CSPAN - Washington Journal 02/02/2025

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Feb. 2, 2025 07:00-10:02 - CSPAN

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Washington Journal 02/02/2025

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pedro echevarria

cspan 30:53

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andy beshear

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brian lamb

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donald j trump

admin 01:19

howard lutnick

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justin trudeau

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sarah huckabee sanders

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unidentified		Buckeye Broadband 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, your calls and comments live.
		And then Gregory Allen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies talks about the impact of the Chinese AI company DeepSeq's entry into the market.
		He'll also discuss the Trump administration's approach to AI regulation and policy.
		And to Lane Law School's Stephen Griffin on President Trump's approach to the executive powers granted to the president by the Constitution.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal is next.
		Join the conversation.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is The Washington Journal for February 2nd.
		President Trump announced Saturday a new set of tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and China.
		The effort was designed in part to fight criminal networks, human trafficking, and illegal immigration.
		Canada, in return, announced new tariffs against the United States, with Mexico and China expressing displeasure at the U.S.'s action, and some on Capitol Hill are concerned about what these new tariffs could do to the economy.
		Tell us what you think about these new tariffs put in place by the president, and here's how you can call and let us know.
		202748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents 202748-8002.
		If you want to make your comments about these new tariffs via text, you can do that at 202-748-8003.
		You can post on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
		This announcement was made on Saturday, the president taking to his Truth Social site to talk about the announcement and why he did it.
		You can find it online, but he says, Today, I've implemented a 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, 10% on Canadian energy, and an additional 10% tariff on China.
		This was done through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because of the major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our citizens, including fentanyl.
		We need to protect Americans, and it is my duty as president to ensure the safety of all.
		I made a promise on my own campaign to stop the flood of illegal aliens and drugs from pouring across our borders, and Americans overwhelmingly voted in favor of that.
		That was from Truth Social about these tariffs.
		CNBC talks about how these tariffs, if they get put into place and if other countries decide to retaliate, could affect the American consumer.
		This is from CNBC saying tariffs are a tax on foreign imports, U.S. businesses that import goods that pay that tax to the federal government.
		Many businesses will funnel those extra costs to consumers, either directly or indirectly, which is why tariffs generally trigger higher prices for consumers, according to Economists.
		Americans could find they also have fewer choices for brands and products stocked on store shelves.
		There are many question marks over these looming tariffs from Canada, China, and Mexico.
		If you go to the website of the Toronto Star, their headline for their paper publication has this in response: Canada hits back on Trump tariffs.
		This was an announcement made by the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday.
		And here is the Prime Minister talking about these new tariffs and what they'll put in place.
justin trudeau ▲ ● ▼		Tonight, I am announcing Canada will be responding to the U.S. trade action with 25% tariffs against $155 billion worth of American goods.
		This will include immediate tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods as of Tuesday, followed by further tariffs on $125 billion worth of American products in 21 days' time to allow Canadian companies and supply chains to seek to find alternatives.
		Our response will also be far-reaching and include everyday items such as American beer, wine, and bourbon.
		fruits and fruit juices, including orange juice, along with vegetables, perfume, clothing, and shoes.
		It'll include major consumer products like household appliances, furniture, and sports equipment, and materials like lumber and plastics, along with much, much more.
		And as part of our response, we are considering with the provinces and territories several non-tariff measures, including some relating to critical minerals, energy, procurement, and other partnerships.
		We will stand strong for Canada.
		We will stand strong to ensure our countries continue to be the best neighbors in the world.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from yesterday, you can give your thoughts on these new tariffs placed on these countries, Canada, Mexico, and China.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, Independents, 202-748-8002.
		And you can always text us at 202-748-8003.
		Jeffrey's in North Carolina, Republican line, starting us off on these new tariffs put in place by the United States.
		Jeffrey, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for having taken the call.
		I would just like to say it's very unfortunate that within a short terms of his administration, we have to deal with so much that is at hand right now to knowing that this is just going to increase definitely the cost of living for people who can't afford it.
		And it's something he set out on his campaign and promises when these questions were asked.
		He said he wasn't going to do it.
		And it just makes no sense to put people who are already behind and struggling into a very dire situation of trying to make a decision, putting food on the table, taking care of their kids, a bill can't get paid.
		These are sacrifices that it's very unfortunate that people don't see in the eyes of America that there are people who just cannot sustain this.
		And to know that it merely will not affect the people that have this advantage, we're the humanity to understand this is not a good situation.
		So what do you think about Republicans like yourself agreeing with this move?
		I mean, I only took into the position that certain initiatives that he campaigned on that he was going to focus on a stronger economy.
		This is not a strong economy.
		This is just going to devastate the economy.
		You know, and you can't keep going back and forth and saying it's Biden or Obama.
		No, it is not.
		It is decisions he's making now in this administration.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Trish.
		Trish in Seattle, Democrats line.
		Hello, you're next up.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		Yeah, well, you know, the Salon president said that he was going to do this.
		He said he was going to lower prices.
		Well, I don't know, everybody.
		Don't you kind of know what he's been talking about for the last 10 years?
		He says one thing and does another thing.
		So, yeah, it's going to hurt.
		And for the people that voted for him, Scheuden fraud.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, what do you think about this idea of putting these tariffs in the place to stop things like illegal immigration and trafficking and the like?
unidentified		That's not the way this stuff works.
		It just isn't.
		Because if they would have thought it would work, why wouldn't they last administration have done it?
		Talk to economic people.
		They're the ones that can tell you this doesn't make sense on any strategic level.
		But to hurt people and satisfy his ego, it's always about that.
		And I don't understand why people don't understand that yet.
		It's never about the citizens.
		It's always, always, always about him.
		Okay.
		So, America, you got what you voted for.
		Okay.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Trish in Seattle.
		Let's hear from Sue in Florida, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I can see why Trump is doing this, but I think the timing is all wrong.
		Our inflation is kind of ifty right now.
		And, you know, it's going to go up now.
		There's no other recourse.
		And the way I'll be in the room is, what about all the people that go to Canada to get their cheaper drugs?
		I wonder if they're going to stop doing that because of that.
		So it's going to happen are retirees, middle-income, and low-income people.
		I think he was looking at long-term effects, but I don't think right now is the right time to do this.
		And he's going to hurt a lot of people.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And Colera, you started by saying you agreed with, I think you kind of saw the idea of why he did it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Could you elaborate on that?
unidentified		Well, I think that he did it because he thinks that we help on their trade policies.
		But when you have inflation the way it is right now, just starting to come down, our interest rates are still up and they're not going to go down, not with this move.
		I think that he should have waited until the economy is a little bit more stabilized.
		This is a long time.
		Looking at the long-term results, it will help us, but this is not the right time to do it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Sue there in Florida, Independent Line.
		USA Today highlights some of those things that could be from Canada impacted and affected by these tariffs.
		Wood, charcoal, aluminum, the list going on to include iron and steel appliances, cereal, flour, starch, and milk products, rubbers, alcoholic beverages, carpets, and other textile floor coverings, wool, animal hair, horse hair, yarn, and fabric, umbrellas, walking sticks, seat sticks, and whips, cotton, photographic and cinemographic tools, cork products.
		Also printed books on that list from USA Today about what could cost more.
		You saw the prime minister talk about the tariffs they're putting in place.
		Mexico's various papers on their headlines also talked about the move by the president just to show you one of those headlines this morning from the Mexican papers.
		We'll show you that in a bit.
		But also take your calls: 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats.
		Independents, 2027-8002.
		El Universal is the paper.
		Here is the front page headline.
		25%.
		That is from the president's announcement.
		It's in Spanish, obviously, but it also in Spanish talks about how these new tariffs could be put into place.
		The Mexican president, Claudia Scheinbaum, putting out a statement saying we categorically reject the White House's slander that the Mexican government has alliances with criminal organizations as well as any intention of meddling in our territory.
		If the United States government and its agencies wanted to address the serious fentanyl consumption in their country, they could fight the sale of drugs on the streets of their major cities, which they don't do.
		And the laundering of money that this illegal activity generates that has done so much harm to its population.
