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unidentified
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And we're always working for you. | |
| Sparklight supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, we'll take your calls and comments live. | ||
| And then the Wall Street Journal's immigration policy reporter Michelle Hackman covers the latest in the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts. | ||
| And then Michael Schifter, senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, discusses Secretary of State Marco Rubio's trip to Central America and the future of U.S. Latin American policy under the new administration. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| This is Washington Journal for Saturday, February 1st. | ||
| Yesterday, President Trump announced tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China would go in place starting today. | ||
| Also, yesterday, officials gave updates on the mid-air collision of a passenger jet and a U.S. Army helicopter that killed 67 people. | ||
| And also this week, several of President Trump's cabinet picks testified at Senate confirmation hearings. | ||
| Those are a few of the stories that made headlines this week. | ||
| And to start today's program, we want to hear from you: what's your top news story of the week? | ||
| Here are the lines: Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text your comments to 202-748-8003. | ||
| Be sure to include your name and city. | ||
| You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for being with us. | ||
| We'll get to those stories as well as others in this first hour. | ||
| But first, wanted to bring you an update on a story that has been developing. | ||
| This headline from the Wall Street Journal: Hamas says, First captive America says, First American captive will be released. | ||
| The article says the militant group said it would free 65-year-old Israeli American Keith Siegel, who had been kidnapped from his home on October 23rd. | ||
| He was taken with his wife, who was released in a previous ceasefire deal in November of 2023. | ||
| The article goes on to say Siegel, who was born in North Carolina, immigrated to Israel in his early 20s with his brother. | ||
| He was last seen in a video released by Hamas in April 2024, in which he broke down in tears as he spoke, describing how he found the protests calling for his release in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem encouraging. | ||
| Siegel's release would leave two additional living American hostages in Gaza. | ||
| One is a male civilian and the other an Israeli soldier. | ||
| The bodies of four dead American hostages also remain in Gaza. | ||
| And NBC, an update from them just about two hours ago, saying that Siegel did arrive at a reception point in southern Israel. | ||
| That's according to the IDF. | ||
| It says he will undergo an initial medical assessment and reunite with members of his family. | ||
| One of these senators from North Carolina, where he is originally from, tweeted out just at about almost 4:30 this morning, we are overjoyed for Keith Siegel and his loved ones that the long nightmare that began on October 7th, 2023 is finally over. | ||
| Keith is now reunited with his wife and his family, fulfilling the prayers of millions across the United States and around the world. | ||
| That is just one of the news stories that we have been following here at C-SPAN this week. | ||
| Another one, news yesterday from President Trump as he announced tariffs would be going into place for Mexico, Canada, and China. | ||
| This from this morning's Washington Post saying that he was speaking in the Oval Office. | ||
| The president denied that his enthusiasm for tariffs represented a negotiating device or that he was seeking specific concessions from other countries. | ||
| That was in response to a question if they maybe wouldn't be going into place. | ||
| And it was yesterday in the Oval that he spoke with reporters and explained more about the tariffs. | ||
| Here's a clip from that Oval Office from the Oval Office. | ||
| Well, let me just tell you that I got elected for a lot of reasons. | ||
| Number one was the border. | ||
| Number two was inflation because I had almost no inflation. | ||
| And yet I charged hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs to countries. | ||
| And think of it, I had almost no inflation and took in $600 billion of money from other countries. | ||
| And tariffs don't cause inflation. | ||
| They cause success. | ||
| They cause big success. | ||
| So we're going to have great success. | ||
| There could be some temporary short-term disruption, and people will understand that. | ||
| I had that when I negotiated some of the good deals for the farmers. | ||
| And unfortunately, those deals have been led astray by Biden and his people because they didn't enforce the deals. | ||
| We have a deal with China, which is phenomenal for the farmers, but there was nobody to enforce it. | ||
| In the Biden administration, they let them get away with murder. | ||
| So that's another thing we're going to be bringing. | ||
| They committed to buying $50 billion worth of farm product, and they did it when I was president. | ||
| As soon as I left, they stopped doing it because there was nobody in Biden to enforce it. | ||
| But the tariffs are going to make us very rich and very strong, and we're going to treat other countries very fairly. | ||
| But if you think about it, other countries charge us tariffs. | ||
| We don't charge them tariffs. | ||
| And it's about time that that changes. | ||
| For the first hour of today's program, we're hearing from you. | ||
| What's your top news story of the week? | ||
| We'll start with Marilyn in Tennessee, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Marilyn. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| First, I want to say my prayers go out to all those people. | ||
| Tell me, just want to make one point. | ||
| Arkansas, Oregon, Alaska, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri. | ||
| Here in Tennessee, I can tell you it's horrible. | ||
| South Carolina, those are all Republican states that have the highest crime rates. | ||
| Here in Tennessee, they're cooking mess, mess, in their backyards. | ||
| Then we have Mexico, Colorado, Washington, and California, four Democrat-run states. | ||
| Tell me who runs the worst states. | ||
| And as far as the senators and Congress in a mistake, Mr. Green, Black, and Bill Haggerty should be paying attention to their state and not co-towing to Satan, which is Donald Trump. | ||
| Well, thank you, and that's all I have to say. | ||
| Have a blessed day. | ||
| That's Marilyn in Tennessee. | ||
| Dave in New Orleans, Louisiana, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Dave. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, look, I got a story. | |
| I just heard from my buddy the other day. | ||
| He said that the DEI issue, that a lot of, I'm not prejudiced, but a lot of Caucasian white women are being laid off. | ||
| And as a black man and the black people, we were thinking that a lot of the DEI issue was to get rid of us. | ||
| But people got to realize we're not that large of a population in the United States. | ||
| So a lot of the DEIs is Caucasians, handicapped people, and stuff like that. | ||
| So I'm requesting the Washington Journal do a show on DEI. | ||
| Have the DEI people call in. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Dave in New Orleans. | ||
| Mark in Milwaukee, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I guess my main concern is the division between the parties and the look at fake news. | ||
| It seems that each party has their own news sources. | ||
| And the bottom line for me is I'm trying not to look at my Republican friends as being immoral. | ||
| But it's hard to do that when you have a president that doesn't really care about anyone but himself. | ||
| And the policies that they voted for are only going to hurt the entire population. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| We'll go to Trent in Louisiana, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Trent. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm just overwhelmed by the full spectrum dominance that Trump is taking in the country. | |
| Ari Melbourne on MSNBC said the only film he can describe what's going on is a film called Idiocracy, which is a story about how a guy with an 86 IQ 50 years from now has the highest IQ in the country and the average IQ in America in 50 years is about 22. | ||
| That's the view of the left towards the traditionalist, populist, nationalist, theocratic movement that's occurring. | ||
| They don't seem to understand what's going on, that Middle America has decided that you push us around too far and we're going to leave scorched earth. | ||
| I guess I just want to speak in the spirit and say, | ||
| And that was Trent in Louisiana. | ||
| We'll go to Frank in Georgia. | ||
| Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Frank. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Yes, sir. | ||
| First of all, I'd like to thank the universe for three span. | ||
| It's the one essential news network. | ||
| For me, the biggest story of the week is it appears like the president is planning to just dismantle the premier law enforcement organization in the world, the FDI. | ||
| They've already fired the top leaders, and they're going to start investigating the thousands of agents who were involved in the cases that were against Trump. | ||
| I think we're clearly headed towards a government of men instead of laws. | ||
| We previously were bringing us around the world because we had a government of laws, but now we're going to have a government of men, one man, namely. | ||
| And as for the, there's one additional thing I like to say, the family of one of the pilots of the what I call Helicopter, they were crashing, and it was a woman pilot, and she was killed. | ||
| And they asked not, the family asked not to release her name. | ||
| And the reason they did not want her name released is because of Trump's remarks about DEI, this tragedy on the Potomac River, which caused by DEI incompetence. | ||
| And they knew if her name was released, she would be attacked by Trump supporters simply because she was a woman. | ||
| Okay, thank you very much. | ||
| That was Frank in Georgia, and Frank talking about the firings at the DOJ and the FBI from the Associated Press. | ||
| It says the Trump administration on Friday fired a group of prosecutors involved in the January 6th criminal cases and demanded the names of FBI agents involved in those same probes so they can be ousted. | ||
| Moves that reflect a White House determined to exert control. | ||
| Apologies for that ad popping up. | ||
| Over federal law enforcement and purge agencies of career employees seen as insufficiently loyal. | ||
| Goes on to say, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the firings of the January 6th prosecutors days after President Donald Trump's sweeping clemency actions benefiting the more than 1,500 people charged in the U.S. Capitol attack, according to a memo obtained by the Associated Press. | ||
| Let's hear from Ray in Tennessee, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Ray. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Yes, first of all, I'd like to say to all of these no-Trumpers and these people that are paranoid people, get over it. | ||
| He is the president. | ||
| The majority rules. | ||
| We won the election. | ||
| He's going to be our president. | ||
| He's going to straighten this country out. | ||
| You said and looked back at what Biden did to this country, and you're going to say that you want more of that. | ||
| If we'd had four more years of Biden, we wouldn't even have a country. | ||
| And as far as this DEI and all this crazy stuff, yeah, it's going out. | ||
| We don't want it. | ||
| Nobody wants it. | ||
| So you're going to have to suck it up and act like we're all Americans in this together. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| That was Ray in Tennessee. | ||
| Daniel in Indiana, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Daniel. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| My top news story of the week is one that hasn't been told, at least that I've seen in the national media, because our president does dominate the news cycle, especially with the ZOs. | ||
| Our hearts pour out for those who were tragically lost in that airplane accident. | ||
| But my top story of the week is the rising cases, and especially in our region, of the flu, COVID, and RSV. | ||
| It's sad to see so many people going through it. | ||
| One lady, I know her entire household is sick with it. | ||
| And there's a chance that there may be organ failure related to COVID. | ||
| And yeah, that's a pretty big story with those rising cases. | ||
| Everybody, take care of yourself. | ||
| Wash your hands and do the things you're supposed to do. | ||
| And have a wonderful weekend. | ||
| Royal Rumble, baby. | ||
| That was Daniel in Indiana. | ||
| Annie in North Carolina, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Annie. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I'm calling about an article in the Washington Post, which is referring to the Department of Treasury, where it said in the article that Does, Doge Elon Musk, one of his workers went into the Department of Treasury and demanded paperwork concerning Medicaid, | ||
| Medicare, and the government payroll and its spending cuts and everything. | ||
| And the gentleman that he was talking to refused to give him the paperwork. | ||
| And instead, the gentleman, he resigned before he gave the paperwork to Doge Elon Musk worker. | ||
| I would like for you to talk about the Washington Post and this article. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Annie in North Carolina. | ||
| Let's go to Kelly and Dennison, Ohio, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Kelly. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, Tammy. | |
| Hey, am I the only second Republican caller in this morning? | ||
| But that's not my point. | ||
| I want to say something about what happened to the hostages that were coming back from Gaza Thursday. | ||
| There's been no news coverage of that. | ||
| Also, I'd like to bring up where they're going through their confirmations for Tel C and Cash. | ||
| They made such a big deal of Eric Snowden, and Julian Assaj was never brought up. | ||
| But I want to know about these politicians who want him considered to be a traitor, which I'm not saying he is or isn't, but I'm saying what he did is he exposed our government. | ||
| Now, why don't they bring the things that they were exposed on? | ||
| Because these are the things that Trump is going to take care of. | ||
| And I want to say on a future call-in show about my stepbrother who got killed by our federal government. | ||
| And if you want to hear about it, I'll explain it now if you want me to. | ||
| We'll leave it there, Kelly. | ||
| There's a lot of people on the line. | ||
| We'll go to Scott in New York, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Scott. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| First, I want to say these people that say there was a mandate and everything, one-third of the population did not vote. | ||
| So a third of the people voted for, a little more than a third of the people voted for Trump. | ||
| Third of people didn't vote for Trump, and a third of people didn't vote because we don't really care what, I mean, the people that are in charge aren't in charge. | ||
| Now, I feel that we are at the most dangerous point with terrorism before 9-11. | ||
| President Bush, for weeks, or Trump, I mean, for weeks before he stepped into office, he said, quote, if you do not release all of the hostages by the time I am in office, I will release hell on the Middle East. | ||
| Well, we got three ladies that were let go for 90 terrorists. | ||
| All of the hostages are not released. | ||
| The terrorists over there look very like they haven't been hurt because they see them all in their black tights and their machine guns over there looking very strong. | ||
| By us not doing nothing when we threaten them tells them that we are weak. | ||
| We need to quit rattling the cage, quit running our mouths to Donald Trump and tell the truth to the American people. | ||
| And let's all get in this boat together and God bless us all because we're in this together. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Have a great month. | ||
| Scott in New York, new information has been coming out the past few days about that air collision. | ||
| Earlier this week from the Washington Post, it says fire DC fire officials said Friday that they had recovered the remains of 41 victims while a crane arrived at the site to lift the Blackhawk from the water. | ||
| It goes on to say that authorities say they think most or all of the remains that are still missing are probably inside the jetliner's fuselage, which is broken in three pieces and settled upside down in relatively shadow, shallow water. | ||
| It's when asked how long they think it will take to get that to get the fuselage out, they said that they're working as fast as they can, but they weren't going to give it a timeline, that they were going to be careful and make sure that they don't hurt anyone else. | ||
| Yesterday, the NTSB updated the media on the state of the investigation. | ||
| Here is a clip from that. | ||
| Regarding the CRJ's cockpit voice recorder, once it was recovered and opened, we found that it had water intrusion. | ||
| That is not uncommon. | ||
| It is not an unusual event for us to receive a recorder with water intrusion. | ||
| We deal with that all the time. | ||
| Our recorder's division is one of the best in the country, in the world, actually. | ||
| We have recorders sent everywhere, so there's a step. | ||
| The CVR was soaked overnight in ionized water, at which point the team put the CVR into a vacuum oven in order to extract moisture. | ||
| They are still checking electrical connections to determine if they're ready to try a download. | ||
| It is one step of many steps that we will take in order to get that data, but we have a very high level of confidence that we will have it. | ||
| We just have to work through a number of steps. | ||
| Lastly, on recorders, the Sikorsky, where the CRJ has two separate recorders, the Sikorsky has a combined cockpit voice recorder and digital flight data receipt recorder. | ||
| It's in one box. | ||
| I can report to you now: we have recovered the Sikorsky black box. | ||
| It is safely at the NTSB headquarters. | ||
| It will begin an evaluation, just as the other two recorders did last night, to determine when and how to take action. | ||
| I can tell you from a visual inspection, we saw no exterior damage that would indicate that it was compromised at this time. | ||
| So we have a high level of confidence that we will be able to have a full extraction from that as well. | ||
| Back to your calls, hearing what your top news story of the week is. | ||
| We'll go to Bruce in Winter Haven, Florida, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Bruce. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Yes, I just want to make a couple of points. | ||
| One of the callers I called a few minutes ago about Eli Bus wants to access the Treasury system with the money and everything. | ||
| And I think that the Democrats and the Republicans, all the elected officials, need to really come together and stress this how serious this is because he's accessing people's financial information as well as the money at the Treasurer, the Treasury Department. | ||
| And I think C-SPAN and other news media and social media needs to really pick up on this because this is a treason against the country. | ||
| And Trump, He doesn't realize how serious this is. | ||
| And it's an abomination against the whole country in the world because if Elon Musk gets access to the Treasury Department, the money system, that this is going to be the biggest bank robbery in U.S. history. | ||
| And it's awful to see what's going on. | ||
| And I am a Democrat, but I love this country, but I just don't like what's going on right now because we all in this together, we all going to be affected by this. | ||
| So the Democrats and the Republicans that they really need to come together and find some kind of way to remove these people because these are very evil people that we're dealing with right now. | ||
| God bless you. | ||
| That was Keith. | ||
| We'll go to Calvin in Circleville, Ohio, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Calvin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I've been watching the confirmation hearings, and you can see the Democratic Party is so corrupt, there should be a complete investigation of the party. | |
| Not just Adam Schiff, not Schumer. | ||
| The whole party is so corrupt. | ||
| And that's why Biden, pardon all these people, Fauci and his family, the Biden crime family. | ||
| They've left the country in ruins with how many illegals. | ||
| And all these, and I see where the HyperA Patrol in Texas, I've been watching video, I'm You Retired, so I have a lot of time, where this gentleman was transporting a Lincoln town car limousine in a trailer. | ||
| In between the boards and the trailer were all these smuggled illegals. | ||
| Same thing in Florida. | ||
| I mean, the country, Biden has left this country in such a mess. | ||
