
| We don't have money for this. | ||
| We don't have money for that. | ||
| They need to see the big picture. | ||
| It's going right back the way it was with Hitler. | ||
| They're sliding things under so people aren't paying attention to what's really going on. | ||
| They're getting right back the way it was with the Nazis and the Jewish people. | ||
| That's Bonnie. | ||
| This is Kathy in Waynesboro, Georgia. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, hi. | |
| I wanted to respond to that man who said there was no where that it said you cannot lie with a man with a man, a woman with a woman. | ||
| It is in Leviticus chapter 18, verse 22, and verse 23 deals with the lion with a beast. | ||
| So he should look that up and familiarize himself with that. | ||
| So Kathy, bring me to last week here in D.C. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't, I don't think they should. | |
| If they do, their 501c3 should be taken away and they should start paying taxes. | ||
| But the whole chapter of 18 deals with sex and sexuality and how to deal with that. | ||
| And I wonder how these people would feel if that woman was preaching all have mercy on the fetus for no abortion. | ||
| How would they feel if that she went, rambled on about that? | ||
| She, like that one man said, she is a radical. | ||
| So Kathy, there was a lot of discussion about abortion on that. | ||
| On the national mall. | ||
|
unidentified
|
She isn't Catholic. | |
| She's not Catholic. | ||
| People are thinking she's Catholic. | ||
| I don't believe she's Catholic. | ||
| She's Episcopalian, right? | ||
| And then what was your question? | ||
| Yeah, she's an Episcopal bishop. | ||
| So there was a lot of discussion on the National Mall at the March for Life about abortion. | ||
| You talk about how people would feel about abortion. | ||
| That topic was the entire topic of the March for Life or the overarching topic of the March for Life. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That wasn't in a church. | |
| That wasn't in a religious setting. | ||
| That wasn't in where you talk of God and Jesus. | ||
| So is it okay on the national mall or not okay? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I think it is. | |
| In fact, we need more of it. | ||
| We should be preaching this on the street corner. | ||
| And the compassion she wants, the mercy she wants is for illegals. | ||
| We have nothing against people immigration. | ||
| We want them to come in legally. | ||
| That's all you have to do. | ||
| Come in the right way. | ||
| It's Kathy in Georgia. | ||
| A few minutes left. | ||
| This is Sarah in Brooklyn. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| What do you think to this question we're asking this morning, Sarah? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I am concerned because I hear Christian people condemning a Christian leader for witnessing. | |
| Don't Christians believe the Bible when it says you witness at every opportunity that you can? | ||
| He wasn't yelling at him. | ||
| He was speaking gently and mildly of her faith. | ||
| Now, I want to know how these people calling in would feel if that same buddy had said, oh, God have given us Trump. | ||
| He approves of everything Trump does. | ||
| God loves Trump. | ||
| Trump is a holy man. | ||
| They wouldn't be calling in right now saying he said something wrong. | ||
| So what my point is, it's not against the law to gently chide our leadership. | ||
| We've had protests. | ||
| That's how the civil rights, that's how black people gain civil rights by making a protest. | ||
| And for these people to call in and all of a sudden say, it's the wrong time, it's never the wrong time to speak the truth. | ||
| It's never the wrong time to witness if you're really a Christian. | ||
| What? | ||
| You Christians want to set aside Christianity while you do something wrong? | ||
| While you do something evil, cruel? | ||
| You want to forget about Christianity? | ||
| Don't bring that up right now. | ||
| It's not the right time. | ||
| And that's what my whole point is. | ||
| That's Sarah in New York. | ||
| A few of your comments via social media. | ||
| Eddie on X saying there's a double standard. | ||
| The church can preach to Republican politicians to promote liberal causes, but the church can't preach to liberals about morality. | ||
| This is Dee Woodby saying her sermon was way out of her league. | ||
| She had no business in bringing religious pageantry and politics together with hotspots that we have to deal with as a nation as a whole. | ||
| All this woman did was attempt to divide people, not invite them. | ||
| Sermons should be given their own time. | ||
| And this from EJ in Ohio. | ||
| The question should be, should Christian faith leaders, and therein lies the hypocrisy. | ||
| If you were any other religion beyond Christianity, they would be scorned. | ||
| James, Kentucky, good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Well, then say Christianity, when you go to church, you're supposed to be preached to God comes and gives you what to say. | ||
| But it won't be his own campaign in church. | ||
| You don't speak to that. | ||
| That's James. | ||
| This is David Dennison, Texas. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Well, you started out. | ||
| You stuck a stick in a hornet's nest this morning. | ||
| I'm more of a deist type. | ||
| I'm a Trump supporter, and I don't agree with many of the concepts of religion that are out there, but I certainly wholeheartedly support the idea of religion in the public square. | ||
| I think it's something that's made our country better for the most part. | ||
| Certainly, Christianity and Western culture led the charge against slavery. | ||
| The abolitionist movement was a Christian church movement. | ||
| Again, I'm not a churchgoer. | ||
| I haven't been in church in 50 years. | ||
| It has nothing to do with that. | ||
| The Constitution is about not allowing the government to mandate a certain church. | ||
| I mean, the Anglican church had to convert to Episcopal Church in this country because they couldn't have churches that reported back to the King of England, who was the head of the church. | ||
| And we've got in our Constitution the right of free speech, the right to assemble. | ||
| These things are both integral in how religion is being used. | ||
| I personally wouldn't even mind taxing churches and taxing schools. | ||
| I don't have a problem with that. | ||
| But the idea that you get into these discussions about how many angels can you fit on a head of a pen is what it sounds like. | ||
| People are talking whether you should be able to have people speaking for religion in politics, and you're getting different opinions based on what people's beliefs are. | ||
| The Constitution is a Constitution for everybody. | ||
| And my problem with the speech that that Episcopal minister gave, and something that's being overlooked, is that she's an Episcopal minister, whatever they call them. | ||
| If you go to episcopalchurch.org, they've got a whole section there in an Episcopal Street Action Handbook. | ||
| They are a very woke, politically correct organization. | ||
| It literally says in the book, it talks about woke value. | ||
| It literally uses the word woke in the book and talks about critical theory, critical justice theory, and all those things. | ||
| That's what she was speaking on behalf of. | ||
| She was giving a lecture to the president. | ||
| She wasn't giving a sermon per se. | ||
| And if her, you know, I. David, is it any surprise that some religions tend to vote overwhelmingly for one political party of the other? | ||
| You talk about it being a woke church. | ||
| Looking at the 2024 election numbers, white evangelical Protestants overwhelmingly vote Republican. | ||
| 81% voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 election. | ||
| Any surprise that some religions just tend to fall towards one political party or the other? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Socialism has a history in France, early France, the Catholic Church, etc. | |
| There's certainly a streak of socialism. | ||
| And really, if you just talk in terms of Christianity and support for, I can understand how they would make a connection with the global community. | ||
| That's what the Pope does. | ||
| I mean, the Pope is next to him. | ||
| I don't want to say Marxist, but he's awfully close from a socialist. | ||
| He's anti-capitalist. | ||
| Listen to his sermons. | ||
| But again, let me just read this directly. | ||
| This is right straight from the manual on the Episcopal Church's official website. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The need for grounding in critical social justice theory. | |
| Protestant protest chaplains, that's what this is about. | ||
| It's a manual for protest chaplains to go and minister and be there to help people that are doing protests need to be grounded in critical theory or in activist parlance woke. | ||
| That was the message she was giving to him. | ||
| That's not the message of America. | ||
| As everybody can see, is the DEI wave is being rolled back, and all of that is being taken out of business and government and such. | ||
| And if you hadn't gave me 30 minutes, I can give you a lot more on that one. | ||
| My point is. | ||
| I've got about two minutes left, and I've got a couple more callers. | ||
| Go ahead and wrap up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My point is that for, okay, I'm going to change the subject for just one second. | |
| I have a hard time listening to your show anymore. | ||
| I used to call in all the time, used to listen all the time. | ||
| This whole conversation to this point, you've had maybe 5% or 10% of people that reflect anything associated with the Republican Party as it stands today. | ||
| Every one of your callers, if they've talked about religion, it's been to support what she's saying, which believe me, the majority of people in this country don't support Donald Trump or not be president. | ||
| David, I would say go back and listen to the calls again because it was a lot more diversity of opinion than that. | ||
| But I do appreciate the call and always enjoy chatting with you, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much, Shepard. | |
| Patrick, Alabama, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning, Wong. | |
| Buddy, this is a pitiful thing to watch. | ||
| Christian, people need to define Christian. | ||
| Christian is Christ-like. | ||
| And if they'll just go read the 24th chapter of Matthew, they'll understand everything, what's going on. | ||
| That woman was standing behind a pulpit. | ||
| Whenever a preacher stands up there and preach, they're supposed to be led by the Spirit of God. | ||
| Spirit of God was nowhere near this woman. | ||
| People misuse the Bible so bad. | ||
| If they would just read it, you talked about how many fell off. | ||
| Go back from 1980 to today and see how many Christians is going to church. | ||
| This is a reason you can't win nobody to Christ. | ||
| False prophets will arise. | ||
| They take one little scripture and they use it to fit their meaning. | ||
| That's not the way the Bible was meant to be. | ||
| The Bible will judge you yourself just by reading it. | ||
| They talk about the love of God. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| God loves the sinner, but God don't love sin. | ||
| There's no such thing as a transgender child. | ||
| They better read the word of God. | ||
| And this woman sitting there talking about love thy neighbor as ourself, she needs to get the definition of what illegal means. | ||
| The Bible teaches you that a man that won't provide for his own household first is worse than an infidel. | ||
| We got to take care of America first, and then once we take care of our own, then we can help others. | ||
| That's Patrick in Alabama, our last caller in this first segment of the Washington Journal. | ||
| Stick around, though, plenty more to talk about this morning. | ||
| Up next, we will be joined by Wall Street Journal White House reporter Natalie Andrew. | ||
| We'll review week one, look ahead to week two of the second Trump administration, and later a conversation with veteran broadcast journalist Marvin Kalb on his new book, A Different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, part two of our interview with historian Nigel Hamilton, author of Lincoln vs. Davis. | |
| He talks about the military face-off between these two American presidents during the Civil War and the impact the Emancipation Proclamation had on the war's outcome. | ||
| From that moment, the 1st of January, 1863, the South was doomed. | ||
| Until then, Jefferson Davis had been allowed by Lincoln to frame the war as a noble, white southern fight for independence. | ||
| Pure and simple. | ||
| But from the moment that Lincoln said no, you, Jefferson Davis, and your commander-in-chief, Robert E. Lee, have attacked the North, which is what they did in September of 1862. | ||
| It's the equivalent of Pearl Harbor, if you like. | ||
| Once you attack the North, you change the whole game. | ||
| Nigel Hamilton with his book, Lincoln vs. Davis, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| The C-SPAN Bookshelf Podcast Feed makes it easy for you to listen to all of C-SPAN's podcasts that feature nonfiction books in one place so you can discover new authors and ideas. | ||