		That's some of the comments from the various leaders of Canada and Mexico.
		Rip in Virginia.
		Republican line on the move by the president on these new tariffs.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		President's brilliant, unbelievable.
		If they come back with more tariffs, then put more tariffs on them.
		Just like what just took place in South America is going to take place across the board with everyone.
		Trump is going to knock it out of the park, but the only thing that's really going to hurt him in my ignorance is going to be the Democrats and the left party.
		Everybody acts and talks as though they know exactly what's going to take place.
		We really don't know much of anything, but he knows a lot of stuff and he should, and he's going to knock it out.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, Caller, you called it brilliant.
		Exactly.
		Why is that, do you think?
unidentified		It's just common sense, in my opinion.
		You know, when somebody is threatening you and you have the upper hand and the ability to raise tariffs on them to put them in a position where they are going to really feel pain and agony, they will succumb to your desires and your needs and what you're attempting to do.
		We've been the breadbasket and we've been the go-to free meal for the country, for the world, forever.
		That all needs to stop.
		And it can stop, but you've got to give it a chance.
		And if you give it a chance, the same thing that just took place in Mexico, in South America is going to take place quickly.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do you think these counter tariffs by other countries could do the U.S. harm?
unidentified		No, I don't.
		And I don't think that they will.
		And if you look back in the past, when we put up tariffs, they did not put up tariffs.
		But if they put up tariffs, we will put additional tariffs on us.
		They make so much money on us.
		Canada is a sitting duck if it was not for us.
		They would have to spend 40 times the amount of money that they spend to protect themselves if we were not the safeguarding of their entire nation and have always been and will always be.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Okay, let's hear from O.T. in Texas.
		Democrats line on these tariffs put in place by the president.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Can you hear me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Yep, you're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		On the tariffs, Sarah, I mean, it's not no surprise.
		He's been talking about Trump and talking about terrorists forever.
		The guy is serious about the tariffs as far as the immigration.
		He really don't have no kind of solution to the immigration problem as far as fixing it.
		He's not concerned about fixing it.
		And he's just not, he's very unstable.
		I'm surprised everybody's surprised about what he's going to do and what he has done.
		Why do you think the tariffs are not a solution?
		Because it's going to hurt the economy here.
		It's going to hurt people, the middle-class people.
		It's going to hurt, of course, poor people.
		So everybody's trying to, you know, struggling right now.
		He said he was going to get all of this prices down.
		He's not going to do that.
		He's not really caring about that.
		You know, the guy's about himself, about his friends, and he's just this country is not really on his agenda.
		His only agenda is his agenda and his people that's around him is his rich friends.
		That's it.
		He really don't care nothing about this country.
		But people voted him in, sadly, squarely.
		Okay.
		So don't be surprised what he's going to do, especially the people that voted for him.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Let's hear from Duke.
		Duke is in Maine, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, C-SPAN.
		Yeah, these tariffs have never done anybody any good.
		They're just going to make our prices go up higher.
		I mean, these businesses can't afford to pay tariffs and not pass them on to us.
		And all the time that Trump was running, all he did was run his mouth about how he was going to, you know, to bring the prices down on food and gas and this and that.
		And we hit Drill Baby Drill and all this baloney, which I, in my opinion, do not feel that he's going to do.
		All he's out is for his retribution, and he just is out to ruin this country.
		And I don't know why.
		But these tariffs, I don't see what tariffs is going to do as far as keeping Fentanyl out of the country or keeping illegals out of the country.
		I mean, what has tariffs got to do with that?
		It makes no sense to me.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It was in a back-and-forth exchange with reporters on Friday before the president enacting these new set of tariffs where he talked about the impact of tariffs, at least to him, to what it could do for the economy.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Here's a bit of that exchange.
unidentified		Well, let me just tell you that I got elected for a lot of reasons.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		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 I 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 it'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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		New tariffs from the United States on Canada, China, and Mexico.
		You can call in and comment on that.
		202748-8001 for Republicans.
		202748-8000 for Democrats, Independents.
		202-748-8002.
		Nate in Indiana, Republican line.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Hey, I think when you look at these tariffs, it's not about the economy.
		It's about corruption.
		It's about power.
		And it's about money.
		Because when you do across-the-board tariffs, you can either reward companies by giving them exemptions, or you can punish industries by increasing tariffs.
		So you create winners all around the world and losers all around the world.
		You have the power.
		You've got one club in one hand, which is the largest economy in the world.
		You've got another club in the other hand, which is the largest military in the world.
		That's a lot of power.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So, Nate, when it comes to these new tariffs, is this a winner or a loser for the United States?
unidentified		It is a loser for the United States.
		Everyone is scratching their heads.
		How is this going to help the United States?
		You can't look at it like that.
		You have to look at it as how does this pad the pockets of Donald Trump.
		And as a Republican, what do you think of other Republicans that support it?
		They're afraid of him.
		They're afraid of him.
		He is managing like a mafia boss.
		You know, it's not like I know he's just a soft-spoken 78-year-old man.
		And it's not like he's been convicted of fraud three times.
		And it's not like he's been impeached twice.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Let's go to Matt in Iowa Democrats line.
		Hi.
unidentified		Yes.
		The last caller said quite a bit I agree with.
		These tariffs are just not going to help us at all.
		You know, a lot of these Republicans are always talking about the price of goods and how high they are.
		Well, just take a look at it, people.
		We went through a pandemic, and it was all across the world of everything going up, but especially in this country, it was total greed that these companies wanted to get their money and make their money back.
		Well, guess what's going to happen with these tariffs?
		Now they're going to have to raise their prices because of the tariffs.
		And it's just going to make things even worse for middle class and the poor.
		And on top of it, with Canada now with the tariffs, where do you think we get a lot of our lubber for building homes?
		Price of homes are going to start going up.
		So, yep, go ahead.
		And Donald, just keep doing what you're doing.
		It's going to be a nice four years.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Matt there in Iowa.
		The Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer put out a series of posts on X after these new tariffs were announced.
		Just to show you some of them in succession.
		This is Chuck Schumer from yesterday.
		You're watching the Super Bowl next week.
		He writes, wait till Trump's tariffs raise your guacamole and beer prices.
		He also says you're driving to work.
		Wait till Trump's tariffs raise your gas prices.
		And then Chuck Schumer, again, you're watching the Super Bowl next week.
		Wait till Trump's tariffs raise your pizza prices.
		Again, that's just some from the minority leader.
		We'll show you some from Republicans in a little bit.
		Tennessee is where Michael is, independent line on these tariffs put in place.
		Tennessee, Michael in Tennessee, hello.
unidentified		Hey, Pedro.
		I wanted to address the guy that said Trump is brilliant.
		I was on Wall Street for 36 years, made more money than I knew what to do with, five kids through college.
		I had a side business importing.
		And let me just explain to the Trump supporters right now.
		This product I have manufactured in Canada and it's on the list and it's a 25% tariff.
		Let's say it's $100.
		Well, now it's $125.
		If you think I'm going to eat that $25, I got a bridge to sell you, pal, in Brooklyn.
		We're in some serious trouble here with this crook, convicted felon in office.
		And I just don't understand how these people, you know, just sit there and go, oh, he's the greatest.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And I was just like, yesterday, when it comes to the tariffs themselves, why do you think they'll achieve their accomplished purpose of cutting things like illegal immigration and trafficking and the like?
unidentified		Well, last time I checked, I didn't see a whole bunch of people coming across the Canadian border.
		And the illegals crossing under Biden the last year of them were actually down.
		So, yeah, we have to deal with that.
		If I was president, I would say to Congress, instead of 1,500 new border agents in the South, let's do 5,000.
		Let's put another 2,000 on the Canadian border and make sure.
		Because a lot of this stuff is coming in through the ports of entry being hidden in refrigerators, washers, and dryers.
		It's not some illegal immigrant with a backpack that gets caught with a couple of pounds of fentanyl.
		It's coming in, you know, disguised.
		The guy is just off his rocker.
		And I mean, I feel sorry for the people that in the middle class and the poor for the next four years, how they're going to suffer.
		And when they go and pay, you know, $10 for an avocado or whatever, a watching machine.