| Can we ever recover? | ||
| And you can see it in Trump's actions. | ||
| He's so frustrated with the way the country is headed that, you know, there should be a complete investigation of what happened to the Democratic Party. | ||
| This party is almost like a terrorist organization anymore. | ||
| Think of all the damage they've done to this nation. | ||
| It's beautiful. | ||
| I thank you for your time. | ||
| That was Calvin in Ohio Talib and Maryland, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Tlaib. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Back in the 1950s, I'm 80 years old. | ||
| My parents told me you had to be twice as good as the white man to make it because you've got to go up against all the white supremacy, all the things that they had to keep you out. | ||
| White males have had 406 years of affirmative action, over 150 years of legacy admissions for mediocre white males. | ||
| I know this because I went to college and grad school all over the country. | ||
| Donald Trump did not even take the SAT, according to his niece, not me. | ||
| She says somebody took the SAT form. | ||
| He got in the forum, and then he got the University of Penn through somebody his brother knew in the admissions office. | ||
| So here, though, this is legacy admissions. | ||
| I didn't say this. | ||
| This is what his niece said. | ||
| Donald Trump is a career criminal. | ||
| If you get three million, three million so-called illegals and interview them, none of them would touch all the crimes he's committed. | ||
| A serial rapist, and he's an adjudicated sex abuser, a fraudster, and he's a career, I mean, he's a convicted criminal, a felon. | ||
| So you talk about these criminals who are coming over here from these countries. | ||
| This man is a criminal. | ||
| Plus, my Native American relatives never, never should have let you come to this country. | ||
| Who committed all these genocides against my Native American relatives, my African relatives who were enslaved, sex trafficking, slave breeding, Jim Crow. | ||
| Jim Crow was state-sponsored white terrorism. | ||
| That went on for almost 150 years. | ||
| And I had several relatives who were law enforcement officers during Reconstruction. | ||
| One was assassinated. | ||
| He was a trial justice. | ||
| And the other one attempted assassination in 1876. | ||
| He was interviewed. | ||
| He testified in a congressional hearing. | ||
| So I have a long history of just law enforcement in my family, even up to this day. | ||
| So when I look at Donald Trump and I see people say, oh, this, he should have been tried for negligent homicide for the first 450,000 people who died during COVID. | ||
| Because remember, he said COVID was what? | ||
| He said it was a Democratic hoax. | ||
| One of my sister-in-laws died from COVID. | ||
| She wouldn't wear a mask. | ||
| Oh, well, you know, Trump said, hey, she's dead now. | ||
| She's been dead four years. | ||
| That was Talib from Maryland. | ||
| We'll go to Veronica in Fredericksburg, Virginia, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Veronica. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| I was calling to just ask the Republicans, because I'm calling as a Democrat, when they are stating that Biden left the country in a mess, what do they mean by that? | ||
| What is the mess? | ||
| The economy is turning around. | ||
| I will ask them to do their research. | ||
| When they talk about DEI and they say that that needs to go away, why do they just buy into everything that the Republicans speak about? | ||
| Why don't they use their intelligence or the Google or the internet and research what DEI really means, who it all affects, who all gets benefits out of it, and realize that everyone is going to be affected by the removal of DEI? | ||
| And I was going to speak about work, but I forgot the point that I was going to make. | ||
| But I thank you for your time and I enjoy your show. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Veronica in Virginia. | ||
| A couple callers this morning bringing up the Treasury Department and this article from the Washington Post, the headline: Senior U.S. official exits after riff with Musk allies over payment system. | ||
| It says that the highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department left the agency after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems. | ||
| According to three people with knowledge of the matter, it says that David Librick, who served in a non-political role at the Treasury for several decades, announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues that was obtained by the Washington Post. | ||
| President Donald Trump named Librick acting director upon taking office last week. | ||
| Librick had a dispute with Musk's surrogates over access to the payment system of the U.S. government uses to disperse trillions of dollars every year. | ||
| The people said the exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear. | ||
| Just about 30 minutes left in this first hour of Washington Journal asking what your top news story of the week is. | ||
| Go to Bob in Massachusetts line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I suppose I'd like to say, thank God that none of the illegal immigrants attack Democrats because they'd really be upset about illegal immigration. | ||
| But my real point for today would be: I wish they could have got in yesterday because you had a scientist, I guess he was a scientist, on there talking about COVID. | ||
| He never once brought up that there are reports now, and I'm sorry, 100 million people have irreparable disease from the COVID vaccination here in America. | ||
| So that's nice. | ||
| And then I would like to know if you guys know anything about a thing called Google-made computer chip called Willow that can do computer computations into computers we have now would take 24 zeros with a one at the end of it to figure it out and it takes this computer five minutes. | ||
| If you guys worry about AI ending the world, you ought to be worried about what Google's making. | ||
| Have a good day now is Bob in Massachusetts, Mustafa in Michigan line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Mustafa. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning and thank you for taking my call. | |
| My top news story of the week is national Black Americans who are Black American descendants of Freedmen whose ancestors built this country, escaping the Democratic plantation. | ||
| So, as a proud U.S. ARMY veteran and a proud foundational black American, because of cultural conditioning and indoctrination, I've historically voted for Democrat Democrats. | ||
| Well, I've finally broken the chains and I will never vote for the Dixie Craft Party because of their benign neglect towards the Black American community and their Anti-black misandry toward the FBA community. | ||
| I will also not blindly vote for the Anti-Black Republic LAND Party going forward, I will support a party based on policies that I feel affect my family and foundational Black American communities. | ||
| Currently those are three issues. | ||
| If you allow me lineage-based cash reparations for Black American descendants of freedmen and Anti-black American hate crime bill, and stopping and deporting the Harris and Biden illegal economic aliens. | ||
| Illegal immigration is genocide for the foundational Black American community and lastly, I would implore you and your listeners to please please, stop referring to foundational black Americans as African Americans. | ||
| It helps create ethnocide against black American descendants of freedmen who are not generic Africans. | ||
| Some black people were here prior to slavery and furthermore, an ethnogenesis has taken place with us. | ||
| Thank you for allowing me to voice my opinion. | ||
| That is Mustafa in Michigan. | ||
| This headline from the Washington POST as HHS S. Pick revises his ethics Form. | ||
| Democrats call for a delay. | ||
| It was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was one of several of President Trump's cabinet picks testifying this week. | ||
| The article says that Senate Democrats on Friday called to slow the confirmation process for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is seeking to become the nation's top health official after his ethics form after he said that he would amend his ethics form following questions about a potential conflict of interest. | ||
| The issue centers on questions about Kennedy's financial stake in litigation against a manufacturer of a vaccine that protects against the human papillomonavirus known as HPV. | ||
| Kennedy played a key role in ongoing litigation that alleges Merck did not sufficiently explain the risks of the vaccine and some recipients have been harmed. | ||
| Merck has defended the safety of its vaccine, which has been widely administered to adolescents and can prevent cervical cancer, and dismissed the allegations as baseless. | ||
| Kennedy on Friday said that he was moving to modify his ethical disclosures to the Senate and divest his financial stake in the case. | ||
| It says that Kennedy senators say they had not received Kennedy's amended form and asked for additional time to consider his nomination, saying the new statements raised more questions about his potential conflicts of interest. | ||
| Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat for two Senate confirmation hearings this week. | ||
| During one of them, on Wednesday, it was the Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing. | ||
| It was Senator Michael Bennett, Democrat of Colorado, who questioned him on his previous statements and views on health issues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Genetically engineered bioweapon that targets black and white people but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. | |
| I didn't say it was deliberately targeted. | ||
| I just quoted an NIH-funded and NIH published study. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Did you say that it targets black and white people but spared Ashkenazi Jews? | |
| I quoted a study, Your Honor. | ||
| I quoted an NIH study that showed that as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have to move on. | |
| Did you say that Lyme disease is highly likely a materially engineered bioweapon? | ||
| I made sure I put in the highly likely. | ||
| Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon? | ||
| I probably did say that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Did you say that? | |
| I want all of our colleagues to hear it, Mr. Kennedy. | ||
| I want them to hear it. | ||
| You said yes. | ||
| Did you say that exposure to pesticides causes children to become transgender? | ||
| No, I never said that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I have the record that I'll give to the chairman, and he can make his judgment about what you said. | |
| Did you write in your book, and it's undeniable, that African AIDS is an entirely different disease from Western AIDS? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes or no, Mr. Kennedy? | |
| I'm not sure if I may. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I'll give it to the chairman, Mr. Kennedy. | |
| And my final question: Did you say on a podcast, and I quote, I wouldn't leave it abortion to the states. | ||
| My belief is we should leave it to the woman. | ||
| We shouldn't have the government involved, even if it's full term. | ||
| Did you say that, Mr. Kennedy? | ||
| Senator, I believe every abortion is a tragedy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Did you say it, Mr. Kennedy? | |
| This matters. | ||
| It doesn't matter what you come here and say that isn't true, that's not reflective of what you really believe, that you haven't said over decade after decade after decade, because unlike other jobs we're confirming around this place, | ||
| this is a job where it is life and death for the kids that I used to work for in the Denver public schools and for families all over this country that are suffering from living in the richest country of the world that can't deliver basic health care and basic mental health care to them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's too important for the games that you're playing, Mr. Kennedy. | |
| And I hope my colleagues will say to the president, I have no influence over him. | ||
| I hope my colleagues will say to the president, out of 330 million Americans, we can do better than this. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| We'll hear from Brenda in South Carolina, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Brenda. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| The biggest story, well, the two stories, you talked about the Treasury, but also what's happening, the dismantling of the FBI. | ||
| They're using January 6th, but they are going after people who are in charge of terrorism units, cybersecurity, forensics, investigative units. | ||
| And if we do lose that $6 trillion from the Treasury, there'll be no one to investigate where it went. | ||
| Elon Musk now has a cryptocurrency. | ||
| Also, Trump has a cryptocurrency. | ||
| Once you transfer money into that crypto market, it disappears. | ||
| I believe that they are trying to take this country apart from the inside. | ||
| This will crash the economy. | ||
| It controls Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, everything. | ||
| We are in trouble. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Brenda in South Carolina. | ||
| Sheila, Henderson, Nevada, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Sheila. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Angel. | |
| I appreciate your show very much. | ||
| Every day I try to watch y'all make sure I get up and there's no problem because y'all are on TV. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I'm also calling in reference to my top story this week would be the confirmation in the Senate for all the people that are running for different offices for our government, which is the American people. | ||
| The American voters have spoken. | ||
| They want change. | ||
| And everyone that is involved in the government should be on a payroll that each individual in the American country gets the same amount of pay. | ||
| You know, if each one was able to get the same amount of pay that some of the people in the government, the people that are sitting at the offices in the Senate and in the House, they would speak a little bit more respectable. | ||
| They're not showing any of these children that are trying to watch these programs any respect. | ||
| These people are voted into office, and they are making extra money off all these different organizations that they say that they're not doing criminal things with. | ||
| Yes, the House and the Senate are doing criminal activities. | ||
| And I appreciate your show, and I hope everyone remembers that whenever a person gets, excuse me, anytime a person gets a blood transfusion, we don't ask them, is this blood going to be from this person or this person or this person? | ||
| We're all Americans. | ||
| We all donate blood to each other. | ||
| So be respectful. | ||
| Rest and relax and have a great new year. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Now, Sheila in Nevada. | ||
| We'll go to Sandra in Spring Lake, North Carolina, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Sandra. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| First, I would just like to point out that Donald Trump only secured 49.8% of the vote, and Kamala got 48.3%. | ||
| So that is hardly a mandate. | ||
| It was literally only 1% of the popular vote. | ||
| I just want to point that out to everyone. | ||
| Second, I'm responding to a gentleman that called a bit ago and was saying that how everyone is upset about AI, that we should be looking to Google. | ||
| Maybe that guy should look to the Google CO, the Google CEO that was on the inauguration stage behind Trump. | ||
| He should look at that. | ||
| And that's really all I have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Now, Sandra in North Carolina, we'll go to Tyrone, New York, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Tyrone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I want to say happy Black History Month for all the so-called black people out there. | ||
| And I also want to say that the Billionaire Club, the two billionaire boys or the billionaire club that have gotten together to fight back against an entity that they believe that the only entity that can stop them from decapitating our government is the United States government. | ||
| We are United States citizens. | ||
| We have to understand that these people that are at the head of our government is looking to make things easier for them. | ||
| And if they can destroy, which I know a lot of people in this country want to see this government destroyed, our United States government destroyed, that they think that that'll be a good thing for all of us. | ||
| It will not. | ||
| All of us don't have armed guards and gated communities and live with security around us 24 hours. | ||
| These people have that. | ||
| And if we live in a community where we're going to need protection from our government, our police, our law enforcement, we better wake up and realize that these people are looking out for what's best for them. | ||
| The majority of us, the majority of us, understand that we don't have the money to pay for the protections that they have. | ||
| And if they dismantle, he want to dismantle the FBI. | ||
| He wanted to dismantle the law enforcement agencies in this country. | ||
| He already was okay with these people attacking the Capitol police. | ||
| He was okay with that. | ||
| A lot of y'all are okay with that. | ||
| All right, that's your problem. | ||
| But it makes it our problem when you ignore the fact that these are the same people we need to protect us from the terrorists, as y'all say, the people that are looking to do us harm. | ||
| And when it happens, you're going to blame the next administration for the damage that this man has set up for us. | ||
| You better wake up, people. | ||
| You better wake up and realize that we're not helping ourselves by allowing this man to run roughshot over us in our country. | ||
| He dismantled the aviation security, aviation protection. | ||
| And what happened? | ||
| We got two planes that crashed. | ||
| We got these people are dead. | ||
| And this man, what he does, he throw the rock and he hides his hand and then he blames somebody else, DEI. | ||
| What's wrong with you? | ||
| Wake up and realize that this man don't mean us no good and that he's destroying our country. | ||
| And I'm that was Tyrone in New York. | ||
| Jimmy in Marysville, Tennessee, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Jimmy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Harry. | |
| Doing well, Jimmy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm calling about left American people know that America is not safe anymore. | |
| We don't have no guardrails against Trump. | ||
| He can do whatever he wants. | ||
| And we're probably heading down the road to saying another terrorist attack in this country. | ||
| It might not be from foreign. | ||
| It probably be from domestic. | ||
| And a lot of people need to wake up and realize that we are in bad shape right now. | ||
| He's fired all the FBI agents. | ||
| He's fired everybody. | ||
| that he can think of in the federal government. | ||
| And the only thing I have to say, we just need to pray to God that everything turns out all right. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| That was Jimmy in Tennessee. | ||
| Another story making headlines this week. | ||
| This is from the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| New ruling blocks Trump's spending freeze. | ||
| It says a federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from temporarily freezing federal spending, saying the White House withdrawal of a policy memo on the issue wasn't enough. | ||
| U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island granted a request by 22 states and the District of Columbia for a temporary restraining order that says the administration can't pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate its federal financial assistance obligations to the state. | ||
| It goes on to say at issue was a memo issued on Monday by the acting head of the White House Budget Office instructing federal agencies to pause funding while it assessed whether federal programs complied with Trump's executive orders cracking down on foreign aid, diversity initiatives, and green energy projects. | ||
| Just a little over 10 minutes left in this first hour asking your top news story of the week. | ||
| Let's hear from John in Orlando, Florida, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah, I'm really upset. | ||
| I'm listening to a lot of ignorant people making comments. | ||
| You know, this racist thing, this has gotten so bad since, and this has been since Obama. | ||
| This is what the Democrats do. | ||
| They divide this country to believing that we're the race. | ||
| I'm sick of it, okay? | ||
| But here's the thing. | ||
| The Democratic Party, which I was a part of my whole life up until after Obama, I am a Republican. | ||
| They are the most corrupt, the most immoral people you can ever imagine. | ||
| Watching these committee hearings, the attacks, personal attack that most of the Democrats have, they're on the cake, most of them, with Big Pharma and all these other corporations and industry. | ||