| Each week, we're making it convenient for you to listen to multiple episodes with critically acclaimed authors discussing history, biographies, current events, and culture from our signature programs about books, afterwards, booknotes plus, and Q ⁇ A. Listen to C-SPAN's bookshelf podcast feed today. | ||
| You can find that C-SPAN Bookshelf Podcast feed and all of our podcasts on the free C-SPAN Now mobile video app or wherever you get your podcasts and on our website c-span.org slash podcasts. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Wall Street Journal White House reporter Natalie Andrews joins us now to wrap up week one of the second Trump administration. | ||
| Look ahead to week two. | ||
| And I want to start at the very end of week one. | ||
| President Donald Trump dismissing a dozen inspectors generals at agencies across the federal government. | ||
| Bring us up to the latest of where we stand on that and what is going to happen on Monday at these agencies. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was surprising news. | |
| It happened late Friday night and it kind of was something that trickled out as the news spread. | ||
| It wasn't necessarily something the administration announced right away that was going to be happening. | ||
| Generally, they're supposed to give Congress notice. | ||
| That did not happen. | ||
| Donald Trump said on Air Force One when he talked to press there that it was commonplace, it was something he planned to do, but it has alarmed a lot of Democrats and people who oppose Trump because this is inspectors general are people who are supposed to oversee departments. | ||
| They're kind of a watchdog group. | ||
| And without that, it is alarming folks as to what is going to happen. | ||
| The dismissal appearing to violate a federal law that requires 30 days notice before a president fires an inspector general. | ||
| So who, what's the recourse here? | ||
| Is this Congress stepping in next week? | ||
| What's your sense of how this unfolds come Monday? | ||
|
unidentified
|
If it was not Donald Trump, maybe Congress would step in. | |
| I'm doubtful that Congress really, that Republicans want to step in and object to Donald Trump right now. | ||
| They're really in lockstep with Donald Trump. | ||
| They may look at his reasoning and agree with it. | ||
| It's an interesting world where we have Congress that's ready to work with Donald Trump and not so alarmed by what he may do. | ||
| You don't see this as a moment when some Republicans will step out. | ||
| And I quote Senator Chuck Grassley was quoted as saying a statement that he gave yesterday. | ||
| There may be good reasons that the IGs were fired. | ||
| We need to know that. | ||
| If so, I'd like further explanation from President Trump. | ||
| Regardless, the 30-day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided here to Congress. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, Congress likes senators, they do like to have their due process. | |
| They want the law to be followed. | ||
| They will ask questions. | ||
| I don't think we'll see the alarm that maybe Democrats will project from Republicans. | ||
| Meanwhile, Donald Trump moving ahead in his second administration. | ||
| What's on the agenda that we know about for next week? | ||
| Look ahead for us for the days to come. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Donald Trump today is going to speak to House Republicans in Doral, Florida, where they're having their annual policy retreat. | |
| They're going to be planning reconciliation. | ||
| They're going to be talking about their big tax bill, what they want to reconstruct. | ||
| And we expect more executive orders this week. | ||
| They haven't put out a robust schedule of what the president's going to be doing, but I'd expect it to be just as busy as last week. | ||
| For Donald Trump meeting with House members, for the Senate side, a focus again on confirmations. | ||
| We saw the confirmation of Pete Hegseth. | ||
| We saw the Homeland Security Secretary be confirmed, Christy Noam. | ||
| What are the confirmations coming up next week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
One of the big hearings is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to have his moment. | |
| He has two hearings this week because as Health and Human Services Secretary, he goes before the Finance Committee and the Health Committee. | ||
| So he'll go back to back with two committees. | ||
| And they're going to continue confirming everyone they've gotten out of committee. | ||
| So they are determined to get the president and his full cabinet as quickly as possible. | ||
| Tulsi will be, I think it's Thursday. | ||
| She'll be in front of Congress and that will also be a hearing that will have a lot of eyes on it. | ||
| Do you expect Donald Trump to be back on Capitol Hill speaking with senators, arm twisting on these nominees? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Donald Trump likes to often bring people to the White House. | |
| So it wouldn't be shocking if he's inviting folks. | ||
| He's very collegial, right? | ||
| He's wanting to meet with every House Republican. | ||
| He's going to invite people over to dinner. | ||
| He's going to have them to the White House, which they like. | ||
| They feel as though they were a little frozen out during the Biden administration, and they are enjoying having the White House back. | ||
| Pete Hegseth, it took JD Vance breaking a tie in the Senate yesterday to confirm him as Secretary of Defense. | ||
| Who has the toughest path of those left in your mind? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Likely Tulsi Gabbard. | |
| It seems like she was a former Democrat, as was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and it seems like there are concerns from Republicans there, and they may not be able to pull in Democrats like some of the other nominees have. | ||
| Although some Democrats have spoken warmly of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., so we'll see. | ||
| We are talking with Natalie Andrews this morning of the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| If you ever had a question for a White House correspondent, now it's a good time to call in this Sunday morning. | ||
| Phone lines, as usual, Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| I did want to ask you about your story in the Wall Street Journal magazine. | ||
| We've heard about Trump 2.0. | ||
| What about Melania 2.0? | ||
| Explain. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we have been looking at how Melania Trump has been approaching this job differently. | |
| It's a unique chance, right? | ||
| You leave office four years later, you're coming back. | ||
| We've seen Donald Trump come back in a different way. | ||
| But we're also seeing Melania Trump come back in a different way. | ||
| She's more confident. | ||
| She did the swing with Donald Trump to North Carolina, to California. | ||
| She was out there right by his side while he was talking to press. | ||
| She was more assertive, it seems, and she spoke to folks that had lost their home in her native language. | ||
| And we may see a more outward-facing, more public-facing Melania. | ||
| We'll have to see. | ||
| Malik's up first in this segment, calling in from Texas. | ||
| It's Missouri City, Texas. | ||
| Malik, good morning. | ||
| You're on with Natalie Andrews. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hey, Donald. | |
| Could say that Donald Trump has already committed impeachable offenses. | ||
| But Congress is not going to do their due diligence, their constitutional duty with oversight. | ||
| Secondly, I also like to point out that there's a lot of talk about DEI. | ||
| Yet we have a Fox News host that's been confirmed as Secretary of Defense. | ||
| We have a very incompetent, unintelligent U.S. Attorney General and Pam Bondi, and yet somehow DEI has caused the country to catch on fire. | ||
| And it's almost laughable that she talks about Melania Trump. | ||
| And people need to realize that Melania Trump came in on the Einstein visa. | ||
| Again, this woman has no college transcripts. | ||
| She has no talent. | ||
| She has no intelligence. | ||
| But yet, somehow, she came to this country under the Einstein visa. | ||
| So let's talk about Donald Trump's impeachable offenses that he's already committed while letting out domestic terrorists, because that's what they were. | ||
| January 6th, people he pardoned, the majority of them are domestic terrorists. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| It's Malik in Texas. | ||
| What do you want to pick up on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think I do. | |
| Melania used the visa that a lot of models use. | ||
| And it is an interesting point he makes. | ||
| I think that Democrats are going to have a lot of reasons for concern in the Donald Trump administration. | ||
| And Republicans right now are not expressing concern. | ||
| So it takes a whole partisan body. | ||
| It takes a whole body to act on something. | ||
| Speaking of figures we're going to be seeing perhaps more of in the second Trump administration, Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt. | ||
| What has your interaction been like with her? | ||
| We're going to see her in the Brady press room soon answering those questions, going toe-to-toe with reporters. | ||
|
unidentified
|
She is going to let Donald Trump speak for himself. | |
| I think a lot of the time she doesn't see a need to do a briefing every day when Donald Trump is willing to answer questions for 45 minutes directly to reporters. | ||
| So we may see less of her as a press secretary. | ||
| She goes on Fox News quite a bit. | ||
| She does cable news quite a bit. | ||
| But we do think she'll probably do her first briefing this week, though they haven't noticed anything. | ||
| This is Terry in Oregon. | ||
| Good morning, Line for Democrats. | ||
| You're on with Natalie Andrews. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| I would like to present to the listeners the pushback against the illegal firings of the 17 inspector generals, and it was from the Council of the Inspector Generals of Integrity and Efficiency, Hannibal Mike Ware. | ||
| And specifically, the third paragraph is specifically based upon the 2022 amendments to the Inspector General Act of 1978, the President must notify Congress 30 days prior to removal of the IG and provide substantial rational, including detailed and case-specific response for each removal. | ||
| And then it gives the place where it's located by the section, blah, blah, Securing Inspector General Independence Act of 2022, title, blah, blah. | ||
| The requirement to provide the substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons, was added to better enable Congress to engage on and respond to a proposed removal of an inspector general in order to protect the independence of inspectors generals. | ||
| The whole preference of our platform, one of the major platforms of Trump was to bring law and order and justice and all this and fight for the people. | ||
| And here we have everything that he is breaking down of our checks and balances. | ||
| And I'm sick of it. | ||
| And I believe that enough people are going to be fighting back and not being put up with this kind of stuff that's turning our government into oligarchy run with all the wealth that's involved now because of the stupid decisions that the Supreme Court have made. | ||
| And now we have, I'm emotional. | ||
| I have been so scared about all of that. | ||
| I mean, he wants to send illegal immigrants, get rid of the criminality. | ||
| And the first thing that he does on the first day is release the 1,600 January 6th convicted criminals. | ||
| That's Terry in Oregon. | ||
| It was reading along as she was quoting it, the letter from Inspector General Ware of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, quoting the securing the Inspector General Independence Act of 2022. | ||
| What was that? | ||
| What should we know about that act? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, it was designed to be a check and balance on the executive for this very purpose, right? | |
| And Donald Trump has ignored that. | ||
| Is this a sign to come of more things that Donald Trump will ignore that Congress? | ||
| Can you ignore that? | ||
| What's the consequence for ignoring that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think Congress would have to act. | |
| And if Congress doesn't act, then we don't see it. | ||
| So if we see Congress this week become more alarmed and act, then we could see some pushback to Donald Trump. | ||
| And maybe they act and maybe he doesn't do further things. | ||
| But Republicans are very much in line with Donald Trump right now. | ||
| So it is a unique time where we're not seeing this growing alarm over. | ||
| And I think Donald Trump feels very empowered to do what he sees he was elected to do. | ||
| To the Hoosier State, this is Robert Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| How can they be convicted without a trial? | ||
| These people that he pardoned had no trial yet. | ||
| So they're not, they weren't convicted. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They were just put in jail and they've been in there. | |
| Robert, there was a lot of people who went through a trial and were convicted. | ||
