| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Former service members and advocates discuss the community care program and President Trump's executive order on a government hiring freeze that could impact veterans' access to health care services. | |
| These events also stream live on the free C-SPAN Now video app and online at C-SPAN.org. | ||
| Coming up on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | ||
| Then Lisa Gilbert of the nonprofit Progressive Consumer Rights Group Public Citizen shares insights on their efforts to push back on the Trump administration's agenda. | ||
| And the Heritage Foundation's Mike Gonzalez discusses the president's efforts to dismantle federal DEI programs. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| This is the Washington Journal for January 28th. | ||
| At their meeting in Florida yesterday, President Trump outlined his legislative and policy desires to House Republican leadership, including plans to cut spending, place tariffs on other countries, and decrease illegal immigration to the U.S., while at the same time extending tax cuts and allotting money for energy production. | ||
| All the while, while he and House Republicans are looking to cut spending. | ||
| To start the program today, do the goals that both the president and House Republicans have reflect your goals and priorities? | ||
| You can choose the lines to let us know today if there is belief that the Republicans and the president share those things with you. | ||
| 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans, and 202748-8002 for Independents. | ||
| If you want to text us about if you think the Republicans have the same beliefs as you do when it comes to their priorities, you can do that at 202-748-8003. | ||
| You can also post on Facebook and on X. | ||
| It was that meeting that took place in Miami, Florida yesterday between the President and House Republicans that produced a series of stories on some of the agenda from that. | ||
| This is Politico this morning saying President Donald Trump on Monday didn't offer House Republicans any new guidance for how exactly they should enact his vast legislative agenda, but he issued a long list of must-haves. | ||
| Virtually all of these demands are costly, adding to the challenge Republican leaders face in finding corresponding spending cuts to offset them. | ||
| Mr. Trump, for instance, outlined a series of expensive immigration policy moves, including a massive increase in detention beds, additional support for ICE as agents ramp up deportations, full border security funding, and completion of the wall at the southern border. | ||
| On tax policy, the president was even more expansive, echoing a demand he reminded GOP leaders about during a recent White House meeting. | ||
| He reiterated his campaign promise to not only extend the 2017 tax cuts, but also eliminate taxes on tips, Social Security benefits, and overtime earnings. | ||
| That was some of that meeting that came out yesterday. | ||
| That was from Politico. | ||
| Another take on it from the Washington Times this morning, seeing how some House Republicans are reacting. | ||
| This is a story in their paper in their website this morning from Alex Miller, that House Republicans have vowed to cut spending aggressively now that President Trump is back in office, but some already have drawn red lines on cuts they say they can't stomach. | ||
| Republican lawmakers have ruled out trimming spending that hits their districts and worried that budget belt tightening could hurt their reelection chances in 2026. | ||
| Representative Aaron Bean of Florida, co-chair of the House Doge Caucus that wants to work closely with Mr. Trump's waste-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, said Congress has to break its spending addition. | ||
| Quote, this is what Americans voted for. | ||
| They voted for cuts and reductions. | ||
| They have said enough with the spending, and that's what I'm trying to deliver. | ||
| It's not easy. | ||
| We know the swamp will not go quietly. | ||
| That's just some of the agenda that took place in Florida when it comes to priorities from both the President and House Republicans. | ||
| Do they reflect your priorities? | ||
| We can call us and let us know if they reflect those priorities or not for you. | ||
| 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can always text us at 202-748-8003. | ||
| He talked a little bit about immigration yesterday, and in his comments, the president talked about why he thought issues when it came to the border and border security were stronger at the time than issues of inflation and the economy. | ||
| Here's some of his comments from yesterday. | ||
| You know, I think my campaign, I really focused on the border more than anything else. | ||
| A lot of people said the biggest thing was inflation and the economy, and then maybe the border was third. | ||
| I always felt the border was first because I felt that people could really understand that you can't have people pouring in from the prisons all over the world and from mental institutions all over the world and dumped into our country. | ||
| So I talked about that much more so than I did inflation. | ||
| I mean, inflation was terrible. | ||
| It was the worst. | ||
| I think it was the worst in the history of our country. | ||
| But you can only talk about it so long. | ||
| You know, the price of apples doubled. | ||
| The price of bacon has quadrupled. | ||
| The price, everything is a disaster. | ||
| And you say it, and then what do you do? | ||
| With this, I could give examples of what they're doing to destroy our country. | ||
| And I felt it was the strongest thing. | ||
| We'll show you more from the president and House Republican leaders. | ||
| Some of those priorities for them. | ||
| Are they the same priorities for you? | ||
| 202-748-8,000 for Democrats. | ||
| 202748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| And Independents. | ||
| 202748-8002. | ||
| Richard in New Jersey. | ||
| Democrats lying on this idea of priorities from the Republican leadership. | ||
| And if it's the same for you. | ||
| Richard in New Jersey, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, okay, one thing that we haven't talked about, which was definitely one of his goals, which you stated, which was to be dictator on first day. | |
| And to that end, any good dictator worth his salt has a private army. | ||
| The Nazis had the brown shirts, the Italians had the black shirts, and Trump has the red hats. | ||
| And the reason why he had to pardon everybody was for two good reasons. | ||
| One, he's planning to use them again if he has to. | ||
| Number one, as an army. | ||
| Number two, by taking away security clearances from people who work with him and letting these felons and violent activists go, he's trying to intimidate everybody. | ||
| He's basically a terrorist. | ||
| He's going to choose terrorizing everybody pretty much he doesn't like. | ||
| And that's what he's done. | ||
| That's what he does. | ||
| And if the Republicans just sit there wagging their tails and do nothing, this guy is going to be running everything. | ||
| And it's really going to destroy what America is, in my opinion. | ||
| Richard, there in New Jersey. | ||
| This is Arthur in Florida, Republican line against, again, if President Trump and the House Republicans' goals reflect your goals and priorities. | ||
| Richard, sorry, Arthur in Florida. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yes. | ||
| The major issue that I see that I would like the Republicans to address is this notion of our loaning out money to other nations, nations who would celebrate like everything if we collapsed. | ||
| It's time we take care of America first. | ||
| Thank you your time, Bob. | ||
| That's Arthur there in Florida. | ||
| Again, Lisa on the goals and priorities of Republicans and if they are similar to yours. | ||
| Lisa's in Alexandria, Virginia, Independent Line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I want to say, yes, they do reflect my opinion of how we need to start just cutting. | ||
| And an example of that is we haven't had Section 8 vouchers available across America since 2000, since 2012. | ||
| But yet the Department of Housing, every housing agency underneath that in the state are still hiring and running, and all they're running is voucher systems for emergency housing. | ||
| So that's an example of how much waste we have billions of dollars that we keep spending since 2012 and not being effective. | ||
| We need solutions, not band-aids, and to quit spending, just grossly spending and wasting tax dollars. | ||
| Do you think that Republicans have the opportunity or at least the gumption, so to speak, to make those spending cuts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think if they don't have the gumption to make those spending cuts, then it's time for Republicans and Democrats to stand together and say, you know what, we know there's waste and we need to get rid of it and they need to vote accordingly in 2026. | |
| That's Lisa there in Alexandria, Virginia. | ||
| This news coming out of the White House yesterday saying that it's President Trump's budget office ordering all federal agencies to temporary block disbursement of grants and loans other than for Social Security, Medicare, and other programs providing direct aid to individuals. | ||
| The memo says the temporary pause starting effectively at 5 o'clock today is intended to ensure agencies are complying with Mr. Trump's executive orders to root out quote Marxist equity, transgenderism, and Green New Deal social engineering policies from programs within their purview. | ||
| It's not immediately clear how wide-ranging the pause will be in practice due to the Office of Management of Budget's ability to grant exceptions on a case-by-case basis, language exempting direct aid to individuals and a clause that states the pause is subject to quote to what quote permissible under applicable law. | ||
| Maybe that's something you agree with, a priority of the White House that you agree with. | ||
| Maybe you disagree with it. | ||
| You can call us on the lines and let us know about that or other things you may agree or disagree with, whether it be from the president himself or the priorities of House Republicans who met in Florida yesterday. | ||
| John, Republican line in Connecticut, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, Pedro. | |
| Yes, I feel the Republicans are going to do right for the country. | ||
| I know the price, everybody's talking about the price of groceries and everything not coming down first day. | ||
| It's impossible. | ||
| No one can do that. | ||
| But once the energy prices go down, the inflation goes down, things will come in order. | ||
| It'll happen. | ||
| And I just think we've got to give Mr. Trump, Donald J. Trump, president, a chance. | ||
| That's all we got to do. | ||
| Give the guy a chance like we did four years ago with Mr. Biden. | ||
| So if that's the case, how long of a chance should he get? | ||
|
unidentified
|
As long as it takes, Pedro. | |
| I don't mean like four years. | ||
| The guy's only been in office for a week. | ||
| Pedro, can you change your budget around in a week, your home budget in a week? | ||
| I'm just asking, what do you think is a measurable amount of time for the White House and this White House and this Republican team to make those changes? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd give him his 100 days. | |
| What he needs to do this. | ||
| We need to give the man a chance. | ||
| The country needs to reverse things that happened before. | ||
| We need to give President Trump a chance. | ||
| That's all there is to it. | ||
| I can't change my budget in 24 hours or 100 days maybe. | ||
| But our country is so big, and I know you realize that. | ||
| There's so much going on in this country right now. | ||
| Give President Trump a chance. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| John there in Connecticut, Republican line, talking about the economy and issues of the economy. | ||
| This is from USA Today about the cost of eggs and what's expected over the next several months. | ||
| This saying that making eggs for breakfast might become more challenging as the common grocery items expected to become pricier throughout the year, despite Vice President Vance's recently saying otherwise. | ||
| According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's price outlook, egg prices are predicted to increase about 20% in 2025 compared to about 2.2% for overall food prices. | ||
| This story adding that the USDA attributed that rise in egg costs to the highly pathogenic avian influenza or bird flu outbreak, which caused a strain in supply. | ||
| So maybe matters of the economy are something that you share with the Republican leadership and the president or not as far as their priorities being yours. | ||
| Let's hear from Willie in Arkansas, Democrats line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, only way we're going to be able to cut anything, we're going to have to put everything in the budget. | |
| That includes tax cut. | ||
| So maybe matters of defense, something that you share our security, Medicare. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We got to stop getting tax cuts to billionaires and all these people and starting making them pay more and then don't try to take away from the people because they don't have nothing. | |
| But if you go and do what Trump kind of do, go get over here the billionaire and other tax cuts and then trying to find all the cuts and social programs, they're not going to be able to do it because there ain't enough money in other than Social Security, Medicare, and defense. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You can't get no whole lot of money. | |
| You can listen to all these people talking about what they're going to cut and how much they're going to cut. | ||
| But what stuff that you have, he's going to do just like he did when he was always last time. | ||
| Okay, Willie, there in Arkansas, a little bit of a reminder to folks calling in and waiting online. | ||
| If you can turn down your televisions while you're getting ready to go on, we would appreciate it. | ||
| The Washington Post highlights a couple of things on priorities when it comes to the president and Republicans in the House. | ||
| In this piece, it says that when it comes to priorities from the president, he wants Congress to move quickly to extend those 2017 tax cuts with some additional lowered rates and end federal taxes on tips which could add even more to the debt. | ||
| Some of those plans, the post rights, will clash with members of the Arch Conservative House Freedom Caucus, who have demanded that any GOP tax bill dramatically cuts government spending. | ||
| The spending cuts some Republicans have floated would affect social safety nets, especially anti-poverty assistance, Medicare, and Medicaid, which could induce political blowback. | ||
| The story also highlights issues of immigration, saying many of Mr. Trump's campaign promises are at odds with some GOP hardliners' desire to cut the national debt, that exceeding $36.2 trillion. | ||
| It was during his speech Monday evening he said he was looking forward to working with Congress to increase federal spending that would pay for deportation flights and hire more border and immigration and customs enforcement. | ||
| It was the House Republican Speaker, Mike Johnson, yesterday, asked about current plans for migration, the current mass deportations that are taking place, and how that might impact the economy. | ||
| Here's Mike Johnson from yesterday. | ||
| I hope not. | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| I think you heard Tom Homan say very clearly in the last 24 hours: the worst are first. | ||
| And what he means by that is dangerous, violent criminals. | ||
| And we know who they are. | ||
| You've already seen them being rounded up and deported. | ||
| That is the top and first priority of the federal government. | ||
| The rest of it will be developed. | ||
| I'm glad that we have a new Secretary of Homeland Security. | ||
| I think Christy Noam will do an extraordinary job in that position. | ||
| And all the people that are being lined up have a very sober mind about this. | ||
| They're very clear-eyed about what is required, what the American people demand and deserve, and frankly, what they voted for in the election. | ||
| They gave President Donald Trump a mandate to fix this problem. | ||
| And no matter where I went around the country, border ranked in the top one or two issues everywhere, everywhere, blue states, red state, everywhere in between. | ||
| And so they are counting on us, they're counting on the administration and the Congress, for that matter, to back it up, to get control of this situation. | ||
| And that's what's going to happen. | ||
| And I think everybody can take a deep breath. | ||
| Let this play out. | ||
| We are going to restore law and order at any cost. | ||
| And I think we owe that to the people. | ||
| It's a very, very simple thing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jake. | |
| There's more there available at our website at C-span.org and our app at C-span. | ||
| Now are president Trump and House Republicans reflecting your priorities. | ||
| Phil joins us from Long Island Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, good morning, Pedro. | |
| You know you covered a lot of stuff there, so I just want to hit a couple of them. | ||
| Number one, this Mike Lawler from uh, Upstate New York here. | ||
| I'm a New York resident, New York City 40 something years now I live on Long Island. | ||
| My taxes for my property are about 13 000. | ||
| Out of that, 13 000, 9 000 are for school taxes. | ||
| So when Lawler talks about the exorbitant taxes, how much of that off going towards school taxes which are for the public sector, unions and the teachers, right and, by the way, up in his area where he lives, in some of these areas on Long Island okay, it really is a form of privilege and generational wealth because they're getting better teachers at higher rates of pay, they're offering more college courses and they want the rest of us to pay and they want the, the country, | ||
|
unidentified
|
to go more into debt to pay for it. | |
| I mean salt for 20 000 for a couple is pretty much where working class people are. | ||
| Anybody paying more than 40, 50 000. | ||
| They could afford to pay that, not that we got to bankrupt the country more. | ||
| And then, as far as Trump goes on tips, all right, the working class ain't gonna like that, because those of us punching the clock swiping in signing in okay, we're still gonna be paying taxes. | ||
| Most people I know that work for tips, all that cash tips that they've been making all these years. | ||
| They haven't paid tax on that. | ||
| They've only been getting caught the last 10 or 15 years on the tips that have been going on credit cards. | ||
| And as far as Social Security goes and Medicare, what? | ||
| Where can you go and work 10 years, 40 credits and be eligible for a pension and medical benefits? | ||
| Maybe, instead of uh decreasing anything and they're not talking about decreasing, so let's get that straight maybe they should change the requirement of how long you have to pay in before you can collect. | ||
| Okay, I have a lot more stuff in Long Island uh, there. | ||
| Uh, let's hear it go from John John's in California, Republican Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning Pedro, good morning everyone. | |
| Um, I think Trump's doing a good job and my priorities were ending the war both wars and he's done a good job of uh bringing the hostages home and having a ceasefire in Gaza drawing a red line and then because he's He's a strong president. | ||
| Everybody heard him. | ||
| The next priority would be to lower gas prices or lower oil prices down to about $40 a barrel. | ||
| And that will end the Ukraine war and hurt Iran and their terrorists. | ||
| So we're on our way to ending the Ukraine war. | ||
| So if we can end the two wars, Trump will be, I don't care if he's got 100 felonies. | ||
| If he can end those wars, then he's a good president. | ||
| Now, a second point, and I hear this all the time from Democrats, is that the tax cuts, Trump tax cuts. | ||
| I urge everyone to go to the Congressional Budget Office, CongressionalBudget Office.com, and they have budget histories all the way back to George Washington. | ||
| You got Kennedy's budget, Clinton's budget, Obama's budget. | ||
| And under the Trump tax cuts, because he lowered taxes for corporations, they were able to hire more. | ||
| So even though they cut prices to corporations, unemployment went from 7% under Obama to 3%, which means more people paid into the taxes. | ||
| And for the first time ever in Trump's first term, revenues went to $4 trillion. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
$4 trillion. | |
| Okay. | ||
| John there in California. | ||
| Let's go to Dennis. | ||
| Dennis is Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Good morning, America. | ||
| You know, basically, I just want to say, you know, I guess you can get a guy a chance. | ||
