Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Main
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akash chougule
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greta brawner
cspan38:39
Appearances
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alex gangitano
politico02:27
bernie sanders
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bill cassidy
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brian lamb
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chris coons
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chuck schumer
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dick durbin
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donald j trump
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jeff merkley
sen/d01:47
kash patel
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michael bennet
sen/d00:56
robert f kennedy-jr
admin00:37
tulsi gabbard
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will scharf
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Clips
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jeremy brown
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justice neil gorsuch
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kathleen keating
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richard belzer
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uncle sam in louisiana
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Update On Mid-Air Collision00:06:24
unidentified
you a front row seat to democracy.
Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, your calls and comments live.
And then Akash Chogali of Americans for Prosperity reviews his organization's recent national tax cut campaign and legislative agenda during a second Trump administration.
And Dr. Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association, discusses the Trump administration's public health action.
Also, Alex Gangitano, White House reporter for The Hill, talks about the latest in the federal response to Wednesday's deadly mid-air collision in D.C. and other White House news of the day.
Good morning and welcome to The Washington Journal on this Friday, January 31st.
We'll begin this morning with a tragic and busy day in Washington yesterday.
First, the collision between an Army helicopter and a passenger jet near Washington, D.C.
No survivors were found, and an investigation is underway.
Your reaction to President Trump and Washington's response to the collision.
On Capitol Hill yesterday, three contentious confirmation hearings for President Trump's pick to serve as Health and Human Services Secretary, Director of National Intelligence, and FBI Director.
RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel, all sitting for hours for pointed questions and heated exchanges.
We'll get your take on all of it this morning.
Democrats, dial in at 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can also join us in a text, include your first name, city, and state, at 202-748-8003 or on facebook.com slash C-SPAN.
And you can also post on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ.
We'll get to the conversation with all of you in just a minute.
Let's begin, though, with President Trump in the briefing room for the first time in these early days of his administration.
Yesterday, talking to reporters for a news conference, here's what he had to say about the collision that happened here in Washington.
As you know, last week, long before the crash, I signed an executive order restoring our highest standards for air traffic controllers and other important jobs throughout the country.
So it was very interesting.
About a week ago, almost upon entering office, I signed something last week that was an executive order very powerful and restoring the highest standards of air traffic controllers and others, by the way.
Then my administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety.
We have to have our smartest people.
It doesn't matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are.
It matters intellect, talent.
The word talent.
They have to be talented, naturally talented geniuses.
You can't have regular people doing that job.
They won't be able to do it.
But we'll restore faith in American air travel.
I'll have more to say about that.
I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office, and here's one.
The FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities.
That is amazing.
And then it says, FAA says people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce, and they want them in, and they want them.
Chuck Schumer, the minority leader for the Democrats in this Senate, reacting to the news conference and the remarks made by President Trump yesterday after that collision.
There is an update on that story this morning.
This is from USA Today.
Black Box flight data recorder is recovered in this DC plane crash.
And from their reporting, they said that Todd Inman of the NTSB said it's too soon to know whether human error or other factors were at play in Wednesday night's collision, which left no survivors.
But he said the agency expects to have a preliminary report within 30 days.
Let's hear from Cindy in Norwick, Connecticut, a Republican caller.
You are up first, Cindy.
Busy day here in Washington.
Your reaction to these dual headlines.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
Good morning.
My heart goes out to those families, all those young people with so much promise.
It's so upsetting.
But I have to say, when there's a mass shooting, and we Republicans get all upset when Democrats within 24 hours start making it political and asking for more gun control laws.
Chilling Standards Lowered00:03:06
unidentified
So I'm going to put that out there because it's a little hypocritical.
I don't really like it immediately after.
It could maybe wait a day.
But you know what?
I know President Trump is genuinely mad about this.
That list that he read off, it's chilling, you know, how they've lowered the standards to have equality.
Everybody wants equality.
You know, when it comes to something like this, look, you just can't have it.
You may say no one, there were no fatalities under the Biden administration, but if you can look it up and Wikipedia, New York Times reported that in 2023, there were a record amount of near misses, 46 in one month, where there were planes that had to abort, take off, or take evasive moves to avoid a collision on the runways.
We can't have this.
And, you know, we lost a lot of good people because they didn't want to take the vaccine mandated by Joe Biden.
And Cindy, just picking up on what you said about congestion in the skies, this is from reporting in the Washington Post this morning.
According to a 2023 report to Congress, 50 entities operated roughly 88,000 helicopter flights within 30 miles of the Reagan National Airport between 2017 and 2019 based on FAA data.
The largest percentage were tied to the military, but others included flights by medical operations, state and local law enforcement, and federal agencies.
Some experts in aircraft safety raised questions about procedures and helicopter flight patterns.
So on top of congested passenger flights, you have helicopters operating in the same airspace out here in Washington.
More information for you from the Washington Times.
The Government Accountability Office reviewed air traffic control systems after a system outage shutdown shutdown National Airspace in 2023.
It found that 51 of its 138 systems were unsustainable, meaning they had outdated functionality, lacked spare parts, or had other problems.
Meanwhile, air traffic volumes continue to reach new highs.
Overall, passenger air traffic was up 10.4% in 2024 from 2023 and up 3.8% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
This is according to the International Air Transport Association and that reporting from the Washington Times.
John in District Heights, Maryland, Democratic caller.
John, we'll hear from you next.
unidentified
Thank you.
Thank you so much for reading that.
Thank you so much for reading that.
These people listen to this individual, and we know this man is a pathological liar.
Yes, yes, the data on all that you've collected here to let these people know that what Donald Trump is trying to do, once again, he's using white supremacy to stay where he is, to feed his base.
But I'm so thankful that you brought out the facts that you've studied, you've got together, so the American people can actually hear the problem is lack of money going to the organization because all the money is going to the military or industrial complex.
That's these people not paying attention.
But now dealing with the nominees he's put up there, I don't trust nothing that they say because it's obvious everybody that's going to be sworn is going to have to take an allegiance to Donald Trump.
They're going to take allegiance to the Constitution.
When you take a look at these Republican senators, all of them took an oath to defend the Constitution.
All of them are nothing but lackeys for Donald Trump and the people who put him in office.
They should be able to see that they are not living, they're not governing for the people who put him in office.
They are there to maintain Donald Trump because they're afraid, intimidated by him, by the money he has in order to remove them from office.
John, there in District Heights, Maryland, a Democratic caller.
More of your calls coming up.
Puller mentioned the confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill.
As we said at the top, RFK Jr., who is President Trump's pick to serve as Human and Health, Health and Human Services Secretary, was testifying, along with Kash Patel, who wants to be the FBI director in the Trump administration, and Tulsi Gabbard, who was in the hot seat yesterday in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
She was picked to serve as the director of national intelligence.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board this morning, writing this: Tulsi Gabbard's surveillance folly.
And they write that terrorists have an asymmetric advantage over open societies because they operate in secret and only need to succeed once to do enormous destruction.
This is the great lesson of 9-11.
Surveillance is one of the few tools the U.S. has to detect and prevent such attacks before they happen, including overseas communications with people in the U.S. who may intend harm.
Given Ms. Gabbard's views on 702, it's no surprise that she sounds badly uninformed on this subject.
They go on to write this in the editorial this morning: Mr. Trump made a campaign deal with Ms. Gabbard to give her a cabinet position in return for her endorsement.
He did his part by nominating her, but the Senate can do Mr. Trump and the country a favor by rejecting a director of national intelligence who doesn't understand the vital tools of the job.
Let's go to yesterday's hearing.
Senators on both sides of the aisle in the intelligence committee pressing the DNI nominee over her refusal to call for NSA contractor Edward Snowden, refuses to call Edward Snowden a traitor.
unidentified
This is a big deal to everybody here because it's a big deal to everybody that you'll also oversee in that role as well.
And so it's helpful for them to be able to hear your heart on this.
Senator, my heart is with my commitment to our Constitution and our nation's security.
Ours too.
Thank you.
I have shown throughout my almost 22 years of service in the military, as well as my time in Congress, how seriously I take the privilege of having access to classified information and our nation's secrets.
And that's why I'm committed, if confirmed, as Director of National Intelligence to join you in making sure that there is no future Snowden-type league.
unidentified
Was Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?
You said earlier that you were offended by a question that my colleague from Kansas asked, which I think was his duty as somebody on this committee to fulfill his responsibility to advise and consent.
We are not here to be a rubber stamp for the President of the United States.
So let me ask you again: do you believe, as the chairman of this committee believes, as the vast majority of members of our intelligence agencies believe, that Edward Snowden was a traitor to the United States of America?
Senator, if confirmed on social media, it's not a moment to propagate theories, conspiracy theories, or attacks on journalism in the United States.
This is when you need to answer the questions of the people whose votes you're asking for to be confirmed as the chief intelligence officer of this nation.
As my colleague said, this is not about you.
It's about the people that serve the intelligence agencies of the United States.
Is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?
That is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high.
From the confirmation hearing yesterday on Capitol Hill for Tulsi Gabbard to serve as the Director of National Intelligence, the New York Times headline picks up on those questions about Edward Snowden.
Hearing turns tense as Senators Grill Gabbard on Snowden.
That's the New York Times headline on her confirmation hearing.
Take a look at the Washington Times, their front page.
The headline for that newspaper, Gabbard tells senators she's nobody's puppet.
Skepticism leaves nomination hanging.
If you missed any moments from yesterday's confirmation hearing with Tulsi Gabbard, you can find it online at c-span.org.
If you don't have hours to sit through the confirmation hearing, hit the video, hit the player on the video player, and gold stars will appear.
And those are the key moments from yesterday's hearing so you can quickly go through and get an idea of the questions and answers from yesterday's hearing.
We covered it here on C-SPAN in its entirety.
You can also watch it in its entirety on c-span.org or our free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW.
Ray in Ithka, New York, a Republican.
Ray, we're talking about those confirmation hearings yesterday on Capitol Hill, as well as the tragedy in the air on Wednesday night.
unidentified
Yes, I was coming in, and the RFK Jr. and the Kash Patel, those two I got to see basically in its entirety.
And I think those two people should be confirmed.
I think particularly with RFK Jr., I was stunned that he was not allowed to really ever answer a question.
They would throw about five things at him, cut him off, never let him answer anything.
I think the Make America Healthy Again, he's the most popular of all the Trump nominees.
I think he truly wants to make America healthy.
I think this is for a guy that was a Democrat his entire life to be treated this poorly by fellow Democrats is shameful.
So him in particular and for and everything I saw for Kash Patel, I think those two deserve to be confirmed.
I haven't seen enough on the Tulsi Gabbard to make a decision on that one.
And I haven't seen all of the press, the Trump press conference comment on those, but those two confirmations, particularly RFK Jr. and just really the disrespect was alarming.
Now, my responsibility is to learn, try and determine if you can be trusted to support the best public health.
A worthy movement called Maha to improve the health of Americans or to undermine it, always asking for more evidence and never accepting the evidence that is there.
I looked at the article from Dr. Mawson and it seems to have some issues.
I'll just put that to the side.
And that is why I've been struggling with your nomination.
There are issues we are.
Man, ultra-processed food, obesity, we are, we are sympathetico.
We're completely aligned.
And as someone who has discussed immunizations with thousands of people, I understand that mothers want reassurance that the vaccine their child is receiving is necessary, safe, and effective.