| There was also ongoing investigations that were shut down. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Warren has been in jail and has no trial. | |
| That's what I'm talking about. | ||
| And now anybody, anybody that can't see that Trump loves his country, he's been shot at. | ||
| He's been in court forever. | ||
| Ever since he now he's going to be president, the Democrats want to judge everybody. | ||
| You do not judge. | ||
| God says, do not judge unless you be judged. | ||
| And look at these Democrats. | ||
| All they do is complain about their ancestors didn't get paid. | ||
| They built the country. | ||
| And that's all I hear from the blacks. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That's Robert in Indiana. | ||
| Brian in Nevada, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning. | |
| Yeah, I'm just calling about the Inspector General thing with Trump. | ||
| I'm not real clear on what he can do on that. | ||
| If you can explain more about what Inspector Generals do, I'd appreciate it. | ||
| Natalie Andrews. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they are at a government agency. | |
| Most government agencies, if not all, have an inspector general that is kind of an outside watchdog. | ||
| Yes, they're with the agency, but these folks are in charge. | ||
| They're tasked with looking for wrongdoing or they're tasked with making sure that the law is complied with. | ||
| They're kind of the inner watchdog of that agency. | ||
| And they, the most recent one that was lauded by Republicans was Jeff Horowitz at the DOJ, who did an investigation into James Comey and actually Horowitz was saved. | ||
| He was specifically gets to keep his job. | ||
| So these are folks and largely unknown. | ||
| I mean, it's not like the folks that all lost their job were people that were targeted by the right over the campaign or things like that. | ||
| But these are folks, yeah, they're tasked with looking for wrongdoing. | ||
| They come out with reports on, you know, the post office or things like that that we, as everyday citizens, aren't paying attention to, but really appreciate generally that they're there. | ||
| And they have investigative powers, but the power of the inspectors general is in the public report that they can release to the general public, can send to Congress. | ||
| And it's Congress that takes action or doesn't take action on an inspector's general report. | ||
| But it's that waste, fraud, and abuse that they're tasked to looking at. | ||
| They can look into any aspect of an agency, as I understand it. | ||
| And that is the power of the Inspector General, being that outside watchdog. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Over oversight of an agency, it's a very unique job. | |
| I imagine you're not loved when you show up at an office that you work for as the Inspector General. | ||
| But you're, you know, yeah, the reports have been game-changing. | ||
| And some of these offices, as I understand it, have hundreds of employees that can work for an inspector general. | ||
| But we're talking about a dozen or more agencies that all lost their inspectors general on Friday if that order stands. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, and it was a late-night order. | |
| This was not something that was necessarily public, which was more interesting, right? | ||
| When you do things at night or when you do things late, you're not on a Friday evening. | ||
| It's not necessarily something you're ready to go out and chat about. | ||
| This is Edric in Illinois. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Edric, you with us? | ||
| Then we go to Kevin in Texas, line for Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Hey, good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I want to talk about being woke and whole term about being woke. | ||
| What's happening with the U.S. government, people should be aware of. | ||
| Like say, if you woke, you know that it's significant changes being done. | ||
| It might not be for your benefit. | ||
| So if you woke, you know that you just can't walk down the street. | ||
| You might have to make adjustments or whatever. | ||
| If you sleep, then you will run into a sign. | ||
| So the American people need to be understanding what's going on with the U.S. government. | ||
| They make significant changes, and it's not going to benefit us. | ||
| And like I say, all the people that's out here, Trump supports whatever, it's not going to benefit y'all. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Kevin, his thoughts in Texas in terms of the American people knowing what's going on with the government. | ||
| They will hear directly from President Trump in a prime time address from the House chamber announced by Speaker Johnson that the presidential address in a non-post-election year, we would call this the State of the Union address. | ||
| But this is the presidential address Tuesday, March 4th in the chamber of the House. | ||
| Do we know at this point what that address is likely to focus on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't think yet, though. | |
| I think Donald Trump will. | ||
| We have plenty of time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Probably plenty of time. | |
| I think that Donald Trump will probably outline the same things he did rally after rally and at his inaugural address. | ||
| He's talked a lot about what he wants to do, and it was very interesting this week to see him just immediately deploy that in action, right? | ||
| I mean, he talked about bringing the federal government back to work. | ||
| He talked about that in nearly every rally. | ||
| He talked about the federal government and what he wanted to do. | ||
| And here he is, one of his first day one things. | ||
| Would your guess be that the tone of this March 4th address from the House chamber will sound more like what Donald Trump said in the rotunda of the United States Capitol on Inauguration Day or that 34-minute speech that he gave in the Capitol Visitor Center after he came down from the rotunda to speak with his supporters there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think we'll get rotunda, Donald Trump. | |
| He, you know, will have a teleprompter. | ||
| He probably won't be as spontaneous as he was right after. | ||
| But it's not necessarily that there's two different Trumps. | ||
| It's the same Trump. | ||
| It's just more, you know, how we're casual and then we're, you know, if we have prepared remarks. | ||
| I think that the same themes are always there. | ||
| Who are Donald Trump's speechwriters? | ||
| Do you know any of them? | ||
| Have you met and able to talk to them as a White House reporter? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's a great question. | |
| I am relatively new to the speech, so I'm looking forward to it. | ||
| I can tell you that he is surrounded by people who have worked for him in the campaign or have spent a lot of time at various policy institutes. | ||
| And those people have now been elevated. | ||
| For example, one of his speechwriters in his first term is now the Domestic Policy Council lead. | ||
| So these are people that are deeply steeped in Donald Trump and what he wants to do. | ||
| A few minutes left this morning with Natalie Andrews of the Wall Street Journal taking your phone calls about the week that was in the Trump administration, the week to come. | ||
| This is Rachel in Florida, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hello. | ||
| I have a question. | ||
| I'd like to know how inspector generals are chosen. | ||
| Are they supposed to be nonpartisan and how do they do that? | ||
| And why? | ||
| I've never heard of any inspector general having anybody accountable for anything. | ||
| Do they do that? | ||
| Or can she cite some examples of how they've brought these agencies to be accountable? | ||
| Yeah, the Inspector General came out of distress over the Watergate scandal after Nixon resigned. | ||
| And this was one of the checks and balances that Congress put in place to oversee agencies. | ||
| You know, I am trying to think of various reports to come out. | ||
| It's true that the Horowitz report is really one that was striking. | ||
| And then oftentimes they'll come out with reports and Congress will call the cabinet secretary or they'll call an agency up before the oversight committee and they'll talk about it. | ||
| Or even still, an inspector general may come out with a report. | ||
| It's public and agencies will act because there's an outcry. | ||
| There was one with the post office that I'm trying to place the year, but it caused some outcry over how they were operating and action was taken. | ||
| And in terms of how they're appointed and get their jobs, I'm cheating because I have the numbers in front of me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, perfect. | |
| More than 70 inspector generals across the federal government, 32 require Senate confirmation. | ||
| And of those dozen or more that Donald Trump said on Friday that handed them their walking papers, those were the heads of the major agencies, all of them requiring Senate appointment. | ||
| This is Jack in Tallahassee, Florida. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| Just want to talk again about the Inspector Generals. | ||
| The President has to follow the law. | ||
| It's not that he can't do anything, but he has to follow the law, just as every American citizen. | ||
| He did not give the 30-day notice. | ||
| That is a poor example to set. | ||
| We are not an imperial republic. | ||
| We are an American republic. | ||
| He has to follow the law. | ||
| And he did not give the 30-day notice. | ||
| It is now seemingly emblematic that he does not intend to follow the law. | ||
| And if we continue this path, we're going to end up being more like a Nazi Germany. | ||
| And I've studied this process of Nazi Germany of following just an erosion, an erosion of checks and balances. | ||
| He needs to follow the law. | ||
| That's Jack in Florida. | ||
| One other quote about the firing of the Inspector's General, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, calling Trump's actions, this according to the Washington Post reporting, a chilling purge. | ||
| These firings are Donald Trump's way of telling us he is terrified of accountability and is hostile to facts and to transparency. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Inspectors General is one place that can hold an agency accountable. | |
| The other is Congress. | ||
| And Congress can do a lot to push back on Donald Trump if they disagree with him. | ||
| We'll just have to see if they do it. | ||
| One more call. | ||
| This is John in Pennsylvania, Republican. | ||
| John, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Yeah, I was wondering, like, for four years when Biden was in office, all we heard about was Trump, Trump, Trump. | ||
| And I was wondering, when are we going to start talking about Joe Biden? | ||
| Like, how about the diary about him sleeping with his daughter? | ||
| Or, hey, how about when Joe Biden was told by the Supreme Court hand out money to the students to pay off their debt? | ||
| You know, you bring this woman on here. | ||
| How long is she? | ||
| All right, that's John, a Republican. | ||
| Do you think there's going to be investigations into Joe Biden or the Biden administration? | ||
| How quickly do they start in 119th Congress that is now led in the House and Senate by Republicans? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they could look into Biden. | |
| There's definitely a lot of angst there from Republicans about Joe Biden, about his family. | ||
| Joe Biden also issued the pardons, which Republicans say is a sign of wrongdoing. | ||
| And Donald Trump was very clear to say that, you know, to note on his first TV news interview that Joe Biden didn't pardon himself and that he should have. | ||
| But I think one reason why Democrats were so forceful at looking into Donald Trump was there was always an idea that Donald Trump could run for re-election or could run for president again and that he was the leader of the party. | ||
| And that brought a lot of, but that put a target on Donald Trump for a lot of lawmakers that wanted to block that from happening. | ||
| I don't think that Biden is going to run for a second term at any point. | ||
| So the Republicans may want to move on to find another, you know, site of ire to investigate. | ||
| One more call. | ||
| I know I said last call, but this is Mark last call, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Independent. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, John, how are you doing? | |
| I hope everything's going well. | ||
| I don't know if you remember me. | ||
| My name is Mark Kenny. | ||
| I'm from Tulsa, Oklahoma. | ||
| I love this show. | ||
| Let's get it on. | ||
| Okay, Natalie Andrews, I mean, come on now. | ||
| What are you selling here, honey? | ||
| I mean, you work for the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| You're the Trump agenda. | ||
| You just stated that going after Joe Biden is a Republican is a little weak. | ||
| I mean, he's done. | ||
| So, Mark, what's the question mark? | ||
| Because I got about 30 seconds. | ||
| And if you could be respectful when you ask to my guest, I'd appreciate it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You should give me like five minutes. | |
| But the thing is, Jonathan, is What is Natalie Andrews doing for us? | ||