| You know, I'm not a Trump fan. | ||
| I'm not a MAGA or anything like that. | ||
| And I'm not a Democrat. | ||
| I'm an independent. | ||
| But you got to give the guy a chance to fix whatever was wrong with the country. | ||
| Now, the real point I wanted to make real quick was, you know, they talk about taxing the rich. | ||
| Now, I'm just a middle class. | ||
| I'm working stiff. | ||
| You know, if I started a business and used my own money and worked hard, I don't want somebody that's not doing anything. | ||
| So I get that part. | ||
| Dennis, I have to apologize. | ||
| You're breaking up. | ||
| Dennis, are you still there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, can you hear me? | |
| Yeah, go ahead and try. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, go ahead. | |
| Yeah, I'm just saying. | ||
| You got the left, the right, they're going nuts. | ||
| It's like a sports team. | ||
| You know, the Republicans are rooting for their team. | ||
| The Democrats are rooting for their team. | ||
| And then the guy in the middle is just sitting there watching this. | ||
| You know, I'm the guy just watching the show. | ||
| I'm be six years old next month, and I've seen presidents come and go. | ||
| And he's people that believe everything he says. | ||
| You know, he said he's going to fix stuff on day one. | ||
| Nobody in their right mind believes nobody can fix nothing on day one. | ||
| That doesn't even make sense. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Dennis, they're calling us, I think, from his car. | ||
| And Maryland, you can do the same or from home or wherever. | ||
| 202748-8,000 for Democrats, 202-748-8,000, one for Republicans. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8,000 too are President Trump's and the House Republicans' priorities. | ||
| Do they reflect your priorities? | ||
| The Washington Times this morning highlights a story taking a look at possible cuts being mulled by House Republicans, saying that the House Ways and Means Committee last week floated a 50-page list of spending cuts where cumulatively trillions in savings could be had over the 10 over 10 years. | ||
| A sample of those proposed cuts in the 10-year estimated budget savings. | ||
| Eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction, that's a trillion. | ||
| Establish Medicaid work requirements, $100 billion. | ||
| Snap work requirements, $5 billion. | ||
| Cap SNAP maximum benefit, that would be $2 billion savings. | ||
| Eliminate the credit for child and dependent care, $55 billion. | ||
| Eliminate duplicative social services block grants, $15 billion. | ||
| It goes on from there. | ||
| The Washington Times is where you can find that story if you want to read it. | ||
| Let's go to Janet, Pittsburgh, Republican line, about these priorities and if they reflect yours. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Well, I wanted to talk about the J Sixers. | ||
| Two things. | ||
| Pelosi was thinking that she finally got Trump. | ||
| She knew, and the president knew before January 6th, days before that, that there was going to be disruption. | ||
| There were not enough Capitol police. | ||
| They knew it. | ||
| So what they did was, let's just not get any of those troops that Trump is offering us because that will quell any kind of disruption. | ||
| We'll just let it go. | ||
| Let it be a disruption. | ||
| And then we'll finally get him. | ||
| We'll pin it on him. | ||
| Okay, that's number one. | ||
| Janet, how does the impact as far as current priorities that the Republicans are suggesting and also the president? | ||
| How does that reflect the modern day? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, because people are calling. | |
| You had a couple callers ago that this man did not like the fact that the January 6th people that were in prison, that was going to be an army he was going to use. | ||
| I mean, that is so ridiculous. | ||
| Somebody asked him, and I think it was on right after those people were pardoned, why he pardoned all of them instead of doing case by case. | ||
| He would have liked to have done case by case. | ||
| He said it would have taken entirely too long. | ||
| He has too much of a list that he wants to correct. | ||
| And that is why he did it all at one time. | ||
| And the other thing. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Well, we'll leave it there, Janet, in Pittsburgh for calling in a related story from yesterday saying it was the acting attorney general moving on Monday to fire several Justice Department officials who worked on the federal criminal investigations into President Trump, according to two department officials and termination letters. | ||
| Sent more than a dozen officials, acting Attorney General James McKenemy wrote that he did not believe that, quote, they could be trusted to faithfully implement the president's agenda because of their significant role in prosecuting the president. | ||
| One of the officials said it was not immediately clear how many officials involved in the Trump investigation received those notices. | ||
| Again, when it comes to the current priorities of the president and House Republicans, if they are similar to yours, maybe they are not similar to yours. | ||
| You can call and let us know. | ||
| Democrats line from Massachusetts. | ||
| We'll hear from Pete. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Hi there, Pedro. | ||
| Yeah, this guy, yeah, it's weak, and it's worse than anybody could have imagined. | ||
| I mean, he is the worst thing to ever happen to this country. | ||
| I don't know what these people are smoking or what kind of cult they are in, but anyway, the Republican spineless Congress is the fear that they feel, it's almost like they're working in a Stalin-esque regime. | ||
| You know, I just pray that the guardrails will hold a little bit because this guy is going to test every bound. | ||
| He doesn't care about anybody. | ||
| The people that voted for him, actually, he can't stand them behind closed doors. | ||
| So I don't know what they think. | ||
| But no, my priorities. | ||
| And I think Musk is probably arguably more evil than Trump in maybe a more articulate or sneaky way, which I think he is. | ||
| Why was he talking to the German right-wing party the other day? | ||
| That's a nice Nazi salute he gave also. | ||
| So, no, that's going to be a rough four years if he makes it. | ||
| You know, maybe he can't. | ||
| Massachusetts there. | ||
| Bob, Independent Line in Michigan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hey, good morning, Pedro. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| I believe that I'm more of a common sense party. | ||
| I mean, I'm not Democrat or Republican. | ||
| I look at what is happening. | ||
| So if you're looking at as a common sense, I mean, some of these people just really need to open up their eyes. | ||
| So as far as their priorities versus your priorities, how do they compare? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, I see our country doing a complete 180, all positive. | |
| I mean, there's just way too much crime, corruption, wasteless spending. | ||
| I mean, it's ridiculous. | ||
| The past four years, we've been dealing with a lot of deception. | ||
| Okay, Eva's next. | ||
| Mississippi Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I think it's too much spending, but you see what he just did. | ||
| He cut all this funding off. | ||
| How are people supposed to live? | ||
| Are these people crazy? | ||
| How are they supposed to live? | ||
| You can't get nobody help for even the sick people now. | ||
| They get two hours a day for care. | ||
| What is wrong with them? | ||
| What is going on? | ||
| Are they crazy? | ||
| Eva there in Mississippi. | ||
| Rachel is in Texas, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am Rachel. | |
| I live in Texas. | ||
| I support the president and the conservatives. | ||
| I'm right on the border, and thank God for them. | ||
| Besides that, the one statement I wanted to make, I watch C-SPAN every chance I can. | ||
| Y'all do a just tremendous job. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, thank you, Rachel. | ||
| When it comes to priorities, you didn't specify to what degree do your priorities reflect the current administrations or House Republicans? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, there's so many, but priorities are getting the border closed, which will help the economy. | |
| It's one of these multiple issues. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Rachel there in Texas. | ||
| Again, people calling in, letting us know about the priorities, their personal priorities versus that of the president or House Republicans. | ||
| You can do the same. | ||
| 2027 88,000 for Democrats. | ||
| 202-748-8,000 one for Republicans. | ||
| Independents, 202, 748, 8,000, 2. | ||
| Tariffs was one of those topics addressed by President Trump yesterday while in Florida, his plan for tariffs and how he plans to approach it. | ||
| Here's a portion from yesterday. | ||
| We are going to have so many businesses moving back into our country. | ||
| And remember, again, the word tariff. | ||
| We're going to protect our people and our businesses, and we're going to protect our country with tariffs. | ||
| And you got a little indication of that yesterday with what happened with a very strong country. | ||
| Colombia is traditionally a very, very strong-willed country. | ||
| If they don't make their product in America, then very simply they should have to pay a tariff, which will bring in trillions of dollars into our treasury from countries that never paid us 10 cents. | ||
| We're not going to let that happen. | ||
| We're not going to let them destroy our country. | ||
| In the words of President McKinley, who is the tariff king, the protective system invokes the highest law of nature that a self-preservation, and that is self-preservation, there is every reason founded in justice why the American producer should in every way be favored against a foreign producer whose products compete with his. | ||
| This is our natural market. | ||
| We have made it. | ||
| We have made it an enormous cost, capital, and exertion. | ||
| And think of this. | ||
| And we did that through exertion and brain and muscle and guts and stamina. | ||
| We've preserved it against foreign wars and domestic conflicts at great sacrifice of men and women. | ||
| The foreign producer has contributed nothing to the growth or development of this country. | ||
| So if you want to share with the citizens of the United States our home market, then you must pay for the privilege of doing it. | ||
| In other words, you have to pay for the privilege of coming into our country, taking our jobs, taking our product, destroying our countries. | ||
| We mentioned North Carolina, the furniture business, what they've done to these great artisans. | ||
| I used to go down to North Carolina all the time to buy furniture for hotels that I was building. | ||
| And they had the most incredible artisans. | ||
| That whole thing was wiped out by China mostly, but others and just wiped out. | ||
| But it's going to come back. | ||
| It's going to come roaring back. | ||
| It's all going to come roaring back. | ||
| Are the priorities of the President and House Republicans your priorities? | ||
| Do they reflect those priorities or perhaps not? | ||
| 202-748-8,000 for Democrats. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| On our Independent line, Ted in Minneapolis. | ||
| Hello. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I just saw a call in. | ||
| I was watching a program about a month ago, and it was on pork barrel. | ||
| And I was watching Rand Paul speak about the excesses of spending this pork barrel for absolutely throwing it out the window, talking about two different fish and which fish should be drinked tequila or if we drink gin would be more aggressive. | ||
| Also, I was listening to Senator Lanston of Oklahoma. | ||
| And he had brought up this pork barrel spending where we're actually spending money on the stupidest things. | ||
| And he said in his speech that if we reduce this pork barrel spending, we could be saving over a billion dollars per year for our country. | ||
| So why don't we look at pork barrel spending? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Let's go to Mary. | ||
| Mary in Nevada, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| This connection between Musk and Trump is very dangerous, rallying all these right-wing extremists. | ||
| And Musk has no, he was not elected to hold office. | ||
| Why he has space in the White House is beyond me. | ||
| Now he's out there trying to erase history in Germany, like Trump wants to erase history from January 6th. | ||
| You saw it on TV. | ||
| There were videos. | ||
| They are not hostages. | ||
| They were domestic terrorists. | ||
| And others were charged for sedition. | ||
| They pled guilty. | ||
| They had their day in court. | ||
| They were guilty. | ||
| As far as money goes, What he's doing is a photo op using military assets to round up immigrants. | ||
| Immigrants that he's hired his whole life. | ||
| The plane cost something like $200,000 for 12 hours. | ||
| Now Holman, his borders are, wants to use an even military plane that would cost $800,000 an hour. | ||
| The plane was not filled with immigrants. | ||
| It's all a photo op. | ||
| We need legislation to fix it. | ||
| But no, let's put drama into the picture. | ||
| They ought to park their butts and get off of their podcasts and sit and do legislation. | ||
| Donald Trump and his ilk that Mike Johnson would do himself some good if he'd go into his Bible and read the passage about doing about not bearing false witness. | ||
| So Trump is a disaster. | ||
| He hasn't lowered the price of eggs. | ||
| All hell hasn't broken loose like he said it would in Gaza. | ||
| He hasn't lowered the price of bacon. | ||
| They're out there draining the treasury, not the swamp. | ||
| They're all criminals. | ||
| Read the backgrounds of some of these people. | ||
| His nominees aren't qualified. | ||
| Never mind. | ||
| Okay, Mary in Nevada, we got the point. | ||
| Thank you for the call. | ||
| She and others bringing up Elon Musk about comments made over the weekend, telling a gathering of hard right Alternative FOR Germany party this weekend that the country has quote, too much focus on past guilt, an apparent effort to wipe away the long shadow of the Nazis that had influenced generations of Germans, to quarantine extreme political parties for public life. | ||
| Quote, it's good to be proud of German culture, German values and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything. | ||
| He said in a short video that was broadcast to thousands of party members in the eastern city of Hill. | ||
| More there from the NEW YORK Times. | ||
| If you want to read it there, let's hear from John John in Texas Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi yes hi, thank you for taking my call. | |
| Yes, with respect to the priorities, in terms of what, what President Trump promised? | ||
| It's only the seventh day today, so I would say they're giving some time, but I believe that some the priorities that he stated during his campaign are taking effect. | ||
| For example, number one is immigration. | ||
| That takes time to reduce prices. | ||
| That's going to take time. | ||
| If I'm going to be doing my budget, I have to look at everything. | ||
| I can't just look at one item as to where I'm going to reduce my spending. | ||
| So seven days is not enough to lower the prices of any product that is brought in or controlled by one simple company or corporate. | ||
| That will take time. | ||
| I do believe very strongly that he needs a little bit of time now, two years down the line, if we're still having the same problems, that's the time to complain. | ||
| All of us have the right to say whatever we want to say, but give The person that you hired time to get into the job. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| John there in Texas. | ||
| This is Adam from Washington, D.C., Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| One thing that I'd like to say regarding priorities is: I'm not sure that all of the priorities and how they're being implemented is something that I agree at per se in terms of timing and tempo. | ||
| But what I am impressed with is that the Trump administration is doing exactly what I anticipated him doing, which is pulling all of the levers of power from diplomatic information, military, and economic. | ||
| And there's multiple levers there to pull on. | ||
| And what we feel right now is a bunch of churn. | ||
| And it's understandable that the American society, American public, is a little concerned or feeling a little thrown off. | ||
| But in terms of making change, all of those levers need to be utilized. | ||
| And the Trump administration is doing just that. | ||
| The Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor Monday making the case that the Trump administration is not focused on Americans' priorities. | ||
| Here's some of his statement from yesterday. | ||
| He spent his first week pardoning insurrectionists, firing government watchdogs, instead of focusing on things ordinary Americans care about, like the price of groceries. | ||
| The president owes the American people some answers. | ||
| What is he going to do about the price of eggs? | ||
| It's been exacerbated by bird flu. | ||
| When hundreds of thousands and even millions of chickens die, they lay fewer eggs. | ||
| And when there are fewer eggs, price goes up. | ||
| The problem's reaching crisis levels. | ||
| In November, a dozen eggs cost approximately $4 at a grocery store in New York, already too high. | ||
| It used to be $2 a year earlier. | ||
| Now, that same dozen eggs cost $6. | ||
| And experts believe that the price of eggs could increase as much as 20% more this year if outbreaks continue, meaning that the same dozen eggs would be $8. | ||
| Every day we hear about the spread of bird flu. | ||
| Last week, farmers on Long Island had to slaughter 100,000 ducks. | ||
| Long Island's one of the duck-producing capitals of the country in response to another outbreak. | ||
| So, President Trump, what's your plan to stop the spread of bird flu? | ||
| The more bird flu spreads, the higher egg prices will go, and the less money in people's pockets for rent and gas and other expenses. | ||
| We need some action. | ||
| As always, you can find more about the minority leaders' comments on our various platforms. | ||
| Here's Shirley in New York City Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, America. | |
| You know, I sit back and I watch C-STAN every morning. | ||
| Trump is nothing but distraction, distraction, distraction. | ||
| His whole campaign was about distraction. | ||
| I wonder how his first call as president, he called Saudi Arabia. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because he's building a concourse over there. | ||
| Oh, then he called El Salvador when he's sending these people back. | ||
| But he has crip corns there. | ||
| Got his picture on there, has Milan's picture on there. | ||
| He's making billions of dollars. | ||
| Oh, and he's giving tax breaks to all the rich. | ||
| Quite naturally, tax breaks keep him from having to pay taxes on all his companies and everything. | ||
| He's nothing but distraction. | ||
| Yes, we've got to secure our borders definitely. | ||
| You know, prices are all up all over the place. | ||
| I heard Schumer talk about eggs, $8. | ||
| No, I'm New York City. | ||
| I look at the sales sheet papers that we get. | ||
| I go online to look at this Google Margaret. | ||
| Eggs, $10. | ||
| If you're going to buy the 18-pack, they were $13.99. | ||
| So why is he in all these other countries worrying about what all these other countries are doing instead of dealing with home? | ||
| People, wake up. | ||
| Look at your distractions. | ||
| That was his key thing. | ||
| Okay, Shirley there in New York City. | ||
| Let's hear from Geraldine in the neighboring state of New Jersey, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, good morning. | ||
| I was just doing a little research, and the Democratics keep, they complain about spending. | ||
| Well, on the House Budget Committee, they spent $150 billion a year on illegals. | ||
| Now, if they weren't invading us, would we still be spending $150 billion a year on illegals? | ||
| Over the last four years, Biden spent $150 billion a year on illegals. | ||
| And then I watched Schumer complain about the price of eggs. | ||
| Nobody can do anything if there's a flu with the birds, but it just seems impossible. | ||
| I have three friends, I'm 75, who have all lost grandchildren to fentanyl. | ||
| I work with a nurse whose daughter was killed by an illegal who was drunk driving, no insurance, no license, no nothing. | ||
| After he killed her, he just went back to Mexico. | ||
| So I think Trump in his first week has done more than Biden has done in the last three years. | ||
| Biden has also lied to us. | ||
| I will not leave a single American in Afghanistan. | ||
| He left over 1,000. | ||
| I'm going to be president to bring the country together. | ||