		Gotcha.
		Who gotcha?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Bert.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Bert in Kentucky, Republican line.
unidentified		Yes.
		I'm wondering right now if during Trump's first term, when he had massive, whatever you call it, that he's putting up against the other countries, did people back then say that Trump's policies are so terrible, we shouldn't be charging all these high tariffs?
		And while he did, he gave us the best economy that we've had in a long time.
		People complain, the Democrats complained and complained and complained.
		They're doing it again.
		Now, it's not only the border.
		Pedro, you don't mention, you've said several times that it's because of illegals coming over the border, and that's why he's doing it.
		That's part of it.
		Well, sure.
		What's happened in the last four years under Biden is destroying our country.
		How many millions of people are here now that we don't know where the heck they are?
		How many 300,000 children are missing?
		Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Again, well, how does that deal with the tariff?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Please tell me how that deals with the tariff issue directly.
unidentified		Well, Trump's main purpose, his goal, is to make us a secure country, make us safe.
		Pedro, 274 people are dying every day.
		Every day, Pedro.
		100,000 people are dying because of the drugs coming over, mostly through our borders, Canada, Mexico.
		It's not only the illegal aliens pouring into the country.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, I read the president's statement from Truth Social right off the bat.
		So some of those ideas, or at least those suggestions, are from directly from his Truth Social post.
		Let's hear from Booker.
		Booker in Indiana, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Can you hear me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes.
		Okay.
		I just want to say I totally agree with the Prime Minister of Canada.
		Not folding to this tyrant.
		Not folding to this tyrant.
		I wish more countries would get a spine and not fold to this tyrant.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What is it directly that about what is it directly what the prime minister said that you agree with?
unidentified		Everything.
		He's going to fight him.
		Trump thinks that he can wave the banner of the mighty U.S. and if everybody will fold down to him.
		He wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of America.
		Okay, what the fuck ever.
		Excuse me.
		Anyway, he wants to die Greenland.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Booker there in Indiana.
unidentified		You saw some Republican ones.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is the House Speaker Mike Johnson posting on X yesterday.
		President Trump is positioning America to be safe and successful again.
		Today, he is holding Mexico, Canada, Mexico, Canada, and China accountable for their role in the flow of illegal aliens and illicit drugs across our borders.
		It goes on from there.
		If you want to read the full statement on X, Representative Andy Harris, Republican, this is talking about the fentanyl-piece, fentanyl widely available, highly addictive drug that even more potent than heroin is being mass-produced in China, then smuggled across our Mexican-Canadian borders, killing more than 200 Americans daily.
		By effectively using tariffs until this crisis is alleviated, President Trump is keeping his promise to stop the flood of illegal drugs into our country and save the lives of Americans.
		Promises made, promises kept.
		And then Carlos Jimenez from Florida saying the communist president of Mexico's threats against the United States will destroy her own economy and create a financial crisis.
		Expect the Mexican stock market to take a beating tomorrow.
		The Mexican people have two enemies, the cartels and Claudia Scheinbaum.
		Again, some reaction from Republicans from the actions of the president.
		You can continue to call in and give your thoughts on these new tariffs.
		Canada, Mexico getting 25% in new tariffs, China getting 10%.
		202748-8,001 for Republicans.
		202-748-8,000 for Democrats.
		And Independence 2028-8,000 too.
		William joins us on our Independent Line in Ohio.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hello.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		My name is William.
		I am an 84-year-old who is now ashamed to call myself an American because the United States elected a 34-time convicted felon.
		He was not convicted of misdemeanors, traffic tickets, and such.
		He was committed.
		He was convicted of crimes 34 times over convicted, and we elected him to go.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, exactly.
		How does that relate to the tariff question on these new tariffs?
		And what do you think of them?
unidentified		What do I think of what?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The new set of tariffs that are.
		Hold on, caller.
		A new set of tariffs put on Canada, Mexico, and China.
		What do you think of that?
unidentified		Well, I think putting a tariff on Canada was certainly a mistake.
		Not putting a tariff on China is fine.
		Putting a tariff on Mexico is probably fine, but why Canada?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And why China?
unidentified		That I do not understand.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why is it good for China and Mexico?
unidentified		And not Canada.
unidentified		I don't think he is doing anything that is going to be an advantage to America.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, but why China calling him?
unidentified		Because I think he's a criminal.
unidentified		How the hell did we elect him president?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, you made those comments.
		Let's hear once more from the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.
		It was during those comments announcing those new tariffs that he had a message directly for the American people.
		And here's part of that.
justin trudeau ▲ ● ▼		This is a choice that, yes, will harm Canadians.
		But beyond that, it will have real consequences for you, the American people.
		As I have consistently said, tariffs against Canada will put your jobs at risk, potentially shutting down American auto assembly plants and other manufacturing facilities.
		They will raise costs for you, including food at the grocery stores and gas at the pump.
		They will impede your access to an affordable supply of vital goods crucial for U.S. security, such as nickel, potash, uranium, steel, and aluminum.
		They will violate the free trade agreement that the president and I, along with our Mexican partner, negotiated and signed a few years ago.
		Together, we've built the most successful economic, military, and security partnership the world has ever seen.
		A relationship that has been the envy of the world.
		Yes, we've had our differences in the past, but we've always found a way to get past them.
		As I've said before, if President Trump wants to usher in a new golden age for the United States, the better path is to partner with Canada, not to punish us.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's more from Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Robert in Ohio, Republican line.
unidentified		How are you doing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		I think these tariffs are going to be amazing for America.
		It's going to put America in a better position, stronghold all the way around.
		We'll stop giving money to Canada and Mexico.
		Plus, not only that, like you, what people don't understand is I heard the Wall Street guy saying something about he's got a business that he put in Canada.
		I don't know why you would put your business in Canada, first off, if you're an American patron.
		But you're going to get the tariff and the tariff's going to come down.
		And you said you're not going to eat that $125 or the $25 thing.
		This is the thing.
		If you raise your prices and the American people stop buying that product, you're going to eat all of that loss.
		If we are Americans, if we are patriots, we will follow what our president is doing to make our country strong again.
		And then if they raise these prices on the product, stop buying the product.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But why do you think that would happen?
unidentified		What do you mean by what would happen?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If you raise prices and they impose new tariffs on goods that we take into the United States and those prices raise, why do you think just the Americans will just stop buying them?
unidentified		That would be the point of stop buying them.
		It is for us to get our president into a stronger position.
		We are the number one consumer in the world.
		Everybody wants to be involved in an American store.
		All the products, we buy everything.
		We are the ones who can, we control this whole economy throughout the whole world.
		America does.
		We buy everything.
		We don't discriminate from China to Taiwan to Mexico.
		We buy everything.
		Okay.
		That's why everybody wants to be in it.
		That's the whole point.
		Okay.
		That's the whole point of tariffs.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Dan in Pennsylvania, Independent Line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're next up.
unidentified		Hello.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Okay.
		Well, with Donald Trump, my experiences go back to Atlantic City and all this stuff he did there and destroyed that.
		But anyway, I have friends that they work for companies and they get a lot of their raw materials from Canada and some from Mexico.
		And these tariffs, some of them are afraid that they may have to start laying off people.
		And some of the products go to Europe.
		And Donald Trump just took that market weight right away from them by driving up their prices.
		And I have friends that are in the deal with farming and stuff like that, and they get feeds and stuff like that from Canada.
		And it's going to drive the price of eggs and milk and a lot of other things up.
		We even get some fertilizers from Canada, and that's going to hurt our farmers.
		So whatever Donald Trump's doing, he should have rethought that.
		I mean, and then tomorrow when the stock market opens up, are we going to be looking at a crash?
		I mean, this is getting pretty ridiculous, but he's putting it out there.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Dan there in Pennsylvania.
		The New York Times takes a look at companies that depend on goods from other countries, how they're reacting.
		A story that was a couple of days ago, this is from the New York Times saying, with the tariff deadline near, some data shows higher freight volumes on road and rail, but the increases are not especially large, and transportation experts say rail and trucking companies have the capacity to cope.