| Natalie Andrews, reporter with the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| How long have you been reporting? | ||
| What other beats have you covered? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am just new to the White House beat. | |
| I've been covering Congress for the past eight years. | ||
| I started covering Donald. | ||
| I started covering Congress when Donald Trump arrived to Washington. | ||
| So this is my second time with Donald Trump, and we'll continue to bring reporters and bring people the news. | ||
| And we'll continue to let viewers chat with reporters here in Washington covering the Trump administration, covering the House and the Senate. | ||
| We appreciate your time. | ||
| WallStreetJournal.com is where viewers can go for your stories. | ||
| Thanks so much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I love C-SPAN and appreciate that. | |
| Coming up at the top of the hour in about a half an hour, we'll be joined by veteran broadcast journalist Marvin Kaub to talk about his latest book, A Different Russia, Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course. | ||
| That just out this week. | ||
| But until then, it's our open forum. | ||
| Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, phone lines are yours to do so. | ||
| The numbers are on your screen. | ||
| And go ahead and start calling in. | ||
| We'll get to your calls after the break. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Here's where we are on a Sunday morning here in Washington after a fairly rare Saturday Senate session. | ||
| The Senate was in yesterday to hold confirmation votes, and we now have a new Homeland Security Secretary and Secretary of Defense. | ||
| Christy Noam was approved, confirmed yesterday by the United States Senate. | ||
| It was a vote of 59 to 34, earning several Democrats to her side in that final vote. | ||
| The Pete Hegseth confirmation, it was a lot tighter. | ||
| It was a 50-50 tie in the United States Senate, and JD Vance as vice president coming in to make the tie-breaking vote and confirming Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense this wearing in held yesterday evening. | ||
| That's where we stand this morning ahead of another busy week in Washington. | ||
| More confirmation hearings and votes are on schedule, and we want to hear from you. | ||
| It's our open forum. | ||
| Any public policy issue, any political issue that you want to talk about, now is the time for you to call in about 25 minutes here for your phone calls to let you lead the conversation. | ||
| This is Terry in Rogers, Minnesota, up first, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Sans. | |
| I'm just going to speak to the last issue. | ||
| The Inspector Generals are hired and serve at the pleasure of the United States, the president. | ||
| They're an executive branch office. | ||
| I don't, you know, even if even if you were to challenge it, I'm not sure that the legislative branch has any right to affect that. | ||
| I don't think the president can tell legislators what their staff should be doing. | ||
| So on that issue, even if they were to argue it, it would never stand up in court. | ||
| The separation of powers would come into play. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Terry in Minnesota. | ||
| Joyce is in Texas. | ||
| Good morning, Democrat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| This is the first time I've called. | ||
| I'm a 79-year-old senior citizen, and I just had a question. | ||
| I hear all the time about the lady, I think her name was Ashley Babbitt, that was shot at the Capitol on January 6th. | ||
| I wanted to know, do you know that she had a knife on her? | ||
| You can look it up, and I want to let the audience know that they found several weapons on some of the people arrested for January 6th. | ||
| So I just wanted to let everybody know that. | ||
| Tell you what, Joyce, if you want to watch C-SPAN's Book TV covered a book about Ashley Babbitt that came out last year, Ashley, The Untold Story of the Women of January 6th, Jack Cashel is the author of that book. | ||
| And we featured it on Book TV. | ||
| If you want to watch easy to find booktv.org, C-SPAN.org is where you can go as well to find all of Book TV's listings. | ||
| And we'll hear from Trey in Ellicott City, Maryland, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So good morning. | |
| Good morning, and thank you for allowing me to join this forum. | ||
| I used to be a criminal justice professor, and I've actually split careers. | ||
| I don't know how I teach the next generation about justice when we all have eyes and the ability to perceive. | ||
| We can see that not only the current president has broken many laws, but that he will squeeze this earth to hell and back then to attend to or adhere to just laws. | ||
| And so, as an African American, I'm particularly surprised because I know that there is nothing about our guiding documents, you know, our so-called democratic philosophies that will protect the most vulnerable in this society if, in fact, both the minority of whites as well as the majority who are complicit want to affirm whiteness. | ||
| This is incredible. | ||
| And to the last caller who talked about the respected general serving at the pledge of the president, there are rules and policies and protocols that one must follow. | ||
| And Trump has sounded those rules. | ||
| And I don't know why that's a point of discussion and is often dismissed. | ||
| Like how he goes about things. | ||
| No one says that he can't be fired. | ||
| It's just a way of going about it. | ||
| This is a scary time. | ||
| That's Trey in Maryland. | ||
| This is Kurt in California, Anaheim. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Doing well, Kurt. | ||
| What's on your mind? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, I just want, first of all, I want to appreciate what you do. | |
| I love the open forum, and I just want everybody to know that it's going to be okay. | ||
| You know, it reminds me of like starting a new job or being on a good football team. | ||
| As long as you've got a good quarterback and you have rules and you have policies and everybody knows the job that they need to do, it's going to be okay. | ||
| We're going to get through this. | ||
| You relax. | ||
| Who's our good quarterback, Kurt? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Donald Trump. | |
| That's Kurt in California. | ||
| This is Joe in Wilmington, North Carolina. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think the world as it is must be or might be a situation that continues to unfold by the people and the Constitution that makes it relevant. | |
| As one that operated as an inspector general in the federal government at one time before I got too old, I just want to say that it's important to be independent, to be able to exercise that independence in looking in and uncovering those issues that need to be brought to attention to whether it happens to be the judicial aspects. | ||
| A president just can't come in and wipe people off the board that are federal individuals. | ||
| I want to go just briefly about the bishop. | ||
| The bishop at the National Cathedral, I believe she was at the National Cathedral, the Episcopal Bishop was speaking as a pastor, and she can speak and say what she wishes as the spirit leads, and she was doing that. | ||
| And it's hard to go against that, even though it offends people. | ||
| She was speaking her heart, and we want the truth. | ||
| Just because I'm a Democrat doesn't mean I don't vote for libertarians or Republicans, which I do. | ||
| I look at individuals. | ||
| I don't necessarily like her. | ||
| I know personally, I have worked with the chaplain to the Senate and the chaplain to Congress. | ||
| And the chaplain of the Congress, I knew a lot better. | ||
| Strong individuals and well-educated can speak to topics that are important. | ||
| You mentioned you worked as an inspector general. | ||
| Do you mind saying what agency? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, no, I said I'm retired now. | |
| But I just want to say that we have people that need to be utilized. | ||
| And Congress has a responsibility to ensure that they are protected as inspector generals. | ||
| And I thank you for the time that I have. | ||
| Good day. | ||
| That's Joe in North Carolina. | ||
| This is Al in Washington State, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I, as a retired system scientist, would like to make a comment in that my assessment of this current administration and both its previous and current operations have pushed back the operation of this government of our open government style to the point that it's going to take, | ||
| I figure, 80 to 90 years to recover because of the professionals and the career civil service that have been run out of the government. | ||
| And it's difficult to recruit newer individuals, younger individuals, because of the operation that this current individual is doing to tear apart our government such that the monies that they're trying to, | ||
| quote, save in the operation is going to be pocketed by the oligarchs because that's what they're investing in. | ||
| They're trying to make money. | ||
| And I don't know why they need to have so much money, why they can't exist on things. | ||
| If you look at the previous history of the Robert Barons from the turn of the 19th century, 18th to 19th century, there was only one that basically decided to give up making so much money, and that was Carnegie. | ||
| And he started spending his money and couldn't spend it fast enough to build libraries all over this country. | ||
| I only know of one existing right now that maybe is trying to do that, and that's Bill Gates. | ||
| He's trying to, he can't spend enough. | ||
| And this is the rest of these guys that the current president is bringing in around him don't have a clue as to what real life is because they've got too much money. | ||
| That's Al in Washington. | ||
| A few minutes left here in our open forum. | ||
| Also taking a look at the opinion pages of today's paper and national papers. | ||
| This is George Will, syndicated columnist, writing about Pete Hegseth's confirmation yesterday, the headline of George Will's column, The Hegseth Mistake. | ||
| He ends his column by saying, only three Republicans, Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, Maine's Susan Collins, and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, with a cumulative 90 years of Senate experience, prove their fitness to be senators by voting Hegseth unfit to be defense secretary. | ||
| President Donald Trump in his inaugural address vowed to encourage a merit-based society. | ||
| He certainly did not start with the Pentagon's E-ring. | ||
| George Will naming the three Republicans who voted against Pete Hegseth, thus requiring a tie-breaking vote from JD Vance as vice president, the president of the Senate coming in yesterday for that vote. | ||
| 51 to 50, Pete Hegseth was confirmed. | ||
| Mitch McConnell released a lengthy 15-paragraph statement about Pete Hegseth in the wake of his confirmation in the wake of Mitch McConnell's no vote. | ||
| It reads in part, effective management of nearly 3 million military and civilian personnel, an annual budget of nearly $1 trillion and alliances and partnerships around the world is a daily test with staggering consequences for the security of the American people and our global interests. | ||
| Mitch McConnell saying Mr. Hegseth has failed as yet to demonstrate that he will pass this test. | ||
| But as he assumes office, the consequences of failure are as high as they have ever been. | ||
| The United States faces coordinated aggression from adversaries bent on shattering the order underpinning American security and prosperity. | ||
| In public comments and testimony before the House arms or before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr. Hegseth did not reckon with this reality. | ||
| Mitch McConnell, again, that statement goes on from there, some 15 paragraphs. | ||
| If you want to read it, it is on his website. | ||
| Back to your phone calls. | ||
| This is Steve in Corpus Christi, Texas, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking the call. | ||
| Just wanted to respond to Natalie Andrews. | ||
| I thought she pretty much showed her bias by calling Mr. Trump Donald Trump instead of President Trump, which to me kind of just shows some bias. | ||
| She also proved that what Donald Trump said about the DOJ and all the political assassination that they tried to do was what they were doing because she said, well, they're not going to go after Biden because he's not running for reelection. | ||
| So I guess all the things that he did weren't a problem. | ||
| So just because he's not running for reelection. | ||
| So that just goes proves to me that, yeah, that's why they went after him because he was a political. | ||
| Also, the excuse me, the episcopal priest, that's not, she was talking about her heart. | ||
| Well, we talk about science, too. | ||
| There's a problem with mental issues here in the United States, and the LGDPQ people are the ones that have it. | ||
| And bringing that up that the speech was wrong. | ||
| Steve in Texas, this is Gail in North Carolina, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I first want to say the day before the election or inauguration, Trump did a speech. | ||