We agree on that point, the two of us, but we've approached it differently.
And I think I can say that I've approached it using the preponderance of evidence to reassure, and you have approached using selected evidence to cast doubt.
Now, put differently, we're about the same age.
Does a 70-year-old man, 71-year-old man who spent decades criticizing vaccines and who's financially vested in finding fault with vaccines, can he change his attitudes and approach now that he'll have the most important position influencing vaccine policy in the United States?
Will you continue what you have been, or will you overturn a new leaf at age 70?
I recognize, man, if you come out unequivocally, vaccines are safe, it does not cause autism, that would have an incredible impact.
That's your power.
So, what's it going to be?
Will it be using the credibility to support lots of articles, or will it be using credibility to undermine?
And I got to figure that out for my vote.
You have the power to help rebuild, to help public health institutions reearn the trust of the American people.
Now, let's be political.
I'm a Republican.
I represent the amazing state of Louisiana.
And as a patriotic American, I want President Trump's policies to succeed in making America and Americans more secure, more prosperous, healthier.
But if there's someone that is not vaccinated because of policies or attitudes you bring to the department, and there's another 18-year-old who dies of a vaccine-preventable disease, helicoptered away, God forbid dies, it'll be blown up in the press.
The greatest tragedy will be her death, but I can also tell you an associated tragedy that will cast a shadow over President Trump's legacy, which I want to be the absolute best legacy it can be.
Senator Cassidy, also a doctor from Louisiana and the chair of the Senate help committee there, the health committee, in that confirmation hearing yesterday, sounding skeptical about and undecided about whether or not he will vote to confirm RFK Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary.
Ray, you were waiting there in New York, a Republican.
You think he should be confirmed.
What do you think about the hesitancy there from Senator Cassidy?
unidentified
Well, I can understand some of the hesitancy, but let me say, they talk about, like, say, the COVID shot.
And what Mr. Kennedy had explained is when he came out with the lawsuit, is that's when they started trying to do things for like little children and things like that for doing the shots.
To the best of my knowledge, that one healthy child was killed, or excuse me, that passed away during COVID.
And he was for the shots, going for people that had health issues, older people, and those are the people that were most susceptible.
I know Senator Paul mentioned in hepatitis B that unless the mother is a drug user or basically that's passed on through drugs or sexual contacts, and if the mother didn't have it, there was no reason to do something on day one that he had his own children wait until they started going to school and things.
So I think sometimes it's the timing of these, sometimes it's the lack of studies on some of these things.
And I think Mr. Kennedy is a man that just asks a lot of questions.
I also think a lot of these folks get a lot of money in their campaigns from the pharmacies and from the vaccine people.
So I think we have to take that into consideration, too.
And Ray, I'll jump in at that point because that was one of those exchanges yesterday between RFK Jr. and Bernie Sanders.
It got heated between the two of them over pharmaceutical contributions.
I want to show you the Washington Times, their headline on that confirmation hearing for RFK Jr., GOP Holdouts.
Press RFK Jr. for assurances on vaccine, saying the science is clear.
From the Washington Post this morning, their headline, Mitch McConnell had polio as a child.
It could cloud JFK Jr.'s nomination.
The Republican senator's childhood bout with the disease has informed his ardent support for vaccines amid increasing skepticism of them within his party.
And they go on to report in the Washington Times that for the first time since 2007, McConnell, now 82, is no longer the top Senate Republican, affording him more freedom to decide whether to support Trump's nominees.
If every Democrat decides to vote against Kennedy, then he can afford only three GOP defections in the closely divided Senate.
And losing McConnell, a famously deliberate senator, would indicate bipartisan concern about Kennedy and his allies' views on vaccines.
And you'll recall that Senator Mitch McConnell, no longer in leadership, was one of the three Republicans who opposed Pete Hegseth for defense secretary.
Earl in Idaho, independent caller.
Earl, good morning to you.
unidentified
Good morning, Greta.
What a ship of fools out there in this world today.
I ranch and farm out here in the southern, south-central part of Idaho, and it's 5,000 feet.
Greta, back to the mid-air collision.
There's days that the calm chemtrails from the jets shade me out to the point that the sunlight doesn't get through enough to provide for the fields I work and crops I produce.
200 Feet Above the Skies00:15:46
unidentified
Boy, we got to hang a stop sign up there somewhere to slow this thing down because wow, this is what a mess we're in.
Not only the federal government, but the people of our country have to realize that they just got to spit out that silver spoon and get back to the basics of life.
Earl, front page of the Washington Post, disaster in crowded skies.
And they note this: that the control tower staffing levels, the report concludes, were not normal for the time of the day and the amount of air traffic over DC, where an average of more than 100 helicopters a day zip around and underneath arriving and departing airline flights.
There is more in the papers this morning about the crowded skies.
Here is from USA Today.
In May, airport officials and other experts also warned that adding more daily flights under what's known as the slot and perimeter rule posed concerns.
In 2023, Reagan National broke its all-time passenger traffic record with 25.5 million passengers, according to airport managers.
Passenger data for 2024 not yet available.
Goes on to say this in another newspaper.
This is from the New York Times this morning with the headline: Congress approved more flights at Reagan despite warnings of danger.
Congress has repeatedly voted to increase the number of daily flights at Reagan National Airport, adding departures that made life more convenient for lawmakers, despite warnings that increased air traffic around Washington would raise the risk of delays and accidents.
They go on to note that Congress has added more than 50 new slots to the airport's daily schedule since 2000, including 10 that lawmakers approved last year.
The newest slots are not yet in use.
Those flights are expected to begin in the coming weeks.
When they do, Congress's actions will have increased the airport's authorized traffic by more than 50 takeoffs or landings or more than 25 round trips.
Goes on to the New York Times to note that the other is the airsport space nearby.
The Potomac River is the region's air highway, a wide open corridor from north to south that is used by Coast Guard rescue helicopters, police air units, and military helicopters ferrying VIPs and personnel.
Planes at Reagan often cross this highway in their ascent or the descent.
And these military helicopters, according to reports in the newspapers this morning, are often used to ferry members of Congress to locations.
And they were used as well in emergency situations.
So that's some data for you this morning on the airspace here in the Washington region following that fatal crash between military helicopter and the passenger jet.
Let's go to Ruben, who's in Philadelphia, Democratic caller.
Ruben, we're spending the first half of this morning's Washington Journal getting your thoughts on what happened here in Washington, Capitol Hill, and that collision over at Reagan National Airport.
unidentified
Good morning, Greta.
Back on April 11th, 2018, NPR's already corners spoke with Terra Copp, Pentagon Bureau Chief for the Military Times, about why the number of military aviation accidents has sharply increased.
In December 2020, again during Trump administration, reports on the Hill did reports on military aviation crashes, false lack of training, and chronic fatigue.
DEI was not around during this time.
This was during the Trump administration.
I became interested in this stuff back when Senator Cornyn tried to blame Joe Biden for a military accident that happened down at the border, saying it was Joe Biden's borders policies that caused this.
I wish you guys would put up all the crashes that took place during Trump administration because he continually blames, I guess, people of color, transgender, disabled people for the stuff that's taking place when the same things took place on his watch.
And we have evidence of them doing this.
Like I said, the Hill 120320 at 6:15 p.m. did report on military aviation crashes, and NPR in 2018 also did.
All right, Ruben, with those sources this morning, the FAA says that an investor, or NTSB says an investigation is underway.
A preliminary report will be out in 30 days on what happened on Wednesday evening here in Washington.
The New York Times was first to report this yesterday.
Staffing at the air traffic control tower was not normal for the time of day and the volume of traffic, according to an internal preliminary FAA safety report about the collision that was reviewed by the New York Times.
The controller who was handling helicopters in the airport's vicinity was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways.
Those jobs typically are assigned to two controllers rather than one.
Daniel in Clover, South Carolina, Republican.
Good morning to you.
unidentified
Good morning.
Yeah, I wanted to make a remark about everyone that's calling in and blaming, you know, they said about Biden, Trump has blamed Biden for all this, but what about all the times that Biden blamed last four years, blamed everything on Trump, you know, trying to make us a better place to live.
But you got all them dim rats out there that wants to call in, nothing better to do.
You know, they want to call everybody racist, and that's what they are, racist.
You know, we're all Americans.
We're not Democrats.
We're not Republicans.
We're Americans.
And the problem is you've got a bunch of idiots out there that don't know what they're talking about.
I support his border policy and his appointments, but I don't support what he said this morning because from what I've read, and I've read a lot, the helicopters have to maintain 200 feet around that so that they fly under the airliners.
And if they had, there would be no story, and there'd be, you know, like whatever, 65 or I don't know how many people died alive.
But the helicopter, for some reason, went up to 350 feet.
And I watch, you know, this is on YouTube.
I saw like two or three former pilots of the Apache helicopter.
And they all agreed that this sounds like a no-brainer, that it's a helicopter pilot error.
And I don't know why, in God's name, they would have to have training going underneath these flights.
And the president made those comments about DEI hires at his news conference earlier in the day yesterday.
Later in the day, he brought the media back into the Oval office where he signed a memorandum on aviation safety and ordering the Secretary of Transportation and the FAA acting administrator to undo DEI policies by the previous administration.
And for your signature, we have a presidential memorandum titled Immediate Assessment of Aviation Safety.
In light of the damage done to aviation safety by the Biden administration's DEI and woke policies, what this presidential memorandum orders is for your Secretary of Transportation and FAA administrator, in this case acting FAA administrator,
to basically ensure that we are actively undoing all of that damage, that we are assessing how much damage was done, and that we're ensuring that people hired within the FAA, in keeping with your memorandum of January 21st, are only the most outstanding, capable people for the jobs that they are being hired into.
President Trump late Thursday talking to reporters in the Oval office on the collision that happened in Washington on Wednesday night between that military helicopter and the passenger jet.
This morning here on the Washington Journal, we're getting your reaction to the response from the President and Washington to that collision, as well as the contentious confirmation hearings that took place on Capitol Hill yesterday.
HHS Secretary nominee RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, who the president has picked to serve as the National Intelligence Director, and Kash Patel, the President's pick for FBI director, all up on Capitol Hill yesterday taking questions from senators for hours.
We covered them in their entirety here at C-SPAN.
And this morning, we're getting your reaction to what you heard from these nominees.
Jeff in Indianapolis, Democratic caller, we'll go to you, Jeff.
Good morning.
unidentified
Yes, thank you for taking my call.
I'm going to go, I want to say something to all the Republican Trump supporters out there about DEI.
DEI has never been an initiative to lower standards or qualifications.
All DEI was implemented for was to expand the pool of qualified, Qualified candidates.
It's never been designed to lower standards.
What you've been brainwashed to believe is a lie.
Now, I don't understand what Donald Trump and the Republican Party's obsession with DEI is.
Because what you're believing, what you've been told, again, is a lie.
If anybody is lowering standards for candidates, it is Donald Trump based on who he has nominated for positions in his administration.
All right, Michael, well, tie what you're saying to the news cycle here in the last 24 hours.
unidentified
What just happened when he said they need competent people?
Like Trump is in a position to evaluate competency.
He is a guy who sells the Bible.
The word of God is to be told not so.
This guy ran a fraudulent educational institution where one of his employees made something like $25 million.