| Oh, except for the fact that all us Republicans are Nazis and Trump's Hitler. | ||
| That didn't work. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Gerald Dean there in New Jersey. | ||
| NPR reporting it was just after 6 o'clock yesterday that the Trump administration placed a number of senior career officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave for allegedly not abiding by the president's executive order to freeze much of U.S. foreign aid. | ||
| NPR obtaining a copy of the message that sent to all U.S. aid staff by Acting Administrator Jason Gray. | ||
| Quote, we have identified several actions within U.S. AID that appear to be designed to circumvent the president's executive order and the mandate from the American people. | ||
| As a result, we have placed a number of USAID employees on administrative leave with full pay and benefits until further notice while we complete our analysis of these actions. | ||
| That's from NPR. | ||
| Let's hear from Curtis on priorities of the president and the House Republicans and if they match yours in Baltimore, Independent Line. | ||
| Curtis, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| You're on, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so I'm independent. | |
| I'm calling to say that I wholeheartedly agree with every decision that this administration makes. | ||
| And I'm not saying that in a good term. | ||
| I'm being sarcastic when I say that because I hope what happens eventually is enough happens that the people in this country will rise up and take action against the government. | ||
| You know, people are being foolish because this government, I'm 58 years old. | ||
| This government has never done anything for anybody in this country. | ||
| Not Democrats and Republicans. | ||
| People continue to put their trust in a government, especially so-called Christians. | ||
| And one of the verses in your Bible says the governments of this world are not of my father's kingdom, but yet you still put your trust in the governments. | ||
| I don't understand, people. | ||
| If you concern so much about the price of eggs, stop buying the eggs. | ||
| And I guarantee you, the prices will go down. | ||
| Don't worry about nonsense. | ||
| Instead of worrying about obeying the law of the creator, you're much more concerned about following the laws of name. | ||
| And that's what's wrong with not just this country, but the world itself. | ||
| Thank you for letting me have my two seconds. | ||
| Jay in Maryland Democrats line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call, Pedro. | ||
| So I'll just get right to the point. | ||
| No, the priorities of the Republicans and of Trump with regard to spending are 180 degrees out of what I think our priorities should be. | ||
| Carla, you got a lot of interference going on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can you clear up the signal, please? | |
| Yeah, can you hear me now? | ||
| Yes, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| It's obvious to me that they have no compunction about causing financial pain to the people who have the least in this country. | ||
| They're doing it with tariffs. | ||
| They're going to do it with taxes. | ||
| They're going to do it with budget cuts. | ||
| And I think that the whole price of eggs thing was a great caller. | ||
| I apologize. | ||
| You're breaking up. | ||
| Sorry for that. | ||
| Let's hear from Sean. | ||
| Sean's in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Very president. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| What is happening is a continuation of the failed coup of 2020, which was a continuation of the failure of the Third Reich. | ||
| Trump and his associates actually used the iconography of the failed Third Reich to create the fourth Reich. | ||
| What they could not obtain on the battlefield, they merely purchased. | ||
| Mr. Trump's mentor, Roy Cohen, was an ardent anti-communist and a devotee of the fascism of Nazi Germany, and so goes Trump. | ||
| Number one is an internal enemy. | ||
| Hitler has the Jews, and Trump has the Mexican. | ||
| Okay, so as far as priorities of the president currently and how they match or not match yours specifically, what would that be? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're not standing up and doing anything against these people. | |
| These people absolutely are touting the Nazi philosophy. | ||
| I mean, where is it not the Nazi philosophy? | ||
| What are we going to do about this? | ||
| When are we going to stand up? | ||
| When are the Democrats going to stand up and actually start fighting back against this stuff? | ||
| These people, look what he did. | ||
| He's taken out transgender people out of the military. | ||
| The smallest group of people in the United States, these people have gone after in order to show their experience. | ||
| They are burning the nation down in the name of the Christian God of white supremacy. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thad is next. | ||
| Thad in California, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yeah, hi, Pedro. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I would have to say that the Republicans are, in general, reflecting my priorities. | ||
| I reside in the San Francisco Bay Area. | ||
| And I've lived in California since I was a little kid, since 1960. | ||
| And the Democrats have practically destroyed this state. | ||
| The crime in this state, and especially in the Bay Area, is just absolutely, you can't even describe it. | ||
| It's a total breakdown of the social structure. | ||
| Every weekend, and always not just on the weekends, they have these sideshows. | ||
| I don't know if you're familiar with that term. | ||
| Where the younger people, they get their cars. | ||
| A lot of the cars are stolen. | ||
| They burn rubber in the intersections of the cities like Oakland and San Francisco, Vallejo. | ||
| They run into people, they shoot their guns off. | ||
| So, how do all those events relate to current priorities of the president and Republicans? | ||
| And if you agree with that or not? | ||
|
unidentified
|
His stance is basically a law and order stance. | |
| That's Trump's stance. | ||
| So, whether it's immigration or day-to-day crime, street crime, he's a law and order president, and that's what he's trying to get accomplished. | ||
| Bat there in California, the New York Post reporting that it was the president signing four executive orders and one proclamation Monday, edicts that would prohibit, quote, gender radicalism in the military and eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs for the military. | ||
| You can see the full announcement at that press conference that the president gave yesterday, but here's a portion. | ||
| And in a little while, I'll be signing four new executive orders. | ||
| First, is that I'm directing our new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hakeseth, who's going to be great, by the way. | ||
| Thank you for the support. | ||
| Thank you very much for the support. | ||
| You really did support him greatly. | ||
| I think he's going to be fantastic. | ||
| I know him very well. | ||
| I think he's going to be fantastic. | ||
| He's what we need to immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art iron dome missile defense shield, which will be able to protect Americans. | ||
| You know, we protect other countries, but we don't protect ourselves. | ||
| And when Ronald Reagan wanted to do it many years ago, luckily we didn't. | ||
| We didn't have the technology then. | ||
| It was a concept, but we didn't. | ||
| Now we have phenomenal technology. | ||
| You see that with Israel. | ||
| We're out of 319 rockets, they knocked down just about every one of them. | ||
| So I think the United States is entitled to that, and everything will be made right here in the USA, 100%. | ||
| And next, to ensure that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world, we will get transgender ideology the hell out of our military. | ||
| It's going to be gone. | ||
| In addition, we will stop our service members from being indoctrinated with radical left ideologies such as critical race theory. | ||
| We're going to stop it. | ||
| It's already been stopped. | ||
| It's already been halted, totally halted. | ||
| And finally, we will offer full reinstatement to any service member who was expelled from the armed forces due to the COVID vaccine mandate. | ||
| And we will restore them to their former rank with full pay. | ||
| Let's hear from Jim. | ||
| Jim's in Pittsburgh, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Pedro, good morning. | |
| I'd first like to comment on the comments about Elon Musk making a Nazi salute. | ||
| He has Asperger's. | ||
| It's high-functioning autism. | ||
| So they're basically making fun of a medical condition. | ||
| They were upset when Trump appeared to be making fun of a reporter for a similar thing. | ||
| As far as priorities, I think the main priority should be the border and energy. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| We've heard about a lot of the border energy, specifically why. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think the energy is fundamental to overall pricing. | |
| It costs energy and transportation fees is the fundamental cost of everything. | ||
| But in addition to companies are going to locate to a place where they have cheap, reliable energy. | ||
| And if that's the United States, more companies will tend to produce here. | ||
| Jim there in Pittsburgh, giving his thoughts on his priorities, how they compare or contrast with the administrations and the House Republicans. | ||
| Matt joins us next. | ||
| He's the New York State Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| So far, what Trump's doing, you could call promises made, promises kept. | ||
| He's done more in one week than Biden did in four years. | ||
| The border, and we just talked about energy. | ||
| Energy runs this country. | ||
| And for some reason, Sleepy Joe decided he wanted to cripple his country. | ||
| They've run his country into the ground. | ||
| When you showed the clip of Schumer, I thought, what a hypocrite. | ||
| He's complaining about eggs. | ||
| I'd like to remind everybody about two years ago, eggs were even higher than they are now, and Biden didn't do anything about it. | ||
| But yet Schumer and his Senate Democrats are slow walking with the 30-hour rule, every cabinet appointee. | ||
| Now, Trump can't do anything till his cabinet's in place, and hypocrite Schumer is up there saying, what's he doing? | ||
| Well, why don't Schumer quit this nonsense with the slow-walking cabinet appointees? | ||
| It's just totally ridiculous, the hypocrisy that comes out of the mouths of these Democrats that are calling in here. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| That's Matt in New York, one of the events that took place yesterday in the Senate. | ||
| Scott Besson, president's choice for Treasury Secretary, confirmed to that position on a 68-29 vote. | ||
| Sharon up next. | ||
| Sharon in Oregon Democrats line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I'd like to kind of deal with an issue rather than the name calling and guessing at what he's going to do. | ||
| So you brought up the article, and thank you for that, in the New York Times. | ||
| The Budget Committee, Republican, in all branches, has told us, and you read to us some of it. | ||
| One, reducing Medicaid payments by establishing a work requirement that would throw 600,000 people off it. | ||
| Reducing the federal government's payments to the states, which would put the whole burden of Medicaid on the states. | ||
| Your states aren't going to be able to afford it unless they raise your state taxes. | ||
| Repealing the tax credit for energy efficience. | ||
| Now, everybody whines about electric cars, but that means that new refrigerator, that new washer that you guys buy, because it's more economical energy, you got a tax credit. | ||
| That came out your taxes. | ||
| That went in your pocket. | ||
| Taxing all scholarships. | ||
| Who gets scholarships? | ||
| Middle class and poor kids. | ||
| Now they'll pay a tax on that scholarship. | ||
| Ending the mortgage deduction. | ||
| All you people out there who can't afford three homes, but you're one home, you like taking your mortgage deduction, that'll go away. | ||
| Now, what was in the last tax one that he wants to push through? | ||
| Abolish the alternative minimum tax. | ||
| In other words, he wiped out that a person had to pay a tax. | ||
| That's why Bezos and a lot of those rich guys paid nothing because they used to have a minimum tax they had to pay. | ||
| His tax cut in 2017 took it away. | ||
| What did we get in 217? | ||
| If you made up to $86,000, you got a 3% tax cut. | ||
| Up to $732,000, you got 18%. | ||
| If you were the 1%, You got 20%. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Most of the poor people calling in on your show got 3%, while the rich got 20%. | ||
| Okay, Sharon, Sharon, thank you. | ||
| Thank you for that. | ||
| Let's hear from Joe. | ||
| Joe in Long Island, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yes, good morning. | ||
| C-STAN is great. | ||
| I've called numerous times. | ||
| I'm on the independent line. | ||
| I mean, I got to tell you, thank God for Donald Trump, because if we don't lower the prices of everything, oil, everything, the priorities of the president at this time is make America great again. | ||
| And he feels that back in the past when we were doing things correctly and, you know, running the world practically, is when we needed to, that's how we need to do it. | ||
| No one else is going to pick up the ball. | ||
| I mean, what other country is going to be able to really do the right thing for the world? | ||
| I mean, I can't, you know, you listen to these Democrats. | ||
| They're all doing the talking points of the Democrats. | ||
| They had their four years. | ||
| They destroyed the country practically. | ||
| And listen, I'm not a rich person, but believe me, we're hurting. | ||
| The people of this country are hurting. | ||
| We're paying way too much for everything. | ||
| It has to change. | ||
| And the people crying about it having to change, I think they always cry about it having to change because they don't understand that we can't keep doing what we're doing. | ||
| Remember the Roman Empire? | ||
| They did the same thing. | ||
| They taxed themselves into oblivion. | ||
| People couldn't pay anymore. | ||
| They revolted the whole thing. | ||
| Long Island, one more call. | ||
| This will be from Oregon. | ||
| Kathy, Democrats line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| The one thing that I wanted to remind everybody about was during Biden's presidency, the whole entire Republican and Democrats, they were trying to get a vote on the border in order to take care of the border, people getting through, too many people getting through. | ||
| And they wound up with the Democrats voting for it, but all of the Republicans that were complaining about people getting through the border, too many people getting through the border, voted no on it because they actually went out and said, we want this to turn everybody against voting for Democrats. | ||
| They used that. | ||
| They held that without taking care of the border when it could have been taken care of months before any election happened. | ||
| I just wanted to remind people that there was a chance to have the border taken care of, and Republicans refused to do it. | ||
| Okay, Kathy and Oregon, finishing off this hour of calls. | ||
| Thanks to all of you who participated. | ||
| Two guests joining us throughout the course of the morning. | ||
| First up, we'll hear from Lisa Gilbert. | ||
| She's the co-president of a group known as Public Citizen. | ||
| We'll talk about the watchdog group's efforts to push back on the president's agenda and then later a supporter of the president's agenda, especially when it comes to effort to roll back those so-called DEI programs. | ||
| A conversation with Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation. | ||
| Both of those conversations coming up on Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Our first guest of the morning, Lisa Gilbert. | ||
| She is the co-president of the group known as Public Citizen, here to talk about the agenda of the Trump administration. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How do you describe your group to other people? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Public Citizen is a consumer watchdog. | |
| Our focus is taking on corporate power on behalf of regular Americans. | ||
| And we do that in many different areas, protecting the environment, fighting to improve democracy, working to improve health care, and so much more. | ||
| When it comes to funding, how are you funded? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Very diversely, but primarily by regular people. | |
| So, you know, individual members across the country who give us $15, $20 to support also grant funding, occasional SaidPray awards, that kind of thing. | ||
| But certainly we depend heavily on regular supporters across the country. | ||
| You said you fight against corporate power. | ||
| If you go to your website, a lot listed targeted right at the Trump administration. | ||
| What's the goal of Public Citizen in this new Trump administration overall? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, unfortunately, our mission has never been more important. | |
| You know, this is an administration that is coming in full of people who got rich at the heads of corporations. | ||
| And so corporate power is taking center stage in terms of what their goals are. | ||
| And unfortunately, you know, that is often the opposite of what regular people need when we think about fewer regulatory protections on the books. | ||
| That means less clean air, less clean water, a less safe financial system. | ||
| Those are things that if you're the CEO of a company, it makes sense. | ||
| You don't want to be regulated and have to do things and have guardrails in place. | ||
| But if you're a regular American citizen, that's exactly what you need. | ||
| And that's what government should do for you. | ||
| So we're in a much more adversarial posture than we've been in a while. | ||
| Specifically, how? | ||
| Well, you know, looking at some of the folks who are coming in, for example, Elon Musk, coming in as literally the wealthiest person in the world, he is being tasked through Doge, this external entity, to give recommendations to government. | ||
| So those recommendations are going to be things like slashing programs and policies and agencies that people depend on, which may benefit him, may benefit other corporate cronies. | ||
| But the one thing we're sure of is it won't help you and me. | ||
| Is it fundamentally wrong? | ||
| The idea of cutting or at least decreasing the amount of government, is that a fundamentally wrong approach in your mind, or is there some value to it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it depends how you talk about it. | |
| So certainly most regulations, the goal of them is to help people. | ||
| They're the endgame of legislation. | ||
| If you're passing a bill, it then goes to an agency and they implement it. | ||
| They put rules in place, and those rules are how government goes out into the world and protects us. | ||
| So generally, we think that's a really good thing. | ||
| It's not to say there's no waste, there's no fraud, there's no inefficiencies in government. | ||
| There certainly are. | ||
| We think there are a lot of ways we could save money and streamline processes if we wanted to, but it's not the same sorts of policies that Musk and his folks are putting forward. | ||
| We think maybe we could cut the Pentagon budget. | ||
| There's a huge amount of waste in defense spending. | ||
| We could save millions of dollars really quickly that we could funnel back to help regular Americans. | ||
| That's not the type of suggestion we're expecting from Doge. | ||
| This administration has more billionaires within its cabinet if they all get appointed than others previous. | ||
| Fundamentally, what's wrong with that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're right. | |
| So 13 billionaires chosen to be part of the cabinet. | ||
| That's unprecedented. | ||
| Someone was telling up the wealth. | ||
| It's more than the GDP of 172 individual countries. | ||
| So it's a serious amount of money we're talking about. | ||
| It's not that there's something inherently wrong with being rich or wealth. | ||
| It's what it changes about your incentives. | ||
| So, you know, if you're thinking about government and thinking about the role of government from the posture of someone who hasn't had to, you know, buy eggs and see how much they cost right now, then you have different incentives and different ways of thinking about what the role as you held an agency should actually be. | ||
| And so that's what we're concerned about. | ||
| Our guest with us, if you want to ask her questions about their group's efforts, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And you can always text us at 202-748-8003. | ||