| And he said that he was very, this is what Trump said at his speech talking about Elon Musk helping him win Pennsylvania. | ||
| He was very effective. | ||
| He knows those computers better than anybody, those vote-counting computers. | ||
| And we've ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide. | ||
| It was pretty good. | ||
| Thank you to Elon. | ||
| And that, in my opinion, sounds like, because I always thought there's no way that Trump could have won all the battleground states. | ||
| And we know that if he won Pennsylvania, that he was going to win the election. | ||
| But in my opinion, and in some of the research that I've done, some of the Democratic congressmen in Capitol Hill are investigating this to see if Trump truly did cheat, which I think he did. | ||
| That's the first thing. | ||
| I don't think he won the election. | ||
| You don't think he won? | ||
| How did you feel about some Republicans saying in 2020 that they didn't think that Joe Biden won the election? | ||
| The election denierism, as it was called. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they had 60 judges that voted, said that Biden did win. | |
| And how many recounts did they have? | ||
| They had recounts in all these different states. | ||
| All this money was spent on recounts, and everything showed that Biden won. | ||
| There's been no backlash to Trump. | ||
| And there's been no recounts for Trump. | ||
| There's been nothing going to the court. | ||
| The Democrats just pretty much let him win, not even contesting the fact that now here he said the day before the inauguration, thank you, Elon. | ||
| And we know that Elon has something to do with the computer systems. | ||
| But that's one issue that I have. | ||
| The second issue I have is since Trump came in office, and always he's always been a liar, they have had so many lies that he has said, like FEMA, the lies about the immigrants being criminals. | ||
| I did some research this morning on immigration. | ||
| They said that there is more, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. | ||
| The immigrants that are criminals, yes, they need to be deported. | ||
| But the ones that are out here working in our fields and working in our poultry plants, working in hospitality, the ones that are serving food in the restaurants, working in the hospitals and CNAs and personal caregivers, and these people just want a better life, leave them alone. | ||
| Give them a pathway to citizenship. | ||
| They're paying Social Security taxes. | ||
| All these immigrants that are working are paying Social Security taxes, and they're not going to be getting that money when they're 65. | ||
| They're going to, what Trump is going to do, he thinks he's Mr. Macho, but all this is going to backfire because, number one, our groceries are going to go up because we have nobody to pick food. | ||
| There's oranges sitting in California right now out in the fields that have not been picked because the immigrants are too scared to go to work. | ||
| That's Gail in North Carolina. | ||
| Nikki is in New York in Rockaway Park, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I travel like the other millions of people in the United States on the ship of state. | |
| So I'd like to make an analogy and compare the greatest, it was advertised, most greatest, wonderfulest ship to ever sail the sea. | ||
| And the name of that ship was the Titanic. | ||
| But due to unforeseen circumstances, that ship sunk. | ||
| With all the wealthy people who could afford to ride this great vessel, the best it ever was. | ||
| So I would like to compare the Titanic to the Trump panic. | ||
| All the wealthy individuals who afford to ride that ship, there may be, there just may be unforeseen circumstances that. | ||
| All right, that's Nikki. | ||
| This is Steve in Massachusetts, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Morning, John. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
| Hey, I want to talk about the 2020 election and how happy I am that it was stolen and that Trump wasn't in there for the four years because he would have been blamed for the whole pandemic or pandemic and that it gave the country four years to see how badly it could be run by Democrats. | ||
| And now we have four years of our future, which you guys, the Democrats, helped us have it. | ||
| And I think now it's going to be 12 years of Republicans because there is no one that is going to be able to beat JD Vance, okay? | ||
| It's impossible for Democrats to beat him because you still think the 2020 election was stolen. | ||
| I think absolutely I think. | ||
| What gives you confidence in the results of the 2024 election then if you think that election was not legitimate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because there were about 15 million less people that voted in the 20, the 16 election and the 24 election. | |
| The 20 election, there was about 15 million more people that voted and everyone was afraid to come out of their house. | ||
| That's Steve in Massachusetts. | ||
| This is Bruce in California, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, sir. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Thank you for having me on. | ||
| I would like to, the last one clear that you had on the lady. | ||
| She was right in everything she said. | ||
| I just want to make a point. | ||
| When Trump came into office his first term, he took out all the infectious investigators that Obama had put in. | ||
| And when he did that, the pandemic happened, right? | ||
| A million Americans died because of that guy, because of the president. | ||
| Donald Trump. | ||
| Now he's got rid of the foreign, the health organization. | ||
| He keeps out. | ||
| When we got a fluke, the bird flu, you know, popping up everywhere. | ||
| It's just, it's, the guy is sick. | ||
| He's a twisted, demise. | ||
| All these people are guilty of sedition and treason. | ||
| You know, they attacked our Capitol. | ||
| They don't believe they're baited. | ||
| All these, all the, all the nominations, all the nominees that he put forward, they've none of them admitted to the loss on 2020. | ||
| All of them. | ||
| How could that be? | ||
| Naomi, Baltimore, Maryland, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| In response to the previous caller, how can that be? | ||
| The reason is that there's a litmus test to be in the cabinet now. | ||
| And the only qualification is a willingness to stand behind the big lie and do whatever Donald Trump says. | ||
| Donald Trump ran on improving the price of groceries, eggs, you know, milk, this. | ||
| I'm going to make your lives so much better. | ||
| And now what do we see? | ||
| First thing, criminals let out of jail. | ||
| People who had clearances, who acted on his behalf in his previous administration, if you can call it that, now have had their security details revoked. | ||
| This man is a criminal. | ||
| Every Republican, except for two women, who obviously showed a little more strength of character than the rest of the Republican Party, the rest of Republican senators, and Mitch McConnell, who's on his way out, they were the only ones to stand up and say, no, this guy is not confident. | ||
| He has too many absolutely disqualifying characteristics and no character at all. | ||
| That's Naomi, our last caller in this open forum. | ||
| Stick around an hour to go still in this morning's Washington Journal, and in that time, a conversation with Marvin Kaube. | ||
| He's the author of the new book, A Different Russia, Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course. | ||
| Stick around for that conversation. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This week on the C-SPAN Networks, the House is out as House Republicans hold their annual retreat. | |
| The Senate will be in session as they continue to hold hearings for several of President Trump's cabinet nominees, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary. | ||
| He'll appear before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Thursday. | ||
| Also on Thursday, Kash Patel will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee as he seeks to become FBI director. | ||
| Then, Tulsi Gabbard, Mr. Trump's nominee for Director of National Intelligence, will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee. | ||
| Watch this week live on the C-SPAN networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app. | ||
| Also, head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| Weekends bring you Book TV, featuring leading authors discussing their latest non-fiction books. | ||
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| Geometric AI founder Gary Marcus looks at the potential and risks of artificial intelligence and the prospective regulation of the tech industry in his book Taming Silicon Valley. | ||
| Sociology professors Chris Benner and Manuel Pasteur discuss the discovery of lithium in California's Salton Sea region and the role of the mineral in the electric vehicle industry with the authors of the book Charging Forward. | ||
| At 8 p.m. Eastern, Gib Kerr argues that Robert E. Lee has been unfairly canceled in America, including at Washington and Lee University, where Lee served as president from 1865 to 1870 in his book, On Cancel, Robert E. Lee. | ||
| And then on Afterwards. | ||
| Democratic Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, author of It Takes Chutzpah, shares his thoughts on having the tenacity to pursue progressive goals through strong alliances, hard work, and focus. | ||
| Watch Book TV every weekend on C-SPAN, too, and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| Nonfiction book lovers, C-SPAN has a number of podcasts for you. | ||
| Listen to best-selling nonfiction authors and influential interviewers on the Afterwords podcast and on Q ⁇ A. Hear wide-ranging conversations with the non-fiction authors and others who are making things happen. | ||
| BookNotes Plus episodes are weekly hour-long conversations that regularly feature fascinating authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics. | ||
| And the About Books podcast takes you behind the scenes of the nonfiction book publishing industry with insider interviews, industry updates, and bestsellers lists. | ||
| Find all of our podcasts by downloading the free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts and on our website, c-span.org slash podcasts. | ||
| Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, part two of our interview with historian Nigel Hamilton, author of Lincoln vs. Davis. | ||
| He talks about the military faceoff between these two American presidents during the Civil War and the impact the Emancipation Proclamation had on the war's outcome. | ||
| From that moment, the 1st of January 1863, the South was doomed. | ||
| Until then, Jefferson Davis had been allowed by Lincoln to frame the war as a noble, white southern fight for independence. | ||
| Pure and simple. | ||
| But from the moment that Lincoln said no, you, Jefferson Davis, and your commander-in-chief, Robert E. Lee, have attacked the North, which is what they did in September of 1862. | ||
| It's the equivalent of Pearl Harbor, if you like. | ||
| Once you attack the North, you change the whole game. | ||
| Nigel Hamilton with his book, Lincoln vs. Davis, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Journalist and Professor Marvin Kalb joins us now. | ||
| He's the author of the new book, A Different Russia, Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course. | ||
| And Mr. Kaub, start at the end, if you would. | ||
| You write that when Nikita Khrushchev learned that John Kennedy had been assassinated, he cried. | ||
| Why? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it was one of the marvelous, interesting, in my judgment, fascinating aspects of Nikita Khrushchev that he had a dream. | |
| And the dream was that if he could sit down with an American president, he figured that he and the president could solve all of the problems of the world. | ||
| All he needed was that opportunity. | ||
| And he got that opportunity only once in June of 1961 in Vienna when they met at the summit, a summit that was greeted with enormous expectation and ended in the deepest disappointment. | ||
| And Khrushchev took it into his mind then that he wanted to somehow or another take Kennedy to the cleaners. | ||
| He was going to get his way. | ||
| He wanted to rewrite the strategic balance in the world, which favored the U.S. | ||
| He wanted it to favor Russia, the Soviet Union. | ||
| And he did have that moment with Kennedy, and it led right to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which led the world, in effect, to the edge of a nuclear war. | ||
| Afterward, they reached agreement on an atmospheric nuclear test ban treaty. | ||
| And after that, finally, in Khrushchev's mind, he felt that he could sit down finally with Kennedy. | ||
| He thought that Kennedy had six more years, two more years of his first term, four years in his second term. | ||
| They would reach all kinds of agreements. | ||
| Of course, he did not know when he engaged in this fanciful, illusionary kind of feeling about the world that within a month Kennedy would be assassinated and within a year he would be kicked out of power. | ||
| And when he learned that Kennedy was killed, all of the reports that I have seen indicate that Khrushchev cried. | ||
| And when he went to sign his name at the American embassy the day after the assassination, he was in tears. | ||