Also, when he's talking about intelligent and make American great again, they just found out in China they came up with an AI where they got big corporations here that is equal to or surpass the AI that America has developed.
And as we discussed in our private meeting, Senator, I have always rejected any violence against law enforcement, and I have including in that group, specifically addressed any violence against law enforcement on January 6th.
unidentified
And I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement.
So do you think that America is safer because these 1,600 people have been given an opportunity to come out of serving their sentences and live in our communities again?
unidentified
Senator, I have not looked at all 1,600 individual cases.
I have always advocated for imprisoning those that cause harm to our law enforcement and civilian communities.
I also believe America is not safer because President Biden's commutation of a man who murdered two FBI agents, Agent Kohlers and Williams' family, deserve better than to have the man that point-blank range fired a shotgun into their heads and murdered them, released from prison.
He did, and he went to prison for it and should have.
My question to you, though, is do you think America is safer because President Trump issued these pardons to 1,600 of these criminal defendants, many of whom violently assaulted our police in the Capitol?
unidentified
Senator, America will be safe when we don't have 200,000 drug overdoses in two years.
America will be safe when we don't have 2,050 homicides in a day.
From the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday on Capitol Hill, C-SPAN cameras were there for the entire confirmation hearing for Kash Patel to serve as FBI director.
If you missed any of the moments, the questions and the answers, you can find them online at c-span.org or our free video mobile app, C-SPAN Now.
An update on the president's cabinet.
The Senate last night confirmed Doug Bergham, the former governor of North Dakota, as Interior Secretary.
The vote was 79 to 18, with more than half of Senate Democrats joining Republicans.
Separately, the Senate also voted 62 to 35 to invoke cloture on the nomination of oil industry CEO Chris Wright to lead the Department of Energy.
That's a test vote and a positive sign for that nominee.
And President Trump's pick to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, former Georgia Congressman Doug Collins, also passing a test vote, advanced to a full Senate vote, 83 to 13, with Democrats joining in on those two votes as well.
This morning, we're talking about the collision that happened here in Washington and as well as the Capitol Hill confirmation hearings yesterday.
Pete in Long Island, New York, Republican.
Pete, your turn.
unidentified
Yes, how are you doing?
I'm a former air traffic controller in the United States Air Force and the FAA 34 years.
Under Jimmy Carter, he deregulated the airlines, and it's been downhill since then.
Then Reagan fired the controllers on August 3rd, 1981.
So, Mr. President, the president is right in that respect with DEI, because EEO morphed into DEI and CRT and all the rest of the stuff that's going on today.
Five days on and 10 days off because there was no air traffic for two years.
They did that for two years.
So proficiency.
You got to be proficient for an air traffic control.
And nobody, these experts, you've got to retire at age 56.
Airline pilots used to be age 60, and they raised the age 65 because the experience.
And next time you fly, look in the cockpit, but now they probably got minorities in there.
But 99% of all controllers and pilots for years, and most of them were veterans, until 81 when Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers, mostly in the New York area.
12,000 air traffic controllers got fired.
And the staffing levels have never been up to par since.
Yeah, Pete, what do you make of the New York Times reporting yesterday that the job of the air controller on Wednesday night is typically done by two people, not one?
He was directing helicopter traffic as well as the passenger jets.
unidentified
Again, like the one expert came on, they combined sectors and decombined radar sectors and positions in the tower due to staffing and air traffic flow.
So this was around 9 o'clock at night.
So everybody can't work 10 hours.
You only can work 10 hours.
Used to have to work 8 hours, but they moved it to 10, and you had to have eight hours between shifts, and then it moved it to 10 hours between shifts because guys were doing quick time.
The staffing levels, like I said, since 1981, air traffic control, especially in busy, busy facilities in the Northeast Corridor, Washington, D.C., Boston, New York, which has three airports within 10 miles as the crow flies, the busiest airspace in the world, Kenny LaGuardia, Newark.
They put in 10 pounds in a five-pound bag every day with good weather.
You put weather into the factor.
You put all these things combined.
Like I said, it goes back to Jimmy Carter under deregulation 1978 of the airlines.
Nobody flew.
I didn't fly and fly one in the United States Air Force.
Now kids fly to Disneyland when they're six months old.
The quote that you said is a quote that's very similar in the newspapers today, also from somebody with experience like yours.
So let me ask you this, because the president was asked this.
Is it safe to fly in U.S. airspace?
unidentified
Yes, because you got dedicated, you got dedicated professionals that are checked out and certified.
They don't let you work by yourself unless you're safe.
Safe and efficient.
The model of air traffic control is the safe, efficient flow of air traffic.
Safe, efficient flow.
So you've got to have all three of those when you work.
That is what you got to have.
And Because of EEO, which was way before DEI started under the 70s under Jimmy Carter, under Jimmy Carter, when he deregulated airlines and everything else.
And then Reagan fired all the controllers in 1981, which was 99% all ex-military.
You didn't become an air trap control unless you had military experience as an air trap control going back to World War II.
When I got hired in 84, there was still a couple of World War II guys and staffing that were still around.
Most were Korea, Vietnam, and so forth.
And if you weren't in a war, you had to be at least in the military as an air trap control.
But after 81, Reagan went to college boy route that people didn't know nothing about.
They were good at taking tests and his exams, just like police departments.
Same way you look at police departments out in that certain stuff.
Pete, I'm going to move on to some other calls and get some more thoughts in.
Robin in Cleveland, Tennessee, Democratic caller.
Robin.
unidentified
Well, he was one contradiction after another because the majority of people that work in those towers are white.
So once we find out that this person that was in that tower was a white person, we're going to slide to something else.
Sal Explains White Supremacy00:10:22
unidentified
We'll make up other excuses for why it is not what it's supposed to be.
And I'm trying to figure out what is wrong with white people.
What is wrong with white people that they think they're the only people that are smart enough to be able to do anything when a black woman invented GPA?
I mean, it's getting to the point where it's ridiculous and it's going to be dangerous.
We're going to have a loan for years because every time something happens, Donald Trump is going to say it was the black or the brown people and the white people are going to believe it.
I think the nominees are mostly, you know, Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard.
I think they're qualified technically based on the jobs they've had.
I don't, RFK, I don't think he's very qualified just because I saw he couldn't really answer questions about Medicare and Medicaid, which is, you know, the majority of what his job is going to be dealing with.
Seemed like he didn't know much about those.
But with Tulsi, you know, you just have to worry about, I think she'll give away some state secrets to Israel's government.
Could happen, some traitorous activity, but our senators don't really care about that.
And so you think she should be confirmed, Anthony?
unidentified
I don't have an opinion on it.
But RFK, you know, he's forget the fluoride out of the water and the poison out of the food.
I'm all for that, yeah.
But what about Trump just announced the AI medical surveillance and the new mRNA shots?
Again, is RFK in favor of the mRNA shots?
So they're actually giving false hope to renegade-minded people, you know, who would be against this kind of technocratic control and the fourth industrial revolution.
Trump supporters should be against that, but they're being lulled into a false sense of hope.
All right, Anthony, they're in Detroit, independent caller, talking about those confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill.
Tulsi Gabbard did sit before the committee yesterday for a confirmation for hearing, her first before the senators, and she was asked repeatedly about her past statements.
Here's what she had to say about some of the reporting and the criticism she's received.
I want to warn the American people who are watching at home.
You may hear lies and smears in this hearing that'll challenge my loyalty to and my love for our country.
Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience, and the Constitution of the United States.
Accusing me of being Trump's puppet, Putin's puppet, Assad's puppet, a guru's puppet, Modi's puppet, not recognizing the absurdity of simultaneously being the puppet of five different puppet masters.
The same tactic was used against President Trump and failed.
The American people elected President Trump with a decisive victory and mandate for change.
The fact is, what truly unsettles my political opponents is I refuse to be their puppet.
I have no love for Assad or Gaddafi or any dictator.
I just hate al-Qaeda.
I hate that we have leaders who cozy up to Islamist extremists, minimizing them to so-called rebels.
Yeah, I just wanted to say I think President Trump did a heck of a job explaining.
I watched what he said.
I listened, and he did a heck of a job explaining that.
Explaining what part, Sal about how they explained how the helicopter was on the same level in the air as the plane, and it shouldn't have been.
And he said he could have had night vision, some kind of goggles on, maybe they thought maybe he didn't see correctly because he should have seen the plane out the window.
The others reporting on that aspect of it in the papers as well, whether or not the pilot of the helicopter was wearing these night vision goggles, which would have, if they were, it might have obstructed their sight.
unidentified
Yes.
And I was watching that.
My mind says the poor people died a bad accident.
I think they shouldn't have that military helicopter base near the planes.
It shouldn't be in that location.
I think that's a bad idea.
And I just was sad about hearing Chuck Schumer throwing insults about the president already instead of worried about getting on the same page and worried about getting his country and getting things rolling in this country instead of always having negativity to say about the president.
And I watched the three nominees.
I missed Kelsey Gabbert didn't come on C-SPAN one or two.
All right, Sal there, New Jersey, Republican caller.
The tense back and forth exchanges that we saw on Capitol Hill yesterday.
Here's one of them before the Senate Health Committee, the ranking member, Senator Bernie Sanders, and the nominee Robert F. Kennedy to serve as Health and Human Services Secretary over campaign donations from pharmaceutical industry.
So I think in many ways President Trump and Mr. Kennedy have asked some of the right questions.
Problem is their answers will only make a bad situation worse.
So let me ask Mr. Kennedy again: if we want to make America healthy, will you assure the American people that you will fight to do what every other major country on earth does, guarantee health care to every single American?
From the Senate Health Committee yesterday on Capitol Hill, one of those moments between RFK Jr., the nominee to serve as the Health and Human Services Secretary, and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders.
We're getting your reaction to the confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill, not only for RFK Jr., but Kash Patel to serve as FBI Director and Tulsi Gabber to serve as the Director of National Intelligence.
We also yesterday had the tragic news of that plane crash that happened here in the Washington area that left 67 people dead, no survivors, and an investigation underway.
President Trump responded twice to the tragedy from the White House yesterday.
And, Ted, what about the added element of military helicopters doing exercises in and around the same airspace?
unidentified
Yes, we have, I was in the Air Force during the Vietnam War.
And there are so many Air Force bases around this country that those choppers can be doing their practices with.
And you're right.
They don't have to be near the civilian airports.
It's just there are so many Air Force bases and an Army bases they could be doing this practicing in.
And as a former pilot, I get it.
I understand.
I've been there, done that.
I would like to say something about the nominees for the posts.
I lived after I got out of the Air Force and the Vietnam War was over, I came to Hawaii and I lived within 10 to 12 miles of where Tulsi Gabbard grew up and lived her life in Hawaii on the Kona coast of the Big Island.
And I feel very bad that I voted for her when she was going into lower offices.
Let's go to Mike, Stockton, California, Independent.
Good morning to you, Mike.
unidentified
Good morning, Greta.
It's interesting, the last commenter mentioned Tulsi Gabbard.
I was very impressed with her performance yesterday, and I thought she handled some unfair questions as well as could be handled, particularly by Senator Michael Bennett.
I looked him up.
He's a Yale law graduate, so I'm not that surprised at him demanding four or five times that she declare Edward Snowden a traitor.
Edward, I guess it's Edward Snowden.