		The situation, they said, is quite different from 2021 and 2022 when a deluge of imports overwhelmed supply chains, causing shipping costs to skyrocket and help fuel the rapid acceleration of inflation.
		Quote, the industry's probably never been in a better spot to deal with significant changes in the marketplace that Scott Shannon, the president of the vice president of North America, crossed border at C.H. Robinson, a freight forwarder.
		It also quotes Larry Gross from Gross Transportation Consulting, said transportation of shipping containers by rail was up 10% in the first four weeks of the year across North America compared with the same period.
		But while efforts to bring in goods before tariffs very likely contributed to the increase, he said, other factors played a role.
		A big one was a desire to get shipments in before a possible strike at the East and Gulf ports that could have started in mid-January, but that was averted.
		Some of the takes from other aspects of these possible repercussions of tariffs, not only put in place by the United States, but retaliatory ones from other countries.
		Let's hear from Lisa.
unidentified		Lisa in Massachusetts Democrats line.
		Well, when I'm looking at the tariffs, I sit back and I think about his first term.
		He claims that he raised $600 billion in American tariffs from other countries, yet he added over $8 million, over $8 billion or trillion to our debt, national debt.
		And he took our national deficit that was at $578 billion and brought it up over $3 trillion, more than five times what it was when he took office.
		Where did that $600 billion in tariffs go?
		How did it make our country stronger?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And what do you think it means for this time around?
unidentified		I think that the tariffs are going to end up coming down on the middle class and the poor, and that prices are going to continue to skyrocket.
		He's doing nothing to stop that because importers, like the man who was from Wall Street, said, the tariffs aren't paid by the countries.
		The tariffs are paid by the people who import the products here.
		They are not going to eat that tariff.
		They are going to raise the prices.
		Now, there was a man from Ohio who said then Americans won't buy those products.
		Well, think about when he was in office the first time.
		He put the tariffs on China.
		People didn't stop buying their cell phones.
		They didn't stop buying washers and dryers and TVs and computers where most of them were made in China.
		Most of the pots that you need come from China because they have cheap labor over there.
		All of this is just going to cause the cost of everything to go up.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Estella is next in Oregon Republican line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hello.
		I've had personal experience with the tariff thing when I worked in the very first hydrophonic greenhouses in Oregon.
		And to send our product, the tomatoes, to send them to Canada, they charged us double what we charged for them to bring over their hothouse tomatoes over here.
		It more or less helped put us out of business.
		Then I'm sitting here looking at a thing I bought yesterday at Bymart here in Oregon, and it says made in Thailand.
		I don't have very many things that are made from anywhere but China, Thailand.
		I really don't see anything made from Canada.
		As far as lumber and stuff, you can follow the lumber trucks here headed down to Coos Bay, Oregon, putting them on China ships.
		Then we buy it back.
		That's just crazy.
		And then to top that, there's not very many sawmills open anymore in Oregon.
		Why is that?
		Because they're shutting them all down.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So all that said, all that said, what do you think of the move itself?
unidentified		I think it's great.
		It's time to start buying stuff made in America.
		And also, they've shut down almost every line here for the stuff we need that we're buying from China and everywhere else, the minerals.
		They shut it all down.
		They've made the rules and regulations ridiculous.
		And then if they let loose of some of the stuff on shutting down the propane and everything, you can't have the stoves in your house.
		It will make a lot of difference to finally start buying stuff in America.
		How many steel plants have they shut down here?
		Is there any left?
		What, one, two, in the United States?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Estella there in Oregon giving us a call.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thoughts on these tariffs put into place by the president, Carlos in D.C., Independent Line.
unidentified		Hey.
		Good morning.
		I think it's a terrible idea.
		You know, prices are going to skyrocket.
		And I feel like a lot of people fail to realize what tariffs mean, meant in Donald Trump's first term.
		And the reason why a lot of people continue to buy stuff during that term and the economy was booming, was going, is because also a lot of money was being printed.
		A lot of money was being dumped into the economy.
		So it wasn't taking a full hit as of now where that money is not being printed as before.
		And a lot of people also feel to realize that what is the government, what is this administration doing for the average American and average and the retirees that are also going to be suffering?
		Like, what is he doing to try to help them live comfortably in this economy or keep up with this economy?
		And this is just going to devastate the economy and devastate the average person that's living paycheck to paycheck or the middle class.
		And like you said, only the wealthy is going to benefit out of this.
		And they're comfortable.
		The 1% of it is going to live comfortably.
		While what's going on with the 99% of Americans that are, you know, are middle class.
		And it's just a bad move for this administration what they're doing.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Carlos there.
		Carlos in Washington, D.C., giving us his thoughts.
		Let's hear from our Republican line.
		This is Bill, Columbus, Ohio.
unidentified		Yeah, I think that Trump gave them a warning.
		It's like, yo, tighten up your border, stop the fentanyl, stop the illegals.
		And Trudeau pretty much thumbed his nose to the United States.
		So this is what he gets.
		They don't care about how many people in this country is dying of fentanyl.
		I don't care how many illegals are pouring across our border, even terrorists.
		Canada don't care about us.
		And people need to realize that.
		He also needs to let people know that Trump's $8 trillion deficit, $3.2 trillion of that was spent on fighting COVID with the fast vaccine and all that.
		Trump only spent added $4 trillion to the deficit if he takes away COVID.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But why do you think tariffs are going to stop the things like in illegal immigration and drug trafficking and the like?
unidentified		Well, it ain't Nest Canada tightens up their borders.
		They're the one refusing to do it.
		You know, Trump said, yo, tighten up your border.
		Keep up American, our children are dying of overdoses.
		And no one seems to care.
		Canada don't care.
		And then back when Trump was running this past year, people were calling him saying, you're going to vote for Trump because of how much you're paying for stuff.
		And all of a sudden, they care about how much they're paying for stuff.
		It's so funny.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		To that end, what do you think about these new tariffs from other countries and how it could affect the average consumer?
unidentified		Oh, well.
		So you'd rather pay whatever price and keep our children dying, right?
		You'd rather, you don't care if they overdose, right?
		Is that what you're saying?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're not, they're putting words in my mouth, but I'm just asking the question.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think?
unidentified		Why does no one care about the overdoses?
		The Democrats are a joke.
		It's so funny.
		They're so pro-death.
		They're all for abortion.
		They're all for fentanyl.
		People are overdosing on fentanyl.
		They were all for doctor-assisted suicide or the elderly.
		The party are pro-death.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Bill there in Ohio.
		One of the comments, or at least a couple of comments, about the possibility of new tariffs took place earlier this month at the World Economic Forum.
		It was two governors talking about the possible impact of new tariffs.
		And from other countries, this was Arkansas Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kentucky Democratic Governor Andy Bashir, talking about the potential impact of tariffs.
		This took place earlier this month before these new tariffs got put into place.
		But here's some of their thoughts from earlier.
sarah huckabee sanders ▲ ● ▼		Look, I think one of the really important things to look at is this isn't his first time.
		He's now coming in having been president before, and he knows some of the tools that he has in his toolbox that he was able to use successfully.
		And we saw a really strong economy under President Donald Trump.
		We saw relationships across the globe in many cases strengthen, even if they didn't always like the way he said it and the way he went about it.
		It's hard to argue that his policies weren't effective and didn't make our country stronger.
		And so I think it's one of those things that he will use as a tool in his toolbox and something that he can use in leverage and negotiations.
		At the end of the day, he is the ultimate deal maker.
		And I think that it is something that he will use as he's going about trying to make sure America comes out as a camp.
andrew ross sorkin ▲ ● ▼		The only reason I mentioned this is there's another view, which is that it has to be a toll booth.
andrew ross sorkin ▲ ● ▼		And that there's a toll booth because when it comes to the budget and the deficit in the United States, that this may be a tool not just to negotiate with other countries, but a tool to collect revenue.
andy beshear ▲ ● ▼		And parts of the administration just said that publicly.
		I think that when you look at this, no, these threatened tariffs aren't about trade imbalance.
		They're about leverage.
		Why?
		Because President Trump has been very clear that they're about leverage.
		But the impacts could go right to the reasons that he was elected and could have some significant impact on that very quickly.