| When it comes to that Doge effort, public citizens are making an effort to have a seat at the table, so to speak. | ||
| What's the ambition there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| So myself and my co-president, Robert Weissman, we sent a letter to the Trump transition, so before they were inaugurated, saying that we thought that we should have a seat at the table as a part of Doge. | ||
| We believe that Doge is a federal advisory committee. | ||
| The way it's constituted, the way it's been reported, that means there are certain rules that apply to it. | ||
| One of them is that there should be balanced representation. | ||
| People who are on both sides of the aisle, people who are thinking about rulemaking from different perspectives. | ||
| As we were just talking about, we have the perspective that rules are very important for the American people, so we should be a part of this effort. | ||
| We don't think that the sole perspective of tech titans and crypto bros is what we need as we're thinking about what regulations and budget line items we have. | ||
| What response did you get? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We've not gotten a response yet. | |
| We expect to be denied, but certainly we think we should be seated. | ||
| We have a lot to say on this topic. | ||
| What would be the fundamental guidance you would give to those on that board going forward, whatever recommendations they have to make and whatever Congress decides to approve? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, we would say that, as we were just discussing, there are ways to make government more efficient, but it's not cutting programs like SNAP, like Meals on Wheels, like the funding that goes to support our national parks and teachers. | |
| Instead, it's the things like fossil fuel subsidies, things that are helping massive corporations, but not really helping regular Americans or the environment. | ||
| It's things like cutting back on privatized Medicare so that more Americans get the care they need. | ||
| There are a lot of things we could do to improve our government, and it's not really what we've heard they're thinking about. | ||
| You spoke about rules. | ||
| One of the issues concerning rules that has come up in the last couple of days was this idea of the inspector generals that were recently let go by the Trump administration and the rules they had to follow, they should have followed leading up to that. | ||
| Fundamentally, what did you think of the action itself? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just incredibly problematic. | |
| I mean, the idea that in the dark of night they would let go inspectors general across government, it actually flies right in the face of what they claim to be doing with Doge. | ||
| Inspectors General came into being after Watergate. | ||
| It's a bipartisan reform, still is bipartisanly supported, to think about fraud and waste of taxpayer dollars and efficiency. | ||
| And so the idea that we would let these people go, it proves that Doge is not what it's intended to be. | ||
| It kind of pulls back the curtain on what the goals of the administration actually are. | ||
| And it's scary because we need those folks in place as the watchdogs inside government. | ||
| The IGs will stay placed at Homeland Security and Justice. | ||
| Does the president ultimately have the right to do the action to remove them, even if he broke the 30-day rule, so to speak? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's an open question. | |
| I think one of the things that we are thinking about is what you just said, that there is new legislation that came into place in 2022 that says you had to notify Congress if you were going to remove Inspectors General. | ||
| You know, in some agencies, he can remove forcause, some without. | ||
| We are worried that rules were broken here, and we're figuring out what we can do legally and also just continuing to talk about the problem. | ||
| I want to play the response of Senator Lindsey Graham, who was on the Sunday shows, asked us directly a question about the Inspector Generals being let go and get your response to his response. | ||
| Here's what he had to say. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think, you know, yeah, he should have done that. | |
| But the question is, is it okay for him to put people in place that he thinks can carry out his agenda? | ||
| Yeah, he won the election. | ||
| What do you expect him to do? | ||
| Just leave everybody in place in Washington before he got elected. | ||
| This makes perfect sense to me. | ||
| Get new people. | ||
| He feels like the government hasn't worked very well for the American people. | ||
| These watchdog folks did a pretty lousy job, and he wants some new eyes on Washington. | ||
| And that makes sense to me. | ||
| So there's the response. | ||
| What's your response to that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, it is not untrue that a new administration can bring in their own people. | |
| I think there's a real difference between a Friday night firing of 17 people without warning and illegally without informing Congress and changing pieces of government. | ||
| So if there was some indication that one inspector general or two, you know, particularly needed to be replaced for a certain reason and there was a plan to put someone new into place quickly, which showed the importance of inspectors general, I think we'd be in a different posture. | ||
| But this is a huge number of folks who were removed and they play such an essential role in government. | ||
| So I don't really buy what Lindsey Graham just said. | ||
| This is Lisa Gilbert joining us. | ||
| She's with Public Citizens. | ||
| She serves as their co-president. | ||
| Our first call for you comes from Penny. | ||
| Penny's in New York State on our Line for Democrats. | ||
| You're on with our guest. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, Ms. Gilbert. | |
| I'd like to know what is the agenda for shutting down the SDIC. | ||
| Well, certainly, you know, we've heard from folks within the Trump administration as they start to come in that, you know, there are many people they don't like across the financial sector. | ||
| That includes the FDIC, the SEC, Treasury. | ||
| We are seeing new people come in. | ||
| We don't know the timeline for many of these appointments and changes, but certainly we're nervous about that. | ||
| It's a good question. | ||
| I think one of the places we've watched in addition to the FDIC is the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Product Bureau, which absolutely matters to regular consumers. | ||
| We've been surprised that the head of it, Rohit Chopra, has not been removed yet as he is one of our biggest consumer champions. | ||
| I think we're watching all the agencies to pay attention to when and who folks people leave. | ||
| We saw the decision by the Trump administration yesterday as federal aid is being frozen in some aspects. | ||
| As far as the move itself, what do you think about it as they re-evalue some things? | ||
| What's the long-term, short-term damage, do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, that's a pretty scary move. | |
| I think there's a lot of confusion this morning about the freezing of federal grants. | ||
| You know, real people are going to be impacted. | ||
| This is money that goes to universities. | ||
| This is money that goes to nonprofits. | ||
| These are the paychecks of regular Americans across the country that are suddenly uncertain. | ||
| So we're incredibly concerned. | ||
| I think if it moves forward, it'll be effectuated tonight at 5 o'clock and just throwing us all into turmoil. | ||
| So certainly yet another instance like what you discussed with the Inspectors General where things are happening fast and in ways that feel very chaotic. | ||
| One of the things that your website or your organization has launched is a conflict of interest site. | ||
| What is it and what led to its launch? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| We have a new tracker on conflicts of interest. | ||
| What led to its launch is what we were talking about earlier, the fact that there is such a concentration of wealth and potential conflicts from the folks who are coming into this administration. | ||
| I mean, take Pam Bondi. | ||
| She is nominated to be Attorney General. | ||
| She worked as a K-Street lobbyist for Ballard Partners, representing 30 major corporations, many of whom have business in front of the DOJ. | ||
| They're being investigated, you know, legal action against them. | ||
| If she comes in and takes the helm of that agency, suddenly she has major conflicts with former clients. | ||
| It's hard to believe that she won't take that into account when she's up there. | ||
| And I think that's the kind of thing that we're seeing replicated over and over again with the choices they've made to helm these agencies and fill positions across government. | ||
| If it's potential clients perhaps for her and others, then what's the legal strategy for your organization going forward and have you already started any legal proceedings? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are. | |
| So great question. | ||
| We're watching very closely. | ||
| We need to see where conflicts are happening. | ||
| We need to see if they choose to recuse themselves from engaging in business with companies that they formerly were a part of or invested in or ran. | ||
| And then potentially, if we see conflicts, if we see violations of their recusal agreements, there will be space for legal action. | ||
| It's not the kind of thing we can usually game out in advance, but we are watching very closely. | ||
| Let's hear from Don. | ||
| Don is in Pennsylvania Democrats line. | ||
| Go ahead, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I'd like to know that when Trump breaks rules and laws and traditions, that you guys don't have a immediate reaction. | |
| You have to, oh, we got to see what we're going to do. | ||
| You're not prepared for what goes wrong. | ||
| And you know something is going to go wrong. | ||
| And I just don't understand why you're not prepared for immediate reaction. | ||
| I think we are. | ||
| But it's a really great point. | ||
| I mean, this is a moment which feels, as I was just saying, very chaotic. | ||
| There's a lot every single day. | ||
| It's kind of surprising to realize it's only been a week and a half, not even quite. | ||
| And we've already seen this massive amount of executive orders and actions, which have real consequences for you and me. | ||
| And so we are prepared and ready to do everything we can to organize, to take legal action, to be out there talking to the media about what needs to happen. | ||
| But it's not something where we can be ready in advance for literally everything. | ||
| We're just doing all we can to prep. | ||
| When it comes to Doge, as far as what you're watching for specifically, you said Elon Musk at the head of it, but particularly if Congress ultimately has the power to decide or to take the advice of Doge or not, why not wait until Congress decides that rather than concentrate on the work itself of the organization itself? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to be concerned about with Doge. | |
| As I mentioned, we're worried about it being an illegal federal advisory committee, so that's why we've moved forward with a suit, which I'm sure we'll talk about more. | ||
| But also the fact that it is so easy to think about Musk enriching himself through recommendations that he will make. | ||
| He has government contracts, a huge amount. | ||
| We're looking at the possibility of SpaceX making $28 billion additional dollars. | ||
| There's a huge amount of potential benefit if he makes calls that impact that. | ||
| He is also being investigated by the DOJ and other entities across government. | ||
| And so we didn't think we could wait. | ||
| We thought there's too much potential for corruption. | ||
| There are too many impacts for regular people. | ||
| And we think it's an illegal entity. | ||
| So too much to do. | ||
| We needed to jump in. | ||
| So the focus of the suit is what? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We believe that Doge is a federal advisory committee, meaning that they have outside persons who are advising inside government, in this case, making recommendations about cuts and regulatory changes. | |
| To us, that's a textbook federal advisory committee, and it's governed by a law, Federal Advisory Committee Act. | ||
| That means they have to abide by open records law. | ||
| They need to have balanced representation, open meetings. | ||
| None of these things are they currently doing. | ||
| And so our suit is about that. | ||
| What do you think about the aspect that within Congress right now there are specific caucuses and committees set up to at least work alongside Doge as they go forward? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It does worry us that in some ways that's a credentialing exercise. | |
| You know, it's members of Congress saying they think Doge is a legitimate entity that is going to be doing things that matter. | ||
| On the other hand, you know, it is important that we're speaking out about the real ways to improve government and deal with fraud and waste. | ||
| And so I think it kind of depends which member you're talking to, how we feel about it. | ||
| But certainly we are worried about it sort of wholesale. | ||
| Well, let me show you the comments of Texas Republican Pete Sessions, who he's going to lead a subcommittee to work with the Doge Committee. | ||
| He had these things to say about that, and Elon Musk, so I'll play you what he had to say. | ||
| You'll get your response and get your response. | ||
| Well, I have no doubt that Elon Musk is an expert among experts at understanding not just organizational efficiencies, but better ways in which services can be provided. | ||
| He has invested billions of his own dollars and has millions of or tens of thousands of employees, and he has made his organization spectacular. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We believe that the federal government has an opportunity to help themselves. | |
| And I think that I have very few qualms with him advising, whispering in the ear perhaps of the president, but helping us to sell the inefficiencies. | ||
| He takes a huge viewpoint of making sure we are challenged, and I think that's good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have huge qualms, so I disagree. | |
| I think, you know, one of the biggest concerns is that he has no government experience. | ||
| So it's not untrue to say he has run successful companies, but that doesn't necessarily translate to understanding how government works. | ||
| And this particular task, running an entity that is intended to improve government without that experience, seems incredibly problematic. | ||
| That's aside from the bigger worries we have, which I mentioned before, that he will be able to profit personally from choices he makes. | ||
| He might be able to stop investigations, the 11 criminal and civil investigations into Musk companies happening right now across government. | ||
| And that the things he wants to cut, the types of choices that we've heard rumored, they are all things that regular people really depend on. | ||
| It's not the kind of choices you would be making if you were thinking about Americans on the street and how they interact with government. | ||
| And so all of that just gives us huge pause, lots of qualms. | ||
| I'm very worried. | ||
| Let's hear from Bruce. | ||
| Bruce is in Kentucky, independent line for our guests. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Yes, Ms. Gilbert. | ||
| Just because Mr. Musk doesn't have any, per se, experience in the government doesn't mean he can't come in and cut waste. | ||
| And we're worried during the last four years. | ||
| Where were we? | ||
| Thinking about these same issues. | ||
| I mean, how much money did the Bidens rake in? | ||
| Great questions. | ||
| So first, to your first half of it, where were we? | ||
| We were thinking about these exact same things. | ||
| So, you know, public citizen worries about waste and efficiency, you know, no matter who's at the helm. | ||
| I think our concerns when we think about the types of programs and policies that we have heard rumored are on the chopping block, we get really nervous. | ||
| You know, you might have seen the Cato Institute gave recommendations to Doge. | ||
| You know, what they suggested are cuts to Social Security and Medicare. | ||
| That's not the kind of thing that we think regular people want. | ||
| So we're really worried. | ||
| And I think, you know, all people who are looking at what the possible cuts should be as well. | ||
| You mentioned your conflict of interest site previously. | ||
| Did you have this similar setup for the Biden administration, the Obama administration, previous administrations? | ||
| Did you treat them the same? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We do. | |
| Absolutely. | ||
| So we look very closely at conflicts of interest across the board filing complaints with the Office of Governmental Ethics, sending them into Congress, the Office of Congressional Ethics, when we see problems with members. | ||
| We are not partisan in our attention to ethical concern. | ||
| But I will say that the folks who are coming in now give us far greater pause for the reasons we talked about at the top. | ||
| I mean, I think we have never seen an administration with this level of concentrated wealth, former corporate ties, and the ability to benefit personally from what they do, the choices they make. | ||
| I mean, if you look at Trump himself, I mean, on Sunday, just before his inauguration, he launched a meme coin. | ||
| He was able to rake in billions just as he was coming in. | ||
| People are able to directly influence politics by giving money to the president. | ||
| That's nothing we've ever seen before when it comes to conflicts of interest and ethics. | ||
| So we're worried. | ||
| It's a different scope and scale. | ||
| Can you elaborate on how that specifically is a conflict of interest, the meme coin? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, so usually presidents distance themselves from their assets and their businesses. | |
| President Trump actually did in some degree in some ways in his first term, but he is not this time around. | ||
| There is no ethics executive order governing processes. | ||
| And if there was, we're worried he wouldn't follow it. | ||
| You know, the meme coin, you know, it's something that's being sold on the market and people can invest in it. | ||
| And that's something that he can pay attention to and actually see how individuals, how potentially foreign nations, how other folks are investing in his new product at the same moment as he takes the helm of our country. | ||
| So that's a conflict. | ||
| That is a real ethical problem. | ||
| The website of the meme coin says this. | ||
| Trump memes are intended to function as an expression of support for and engagement with the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol dollar sign Trump and the associated network. | ||
| And they are not intended to be or subject of an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type. | ||
| That's the boilerplate. | ||
| I suppose you have a reaction to that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I mean, I actually think the first part of that sentence is the most important, where it's talking about a support of President Trump. | ||
| So you are buying something and you are supporting President Trump while he is president, which is something he can see and make decisions based on. | ||
| That is the perception of a conflict of interest and an actual conflict of interest. | ||
| It's a problem for a nation being governed ethically. | ||
| It's a technicality, but does it matter that it happened on Sunday, the day before he actually became president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, in terms of when it launched, I mean, the conflict continues. | |
| It certainly became a business before he was president, but you can buy it today. | ||
| So no. | ||
| Lisa Gilbert, this is Public Citizen joining us. | ||
| Let's hear from Ron. | ||
| Ron in Pennsylvania, Democrats line. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro and your guest. | |
| This I got from the C-SPAN when you had the fellow from Moody Analytics on. | ||
| We had the best economy under Biden and Harris in 35 years. | ||
| They have the lowest crime rate since 2019. | ||
| And immigration, they're the lowest amount of immigrants coming to this country under Biden and Harris. | ||
| So as far as that goes, they have low unemployment rate, high wages, and lower drug prices. | ||
| That's all going to be gone under this guy that's in there now. | ||
| What a disgrace, you know, pardoning all those people on January 6th. | ||
| I'll tell you what, that's just really disgusting. | ||
| That's all I got to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thanks for that comment. | ||
| We are unrelated to what we've been talking about today, but very unhappy with the pardons. | ||