And, you know, he hasn't been convicted of anything.
Jonathan Turley appears on C-SPAN from time to time.
He's written some articles how up in the air, whether he's a traitor or not, it's a very convoluted legal situation.
He's calling for a legal conclusion.
Tulsi smartly avoided that after being baited.
She focused on the Constitution, Fourth Amendment rights, and that was the proper response.
So far, I think she's done a terrific job in the question and answer.
RFK, people are criticizing him because he wasn't familiar with the dual funding of Medicaid by federal and state agencies.
He was asked how many babies were born with Medicaid assistance.
He guessed 30 million.
Turned out from that senator who asked the question that it was only $1.5 million.
That means nothing in terms of competence.
Maybe he should have been prepped a little bit better on the administrative access.
He's a trial, a successful trial lawyer, and he's incredibly bright, and he is focused on issues that this country should have addressed years ago.
He's a first-rate guy, as far as I can see from his performance.
And then the other candidate, I think, is Patel.
He also has done well, and he sticks.
He's very close and listens very carefully to the questions.
And in each case, he's knocking it out of the park.
I am not a Trump fan.
For him to, off the cup on this aircraft, say that, oh, it must be DEI.
I'm a white person, and I'm hearing these comments from other people, and I'm saying, what the hell is wrong with us?
Why he, it doesn't help him or the country to shoot from the hip and make guesses.
I've already seen videos on the internet, and that helicopter and those helicopters can be autonomous.
We've all assumed that there's three people on this helicopter.
That hasn't been established in an investigation is forthcoming.
These can be autonomous helicopters, and there were three or four, there were three or four close crashes with other airlines, with other jets, before we had this collision between the helicopter and the American Eagle flight.
All right, Mike sightings, I'm reporting this morning about some close calls before what happened on Wednesday night.
I want to pick up on what he said about the confirmation hearing for Kash Patel.
Go back to that hearing and show you this exchange between the nominee for FBI director and Delaware Democrat Chris Coons on maintaining independence from the White House.
If FBI agents brought to you a factual legal basis, predication, and you are about to refer it to a prosecutor, and you get a call from the White House saying, don't proceed.
I think you answered it partially in your question.
The line agents, the brick agents who are trained to bring investigations on behalf of the FBI will make that decision-making process, and they will only have my full support so long as it upholds absolutely every value of the Constitution.
So your predecessor, I went back and looked, and I asked the same questions of Director Comey and Director Wray.
Director Wray, quoting former Attorney General Bell, said, you should be willing to resign if necessary over conduct if you press to engage in it that's unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.
So your predecessors in this role have been clear that they would be willing to resign if forced or directed to do something unethical or illegal.
I'll proceed.
One of your past statements that's concerned me, it's both a post on Truth Social and something you said in a podcast, the Sean Morgan report, that your predecessor, Chris Wray, has broken the law.
We need to prosecute him.
The FBI should go after people like him.
And the month before this, in July 2023, you said there should be a criminal referral for FBI Director Wray.
If confirmed, are you going to follow through on these previous statements that Director Wray needs to be prosecuted?
Senator, this reminds me of the conversation you and I had, which I greatly appreciated.
There is enough violent crime in this country and enough national security threats in this country that the FBI is going to be busy going forward preventing 100,000 overdoses, 100,000 rapes, and 17,000 homicides.
We agree that prosecuting violent crime should be the principal focus of the FBI.
What I'm trying to get to, Mr. Patel, is a whole series of very troubling to me and many other statements you've made about instead using it to pursue those who might be viewed as political opponents.
Kash Patel and Senator Chris Coons on independence from the White House.
That was from yesterday's confirmation hearing, and we covered it here on C-SPAN.
You can find it in its entirety at c-span.org or our free video mobile app, C-SPAN now.
Rose in Janesville, Wisconsin, Democratic caller, that confirmation hearing, along with two others, and the collision that happened here in Washington, all part of our conversation this morning on the Washington Journal.
I'm a little bit nervous here, but I got so much stuff to say.
Why doesn't our country come to a conclusion that there is no racist?
There is racist in this country.
Our president of our United States is causing racists in this country.
We need, I see you smiling.
An accident yesterday morning.
I think it's awful that our country fights over something like this, a tragedy, and point fingers at each other.
This has got to stop, Greta, before somebody gets really hurt or somebody.
The Congress wants more flights out of that airport.
That airport is too small.
Make it larger.
The infrastructure thing was supposed to be doing all this stuff.
And now we're right back into the pointing fingers added to it in this country.
I don't care if you're independent, Democratic, Republican, whatever you are, black, white, brown, and Donald Trump deporting all these Mexicans is ridiculous.
He lets people out of their prisons, and here we're having Mexicans that are working trying to make a living in this country.
The honest ones are getting deported.
This is awful.
So please, Greta, take a different stance with Donald Trump because he is nothing good for this country.
He's dividing the country.
Ever since he came in the picture, we're fighting.
Donna in Hanover, Pennsylvania, Democratic caller.
Donna.
unidentified
Good morning.
I agree with the last caller.
I had kind of turned out of watching the news cycle because it's just got exhausting ever since Trump won.
But I was on my way to work.
I work at night.
I was watching Rachel Maddow.
I hadn't watched her in a while.
And the breaking news comes in about the crash.
And I'm like devastated.
Then the next day, Trump gives a press conference.
I said, you know what?
Let me watch it.
Let me just see.
How do you go from having a moment of silence for the people that died in this horrible accident to saying and blaming that this was the cause of diversity, equity, and inclusion?
It is disrespectful.
It is despicable.
And it's horrible.
Maggie On DEI Accidents00:04:49
unidentified
I just don't know what to say about this man.
He's horrible.
He shouldn't be in office.
It amazes me that America voted this man back in office.
If he's not capable, what makes you think the people that he wants to pick are capable?
I was hoping at work we're trying to offload a truck.
Okay, so I have a lot to say about the CEI.
Sorry, of course, when I go in to help, that's what happens.
So I think the biggest thing that I hope people ask themselves when they hear this that DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion could be the culprit for this accident.
I implore people to push their questioning further in the sense that most people look to race to see that that's like the avenue of diversity that is the problem.
When you examine race, it is essentially a way that we've organized people and looked at our genetic biomes of how we have evolved as people.
So as a white person, my ancestors came from Northeastern America.
As compared to my friends from Ethiopia, they have different skin colors.
They have different, it's all just a matter of what you've taken in genetically.
And so why are we stopping at skin color?
I could ask people to press the question further and say, okay, if we believe that melanin in our skin can contribute to people's lack of education or lack of understanding and causing accidents, wouldn't we say brown hair is a pigment or something that could affect someone's intelligence, someone that has brown eyes, you know?
And no one wants to ask that question.
And I'm sure a lot of people, when you hear that, you go, oh my God, that makes no sense.
I'm going to go on to John who's a Republican in Georgia.
John, good morning to you.
unidentified
Good morning.
I would like to talk about Kash Patel's nomination hearing.
I think it's rather hypocritic for Senator Coons to ask Kash Patel if he would resign if asked to do something he thought was illegal.
When you had James Comey file Donald Trump's campaign without legal means to do so before he was elected, he set up sting operations on his campaign before he was elected without legal means to do so.
Peter Strzok sends a message to his then-girlfriend, Lisa Pay, saying they have a backup plan, referring to a plan to make sure Trump doesn't win.
An FBI agent changes a message about Carter Page being a CIA asset to him not being a CIA asset, and he spends 12 months in prison for that.
Then after Trump is elected, James Comey takes his notes from that meeting, sends them to a friend of his so that they can go public for the purpose of instituting or beginning the Mueller investigation.
And then fast forward to 2020, the FBI works with the Democratic Party to go through Twitter and Facebook to take down messages regarding the laptop.
CIA agents, FBI agents write the letter about the laptop, knowing all along that it's not true.
And you had Deputy Assistant Director of the CIA, Morrell, testify in front of Congress that the purpose of that letter was to help Joe Biden win.
I'm calling in, and I'd like to give a view from 30,000 feet instead of 350 feet above the earth.
White House Funding Freeze00:08:54
unidentified
The main thing I want to emphasize is this.
There was probably maybe less than 100 killed on the crash, which is a real disaster.
But if you take a real perspective, you divide 900,000 babies that are aborted every year, and you figure that out per day, and it comes down to a figure of 30 plane crashes per day of unborn babies going into the Potomac.
So we need to take a look at where our real big losses are.
And another thing, I am a senior citizen, and everybody's worried about Medicare and Social Security.
But if we would have all of the 70 million little babies that have grown up, we would have surpluses in our Medicare and Social Security account, and we would be in perfect shape as a country.
Instead, we have used our money to raise dogs and cats and buy tinker toys from China.
An update for all of you this morning in the Washington Post about the funding freeze that happened in this new White House.
This is from the Politics and the Nation section of the Washington Post.
White House regroups after chaotic funding freeze.
From the Washington Post reporting, by the time the White House rescheduled or rescinded, excuse me, the freeze on Wednesday, the scare had briefly disrupted Medicaid payments, senior meals, special education, and housing stipends.
It also punctured the sense of accomplishment among Trump officials eager to take the levers of power in a more orderly and effective manner than last time.
The president blamed the rescinding of the freeze on media coverage, but Republican lawmakers said a surge of constituent concerns created pressure for the reversal.
And Democrats, who spent their first week locked out of power, struggled to keep up with the onslaught of executive actions and upheavals.
They declared victory for dealing the new president his first setback.
Related to the controversy over the funding freeze and the rescinding of it, Senate Democrats yesterday boycotted a committee vote on the nomination of Russell Vogt to serve as the budget director in the Trump presidency in this second term.
Here's the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee talking about why Democrats are united against vote's confirmation.
Mr. Vogt has done so many things that make him dangerously unfit.
He illegally held up military aid for Ukraine, contributing to President Trump's first impeachment.
He coordinated an order at the end of the last Trump administration to strip civil service protections from tens of thousands of nonpartisan, dedicated, capable American government employees.
He was thwarted only by the failure of President Trump to win re-election.
He supports prosecuting the officials who investigated President Trump.
He advocates for that very same discredited impoundment strategy he used on Ukraine.
He wants to transfer the power of the purse as constitutionally given to Congress to the president so the president can decide how much goes to each program.
This is both breaking the law and the Constitution.
He promotes using the military to quell domestic unrest.
He calls for drugs used and medical abortions to be banned and for abortion itself to be banned without exception, without exception for rape or incest or the life of the mother.
His vision of an all-powerful president is complete at odds with the Constitution's separation of powers, is completely at odd with the Constitution's checks and balances.
So we stand here to say that not only are his policies a threat to the programs that serve families all across America, but in fact, he is a dangerous threat to our constitutional system of representative democracy.
Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley there talking about why Democrats were united in opposition against Russell Vogt serving as the budget director in this White House.
He was approved out of the budget committee despite the Democrats boycotting that vote 11 to 0.
So that nomination moves forward to the Senate floor.
Well, there will be some procedural hurdles for that nominee as there have been for others in these first few days of the Trump administration.
Stephanie in Montclair, New Jersey, a Democratic caller.
Stephanie, we're talking about the news cycle here in Washington over the last 24 hours.
Your thoughts?
unidentified
Okay, first of all, DEI has nothing to do, it's not about race.