		So there's a threat of a 25% tariff on Canada.
		Well, that'll raise gas prices.
		There's a threat of a 25% tariff on Mexico.
		Well, that'll raise food prices.
		And when you look at the politics of inflation, one of the two things that Americans see, well, first on every corner is gas prices.
		And then in the grocery store, it is food prices.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If you want to see that whole program, by the way, with these two governors, go to our website at cspan.org.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Alan in New York, Democrats line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you.
		This tariff policy is part of a very large picture of consistent actions by Mr. Trump that seem to be designed to aid Putin in gaining a superior position in the world by creating chaos here and enmity among our own allies and friends and neighbors and disruptions at home.
		Many things Trump is doing, the tariffs, the deportations that will reduce the labor supply in many industries, tax cuts on the rich that will increase interest rates and make life more difficult for the poor.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to tariffs, elaborate on this idea that it benefits the former Soviet Union.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How cell specifically?
unidentified		Diminishing our commitment to our allies and our relationships with friends, threatening to take other lands in our hemisphere, Greenland, Panama, tariffs heavily on our immediate neighbors, Mexico and Canada.
		He is making us odious among our allies and neighbors, which means Putin will have a weaker opposing force for any future Ukraine-type invasion elsewhere in Europe because we're no longer going to be viewed as a linchpin within that alliance.
		And he's also giving himself reasons why he can create more chaos at home by creating more inflation for average people and possibly giving himself a reason to oppose martial law.
		And Putin and Trump have already had a relationship that very closely hints at some combination of promises, threats, and bribes.
		He mentioned he had the Moscow Hotel deal in the works with Putin.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, before we're talking about the Protestants.
unidentified		We'll move on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Bob in Ohio, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		I've been listening to a lot of this.
		And, you know, here's one of the big things: is the fact that Trump has been foisting an oligarchy here in the country under people like Musk, who he's teamed up with.
		And so what he's seeking to do with all these policies, enrich the rich, he's devastating the middle class.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, specifically when it comes to the tariff policy and these new tariffs, how sell?
unidentified		Yeah, we've got a tariff.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We'll speak specifically to that.
unidentified		These tariffs are going to devastate us.
		The fact of the matter is, the American people are the ones who end up paying the tariffs because what the foreign governments do is they turn around and raise their prices on Americans every day.
		That's what it is.
		It's an increase on American retail prices for the product.
		So everything that they do is going that way.
		And the people on, I'm a retiree.
		I'm on a fixed income.
		You know what?
		What do we get from anybody in our yearly increase?
		2%, 2.5%, maybe, right?
		If that.
		And it could go lower, and it could even become worse because he's threatening to even take away those things, right?
		As well as Medicare, Medicaid, everything else.
		And let's say he can't get away with that, but the rest of the stuff is going to put a burden on those Americans who are retirees worse than almost anyone except the very poor.
		And he's doing it on the very poor because of the grocery store prices.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Bob in Ohio, let's go to Joy in Chicago, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		I'm a danger because I am a conservative African-American business owner.
		I have a frozen food manufacturing company.
		Most of my items, my packaging, my boxing comes from China.
		I can't afford to have, I can't afford a container.
		I can't compete with the major banquet and some of the larger frozen food brands now.
		This is going to really devastate me.
		What bothers me is people who are blindly supporting the MACA Republicans, okay?
		They're not real conservatives.
		They're just supporting a man.
		They're idolizing this man, and they're not thinking independently.
		They're not thinking and using any type of discernment whatsoever because it's going to devastate your neighbor.
		People act like their neighbors don't exist, but their neighbors are the ones who go to the store, who buy the products, who are able to keep a mortgage current.
		It's going to devastate the economy.
		Why not go after things like health care?
		Why do things like one-two-bam, like devastate by what else is he doing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So, caller, because you call yourself a conservative, what do you think about the larger idea that the president said when it comes to these tariffs and the stopping things like fentanyl coming into the United States or stopping things like that?
unidentified		I have a nephew who is a state senator whose mother is my sister who died of an overdose of heroin, okay?
		This is just, they're going to find any way they can, okay, to get those drugs over here.
		There are other ways to do it other than devastating the economy and people who are working.
		There are other ways of going about things, but you're attacking jobs.
		You're doing massive layoffs.
		Look at what's happening.
		Who's going to be able to afford anything?
		Look at your neighbor, the people that are turning against each other.
		These are people that are going to be devastated.
		They can't go to the store and buy anything.
		You can't keep your mortgage up.
		It's a domino effect.
		And God bless America.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Anthony in Ohio, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, how are you?
		I think the tariff idea is really bad.
		And to use it to try to stop fentanyl and illegal immigrants isn't going to work.
		I mean, America has an addiction problem, period.
		You know, ever since heroin and alcohol and methamphetamines, and there's always going to be something we're going to be addicted to.
		So stopping it by implementing tariffs and raising their prices on us is not going to work.
		And so it's sad to say, and pretty soon, you know, the shelves are going to start getting empty.
		And we're just going to be paying out a ton of money.
		And we're going to get frustrated.
		And the frustration is going to lead people to start drinking because Canada is going to tax our booze.
		And so what are we going to do with the surplus?
		So we're going to have this perpetuating problem that's not going to be resolved anytime soon.
		And it's just going to be a real tough four years.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Anthony there in Ohio.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Patrick in Michigan, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning, Pedro, and everybody else that's been listening to this.
		And I think everybody is missing a very key point.
		And that is the fact that the people who are in charge all over the world, imposing these tariffs and the like, are just continuing to get richer and richer and in more control of our material wealth while everybody is afraid and bickering amongst each other.
		And we have to stop supporting them.
		We have to stop consuming so much.
		It'll save our environment.
		And it will all work out in the end.
		It will level out.
		We can start thinking about equality and making things right for our children.
		Please stop supporting them.
		I don't know what the answer is.
		It could be the Green Party.
		They don't take corporate donations.
		I don't know.
		But please, for me and everybody else, stop.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		A viewer from Montreal, Canada.
		Rick, hello.
unidentified		How are you doing, Pedro?
		Yeah, I just want to say I can't understand how America didn't see this country.
		This man talked about it before he got elected.
		He came in with his rich buddies, made a seem like he's making a bunch of policy to suit his rich buddies.
		But I mean, this terrorist against us here in Canada is going to affect you guys as well as us.
		So I really don't understand the people that are calling in and okay, and it's kind of like for Trump that everything will be okay and this, that, and whatever before the COVID with inflation.
		We all had inflation.
		Canada had inflation.
		America had a better, okay, maybe a better solution for the inflation, but we all had it around the world.
		Lack of supply.
		And the demand for supply.
		But you guys got to get rid of this cloud, man.
		Rick, what did you think of the Prime Minister's response?
		I could have made it.
		He should have made it stronger, but it was good.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Stronger how?
unidentified		It was stronger as far as I think he kind of stalled on putting the 25% on the electricity and the oil or the gas.
		I would have put that all around the board, 25% on everything.
		Electricity, as well as the other half of what he did.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you do there?
unidentified		What do you do there?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you do there in Canada?
unidentified		I detail cars.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Rick there in Canada.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Richard in Maryland, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Morning, you're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Well, I think we need to understand a little history here.
		As far as I know, Rhode Island did not want to sign the into the Constitution, didn't want to ratify that until we decided that if Rhode Island was not going to be part of the United States, even after the revolution, that there would have to be duties for everything that came out of Rhode Island.
		And so that was a, I think, probably the first tariff that was suggested, and they got right in line.
		As far as tariffs, President McKinley, and Trump has just renamed Denali for McKinley, he supported the whole, he made America rich on tariffs.
		And we didn't have any income tax in those days.
		And with the excess money, President Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, dug the Panama Canal.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And how does all that relate to today?
unidentified		That relates to today because tariffs, well used, are wonderful.
		And that is what the money that we got in on the tariffs was part of what got our country in a position where we could supply the rest of the world in World War I with steel and all the rest of it.
		But our Green New Deal.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, Colin, do you think the President's use of tariffs as he wants to do that is a well-used policy?
unidentified		Right.