| Just the idea that violent offenders are back out on the street who attacked police officers. | ||
| That's not something that feels like the rule of law. | ||
| And I think particularly sad to see with an administration that's come in and has talked a lot about cracking down on crime and violent offense in particular. | ||
| So certainly we don't think speaks well to the pursuit of the rule of law. | ||
| And glad you raised it. | ||
| This is from Karen. | ||
| Karen is in California, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yes, good morning. | ||
| I just have a comment. | ||
| I think that this nice young lady is regurgitating nearly every talking point of the very reasons of why us independents and former Democrats voted for Donald Trump, slamming people because they've accumulated great wealth. | ||
| My goodness, that's what we're all trying to do, I hope. | ||
| Trying to be good, be better, be our best. | ||
| These are the people we would like running, not the parasites that are professional politicians. | ||
| And that's really all I have to say. | ||
| And God bless America. | ||
| And thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| A viewer from California. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for the comment. | |
| I mean, as I said earlier, we're not against wealth. | ||
| The problem is not being rich. | ||
| The problem is whether you continue to benefit from those connections and that wealth while you're coming into public service. | ||
| And one of the things we're most concerned about is that there is no ethics executive order currently governing government. | ||
| That's a change. | ||
| We've had one for the last 30 years. | ||
| Every administration, Republican or Democrat, we don't have one now. | ||
| So it speaks to, in addition to the fact that these folks are more connected, they have no particular guardrails keeping them from profiting now off of you, off of taxpayers, and off of the choices that they make. | ||
| This is a viewer from South Carolina who texts us this morning saying that, saying to you that you're advocating increases in entitlements as a goal of improving efficiency. | ||
| The third rail is the fact that entitlements are the main cause of our debt. | ||
| Paying people not to work is killing the country. | ||
| It's not about compassion or politics, but about what we can afford. | ||
| Yes, there is waste that must be addressed, but we will not survive as a welfare state. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for that comment. | |
| You know, I think what we're looking for are things that help regular people. | ||
| So we may disagree on that front, sort of what the basic need for entitlements are. | ||
| I think most people would agree that Social Security is a benefit that they care about and want and depend on. | ||
| So certainly we don't want to see that cut. | ||
| And I think there are many other things that people don't really realize they rely on. | ||
| Not just sort of those poverty programs, but many other things that we need and depend on that I think people will be unhappy to see cut. | ||
| I mean, one great example is what we saw last night, you know, this pause in grants. | ||
| I mean, your neighbor who works at a university, the nonprofit that's next door, many, many institutions and people depend on federal grants around the country. | ||
| Those are all suddenly paused and we're thrown into chaos. | ||
| That's not something we think is okay. | ||
| The work of Doge not only looks at organizations, but it looks at the federal workforce overall. | ||
| What do you think about this idea of the amount of federal workers currently employed by the government? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a little bit of an arbitrary critique, the idea that there's some perfect number of federal workers or perfect number of regulations. | |
| I think it expands and decreases based on need. | ||
| And so we think it's a little bit of like a red herring argument to start talking about some number that we need when instead we should be thinking about what the country desires, what rules we're trying to put in place, what laws we've passed and what we need to have in place to implement them. | ||
| So I think it's kind of like a false and misleading narrative. | ||
| I don't know if it goes to seat, but the recent order by the president to return federal workers back to an office if they do so. | ||
| What do you think about that move specifically? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I don't have a strong position on in or out of office, but I mean, I think the reason for it, at least some would say the underlying reason for it, is that people don't all want to go back to the office or have figured out ways to work that are different than before the pandemic. | |
| And so this is intended to cull workers, to make people leave agencies and their positions they've held for a long time. | ||
| If that's the goal, I think we're worried about it. | ||
| I think when it comes to in or out of office, I'm agnostic. | ||
| Let's hear from Jay. | ||
| Jay is from Florida, Republican line for Lisa Gilbert, the co-president of Public Citizen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning to both of you. | ||
| The more I listen, the more questions I have for this person. | ||
| To begin with, Lisa Gilbert, do you receive government funding at all in any way, shape, or form from any type of a grant that got cut off? | ||
| The other thing is, is your title says challenging the Trump administration agenda. | ||
| So it sounds to me like what you're, it's just another resistance program. | ||
| And anything that he does, you're not going to like. | ||
| What is the main function of our federal government? | ||
| Isn't it just to keep people safe and to make sure that things are being handled properly in this country? | ||
| But they're not there to bail out everybody. | ||
| Our country was based on competition. | ||
| Competition. | ||
| That's what our country was based on. | ||
| Not handouts. | ||
| And everybody needs to be equal. | ||
| I'm not equal to you. | ||
| I don't make what you make, but you don't hear me complaining about it to anybody. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| That's Jack. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Yeah, thanks, Jack. | ||
| I mean, a couple different things. | ||
| So first, no, public citizen does not take money from the government or any corporation. | ||
| We do everything we can and have a firm red line about not taking those funds so we can remain independent. | ||
| So wanted to address that directly. | ||
| You know, in terms of some of what you were saying, I mean, I think we actually agree. | ||
| You know, it is very important that government function to protect regular people. | ||
| That's exactly what we think as well. | ||
| That is the role of government. | ||
| And so certainly, you know, we're doing everything we can to try to make sure that it does that. | ||
| And we are incredibly supportive of competition. | ||
| You know, that is something we work on on antitrust policy. | ||
| We think it's really pivotal that there not be sort of corporate concentration, that everyone, every small business, everyone who wants to compete is able to. | ||
| And we think that regulations and guardrails make that possible. | ||
| So maybe that's the one place where we disagree, but I couldn't agree more. | ||
| Competition is the bedrock of American economy. | ||
| And just to clarify, Caller, the graphic challenging the Trump administration agenda that comes from us. | ||
| Barney is next. | ||
| Barney, Democrats line, Florida, go ahead. | ||
| You're on with the guest. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| My question is, this DOS thing that they're coming up with, right? | ||
| They said they wanted to cut down the size of government. | ||
| This is nothing but a rip. | ||
| They're going to try to rip the American people off. | ||
| If you got a convicted felon running the government, don't you think he's a criminal that's going to change his ways? | ||
| The man been stealing all his life. | ||
| He done brought more people in there to steal. | ||
| He comes up with all this crazy behind mess about immigration. | ||
| That ain't nothing but a smoke screen. | ||
| Okay, Barney. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for that. | |
| You know, I mean, I think we are worried about some of the things that you just raised. | ||
| The idea that what Doge is going to do is make recommendations that hurt us all. | ||
| You know, when we're thinking about the importance of regulations, what they do, again, is set up the guardrails that protect our air and water, that encourage competition, that make our financial system safe, our health care system work. | ||
| It's drug labels that tell us when there are safety violations. | ||
| It's making sure that if food has an outbreak, it's recalled. | ||
| It's just the things we interact with day in and day out. | ||
| And so we're very worried that changes will impact us all. | ||
| You talked about nominees. | ||
| I want to ask you a few things. | ||
| This is from yesterday, the Senate confirming Scott Besson to become the next Treasury Secretary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| So I think we're, again, worried that he is one of the billionaires we've talked about who has potential conflicts of interest that is coming into the cabinet, that he will have postures that are not best for regular Americans. | ||
| The Treasury plays a huge role in the stability of our economy, of course, and also in dealing with systemic risk. | ||
| The idea that there could be a crash like back in 2008. | ||
| Treasury is monitoring what's happening across our economy. | ||
| And I think we want to make sure the incentives are correct. | ||
| And so we are worried about what kind of positions he will take at the Helm of the Treasury. | ||
| Is it specifically positions that he would take that benefits him? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's possible. | |
| I think we can't prejudge. | ||
| Obviously, we'll see what recusals he puts into place and how he divests from his companies. | ||
| I'm hopeful that he'll do the right thing when it comes to that front, but it's something we're watching closely. | ||
| And then beyond that, I think it's just policy perspectives. | ||
| We're not very aligned when it comes to how we think about the economy. | ||
| So it is possible that he'll take postures we disagree with. | ||
| That's different than, of course, ethical conflicts, just differences of opinion. | ||
| People post a post on X during the show. | ||
| A viewer asked you specifically, which of the former president's agenda or nominees did public citizen push back on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, me specifically, I got a chance to testify about Pam Bondi just last week. | |
| As we've been doing our conflicts of interest tracker, we've been uncovering particular conflicts and places where we are worried people will not be able to remain unbiased in their new roles. | ||
| So I had an opportunity to talk about her specifically and just the legion of interconnected conflicts, in particular things like her work she's done on behalf of private prisons, where we see lots of damages and human rights abuses, her work on behalf of Amazon, which of course has been investigated and sued by the DOJ. | ||
| Things like that make us really worried. | ||
| Let me clarify. | ||
| They asked specifically which of former President Biden's agenda or nominees that you pushed back on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Got it. | |
| So apologies. | ||
| Thinking about President Biden, I think we were worried about a number of things. | ||
| I mean, so one thing that comes to mind quickly, because it was at the very end of the administration, we were unhappy with an executive order that they put forth calling for increased data centers across the country with lessened guardrails. | ||
| The data centers were intended to create more energy, ostensibly for artificial intelligence purposes. | ||
| Worried that they wanted to do so with lessened environmental standards and with an expedited process for permitting. | ||
| So we were loud and out there with a letter in the very final days of the Biden administration saying that that was a problem. | ||
| We've heard this president talk a lot about AI over the next couple, the past couple of days. | ||
| We've seen a lot of tech people like Mark Zuckerberg and Berg and the like being present at the inauguration. | ||
| What do you think about this idea of technology in the next administration? | ||
| What are your concerns there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we certainly think that innovation and technology is important. | |
| We're not against tech. | ||
| But I think the concerns we have are much more about conflicts and the people who are coming in having the ability to influence the benefits that their companies receive. | ||
| So as we think about the concentrated power in certain companies in Meta, in Amazon, there's a big four. | ||
| There's Google. | ||
| These companies have different power and potential than small companies that are coming to the marketplace. | ||
| And the ability to have even more power, even more contracts with our government, that's what's on the line. | ||
| And it's one of the reasons that they, as you say, gave huge donations to the inauguration, are pandering in a lot of ways that make us nervous, like taking down miss and disinformation requests and guardrails that they've had in place for years. | ||
| All of that is intended to get in good with the administration and potentially get some of those benefits. | ||
| Let's hear from John. | ||
| John is in Seattle, Washington, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, good morning, Pedro. | ||
| Longtime listener, first time caller. | ||
| I just have a couple comments and then I have a question, if that's okay. | ||
| I just wanted to point out that I have been a long, lifelong Democrat. | ||
| I don't even know if I'm going to change to independent. | ||
| I might go Republican when I go into town to re-register this week. | ||
| I can't believe what I hear and see anymore. | ||
| So I'll quickly get on to my comments, sir. | ||
| This lady saying she's independent or her group is very suspicious and questionable. | ||
| I don't believe I ever seen her or her group talk about Joe and Kamala and their reckless policies and spending the last four years. | ||
| Well, Carla, you're on with her, so if you have a comment directly to her or a question, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, great. | |
| Thank you, Pedro. | ||
| I do have one question for her. | ||
| Big news in this area is there was a video put out about a Medicare immigrant that left their receipt at one of our local grocery stores. | ||
| And the EBT card that they used, the receipt that came out that was left, said over $1,400 in benefits, plus up to, I think it said, almost $800 in cash benefits. | ||
| So if people really want to know where their Medicare or their Medicaid and their state money goes, that's just one person. | ||
| Okay, that's a viewer there. | ||
| Goes back to what he thinks is the waste, fraud, and abuse of programs. | ||
| Your comments. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I mean, as I said at the top, and it's a helpful thing to raise. | ||
| We don't think that there's no waste or fraud across government. | ||
| And there are bad actors and individuals who abuse any system that's set up. | ||
| I think our concern is much more high-level that, you know, for every person like that that you raised, and obviously I don't know the instances of that particular situation, there are many, many others, your friends, your neighbors, who depend on those same types of programs and policies. | ||
| And so a wholesale cut of something like, say, the Department of Education is very different than thinking about individual waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| And I think one of the things to go back to an earlier discussion we had that really worries us about the firing of inspectors general across government is that that is their job to look at and find individual instances of waste, fraud, and abuse and deal with it. | ||
| So we need them in place. | ||
| Jamie is in Pennsylvania, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Very nice to speak to you. | ||
| First time caller, long time watcher. | ||
| I have a comment for this guest. | ||
| Lisa, you're a citizen of the United States, as is all of us, correct? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And I understand you have a group and it's supposed to be independent. | ||
| True independence means that you don't look at Democrat or Republican. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Trump has said repeatedly, including yesterday and today, he is not going to cut Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security. | ||
| The Biden administration actually took all this money and gave it to the illegal people that are crossing. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Pennsylvania has continually cut since Governor Wolf. | ||
| My statement is that Trump is notorious because he has a business and everything else. | ||
| George Washington, Adams, Jefferson, they all ran businesses while being the president. | ||
| That's historical. | ||
| It's really important not to continue to just bash Trump. | ||
| He did, he is firing people, which Obama did the same thing. | ||
| He was not aware in the first presidency, and he was told not to do this. | ||
| Every president has the right. | ||
| They are not voted in. | ||
| They can fire them. | ||
| They've done it for centuries. | ||
| Well, we're 200 here, 250 years. | ||
| So I think you need to go and stop worrying so much about this stuff. | ||
| And regulations have been so hard on this nation since the 50s that we need to go and be common sense about it. | ||
| You put a lot out there for the guests, so we'll let her respond. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, helpful. | ||
| Lots of different points, as you said. | ||
| I think what we were just talking about, the firing of the 17 Inspectors General Friday night, is different because it's potentially illegal. | ||
| There's a law that says you have to give 30-day notice to Congress when you fire those who are charged with fraud and waste inspection, like Inspectors General. | ||
| So that is a little different. | ||
| It's not to say that you are, of course, correct. | ||
| Presidents can come in, change who is in office. | ||
| They nominate their own cabinets. | ||
| They bring people in. | ||
| All their political appointees are at their own ability to change at any point. | ||
| There's no argument there. | ||
| I think it's the things that are happening to career appointees, folks who never expected to be at the whim of any particular executive that we're most worried about, in addition to what just happened to the Inspectors General. | ||
| The website for Public Citizen is citizen.org. | ||
| Lisa Gilbert serves as the co-president of Public Citizen. | ||
| Thanks for your time today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Coming up, about 30 minutes from now, we will have a supporter of the president's agenda. | ||
| That's Mike Gonzalez from the Heritage Foundation talking about the future of so-called DEI programs in the federal government. | ||
| But first, open forum. | ||
| And if you want to participate, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll take those calls. | ||
| The Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Democracy. | |
| It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
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| Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| You can participate on the phone lines in Open Forum. | ||
| As always, you can text us your thoughts. | ||
| And if you want to post on our social media channels, we have a presence on Facebook and on X to give you a rundown of things to look out for today in and around Washington. | ||
| Congressional Republicans attending their annual retreat this week in Durham, Florida. | ||
| This morning, the House Speaker Mike Johnson said to give a press conference. | ||
| That was scheduled to start at eight, but we're going to hear probably later on in the morning from them of the leadership there when it comes to what they're talking about in Florida with the president. | ||
| Later on at 10 o'clock, a Senate hearing examining the Panama Canal. | ||
| This will be before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. | ||
| You can see that on our main channel, C-SPAN, and also on our other platforms, our app at C-SPANNOW and C-SPAN.org. | ||
| And then at 10.30 today, former service members and advocates will talk about the community care program for the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. | ||
| The hearing is being held to make concerns about how President Trump's executive order on a government hiring freeze could impact access to veterans' benefits. | ||