It's about equality for black, brown, women, and those with disabilities, okay?
Getting a fair shot.
That's what the DEI is about.
Secondly, Trump, Obama put in place the DEI proposal.
Okay.
Trump didn't do away with it when he was in office.
What does a true Republican mean versus a mega-Republican?
unidentified
I just don't follow everything that this president says that comes out of his mouth.
And also, these other Republican accomplishments that supports him, they only support him because of the fact that they don't want their families to go through death threats.
That's the only reason why they support him.
Why put their families to death threats?
And also, the DEI.
It's too complicated for some people.
They just don't want to do some critical thinking to think about the DEI.
When we come back, we'll be joined by Akash Chogole from the group Americans for Prosperity.
We'll hear about the group's push to extend President Trump's tax cuts.
That conversation coming up after this short break.
unidentified
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Important public affairs events throughout the day.
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American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2.
Exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
This weekend at 3 p.m. Eastern, we'll bring you the military commissioning ceremony for Harriet Tubman, given posthumously by the Maryland National Guard.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore also spoke at the event.
At 5:30 p.m. Eastern, Michael Tackett looks back on the career and legacy of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, who stepped down as Senate Republican leader at the end of the 118th Congress.
Mr. Tackett is the Deputy Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Associated Press and author of a new biography on Senator McConnell titled The Price of Power.
And at 7 p.m. Eastern, American History TV begins a new series looking at the first 100 days of past presidential terms.
This week, we focus on the early months of President George Washington's first term in 1789, including the establishment of the Office of the President, the formation of a cabinet, and the first judicial appointments.
Then at 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures in History, College of William and Mary lecturer Amy Stallings discusses the history of the 1607 Jamestown settlement in Virginia and efforts over the four centuries to preserve and remember the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.
Exploring the American story.
Watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/slash history.
In his latest book titled Wasteland, author Robert Kaplan focuses on the importance of technology on determining the world's future.
Kaplan, author of 24 books, holds the chair in geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Institute.
In the chapter number three, in his 177-page book, Kaplan claims: Civilization is now in flux.
The ongoing decay of the West is manifested not only in racial tensions coupled with new barriers to free speech, but in the deterioration of dress codes, the erosion of grammar, the decline in sales of serious books and classical music, and so on.
All of which have traditionally been signs of civilization.
unidentified
Author Robert Kaplan talks about his book, Wasteland: A World in Permanent Crisis, on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host Brian Lamb.
BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Democracy.
It isn't just an idea.
It's a process.
A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles.
It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted.
Democracy in real time.
This is your government at work.
This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered.
We are the largest conservative grassroots advocacy organization in the country.
We have more than 4 million activist members across all 50 states.
We have 38 physical state chapters, and we are 24-7, 365 all across the country, educating, activating average, everyday citizens, and giving them the tools they need to make a difference in their government at the local, state, and federal level, holding lawmakers accountable for bad policy and helping to push good policy like the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
So the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was a resounding success.
I mean, it reduced the average family tax burden by $2,000.
6 million Americans were lifted from poverty from 2017 to 2019.
We hit the lowest poverty rate the country has ever seen, record low unemployment for black, Hispanic, Americans without a high school degree.
The economic opportunity that was created in this country was absolutely a smashing success from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
However, key provisions of that law expire at the end of this year.
In particular, the individual side tax cuts, the taxes for American families.
If those expire this year, families will face tax hikes as much as $2,400 a year in Pennsylvania, $3,500 a year in Nevada.
The path-through deduction that a lot of small businesses benefit from expires if not extended at the end of the year.
So this campaign is going to include ads, stories, door knocking, mails, employer roundtables, basically with two goals in mind.
One, make sure the American people know that those tax cuts are expiring and give them the tools to take action in Congress to urge their lawmakers to set their priorities straight to make sure that the number one priority in these conversations in Congress is to extend those low tax rates.
We are never going to tax our way into prosperity.
It's been well established.
You've talked about it on your show.
The main driver of our spending is an enormous growth in spending, particularly on entitlement programs, mandatory spending programs, debt interest.
Just to give you a little sort of picture, Greta, President Biden alone in four years spent $5 trillion in additional borrowing.
That is more than three times the 10-year cost of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
And in President Biden's instance, much of that spending was to benefit his special interest allies, the green energy movement, labor unions, trial lawyers.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act simply allowed the American people to keep more of their money, as I discussed, benefited people all across the socioeconomic ladder, created economic opportunity.
And so government is badly in need of spending cuts, but raising taxes on the American people is not how we address the deficit.
We've been critical of the overspending from both parties.
I think President Biden, President Trump, President Obama, going back to President Bush, there's really been no one party at fault for Washington's overspending.
It's something that we've had a strong track record on going back, like I said, two decades.
And again, it's something that we're working hard, frankly, with both parties, not just on cutting spending, but reforming our federal budget process to get this under control because it is, in our opinion, the most serious long-term issue facing the country.
But what we can do this year is continue to keep these tax cuts in place for the American people because they've already been hit by an inflation crisis driven by overspending.
The last thing they need is a tax increase on top of that.
Yeah, again, spending is a major, major problem in this country.
Until Congress gets serious about addressing the major drivers of our spending, which is those mandatory spending programs, health care entitlements, debt interest, this problem is going to continue to be an issue.
Taxes are not the driver of our deficits and debts.
Tax cuts are a driver of economic growth, which is absolutely essential, frankly, to addressing those debts and deficits.
And again, if you just look at history, not only with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, but even previous rounds of tax cuts under President Bush, President Reagan, government revenues after those tax cuts actually exceeded the pre-tax cut projections for government revenue.
And so economic growth is a driver of increased revenue without increasing taxes on the American people if tax reform is done properly.
We think that's an essential part of addressing these debts and deficits.
But ultimately, spending cuts are not only largely often good policy, but to your point, essential to addressing the country's overspending problem.
Look, our priority is that Congress pass the most pro-growth tax bill they can put together and get to the president's desk.
The spending conversation is a different conversation than tax policy conversations.
There are plenty of spending cuts to be had across the federal government that may or may not save enormous sums of money, but are good policy.
They're things government is either not doing properly, should be doing less of, shouldn't be doing at all, or as I mentioned, there are systemic reforms government can pursue.
We encourage Congress to do so.
But frankly, there are a number of inflection points to cut spending this year.
There's the annual appropriations fight, there's a farm bill, there's a debate over the debt limit.
And so if Congress is in fact serious about cutting spending, which we hope that they are, there are plenty of inflection points to do so.
The focus on this tax bill needs to be making sure that it's as pro-growth as it can possibly be and keeps rates low on American families and businesses.
Punchbowl News reporting this morning that Speaker Johnson has a problem within his party over how to move on extending these 2017 tax cuts.
They report that rank-and-file House Republicans feel as if they have no idea where the reconciliation process is going.
It seems exceedingly unlikely that Republicans will be able to craft a single package that lifts the SALT cap, extends the Trump tax cuts, slashes the corporate tax rate from 21 to 15 percent, eliminates taxes on tips, social security, and overtime, fixes the border, and boosts military spending while also cutting social spending.
I believe 13 Republicans voted against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Last time we have narrower majorities.
No one said governing is easy, but we're optimistic about Speaker Johnson and Republicans' ability to get this done for no other reason that they need to, right?
There's a real inflection point at the end of the year, which is that if they fail to do so, their constituents' taxes are going to go up.
There are trade-offs to all these policies.
People are going to have to give and take a little bit here and there.
But again, our priority is making sure that the low tax rates that were a result of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act stay in place.
We understand that there's going to be give and take as far as our priorities as well, but that's really where our focus is with this campaign.
Yeah, so what we've heard so far is they're looking at a two-prong approach, the first prong being border policy and energy policy and then holding taxes until the end of the year.
We're frankly agnostic on when they do so, whether it's one bill or it's two bills.
The House does seem to be coalescing around this one bill strategy and likely to be the first ones to take a swing at it.
And so again, like I said, we're optimistic about Speaker Johnson's ability to get this done.
He's a limited government conservative through and through.
He understands what needs to get done, has the right priorities, and we believe the tools and the skills to get it through the House.
And again, we're optimistic that that could get through the Senate and eventually be signed by the President.
And so again, while we don't have a position on whether it should be one bill or two, we're optimistic about where the process is right now.
Yeah, so that's a good question and one that comes up a lot.
I think this conversation about sort of the rich paying their fair share, there's a lot of, I think, misconceptions, Greta, around this.
We never hear a definition of what the fair share actually is.
The top 1% in this country earn about 30%, almost 30% of income, and they pay more than half of all federal income tax or about half of all federal income tax.
And so no matter what group of people towards the top you're talking about, without fail, they pay a much larger portion of federal income tax than the portion of income that they earn.
So we already have a very progressive tax code and the TCJA actually made the income tax code more progressive.
The rich pay a larger share of taxes today than they did prior to that tax bill being passed.
Yeah, I think there's lower rates across the board thanks to the TCJA.
But again, they pay a larger share of the overall burden today than they did prior to the TCJA.
That top rate came down.
Rates came down across the board.
We think that's good policy.
The standard deduction was doubled under the TCJA.
That's kind of like a tax cut from the bottom.
And so, again, this created economic opportunity for Americans from all socioeconomic statuses across the country because of the pro-growth nature and broad base of these tax cuts.
Keith, how did you benefit, you personally, from the 2017 tax cut?
unidentified
I benefited greatly.
You know, before I could live life without no help without going to food banks, because thanks to tax cuts, not as much tax has been coming out of me, you know, making like $2,000, $3,000 a month, and I'll bring it home like maybe half of that, it seems like.
At the very least, we want to extend the existing tax cuts.
And he addressed something I think is a very, very important point, Creta, which is that inflation is a tax on the American people.
And under President Biden, we had the worst inflation this country has seen in 40 years.
The average American family at the end of President Biden's term was spending $12,000 more per year to afford the same quality of life as they had the day President Biden took office.
$12,000 more per year to afford the same quality of life because of that inflation crisis.
And that's why you see 76% of Americans say now is a bad time to raise taxes.
That includes 65% of Democrats think now is a bad time to raise taxes.
So the American people have really taken it on the chin.
We want to make sure they don't get another cost of living increase with the expiration of these tax cuts.
And Keith touched on a really important point, again, which is that people were being lifted up from the bottom up.
6 million Americans were lifted up out of poverty thanks to these tax cuts, the regulatory reforms, and other pro-growth measures from 2017 and beyond.
I believe that the politicians of both parties really use these very different deductions and very complicated process to manipulate voters, to manipulate what money goes to individual constituents that are sometimes a very, very tiny percentage of the overall taxpayers.
unidentified
And I believe if it was a much more transparent system and understandable, people would not have such an issue or claim you're paying my share or I'm paying your fair share.
And secondarily to that, I would be encouraged if there was a way that there was something posted that individually showed what taxes were paid.
And maybe there is, and you can educate me on that.
Yeah, to your first question, this is a really important point.
And again, something where the TCJA made progress, but there's plenty more progress to be made, which is getting rid of these deductions, tax credits, things like that.
They too often result in corporate cronyism, giveaways to special interest groups, things like that.
We are for eliminating many of those, almost all of them, frankly, because as you mentioned, the rest of the country ends up picking up the tab for that lost revenue in the form of higher taxes.
Now, TCJA made some progress there.