		But do you think that?
		Well, because we have been victims.
		Listen, I love the environment, but we produce from our coal plants and things like that.
		Everything is clean.
		Everything that comes from China and whatnot is just nothing but polluting.
		And so that's one of the reasons we've lost our steel industry.
		We've lost everything we've got here.
		And we just need to put tariffs on things.
		And I think China should be charged an extra tariff on polluting because they were actually building a coal plant every week.
		And I'm sure they're not.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Richard and Maryland, one more call.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Jack from Ontario, Canada.
unidentified		Hi.
		So when Trump was in office last time, he put the tariffs on the Chinese.
		And the Chinese said, well, to hell with you, we won't buy your farm products.
		So the whole soy product in the Midwest that was ready for harvest went unbought.
		And the China went down to Brazil and bought their products anyways.
		And because of that, the Brazilians said, hey, this looks good.
		We'll burn down the rainforest.
		And we can have a lot more soy products from China.
		And in the end, Trump had to pay the American farmers an extra $20 billion for the soy products that weren't bought because of his tariffs.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jack in Canada, finishing off this hour of calls.
		Thanks to those of you who participated, two guests will join us during the course of the morning today.
		The first will talk about the entry of the Chinese AI company DeepSeek, which caused reaction from the tech world, Wall Street, and Washington.
		Joining us next of Why the Company Made News is the Center for Strategic and International Studies Gregory Allen.
		Later on in the program, Tulane University Stephen Griffin on President Trump's continued use of his executive power and what it means for Congress and the courts.
		Most discussions coming up on Washington Journal.
unidentified		Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, U.S. District Court Judge Frederick Block shares his book, A Second Chance, where he talks about the application of the 2018 First Step Act.
		under which federal prisoners who've served decades in prison can petition the court for reductions in their sentences.
		The First Step Act is called the First Step Act, and Congress implicitly was contemplating there'd be a second step back, then maybe a third step act.
		It was the beginning.
		It kicked off the football and finally people recognizing, regardless of your political persuasion, regardless of the emotionality which governs much of our mentality and our reactions in life, that it was necessary for us to do something concrete.
		So that was, well, the First Step Act has been considered to be, Justice Gorsuch wrote about it, that the most significant sentencing reform piece of legislation of the century.
		Judge Frederick Block with his book, A Second Chance, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app.
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pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Gregory Allen with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
		He's the director of the Wadhwani AI Center here to talk about China's role in the future of artificial intelligence.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, thanks for having me on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		A little bit about the center.
		Hope I said the name right.
		But what is that center?
unidentified		So the Center for Strategic and International Studies is one of the largest think tanks in Washington, D.C.
		We do public policy research with a focus on international affairs, and then we make that freely available to everyone in order to improve and enhance the quality of the policy debate in Washington, D.C. in particular.
		And then I am the director of the Wadwani AI Center, which is the AI-focused niche of CSIS.
		CSIS has programs on missile defense, on military affairs, on food security, on water security, and then the Wadwadi AI Center, where the AI policy team is.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's the Wadwani connected to?
unidentified		The namesake is Ramesh Wadwani.
		He is the founder of Symphony Group, which is a technology consortium.
		And he provided the sort of initial donation that got the Wadwani Center started.
		And we have now a diversity of donors, which includes a bunch of philanthropic organizations.
		And that is how we fund our activities.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And that group, like initially, is it connected to AI?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Does it involve itself in AI?
unidentified		Yes, so Ramesh Wadwani actually did his PhD on artificial intelligence in Carnegie Mellon many decades ago.
		So he's been a part of the AI industry really for a very long time and is a brilliant computer scientist.
		But I should say he does not direct the policy work of the Wadwani AI Center.
		He simply gave us that initial grant.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		There was a company called DeepSeek and it affected a lot of areas, not only here in Washington, but others.
		Let's start there.
		What is it?
unidentified		So for folks who have not been paying attention until recently, you may have heard that the United States is ahead in the race to advance artificial intelligence.
		And this is a technology that's gotten astonishingly capable.
		Anyone can now log into ChatGPT and have an experience where it's almost like talking to a person, and it's a person who's pretty dang knowledgeable about a bunch of different tasks.
		Well, the U.S. has been firmly in the lead for the past few years, but just recently we saw the first Chinese AI company that is doing something that demonstrates how that lead has shrunk.
		The United States used to be maybe two plus years ahead of the leading Chinese AI model developers.
		DeepSeek shows that that lead has shrunk to at most around seven months.
		So their model is doing what the United States was doing about seven months ago.
		But here's the kicker: the way that they have approached this demonstrates that they have superior economics, which means they can do what the United States did seven months ago, but they can do it at a far cheaper price.
		And that's true on training the AI model, which is essentially creating the AI model, and also on inferencing the AI model, which is essentially using the AI model.
		And because they've made their technical results openly available to the rest of the world, this now is attracting a lot of attention.
		Engineers around the world are impressed by many of the technical measures that they've used, and it does signal that the AI race today is not what it was two years ago.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		To what degree does the Chinese government assist DeepSeek?
unidentified		So the leader of DeepSeek has met with the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and was invited to high-profile, meaningful government events and meetings.
		So he really is recognized as the national leader technologically when it comes to AI technology.
		However, DeepSeek as a company, they are funded privately, which is to say, government does not provide revenue.
		Now, there are many mechanisms whereby China provides support to companies in its ecosystem.
		This can include free real estate, free taxes, all of these kinds of financial benefits.
		But as far as we know, DeepSeek does not have direct Chinese government customers, which makes sense because for the most part, they're giving all this away for free.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If the trend now that the company is seven months behind the United States, what factors into if that gap narrows or widens?
unidentified		Well, I should say, you know, they're seven months behind the United States in terms of they have replicated a model with ballpark similar performance as to what we were doing seven months ago.
		But in the DeepSeek technical papers, you can see many things that they've done that are quite impressive technically.
		And I've talked to the leading engineers of leading U.S. AI companies, were unknown to them.
		So some of the stuff we were already doing, some of the stuff we learned by looking at their research results and their approach.
		So they are a very impressive group.
		The days of China cannot innovate, they can only copy, those days are over.
		This is a genuinely innovative company.
		Even if there are many things that they're doing that America already did, there's also genuine innovation in here that America was not already doing.
		In terms of what it means for policy, the United States has a policy of export controls, which means we restrict the sale of the advanced computer chips that are used to run AI models or to train AI models.
		DeepSeek's CEO actually said in an interview back in July that the number one challenge facing his company was in fact that export control policy.
		And so what's interesting is that DeepSeek has managed to do this in such a compute efficient way that they were able to reach that high level of performance despite the export controls.
		But I want to emphasize here that much of DeepSeek's advantage was accumulated by the bungled implementation of the first tranche of Biden administration export controls.
		Essentially, they said chips above this performance level cannot be sold, below this performance level can be sold.
		But it's not just me who's criticizing that first package of export controls.
		The Biden administration admitted that they got it wrong and they updated those controls in 2023.
		The reason why I say this is export controls have a lagging impact.
		Just because you stop selling something to China doesn't mean everything you've already sold to China magically disappears.
		And in that one year period where we got the technical specifications wrong, China bought an awful lot of chips.
		And those chips that were bought during that one year window, those are the chips that DeepSeek used to train this AI model.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our guests with us to talk about the future of artificial intelligence, this company, DeepSeek.
		And if you have questions for them, 202748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents, 202748-8002.
		And if you want to text us your thoughts, 202-748-8003.
		Give us examples of what this AI model, DeepSeek, does that is comparison to what can be done by U.S. companies.
unidentified		So one of the most appealing use cases for AI right now is perhaps counterintuitively programming and computer code.
		So it feels like the AI is going to take some of our jobs, it's actually the software engineers creating AI that are the most initially at risk.
		And specifically on some benchmarks of generating computer code, DeepSeek performs extremely well.
		I've talked to some of the best AI engineers, some of the best computer programmers in the world, and they talked about this moment that shifted around a year ago this time, where they went from AI is not that high-performing to suddenly it's jaw-droppingly high performance and all day, every day I'm using AI to support my programming job at one of the world's leading technology companies.