| It's disgusting to see them morally attack these candidates that were very much their friends for most of the time. | ||
| I'm out of breath because I'm so angry that people are so ignorant about Donald Trump. | ||
| So thank you very much. | ||
| And I'm not even going to come anymore. | ||
| But a lot of ignorance about this race stuff with Donald Trump. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| Have a nice day. | ||
| That was John in Florida. | ||
| Let's hear from Charlie in Salmon, Washington, line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Charlie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi there. | |
| My top story would be the plane crash. | ||
| And yesterday, I talked to an old friend of mine who has a retired Marine Corps helicopter pilot. | ||
| And I asked him about it because I had read that the reason the helicopter crashed into the plane was because it was flying above its 200-foot flight ceiling. | ||
| And I had read that that might have been because of winds or jet exhaust vortexes forced them higher. | ||
| And my friend said, no, it's child's play to fly a Black Hawk at 200 feet. | ||
| That crash occurred at 300 to 350 feet. | ||
| So my point here is that, you know, with all the various factors being talked about, the real factor here is why was that helicopter flying so high? | ||
| And this isn't the very, this is not the first time this has happened from that National Guard base at that airport. | ||
| This points to a lack of discipline and training at that National Guard base. | ||
| And now we have 67 Americans dead because of it. | ||
| So I really, really hope that this will be investigated at that. | ||
| That will be the main point. | ||
| And then everything else comes out around it. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was Charlie in Washington talking about the plane crash. | ||
| And another caller earlier today mentioned a second plane crash from the Associated Press. | ||
| It says a medical plane carrying a child patient and five others crashed in Philadelphia, setting homes ablaze. | ||
| The article says a medical transport jet with that child patient, her mother, and four others aboard crashed in Philadelphia in a Philadelphia neighborhood shortly after takeoff Friday evening, exploding in a fireball that engulfed several homes. | ||
| Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, which operates the Lear Jet 55, said in a statement, we cannot confirm any survivors. | ||
| There was no immediate word on whether anyone on the ground was killed. | ||
| All six people aboard were from Mexico. | ||
| The child had just been treated in Philadelphia for a life-threatening condition and was being transported home, according to jet rescue spokesperson Shy Gold. | ||
| The flight's final destination was to have been Tijuana after a stop in Missouri. | ||
| Back to your calls, we'll go to Dale in Birmingham, Alabama, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Dale. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you so much for taking my call. | |
| I, along with all the people in the world, should be very, I am just overwhelmed about the plane crash and all those young people losing their lives along with their parents. | ||
| I'm not calling as a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, but I just wish all of us would just lay down our political influence and just come together as one because we have a whole lot to worry about. | ||
| You read about the Elon Musk and the people asking about our personal information about the Treasury Department. | ||
| That, number one, should be a red flag to everybody, whether you're Democrat, Republican, or independent. | ||
| Because if you start messing with everybody's Medicare payments and Medicaid and the Treasury Department start interfering with all of our, I think Brenda and the call from Washington said it best. | ||
| They said better than I could ever say it. | ||
| So just let's just all stop thinking about whether or not we our party affiliation. | ||
| And just because I have some good Republican friends. | ||
| Everybody, it's not the same. | ||
| If you're wrong, wrong. | ||
| I don't care who you are. | ||
| I voted for President Obama, but if he was wrong, I would have said I would have turned against him and spoke out against him. | ||
| I don't have to be, you know, to agree with you just because I am a Republican. | ||
| So let's just stop thinking and hats of dead and think about what's right. | ||
| And one column mentioned about the Democrats grilling the people. | ||
| They're grilling the people. | ||
| I listened to it. | ||
| They're grilling the people based on what the people have said. | ||
| And they're just getting them to see if they change their mind or say out what they were talking about when they were saying, like Robert Kennedy, I mean, Kennedy Jr. saying some terrible things in the past. | ||
| And all they're doing is just making him let the American people. | ||
| That's what the hearings is all about. | ||
| Now, if the shoe was on the other foot and the Republicans was doing the Democrats, I don't hear them calling in and saying they're asking them harsh questions. | ||
| So let's just take our political hat off and let's all come together and just love everybody because we don't know who those people, divers are that's going down in the water trying to retrieve bodies. | ||
| They're not asking, are those only white people? | ||
| Are those all the black people? | ||
| I'm not going down in that frigid water. | ||
| They're doing it because they care and that's because that's their job. | ||
| And all these thousands and thousands of FBI agents that are being fired, I mean, come on. | ||
| And when we get to the bottom of it, the TSA agents, all of them that are being fired, air traffic controllers that are being fired, these are experienced people. | ||
| And you're putting people up there that don't know what they're doing. | ||
| And it's sad to say, but I would not get on a plane right now because you just don't know who's behind that plane, who's the air traffic controller. | ||
| And if you're putting people there, inexperienced people, you don't know how this world is going to, you know, what's going to happen. | ||
| So I just say, please come together, everybody. | ||
| Stop hating. | ||
| You know, I'm just out there, and I'm just for everybody. | ||
| I'm just not for just the Democrat. | ||
| I'm for everybody. | ||
| And if my fellow man, whether he's black or white, if he needs my assistance, I'm going to be there for him. | ||
| I'm not going to ask you, are you a Republican? | ||
| I'm not going to do anything for you. | ||
| That was Dale in Alabama. | ||
| And Dale, along with a couple other callers this morning, talking about the confirmation hearing. | ||
| C-SPAN has been airing all of those. | ||
| If you've missed any of them or want to go back and find them, you can find them all on our website, c-span.org. | ||
| Let's hear from Jack in Scranton, Pennsylvania, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Jack. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for taking my call. | |
| I'd just like to say, John's from Florida. | ||
| You pretty much stole my thunder. | ||
| Just like to say that for all the left-wing Democratic Party, what their beliefs are, I don't know what they're thinking. | ||
| I mean, it's completely asinine the way they think against Trump. | ||
| I mean, Trump isn't the, you know, most perfect guy, but you know what? | ||
| He's better than what we had. | ||
| And our past four years, everybody should bury their head in the sand. | ||
| If they, you know, believe that Joe Biden did well and Pamela Harris was going to take this country into a better level than what we're going to be taking with Donald Trump. | ||
| But just my two cents. | ||
| Thanks, John. | ||
| That was Jack in Pennsylvania. | ||
| And our last call for this first hour, if you weren't able to get in, we'll be going to open forum at about 9.30 this morning. | ||
| You can give us a call back then. | ||
| But next on Washington Journal, Wall Street Journal, Immigration Policy Reporter Michelle Hackman joins us to discuss efforts to discuss the latest on the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts. | ||
| And later, Michael Schifter, senior fellow at the Inter-America Dialogue, will discuss Secretary of State Marco Rubio's trip to Central America and the future of U.S. Latin American policy under the Trump administration. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| 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. | ||
| 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. | ||
| 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. | ||
| And then 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 every weekend on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/slash history. | ||
| Book TV, every Sunday on C-SPAN 2, features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | ||
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| At 8 p.m. Eastern, former Obama administration Homeland Security senior advisor Charles Marino argues that President Biden's border policies have weakened U.S. national security in his book Terrorists on the Border and in Our Country. | ||
| And at 9 p.m. Eastern, critic and writer Colette Shade, author of Y2K, reflects on how cultural and technological innovations of the early 2000s impacted the past, present, and future. | ||
| Then at 10 p.m. Eastern on Afterwards, Eva Doe of The Washington Post shares her book, House of Huawei, which examines how Huawei became China's most powerful company and what that means for its global competitors. | ||
| She's interviewed by the Council on Foreign Relations Emerging Technologies and National Security Chair Adam Siegel. | ||
| Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| 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, quote, 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. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts is Michelle Hackman. | ||
| She's an immigration policy reporter with the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| Michelle, welcome back to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| We'll start with one of your headlines from this week in the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| Trump ramps up deportation efforts after slow start. | ||
| Tell us when the deportation efforts started and what they look like right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, we wrote that story because a few days before Trump took office, we caught wind that they were planning a mass raid in Chicago basically the Tuesday after he took office. | |
| And we reported it and by reporting it, I think actually temporarily called it off. | ||
| And so those first few days, we sort of were tracking their efforts. | ||
| You know, they were blasting out press releases and videos showing deportations. | ||
| But by all accounts, those seemed pretty routine. | ||
| I mean, they seemed like business as usual for the sort of Biden levels of deportations, the types of people being deported. | ||
| And so last weekend, we suddenly noticed this uptick in them sort of trying to bring up their numbers and arrest more people per day. | ||
| And when we talk about who they are focusing on, explain who that is. | ||
| What's the priority for them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it's a really interesting question, Tammy, because that answer has shifted over time. | |
| You know, when Trump was a candidate, he would say, I want to deport everybody. | ||
| I want to go after 15 million people. | ||
| Well, first of all, it's not even clear if there are 15 million people who are eligible for deportation in the country. | ||
| But after he won, we started to see Trump and his advisors sort of narrow that group. | ||
| And I think that that came out of a recognition that what he'd been promising was sort of not practically possible, right? | ||
| And so they said, we're going to go after people with criminal histories. | ||
| We, you know, ICE had once estimated that there are approximately 700,000 immigrants here illegally who have some kind of criminal record. | ||
| And so that, I think, probably seemed like a more manageable size of a population to them. | ||
| And it's definitely in the first two weeks what we've seen them prioritizing in terms of where they've been concentrating arrests. | ||
| But it doesn't mean they're only going for criminals. | ||
| I mean, they're arresting other people too. | ||
| And I think that's in part because they want to drive up their numbers. | ||
| And how are they finding the undocumented immigrants that they are apprehending or at least talking with? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so when you see ICE go out and do an arrest, that is typically because they're working off, you know, something called a target list that they've developed over time that they use sort of intelligence and other factors to put together. | |
| These are people that they've prioritized for arrest and deportation, typically people with some kind of criminal record or sometimes people who have received a final order of deportation from a judge. | ||
| And so typically the way ICE works is it creates those lists. | ||
| You know, let's say they'll have a list of, these are not precise numbers, but like let's say they have a list of about 2,000 people in Chicago for an operation. | ||
| They'll go and try to hit as many of those people as they can. | ||
| But the thing is about those lists is that especially people who have more serious criminal histories are typically not the easiest people to get. | ||
| They sort of know the drill with police. | ||
| They know how to evade ICE arrest. | ||
| And so it's actually a lot easier to arrest someone with no criminal history whatsoever who may not know that you don't need to open your front door for an ICE officer and avoid an arrest. | ||
| Our guest, Michelle Hackman, is an immigration policy reporter with the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| If you have a question or a comment for her, you can start calling in now. | ||
| The lines, Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 2027-8000. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Michelle, you've talked, you've mentioned Chicago a couple times already. | ||
| When we look at who is actually carrying out these ICE raids and the deportation efforts, explain the role of the federal government versus state and local officials. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so primary authority for arresting and deporting immigrants falls to ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. | |
| But they only have about 6,000 officers for the whole country. | ||
| And so the Trump administration, because it is their goal to sort of deport as many people as possible, they've deputized a sort of unbelievable number of other federal, state, and local agencies. | ||
| So they've recruited FBI agents, DEA agents. | ||
| They have brought people in from, you know, some secret service across the DHS. | ||
| But they've also said, you know, if you're a state or local law enforcement official, we're going to give you arresting authority to help us out. | ||
| We haven't actually seen that happen in any kind of large-scale way yet, but we could see, for example, like the state of Texas has the Department of Public Safety. | ||
| They have officers all around the state. | ||
| And at the border, we could see them carrying out arrests. | ||
| We could see, I think the state of Oklahoma even said that they would cooperate to the extent that they would turn over the immigration status of children in their public schools. | ||
| So I think we're going to see a sort of unprecedented level of that type of cooperation, particularly in red states and in sort of more red-leaning cities and counties. | ||
| And you've also said that the Trump administration has been trying to increase the number, the number of deportations, apprehensions. | ||
| Do we know how many arrests have been made? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We've been coming up with a daily tally. | |
| I think it's a little bit over 5,000 or 6,000 at this point. | ||
| The important thing I want to emphasize to listeners or to viewers here is that an arrest of an immigrant living here illegally is not like one-to-one with a deportation. | ||
| Oftentimes, ICE will arrest someone and then for various reasons they realize they have to release them. | ||
| So a really common reason is they'll arrest someone and say, oh my gosh, well, your country is just not taking any deportees right now. | ||
| And so there's really no point in us detaining you and we have such limited space. | ||
| So we're going to release you. | ||
| And you're sort of on bond for now, but we're going to come get you at some point. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Steve in Florida Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I've got two points. | ||
| Number one, we've had open borders for the last 40 years, ever since the 80s when they started working in the construction. | ||
| And they've sort of gone through the immigration cycle where they've established themselves and have opened businesses. | ||
| And I've worked with a lot of people coming up from the Mexican border, and they're just like everybody else. | ||
| The fact that this began with the Biden administration is laughable. | ||
| They brought them in originally for the sole purpose of undermining prevailing wage. | ||
| And the second point I have is that we need people here to work. | ||
| We need people here to build houses. | ||
| We need people here to provide long-term care, which the population that we have now of trying to get people to work in these industries is woefully inadequate. | ||
| And as a result, we're paying well over $2,000 a month for rent and well over $400,000 for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, thousand-square-foot house. | ||
| So I think that these new border policies are the exact opposite of what we need. | ||
| Michelle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks so much, Steve. | |
| I think you raise a lot of interesting points, and it's probably impossible to address them all. | ||
| I will say, you know, for better or for worse, what has happened over the last four years feels a little different to me in kind. | ||
| You know, obviously we have had illegal immigration or whatever you'd like to call it, people coming from Mexico for as long as America has been a country. | ||
| You know, in the 1950s, we had a whole program to try to get Mexicans to come legally and work on farms so that they wouldn't cross illegally. | ||
| This is an issue that goes back, you know, more than 100 years. | ||
| What happened in the last four years that feels different to me, and I won't say it's better or worse, is that typically, I think when you think of like a really typical undocumented immigrant, you're thinking of someone who sneaks across the border, goes unnoticed, doesn't have any papers whatsoever, goes and gets a job under the table. | ||
| But very recently, what we've seen are a lot more people coming here, asking for asylum, putting themselves in the system, and very quickly getting a government work permit that gives them a social security number and allows them to sort of integrate into the regular economy. | ||
| So, you know, I think for those people, it's better in the sense that they're avoiding sort of some of the abuses that come with working under the table. | ||
| But it's different in the sense that they've been factored into the economy in a different way. | ||
| And I think a lot of people would also say it served as even more of a draw because it really facilitates their lives here. | ||
| Let's hear from Michael in Massachusetts, Line for Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Michael. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| My question is the 1.3 million or approximate number of illegals that have been, their case has been adjudicated, why have they not been removed from the country at a faster rate? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| It's a really good question. | ||
| And it comes down to, I think, a philosophical debate, Michael, where people with final orders of removal, first of all, the big answer is that, you know, as I said, we have 6,000 people working in the entire section of ICE that is responsible for arrest and detention and removal. | ||
| So that's a very small number of people. | ||
| Congress has never really felt inclined to fund a significantly higher number. | ||
| And so to some extent, it's been an issue of prioritization. | ||
| People have treated it in different ways. | ||
| You know, in past administrations, particularly under Obama, they really tried to prioritize deporting as many people as possible through jails. | ||
| And so that's how they ended up deporting so many people, actually. | ||
| Under Biden, they decided, you know, we don't really want to upend someone's life if they have what the Biden people call sort of mitigating factors. | ||
| Let's say if they had U.S. citizen children, if they'd lived here for 20 or 30 years, were married to a U.S. citizen. | ||
| Those were the sorts of people where they felt like they didn't really want to put resources into deporting those people. | ||
| And so that's sort of a philosophical difference. | ||