| C-SPAN 3 is where you can see that, as well as our other platforms. | ||
| As always, you can check out the website and the app for the latest information on what we're covering in and around Washington in Maine. | ||
| This is from Beverly Republican Line. | ||
| First up on Open Forum. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, everybody. | |
| I am so pleased to be able to get to C-SPAN for the second time. | ||
| I've watched C-SPAN since the very beginning. | ||
| And I feel we're so fortunate because I like to know what the public is thinking. | ||
| And I would like to make a comment on January 6th. | ||
| I watched as people gathered in the park or across from the Capitol or wherever that was, there were 40,000 peaceful people listening to President Trump. | ||
| He said he was going to walk with them to the Capitol. | ||
| His driver in the car would not take him there. | ||
| He did not grab the throat of the driver. | ||
| The driver was on live and said that did not happen. | ||
| But anyway, and the worst of people that Did anyhow we're on trial and sent to prison. | ||
| And so I am very much in favor of President Trump. | ||
| He will do a lot for this country and the world. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Beverly. | ||
| Let's go to Rick. | ||
| Rick in Boston, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, this is me. | |
| I'm just an officer with that lady said. | ||
| This guy ain't gonna do nothing for this country. | ||
| Nothing but try to rob the country. | ||
| Whole family on the payroll at the White House. | ||
| Bringing Elon Musk doesn't got nothing to do with this country, but he's on here running the White House and whatnot. | ||
| All this garbage is going on. | ||
| We've got a Supreme Court corrupt. | ||
| And why the whole bunch of garbage running this country and all these religions in this country, garbage and whatnot. | ||
| I don't know if people even go to church for it. | ||
| There's nothing to believe on in this country. | ||
| Now you got garbage running in the country and whatnot. | ||
| Everything is corrupt from the top to bottom and whatnot. | ||
| Whole families running the government and whatnot. | ||
| And you got it, like I said, you got these congressmen. | ||
| Everybody's kissing Trump behind and whatnot. | ||
| And this guy ain't nothing but garbage, just like Putin. | ||
| George in Massachusetts, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Pedro. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Fine, thank you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good. | |
| I didn't know if somebody was going to speak on the DEI, but maybe in the next hour. | ||
| But what I was wondering is, I'm glad they're getting rid of the department. | ||
| Hopefully, I'm kind of a union guy, so I hope they incorporate the other folks that want to stay into another department or something. | ||
| But what I'm concerned about is what I'd like the government to do, though, is I don't believe he can freeze any kind of grants from a state to a community on the DEI. | ||
| But what I was wondering is if the administration would consider, and what you think about it, consider not funding some state programs if the state continues to give DEI grants out. | ||
| Why would you support such a move? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Would I support it? | |
| Why would you support such a move? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why would I support it? | |
| It's because I kind of feel like there's already programs when it comes to just about, you know, like helping folks get jobs, helping folks if they need food, housing. | ||
| And then they also, I think there's laws on the books that you can definitely not discriminate based on anybody's sex, who they love, the color of their skin, their creed, religion. | ||
| So that's why I tend to favor my position. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Mason in Ohio, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm going to take party out of things for a hot minute because I know we're separated between Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. | ||
| But what I've heard on today's show is stunning. | ||
| I need everybody who's listening to take a deep breath. | ||
| At the end of the day, in this country, everybody works. | ||
| And when we work, we pay taxes. | ||
| And what I expect is that when I'm disabled because I have a broken back, that my 30 years of work and taxes are going to go to support me until I am back on my feet. | ||
| That's what every American should believe. | ||
| And what I do not agree with is I do not agree with this new us versus them. | ||
| What's mine and what's theirs? | ||
| In this country, we believe in the children of this country building a better future. | ||
| We should support and educate our children. | ||
| We should support our elderly who have worked their whole life and do not deserve to live in meager conditions. | ||
| We should support those who cannot support themselves due to disabilities that allow them not even to leave their home. | ||
| Until we can get to a, we are all Americans, and this government works for us and works for our benefit, we're not getting anywhere. | ||
| And what isn't going to promote us moving forward to a more peaceful, better country is crooks in the White House working for themselves and no one else and stoking the fires of anger. | ||
| Okay, that's Mason in Ohio. | ||
| Let's hear from Ned in Virginia, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, good morning. | ||
| Just a couple of comments about Ms. Lisa Gilbert's presentation this morning. | ||
| It's disingenuous when someone comes on your show and presents a dialogue and doesn't expose who's supporting them. | ||
| In other words, she was so proud to say her organization doesn't accept any public funds. | ||
| That's because she's heavily funded by George Soros, the Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation, probably a dozen left-wing progressive billionaires. | ||
| And the whole agenda of her organization is the left. | ||
| And so it's very obvious that she's so anti-Trump agenda because her agenda is the exact opposite. | ||
| And so when he got rid of the Green New Deal, which is one of their big agenda items, that would be a concern to her. | ||
| And I think it's really important that when people get on the air and start talking to your audience, they do explain to them who's behind them, who's supporting them, where their funding comes from. | ||
| Okay, that's Ned in Virginia. | ||
| One of the things also to watch out for today, later on in the program, the first press briefing by the new press secretary, Caroline Lovett. | ||
| She will give that at one o'clock this afternoon, the first press briefing in the new administration. | ||
| Our main channel, C-SPAN, is where you can see it, the app where you can see it as well, C-SPAN now, and our website at c-span.org. | ||
| Judy up next. | ||
| Judy's in Mississippi, Independent Mind. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I want to know what Medicare recipients are going to feel like when they're pushed off to Medicare Advantage. | |
| Dr. Oz has stock in two Medicare Advantage companies. | ||
| And a few months ago, there was a McClintock, I think, his last name, that said one woman asked, how was he going to protect the consumers? | ||
| He said there would be more people offering Medicare Advantage. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Medicare Advantage has an issue with paying claims. | ||
| And so I just hope they'll be satisfied when they get what's coming as far as their Medicare and their health. | ||
| Medicare pays regardless, but Medicare Advantage. | ||
| If they don't want to pay, they deny you that money. | ||
| So I just wanted to know what they think about that. | ||
| I don't think somebody in the government there like Dr. Oz should be benefiting from Medicare Advantage. | ||
| Okay, Judy there talking about nominees by the administration, some yet to be confirmed. | ||
| One of those people that were confirmed was Pete Hegset. | ||
| He appeared at the Pentagon yesterday to talk in the aspect of being the Defense Secretary of the United States, talked about military operations, particularly when it comes to the U.S.-Mexico border. | ||
| Whatever is needed at the border will be provided, whether that is through state active duty, Title 32, or Title 10. | ||
| Because we are reorienting. | ||
| This is a shift. | ||
| This is not the way business has been done in the past. | ||
| This is the Defense Department will support the defense of the territorial integrity of the United States of America at the southern border to include preservists, National Guard, and active duty in compliance with the Constitution, the laws of our land, and the directives of the Commander-in-Chief. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act, yes. | |
| Those will be decisions made by the White House. | ||
| I look forward to conversations about anything we need to do to ensure we're securing our southern border. | ||
| Defense Secretary Hegset from yesterday, more nomination hearings to take place this week. | ||
| Tomorrow, President Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will testify before the Senate Finance Committee. | ||
| He's an environmental lawyer, an activist, and also the 2024 independent presidential candidate. | ||
| He withdrew from that race to endorse now President Trump. | ||
| That hearing 10 o'clock Eastern on Wednesday, you can see that on C-SPAN. | ||
| On Thursday, Mr. Kennedy returns to Capitol Hill, this time taking questions before the Senate Health Committee. | ||
| That's Thursday. | ||
| C-SPAN 3 is where you can see that and the other platforms. | ||
| Also, another one to watch out for on Thursday. | ||
| Tulsi Gabbard, the president's nominee to become the next head of the Director of National Intelligence. | ||
| She will be before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at 10 o'clock. | ||
| Our main channel is where you can see that, C-SAN, C-SPAN now, the app, c-span.org, the website. | ||
| John from Tennessee, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Yes, I think it's time for the American people to stand up and demand an enter into the immunity clause that is protecting the president as well as Congress, the police, elected officials on both federal and state level, as well as our prisons and jails. | ||
| This way, it will hold them more accountable to the people, especially when they break the laws. | ||
| That's all I have to say at this time. | ||
| Thank you, Pedro, for letting me voice my opinion. | ||
| New Jersey up next, Republican line, Berto. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, how are you doing? | |
| I'm doing well. | ||
| I have a comment about the Speaker Lisa, which we had on earlier. | ||
| We get back from the Republican Party about how we're going to cut Social Security and Medicare, but I want to put the Democrats up to this question. | ||
| Where are you on the position of allowing SSI and SSC recipients to collect their benefits and allow them to work as much as they want without caps or cuts, the way retirees do who are 67, who are allowed to work all they want and collect Social Security? | ||
| What I suspect is the Democrats won't go for that because they want to keep the poor people poor because they profit by it, by government jobs and government contracts and sneaky BS fields. | ||
| So please have your viewers comment on that proposition. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| West Virginia, Martinsburg, West Virginia, Tony, that's where Tony is, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| I'm an American, okay? | ||
| And when I listen to all these folks, you know, you get this perspective that people aren't focusing on reality. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Trump was a supposedly a reality star or whatever. | ||
| I never even watched the program. | ||
| But you listen to these people and you, where are they at? | ||
| You got to get real people. | ||
| Trump is taking over the government, okay? | ||
| He is a dictator all the way. | ||
| And people just don't realize that he has total power over 340 million people. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| He's only one guy. | ||
| And he has that much power. | ||
| And he's taking it to the limit. | ||
| And if people don't realize what he's doing, we're in a world of hurt. | ||
| Okay, Joe in Louisiana, Democrats line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Morning. | ||
| I have two concerns. | ||
| The first one is: can you have someone on the program to explain the new definition of being woke? | ||
| Because in my community, it was an admonition to us to be aware of what is going on in our state, local, and national government so that we can make informed, intelligent decisions when we vote. | ||
| Being woke is being aware. | ||
| But seemingly nowadays, it has a negative connotation. | ||
| So I would really love to know what is the new meaning of being woke. | ||
| The second is a request to C-SPAN. | ||
| February is coming, and it is Black History Month. | ||
| And last year, I was really kind of disappointed in the types of programming that you had in commemoration of the progress and contributions that the black race has made to the United States of America. | ||
| So this year, I hope that in your planning, you talk about the accomplishments, how we have contributed to the good and the well-being of the United States of America instead of having on individuals who only discuss controversial issues. | ||
| Black history is supposed to make individuals aware of what we as my community have made to the United States of America. | ||
| Take that into consideration when you're planning programs commemorating Black History Month. | ||
| And I will invite people to go to the website, check out what we've done in years past when it comes to Black History Month and segments that we've done in association of that. | ||
| If you want to go to the website and check out those things for yourself, type in the search box. | ||
| That's at c-span.org is where you can find that. | ||
| Brian in Texas, Republican line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Three quick questions and just mainly hypothetical. | ||
| In 2008 on the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton said much of the same thing regarding immigration that is currently being said today. | ||
| Barack Obama made a speech from the East Hallway, the one where he made the Osama bin Laden speech, saying much of the same thing in terms of illegal immigrants getting violent criminals and that out. | ||
| Democrats remain silent. | ||
| Based on Brian, you there? | ||
| Yeah, let me. | ||
| You're breaking up a little bit. | ||
| Go ahead, but go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, based on the last four years, how could 29 Democrats vote against an openly gay nominee for Treasury Secretary when Scott Vassant is more than qualified for that position? | |
| Is it because they're homophobic? | ||
| Just using Democrats' own logic from the last four years against. | ||
| And that's all I have. | ||
| Thanks, Pedro. | ||
| Chris in Georgia, Independent Lying. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My biggest, well, there's a lot of issues with the Biden administration. | ||
| My biggest worry or concern is Dr. Fauci. | ||
| Here is a guy who was pardoned to 2014, the same time that Biden, I mean, that Obama said no more function with the diseases, experimental law. | ||
| Anyway, that's when Dr. Fauci went into China 2014 and started all those experiments on bats. | ||
| It turned out to be COVID. | ||
| Millions of people died, and he's pardoned for it. | ||
| There's going to be no investigation. | ||
| The media doesn't care. | ||
| And here, this is one of the biggest things that happened this century. | ||
| No one's even investigating what really happened and why did he get pardoned? | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| Axiel's reporting that when it comes to immigration and customs enforcement, 3,500 arrests made in that first week of the Trump administration being back in office, the president talking about that during his press conference in Florida yesterday and talking about this recent immigration crackdown. | ||
| Here's the president from yesterday. | ||
| We halted all illegal entry. | ||
| We have successfully ended catch and release and we're supporting, we're deporting 100% of all new trespassers apprehended at the border and nobody's coming in and nobody's coming now because they know they're not going to be able to come in. | ||
| So we've really stopped something that was very, very serious. | ||
| But we have to get the bad ones out. | ||
| We have many murderers, many very bad people in our country that they've allowed because of a ridiculous, actually stupid open border policy. | ||
| I've also deployed troops to the border and for the first time in history, we're locating and loading illegal aliens into military aircraft and flying them back to the places from which they came. | ||
| And very importantly, America is respected again. | ||
| We're respected again, isn't that nice? | ||
| You know, after years of laughing at us like we're stupid people. | ||
| And as you saw yesterday, we've made it clear to every country that they will be taking back our people that we're sending out, the criminals, the illegal aliens coming from their countries. | ||
| We're taking them back, and they're going to take them back fast. | ||
| And if they don't, they'll pay a very high economic price. | ||
| And we're going to immediately install massive tariffs and it'll be placed on them. | ||
| This is Mark in Tampa, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yeah, I don't know why Trump's bragging about using military aircraft to fly these deportees out of the country when that costs three times the amount of what it costs the Biden administration to fly the same people out using commercial aircraft. | ||
| Where's Doge, Department of Government Efficiency on this one? | ||
| That's just, it's all a show. | ||
| He's got Dr. Phil out there making a TV show about these deportations. | ||
| And I think this is going to come back to bite people, you know, when we have labor shortages in the industries that support the migrant workers. | ||
| You know, grocery prices are going to be going up on vegetables and a lot of things, you know. | ||
| So instead of renaming the Gulf of Mexico, why don't we actually try to do something that lowers prices? | ||
| Instead of blocking a Biden program that was going to be lowering prescription drug prices for generic drugs to $2 for Medicare recipients, he blocked that. | ||
| He doesn't want lower drug prices. | ||
| And he ordered all federal workers to return to work. | ||
| And yet on Monday, where was he? | ||
| He was out on the golf course. | ||
| Donald Trump Jr. said, if you're going to collect a paycheck from the government, you actually have to show up to work. | ||
| And I agree with that, Donald Trump Jr. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mark in Tampa, the Washington Post reporting that Holocaust survivors and world leaders gathered at Auschwitz on Monday to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp, probably the last major anniversary that some of the survivors could attend. | ||
| Organizers said this, they decided against incorporating speeches by politicians this year, so the survivors would be the central focus. | ||
| That decision was also a way to keep politics out at a moment when post-war firewalls against the far right have been crackling and when tensions over the war in the Middle East have been accompanied by a rise in anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States. | ||
| The event was attended by the Education Minister of Israel, the highest-ranking Israeli official to attend. | ||
| Also among the dignitaries were the German Chancellor Olaf Schultz, French President Macron, Britain's King Charles, Ukrainian President Zelensky, and the U.S. delegation was represented by Steve Wickoff, the newly appointed special envoy boy to the Middle East. | ||
| From Florida in Port St. Lucie, Anthony, next up on our independent line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, how you doing? | |
| Pedro, I call you the enforcer. | ||
| And I say that with great appreciation because I appreciate your order of the show, just like I called John, Big John, John John, because I appreciate all you all. | ||
| But I was called, you had a question earlier about the priorities. | ||
| I got a love-hate relationship with our president right now. | ||
| I respect the seat. | ||
| I was in the military for eight years. | ||
| A police officer there in Washington, D.C. for 11 years, got hurt in the shootout. | ||
| So I believe in order. | ||
| Who's ever in charge? | ||
| You respect that order. | ||
| But the priorities, I feel, is to help people like you and I have the opportunity to have a fair life, to make our life the American dream, to pursue liberty and justice and have it be fair to us. | ||
| And the main thing is to work. | ||
| I really believe, I do support those that are immigrants, you know, that he makes opportunities. | ||