| The book is a different Russia. | ||
| It's not your first memoir about your time as a broadcast journalist in Russia. | ||
| How is this book different from your other two? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, John, it's a continuation of the first two. | |
| The first book was The Year I Was Peter the Great is the title, and that was because Khrushchev labeled me Peter the Great, and that helped me a great deal as a journalist in getting closer to him. | ||
| The second book was Assignment Russia, and that was when Edward Armuro hired me at CBS, and a couple of years later, as he sort of moved me through the system, I had never been a journalist before, and he wanted somebody representing CBS in Moscow who spoke the language and knew about the history, the literature of the country. | ||
| And I had written something for the Times that he liked. | ||
| And on that basis, and a conversation we had, which lasted for three hours, in which he asked me any number of questions, really fantastic journalist, he just stood up, put his arm around me, and he said, Would you like to join CBS? | ||
| I said, yes. | ||
| And that was sort of the end of my career as a scholar and the beginning of it as a journalist. | ||
| And that second book carries me to May of 1960. | ||
| And this book begins with Kennedy's inauguration and a very revealing speech that Khrushchev made, giving, in a sense, the world his judgment of what the world should be like. | ||
| And Kennedy, of course, independently was doing his explanation to the American people and the world of the kind of global system that he would like. | ||
| And the two these fascinating individuals, extraordinary people, were in collision with each other because they represented two totally different social political systems. | ||
| And when you thought about it in national terms, there was a collision of interest between the Soviet Union on one side of the Cold War, which is where we were at that time, and Kennedy on the other side. | ||
| And it's an amazing thing, John, that these two people were in charge at that moment in October and November of 1962. | ||
| We tend to forget this now. | ||
| But at that time, the world was literally on the edge of a nuclear war. | ||
| And one of the two people, Nikita Khrushchev, had the guts to acknowledge in public that he had made a tremendous blunder. | ||
| He had gambled on putting missiles and troops into Cuba to shift the balance of power, to gain an advantage in the negotiation on Berlin. | ||
| But he failed because Kennedy called him on it and Khrushchev backed off. | ||
| If he had not backed off on that fateful Sunday, the world might very well have ended up in a nuclear war catastrophe. | ||
| We're talking about Marvin Kalb's new book, A Different Russia, Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course, taking your phone calls as well. | ||
| Phone lines, as usual, in this segment. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| He's with us for the rest of our program today. | ||
| Mr. Kalb, how many years total were you a journalist in Russia? | ||
| And how were you able to be there and do that job at the height of the Cold War to be an American journalist in communist Russia? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, to understate the answer, John, it was very, very difficult because in the first phase of my time there as the Moscow correspondent for CBS, all of our copy was censored. | |
| In other words, you couldn't say anything to the American people that did not go through a Russian censor. | ||
| And there would be many, many times when words and phrases would be X'd out. | ||
| And if you had tried to play it smart and you sort of said it anyway, they would pull the plug on you. | ||
| And suddenly it was dead air from Moscow. | ||
| So you always had in mind that not only was your ultimate listener, this was radio now, your ultimate listener in the United States, you had this initial listener just down the hallway, the censor, and proved to be a she. | ||
| And she at that time was very conscious of what it is that Khrushchev wanted. | ||
| What was the image of the Soviet Union that they wanted transmitted to the world? | ||
| If you violated that image in what they would regard as an ugly way, they would yank the plug on you. | ||
| What you had to do as a reporter was be mindful of the censor, but find language that would get your point across without offending the Soviet Union. | ||
| I remember on one occasion there was a meeting of the entire communist world in Moscow. | ||
| Communist leaders from all over the world gathered together in the Kremlin. | ||
| I was trying to say to them that this is a really terrible bunch of people. | ||
| There was a story at the time about a group of gangsters who had been picked up in Upper New York State. | ||
| Now, I forgot right now the name of the town, but everybody knew it. | ||
| If you were listening, if you were an American listening to the broadcast, what I said, which went right through the censor, was that the communist leaders gathered in the Kremlin in much the same way as the, whether it was Ithaca, New York, I'm not sure, the Ithaca gang met just the other day. | ||
| Well, to an American ear, it was a group of gangsters. | ||
| But I couldn't say that because they would have pulled the plug. | ||
| So you were always in a contest with the censor. | ||
| Because I worked for CBS, I also had to take pictures for television. | ||
| There was no cameraman that they allowed in the country. | ||
| So I had to take my own pictures. | ||
| And believe me, John, I was not terribly good at it, but I did the best I could. | ||
| But if I was taking a picture that they did not like, they would stop me from sending it to New York. | ||
| How would they do that? | ||
| They wouldn't let you ship the film unless it had been developed in the Soviet Union before you sent it to New York, which could have taken weeks and weeks and weeks, which meant that the story's value would have been shot. | ||
| You couldn't travel around the Soviet Union without permission. | ||
| You always had somebody on your tail. | ||
| You could not travel more than 25 miles around Moscow without official permission. | ||
| And when you got the permission, there was always somebody on your tail anyway. | ||
| So it was for a Western reporter in Moscow in the midst of the Cold War. | ||
| It was a fascinating story. | ||
| Please don't get me wrong. | ||
| All of the obstacles were worth overcoming to try to get your story out because you knew that in the midst of the Cold War, it was extremely difficult to get the news out, but extremely important that the news get out. | ||
| I mean, for example, John, it's very difficult now. | ||
| There are very few, if any, American reporters in Moscow at this time because Putin simply will not allow it. | ||
| And one of the reasons I call this book a different Russia is that we are so used to thinking of Russia under Putin. | ||
| Putin's been there now for 25 years. | ||
| I happen to think he's a short timer, by which I mean not that he's going to be kicked out tomorrow morning, though that's possible, but rather that it's sort of down the road, but not that far down the road. | ||
| He's run this place for 25 years, and we are in the midst of the Ukraine war in a terrible confrontation between the United States and Russia. | ||
| And we think that that is the only Russia that exists, but that's not true. | ||
| The Russia that I covered under Khrushchev was in many ways similar. | ||
| It was a dictatorship. | ||
| There's no doubt of that. | ||
| But it was a dictatorship that was reaching out to the West, that was reaching out to a leader like Kennedy and trying to get a deal. | ||
| Khrushchev always invited Western musicians, artists, scholars, journalists to come to the Soviet Union. | ||
| That is not happening today at all. | ||
| So the relationship was so very different. | ||
| We had a chance then to coexist peacefully in a competitive relationship, but coexisting. | ||
| Today, that coexistence factor is, I don't want to say in doubt, it is something that we have to consider very carefully. | ||
| And that Russia that you covered from Moscow, you began covering in 1956, correct? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Nikiakusha Khrushchev becomes premier of the Soviet Party in 53. | ||
| So this book is about Khrushchev and Kennedy, but he had plenty of years under a different president, under Dwight Eisenhower. | ||
| What was that relationship like, Khrushchev and Eisenhower? | ||
| And in the change of presidencies, what was his view coming in of John Kennedy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, thank you, John. | |
| Those are great questions. | ||
| I love them. | ||
| Good historical questions. | ||
| In 1956, I arrived there in January. | ||
| Khrushchev had been essentially the boss only for about a year, 18 months. | ||
| It took him a year or so before he could establish his position following Stalin's death in March of 1953. | ||
| So Khrushchev wanted very much by 1956 to say to the Russian people and to the world that Russia is now changed. | ||
| It is no longer Stalin's Russia. | ||
| It's now Khrushchev's Russia. | ||
| And he delivered a very famous, quote, secret speech. | ||
| I believe it was February 24th, 1956. | ||
| And he summoned all of the leaders of various communist parties which had been meeting in Moscow at that time to come back to the Kremlin in the middle of the night because he wanted to tell them his view of Stalin. | ||
| And his view of Stalin was very, very negative. | ||
| And because Stalin had ruled for 29 years, he was a legend. | ||
| If you spoke one word against Stalin, you could be killed. | ||
| And what Khrushchev did was, in this one speech, destroy the myth, the legend, the fears that surrounded the Russian people when they thought about Stalin. | ||
| Khrushchev called Stalin a murderer because of what he did during World War II. | ||
| He would point out the thousands and thousands of people during the 1930s that Stalin would send off to Siberia or straight away murder. | ||
| And Khrushchev wanted a different kind of Russia, a different Russia. | ||
| And he began to release people from Siberia. | ||
| He loosened opportunities to write and to speak. | ||
| And he opened the gates of the Kremlin to an influx of Western businessmen and scholars and journalists. | ||
| And it was in that opening that I slipped through and a lot of other reporters slipped through. | ||
| And it was an incredibly exciting time, 56-7. | ||
| And when I returned in 1959 to cover Richard Nixon's visit, also his historic kitchen debate with Khrushchev at that time. | ||
| Some people may remember that kitchen debate. | ||
| It was very interesting, and Nixon tried very hard, and I think to a very large extent, successfully to outwit Khrushchev, but it was a collision. | ||
| And it usually is when you're talking about Russia and the United States. | ||
| And Khrushchev wanted more than anything else, and I was saying this earlier, John, he wanted to strike this relationship with an American president. | ||
| Eisenhower was a great favorite in the Soviet Union because in World War II, he was, of course, a great and historic general leading the anti-Nazi crusade that involved the Soviet Union. | ||
| We were at that time allies to defeat Nazi Germany. | ||
| But when Khrushchev met with Eisenhower in 1954 or five in Geneva, and then twice, once in the United States, and then once in Paris, they met three times, and he wasn't able to get anywhere with Eisenhower. | ||
| And so Eisenhower had once been held in the highest esteem by Khrushchev. | ||
| Suddenly, there was nothing to talk to. | ||
| And so he vested all of his hopes that this dream of his about a deal with an American president, he vested all of those hopes in young John Kennedy. | ||
| And for a time, those hopes were realistic. | ||
| But then, finally, when it came to the division of Berlin and then the movement of Russian missiles into Cuba, Kennedy insisted that those missiles be removed. | ||
| And Khrushchev, as I said, had the guts publicly to acknowledge that he had blundered and to pull those missiles out. | ||
| Khrushchev lived with what I regard as a dream that somehow with an American president he could accomplish miracles. | ||
| But miracles don't happen in international relations. | ||
| You have to protect your interests and those interests are protected even at the cost of war. | ||
| And right now we have many, many differences with Russia, China, and many other countries around the world. | ||
| The book again, A Different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course, newly released. | ||
| Marvin Kalb is the author, and he's with us this morning, taking your phone calls. | ||
| And John is up first in New York Independent. | ||
| John, good morning. | ||
| You're on with Marvin Kalb. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning, John. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Mr. Kalb, excuse me, sir. | ||
| I'm 77 and. | ||
| Young man. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I knew I liked you for something. | ||
| I do remember the Cuban missile crisis. | ||
| I remember my father stockpiling food in the cellar. | ||
| I remember really the fear going around the neighborhoods and people talking about an Armageddon. | ||
| But as I grew older, I kind of did a little reading into it and stuff. | ||