| I think the other big difference is a lot of these people, you know, we think of them as having their cases were fully adjudicated. | ||
| But at the same time, in the meantime, let's say they've married a U.S. citizen, or even they've gotten some kind of job where an employer is able to sponsor them. | ||
| And so they, on the one hand, have this order of removal on their case, but they also have a pending green card. | ||
| And from administration to administration, it changes whether you try to deport that person in the meantime or not. | ||
| You know, Trump is still going after people who have pending green card cases because they have a removal order. | ||
| But Biden would say, you know, that's a waste of time. | ||
| That person, you know, we're just going to have to bring them back. | ||
| So why go after them at all? | ||
| It is not your outlet, but this morning's New York Times has the headline. | ||
| And to your earlier point, deportations only work if countries agree to take citizens back. | ||
| What countries are looking at seeing a potential increase in these deportation returns? | ||
| And what does the current Trump administration's relationship with them look like? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's a really good question because this is one of the most complicated issues before the Trump administration. | |
| You know, obviously, the main countries that we deport to, we have a pretty well-oiled machine with them. | ||
| So those would be Mexico, Guatemala, to some extent, some countries in South America, to Ecuador, to Honduras. | ||
| The really big problem is Venezuela. | ||
| So we have a huge population of people from Venezuela who are living here illegally, who sort of fled the regime there. | ||
| That regime has not been in good relations with Washington for at least, you know, the last decade or so and absolutely categorically refuses to take its citizens back. | ||
| It's a big problem. | ||
| It's a really big problem because, especially in the last few years, we aren't just seeing sort of regular Venezuelan refugees, but we've also seen in that flow a relatively small but still significant number of gang members of this new gang called Trende Aragua. | ||
| And those people, I mean, I don't want to admit it, like, I don't want to downplay it. | ||
| They're genuinely pretty dangerous people. | ||
| A lot of them have been arrested and in jail in the U.S. | ||
| But we have nowhere to put those people. | ||
| I mean, if you have a trend person, we literally can't deport them even though we want to. | ||
| And so either, you know, they have to make the tough decision of holding someone indefinitely in jail and holding a sort of precious detention bed, we have relatively few of those, or to have to release that person. | ||
| Let's hear from Diana in New Jersey, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Diana. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I was wondering if the guests could shed some light on the economic contributions that immigrants, whether they're undocumented or not, make to the country. | ||
| For instance, they give $25 billion to Social Security that they never collect. | ||
| Also, if they're going to go after the immigrants, they need to go after the employers because I know firsthand as a returning, like a stay-at-home mom to work, without a college degree, I competed with immigrants. | ||
| And I became, I worked side by side in some of the richest houses. | ||
| I live in Livingston, New Jersey, one of the upscale suburban neighborhoods that have, not all of us are rich. | ||
| I live in Livingston, too. | ||
| But I became a nanny for rich families and employed in their houses nannies, maids, secretaries to help them conduct their life, but they play them all under the table. | ||
| Me being an American citizen, I questioned it. | ||
| I was told, oh, don't worry about it. | ||
| But when tax came, he tried to teach me, treat me like a contractor instead of a W-2 employee. | ||
| And I spoke up. | ||
| He came the next day with $7,000 in cash. | ||
| And then I worked two more years for them, and they put me on the books with one of his real estate. | ||
| He was a real estate developer like Trump. | ||
| And he put me on the books. | ||
| And then, of course, the kids got older and I moved on. | ||
| But it's just a lot of this goes on. | ||
| It's not just illegal immigrants working under the table. | ||
| It's Americans. | ||
| I had a land chem lawn or one of those guys, a lawn doctor, come. | ||
| And the guy got Michelle, your response. | ||
| Sounds like you have some really interesting experiences. | ||
| Yeah, it's a really good question. | ||
| And it really runs the gamut. | ||
| But I think, like, time and again, all the research, all the evidence points to the fact that in the long term, immigrants coming to the country contribute economically to this country, both because often they work and pay, as you said, pay into Social Security. | ||
| And if they're undocumented, can't collect what they've put in. | ||
| Approximately 50% or more of people who we consider undocumented pay taxes. | ||
| Even if they don't have a Social Security number, the IRS has a way for them to pay taxes, which a lot of people feel that they need to do in case they ever have a path to become legal here. | ||
| They want to be able to show they've sort of done their part and paid taxes. | ||
| But it's much broader than that. | ||
| I would say, you know, our country, for better or for worse, has priced these people into being here. | ||
| I mean, the example I always give is that, you know, there are people here picking our strawberries. | ||
| You know, if they weren't coming and sort of taking those jobs steadily, replacing each other, this is a really exhausting job that a lot of people can't do for very long. | ||
| The price of our strawberries might really double because we would just not have anyone to pick them. | ||
| And even more broadly than that, if you think about it, you know, you always want the economy to be growing. | ||
| You want more people to be coming in because more people are working, but more people are also consuming. | ||
| And so that's a pretty basic economic principle, but it's something that economic that immigration really helps with. | ||
| Let's hear from Keith in Palm Bay, Florida. | ||
| Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Keith. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ladies. | |
| I hope you're having a great day so far. | ||
| One of the biggest disservices, actually, I think that we do to these people, or you were just talking about strawberry pickers. | ||
| America has always had migrants that have come in and done the farms and stuff and gone back and back and forth for ages. | ||
| But then Reagan promised us that the border would be closed after when he let them all become citizens. | ||
| And nobody followed through in our government. | ||
| In our government, between our government and workers, we've progressed into this thing where it's migrants, illegal aliens. | ||
| And then what we're having now, which I think started in 2019, when all seven Democrats on the podium said they would give free health care to anybody coming. | ||
| And I believe they started walking then. | ||
| The NGOs helped them through cities. | ||
| The cartels helped them through the jungles. | ||
| And they're enslaved to the cartels when they get here. | ||
| I think we're doing a real disservice to these people. | ||
| And then President Biden developed that app. | ||
| And now we're getting them from overseas, you know, the African countries, the Middle East, even Europe and stuff, having these people fly in with this app. | ||
| And it's gone into a crazy thing. | ||
| I believe we really need to just shut down the borders, figure out what we need, because we need many, many people coming into this country. | ||
| We don't have enough people to be doing what we need to be doing, manufacturing and being self-service, self-efficient. | ||
| So we do need people coming in, but we need to know how many, what kind of work and stuff they need to do. | ||
| And we need to have an orderly, non-expensive way of getting into America. | ||
| And I really feel sorry for all these people that have waited in line for 10 years and paid the right way. | ||
| And they're Americans who are living the American dream. | ||
| And I believe that's why you lost a lot of Hispanic vote from the Democrat Party this time. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Your response? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thanks for that perspective. | |
| I totally agree with you that I think this is not how literally anyone would have designed an immigration system. | ||
| I mean, it's crazy. | ||
| I think the problem is that, you know, you've hit on something really fundamental that a lot of people feel, which is, you know, there's so many people waiting in line. | ||
| They're trying to do it the right way. | ||
| Why are we allowing people to sort of quote unquote do it the wrong way and rewarding them? | ||
| I would say the problem with that is that I'll give you an example. | ||
| The line, in order to get in the line, you need to have one of a few things. | ||
| You need to have a child or a sibling who is a U.S. citizen. | ||
| You need to have a college degree or you need to be applying to college or you need to have an employer who is sponsored for a job. | ||
| And typically, the sponsorship process is so expensive that it's pretty rare for you not to have a college degree and for an employer to find you and sponsor you. | ||
| So there are very, very basically no other avenues into the country if you don't fit into one of those categories. | ||
| So you can imagine, you know, you were talking about this. | ||
| There are people coming from around the world crossing the border. | ||
| I will say it's not actually true that people were registering on an app and flying from countries like Africa. | ||
| They had to actually, you know, physically make their way to the border and then use an app. | ||
| And the app was sort of designed to say, if you're already here, we're acknowledging you're here and please don't cross illegally. | ||
| You know, we'll give you a little bit of a reward if you wait and let us screen you and know who you are and come in semi-legally. | ||
| The problem is all those people who are coming to fill jobs, I mean, our economy has basically absorbed all those people into jobs like farm work, you know, home health care, nannying, all sorts of construction, all sorts of industries. | ||
| Clearly, we've just absorbed those people right in. | ||
| We needed those people to some extent. | ||
| But we literally have no legal way for those people to come in and no legal way for companies to say, I actually really need someone. | ||
| I'm finding no Americans. | ||
| I need more people. | ||
| And quickly, I would like to use a visa to get someone here. | ||
| I mean, we just literally, there is no such program that does that. | ||
| Just about 20 minutes left with our guest, Michelle Hackman, immigration policy reporter with the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| We'll go next to Bruce in Palm City, Florida, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Bruce. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| My question is, we need immigrants. | ||
| And like the gentleman just spoke before, there's a legal way to do it. | ||
| And it's been the legal way has been happening for years. | ||
| And the influx for the last four years, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, they pile these people in to go to certain sanctuary cities. | ||
| And correct me if I'm wrong, isn't Congress, when the census is taken, don't they allow Congress people the amount of Congress per state or sanctuary cities with the amount of people, whether they're voters or not? | ||
| That's my question. | ||
| Yes, it is true that the way the census works is undocumented people are counted as people for the purposes of the census. | ||
| So it does mean that anywhere that they go, they're increasing the population. | ||
| And I think we're going to have to wait until 2030 to see how that sort of impacts the way that the map is drawn. | ||
| I will say in 2020, this is not like really my area of expertise, but I did find it notable that even though you think of these patterns of migration as being mainly toward places like New York, California, Chicago, that the places that grew the most, I would say, were more the Sunbelt. | ||
| So you saw like Texas gain seats. | ||
| And I think that's because even though we think of migration as being this sort of huge influx into the country, it's even more significant sort of how population growth works elsewhere and sort of how Americans, I think it's canceling out Americans moving from different parts of the country, especially to the Sunbelt. | ||
| Michelle, I wanted to follow up on something you talked about earlier, and that is the lack of space to hold migrants once they are apprehended or detained. | ||
| Another headline, you had this week, Trump orders use of Guantanamo Bay to house migrants. | ||
| What can you tell us about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'm glad you brought this up. | |
| Obviously, a pretty controversial decision given the history of Guantanamo Bay, both as a sort of prison for terrorists, but also as a really longtime place that we've held migrants, especially those caught at sea, Haitians and Cubans primarily. | ||
| The thinking for the Trump administration is, as I said, you know, right now there are approximately 41,000 beds across all of ICE detention. | ||
| That, even under Biden, was pretty tight. | ||
| You know, they were trying to move people out as quickly as possible because they wanted to, they had a higher throughput, you know, at any given time. | ||
| And they did. | ||
| Even the Biden administration was deporting, you know, 200,000 or so people. | ||
| And so they wanted to move people through as quickly as possible. | ||
| The Trump people are saying now, if we want to scale up, if we want to deport hundreds of thousands or millions of people, we need a lot more beds. | ||
| And so one thing that they've come up with is they figured out they could open a facility at Guantanamo that they think can hold about 30,000 people. | ||
| And they think that they can use existing Pentagon contracts to pay for that and stamp that up really quickly. | ||
| Let's hear from Marvin in Michigan, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Marvin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, young ladies. | |
| I just seen on the news last this month of deportations, the Colombia president, he just announced that all Colombians that's working in the United States could come back to Colombia immediately and he have jobs for him. | ||
| And all this information that this young lady is giving out to the community community and to other immigrants of how they can safeguard themselves. | ||
| Where was all this information brought out before the election process was going on? | ||
| And they knew that this couldn't happen to them. | ||
| And they voted for the guy anyway. | ||
| It's interesting what happened with Colombia. | ||
| I think What happened as far as I understand it is that the Colombian president had sort of seen pictures that disgruntled him of another deportation flight where he saw, you know, sort of these deportees shackled. | ||
| I think that's sort of relatively standard for ICE to treat their detainees that way. | ||
| But the Colombian president, you know, he's a pretty bombastic figure himself. | ||
| I think some people even talk about him as like almost like a Trump-like figure in his own country. | ||
| And he really likes almost like stunts. | ||
| And so he said, I'm not taking any sort of military aircraft to my country. | ||
| Of course, then you saw Trump snap back in a really, really comprehensive way and say, I'm going to put sanctions on your country. | ||
| I'm going to cancel visas. | ||
| I'm going to do tariffs. | ||
| And I think what we learned from that experience is, at least for Colombia, that was too much. | ||
| They caved. | ||
| And what happened this week was Colombia sort of did this stunt where they said, you know, we don't trust the Americans to treat our people well, so we're going to send our own planes to take our deportees back. | ||
| I think this came as a delight to the Trump administration because it's one fewer flight that they have to pay for. | ||
| So, you know, it's interesting how this whole episode went down. | ||
| Patricia in Texas, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Patricia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| I just wanted to correct your guest on the number of IS agents we have. | ||
| According to the official website, we have, and I quote, more than 20,000 law enforcement and support personnel. | ||
| So actually, the number of agents is much larger, and those facts do matter. | ||
| That Ms. Hackman is a journalist. | ||
| She should know the correct number. | ||
| And also, she stated that they just figured out about the beds in Guantanamo. | ||
| They didn't just figure that out. | ||
| They've been planning on it for four years. | ||
| I have a friend that worked in Guantanamo, so she needs to get her facts straight. | ||
| And I appreciate the caller from Florida. | ||
| His sentiments were exactly what I agree with. | ||
| And MAGA. | ||
| Patricia, thank you for looking that up. | ||
| I'll explain to you why our numbers are different. | ||
| So ICE has 20,000 employees overall. | ||
| About 6,000 work in the division that I'm talking about, which is called enforcement and removal operations. | ||
| Roughly another 6,000 work in something called Homeland Security Investigations. | ||
| So those are closer to like FBI agents. | ||
| Those people are not day-to-day arresting immigrants in the country legally. | ||
| Those people are investigating migrant smuggling organizations. | ||
| They're investigating cartels. | ||
| They're even doing things like a really big area for them is looking into child pornography because often that is sort of coming in and out of the country internationally. | ||
| And so, and then the rest of ICE, a lot of them are lawyers. | ||
| They're prosecutors. | ||
| Those are the people who are prosecuting immigrants in the country illegally in immigration court. | ||
| And so, yes, ICE is 20,000 people, but practically speaking, those who are available or by job title are responsible for doing arrests and deportation are only about 6,000. | ||
| We'll go to Marcia in Payson, Arizona, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Marcia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, good morning. | |
| People don't realize the fecklessness of our medical system. | ||
| The people who don't let themselves get, I mean, they go to doctors who don't care if they get well. | ||
| There are nine million people on disability, 100,000 added every year that strains Social Security when these people, if they went to natural doctors, homeopaths, et cetera, could actually get well and go to work. | ||
| We're just not taking personal responsibility for our health. | ||
| And they go to school on disability and they just linger the rest of their lives and big pharma loves it. | ||
| In response for our colour. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is not an area of expertise for me, I will say, but I will say one trend that we've seen that has made it particularly advantageous for immigrants in the country illegally to have available jobs for them, is that a lot of jobs that typically would go filled by Americans who typically don't have college degrees or don't have sort of specialized training or skill sets, is that a lot of that population has unfortunately become addicted to, | |
| and that's what happens. | ||
| of painkiller type drugs and that's made them less and less able to work, and so a lot of those jobs that they would or should be taking are instead going to immigrants. | ||
| Chris, in Alabama line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning Chris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes hi, I have a catch 22 question. | |
| We're we're deporting Mexicans, rapists and killers and et cetera, etc. | ||
| And yet, from what I understand, if you know a killer and you don't report it, you are, you are helping them. | ||
| Okay, so we've released into our country people from January 6th who have been found guilty of these crimes and they're being allowed to come into this country by a great man, our president, and yet he's throwing out rapists and killers who they don't necessarily have any proof of them being such, | ||
| and I would certainly would just like an answer on who is who and why is why. | ||
| Thank you very much, Michelle. | ||
| You know I've heard that criticism from a lot of people that that we're treating sort of different people who have committed similar crimes differently, and that's something that I shouldn't share an opinion on because it's a, you know, not something I cover day to day, but you, you raise a point that a lot of people say share, which is like. | ||
| You know, we have an American criminal system that handles people, you know, is it? | ||
| Is it almost like double punishment if you throw someone in jail for 10 years or something, or in prison for 10 years and then also deport them? | ||