		Really, there was that kind of a shift in moment.
		And so if folks are out there and they're like, well, you know, I've used AI, it's kind of fun, it's not that important for my job, let me tell you, in fields like science and engineering, in fields like computer programming, nobody's saying that kind of thing anymore.
		And that's just because AI is getting better and better year after year.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The New York Times has a story with an interview with the chief executive of a company called Klarna.
		It helps consumers with payment on purchases.
		But he said, quote, I am of the opinion that AI can already do all the jobs that we as humans do, and it goes on from there.
		How accurate is that statement, do you think?
unidentified		So, specifically, what he said is that his company is no longer going to ever hire a human again.
		He didn't say that every single person in my company is fired.
		But what he's really kind of getting at is that the pace at which AI is getting better is such that they don't need to hire anyone else because everybody they already have is getting so much more productive.
		And then he also foresees a future in which everybody is laid off because AI is better.
		I want to point out that he is not an outlier in that view.
		The leaders of companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, even Elon Musk, who now leads XAI as a part of his AI company portfolio, they are talking about a future in the not too distant future, maybe a handful of years, according to some of them, in which AI is so high-performing that it can do essentially all of the tasks that generate economic value that human beings can do if it involves a keyboard and mouse.
		They say we might be only a handful of years away from that.
		Now, I realize that that might sound confusing to people who've used ChatGPT and says, hey, it's not good at this, it hallucinates about that.
		But what you have to understand is that under the trend of Moore's Law, computers have gotten more powerful by roughly two-fold every two years going back to the 1960s.
		So that means, you know, two years from now, it's going to be twice as good.
		Four years from now, it's going to be four times as good, then eight times as good, and so on and so forth.
		But the point here is that it's not just the computing hardware that's getting better.
		Companies like DeepSeek are innovating on the architecture and the algorithm.
		So maybe in five years, it's not going to be 20 times better.
		It could be 10,000 times better, a million times better.
		And that really is a technological progress that we've been seeing.
		And I remember what AI was like 10 years ago, and it really is thousands of times better.
		We are on this kind of technological performance growth curve.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gregory Allen with Center for Strategic and International Studies joining us.
		Let's hear from Regina.
		Regina in Louisiana, Independent Line, you're on with our guests.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I did have a question.
		I saw this past week that the Congress held hearings regarding DeepSeed and their innovation in the AI.
		And some of the things did kind of bother me that they were saying they wanted to convince Chinese engineers to come to America to improve our AI.
		And they were saying that the AI that the Chinese had invented was a national security.
		And I'm kind of getting conflicting reports.
		Is it a national security issue for the United States because it's free and everyone can use it?
		Or is it a national security issue for the United States?
		Because they really kicked U.S. tail with this one.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Regina.
unidentified		So artificial intelligence is a general purpose technology, just like regular software on computers.
		So you use software to type out, you know, memos on Microsoft Word, but you might also use computers and software to calculate missile trajectories when you're talking about the software that runs a missile guidance system.
		So artificial intelligence, just like regular software, is a general purpose technology.
		You can use it for innocuous purposes, or you can use it for some very scary national security applications.
		And leaders in both the United States and China agree that leadership in artificial intelligence technology is foundational to the future of economic and military power.
		Just like the United States' advantage in regular computers and regular software was foundational to the United States winning the Cold War.
		Just to give you one example, at the very end of the Cold War, the entire Soviet Union could handle 16 long-distance phone calls at one time.
		That's how bad their information technology and telecommunications infrastructure was compared to the United States at the same time, which could handle thousands of long-distance phone calls simultaneously.
		So while not every single application of DeepSeek is directly tied to national security, it is definitely the case that there are meaningful national security applications of this exact same technology because it is so foundational.
		And while DeepSeek, of course, as a company, is making everything freely available, that in some ways has its own challenges.
		Imagine, for example, right now, if somebody, some terrorist organization wanted to create a biological weapon, they would need dozens of technical experts who understand the various aspects of creating, disseminating, and using in a hostile manner weaponizable disease.
		It would require a lot of experts.
		Imagine a future in which the number of technical experts needed by a terrorist organization to create a biological weapon is zero because AI has gotten that good that it can do all of the technical work for that terrorist organization.
		That's why companies like Meta, even when they open source their AI technologies, they ensure that there are a lot of safeguards in place to make sure that it's not going to be misused.
		And it's unclear that DeepSeek is committed to any safeguards other than those imposed by Chinese propaganda and censorship laws.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Democrats Line in New York, Maria up next.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Hi.
		That's my concern.
		I use AI.
		I mean, we all do when we're on the computer.
		And I find it helpful.
		But I'm concerned about the, you're saying private donors and the corporations and the people, for example, Musk.
		I mean, why should we feel confident in, for example, now this administration?
		I mean, the security, the intent.
		I'm not happy with the corporate swing here.
		And I am afraid.
		I'm afraid too much of our information is out there and that we have bad players.
		Or even Wall Street.
		I mean, all of this, we are in, it's out of control.
		And I want to know who, I mean, China is a communist nation.
		They take control totally.
		The United States, hopefully, is a democracy.
		I don't know if it's still a democracy.
		Could you please go into detail about the bad players that we have now with AI?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Color.
unidentified		Sure.
		So the AI ecosystem is not just one kind of a thing.
		There's the companies who design the computer chips that power modern AI algorithms.
		That's a company like NVIDIA, which many people have heard about because its stock is so valuable at the current moment.
		Then there's companies who actually manufacture those chips.
		The most prominent one here would be TSMC, which is a Taiwanese company.
		And they have a 90% market share in manufacturing the most advanced kinds of AI chips and really the most advanced kind of logic chips in general, TSMC and Taiwan, are exceptionally strong.
		Then you have the companies who are actually developing these AI models.
		These are companies like OpenAI, like Anthropic, like Google DeepMind, and like Meta, formerly known as Facebook.
		Those are really the strongest players in the US AIC ecosystem at developing the AI models, but there's also the cloud infrastructure that underpins all that.
		Companies like Amazon Web Services, AWS, Microsoft with their Azure product line, and also Google with Google Cloud.
		These are all very strong companies at delivering and providing that back-end infrastructure that allows the delivering of AI models to end users such as yourself.
		And right now, that is a very consolidated marketplace.
		There's only a handful of companies who can really have the technical acumen and the capital and financial resources to build out this kind of infrastructure.
		And China, of course, they want to be in the leadership as well.
		They have many AI companies who are really impressive in a lot of ways.
		Alibaba, which does a lot of e-commerce work analogous to what Amazon does here in the United States, is a very strong e-commerce giant.
		And even companies like Tencent, which provides the dominant social media platform of China, WeChat, Elon Musk, who now owns X, formerly Twitter, and Mark Zuckerberg, who leads Meta, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and others, both of them have said that they look to Tencent and what WeChat has done for technical inspiration on and as well as new product ideas.
		So I want to emphasize again, China has some very strong, very competitive companies, and the United States cannot afford to take its foot off the gas even for a second if we want to maintain our technological leadership.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The President's Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Luttnick was asked about DeepSeek during his confirmation hearing last week and as part of that U.S. competitiveness when it comes to this AI space.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I want to play a little bit of what he had to say about it and get your response.
unidentified		Sure.
howard lutnick ▲ ● ▼		What this showed is that our export controls, not backed by tariffs, are like a whack-a-mole model where they get prevented over here and China figures out a way around it over there.
howard lutnick ▲ ● ▼		We've got to find a way to back our export controls with tariff model so that we tell China, you think we are your most important trading partner.
unidentified		When we say no, the answer is no.
unidentified		It's a respect thing.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		They've disrespected us.
unidentified		They've figured out their ways around it.
howard lutnick ▲ ● ▼		I do not believe that DeepSeek was done all above board.
unidentified		That's nonsense.
		They stole things.
		They broke in.
		They've taken our IP.
		It's got to end.
howard lutnick ▲ ● ▼		And I'm going to be rigorous in our pursuit of restrictions and enforcing those restrictions to keep us in the lead because we must stay in the lead.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Allen, what did you think of that assessment?
unidentified		So I think there's much in there that's worth paying attention to.