| And I remember some people saying that the real hero of the missile crisis wasn't so much John Kennedy, it was Khrushchev. | ||
| And the reason they felt that way was exactly what you said. | ||
| He backed down. | ||
| An interesting sidebar of the story was, as I remember reading, that the United States had Jupiter missiles in Turkey, which were intermediate-range missiles at the time, capable of reaching deep inside the Soviet Union. | ||
| And in order to level the playing field, you know, Khrushchev decided that he would send these missiles, as I understand it, into Cuba and get within like a minute and a half of American cities. | ||
| It was brinkmanship diplomacy. | ||
| And they say the real hero of all this was not John Kennedy because he was just a new inexperienced guy, but Dean Rusk, who went eyeball to eyeball with his Russian counterpart and resolved the whole thing. | ||
| And it was really scary because there were some other historical antidotes involved. | ||
| The United States issuing the Monroe Doctrine, which did we really have a right to invoke it legally. | ||
| And so I found the whole period fascinating. | ||
| We did come very close. | ||
| And listening to you, I don't know if we really learned a lot since that fateful October in 62. | ||
| I'm an optimist. | ||
| I'm hoping we did. | ||
| There's events unfolding around the world. | ||
| Excuse me, sir. | ||
| I just hope that cooler heads will prevail and things will work out. | ||
| So I'd be interested in your thoughts about that. | ||
| Thank you for doing what you're doing. | ||
| Bye-bye. | ||
| Welcome. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Very, very kind, sir. | |
| And I repeat, you're in your 70s. | ||
| I'm in my 90s. | ||
| So keep on going. | ||
| It's fun. | ||
| The period of the mid 50s through to the mid-60s, there were extraordinary personalities. | ||
| And in the middle of the Cold War, those personalities had to demonstrate their value. | ||
| In what way? | ||
| In holding off a nuclear war between the two powers that could have destroyed the entire world. | ||
| I think that we don't, as a people today, or maybe people all over the world, don't fully appreciate the deadliness of a nuclear weapon. | ||
| You think back to World War II. | ||
| A nuclear bomb, two atomic bombs were dropped. | ||
| The only time in the history of the world that they have been used. | ||
| They were used both by the United States against Japan, against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two cities that were absolutely level with tens of thousands of people killed. | ||
| Can you imagine, that was in 1945. | ||
| Can you imagine if you jump ahead to the early 1960s, those weapons had not been perfected, but they had been improved considerably. | ||
| They were infinitely more dangerous. | ||
| If they had been used by the Soviet Union against the United States, the United States, against the Soviet Union, not only would those two countries have been wiped up. | ||
| But the countries all around them, all around the world, would have been utterly destroyed. | ||
| We would have been set back decades and decades and decades. | ||
| Think today about how much more perfected those nuclear weapons are. | ||
| And we don't think about that today enough. | ||
| To give a pat on the back to our new president, during the campaign, Donald Trump was the only major candidate that I'm aware of who kept raising the issue of nuclear weapons and the danger of the use of nuclear weapons. | ||
| Just this past week in Davos, Trump once again raised the question of nuclear weapon negotiations, which we've not been involved in now for decades. | ||
| But we've got to get reinvolved in the best interests of the entire world. | ||
| Now, if President Trump can lead the world in the direction of a containment and perhaps an end or a promised end to the use or even the threat of the use of nuclear weapons, that'd be a big, big deal. | ||
| And if the world appears to be at this point, who can really be certain, but appears to be at a turning point. | ||
| Excuse me. | ||
| And that turning point screams out for another serious effort at disarmament, particularly in the field of nuclear weapons. | ||
| And I hope that Putin and Russia and Xi, the Chinese leader, would somehow get together with Trump and find a way of doing this. | ||
| Now, that is, some people, I'm sure, will say it's totally unrealistic. | ||
| Trump cannot be relied upon. | ||
| He's too unreliable himself. | ||
| All of that may be true, but the effort ought to be made. | ||
| There's no question in my mind about that. | ||
| The effort ought to be made. | ||
| And if it, even if it just begins, that in and of itself would be a big deal. | ||
| The caller brings up the Cuban Missile Crisis, remembering where he was. | ||
| I want to go to page 460 of your book, A Different Russia in the Wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. | ||
| You write this. | ||
| After his Cuba capitulation, Khrushchev had to worry more about his political survival. | ||
| One did not have to be an American ambassador, a foreign correspondent, or even a spy to search for tea leaf clues about Khrushchev's shaky standing in the Kremlin. | ||
| The Cuban Missile Crisis, of course, October of 62. | ||
| Khrushchev remained in charge of Russia until 64. | ||
| How did he overcome that shaky standing? | ||
| And what role, if any, did President Kennedy play? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, in a way, John, he never did overcome it. | |
| He never did. | ||
| And Kennedy was killed in November of 1963, so we will never know exactly what happened with him. | ||
| What we do know on the basis of the historical record, on the basis of, in my case, personal observation, is that when these two men, Kennedy and Khrushchev, which is really, I keep saying this, but it's terribly important to me and to any reader of a different Russia. | ||
| You have the feeling when you follow these two men, there were two giants on top of the two giant nations. | ||
| And there were nuclear weapons between them. | ||
| And they hadn't been used, as I said, since 1945. | ||
| But in the middle of the Cold War, these two nations were deeply antagonistic, one toward the other. | ||
| And therefore, their leaders ended up being in an antagonistic position, one toward the other. | ||
| But in the remarkable case of Khrushchev and Kennedy, there was an example of two leaders who sought or attempted to go beyond the obvious talk of the day and see if they could find a way of reaching an agreement, which they ultimately did in September 1963. | ||
| The first nuclear arms agreement between these two superpowers was to ban atmospheric nuclear tests. | ||
| When those tests were taking place, people all over the world were terrified because the atmosphere itself was being poisoned. | ||
| It was affecting the milk that you drank and the food that you ate, the air that you breathe. | ||
| And so there was a strong feeling of urgency that you had to somehow contain the spread of atmospheric testing. | ||
| So they did reach this agreement. | ||
| And Khrushchev, living in a bubble of hope, believed that he could take that one agreement and build it into a monument of agreements between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and it would take care of all of the problems of the world. | ||
| Well, of course it didn't happen. | ||
| Kennedy was killed and Khrushchev was kicked out of power. | ||
| In that period of time, John, between the Cuban Missile Crisis and when Khrushchev was kicked out of power, October 1964, Khrushchev was in a deep depression for about a year, traveled from one country to another, just wasting time. | ||
| He wasn't accomplishing anything, because he couldn't quite get over the fact that people around him in the Kremlin kept referring to him as Khrushchev, the man of the hairbrain scheme. | ||
| They use that expression. | ||
| Khrushchev was guilty of hairbrain scheming. | ||
| And they kept throwing that, not at him directly, but around him. | ||
| And they were losing confidence in him. | ||
| And it took them two years, actually one year from the agreement on from 63 to 64. | ||
| They built up their strength around Khrushchev for what purpose? | ||
| To kick him out of power, which they accomplished on October 14th, 1964. | ||
| Khrushchev at that time was a beaten man, but the country he left behind when he was kicked out of power was significantly different from the country he took over 10 years earlier. | ||
| And 10 years earlier, if you had opposed the leader, Stalin, you'd be killed. | ||
| When Khrushchev was kicked out of power, they didn't kill him. | ||
| They sent him off to a relatively satisfactory post-power life. | ||
| He was given a dacha, a small home outside of Moscow, and an apartment in Moscow. | ||
| He was given a car and given a driver. | ||
| He had a substantial pension. | ||
| His children were allowed to continue in their work. | ||
| It was civilized. | ||
| Khrushchev left a somewhat civilized Soviet Union, which did not exist until he was in power himself. | ||
| So in that period, John, between the Cuba Missile Crisis and when he was kicked out of power, he was in a depression. | ||
| He didn't accomplish terribly much, but this one big deal. | ||
| But he felt when Kennedy was killed that his opportunity was killed along with him. | ||
| He felt as if this golden opportunity had simply slipped through his fingers. | ||
| Back to the phones. | ||
| This is Bernie in Louisville, Kentucky. | ||
| Bernie, good morning. | ||
| You're on with Marvin Cowell. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, Mr. Cowell. | ||
| I have to confess, I had to do a little bit of research on you and your career so I could come up with some type of reasonable question along with the topic about Russia and U.S. relations. | ||
| I noticed in one of my research, I looked, you were one of Ed Morrow's boys, and also on Nixon's enemy list, which I thought those are two just outstanding accommodations. | ||
| Anyway, during that time in 62 with Russia, China was not the China that we knew now, that we know now. | ||
| Who was Russia's allies back then, or did they have any other than Cuba? | ||
| And I'm just curious, you know, about the relationship with the other countries around there. | ||
| And I have to ask you both, I'm going to put you on the spot just a little bit, and you can answer if you want to. | ||
| Are the commanders going to the Super Bowl? | ||
| What say you? | ||
| I say yes. | ||
| I say I would be thrilled if they won today and went on to the Super Bowl, but I always have a butt in my thought, and I think that has to do with simply being a journalist. | ||
| You have to examine what the evidence is. | ||
| These guys, the commanders, came out of nowhere, and they are on the edge of the Super Bowl. | ||
| And it's an extraordinary thing. | ||
| So much is going to depend on this remarkable rookie quarterback. | ||
| And if Mr. Daniels can pull it off today, I would regard that as a football miracle on a measure of the agreement at the end of the Cuba Missile Crisis. | ||
| That's a good deal. | ||
| Now, to come back to reality, you were asking essentially about Russia's allies at that time and especially China. | ||
| It's an extremely interesting relationship that the two countries have had. | ||
| Right now, they are very close. | ||
| And the agreement between Xi and China and Putin and Russia, they each call an agreement of no limits, that it is boundless in its capacity. | ||
| I think that it is boundless only in their diplomatic imagination, because they each have interests that are quite different. | ||
| And I think they are now coming to a head, by which I mean the central issue is the war in Ukraine. | ||
| The war in Ukraine has been supported by China in many, many ways. | ||
| China helps Russia on the diplomatic scene, helps Russia, Putin particularly politically at home, works out an economic trading relationship that allows China to use its, in a way, its superiority economically to help Russia economically, because Russia is besieged by sanctions and much else. | ||
| Russia is now on a war footing, its economy on a war footing. | ||
| China is helping Russia, but that's now. | ||
| If you went back to the period in the 50s and 60s, they were extremely antagonistic. | ||
| They actually fought minor skirmishes along their common Sino-Soviet border. | ||
| The antagonism was intense. | ||
| In the communist world in those days, most communists had to believe what it is that came out of Moscow because Russia was the first communist nation and believed that it was therefore entitled to the respect of all other communists, not just respect, obedience of all of the other communists. | ||
| China was in resentment against the idea that it, in Ma Zedong's eyes, then the great leader of China, Ma Zedong did not believe he had to bow down in front of anybody, and he regarded Khrushchev as a peasant. | ||
| Now, they were both peasants, but Khrushchev was a peasant who became the leader of the Soviet Union. | ||
| Mao, a peasant who became the leader of China. | ||
| China was in 1960, say, was only 10 years or so removed from its own revolution, becoming a communist country. | ||
| It thought that it deserved to be the leader. | ||
| They were in constant ideological conflict, splitting the communist world apart. | ||