| You know, I'm not going to share an opinion either way, because if someone's deported, they've been in the country illegally, so you can decide for yourself if that's that is fair or not. | ||
| Michelle, you've had a busy week. | ||
| I want to share another headline that you had Trump, so it's fear among migrants with shock and awe deportation campaign. | ||
| Talk a little bit about the reaction coming out of migrant communities and those advocacy groups who are supporting them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so we, we wrote this story to highlight the fact that a lot of the people that Trump is sort of highlighting their deportations were people that were being deported under President Biden also. | |
| I mean, Biden really concentrated his ice on serious criminals, But Trump has sort of cranked up this PR campaign that frankly, is working pretty well. | ||
| He is blasting out video of people being loaded onto deportation planes. | ||
| He is sending sort of relatively high-profile people out on deportation operations. | ||
| I think probably a lot of viewers saw a picture of Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam out sort of on a deportation operation wearing a sort of law enforcement uniform. | ||
| They sent Dr. Phil out. | ||
| They've sent all sorts of other right-wing personalities out to sort of show how these operations are working. | ||
| And what it's done is, A, it's made the operations look sort of different in scale or kind than they used to be, but it's also sown a lot of fear among migrants who feel like, oh my gosh, you know, these arrests are ubiquitous. | ||
| They're everywhere. | ||
| They're coming for me next. | ||
| And I would say people have really have responded sort of in a rational way, which is that they are too scared to, in some cases, go to work, go to a grocery store. | ||
| We've heard reports that sort of public transportation, like subways or buses, are much emptier than they would have been a few weeks ago. | ||
| And that's having an impact on the country and the economy already. | ||
| Let's hear from Bill in Alabama, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There is no law that you have to return illegals to their country of origin. | |
| Why don't we make a deal with these low-cost countries where the cost of living is extremely low and where the people are desperate for money, pay a billion dollars to Somalia, Sudan, Chad, and just load these planes up with these illegals, take them there, and let them out and let them enjoy the life of those people. | ||
| We don't have an obligation to maintain these people who are here illegally. | ||
| They chose to make an illegal action, and they can suffer the consequences by going to live, as millions and millions of others do all around the world. | ||
| You raise a really interesting point, and that's actually the exact strategy that the Trump administration is now attempting to pursue. | ||
| I think the first such deal that we'll probably see is with El Salvador, where El Salvador has a pretty extensive prison system, and so the Trump administration is concentrated on trying to see if they can send some of those Venezuelan gang members that I was talking about to El Salvador to sort of be in their presence rather than in ours. | ||
| Even in that case, I think that the numbers of people that El Salvador is willing to take are not going to be unlimited, and we are going to have to compensate them in some way. | ||
| And so it's going to take some amount of diplomatic work to keep striking these deals with other countries, but it's certainly something this administration is looking to do. | ||
| Let's hear from Ronald in New York, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Ronald. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm disappointed in the Wall Street Journal in the sense that on this issue and other issues, it's not really taking a position that I would have thought would be correct. | ||
| Now, regarding illegal immigrants, they have all committed crime in the sense that to come into this country illegally is a crime in itself. | ||
| And during the Eisenhower administration, the United States was able to successfully deport a million illegal immigrants. | ||
| Now, Either we obey the rules as a country or we do not. | ||
| These people all broke the law and the right thing is for them to go back and come in legally. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| Like Switzerland, for example, they do that. | ||
| They won't let in one person who comes in legally, not one. | ||
| Now you'll say, all right, well, Switzerland's a small country. | ||
| That's true, of course. | ||
| But either, as I said, either you obey the rules of the country or you don't and then suffer the consequences. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thanks for that feedback. | ||
| My job as a journalist is to inform about sort of what the facts are, but also to share sort of perspectives that people hadn't considered. | ||
| And a lot of readers, you know, will read a perspective and are uncomfortable with it and don't like it, but it's our job to sort of make sure that we're representing the views of everybody in the country, of employers, of people who have immigrants moving into their communities, and of the immigrants themselves and their experience working through the system. | ||
| I will say, to your point about laws, there is a common misconception about sort of what is a crime and what is not a crime. | ||
| And so I'll lay it out pretty quickly. | ||
| Entering the country illegally is a misdemeanor. | ||
| It's not a felony. | ||
| In the vast majority of cases, it could be prosecuted, but the Justice Department under every past administration has decided it's not really something that is worth pursuing. | ||
| You know, prosecuting someone for a misdemeanor wouldn't even send them to jail typically. | ||
| If people cross the border illegally more than once, that turns into a felony, and that's something that much more often gets prosecuted. | ||
| Living in the country illegally is actually not a crime. | ||
| It is a civil violation, sort of, you know, same in statute, but obviously not the same in consequences, almost like getting a parking ticket. | ||
| And so that's not something that someone can even be sent to criminal jail for. | ||
| I will say, you know, that answer makes a lot of people angry because they feel like it should be a crime to live here illegally. | ||
| And I'll say that's something, you know, if people feel that way, that's something that Congress could change. | ||
| And I think speaks to the fact that our politics have interests in having these people here for economic and other reasons. | ||
| And that's why there has been pressure not to change that. | ||
| We have time for one last call. | ||
| We'll hear from my, I'm sorry, Ralph in Georgia, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Ralph. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I would just like to say, and I'll try to make this quick. | ||
| I know I was in El Paso, Texas after I retired from the military. | ||
| There were Mexican people. | ||
| They would come across the border, flash a car, they would come over here, go to our schools, come over here and work in our different places, hotels, and our agriculture, any type of work, and they were required to go back in at evening and return the next day and see they were picked up and given the work. | ||
| What I want to know is we went into all these countries that they are talking about. | ||
| And since I would say this quickly, are those people that were flown to Chicago, New York, from Texas, and from Florida, were they vetted to see what their temperature were before they were flown into these countries? | ||
| And I'll just leave it at that because people in Iowa are begging for these immigrants to come over and work to help with the fall. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I'll take your answer. | ||
| You speak to the continued brokenness of the system. | ||
| And as I always say, this is a system that is sort of not remotely operational and is not, it's the consequence of 40 years of not sort of fixing this immigration system and coming up with something new that actually functions because no one would design it this way. | ||
| I mean, you have employers all over the country who want workers, want to be able to hire people legally in most cases, I shouldn't say in all cases, who would be willing to go through a visa process if that existed. | ||
| It doesn't in most cases, especially for sort of these lower income types of jobs like construction or working in a nursing home or something. | ||
| And so what you have is sort of this like rough shot system where immigrants are crossing the border, often illegally. | ||
| They're often asking for asylum and then they're choosing themselves where to go in the country. | ||
| Or, you know, as you alluded to, Texas was busing people to different cities, which a lot of people, if they didn't have a sort of destination already in mind, were taking them up on. | ||
| And so you had lots of people showing up in places like New York, Chicago, Denver that were being sent there by Texas, but there was no coordination whatsoever between sort of Texas, the federal government, those places to say, where are these people actually needed and wanted? | ||
| Where are their jobs for them? | ||
| Because there just basically is no mechanism in place to do that because that's, you know, the system, this is all sort of not how the system is supposed to work to begin with. | ||
| And so there's no way to try to coordinate in that sense. | ||
| Our guest, Michelle Hackman, immigration policy reporter for the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| You can find her work online at WSJ.com. | ||
| Michelle, thank you so much for being with us today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Next on Washington Journal, Michael Schifter, senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, joins us to discuss Secretary of State Marco Rubio's trip to Central America and the future of U.S. Latin American policy under the Trump administration. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
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American History TV, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| 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. | ||
| 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. | ||
| 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. | ||
| And then on lectures and 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 every weekend 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, quote, 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. | ||
|
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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. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now is Michael Schifter. | ||
| He's a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue. | ||
| We are talking about Secretary of State Rubio's Central American Visit and U.S. policy in the Americas. | ||
| Michael, thank you for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's a great pleasure. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Why don't we start with telling us a little bit about your work at Inter-American Dialogue and how your organization is funded? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the Inter-American Dialogue is a policy center, a think tank in Washington. | |
| It's been around for over 40 years, so it has a long history and works on a variety of issues on the agenda between the United States and Latin America. | ||
| And it's funded by the private sector, the business community, both in Latin America and the United States, companies that have interests in Latin America, that work in Latin America, in addition to private foundations in the United States and in Europe as well, and also multilateral organizations. | ||
| The multilateral banks, for example, are also a source of support for the dialogue. | ||
| Our topic for this segment is Secretary of State Rubio's Central visit to Central America. | ||
| He is heading out on a diplomatic mission across Central America and the Caribbean. | ||
| How significant is it that his first foreign travel is to Latin America? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think it is significant because this is the issues that are priorities for the Trump administration relate to Latin America and principally migration and China, the presence of China and influence of China in Latin America. | |
| And of course, we remember that in President Trump's inaugural address, the country that he referred to most was Panama and pledged to retake control of the Panama Canal, which is now in Panamanian hands. | ||
| So it's not a surprise that Secretary Rubio's first stop will be Panama to talk about that issue. | ||
| He has long exerted influence over U.S. Latin American policy, including during the first Trump administration. | ||
| Remind us of his background and his perspective as he comes into this role. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Secretary Rubio has been a senator from Florida. | |
| He's the son of Cuban immigrants, has been somebody who has served on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Intelligence Committee in the Senate. | ||
| And he has certainly stands for a very, very strong commitment to fight for democracy and human rights. | ||
| He has in the past, particularly in Venezuela, in Cuba, and Nicaragua, that are both under dictatorship. | ||
| And he has also been noted as a real hawk on China and China's growing presence and influence throughout the world, including in Latin America. | ||
| We're going to talk about China, but wanted to stay in Latin America for just a moment. | ||
| Wanted to show you a quote from an op-ed that Secretary Rubio had in the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| In part, it says, making America great again also means helping our neighbors achieve greatness. | ||
| The threats Mr. Trump was elected to stop are threats to the nation of our hemisphere, nations of our hemisphere as well. | ||
| We share a common home. | ||
| The safer, stronger, and more prosperous that home becomes, the more all our nations stand to benefit. | ||
| Together, there are a few limits to what we can accomplish. | ||
| That's Senator Rubio's vision for moving forward. | ||
| How does that compare to President Trump's America First policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think there's an alignment there. | |
| We've seen that Secretary Rubio has aligned himself with President Trump. | ||
| I think there clearly perception that a threat of President Trump has called an invasion from the region and across the border of Mexico and the United States. | ||
| And President Trump has implemented a variety of measures to stop that flow of migration. | ||
| And the region is a major source of that. | ||
| So I think that aligns with President Trump and also a threat, again, China being very much present and having spread much in the region in the past several decades is also something that I think Secretary Rubio is committed to trying to contain to some extent. | ||
| I think it raises a big question of how he's going to do this. | ||
| And reading that editorial, it's clear what his position is in general terms, but we have to see what the details are and what the specifics are about how to make the region strong and prosperous. | ||
| And what is the United States prepared to do with Latin America to strengthen it besides keeping out China and keeping immigrants away from the United States? | ||
| Those are sort of negative kinds of objectives. | ||
| And is there also a more positive, forward-looking agenda there? | ||
| And we just haven't heard it yet, and hopefully that will come. | ||
| Our guest is Michael Schifter. | ||
| He's a senior fellow at the Inter-America Dialogue. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now the lines, Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Michael, wanted to go back to a couple countries. | ||
| You mentioned, you talked about, you mentioned Panama. | ||
| You also talked about China. | ||
| President Trump has claimed it's, I'm sorry, it's a stop that Senator Rubio will be, Secretary Rubio will be making during this trip. | ||
| President Trump claims the canal is being operated by China. | ||
| Can you clarify China's role with the canal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
China operates two ports on both ends of the canal. | |
| It has had a company called Hutchison, which is based in Hong Kong, that states from the late 1990s. | ||
| So there's a long period in which they've been operating that. | ||
| But of course, things have changed in Hong Kong and they've changed in China since the late 1990s. | ||
| So it is true that China does operate those main ports. | ||
| It's also true that China has increased its presence significantly in Panama since Panama recognized China and broke relations with Taiwan in 2017. | ||
| But I think the claims that China controls the canal don't really have a strong basis. | ||
| I think the Panamanian authorities are still in control of the canal, and China does not control the canal, but it does have a presence, and it does have a role to play in the operation and management of these two ports. | ||
| We've been hearing a lot about the Panama Canal the last month or so. | ||
| It's something that President Trump is interested in taking control back, but it's something that Panama's president has said that there's not going to be a negotiation around this. | ||
| Secretary Rubio says it's going to be discussed during his visit. | ||
| Where does it currently stand? | ||
| What are your expectations for that point of discussion? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think the Panamanians, having heard, and were probably more surprised than anybody that President Trump emphasized Panama in his inaugural address, have already sort of dialed back a little bit their relations with China and have made a pivot to try to really get the United States much more involved and invested in Panama. | |
| I think one of the government's complaints, frankly, is that the United States has not bid for some of these big projects, the tenders for infrastructure projects. | ||
| And China has. | ||
| And I think one of the problems, and hopefully this whole controversy about the canal, the good that can come out of it is maybe the United States will be more committed and engaged to investing in Panama. | ||
| I think that's what Panamanians want. | ||
| To some extent, China filled the void that the United States was not there, was not present, and didn't make bids. | ||
| So they're already dialogging back. | ||
| They're reviewing and doing an audit of some of the concessions, the China on the ports and so forth. | ||
| So I think the negotiations will move in that kind of direction. | ||
| China is a big issue. | ||
| Migration is also a big issue. | ||
| A lot of the migrants go through from, it's called the Darien Gap that connects Colombia and Panama. | ||
| So maybe a little bit more pressure there, although the government has done a great job, but migration, you can never do enough. | ||
| And also, President Trump has referred to the rates that are being charged, and the United States is being charged too much. | ||
| And again, there may be space for some discussion on that. | ||
| I don't think the Panamanians are going to give up control of the canal. | ||
| And So I think hopefully they'll be able to sort of reach some sort of agreements to address the concerns that have been raised here. | ||
| I think the Panamanians are very willing to engage in those discussions. | ||
| And Secretary Rubio, before he left, when he talked about Panama, had what I thought was a conciliatory tone. | ||
| So I think that is that he goes with. | ||
| But I don't think it's going to, nor should it, go back to the United States. | ||
| This was something that over a quarter of a century, Panama has run this and has generally been very responsible and very professional in their management. | ||
| We'll bring our audience into the discussion. | ||
| We'll start with Harvey in Louisville, Kentucky, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Harvey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, yeah. | |
| I was just saying they come back, Georgia workers. | ||
| Unfortunately, we're going to have kidney works eventually because he takes out the farms in our country. | ||
| The town is taking them farms over. | ||
| And they're raising the crops and they're nursing the crops to China. | ||
| So China's taking over our farm. | ||
| And it's Chinese or their workers. | ||
| I mean, because we got thousands and tens of thousands of Chinese going across the border, and they're going to Iowa, Illinois, states, and working on this China farm. | ||
| This is about the United States. | ||
| That's what I don't know about Chinese workers in the United States. | ||
| We'll go to Paul in Nampa, Idaho, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have a question for him. | ||
| That is, what kind of legacy Blanken has to be on the United States? | ||
| Paul, it's hard to hear you. | ||
| Are you moving around or on a cell phone? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm on a cell phone. | |
| Okay, try again. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have a question too. | |
| That is, what kind of legacy did Blinken leave in Secretary of State office after he left when the administration was done for their four years? | ||