| And if you're not here fairly, that you leave out and to come back the right way. | ||
| But those, we got a young folks, man, a lot of young folks. | ||
| Even my daughter, my daughter's 20-something years old. | ||
| This generation is at a young age, man, is not putting, you know, putting me when I was my daughter's age, I was in the Navy, right, 24 hours less than when I graduated and just wanted to do something now. | ||
| Everybody's just, you know, not everybody, but most of them can do more. | ||
| I think the drugs and the reef, the marijuana and everything is just taking over the generation. | ||
| So I think with what's going on, hopefully it gives our young generation the opportunity to be more focused and feel have a place to be needed, whether it be in the fields, whether it be making hubcasts like I've seen something on the news in Detroit. | ||
| They complain if I'm back, it's going to hurt their situation with Canada. | ||
| Man, let our young folks do that work. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| That's Anthony there in Florida. | ||
| Let's hear from Christopher in Maryland, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| You know, Trump's arrangement syndrome on CNN is just every day. | ||
| Your guests this morning kept on saying she was nonpartisan, but everything that they said and she said were against Trump and the Republicans. | ||
| It's amazing to me that you have these guests on, and just because they say they're nonpartisan doesn't mean that they're not partisan. | ||
| So that's what I wanted to say. | ||
| And I hope that you will have more Republican responses because it seems that there are more from the left that are on your program. | ||
| Well, Chris, I invite you to stay and watch the Heritage Foundation's Mike Gonzalez. | ||
| Join us next. | ||
| Appreciate you watching C-SPAN. | ||
| Leslie in Pennsylvania, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning, Pedro. | ||
| Real quick, I just wanted to talk about hypocrites that Jesus railed against. | ||
| Trump is waging war on these immigrants. | ||
| Majority of them are working and pay taxes, calling them all criminals. | ||
| But he just released over 1,500 criminals that beat and insulted police officers. | ||
| Talk about hypocrites. | ||
| May God have mercy on this country for electing this man. | ||
| Thank you for seeing. | ||
| Phil in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
| Yes, Mike, Pedro. | ||
| I'm concerned about the deporting of the illegal immigrants. | ||
| We're a nation of laws, and if we don't adhere to the laws, we're a lawless society. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But I was listening to the Jeff Rentz show last night, R-E-N-S-E.com, and he brought up the numbers. | |
| We're averaging 433 deportations a week so far, and that doesn't take into account the expense of the airplanes and all this stuff to fly them out. | ||
| And, you know, let's say we had 20 million illegals in the country, and we did 1,000 a week, let's say. | ||
| That's 384 years to get rid of an existing 20 million. | ||
| And God knows the expense. | ||
| Anyway, the radio host, Jeff French, suggested make an announcement, give the illegals 30 days to leave the country, provide them gas money and $1,000 or what have you when they get to the border, and send them on their way. | ||
| It'd be much less expensive than these jumbo-jet airlines and everything that's related to that. | ||
| And if they don't leave within the 30 days, you keep them for two years and put them to work, rebuilding the country's infrastructure, and then send them back. | ||
| Let's hear from James. | ||
| James, last call from Georgia, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yes, I just want to make a statement. | ||
| I think people of color should read the book by Roland Martin, White Fear. | ||
| And that's all I'm seeing come on there. | ||
| These people that are Trump supporters are backing. | ||
| They're just afraid that people of color will become the majority. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| James, finishing off this open forum, up next, we're going to hear from the Heritage Foundation's Mike Gonzalez talking about efforts by the Trump administration to roll back federal DEI programs and his perspective on that. | ||
| A conversation coming up when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now is Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation. | ||
| He's a senior fellow there talking about the Trump administration, the effort on DEI programs. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| It's great to be here on with you. | ||
| Talk about the Heritage Foundation. | ||
| People probably know what it is, but from your perspective in the DEI space, what's the Heritage Foundation's take on it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, as people probably know, it's a conservative think tank. | |
| We formulate policies. | ||
| One of the things that we do, and I'm a big part of that process, is oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion for reasons that I can explain. | ||
| These are words that sound very mom and apple pie. | ||
| Diversity, equity, and inclusion. | ||
| Who could be against that? | ||
| But what we have concluded is that as they are now interpreted, they mean the opposite. | ||
| Diversity is the opposite, actually means quotas which are illegal. | ||
| Equity is the functional opposite of equality. | ||
| It means that you have to treat the government or the private sector have to treat individual Americans differently depending on their race. | ||
| And inclusion means language codes. | ||
| You know, if I wear a cap that says Jesus saves to them all, I can be thrown out in the name of inclusion because that's not inclusive language. | ||
| So that's the reason we have chosen to oppose these policies, we think, for many other reasons as well. | ||
| But I wanted to explain that party said, how can anybody be against diversity, equity, and inclusion for that reason? | ||
| Is there a specific program in the federal government that practices what you just said? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, there are anything that requires anything that requires federal contractors to practice, to require them to show that they do DEI practice, they have DEI trainings, or that they hire or promote preferentially on race or sex, any of these things. | |
| And by the way, all these things are illegal. | ||
| So throughout the federal government, especially in the last four years, when Biden first came in, the first thing he did was sign, that's the very first thing of his administration, Executive Order 13589, which really spread diversity and inclusion, DEI, throughout all the federal governments, doing all these things which are illegal, and I would add immoral. | ||
| This is not a new concept, though, as far as programs is concerned, when it comes to the federal government. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why now? | |
| Why the focus so sharply now, do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the reason for that is that they really put, yes, you're absolutely right. | |
| These things have been building up, especially in the last 10 years. | ||
| But since 2020, when we had the riots in the streets, the BLM riots, and then Biden gets elected in the back of that mayhem and COVID-19, we had a huge push on the part of the cultural gatekeepers on the part of the corporate world, | ||
| but especially on the part of the Biden administration because of Executive Order 13985, which said all of the government, every agency, every department must have a DEI program and enforce it and have an office. | ||
| A director of DEI must enforce it, must have all these things. | ||
| So that is the reason why it was put on steroids. | ||
| In fact, Trump began to see some of this in September 2020, just a few months before the election, two months before the election, he banned DEI practices because he saw what was happening in 2020. | ||
| What he has done now is go back to that ban. | ||
| Absent of those programs, how do you ensure that the government is diverse, is equitable, is inclusive? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right, that's a great question. | |
| I was very hard and very happy that one of the executive orders starts out by saying we have civil rights laws and must be enforced. | ||
| You know, we have to treat every American with dignity. | ||
| We have to hire on a colorblind and promote on a colorblind approach. | ||
| And we must actively enforce our nation's civil rights laws. | ||
| Everything is predicated on that. | ||
| Elaborate on that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I mean, everything is predicated on the fact that we have a very robust set of civil rights structure and apparatus that we have the Civil Rights Act itself, we have Title VI, we have Title VII, we have The 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which says that all Americans must be treated, we must receive equal treatment under the law. | |
| And if we apply that, if we make sure that the first use of affirmative action, not the first use, that was in FDR in the 40s, but the first use in the modern era by Kennedy in 1961 actually was an executive order that said that government contractors had to hire and promote without regard to race, without regard to race. | ||
| We have to enforce that, the original meaning of affirmative action. | ||
| And then it got turned around, unfortunately, post-65 into hiring and promoting with regard to race, racial quotas and so forth. | ||
| We have to go back to Kennedy's original meaning. | ||
| You wrote a recent piece for the Heritage Foundation, taking a look at the programs itself, but the headline just says, Mr. Trump's dismantling of DEI is deeper and bigger than you even know. | ||
| How is it deeper and bigger? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, because he goes back, for example, one of the things he did was rescind an executive order by LBJ in 1965, Executive Order 11246, which really set the precedent for quotas. | |
| That executive order was signed only two months after LBJ gave his Howard commencement speech in which he turned around the meaning of the civil rights from what I just said, hiring and promoting without regard to race, to hiring and promoting with regard to race. | ||
| And that is a, I think it shows a degree of sophistication by the Trump people that was not there at the beginning of the first term. | ||
| They have come in and they have really done their homework. | ||
| And there's a colleague of mine at Heritage, Giancarlo Canaparo, who has been writing extensively on EO 11246, saying anything that is done without rescinding this LBJ EO of 1965 will be for naught. | ||
| And lo and behold, in Trump's second day executive order on DEI, he revokes that LBJ. | ||
| This is from the Labor Department saying it's that executive order you mentioned that was signed by LBJ on September of 1965, established requirements for non-discriminatory practice in hiring and employment on the part of the U.S. government contractors. | ||
| It prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors who do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment decisions on the base of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is interpreted from that point onward to mean quotas. | |
| And it is cited to mean quotas for the decade since. | ||
| And so if that is gone, what ensures that the principles stay the same? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We have the Civil Rights Act. | |
| We have Title VII, we have Title VII. | ||
| You know, we cannot act. | ||
| We're a very, very diverse country, as evidenced by you and I here sitting here at this table. | ||
| We cannot have the government act or make decisions based on race. | ||
| This is what has been happening on steroids under Biden. | ||
| This puts an end to that. | ||
| So enforce the Civil Rights Act, enforce the Constitution, the Constitution of 87, of 1787, which is the only one we have. | ||
| Liberals like to think we have a living Constitution that can be rewritten every year. | ||
| No, we have to live by that one as it has been amended. | ||
| Well, it was amended after the Civil War. | ||
| The 14th Amendment says all Americans have to be treated with equal treatment under the law. | ||
| We have to apply that. | ||
| Mike Gonzalez with the Heritage Foundation joining us. | ||
| He's their senior fellow. | ||
| And if you want to ask him questions about the programs, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you want to text your comments or questions, do that at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Mr. Gonzalez, the president talks about a merit-based way of approach. | ||
| How do you think that works itself forward absent from the programs that are being eliminated or paused? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, let's take, for example, university admissions. | |
| You admit people on the basis of their GPA, on the basis of their standardized tests, their SATs, the ACTs, on the degree of after-school activities they have demonstrated to have done. | ||
| And you do not make a decision, especially one as important as school admissions with regard to race. | ||
| You admit this person actually has the ability to do the academic work that is required at an institution of higher learning because she has demonstrated it in high school and junior high. | ||
| You admit on the level of that, that is meritocracy, and that is what all of us ask. | ||
| We want to be, when we achieve something, we want to say, I did that through my hard work. | ||
| I didn't go to the party. | ||
| I stayed home and did my homework. | ||
| I really, I crunched the numbers. | ||
| I deserved that job. | ||
| I deserved that promotion. | ||
| We all have, all Americans have the right to claim that. | ||
| And I think we need to restore that. | ||
| And can the federal government do the same, restore that? | ||
| You use the university example. | ||
| What about the federal government and its hiring practices and the like? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, obviously, yes. | |
| The same thing is replicated through the federal government, through the private sector, a colorblind approach to does this person have the requirements to fulfill this job? | ||
| Is this person going to add value to my company? | ||
| Is this person have, does he or she have the requirements to do right by the American people in the case of the federal government? | ||
| Did you expect the president to enact so many things in the first week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| I must say, because in this area, which is the area that I researched, I was elated. | ||
| I expected the EI. | ||
| I expected it. | ||
| I actually expected it in an education EO. | ||
| I expected it to be all in and one only. | ||
| I don't think anybody expected 22 executive orders, no, 26, excuse me, in the first day. | ||
| President Bush, George W. Bush, did not issue a single executive order in his first and or second term, in his first day. | ||
| Barack Obama issued, I think, two in his first day, in his first term, and none in his second term. | ||
| 22 is a record. | ||
| I think, and they're all ironclad. | ||
| They have been really crushing this in the transition and before the transition. | ||
| It shows a level of sophistication that really differs from anything we've seen before in previous administrations, but including Trump's first term. | ||
| This shows that they come in with experience and meaning to do business. | ||
| Let's hear from yours. | ||
| This is from Patricia. | ||
| She's in New Jersey. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
| You're on with Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, America. | |
| I just want to say this is a reminder. | ||
| We've only had civil rights since the 60s. | ||
| And all of the people who come to America have benefited from the fight, even before that, the 60s, from the fight of African Americans to make your life better. | ||
| And other people who come here better, even Europeans from Eastern Europe now, they live great because of African Americas' fight. | ||
| So, yeah, we do need some type of civil rights being enforced, but it's not happening, as we can see. | ||
| Thank you for letting me share. | ||
| Patricia, New Jersey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I 100% agree with Patricia. | |
| I think we need civil rights enforced and enforced strongly. | ||
| I think that the federal government and all the authorities need to make sure that all of the United States, anybody hiring or contracting or promoting, abides by the civil rights regulations that we have and by the structure that we have to make sure that Americans are treated according to their ability and according to their actions, not according to some immutable characteristic which they can do nothing about. | ||
| And these two are obviously race and sex. | ||
| You know, these are immutable characteristics. | ||
| You're born with them. | ||
| You cannot be judged on these traits. | ||
| From John. | ||
| John in New Mexico, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm a first-time caller. | ||
| And I have been watching this show quite a bit, like the last year, and it's just beyond me, the gall of the Democrats. | ||
| I mean, the Democrats, they started off the backs of slaves. | ||
| Andrew Jackson in Mississippi. | ||
| How come the Democrats don't talk about their history? | ||
| Then after the Civil War, which the Democrats were rebelling against America and wanted to start a new country of their own, I mean, I am so sad that my country has devolved. | ||
| Okay, that's John there in New Mexico. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You don't have to go back to Jefferson Davis or any of the Democrats of the 19th century. | |
| The Democrats of the previous administration that just concluded on January 20th violated the law in the sense that it is very plain that you cannot consider race. | ||
| You cannot have racial quotas backy. | ||
| The Supreme Court decided in 1978 that quotas were unconstitutional. | ||
| All the other statutes that I have just mentioned before made clear that you cannot consider race in making decisions. | ||
| It got to the point where the New York Times called us, called Heritage, in late 21 or early 22, I forget which, and said, look, the administration realizes that by having this raft of laws that are race-based, it's violating the law and it's loosening in the courts. | ||
| So it's going to change the language. | ||
| It's going to change the language. | ||
| It's going to do the same thing. | ||
| It's going to change the language to underserved communities. | ||
| It found euphemisms. | ||
| But it continued doing that. | ||
| So, yeah, I don't think that we have to go back to Jefferson Davis, as awful as he was and as disgusting as those Democrats were, what we have just seen recently was bad enough. | ||
| And I agree with John. | ||
| Let me take you back in time a week, though. | ||
| Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, he spoke about the EEOs, particularly targeting DEI programs, gave his perspective on it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I want you to listen to what he has to say and get your perspective on it. | |
| Diversity, equity, and inclusion are American values. | ||
| It's about economic opportunity for everyone. | ||
| We support merit for everyone based on what you know, not who you know. | ||
| The problem that seems to be unfolding is that there are some in this country who want an America of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires. | ||
| Not for working class Americans. | ||
| Middle class Americans are everyday Americans. | ||
| A country of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires. | ||
| Diversity, equity, and inclusion are about economic opportunity for everyone, even if you're not wealthy, well-off, or well-connected. | ||
| These are values that everybody in this country should embrace. | ||
| We're going to take this issue, working with the civil rights groups, head on. | ||
| Minority leaders' assessment. | ||
| What's your assessment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I thought it was an outrageous comment that he made. | |
| You reminded me, Pedro, that I told my colleague Andrew Levastro that I was going to have a response to this. | ||
| It is outrageous that they're now painting DEI as mom on apple pie and as part of the meritocracy. | ||
| It is the opposite of that. | ||
| DEI was the opposite. | ||
| It promotes the opposite approach. | ||
| It says that you cannot hire, if you go back, EDEI is the operating system of a bunch of critical theories that emerged in the 80s and 90s, critical race theory, gender theory, and all that. | ||
| All DEI does, it applies them. | ||
| The DEI trainings are a way to indoctrinate the country in the workplace or the schoolhouse into not liking the status quo, hating the status quo, hating history, hating the origin of America, and adopting a completely different approach, a completely different race-based, race-and-sex-based preferential treatment, which is unconstitutionally moral, dangerous. | ||