| If you went back into history, even at several hundred years, there's one example after another of Russia and China, not in a cozy relationship, far from it, but in a very antagonistic relationship. | ||
| It is something we ought to keep our eye on when we think today about who are Russia's key allies. | ||
| Russia today as China, as North Korea, as Iran, and those four regard themselves as an axis of resistance against what? | ||
| Against the United States. | ||
| I believe definitely they are not going to succeed, but so much depends then upon the leadership of the United States and how well the new leaders of the United States are going to do on the world scene. | ||
| Just about 20 minutes left with Marvin Kaub this morning, the book we've been talking about, A Different Russia, Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course, newly released. | ||
| We're going to take viewers to Don in Fall River, Massachusetts on the Republican line. | ||
| Fall River, by the way, if you watched a recent American history TV broadcast, home of the Lizzie Borden murder case. | ||
| Don, go ahead from Massachusetts. | ||
| Don, are you with us? | ||
| You got to stick by your phone and phone lines again for Democrats, Republicans, and independents as usual. | ||
| Marvin Kalb, you were just talking about Vladimir Putin and where Russia is today. | ||
| Let me take viewers to the final paragraph of your book, page 509. | ||
| This is what you write. | ||
| Russia clearly is not ready for democracy. | ||
| Putin stands in its way, leaving this troubled land in a historic struggle between East and West, between a continuing powerful tug towards a Mongol-rooted authoritarianism and a strong, steady pull towards a Western-style democracy. | ||
| This struggle continues with no clear resolution in sight. | ||
| Khrushchev's Russia was radically different from Putin's Russia, but may yet prevail. | ||
| Why do you think it may yet prevail? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I guess, John, it has to do with my feeling about Russia writ large rather than Russia today as a country governed by Putin and antagonistic to the United States. | |
| I think about all of the great literature that comes out of, that's come out of Russia, the great music that has come out of Russia, the philosophy, a range of issues that unfortunately are not reflected so much in the politics of Russia. | ||
| Through Russian history, they have been governed by one czar after another. | ||
| That's an autocracy, that is a dictatorship. | ||
| 1917, the communists come into power, and they are in power from 1917 to 1991. | ||
| And that was a run of dictatorships, one after another, culminating in Joseph Stalin, not culminating, but the high point Joseph Stalin after 29 years dying in 1953. | ||
| So you had one example after another of Russia being governed by autocrats. | ||
| I speak in terms of Putin as Mongol. | ||
| And what I mean by that is when the Mongol Ords came out of the East in the 13th, 12th, 13th, 14th centuries and governed large parts of what is today Russia, Ukraine, even going into Western Europe, they imposed their form of dictatorial rule. | ||
| It was a Genghis Khan, in one case, the great Mongol leader, but followed by his sons, which were also, who were also leaders, imagining themselves leaders of huge empires, and they were. | ||
| So Russia's background politically is locked into autocracy. | ||
| And it's very difficult to imagine the Russian political system being democratic. | ||
| And yet, there are strands of democracy that run through 19th century Russian history, even through good parts of the 20th century. | ||
| There is in the literature, you know, there are people who are thinking in an open way, who want to deal with the Western world. | ||
| A czar like Peter the Great in the early part of the 18th century, spending more than a year in Western Europe, leaving his room in Russia to go to Western Europe. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because he wanted to find out what the West had that was so fantastic that we Russians did not have. | ||
| And he tried to bring not only parts of the economy from the West into the Russian Empire. | ||
| There were ideas that flowed along with the goods. | ||
| When Catherine the Great, in the latter part of the 18th century, she had a steady relationship with Western French and English writers, philosophers. | ||
| The ideas were there. | ||
| They are still there. | ||
| But they are not, probably on a scale, they're not as heavy as the autocracy. | ||
| But there is very much a strain that you found in parts of Khrushchev, definitely with Gorbachev, definitely with Yeltsin. | ||
| In other words, in recent Russian history, there are movements which get cut off because they're not strong enough. | ||
| So for me, it is a hope that the democratic side of Russia could emerge after Putin. | ||
| And in that democratic side emerges a Gorbachev-type leader who will reach out to the West and find in the West a friendly hand ready to help the East. | ||
| And look, it's the same planet, and we have to share it, and we have to find a way of doing that without war that, and I go back to this issue of nuclear war, without a small war becoming a big war that then becomes nuclear. | ||
| We've got to be incredibly careful about that. | ||
| Back to the phones. | ||
| This is Mary Ann waiting in the Keystone State Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have a question about the Cuba Missile Crisis. | ||
| I heard, and I only heard it once through years, that Khrushchev took the missiles out of Cuba because we, the United States, agreed to remove missiles that we had pointed at Russia. | ||
| And that's why it was settled so quickly. | ||
| Is there any truth to that? | ||
| There is some truth to that. | ||
| Yes, ma'am. | ||
| We have known for a long time now that the United States had, starting in the mid-1950s, they began to move a medium-range missile into Turkey. | ||
| And this was the time when the United States, in the midst of the Cold War, was trying to encircle the Soviet Union to stop the spread of communism. | ||
| It was very much in America's interest to put those missiles into Turkey. | ||
| When Khrushchev found out in April of 1962 that those Jupiter missiles were in fact operational aimed at the Soviet Union, carrying warheads, didn't talk about nuclear, just warheads. | ||
| Khrushchev was furious and he told his defense minister, Rodzan Malinovsky, when they were at a meeting in Bulgaria, he said, I'm going to put a hedgehog down Uncle Sam's pants. | ||
| And what he meant by that was that he was going to try to put missiles, Russian missiles into Cuba, pointed at the United States, to offset the Jupiter missiles in Turkey pointing at the Soviet Union. | ||
| And there is no doubt that during the negotiation that led to the end of the Cuba Missile Crisis, there was talk on both sides about getting missiles, American missiles out of Turkey, Russian missiles out of Cuba, one dependent upon the other. | ||
| Where I part company is that while those talks were going on, no question about it, the decisive, what was of fundamental importance at the time was not the sideline discussion about an exchange of missiles, | ||
| but in the middle of the decision by one of the two leaders at that time, namely the Russian leader Khrushchev, his decision on that fateful Sunday, October 28, 1962, he sent Kennedy a letter saying that he was going to freight, ship, return the missiles to the Soviet Union. | ||
| That was the key thing that ended the crisis. | ||
| There was a lot of talk about a lot of things that definitely involved that exchange that you referred to quite accurately as the key issue that resolved the question. | ||
| The key issue, I believe, and I believe the documents are very clear on this, the key issue was the Khrushchev decision on that Sunday to give the order to pull the missiles out and send them back to the Soviet Union. | ||
| Were that decision not made at that time? | ||
| Please remember where we were. | ||
| It was the Sunday before the Monday that Kennedy had committed himself to take military action against Cuba. | ||
| If Khrushchev had not made his decision on that Sunday, the following day, Kennedy almost certainly would have taken military action against the Russians in Cuba, and that would have ignited a world war between the United States and the Soviet Union. | ||
| But thank you very much for the question, which is central to understanding this problem. | ||
| Many good stories in this book, Different Russia, and we're running short on time. | ||
| But I did want you to tell the story of singer Jerome Heinz. | ||
| Who is Jerome Hines? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you, John. | |
| It's a wonderful story. | ||
| In the Cuba Missile Crisis, it ran from Monday night until the following Sunday, October 22 to 28. | ||
| On the 22nd, the president delivered his famous speech setting up a quarantine of Cuba on Tuesday in the Soviet Union. | ||
| If you were a reporter in Russia at that time, as I was, you certainly felt you had to stay in the office and cover that story. | ||
| But my wife had tickets to the opera, and the opera performance was of Boris Goodenough at the Bold Shoy. | ||
| And she had these tickets and she wanted to go. | ||
| And I didn't think I should go because I was in the middle of covering this story. | ||
| But my wife wanted to go, and so I, of course, yielded and went to the opera. | ||
| While I was seated there, before the opera got started, and I looked off to the left, there was a box set aside for famous people. | ||
| And just before the opera began, Khrushchev arrived. | ||
| And he was there on the first day of the crisis. | ||
| People worried about a nuclear war. | ||
| He arrives to go to the opera. | ||
| And I am about 15, 20 feet from him, and I could see him. | ||
| And he was happy to be there and applauded. | ||
| Jerome Hines was the great American opera star. | ||
| And he was on a tour of the Soviet Union, very successful tour. | ||
| As I said before, Khrushchev kept inviting Westerners to come. | ||
| And Heinz came and he delivered this magnificent performance of Boris Goodenough, and he sang it in Russian. | ||
| And Khrushchev went backstage. | ||
| We tail along with him as Peter the Great. | ||
| I could get around some of his security people, only because Khrushchev allowed it. | ||
| And I asked him a question or two about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and he left me with the clear impression that he's going to find a diplomatic way out of this crisis, which meant to me 24 hours into the crisis that Khrushchev, who started it, was already seeking a way out of it. | ||
| And that way was through diplomacy, but it ultimately was by way of his own capitulation. | ||
| He was the one who made the decision to put the missiles into Cuba, and he's the one on that Sunday who made the fateful decision to pull those missiles out of Cuba. | ||
| And that is what resolved the crisis. | ||
| But not until I did enjoy a wonderful performance of Boris Goodenough by Jerome Hines. | ||
| Final two or three minutes here. | ||
| In the end, in your estimation, did Nikita Khrushchev fail to achieve a different Russia, a different vision for Russia than Joseph Stalin? | ||
|
unidentified
|
If he did, why? | |
| My answer to that, John, is yes. | ||
| He did succeed, but in history, I have found you don't succeed 100%. | ||
| If you can succeed 51%, sometimes that is a huge step forward. | ||
| And I think in his case, he succeeded because if you were in Russia at that time, you could sense the difference yourself in the way in which people responded. | ||
| Now, I spoke Russian, and it was easy there for me to strike up a relationship with somebody on a walk through the park or in the opera, for example, if you just leaned over and began to talk to someone next to you. | ||
| You could get a feel for what was happening. | ||
| And it was clear that the mood of the Stalin era had dramatically changed. | ||
| Once Khrushchev had delivered that extraordinary secret speech in February of 56, it became possible for Russians who had lived with fear to begin to feel that the fear was being lifted from their shoulders. | ||
| They could talk more easily. | ||
| They were not as frightened that at two o'clock in the morning the secret police would knock on the door and haul them off to Siberia. | ||
| No, there was a change. | ||
| It was very obvious to Russians and even obvious to some of us Westerners who were in Moscow then, talking to Russians and observing what was happening, that Khrushchev had made a major change. | ||
| But you can only change up to a point, and then really you run into the reality of the Soviet system, which was old, broken down, and in many, many ways, even today, remains pretty much that way. | ||
| Marvin Kalb's third memoir on his days as a broadcast journalist in Russia is titled A Different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course. | ||
| It's out now. | ||
| Marvin Kalb, we do always appreciate your time. | ||
|
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Thank you, John, very much. | |
| And that's going to do it for us this morning on the Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll, of course, be back here tomorrow morning. | ||
| It is 7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Pacific. | ||
| In the meantime, have a great Sunday. | ||
|
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