| And now, I'm sorry, what was the new guy's name? | ||
| Rubio? | ||
| Yeah, Rubio, what kind of legacy is he going to be walking into? | ||
| What kind of deal is he going to be left with? | ||
| Do you follow me? | ||
| I believe he's asking what the legacy that Blinken left behind with the area and where Rubio, Secretary Rubio, will be picking up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, certainly the region was not a priority for Secretary Blinken. | |
| Of course, he was dealing with the Middle East and Ukraine and so forth, which Secretary Rubio is also dealing with. | ||
| But there was a sense of kind of managing the situation in Latin America. | ||
| There was some level of engagement. | ||
| He made several trips to the region. | ||
| There was emphasis on getting things on a better track with Mexico and a couple of other things. | ||
| But I don't think there's a very strong legacy that the Biden administration left on Latin America. | ||
| And I think Secretary Rubio comes to this job with at least the ambition of changing that and getting more allies in the region and showing that the U.S. can be tough on issues of China, migration, trade, drugs, other issues. | ||
| Let's hear from Tom in Richmond Hill, New York, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| My question deals with Senator Rubio, our Secretary of State, Rubio's efforts to engage uh Latin America and how Trump supporters will feel if we if that involves increasing foreign aid, which most Trump supporters oppose. | ||
| And how do you reconcile the the attempt to spam the flow of immigration with with a resistance to providing foreign aid to Latin Count Latin Americ countries? | ||
| Thank you, I think from all indications so far. | ||
| Anyway, Secretary Rubio is on the same page as President Trump in terms of cutting back foreign aid. | ||
| I think he has expressed a sense that a lot of these programs and support are not really crucial. | ||
| They don't really serve U.S. interests. | ||
| He made that clear in his speech before the employees of the State Department when he first took over. | ||
| So I don't, you know, I think this may be a problem because my own view is that I think the United States, it's one way that the United States can be engaged in the region. | ||
| And if it pulls back from a lot of foreign aid and programs, that also leaves an opening for other actors like China and others to fill that void. | ||
| I think it's good for the United States to have that level of presence and engagement through its foreign aid program. | ||
| But that's kind of under revision. | ||
| And I think so far, Secretary Rubio has been pretty much aligned with President Trump on that issue. | ||
| Let's talk a little bit more about China. | ||
| Their growing influence in Latin America is a concern for Washington. | ||
| How would you describe the current standing between China and those Latin American countries when it comes to things like trade and looking to them as a source of finance? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the China-Latin American relationship has gone through, has been evolving, has gone through a lot of different phases. | |
| And I think it started with trade and finance. | ||
| Trade is kind of the underpinning of the relationship. | ||
| It's the pillar of the relationship. | ||
| China is the main trading partner of Latin America. | ||
| If you leave out Mexico, Mexico, obviously, is a separate case because of its trade with the United States is so important. | ||
| But if you leave out Mexico, it's the main trading partner of the rest of Latin America. | ||
| So, and certainly in South America, it's very, very important. | ||
| And that continues to be the case. | ||
| Financing has diminished somewhat, but now there have been investments like in a major port that there is in Peru. | ||
| And there's also what they call new infrastructure, which is more tech communications, which is more sensitive and has raised a lot of concerns and worries here in Washington. | ||
| So it's gone through an evolution since it really started to establish its presence in the end of the last century and the early part of this century. | ||
| Let's hear from Steve in Maryland, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I usually like to wait to speak to a senator or a House Representative, but on this topic of China and South America, South America has opened the largest shipping port in Peru. | ||
| They've been in Brazil for the past 15, 20 years. | ||
| They've got the largest population in Brazil of Chinese immigrants. | ||
| They set up the largest mining and ore facility ever created. | ||
| So we, once again, the Americans, and our legislative branch, have let China take over control of South America. | ||
| I find that interesting because the Monroe Doctrine, I think everybody's forgot about the Monroe Doctrine, clearly states that we're not supposed to have anybody in our Western Hemisphere, but due to the outsourcing and offshoring of the 80s with Mr. Clinton, we have let China run amok in South America, not only in South America, we've let them run amok in South Africa. | ||
| So China is eating America's lunch and will continue to eat America's lunch. | ||
| I don't see us lasting, as Mr. O'Rubio said in his confirmation hearing, in the next 10 years, there is nothing we're not going to do without China's permission. | ||
| Where does the lobbyist stand on this topic? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, not a lobbyist, first of all, but I think it's a very good question, and I appreciate it very much. | ||
| I think Carl makes an excellent point, and I think it underscores the withdrawal, disengagement, drift between the United States and Latin America over the past several decades. | ||
| And Latin Americans have agreed to the Chinese role, not because they embrace China or because China is a model, but because they're being pragmatic. | ||
| They need trade. | ||
| They need investment. | ||
| The United States at this point is very protectionist. | ||
| It's anti-trade. | ||
| There have been a few countries in the region, like Ecuador, like Uruguay, that wanted a free trade agreement with the United States. | ||
| The message here from Congress and from the executive was no. | ||
| I think that will continue under President Trump. | ||
| They want investment, as I just mentioned, in the Panama Canal is an example. | ||
| Panamanians have wanted U.S. investment, and the U.S. is not interested. | ||
| So if they're not interested and the Panamanians need investment to create jobs and to grow the economy, they're going to be pragmatic and they'll take it from China. | ||
| Now, I think the big question with Secretary Ruby and what he plans to do to address this is not whether the punishments or the threats are going to work to stop engagement in China, but what is he prepared to really offer an alternative to these countries? | ||
| Because my own sense is that most Latin American countries, if not all, would prefer to deal with the United States than China. | ||
| But the United States has to be prepared to make a serious offer and to show some, demonstrate some interest and commitment in the region. | ||
| Just about 20 minutes left with our guest, Michael Schifter. | ||
| He's a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue and also a Latin American politics professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Services. | ||
| Next, we'll go to Edgar in Farris, Texas, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Edgar. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have a question. | ||
| So my question is, why is the United States so concerned about China having those two, I think you said two ports in the Panama Canal? | ||
| What's the issue there? | ||
| Why are you so concerned about that? | ||
| The reason is, and Secretary Rubio was very clear about this in his confirmation hearing in the Senate, was that he sees these two ports as choke points that if there were some conflict between the United States, | ||
| either economic conflict or military conflict between China and the United States, and nobody is saying that's going to happen, but it could happen that Those two ports, Chinese could control those and prevent U.S. from going through under the circumstances and scenario of kind of a warlike situation. | ||
| And that is what that is what Secretary Rubio is concerned about that. | ||
| And he wants to make sure that that's not the case, that the United States would have free access there because those ports are, in essence, controlled by the Chinese government. | ||
| And so they don't want China, you know, the canal being used to help China under that scenario. | ||
| And that's what he emphasized in his hearing before the Senate. | ||
| Let's hear from Mario in Sacramento, California, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Mario. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want some clarification. | ||
| You said there's a, I'm not sure the name of the company, Hutchinson, that's running. | ||
| I'm sorry? | ||
| Hutchinson, correct. | ||
| Hutchinson. | ||
| Okay, so you say that's a Chinese company, but you also everybody refers to the Chinese running it. | ||
| So is that the Chinese government company or is that a company within China? | ||
| No, it's a company that is actually based in Hong Kong. | ||
| And so I think when it started 25 years ago, it was seen as more benign, not as serious. | ||
| But clearly, China has changed, and Hong Kong is not what it was. | ||
| And so it is a Hong Kong company, but is it's not the Chinese government, but the Chinese government clearly has control over that company. | ||
| So that, I think, is the concern. | ||
| These are not Chinese companies that are totally independent from the government and the Communist Party. | ||
| So I think that, I think, is the issue for Washington. | ||
| We'll hear from Sal in New Jersey, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Sal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, Mr. Schifter. | |
| I would like to ask you: what can we do to help develop democratic values and free market economies in Latin America so these people, the Latin Americans, don't come to America en masse the way they are? | ||
| And what can we possibly do to stop the to dismantle the Chinese presence in the Western Hemisphere? | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I think we have to have a positive gender in Latin America. | ||
| If free trade is off the table in Washington and there's really not enough investment going into Latin America, and President Trump has said he wants investment to come to the United States. | ||
| So companies that are deciding whether to go to Latin America maybe and invest or come to the United States, they're going to be more rewarded and be in better standing probably with the Trump administration if they come to the United States and invest here. | ||
| So I think there needs to be a serious economic initiative in Latin America that I think has been lacking. | ||
| And if you talk to Latin American leaders and officials, as I tried to do, that's basically what they're asking for. | ||
| And I think my question is: will the Trump administration be prepared to offer something along those lines, or will it just be more threats against governments because they're getting too close to China? | ||
| That is a negative, I think, approach. | ||
| And the question is: could they have a more constructive and positive approach? | ||
| Many of the leaders across Latin America are fairly new. | ||
| They didn't interact with President Trump during his first term. | ||
| How do they see him? | ||
| How do leaders in Latin America view Trump, his administration, and what have the interactions look like so far? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think that, you know, it varies. | |
| One thing we should say from the outset is that Latin America is not unified. | ||
| It's certainly not monolithic. | ||
| There's just so many. | ||
| Each country is on its own, has its own agenda, and deals with Washington in its own way. | ||
| So it goes from different countries. | ||
| I think there are countries like Argentina and El Salvador whose leaders are very much aligned with President Trump, with there's a great affinity. | ||
| They're applauding and they're cheering. | ||
| There's cases like we saw in the case with Colombia, with President Petro. | ||
| He's not as enthusiastic, I don't think. | ||
| And there are others, I think most of them are kind of cautious and waiting to see exactly what happens. | ||
| I think we'll see that if, in fact, the tariffs are applied now to Mexico and Canada, 25%. | ||
| As of now, that hasn't happened. | ||
| But if it does happen, I think we may see some retaliation by Mexico and Canada. | ||
| And I think that could lead us down a very bad path, especially if there's an impact not only on the Mexican economy and the Canadian economy, but on the U.S. economy, because prices will be higher because of the tariffs. | ||
| And that could fuel inflation. | ||
| And inflation gets worse, and the U.S. economy has troubles. | ||
| And if the U.S. economy is not good, that affects Latin America economy. | ||
| And so if the economy gets worse in Latin America, there's going to be even more pressure to leave and to come north to the United States. | ||
| Let's go to Kay in Ohio, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Kay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have just a thought. | ||
| We spend as taxpayers trillions of dollars sending money to other countries. | ||
| If millions of people came from other countries and certain countries in particular, we should stop sending money to those countries because the leaders of those countries aren't giving it to the people to build them houses, running water, electricity, getting jobs for them, helping their kids get their education. | ||
| They're keeping it for themselves and their 10 best friends. | ||
| We don't even have a word of how they're spending that money. | ||
| So if you have a certain amount of people from countries coming over, those countries should be eliminated. | ||
| And that money could be used in America maybe to build homes for all these people coming, all the homeless people in America, reimburse Social Security so the kids today can be sure they're going to get what's being taken out of their paychecks. | ||
| We need to start thinking about where our money's going and why these people are coming here that aren't getting money. | ||
| As for the DREAMers, I feel like they should be able to go somewhere for their citizenship. | ||
| And if they can prove that, maybe they made a couple mistakes, but they turned their lives around. | ||
| Their lives are good. | ||
| They have jobs. | ||
| They are not gangbangers. | ||
| They're doing their best. | ||
| We should be able to give them their citizenship papers. | ||
| And as for the little kids that are coming into the country, it should be part of the educational system as an incentive to graduate high school. | ||
| They should be taking a citizenship course. | ||
| And when they graduate from high school, they get their citizenship papers along with their high school papers. | ||
| That's all. | ||
| Those are just comments. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Interesting comments. | ||
| Well, I agree on the DREAMers. | ||
| I agree 100%. | ||
| It's unfortunate that that hasn't happened yet because I think they are integrated into the society and they're hardworking and so they should have citizenship. | ||
| I'd say on Nicola's other points, I think the United two things. | ||
| One, I think the United States can do both, should be able to do both as the strongest economy in the world, take care of its own people and the homeless and do domestic needs, but also have a presence overseas. | ||
| The foreign aid budget in the United States is extremely, extremely low. | ||
| It's extremely modest. | ||
| I think sometimes there's a misconception that it accounts for a substantial share of the budget, but it really is very, very minimal. | ||
| And I agree on the point the caller makes on accountability. | ||
| There needs to be accountability on how these funds are met. | ||
| And I think the U.S. government has tried to do that and has made some progress. | ||
| Maybe there's more to be done, but totally agree, corruption is a problem, and the resources shouldn't be going to corrupt officials or corrupt leaders. | ||
| It should be making sure that it goes to the people who need it and who would benefit from it most. | ||
| And I think that's just a challenge of reform. | ||
| But it doesn't mean to completely cut it off because I think there are benefits for the United States to have a presence, to be engaged, and to show another side of the United States through our aid programs. | ||
| Barbara in California, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Barbara. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Yeah, I wanted to call in because I wanted to say, yeah, I'm a Democrat. | ||
| But you know, I really like President Trump. | ||
| And the reason why I like President Trump is because the first time I ever saw President Trump really laugh with any kind of sincerity is when he told the black Americans, be quiet. | ||
| You guys don't have anything anyway. | ||
| And he's absolutely right. | ||
| Because when the black Americans were put off them cotton farms down south fighting that civil rights movement, we had people out here that were protesting and not picking grapes, not picking the orchards, not picking the pistachios, not doing the cashews. | ||
| Caesar Savez was up there cutting the deals. | ||
| And now we, we have to take the brunt of everything. | ||
| We've had too many illegals bringing them drugs across here. | ||
| They got the homes. | ||
| They let the grandmas bring the drugs. | ||
| The man, men went up there and got all the contracts. | ||
| They hired the illegals. | ||
| They pay them under the table. | ||
| They haul the money back across the border. | ||
| You know, black Americans in this country, we're not at fault for this mess. | ||
| And China, you're right. | ||
| They're in the bed with them. | ||
| And they're working against this government. | ||
| And we are not going to be the pawns this time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's not right. | |
| It is not right. | ||
| All this illegal money have put their children through these Catholic schools, private schools. | ||
| Our children can't even get no jobs. | ||
| My grandchildren graduated from high school. | ||
| They weren't bilingual. | ||
| They couldn't get jobs. | ||
| Barbara, we'll get a response from Michael. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| Well, thank you. | ||
| First of all, I agree that President Trump is, if nothing else, very transparent and very direct in what he says and messaging. | ||
| And I think for a lot of people, that's somewhat refreshing. | ||
| I think also the call makes an excellent point that the employers in this country are also part of this issue of migration. | ||
| And all the attention has been focused on the migrants and the illegal, undocumented migration to the United States. | ||
| But, you know, it takes two. | ||
| A lot of employers are contracting with this population. | ||
| And I think that should also get some scrutiny and some attention for some balance in the way this migration challenge and problem is dealt with. | ||
| I also think, you know, I know this, what everybody says, but you really, you know, our immigration system is just not in good shape. | ||
| And we haven't had reform since the 1980s under Ronald Reagan. | ||
| And I think if there were a reform, I think that's the best thing President Trump and the Congress could do is to really have reform so that this system could work and be adjusted to new realities because it's obviously broken. | ||
| That's the best thing. | ||
| But I think you're right. | ||
| Priority should be in the United States. | ||
| There should be attention given to the employers that hire these undocumented workers that are coming here. | ||
| But the question is, why are they coming here? | ||
| And could the United States do anything in the source countries to try to make it more attractive for these people to stay there? | ||
| Because now they don't have economic opportunities. | ||
| They're under repressive rule. | ||
| And it's not surprising they want to look elsewhere. | ||
| And the United States, there is a labor shortage, and there are opportunities. | ||
| So it's logical that they would come here. | ||
| But let's see if we can try to offer a positive agenda in the region. | ||
| And maybe that could be helpful. | ||
| Just a few minutes left. | ||
| We'll go to Nelson in Florida, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Nelson. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Can you hear me okay? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Mr. Schifter, my question is quite simple. | ||
| There was a gentleman previously that mentioned the Monroe Doctrine. | ||
| Isn't China in violation of the Monroe Doctrine? | ||
| Does the United States still honor the Monroe Doctrine, or is the Monroe Doctrine dead? | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| I'll listen to your answer on the air. | ||
| It's a great question. | ||
| Well, I would say the Monroe Doctrine is being revived now. | ||