| Now they're saying, no, this DEI is about the meritocracy. | ||
| No, it is not. | ||
| And I can show you, I'll bring you with me, you know, reams of writings by the pioneers of critical race theory in which they take issue with the meritocracy. | ||
| They say the meritocracy is a lie, that we cannot have a meritocracy. | ||
| You should not be seeking a meritocracy. | ||
| That was, if that is the best they can do, we have the goods and we have the receipts. | ||
| Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation joining us. | ||
| This is Greg in North Carolina Independent Line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thanks for taking my call. | |
| First, I'm a 21-year military veteran. | ||
| I have a couple issues with your guests. | ||
| One, when you open, you mentioned the fact that there were riots in the street. | ||
| However, omitted the fact that was based on the reaction from George Floyd, which gives a misleading perception of what he's speaking about to begin with. | ||
| Secondly, Jim Crow was a major reason for a push for programs like DEI because of race-based hiring practices that America was already participating in, which is insane for you to perceive it as not being necessary now. | ||
| And lastly, the DEI practices that are trying to be implemented now are taking away the training for Tuskegee airmen to be mentioned in Air Force basic training, which my grandfather was one of. | ||
| I'd just like a response to that. | ||
| Well, Greg, you mentioned that you were a veteran. | ||
| On behalf of my family, thank you for your service and thank you for what you did. | ||
| I think you're quite wrong on several fronts. | ||
| When you talked about the riots in 2020, I don't think that they were, I think it was a manipulation by organizations founded by Marxists who wanted to change the country. | ||
| And we had quite a great deal of violence for many, many months. | ||
| You mentioned that DEI is a response to Jim Crow. | ||
| No, and this is a mistake that good-natured people, Americans of good will, make consistently. | ||
| The response to Jim Crow with Kennedy's original affirmative action executive order of 61, which was to say the federal government and federal contractors will not anymore hire or promote with regard to race, ethnicity, national origin. | ||
| That was the original meaning of it. | ||
| It was reversed in the years that followed, especially from 1965 on, as I mentioned, after LBJ made his comments at Howard in 1965 and then with Executive Order 11246. | ||
| And then I just want to make sure that I address the Tuskegee study in Tuskegee. | ||
| I believe that this is somebody inside, was it the Air Force? | ||
| I forgot. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was inside the Air Force that wants to sabotage this. | |
| And just like librarians who are told not to have porn on their shelves will then ban Romeo and Julia to create a scandal and attract media attention. | ||
| This is the same way. | ||
| Whoever did that was probably sabotaging the intent of the order. | ||
| Yes, absolutely, everybody should study what happened at Tuskegee. | ||
| Just there's recent reporting saying that the course that features the Tsuskee Airpin now replaced that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Of course, of course, because, and I hope that person is talked to. | |
| The President, when it comes to those federal employees involved in DEI programs, there's reporting saying that those people should be laid off. | ||
| What do you think of that step? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they're going to be put on paid leave first, and then I actually think that's perfectly reasonable, and that's what should happen. | |
| We're going to have a problem with these people because a lot of them have studied really bad degrees, things that end in studies, ethnic studies, Hispanic studies, gender studies, things that do not give you the skills to create value in the private sector or to do right by the American people in the public sector. | ||
| They have insane salary expectations. | ||
| They're now going to be out there without their job. | ||
| Their job was, again, to repeat, illegal, in many cases, illegal, created danger for the country. | ||
| It was immoral in my view. | ||
| What happens to those people will be very interesting to follow. | ||
| Let's hear from Bob. | ||
| Bob's in New York. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
| You're next up, sir. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for taking my call. | |
| I have a question about DAI and this policy. | ||
| This DAI policy that you have was written in the Project 2025, of which the man that wrote 2025 is ahead of the budget in this administration. | ||
| My question to you is this. | ||
| During the campaign, many people here on this network had said Donald, President Trump, had said that he had no association with this particular project, that he did not know these particular people that put out this particular paper, and that he was distancing himself from 2025. | ||
| It looks to me like 2025 is now in the playbook. | ||
| And my question to you is this. | ||
| Did the President Trump, the Donald, lie to the American public during the campaign that he was saying that he had no association with this particular program? | ||
| Bob from New York. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bob, President Trump speaks for himself. | |
| I don't pretend to speak for him or his administration. | ||
| I'll tell you, I wrote a chapter in Project 2025. | ||
| It had nothing to do with DEI. | ||
| Well, it did tangentially. | ||
| It was about dissolving the corporation for public broadcasting, not C-SPAN, which I think does a fantastic job. | ||
| We're not having no association with the corporation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, no, I know that. | |
| No, no, no. | ||
| I know. | ||
| I know that. | ||
| That's what I'm saying. | ||
| I can tell you as a fact that the idea that I would have called anybody in the Trump campaign or the transition to ask anything about what I was writing is ludicrous. | ||
| They lied about us. | ||
| They lied about the project. | ||
| They lied about the intent of the project. | ||
| They spent millions of it for nothing, by the way. | ||
| That was money that they burned. | ||
| No, I never, I wrote what I thought was right. | ||
| I wrote according to my research, never called anybody to ask what they thought of it. | ||
| Brandy in Indiana, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi there. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I'm just calling. | ||
| I love the show, of course, but I'm calling. | ||
| I kind of have a perspective on the show. | ||
| I am recently retired from human resources, and I can remember when we had to meet a quota for black Hispanic people in our office. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And it was very hard. | |
| I mean, there were times we had to overlook somebody who was well-qualified, but we had to change it for somebody else who was less qualified, but because of the color of their skin. | ||
| And we had to do this every year. | ||
| We got audited. | ||
| And it was ridiculous. | ||
| And then my other side of this is two of my children are biracial. | ||
| And all through their school years, I was always, I would always make a box and make biracial because they're not black and they're not white. | ||
| But the school demanded and wanted me to put black because of more benefits. | ||
| It benefits the school. | ||
| It benefits this. | ||
| Then when they got in college, we had a long conversation because they had to pay for college. | ||
| And I told them, you do it however you want because this is up to you. | ||
| But both of my children did not want to be in a victim box. | ||
| They continued their biracial, this is what I am. | ||
| You cannot make me choose one box or the other. | ||
| And that probably cost them some grants and what have you. | ||
| And it has made people very upset. | ||
| But my kids, I have always raised them, all of them. | ||
| We are not victims. | ||
| You will not be a victim. | ||
| So that's just my kind of perspective on this. | ||
| And I just wanted to share that again. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Brandy in Indianapolis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Brandy, thank you very much. | |
| You personify the tragedy of what we're discussing here. | ||
| The fact that you had to hire people who were less qualified and not hire people who were who met the qualifications is a tragedy. | ||
| It's a tragedy for all 330 million Americans. | ||
| We all benefit when the best people are doing their job. | ||
| When I go on a bridge or go in a tunnel, I want that tunnel and that bridge to have been drawn and erected by people, by architects and engineers who knew what they were doing. | ||
| In fact, if that weren't the case, I would not want to go on a bridge or in a tunnel. | ||
| Hopefully we can now go back to that kind of country. | ||
| With regards to the way you have raised your family, your children are extremely fortunate. | ||
| You raised them right. | ||
| And the point that you make about wanting to right who they were biracial and the school saying, no, that is a huge problem. | ||
| You know, when they say, no, no, because we're going to get all these benefits. | ||
| We don't want to live in that kind of country. | ||
| We don't want to live in that type of country. | ||
| I don't, and I don't know anybody really, not anyone that I respect who says to me, oh, no, I do want things that I don't deserve because of my actions and hard work, but just merely because of a trait that I had nothing to do with that I was born with. | ||
| Who really, in the souls of their own bedroom, believes that. | ||
| So thank you very much for your call, and thank you very much for sharing your experience, which is very revealing. | ||
| The president's latest executive order targets the Pentagon, particularly transgender military members of the Pentagon, saying this. | ||
| The order calls for the Pentagon to update updated policies on the medical standards required for military service. | ||
| It takes aim at transgender people in personal terms, accusing them of living in conflict with a soldier's commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one's personal life. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Did that just win it then? | |
| That was yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I didn't take a look at that. | |
| It's not an area that I look at. | ||
| Since I haven't read it, Pedro, I just wouldn't want to comment. | ||
| I am against race, I mean, sorry, sex-based preferential treatment or preferential treatment that is based on racial or sexual preferences. | ||
| So I'm against that. | ||
| I just haven't read that order. | ||
| Well, I think to an extent then, if they're the best people for the job, say serving in the military, but they happen to be transgender, why not give them the opportunity? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know what he has done. | |
| What has he done? | ||
| It's CEO on transgender people to reconsider, ask calls for the Pentagon to reconsider how transgender people will be part of the military. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just haven't spent time thinking about it. | |
| That's fair. | ||
| Naomi in Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi. | ||
| I don't hear anyone talking about Donald Trump's father, Fred, who was renting apartments in the 50s and 60s, and even after that, in Queens. | ||
| And if a black family came to apply, even if they were qualified, they would put a C next to the name, which immediately disqualified them from being rented to, from having an apartment. | ||
| Now, Donald Trump's father did this for years, and he got away with it. | ||
| And nothing happened to him. | ||
| And no one said anything about him. | ||
| And blacks, this was actually replicated throughout the country in different ways. | ||
| And we're seeing now that this was happening. | ||
| And you better believe he taught this lesson to his son, that there are certain people you just don't allow them to get certain things. | ||
| Now, if DEI was around in those days, perhaps, perhaps they would have gotten some fair treatment. | ||
| So I'd like to know what your guest says about that. | ||
| That's Naomi in Maryland. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Naomi, thanks for your question. | |
| A fundamental principle of this country, but not just this country of any democracy, is that you're judged by your own actions. | ||
| I happen to delve into genealogy a lot. | ||
| It's one of my hobbies. | ||
| You know, thank God I'm not judged by the actions of some of my ancestors. | ||
| And that is true for every family tree there is. | ||
| You know, you're talking about, I don't know that what you're saying is true, but you're talking about his father, not the president himself. | ||
| You're saying that his father must have taught this, which I don't know that he did, to his son. | ||
| I don't know that and you don't know that. | ||
| So let's go back to the principle fundamental to democracy, that you're judged by your own actions. | ||
| You're held accountable for your own actions in the things you say, not for something an ancestor has said or done. | ||
| In the papers today, there's a story about Costco rejecting calls to eliminate their DEI programs. | ||
| I'm wondering how the president's actions and the government's actions, how that filters down perhaps into public companies and if there's going to be an impact there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I mean, that's how long do you have, Pedro? | |
| 19 attorneys general have already written to Costco saying that they better make sure the Costco board better make sure that it is not implementing anything that is illegal. | ||
| And again, as I said, preferential treatment quotas are illegal, not just because of the actions Donald Trump just took, but because of statutes and the Constitution. | ||
| Moreover, what we have seen in the last three years, really since the beginning of 2021, I follow this issue very closely, but especially in the last 12 months, it's a stampede by the Fortune 500 away from the, it is divisive. | ||
| It doesn't work. | ||
| Every study shows that it doesn't work. | ||
| So you have a long list, Meta, Ford, Boeing, McDonald's, Target, saying, no, we're not going to do this stuff anymore. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because they're responsible to their customers. | ||
| They're responsible to the shareholders. | ||
| They're responsible to the bottom line. | ||
| And Americans don't like this. | ||
| And so they walked away from it. | ||
| No, ran away from it. | ||
| In the last 12 months, we had a few holdouts. | ||
| Obviously, the biggest holdout was the federal government under Biden and Kamala Harris. | ||
| Now that's gone. | ||
| So what we have now are readouts in the academies, in some of the sports leagues. | ||
| I watch a lot of football, especially recently. | ||
| You see the football players with Andy's helmet reject hate or embrace love. | ||
| That is, apparently, the commissioner of the NFL has bought into the lie that we're a hateful country, an oppressive country, where we have white supremacy as the operating principle, and we have systemic racism, and that we have hate as a fundamental bedrock value of this country. | ||
| So I think the NFL is a weather vein. | ||
| I expect they will run away from it now too. | ||
| But no, the corporate world has abandoned this with alacrity. | ||
| Costco is a rare exception. | ||
| This is Larry. | ||
| Larry is from Florida, Democrat's line for Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Yes, good morning, gentlemen. | ||
| Good to be on your program this morning. | ||
| I just had two questions for the person on. | ||
| I wanted to know, does he know what DEI means? | ||
| Also, does he know what the word woke means? | ||
| And I'm talking about the definition as far as what it means as far as the black community is concerned and not as far as what it means for the white community. | ||
| And I'll take my question offline. | ||
| Y'all have a wonderful day. | ||
| Well, Larry, thank you for your call. | ||
| You're in a wonderful state. | ||
| I do know that woke is a term that comes from African Americans. | ||
| My concern with woke is not how it's defined in that way, but how it has been defined by the woke themselves. | ||
| And that is this idea that we must all be very awake to the fact that all of life must be looked at through the lens of an epic struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor. | ||
| That comes straight from the manifesto, by the way, the Communist Manifesto of 1848 by Karl Marx. | ||
| I reject that notion. | ||
| I reject, I'd rather embrace the gospel when it says we're no longer slaveholder. | ||
| So that is what Wooke means. | ||
| DEI, as I said, is the opposite of what the words should mean, have traditionally meant. | ||
| Diversity means racial quotas unconstitutional, Larry. | ||
| Equity means the functional opposite of equality. | ||
| That is, equality is the principle mentioned in our founding documents. | ||
| Equity is illegal. | ||
| Equity, I'm talking about equity as defined by the people who do critical race, including Kamala Harris, who was always very clear about what she meant by equity. | ||
| Biden was never not a politician who dealt in these issues a lot until the last years of his life, until the last few years. | ||
| And again, inclusion is not about inclusion. | ||
| If I wear a t-shirt that says anything about God or Jesus to the Smithsonian, the guards may throw me out. | ||
| That's your inclusion. | ||
| That's inclusion that I mean. | ||
| That's why I'm opposed to DEI. | ||
| So yeah, that's what these things mean, Larry. | ||
| Because the president took executive orders and the means to achieve this, Hakeem Jeffries had talked about possibly legal challenges. | ||
| What do you think of the level of legal challenges to these EOs might be? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They haven't happened yet, but I think obviously we're in an overly litigious country. | |
| These things will, some of them might end up in the courts. | ||
| Right now, the president has acted with such alacrity, with such strength, in executive order after executive order in getting his cabinet passed. | ||
| Things have come so fast and have been so good that I think what we're seeing is a liberal side that is paralyzed. | ||
| They haven't reacted yet, really, in any way. | ||
| They don't know what their leaderless. | ||
| They don't know how to react. | ||
| But I expect that at some point in the near future, they will wake up from their stupor and try to do something. | ||
| From our Republican line, we will hear from Christine in Michigan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello. | ||
| I was just calling to say in the last few months, I have heard from people from the Heritage Foundation, and the Heritage Foundation is against Christianity. | ||
| They are against true Christianity. | ||
| And he is trying to put on Christians by them wearing a Christian symbol or a shirt or something with Jesus Christ or God on it. | ||
| When I see someone like that, I go up to them and I say, I know that verse. | ||
| It's one of my favorites. | ||
| And thank you for sharing Jesus with the world because we need true Christians. | ||
| This man. | ||
| Why can't Hakeem Jeffries be on this? | ||
| Okay, caller. | ||
| I'll stop because I want, you can answer that, but I'll keep her on just in case she wants to clarify. | ||
| But go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was not, I don't think that I heard a question there. | |
| The Heritage Foundation has Catholics like me, has Protestants, has many, many Jewish colleagues that I work closely with. | ||
| We believe that religion has a place in public life. | ||
| We believe that democracy in this country was made for moral people, but we adhere to no single religion. | ||
| I'm not sure what the caller is saying or alleging. | ||
| This is Rudy in Georgia Democrats line. | ||
| We're running a little short on time, Rudy, so go ahead and jump in with your question or comment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
1973, I was a graduate from Bethune-Cupman College, which is great to meet to you. | |
| Arthur Fletcher was a keynote speaker. | ||
| He was the architecture of affirmative actions for the Nixon administration. | ||
| He said that these corporations are hiring us because they do business with the government, not because they want you, even though you're qualified, is because the law won't allow them to discriminate. | ||
| And when I went to General Motors, there was 30 college graduates in my class that year from Purdue, Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State. | ||
| They had about five Afro-American students. | ||
| We were all qualified. | ||
| We were all highly educated. | ||
| And we were all successful. |