The other place the TCJA did a lot to simplify the code was by doubling the standard deduction.
Now, as a result of doubling the standard deduction, sorry, 29 million households newly take that standard deduction.
There was a 75% decrease in middle-class families who were forced to itemize.
That resulted in thousands and thousands of hours saved with tax compliance and $5 billion in savings for tax compliance.
Again, that was a really important reform to simplify the code as well as to make it more pro-growth.
We'll hear from Jackie next, who's in New Jersey, Democratic caller.
Hi, Jackie.
unidentified
Hi, good morning, Greta and Akash.
I have a question related to what would happen to the economy if the tariffs kick in against China, I mean, Canada and Mexico, who, of course, everyone knows makes a lot of parts used in American manufacturing, and the tax cuts bill that's being proposed doesn't pass, considering the inflation.
They can raise costs on the American people, especially broad-based tariffs kind of across the board on everything coming from Mexico, everything coming from Canada.
We're concerned about those proposals.
But again, certain situations where the president is looking, there perhaps is some justification for special tools that the executive branch has at its disposal, excuse me.
For example, specific industries that are, you know, America is too heavily reliant on China, things that have to do with our national defense, our national security.
It's very reasonable to think that the president should use some tools at his disposal for instances like that.
We want to do so in a way that isn't broad-based, doesn't raise costs on the American people.
But ultimately, what Congress can do, what Americans Prosperity is focused on, is extending these tax cuts so that the American people avoid a tax increase.
And I think one of the other important principles there, Greta, that the caller is alluding to is avoiding any kind of tax increase on the American people.
Last time around, there was a little bit of debate over a proposal that people call the border adjustment tax.
It would have been a trillion-dollar tax hike on consumers.
It would have raised costs on retailers, on domestic manufacturers that rely on foreign parts.
And so, look, there's a lot that we can do to make America more competitive and stronger on the global scale.
Raising taxes on families and businesses is not the way to do so.
They say President Donald Trump said his 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico are coming on Saturday, but he's still considering whether to include oil from those countries as part of his import tax.
The President said his decision will be based on whether the price of oil charged by the two trading partners is fair, although the basis of his threatened tariffs pertains to stopping illegal immigration and the smuggling of chemicals used for fentanyl.
Peter in New York, Republican.
Hi, Peter.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'd like to make a couple of points, if you allow me.
If they extended the 2017 tax cuts, that's already baked in.
So only if they changed the tax cuts, like for instance, the corporate tax from 21 to 15%, then there would be some other implications regarding that.
But the 2017 tax cuts were baked in already.
In 2017, the federal government brought in $3.33 trillion of money.
In 2023, it brought in $4.8 trillion.
The corporate tax, which was 39%, they reduced it to 21%.
In 2017, it brought in $225 billion.
The recent numbers showed that that number went up to over $500 billion.
They don't use dynamic scoring when they talk about these tax cuts, and they assume that the amount of tax revenue that is brought in is going to stay the same with the regular scoring that they use.
If you use dynamic scoring, it actually brings more revenue in.
So that's something that he needs to explain regarding this issue.
Yeah, another super, super important point, and I appreciate the call.
Again, for folks outside of Washington, this can get a little bit complicated, but the official scorekeeper in Congress is a body called the Congressional Budget Office.
When they assess policy changes like tax cuts, what the caller is referring to with static scoring is what is the impact on government revenue because of these tax cuts.
Tax cuts by nature would decrease revenue, obviously.
But what the caller is referring to with dynamic scoring is that because the tax cuts create economic growth, it creates more revenue, more tax receipts for the government because more people are working, companies are earning more and therefore paying more in taxes.
That's a really, really important point and something that we hope Congressional Republicans are very thoughtful about, taking into account that CBO does not have a strong track record with dynamic scoring.
Other organizations on the outside, whether it's think tanks, the UPenn model, other universities, other organizations have done dynamic scoring and showing exactly what the caller is referring to, which is that pro-growth tax cuts can drive greater revenue for the federal government.
Again, as I mentioned, we've seen that with the 2017 tax cuts in previous rounds as well, that revenue exceeded pre-tax cut expectations.
We'll hear from Stephen next in Indianapolis, Democratic caller.
unidentified
And please give me a little time.
I want to make sure I get my point across here.
I am a member of a large group of Americans out here.
And that group happened to do with senior citizen.
I'm also a member of a group who are on disability.
Now, I became disabled in my 40s, and now I'm in my 70s.
And I'm listening to you speak of this tax cut, how it's going to benefit everyone.
Trump last tax cut did not benefit me.
All of my friends, both black and white, I'm black American, black and white, we all say the same thing.
We have not, or we did not benefit from Trump's tax cut.
So this is where the rubber meets the road now.
Could you simplify how am I and millions of my friends out here who are senior citizens and those who are disabled or blind or otherwise, how is this tax going to benefit us?
And please keep it simple.
Remember, a lot of us have that little disturbance nowadays.
You know, let us feel a touch of the Alzheimer's or something.
The first is that One of the things that could have been done better following that tax bill was educating the American people on the changes they actually experienced.
The fact of the matter is that the vast, vast majority of the American people got a tax cut.
More than 80% of all Americans saw their taxes cut.
Even the Biden administration, Janet Yellen, acknowledged that.
The New York Times had a headline that said, face it, you probably got a tax cut from this legislation, the Washington Post, you name it.
That's been well established, but I think because of the timing and events that took place thereafter, many Americans are not aware that they actually received a tax cut.
So I think if you go and look at your tax bill from 2017, 2016, 2017 versus your tax bill from 2018 to 2019, like I said, the vast majority of Americans would see that their tax rate actually fell.
I can't, of course, speak to your particular situation, but those are the facts.
And I think it's important that we not let that expire because as I mentioned, that would be a massive tax increase on the American people, more than $2,000 in most states.
So, look, the fact of the matter is that the facts do not bear out the point this caller is making about this particular legislation.
In 2018 and 2019 alone, median household income, so essentially the well-being of the average family, grew more than $6,000.
It hit an all-time high in 2018.
The average American family was wealthier and more prosperous in the two years after this tax cut than at any point in the history of our country.
That growth in 2018 and 2019 was more than the previous 10 years combined.
I think one of the misconceptions, again, that people have is that, for example, when you cut taxes on employers, it actually benefits workers, it benefits consumers.
That's something that economists from both sides agree on because the burden of the corporate tax, for example, is borne by the American people in the form of lower wages, higher costs, and lower returns for investors.
So think your 401k, for example.
Ultimately, this bill created a pro-growth environment by reforming both the corporate side as well as the individual income tax side.
And as I mentioned, it actually made the tax code more progressive.
The top 1% paid about 39% of federal income tax in 2017.
They paid 42% in 2018.
And so if your issue is making sure that people are being lifted up from the bottom, this bill not only, as I mentioned, lifted 6 million people out of poverty alongside other reforms.
The rich are paying a greater share than they were prior to this legislation, and it actually shrank income inequality growth.
And because the growth was disproportionately benefiting people at the bottom, income and wealth inequality shrank in the years following this legislation because it did what it was intended to do, which is create opportunity and uplift the American people from the bottom up.
When we come back, we'll talk with Dr. Georges Benjamin, American Public Health Association Executive Director.
We'll talk about the Trump administration and public health policies.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
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Democracy.
It isn't just an idea.
It's a process.
A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles.
It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted.
Democracy in real time.
This is your government at work.
This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered.
There are people that work at state and local health departments, teach and do research at our nation's academic health centers, public interest groups like members of the Heart Association and Diabetes Association, and other nonprofits that are interested in health, a lot of them small.
HHS is almost a $2 trillion agency with 80,000 employees and 13 operating divisions.
It covers everything from before you're born to when you pass away.
And it's complex.
And he, at most, has managed a couple organizations on their board, I think at their peak with a $25,000, $30 million budget, which is really even what we call a rounding error in the budget for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Critics of RFK Jr. from his testimony this week on Capitol Hill believe he does not know how Medicare and Medicaid work.
Do you share that concern?
And what do you point to from his testimony?
unidentified
Oh, absolutely.
He confused Medicare with Medicaid.
Of course, you know, Medicare is our nation's program for seniors, people basically over age 65 and older.
Medicaid is one of the many programs that we have for people whose incomes are around 138% of the federal poverty level.
And it doesn't have premiums.
It doesn't have very many co-payments, if any.
Sometimes you have to pay a co-payment for some medications, but it's like a dollar or two.
He talked, you know, disparagingly about the outcomes, the clinical outcomes from the Medicaid program.
It turns out that if you have Medicaid, you actually get pretty good coverage.
You got extraordinary benefits.
And all the studies that look at Medicaid show that it improves our health.
And we have to have a natural experiment in our country where we have 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid.
And when you compare the health care outcomes from those states that have expanded Medicare, I'm sorry, expanded, I'm doing it now myself, expanded Medicaid versus those states that have not expanded Medicaid, you get better outcomes in those states that have expanded Medicaid.
I'm referring to the first Trump administration, Alex Azar, who served then as Health and Human Services Secretary.
When it comes to public health policy, what are you watching during these first few days of the Trump administration?
unidentified
You know, the challenge and the tragedy here is that it's been absolute chaos.
You know, it took them a while to name acting directors, but I think some of the most damaging things is that they have stopped communication of people in the agency, even routine communications, sharing of information, sharing data.
We hear they're scrubbing websites and taking things off of websites.
You know, we're in the middle of a H5, a major H5N1, that's bird flu outbreak, and yet the proper data that needs to go out to the states for them to manage the outbreak is not happening really in a meaningful way.
They stopped all funding the other day.
As you know, it was a big boohaha about that.
We were one of the organizations that did sue them and to get them to rescind that.
That process is still going on.
But while they partially pulled back that information, they've made it more confusing.
And they actually sent out notices just the other day telling for all work to stop on any diversity, equity, and inclusion grants.
So they just made the problem more confusing and people really don't know what to do.
And that is at not just the federal level, but that's at the state and local level.
On H5N1, why is this an important issue for the public health and their safety?
unidentified
Well, you know, obviously bird flu can be a very lethal infection.
So we're very worried that it will mutate to a form that will be spread person to person and of course, you know, kill lots of people.
We're very, very worried about that because we know that that's the trajectory of bird flu.
We've seen that, you know, type of outbreak before.
And of course, we just got over COVID, which was a very, very bad outbreak.
But I think the other thing is, just think about the number of farmers in middle America and in California who are losing their livestock, chickens, ducks, cows, particularly our milk cows, who are being impacted by this.
And if anyone doesn't really understand why they're being impacted, look at the price of eggs and look at the availability of eggs.
This administration needs to get their hands around this in an all-of-government response or it's going to get worse.
People is a problem for sure.
I worry about the people.
That's the one I really worry about the most.
But right now, the livelihood of so many Americans in middle America is being impacted, and they are at sleep at the switch.
You know, they need civil society to make this happen.
They've frozen a lot of the funds that people need to make this happen.
They haven't, they're, you know, sitting on the data that we need to make data-driven decisions.
You know, they've not filled, as far as I know, the Pandemic Preparedness Office, which is the single point of contact to create an all-of-government response to these kinds of infectious outbreaks.
I am concerned about our nutrition for our children.
My parents had a daycare, and I ran the CACFP program, which I'm sure our guest is familiar with.