| One person we haven't mentioned is Mike Waltz, who is the National Security Advisor on the Trump administration, and he talks about Monroe Doctrine 2.0. | ||
| And I think that is kind of his argument or rationale for particularly addressing China. | ||
| But let's not forget there are a lot of other external actors in the Western Hemisphere in Latin America. | ||
| There's Russia, there's Iran, there's Turkey, there's Japan, there are others, Korea. | ||
| So, I mean, this is globalized economy, and there are a lot of others that are making investments and so forth. | ||
| So it's not just China. | ||
| John Kerry, the former Secretary of State in 2013 at the Organization of American States, said that the Monroe Doctrine is obsolete, and we're going to retire the Monroe Doctrine. | ||
| So he retired in 2013. | ||
| But some 12 years later, it's now being revived because of heightened concern and tensions, particularly with China. | ||
| The question is, what do you do in that case? | ||
| And is putting pressure and making threats to Latin American countries going to work or not? | ||
| Or could it be counterproductive if Latin Americans say, well, you're just, you know, I can't do this. | ||
| I'm not going to break off ties with China. | ||
| They provide jobs for my economy. | ||
| And if this is the choice, maybe we'll go even more with China. | ||
| So I think that's a risk that U.S. officials and Secretary Rubio and others should keep in mind. | ||
| It could have the opposite effect. | ||
| I should mention that during President Trump's first term from 2017, 2021, Latin America got closer to China, not more distance from China. | ||
| So this has been a trend over time. | ||
| And the question is, how do you address it, address the issue? | ||
| And I think providing an alternative makes a lot more sense and would work a lot better than making threats. | ||
| We have time for one last call. | ||
| We'll go to Angela in California, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Angela. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I'm a black American born in Louisiana, married to a Mexican-American out of Mexico. | ||
| Here's my question and my concern. | ||
| United States is connected to Mexico and Canada. | ||
| I remember when Roscoe Ross parole was running, and he said those trucks are coming out of Mexico with drugs in them. | ||
| My brother was an 18-wheeler at that time, and he was murdered. | ||
| The trucks could only come into California 30 miles, and then an American driver took them over, and he took one over, and he was end up murdered. | ||
| So we knew drugs was coming in then. | ||
| We have fentanyl coming into this country. | ||
| It's coming through Mexico, and it's coming through Canada. | ||
| I agree with President Trump when it comes to immigration. | ||
| We got to close that border. | ||
| They are walking across that border. | ||
| We in the middle of the water. | ||
| Biden was flying them in. | ||
| We have to do something. | ||
| And my other concern is the Panama Canal. | ||
| If China is controlling two ports and we gave that canal back to them, the United States need to get in there, get China out of there, or we take back control of that port. | ||
| You all don't understand. | ||
| They're sitting here in South Central L.A. plotting and planning. | ||
| My mother is 85 years old, the only black left in South Central on her block, and they're harassing my mother. | ||
| We don't put up cameras, and the lady talking about blacks not doing nothing. | ||
| Me and my brothers and sisters work for the government, work for the city, and we own homes. | ||
| My mother had the right to live in her house until she died. | ||
| But we're fighting MF-13 F-13s down there harassing my mother. | ||
| You don't need to wake up in this country. | ||
| Some of the stuff Donald Trump is saying is true. | ||
| I have to admit it's true. | ||
| You all are not talking to the people that are living in that community. | ||
| Angela, we're going to have to leave it there because we're short on time. | ||
| We'll get a response from Michael. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think President Trump often puts his finger on real issues. | |
| And that's why he's popular, and that's why he won the election. | ||
| I think my question is just whether he's going to be able to solve these problems and whether his prescriptions and proposals are going to work. | ||
| Maybe they will. | ||
| And, you know, I don't know. | ||
| But I'm also, I mean, I think the Biden administration certainly was focused on the fentanyl issue. | ||
| And I think that was Secretary Blinken spent a lot of time on that. | ||
| And the Mexican government, you know, has been doing what it can. | ||
| It's a very hard issue. | ||
| We know this from the United States over the last 50 years. | ||
| It's very hard to stop drugs from coming into the United States, whether it's cocaine or now fentanyl or whatever it happens to be. | ||
| I mean, this has been a, you know, the issue with drugs has been very frustrating, and we haven't seen any solution. | ||
| So I agree with the caller, and I hear her, and I understand why she is drawn to President Trump and what he says. | ||
| And we'll just have to see whether he can resolve the problem. | ||
| If he can, then, you know, more credit to him. | ||
| Our guest, Michael Schifter, Senior Fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue. | ||
| You can find his work online at thedialogue.org. | ||
| Michael, thank you so much for being with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| It's a real pleasure. | ||
| We're wrapping up today's Washington Journal with open form. | ||
| If there's a public policy issue or topic you'd like to talk about, you can start calling in now. | ||
| Here are the lines: Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| But first, later today, members of the Democratic National Committee will vote on a new chair. | ||
| C-SPAN will have live coverage of that event starting at 10 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| The new DNC chair will lead the party's national fundraising, recruiting, and organizing efforts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. | ||
| From yesterday, here's Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kristen Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, at the winter meeting speaking about the 2026 midterms and encouraging Democrats to remain focused on issues important to voters. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But I know and you know that politics is a combat sport. | |
| Sometimes you get knocked down. | ||
| The important thing is what you do when you get back up and keep moving forward. | ||
| That is how the Democratic Senate candidates won in states across the country, even when President Trump carried those states. | ||
| So in Wisconsin, in Arizona, in Nevada, in Michigan, our Democratic candidates, Tammy Baldwin, Ruben Gallego, Jackie Rosen, Alyssa Slotkin, emerged victorious. | ||
| So you have to know how did they do it? | ||
| A relentless, unwavering focus on the issues that matter to those voters the most. | ||
| The cost of things, the cost of eggs, the cost of meat, the cost of milk, public safety. | ||
| Can my daughter walk to school on her own? | ||
| Can she walk through the park? | ||
| Can my family know that they're safe? | ||
| These were the issues that voters were most focused on in those purple and red states. | ||
| And it makes sense. | ||
| If you are worried about putting food on the table, if you're worried about whether your kids are going to be safe at school or whether your first responders are getting attacked on the subway by gang members, these worries will dominate your thinking. | ||
| You won't be thinking as much about other issues, whether it's democracy or reproductive rights or the environment. | ||
| And so we just have to reckon with what people are thinking and how they voted and why they voted the way they did. | ||
| These kinds of issues have always been at the heart of the Democratic Party and American families. | ||
| If Democrats are going to win, we have to make sure that these issues remain at the forefront of the message. | ||
| It doesn't have to be the only message. | ||
| We're always going to care about everything else. | ||
| But they have to hear it, and there's a lot of noise. | ||
| You know how much noise there is. | ||
| People receive their news not from television, not from the newspaper, but from their phones. | ||
| And you know the phones can so easily be used for malign foreign influence, for misinformation, for targeted messaging to harm people and how they see the world. | ||
| That's what we were up against, and we will fight back on that very issue. | ||
| So we only need to look at President Trump for what we're going to think and talk about. | ||
| If you look at what he's done in his first few weeks, how many days? | ||
| 10? | ||
| 10 days of his administration? | ||
| He has cut funding to make kids be hungry, to make our seniors be hungry, to make our first responders not have the equipment they need, to not let the firefighters get them equipment and support they need to fight these fires in California or fight the fires in New York. | ||
| He's blocked funding for every after-school program, every early childhood education program. | ||
| You can't imagine the damage he's done every day to the people that we serve every day. | ||
| And has he mentioned the cost of eggs once? | ||
| No, he has not. | ||
| Has he mentioned the cost of housing once? | ||
| No, he has not. | ||
| He is not talking about the issues that the American people want us and him to be talking about. | ||
| So I think this is an opportunity for us. | ||
| Instead of issuing the orders to block funding for the law enforcement, the fire departments, nutrition assistance, veterans care, and our schools, threatening trade wars with important allies, we can be talking about what people care most about. | ||
| And again, C-SPAN will have live coverage of the Democratic National Committee as they vote on their new chair ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. | ||
| That's starting at 10 a.m. this morning, 10 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| You can find it here on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| But until then, we are in open form. | ||
| We'll start with Gilbert in Birmingham, Alabama, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Gilbert. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning to the listening audience. | |
| I'd like to give my deepest sympathy to the victims in Washington and Philadelphia. | ||
| But I'd like to talk about this peculiar situation America finds itself in today. | ||
| And according to the committee to get the cabinet together, America is in a dangerous situation as I see it in my mind. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's as dangerous as it was from the first American Revolution or even still the Civil War. | |
| When I looked at the cabinet people, I could only think about the devoured races like John C. Calhoun just before the Civil War or Strong Thurman in the early late 40s and 50s. | ||
| What we have here in my mind is a Confederacy/slash fascist type government that we had. | ||
| This ultra-conservative over the polarizing situation that we find ourselves in today is just a repercussion of what America has done to the world. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'm closing on this note here. | |
| When we think about the immigration, the world is in people across the world have become nomads. | ||
| And each country got to bear its own load from wars and everything, the whole world in a state of confusion. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But to think that we as a country have come to the place where we are tearing down our institutions, our laws and policies, what else would we expect? | |
| It took years to build up the policies, laws, and institutions that this country tearing down in 10 days. | ||
| It's amazing. | ||
| It's a particular situation. | ||
| That was Gilbert in Alabama. | ||
| Let's go to Marguerite in Kansas, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Marguerite. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I am calling. | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
| Yes, I can. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm calling to give a hug, if I could, to the Capitol police and to let people know when Trump released those people that attacked our Capitol, it hurt me so bad, like a post-traumatic stress. | |
| It was hard watching people attack our capital, which was very beautiful. | ||
| And see them be released is like a slap in the face. | ||
| And I want to tell the Capitol Police, Jason Crowe, and all those who were meeting, I heard you. | ||
| I wish I could give you a hug in person and thank you for your service. | ||
| You know, this is our capital. | ||
| And people attack them. | ||
| What in the world? | ||
| If, you know, they didn't go attack some other country or defend people. | ||
| No, they attacked us. | ||
| And it hurts very bad. | ||
| And I just wanted those police to know that there are people that were real against that and would like to help the healing. | ||
| But it's unbelievable to me that there's people in power that hate our country and are destroying things. | ||
| I get meals on wheels because I had cancer and I can't cook. | ||
| Eva, just crying. | ||
| You want to stop that? | ||
| What is wrong with you? | ||
| So I just, I don't want to despair and give up, but I do send my love to those who keep trying. | ||
| Keep trying. | ||
| Don't give up. | ||
| And that's why I'm calling today to let you know. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Marguerite in Kansas. | ||
| Let's go to Mary in Peninsula, Ohio, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| I've been a lifelong Democrat, but I switched over to Republican. | ||
| I'm calling about several issues, all of them covered on TV this morning. | ||
| First of all, DEI is a violation of the laws that are on the books. | ||
| EEOC was passed. | ||
| Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was passed years ago, which means that it's illegal to go ahead and select somebody based upon their religion, their race, creed, anything else. | ||
| So whenever they're turning around and saying, we're not going to hire you, even though you're the best qualified, we're going to hire somebody of a different race or creed or religion instead of the best qualified. | ||
| That is in violation of laws that have been on the books forever. | ||
| Your recent person discussing Panama, there was a hearing on C-SPAN this week. | ||
| China can actually, they have two ports, one on either end of the Panama Canal. | ||
| They can shut it down, completely shut it down. | ||
| Plus, they're planning on building a bridge spanning the Panama Canal. | ||
| That can shut down the Panama Canal. | ||
| And per the contract that was signed with the United States when Carter gave the Panama back to them for $1, there was actually stipulations that were built into it. | ||
| Panama is in violation of two of the five major stipulations. | ||
| We have every right to go back in. | ||
| And for all the people that want to talk about illegals in this country, you know what? | ||
| I don't know of too many strawberry fields that are sitting in the middle of New York City that illegal aliens are picking the strawberries from or the apple orchards there. | ||
| In 2009, while Obama was president, it cost $12,000 per illegal alien student to send that child to school. | ||
| Plus that school had to take their compensation and hire a teacher that spoke their language. | ||
| So for instance, we have to hire teachers that speak Spanish, that can teach Spanish. | ||
| Iraqi, Iranian, all the rest of the countries, we're hiring all of that. | ||
| And instead of paying and teaching the students what they need to learn, read, write. | ||
| Also, they get free electricity. | ||
| When they have a house and they have an anchor baby here, they get free housing, free medical, free electricity, free heat, and everything else. | ||
| I was involved in helping to bust a restaurant here that was hiring all illegal aliens. | ||
| More than 40 of them were living in a house, and guess what? | ||
| All of their food, all of their electricity, their groceries, their gasoline, and everything else was being paid for by American people. | ||
| And they put American workers out of work. | ||
| I'm going to leave it there so we can get some other voices. | ||
| And we'll go to Don in New Orleans, Louisiana, lying for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Don. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, very good morning. | |
| And I thought DEI, three separate issues, diversity, equity, and inclusiveness, was in spite of, not because of. | ||
| I'm just puzzled by that. | ||
| But the issue, when I hear what I'm excited about and being in the United States of America, is C-SPAN does a great job, excellent job on book TV. | ||
| I look forward to it, the authors. | ||
| And that is the separation from my medial mind, if you will, from media, the First Amendment, the free press. | ||
| Because books are unlike media, okay, books, unlike media, is categorized science fiction, nonfiction. | ||
| And that's the beauty of books. | ||
| Books gives us the choice, a true American choice, if you will, or a global choice to study those realms of writings from a perspective that is either nonfiction or fiction that give us a perspective on humanity. | ||
| And so when all of these former FBI and government employees are being relieved of their duties, they have a plethora of knowledge inside that will give us a perspective on the sovereignty and the democracy of America. | ||
| So in the spirit of the life and times of Frederick Douglass and Up From Slavery with Booker T. Washington, it will give us in the issue of sovereignty and illegal immigrants and undocumented immigrants. | ||
| Books, more than any other media, gives us that true American and that true global perspective on humanity. | ||
| And I think that was Don in Louisiana. | ||
| One of the major headlines this week was yesterday's announcement from President Trump that he'd be placing tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and Canada, Mexico, and China starting today. | ||
| This in this morning's Wall Street Journal, it's an opinion coming from their board, the headline, The Dumbest Trade War in History. | ||
| And it says that there's the prospect of retaliation, which Canada and Mexico have shown they know how to do for maximum political impact. | ||
| In 2009, the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats ended a pilot program that allowed Mexican long-haul truckers into the U.S. as stipulated in NAFTA. | ||
| Mexico responded with targeted retaliation on 90 U.S. goods to pressure industries in key congressional districts. | ||
| These included California grapes and wine, Oregon Christmas trees and cherries, jams and jellies from Ohio and North Dakota soy. | ||
| When Mr. Trump imposed steel and aluminum tariffs in 2018, Mexico got results using the same tactic, putting tariffs on steel, pork products, fresh cheese, and bourbon. | ||
| Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to respond to U.S. tariffs on a dollar-for-dollar basis. | ||
| Canada could suffer a larger GDP hit since its economy is so much smaller, but American consumers will feel the bite of higher costs for some goods. | ||
| It was yesterday in the Oval Office that President Trump was asked about the tariffs in addition to other topics. | ||
| Here is part of his remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
... about your meeting with NVIDIA. | |
| What did you talk about, and do you think you need to ban more of the chips that they're selling to China? | ||
| Well, he's a great gentleman, and I hadn't met him. | ||
| He's the biggest in the world in terms of chips. | ||
| And I can't say what's going to happen with it. | ||
| We had a meeting. | ||
| It was a good meeting. | ||
| But eventually we're going to put tariffs on chips. | ||
| We're going to put tariffs on oil and gas. | ||
| That'll happen fairly soon. | ||
| I think around the 18th of February. | ||
| And we're going to put a lot of tariffs on steel. | ||
| We already have tariffs on steel, and we've saved our steel industry, but that was relatively small compared to what it'll be. | ||
| But we're going to be putting tariffs on steel and aluminum and ultimately copper. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Copper will take a little bit longer, and that'll happen pretty quickly. | |
| It'll mean it'll be a great boost for our steel industry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It'll make our steel industry very strong. | |
| If I didn't put the tariffs on years ago on steel, which actually Biden left because there was so much money that they couldn't do anything about it, we would have lost. | ||
| We wouldn't have one steel mill in this country if I didn't do that. | ||
| We saved the steel industry, so it was an honor to do it. | ||
| And I think the people that love me most in the whole world are people that make steel. | ||
| But we're going to be putting sometime this month, next month, we're going to be putting tariffs on steel and aluminum. | ||
| And we'll give you an announcement as to what the exact date is. | ||
| But it'll be a tremendous amount of money for our country, a tremendous amount. | ||
| These are big numbers. | ||
| And in addition to that, and you see the power of the tariff. | ||
| I mean, the tariff is good. | ||
| And nobody can compete with us because we have by far the biggest piggy bank. | ||
| And so that'll take place very quickly. | ||
| But also, we'll be doing pharmaceuticals to bring our industry back. | ||
| We want to bring pharmaceuticals back to the country. | ||
| And the way you bring it back to the country is by putting up a wall, and the wall is a tariff wall. | ||
| We were the richest country in the world. | ||
| We were at our riches from 1870 to 1913. | ||
| That's when we had a tariff country. | ||
| And then they went to an income tax concept. | ||
| And, you know, how did that work out? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's fine. | |
| I mean, it's okay, but it would have been very much better. | ||
| We have just about 10 minutes left in this morning's Washington Journal. | ||
| At 10 a.m., we will be taking you live to the Democratic National Committee Committee. | ||
| Well, they'll be voting on a new chair to lead their party. | ||
| This is a live look at the room where that event is getting ready to get underway. | ||
| Not quite yet. | ||
| We have, again, about 10 minutes left, and we will hear next from Randy in Iron River, Michigan, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Randy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Tammy. | |
| Tammy, you know, we've been, we just got done hearing that guy that was talking last to you about we ain't got no way to take care of the drug problem. | ||
| We got a way to take care of the drug problem. | ||
| All you got to do is take a hair sample. | ||
| It'll tell every single drug a person's ever did their whole life. | ||
| We can even tell after they're dead every drug they ever did their whole life. | ||
| If we take a hair sample, we'll know. | ||
| We'll be able to say to the person if they got drugs in their system, you know, if you do any drugs in the next before we test you in the next year and a half or a year, whenever your number comes up, you go to jail. | ||
| If you ain't got drugs in your system, if you cleaned out, you go home. | ||
| If all these people, we ain't going to be able to obviously take care of them, throw them all in prison. | ||
| So put them under house arrest. | ||
| Make sure that they ain't got people coming to their house, feeding them heroin, feeding them meth, feeding them crack, feeding them all these illegal drugs. | ||
| Take hair samples, it'll take care of the problem. | ||
| The other thing is, here in Michigan, you know, pot's legal. | ||
| We just got done coming out with 2024s. | ||
| We had 693 pot arrests. | ||
| We had 9,000 alcohol-related accidents. | ||
| And I'm saying arrests for driving with pot. | ||
| We found out that 478 of them had 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7% alcohol in their blood at the time that they got picked up for that pot. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We found out that 14 of those 693 were prescription drugs. | |
| Most of them were 14 of them. | ||
| Out of the 14, two of them were methamphetamines. | ||
| The rest of them were prescription drugs over the counter. | ||
| Out of those, there were 201 pot-related accidents in Michigan. | ||
| And that's the whole thing: we had in 22 and in 23, we had 18,152 alcohol-related accidents all together, all illegal drugs together, 4,441. | ||
| Now, which is the biggest problem in our country to worry about? | ||
| The reason why we don't get this taken care of in our drug laws this way is because we don't make any of the rich people, any of the business owners, take any drug tests. | ||
| They're the ones that live out on the lake, buy a $100,000 worth of meth, drop it into a little bitty town, let the cops round them up. | ||
| Those are the only people that go to jail. | ||
| And then the guy that just got done spending a hundred. | ||
| That was Randy in Michigan. | ||
| We'll go to Rick in Crawfordsville, Indiana. | ||
| Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Rick. | ||
| Oh, I'm sorry. | ||
| I think I punched the wrong call. | ||
| We'll get Rick here on the line. | ||
| Rick, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello? | |
| Yes. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Are you there? | ||
| Are you there? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Hi, Rick. | ||
|
unidentified
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How are you doing? | |
| Doing well. | ||
| Anyway, here's what gets me, and it really kind of perturbs me. | ||
| Why these colored people call in? | ||
| I mean, I've got dang good friends of colored people. | ||
| I wish we'll go on to Diane in Syracuse, New York, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Diane. | ||
| Diane, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Can you hear me? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Hi, Diane. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yes. | ||
| I am going to be 68, and I never watched politics or followed the government's doings for very negative reasons in the past. | ||
| When COVID hit, I was unable to work full-time, so I decided to start watching C-SPEN. | ||
| I watched the Senate hearings live, the House hearings live. | ||
| I even listened to the Supreme Court where they had that. | ||
| I even listened to my local, you know, assemblymen and stuff. | ||
| And I really got an interest. | ||
| And I said, okay, I'm going to be prevalent at watching everything, learning how this works, not making any assumptions. | ||
| And then I finally voted about two years ago, but after the election of President Biden. | ||
| But my The thing is today is that I have seen so much disparity on how things are run and what are said and who are saying those things. | ||
| And I'm not blaming one party or the next, but it has got to stop. | ||
| I have three things to say. | ||
| A little parody about children saying, you know, the little hen ran around the farmyard saying the sky is falling, the sky is falling. | ||
| And then when the little chicken finally needed help, nobody believed the little chicken. | ||
| And also the fact that I do not watch TBS, NBC. | ||
| I do not watch any of the locals. | ||
| I do not watch PBS. | ||
| I do not watch BBC. | ||
| And I do not like how the reporters, they interrupt each other. | ||
| And then when questions are done and said, they're done. | ||
| No more to be asked. | ||
| They sit there and just chirp like little idiots to see if they can get in one more thing. | ||
| And I would like it back to Walter Cronkite. | ||
| And as far as watching the Democrats, I'm sorry, but whoever smelt it first dealt it. | ||
| And I'm sorry, but C-SPAN is getting a little bit that way. | ||
| But I still watch you, but I only watched the hearings. | ||
| So thank you very much for letting me say my piece. | ||
| And you have a good day. | ||
| And I'm sorry for everybody. | ||
| The plane crashes, the fires. | ||
| God bless us all. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Diane in New York. | ||
| We'll go to Jonathan in Minneapolis, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Jonathan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Tammy. | |
| You look absolutely stunning this morning. | ||
| I don't know how you do it at 7 o'clock in the morning. | ||
| Believe me when I say this, and it means me no harm, but for the Democrats that are listening at the Democratic National Committee, get it together or we will not have a country left. | ||
| If you don't, our country will not be our country. | ||
| And I also wanted to say, since I have been very patient this morning and tolerant of ignorant Republicans with the gentleman that said, why did the color people call in and you hung up on him? | ||
| And great job on that because that is racist, number one. | ||
| Number two, if you don't like gay people, don't talk to gay people. | ||
| I'm tired of being targeted by President Trump with all of his nasty words to people that are LGBTQIA. | ||
| He erased an entire community yesterday online because he doesn't like gay people because he's probably classified. | ||
| Sorry, Jonathan, we'll leave it there. | ||
| Again, reminder to watch our language when we're on the air. | ||
| We'll go to Juan in Miami, Florida, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Juan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Jammings. | |
| Thank you so much for the time. | ||
| I just want to say, you know, President Trump is already starting to move in the right direction. | ||
| And the tariffs and all the other things that he's doing, including immigration. | ||
| We're all immigrants that came from other countries here. | ||
| I'm originally Cuban, so I'm aware of the situation that's going on. | ||
| But again, just this situation that's bringing people into this country illegally and bringing all kinds of Types of people that are murderers and they're emptying out their jails and doing all these things that are hurting Americans. | ||
| You could see all that's happened throughout the years with the Democrats. | ||
| Another thing that I want to say is about the Capitol. | ||
| I think that Americans had a real tough situation there, and I don't condone what happened. | ||
| But again, I feel so bad because an American died also there, which was shot directly in the face by one of the guards. | ||
| So again, that's something that should be looked at in the future. | ||
| That's, you know, it could have been done differently. | ||
| And I understand that they were in a situation where they were being harassed and beaten up. | ||
| But again, that's something that should be looked in the future for the guards also. | ||
| We're both liable on both sides. | ||
| And that's something that I feel so badly for that U.S. veteran that went there just to go ahead and give her personal and drive in there for democracy in her own way, but again, was shot in the face for no reason. | ||
| So I'll leave it at that. | ||
| And one last thing that I wanted to say is, you know, all the Latin American countries are that Cuba, Venezuela, and the other Latin American countries, Mexico. | ||
| This is something that's at the time. | ||
| Russia is trying to always take these countries and make them against the U.S. | ||
| We have to come up with a better plan. | ||
| And instead of spending the money on these immigrants and all the situation that's going on, we have to see how we can take that money and be able to incentivize these other countries to turn to the other side. | ||
| We have to be the people to go ahead and change these countries so all this immigration doesn't come to our countries. | ||
| We're just blowing our money, helping all these people. | ||
| And the last thing is Social Security. | ||
| Why should someone in this country that's been working all their lives, okay, have an immigrant come from another country and within three or five years get a Social Security and emptying our Social Security that we worked all our lives for? | ||
| So again, that's my state for today. | ||
| And thank you so much for your time. | ||
| That was Juan in Florida. | ||
| We'll go to Kevin in Mechanicsville, Virginia, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Kevin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hey, good morning, C-SPAN. | ||
| I've got a quick observation. | ||
| These Senate hearings on cabinet nominations, that's the thing that I wanted to speak to. | ||
| These hearings are supposed to help the public be better informed where the candidates get a chance to speak and we can hear them directly. | ||
| The Republicans talk for five minutes and we learn nothing. | ||
| The Democrats ask questions and then cut off the candidate from answering the question. | ||
| And these two parties make a good argument for an independent panel to ask the questions of these candidates so that we can get a better understanding of who the president is really selecting to be part of his cabinet. | ||
| So, you know, here in Virginia, we've been an independent, our senators have been independent-minded for a long, long time. | ||
| When Kane and Warner got in there, as you've seen on the hearings, they make a great argument for getting these guys out of the way and putting somebody in that can ask some really straightforward questions, and we get to hear the answers from the candidates. | ||
| So that's my observation this morning for your open forum. | ||
| I appreciate you letting me speak. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Kevin. | ||
| And Virginia, we'll go to James, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| So the next time that Donald Trump is on stage claiming he'll shut down the Mexican cartels, flooding illegal drugs into the U.S., consider this. | ||
| Donald Trump, less than two weeks ago on January 21st, 2025, full pardon Silk Road founder Russ Oldbrick. | ||
| This is someone who's sentenced to life in prison for running an underground online marketplace where drug dealers and others conducted more than $200 million in illicit trade using Bitcoin. | ||
| The district judge, Catherine Forrest, said Ulbrick was no better a person than any other drug dealer. | ||
| Prosecutors in the case said he also solicited six murders for hire, including one against a former Silk Road employee, probably the snitch. | ||
| And the answer is to why. | ||
| Well, while seeking the court votes ahead of this 24 election, Trump hinted that he planned to commute Ulbricht's sentence during a speech last year at the Libertarian National Convention. | ||
| Well, he did keep his promise. | ||
| Keep this hypocrisy on the same level that you find when they're trying to get this Kash Patel to leave the FBI. | ||
| They talk about weaponizing the government, and they don't even see the hypocrisy of what they're doing there. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's James in Pennsylvania and John in New York. | ||
| Line for Independence will be our last call today. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thanks for taking the call. | |
| I was going to say there's a lot of racist callers that call in on both sides of the aisle. | ||
| And I hear people calling, oh, the majority of Trump supporters are white supremacists and stuff. | ||
| That's a very racist remark. | ||
| And that poor old man, he sounded like an older guy. | ||
| I don't think he meant any disrespect, and you cut him off short of making his comment, which is that's up to you. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| The other thing I was going to recommend is I've watched this show numerous times, and I find out that you kind of block out your Republican audience by taking maybe four or five out of ten calls. | ||
| You may take one Republican caller, majority independent and report, you know, or Democrats, and then you'll take one Republican caller. | ||
| I was going to say it would be nice if you had a complaint line where every time that occurs, you can call in, you give the date, the time, you name the host, and the staff that run this program, they don't want that to happen. | ||
| Obviously, they don't want to treat every American with this decent same respect as every other one. | ||
| You give your host a warning, and then the second time it happens, you fine them, maybe $500 for doing it again. | ||
| And then the third time will be $1,000 fine. | ||
| And if it happens again, they're told that if it happens one more time, you're going to be terminated from your job because we want to treat every American, every person in our country with the same decency, respect, and they all deserve the same since and you know, text. | ||
| John, I completely understand, and I understand what you're seeing on that end is the calls a Democrat and a Republican or an Independent and not a lot of Republicans. | ||
| We do take the calls as they come in. | ||
| They are stacked as DRI. | ||
| We try to alternate them as best as possible. | ||
| If nobody is calling in on the Republican line, I can't take a Republican call. | ||
| So that's how it works. | ||
| And unfortunately, today, especially in the first part of the show, there were just not a lot of Republican callers calling in. | ||
| But we do appreciate you calling that out. | ||
| That is the Washington Journal for today. | ||
| We'll be back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern for another program. | ||
| But now we take you live to the Democratic National Committee event where they will vote on a new chair. | ||
| is already underway. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bye, Karen. | |
| We're live at Maryland's National Harbor just outside of Washington, D.C., where members of the Democratic National Committee are meeting on the DACA today, voting on a new chair to lead the party ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. | ||
| We expect this to get underway shortly. | ||
| Live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Washington Journal | ||
| for Saturday, February 1st. | ||
| Yesterday, President Trump announced tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China would go in place starting today. | ||
| Also, yesterday, officials gave updates on the mid-air collision of a passenger jet and a U.S. Army helicopter that killed 67 people. | ||
| And also this week, several of President Trump's cabinet picks testified at Senate confirmation hearings. | ||
| Those are a few of the stories that made headlines this week. | ||
| And to start today's program, we want to hear from you: what's your top news story of the week? | ||
| Here are the lines: Republicans 202-748-8001, Democrats 202-748-8000, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text your comments to 202-748-8003. | ||
| Be sure to include your name and city. | ||
| You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for being with us. | ||
| We'll get to those stories as well as others in this first hour. | ||
| But first, wanted to bring you an update on a story that has been developing. | ||
| This headline from the Wall Street Journal: Hamas says, First captive America says, First American captive will be released. | ||
| The article says the militant group said it would free 65-year-old Israeli American Keith Siegel, who had been kidnapped from his home on October 23rd. | ||
| He was taken with his wife, who was released in a previous ceasefire deal in November of 2023. | ||
| The article goes on to say: Siegel, who was born in North Carolina, immigrated to Israel in his early 20s with his brother. | ||
| He was last seen in a video released by Hamas in April 2024, in which he broke down in tears as he spoke, describing how he found the protests calling for his release in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem encouraging. | ||
| Siegel's release would leave two additional living American hostages in Gaza. | ||
| One is a male civilian and the other an Israeli soldier. | ||
| The bodies of four dead American hostages also remain in Gaza. | ||
| And NBC, an update from them just about two hours ago, saying that Siegel did arrive at a reception point in southern Israel. | ||
| That's according to the IDF. | ||
| It says he will undergo an initial medical assessment and reunite with members of his family. | ||
| One of these senators from North Carolina, where he is originally from, tweeted out just at about four, a little almost 4:30 this morning, we are overjoyed for Keith Siegel and his loved ones, but the long nightmare that began on October 7th, 2023 is finally over. | ||
| Keith is now reunited with his wife and his family, fulfilling the prayers of millions across the United States and around the world. | ||
| That is just one of the news stories that we have been following here at C-SPAN. | ||
| This week, another one, news yesterday from President Trump as he announced tariffs would be going into place for Mexico, Canada, and China. | ||
| This from this morning's Washington Post saying that he was speaking in the Oval Office. | ||
| The president denied that his enthusiasm for tariffs represented a negotiating device or that he was seeking specific concessions from other countries. | ||
| That was in response to a question if they maybe wouldn't be going into place. | ||
| And it was yesterday in the Oval that he spoke with reporters and explained more about the tariffs. | ||
| Here's a clip from that Oval Office from the Oval Office. | ||
| Well, let me just tell you that I got elected for a lot of reasons. | ||
| Number one was the border. | ||
| Number two was inflation because I had almost no. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Kindly take your seats. | |
| We are about to begin. | ||
| Where's Jason? | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Secretary Ray, can you come here to... | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| It's been a great day and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. | ||
| We're live at Maryland's National Harbor just outside of Washington, D.C., where members of the Democratic National Committee are meeting on the DACA today, voting on a new chair to lead the party ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. | ||
| We expect this to get underway shortly. | ||
| Live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| I know we're going to go to school here, by the way. | ||
| I know, right? | ||
| I feel like this is her sweet space. | ||
| If you got like a space that might work like that. | ||
| Doing everything. |