But that program is mandated in daycares, but it's only offered K through 12.
So somewhere, and then in the fall of 2008, we changed SNAP.
We added sugary, soft drinks, cakes, candy, all of that back.
So now we're in a position where we know, we all know anyone in the medical field, we all know that that was a terrible decision.
And as a matter of fact, in the Department of Agriculture, when you go to my plate, you see that we have 20% protein, 20% fruits, 30% grains, 30% vegetables.
So we are, we have to make a major change and we have to change SNAP back to what it was.
But it's going to be so difficult because now that people can buy any foods, and I don't understand why we ever did that or why the public health officials didn't stand up and scream and prevent that from happening.
Yeah, let me thank Deborah for her work and your advocacy.
You're absolutely right.
We did stand up and scream in many quarters.
I can tell you that I remember when Michelle Obama was trying to improve the quality of school lunches in our schools, we got a lot of pushback by that.
And of course, big food is a major political force.
And I know that the president, President Trump, has said he wants to make Americans healthy again.
And that's something that I think everyone in this country can get behind.
But we need to use it in a science-driven way.
And that means we've got to take on big food.
And if we can do that, and some, you know, tobacco and get people more physically active and, you know, get the salt out of our diets, we'll be a lot healthier.
By the way, we've tried to get soda taxes and to try to reduce consumption of sugary beverages.
And we have been stopped in most jurisdictions have tried to do that.
But I applaud you for your efforts.
And I look forward to hopefully working with groups like yours and people like you to make that happen.
Paulie's next in St. Petersburg, Florida, Independent.
unidentified
Hi, Dr. Benjamin.
How you doing?
Hi.
Hi.
My history is my education was in public health way back in the early 90s, mid-90s.
And I went on to work in public health on the border of the United States and Mexico, Nogala specifically.
And that was pre-9-11.
And my experience has been that I worked hard.
I was eager and enthusiastic as a representative for public health at that time, but have been pretty disillusioned by how I've watched things unfold on a macro scale.
It's specifically 9-11.
After that, we developed a, what was a disaster?
There was a massive program that was started down there to deal with like terrorism type thing, bioterrorism, that sort of thing.
And my experience, and this was a good, you know, 30 years ago, was that it was, you know, pretty pathetic.
And here we are 30 years later, and now we see, you know, plane disasters, et cetera, et cetera.
And the media will hyper-focus on things of that nature.
But I don't feel like there's anything legitimately actually occurring in the world.
I'm pretty disillusioned.
I think that these confirmation hearings are all performative.
I think that these people are going to get passed through.
It's just drama for the media to waste time and get views, et cetera, et cetera.
I just do not feel like there is any legitimate movement to genuinely protect the health of people, not just in this country, but in the world.
Yeah, you know, I'm an emergency physician, and I was actually the Secretary of Health in Maryland on 9-11 and doing the anthrax letters.
And we have this terrible tendency to, when something bad happens, to throw a lot of money at it for public health.
And then the event goes away, and then the money goes away, and we never build any long-term capacity to address the things that we need to address.
We also don't build long-term capacity.
We make this false trade-off between managing the real leading causes of death that kill us every day, heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, obesity, substance misuse.
And we don't build that infrastructure, and then we trade off.
We play hot potato with the money and move the money around and still building long-term capacity so that we can identify any new threat that enters the community, respond to it in an effective way.
Every new administration that comes in throws out the old people, brings in new people, and don't build on the successes of the old group.
And the truth of the matter is you can never be successful as a nation.
We spend over $5 trillion as a nation on health, and we're at the bottom of the rankings of other industrialized nations.
We actually know the solution to that.
And so my appeal, I think what you're saying is we need to, you know, finally decide seriously we're going to do that.
That does mean some tough political decisions.
In my mind, that means getting the right person at the Department of Health and Human Services who can sit by the president's side and give him the best advice that he can so he can make sound decisions in moving our nation forward.
The health system has been politicized since 1986 when they decided to hold the manufacturers harmless from lawsuit on manufacturing vaccines.
And it's been terrible since then.
It's almost like an oligarchy because now if you get injured by a vaccine, you can't sue in front of a jury of their peers.
You have to go to a special master.
And if he decides to give you some money, it comes out of taxpayer funds.
So we need somebody like Kenny to unravel that rigged system.
And to give you an example of how dangerous the system is, I'd like to know if you're aware in 2014 when the women in Kenya were subjected to a tetanus virus, which was intentionally spiked with an infertility agent.
Worldwide knows about this.
And the Catholic Church of Kenya brought this to light.
And the worst thing is not that they're done, which is terrible to the people in Kenya, but the system.
In other words, you can put anything natural in with a virus, in with a vaccine, and make your body reject something natural.
So now you can develop peanut allergies, you can develop anything.
So I'd like to know your response to that.
Yeah, thank you.
I don't know the particular issue you're talking about.
And I'm always very cautious to do a lot of research before I respond to accusations around that kind of thing.
But in terms of exactly a particular situation with a particular vaccine or experience, let me do say that our nation decided that one of the best ways from a policy perspective to move our nation forward was to have a vaccine compensation program, which is what we do have.
We've got a very robust system to both do studies to make sure vaccines are safe and effective.
Once they're on the market, to do post-market surveillance, it means we follow up on that.
We have a very low bar for reporting things that people might be concerned about.
Those get studied.
And once we do that, then we make informed decisions.
And sometimes we have taken therapeutics, not just vaccines, but other drugs off the market when we've looked at and thought that the risk of someone taking a vaccine or other therapeutic wasn't worth it.
So I think we've got a good system.
My issue with Mr. Kennedy is he's not the right guy to do this.
There are a lot of people who've talked about trying to enhance a vaccine safety system in this country.
Some folks at Johns Hopkins got a series of ideas on how to do it, but he's not the guy to do it.
Dr. Georges Benjamin is our guest here this morning, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association.
Anthony, you are next for our guest in Miller Place, New York, Democratic Color.
unidentified
Dr. Benjamin, can you please explain why Marion Gruber and Philip Krause, senior officials at the Food and Drug Administration, resigned their positions, their tenured positions, due to the implementation and the government overreach by the Biden administration to mandate vaccines for children?
And can you also explain why it is that the Congress and the Senate, as well as their entire staff, are exempted from said vaccines that you seem to want to shove down the throats of the American taxpayers?
My body, my choice.
I refuse to consume vaccinations.
I do not want my health care delivered me by way of a hypodermic needle, sir.
So can you please explain why those senior officials resigned their positions in protest to the Biden administration's government overreach with regard to vaccination children?
Yeah, you know, one of the benefits of being an American is you get to walk, you know, walk with your feet when you disagree with policy.
And so, you know, anyone who wants to do that is certainly welcome to do that.
I was in the camp with people that felt that we should encourage people very strongly to get vaccinations.
And because of the early signs of the morbidity and mortality from the COVID vaccine, I was in the camp and my organization encouraged people very strongly.
And we eventually got into the mandate camp because we were very much concerned about the fact that we would have a real problem.
As you know, we lost over a million people from COVID.
And many of them were people disproportionately from our minority communities.
It does impact kids.
Kids, fortunately, were not as impacted as older adults, but it does absolutely impact kids.
And so we did recommend that children be vaccinated as well.
Yeah, you look, you know, I'm opposed to him, I think, for very concrete reasons.
As I said, not properly trained, doesn't have the management experience, has expressed lots of disinformation.
And I'm in the camp that believes that he was responsible for the outbreak in Samoa, at least partially responsible for that, where there was many, many deaths, including deaths among children.
I think that there are many people who can lead our nation to improve our health.
You know, having had a job like this at the state level, I know the job and I know what qualities it takes to do that job, and I don't think he's the guy.
I agree that we need to pay a lot more attention to chronic diseases, but not at the expense of infectious diseases because they're interlinked.
I also, of course, disagree with him, obviously, on his stand on vaccines.
I disagree with his demonizing federal workers who get up every day and go to work.
I disagree with his assertions around fluoride when used in the proper doses.
I absolutely disagree with his recommendation to drink raw milk in the middle of a bird flu outbreak.
I believe pasteurized products are the safest.
And that's my professional advice, you know, to people.
And, you know, you have a right to do what you do.
I get that.
And I'm not going to tell you not to drink raw milk.
Well, I'm going to tell you not to drink raw milk, but I'm not going to stand in the way and stop you because A, I don't have one of those jobs that I could do that anyway.
But I'm going to give you as much information as I can.
Hopefully you'll make a good decision based on the information I give you that is factual.
And then if you don't, you know, that's up to you.
Okay, I want to ask you, son, you guys are talking about all these, you know, like diseases and stuff, like the vaccines and stuff.
I want to ask you something.
Wouldn't it also be with the weather, you know, the weather that changes and stuff, you know, like the climate change, the air that we breathe, and the oil that is spilled?
Doesn't it got a lot to do with health also, but he still wants to drill, drill, drill, baby?
Dr. Benjamin, what about Carla Dana?
Yeah, climate change is real, is impacting our health today.
Wildfires, intensified hurricanes, floods, you know, severe weather.
This is all because we are burning fossil fuels, increasing carbon in our environment.
And we understand the science.
It's unequivocal right now that this is true.
And it does impact our health.
And so, you know, we still have people living under blue tarts in the southern part of our country because their property was destroyed from the several hurricanes we had last year.
And by the way, hurricane season will come again this year.
I don't know what it will look like, but it will come back this year because it comes every year.
And the wildfires that we saw were the result of this severe drought that they've had on the west coast of our country.
And then, of course, the wildfires, as you know, just devastated and there was a real tragedy.
And we're going to have to do something about that.
But the air that came from that caused numerous respiratory problems in California.
The health department was intimately involved in trying to protect people.
By the way, people were wearing masks.
You know, we had this fight about wearing masks.
Weren't no arguments about wearing masks out west.
And even the wildfires in Canada we had, remember those wildfires we had in Canada last year?
What brought bad air to the northeast part of our country?
Any public policy issue or political one on your mind, you can dial in.
We'll start that conversation in just a minute.
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White House Briefing: Gabbard Hearing Concerns00:09:21
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Joining us this morning from C-SPAN's perch at the White House is Alex Gangitano.
She's the White House reporter for the Hill newspaper.
Alex, let's just talk, start with the beginning here, or the latest, I should say, from President Trump just posting on Truth Social this morning, the Black Hawk helicopter was flying too high by a lot.
It was far above the 200-foot limit.
That's not really too complicated to understand, is it?
What do you make of three question marks following that statement from the president?
So we have been seeing these True Social posts since yesterday and they're popping up that he's been bringing up questions or theories that he has about what happened in this crash.
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And he was asked yesterday, why are you bringing up things before the investigation is over?
And he, you know, kind of pivoted away to say that the investigations are underway, but he does have some questions.
He has been really focused on this helicopter and its flight patterns, which of course all of us are focused on how this could have happened, how the helicopter was able to get that close to the plane.
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Even yesterday when he was taking questions in the Oval Office, he brought up the height of the helicopter.
Should it have gone below the plane, above the plane, to the left, to the right, he said.
And so then him posting about it again on True Social this morning was definitely interesting and shows his fixation on this and kind of pointing fingers at the helicopter pilots as those people that were at fault here.
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Whereas he also has brought up some other areas that he thinks are at fault, meaning like including diversity and inclusion and equity programs in the federal government and air traffic controllers and whatever else.
Anything new from the federal agencies overseeing what happened here, the investigation and the response?
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Yeah, so we know last night they were able to get that, it's called a black box out of the Potomac River.
That will tell us some information about the final moments of the pilots on that American Airlines jet and what they were experiencing.
Otherwise, you know, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegset, newly in the role about a week in, will be the person to answer for how it went with the Army helicopter getting that close to the plane and looking into if trainings should even operate that close to National Airport again.
So we'll hear more, I think, from the military on that front.
But otherwise, it seems like the DC Fire Department, D.C. police, and NTSB are really taking the reins with giving us more and more information as they receive it.
We will have a White House briefing here later today that we might get some more information out of the White House since we heard from the president just this morning on TrueSocial.
Caroline Lovett, briefing this afternoon at 1 p.m. Eastern Time, and we will have live coverage on C-SPAN, c-span.org, and our free video mobile app, C-SPAN Now.
Alex Geddin Getano, the president also named a new interim FAA administrator yesterday.
Who is he and why was there not one in place when this collision occurred?
He said yesterday in his press conference, he was in the briefing room yesterday, as you know, and said that Chris Rochette, who was a deputy administrator at the FAA, will be stepping in as an acting role.
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And the reason that there is not a current FAA administrator in place is because Mike Whitaker, who was just confirmed in October 2023 by the Senate for a five-year term at the head of the FAA, he resigned on inauguration day for Trump.
He actually announced that in December to his team that he would be leaving, didn't want to work under a Trump administration.
So that left a hole.
And part of the reason why he decided to retire is because he said some comments about SpaceX, Elon Musk's company, during a testimony in the House.
And Elon Musk then pushed for him to resign.
He started this kind of pressure campaign to have Whitaker step aside.
And so after then, Trump won the election, he decided to step aside before Trump was sworn in, and he'd be working with Elon Musk around the White House as well.
So a really interesting turn of events that then allowed for there to be no FAA administer in place.
Because again, these are five-year terms.
So he could have stuck around unless the president decided to push him out when he took over.
So then he was able to appoint an acting director.
And of course, we know that Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy was just confirmed earlier this week and sworn in.
I think the one that they are the most concerned about at this point is Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard because she did not seem to convince enough Republicans in that hearing yesterday to support her.
We heard a lot of Republicans pressuring her to say that Edward Snowden was a traitor to say that she does not have allegiances with other foreign adversaries after her complicated background.
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And they left those hearings telling my colleagues on Capitol Hill that they still have more questions.
And I think if she can't afford to lose too many votes coming out of committee, and then if it goes to the full Senate, I don't think that she can get those votes at this time from Senate Republicans.
But I am curious from the White House, what we're hearing is that they want her to get that committee vote as opposed to pulling her out before she could potentially fail that vote.
Of course, we know that the president's first Department of Justice nominee, Attorney General, Matt Gates, he pulled out of the running, had Matt Gates back out before he could fail a confirmation vote out of committee.
So so far, it seems like she could be getting that vote in a few days, but we'll see if the White House makes moves so that she doesn't fail out of that vote.
And we'll be covering all of that news out of the White House here on C-SPAN.
You can check it out at c-span.org or our free video mobile app, C-SPAN Now, and that briefing that will take place at 1 p.m. Eastern Time with the White House press secretary.
You can watch on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Radio, C-SPANNOW, or C-SPAN.org.
Nicole in Brooklyn, Maryland, a Republican.
Hi there, Nicole.
Good morning.
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Good morning.
I'd just like to first say, Imani, which is faith, that peace be unto the families that's enduring the tragedy that just happened.
And however, it's three quick points.
And I know I've had to use it as a debate time myself.
I would just like to say that since this is a free open forum, that first of all, the financial piece that was covered today, that it seems like the blue collar has no margin anymore and that skill-based jobs is being replaced with artificial intelligence.
Lastly, business that was capable to outsource or move their headquarters to other countries caused the wages in America to crash.
Secondly, when the gentleman was talking about the health care field or the Medicaid nominee or whatever, my hope is that we are able to have a more comprehensive plans for ourselves until we're able to get private insurance as recent, real quick, an example, had a heart issue.
Kevin The Constitutional Sheriff00:04:44
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Doctor referred me to get better care or a testing.
And it seems like it was, no, it didn't seem like it was denied.
However, the reason why I'm saying this today is because that's very imperative that you are allowed to get diagnosed with the root of the issue so it don't becomes a deteriorating tunnel down that you are able and equipped with the right time to better cause a healthier lifestyle to yourself.
We'll go to Rob, who's a Democratic caller in Phoenix.
Rob, open forum.
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Good morning, Greta.
Yeah, I'd like to talk a little bit about something that's coming up next week, Wednesday night here in Maricopa County.
It's a meeting of the court-appointed monitor team who were assigned by Sheriff or by Judge Murray Snow, federal judge in the Melendra's case against Arpaio for racial profiling of the Sheriff's Department.
This is going to be the first meeting with the new elected sheriff, Jerry Sheridan, who was a second in command under Arpaio.
He's been out of office for eight years, Jerry Sheridan, and he's come back after November.
And he's what they call a constitutional sheriff.
He's calling himself a constitutional sheriff, which says that they're the highest authority in the country, answerable to no one.
So he's ready to defy the federal judge, Murray Snow, who's a Republican-nominated federal judge who found Arpaio guilty.
Jerry Sheridan was also involved with the contempt of court that Arpaio is ultimately convicted for.
So next Wednesday night, we're having the first meeting with the new sheriff.
And this is really an opportunity for Arizonans to come in and say that we will not allow Jerry Sheridan to run roughshot over the federal court-appointed monitor team.
Over here in Washington happening today, the Democratic National Committee meets in the National Harbor in Maryland, just outside of Washington for its annual meeting.
The outgoing DNC chair will address the conference, and DNC members are going to vote on rules for the upcoming leadership elections, which takes place on Saturday tomorrow.
Live coverage gets underway here, or is underway, I should say, here.
And you can watch on C-SPAN now, our free video mobile app, or online at c-span.org.
Panama's president, ahead of Rubio's visit, says, I cannot negotiate on the canal.
That is the first stop for the first trip overseas for this Secretary of State who's been in the position right away on day one of the Trump administration.
Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, writing in today's opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal and America's first foreign policy.
He says, It's no accident that my first trip abroad as Secretary of State to Central America on Friday will keep me in the hemisphere.
This is rare among secretaries of state over the past century.
For many reasons, U.S. foreign policy has long been focused on other regions while overlooking our own.
As a result, we've let problems fester, missed opportunities, and neglected partners.
That ends now, he writes in the Wall Street Journal this morning.
You can read more there from the new Secretary of State, Diane in South Carolina, Democratic Caller.
So I would just like to say about our Robert F. Kennedy.
He did admit that he was a heroin addict for 14 years.
And anybody in this United States of America and around the world that thinks somebody that has shot heroin 14 years, something's not wrong with them, something wrong with them because that's just, I mean, it's a constant thing, heroin.
Allen in Arkansas, good morning to you, Independent Caller.
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Good morning.
Good morning, Carter.
Yeah, good morning.
I've got a couple of things.
Again, a compliment and a criticism real quick.
First, the reference to the drought in California has been stunning for me to hear this correctly.
Just going to repeat this real quickly to get on to my other point.
But they're saying that they have plenty of water in the northern part of the state that they can canal to the southern part of the state and have absolutely all the water in the world that they need is the most stunning.
I did not know that, but that's the most stunning mismanagement that makes it sound like they want to create that crisis circumstance, whether that's for whatever the reasons, you know, government control or whatever it is.
But that is a stunning thing to have found out from President Trump's visit out there.
But I want to get to a criticism, a criticism to you personally or professionally, I should say, and a reference to January 6th, because I was watching the morning that you were hosting that morning.
And I called you once before to make this point, but you hung up on me, so I hope you'll let me make this point that I tried to make that morning.
Is that on the whole issue of January 6th hearing, no one is talking about, and honestly, I'm stunned to not have you and everyone else really repeating what the legal issue was that morning.
And the legal issue was to decide whether or not it was legal for states to allow their voting laws to be changed by other entities other than their state legislature.
All states have to change their voting rules through their state legislature.
But some of these swing states had changes made by the lawyer entities rather than through their state legislatures.
And so that was the issue on January 6th to decide whether or not to count those votes that were added to the total that were outside the legal voting requirements in those states.
That was the legal issue.
And I keep listening for someone to make that clarification, especially you on C-SPAN, and you're not making it.
So do that.
And here's my criticism.
You had a, forgive me for saying you, you had David Horowitz on as a guest, and I've never seen a guest more rudely treated, unprofessionally treated, let me say it that way, than your demeanor with David Horowitz.
And I wonder if that's because he's a conservative.
He was a liberal and now a conservative and so articulate.
After that, I bought all of his books.
He's got 20 some odd books.
I actually bought each one, every one of his books.
But if people will go back and look at that interview, your behavior toward him was so condescending.
And you compare that, C-SPAN, compare that with your cordialness toward this corn guest that's such a, you know, he's been invited on a hundred times, and he gets treated with such, such just glaring, just polite etiquette.
We'll move on to Tom, who's in Prince Frederick, Maryland, Republican.
Hi, Tom.
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Good morning, Glare.
Good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
The first thing I'll say is I will not criticize you personally or professionally.
However, a couple of things have come to mind in the last two weeks.
One, watching Amy Senator Klobuchar and other Democrat senators scream about the high prices of pharmaceuticals, and the Republicans have to do something about it.
Well, I agree, except the Democrats had control of the country for 12 of the last 16 years.
So my question would be, why didn't they do something about it during those 12 years?
Second thing is, all the talk about the pardons of Trump or the J6ers, and I don't necessarily agree with pardoning everybody.
I think it should have been on a case-by-case basis.
But everybody is screaming about all these horrible, violent people.
No one is mentioning that Joe Biden pardoned a drug lord who killed an eight-year-old girl and her mother.
Murder.
And nobody's mentioning another pardon by Joe Biden that he killed, that someone else killed two police officers.
In addition to which, Joe Biden issued more pardons than all the prisons combined going back to 1960.
Yes, I think I agree with the man who said something about getting water for California fires from the upper states.
I agree with that.
I don't know why they're not doing that.
Also, I think maybe they should build a salt desalitization plant in the middle of the Pacific and then periodically spray those dry eye areas to prevent the wildfires.
Yeah, people have talked about Trump a lot, and I'm going to talk about him this morning.
There is nothing that anybody should believe coming out of his mouth.
I'm going to refer back to the gentleman who mentioned Trump coming to California and turning on the spigot in California because there's so much water in the northern part of California that the drought is really not happening.
We have two separate water systems in the state of California.
One is in Northern California, the other is in Southern California.
California in Southern California captures the water from the rain when it rains in southern California.
Northern California captures the rain mostly from the runoff from the mountains.
They are two separate water systems.
What happened in California is that the federal government was doing maintenance on its own water tanks.
Had nothing to do with the fires, had nothing to do with any of it.
The fires, the water issue in California, did not have anything to do with Northern California.
Northern California cannot turn on a spigot and get water to Southern California.
That is not the way the water system works.
I realize that people think, oh, well, it's north to south, so it should just flow downhill.