		Now, he talked about the use of tariffs to strengthen export controls.
		But in this case, I don't think that that's really applicable to the export control strategy per se.
		The challenge that we have with export controls right now is, number one, can we update those export controls fast enough?
		Technology moves fast.
		If you say we're going to block this technology, well, maybe next week there'll be a new technology.
		And the federal bureaucracy has not demonstrated an ability to keep pace with technological developments.
		That's why we had that one-year window when we thought we had banned the most advanced chips, but in fact, we were allowing only a lightly modified version to be sold for China.
		The second big challenge that we have is with smuggling.
		Reporting by the Information and the New York Times to journalist outlets have identified no fewer than eight smuggling networks that are moving $100 million plus transactions of advanced AI chips to China.
		So that is a question about resources.
		As Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Luttnick will lead the Bureau of Industry and Security, which is the organization charged with enforcing our export controls.
		Their job has gotten monstrously harder.
		We are trying to block smuggling in violation of export controls to Russia.
		What do you think has happened to the budget for Russian smugglers since the war in Ukraine broke out?
		It has not gone down.
		It has gone monstrously up.
		What do you think has happened to the budget for smugglers in China who are trying to move these AI chips now that we've enacted this package of export controls beginning in 2022?
		Well, the budget for Chinese smugglers has gone up.
		But what has happened to the budget for export controls enforcement here in the United States?
		In inflation-adjusted terms, it has gone down.
		It is comparable to what it is in the year 2010.
		So while the job of export control enforcement has gotten so, so, so much harder and the resources available to smugglers have gotten so much higher, there's a big disconnect between the United States' government's strategy and its budgets for implementation of that strategy.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Charlottesville, Virginia, Eric, Democrats line, hi.
		Eric in Charlottesville, hello.
		Let's hear from Dave in Lynchburg, Virginia, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yeah, so I was wondering, how do we know the DeepSeek cost structure they reported as being so much less than what we're able to do using the NVIDIA chips per se, which caused the NVIDIA stock to take a tumble?
		How do we know what they're telling us, what the Chinese government, what the Chinese people in particular that develop DeepSeek is true and accurate?
		I mean, it's China, right?
		Don't they want to, if they could sit around the table and say, how could we hurt U.S.?
		How could we hurt U.S. strong companies?
		Why don't we just say that we don't need them anymore and this is how we did it?
		How can we validate what they told us?
		So I'm certainly with you that when the Chinese government assesses that it's in their strategic interest to lie to the United States and to the world, they will do so.
		That much is absolutely true.
		But in this case, I think we should take DeepSeek's claims about their cost structure at face value.
		Actually, DeepSeek was transparent and the confusion really has to deal with the media reporting around this circumstance.
		Because DeepSeek said that $5.6 million of AI chip computation time is what it cost them to have that one successful training run that created this model.
		But creating an advanced AI model is a little bit like pharmaceutical drug discovery research.
		It's not just the cost of the one clinical trial that worked, it's the cost of all the clinical trials that didn't work that relates to the cost structure of discovering new drugs.
		So the number that DeepSeek released is the cost of the one training run that worked.
		They did not release the cost of all the other training runs that didn't work.
		I believe that DeepSeek has billions worth of AI computing infrastructure.
		Basically, they've bought everything they can get their hands on during the period when it was legal to sell computer chips to China of this category.
		But the point here is that the number that is being discussed in the media is not the most relevant number.
		They still have a lot of computing needs, and I think they were being honest about that.
		One final thing here is that those research results, many of them have already been replicated by American computer scientists because DeepSeek published the technical approach they've taken and American engineers have taken it apart and says, does this work?
		Yes.
		Does this work?
		Yes.
		And that's why you're seeing companies like Microsoft are now offering DeepSeek's platform in their cloud services because it is very cheap to operate.
		Now I think American companies are going to have their rebuttal.
		They're going to come in with very, very low prices to match DeepSeek in the very near future.
		But at least for now, all signs are saying that this is a real number.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Eric in Charlottesville, let's try it again.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes.
		I'm going to ask the visitor about the potential of mainland China taking over Taiwan in the next few years, making a real effort to take over Taiwan.
		What would that mean for our chip-making potential?
		Sure.
		Well, let me take a step back first to the COVID pandemic era.
		Because because of COVID and many factories having to change how many shifts they ran and how many workers they could run on the line, there was actually a major decrease in semiconductor chip supply.
		There was less chips available than were really needed in the global marketplace.
		Well, the Department of Commerce did an analysis of that chip shortage, which prevented car makers from finishing their automobiles.
		And the Department of Commerce found that that chip shortage during the supply chain crisis of COVID, it shaved a full percentage point off of the United States economy.
		So our economy is 1% smaller than it would have been if that chip shortage had not been the case.
		If China was to invade Taiwan, that would lead to massive disruption in the global chip supply chain.
		We're talking far, far worse than the shortage that we experienced during COVID.
		This would be an economic catastrophe that very few people in the United States can even remember.
		It would be an economic apocalypse.
		Analogous, the closest analogy would be the Arab oil embargo.
		And there's reasons to think it could be considerably worse than even that.
		And of course, Taiwan, they're the most advanced chip maker, which means they're the supplier of all the most advanced AI chips.
		That's something that China would love to get its hands on.
		There's a reason why they're building a fleet of amphibious assault ships, and it's to prepare to retake Taiwan.
		There's a reason why China is just now reportedly earlier this week building a nuclear war survivable bunker that is basically the size of the Pentagon underground.
		It's because they anticipate that this war could come and they want to maximize the chance that they can fight and win it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is one of the headlines that emerged from DeepSeek about venture capitalists saying they'll bet $300 billion that say DeepSeek will fuel the industry.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Does more competitiveness come from DeepSeek's entry?
unidentified		So I think one thing that's really worthwhile in keeping in mind here is how efficiency, which most of DeepSeek's technological innovations relate to the efficiency of computation and how that relates to overall demand.
		Effectively, the way that you can think about DeepSeek's technical innovations is that you can squeeze more IQ points out of a given amount of time on an advanced computer chip.
		How much smarter is it versus how much computation input did that require?
		Well, DeepSeek has shown that there's a lot of efficiency out there to be found.
		But how does efficiency affect demand?
		There's something called the Jevons paradox, which was observed by an economist in the 19th century.
		And this was during the steam engine coal era industrial revolution in Britain.
		And he said, there's this bizarre phenomenon whereby steam engines are getting more and more efficient every year.
		We can generate more energy, generate more work with the same amount of coal input per engine.
		But as a country, Britain's demands for coal are going through the roof.
		So this is why he called it a paradox.
		Efficiency is going up, but demand is going up even more than efficiency is going up.
		But the resolution for that is that as the machines become more efficient, you want to use those machines in more places because the return on investment is higher.
		It's a more attractive thing to invest in, the more efficient it gets.
		And that leads to overall demand going up.
		So now apply that same Jevons paradox to computing here.
		You know, if AI is more efficient, if it requires fewer computing resources, does that mean that we're going to have less AI?
		Or does that mean that we're going to have more AI?
		And does it mean that we're going to have less computer chips or more computer chips?
		What the Jevons paradox suggests is that in the long term, this is going to be fabulous news for AI.
		It's going to mean that AI is efficient and effective and cost-competitive to introduce in a much wider suite of applications than would have otherwise been the case.
		And the productivity enhancements and the economic growth opportunities that that suggests for the American economy are very strong.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Gregory Allen joining us, Center for Strategic and International Studies.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gene is next in Maine, Republican line.
unidentified		Hello.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hello, Mr. Allen.
unidentified		I'm not hearing anything on my phone.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		He's not talking yet.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead and ask your question, please.
unidentified		Well, I understand that Bitcoin is outlawed in China.
		And I have heard a rumor that all of the hardware and resources used in Bitcoin, which are very successful, I mean very sophisticated, have been used by the people who invented BeepSeek.
		I'm just wondering if there's any truth to that rumor.
		Thank you.
		Thanks very much.
		So one thing that Bitcoin technology and AI technology have in common is that they're both very compute intensive, which is to say, if you want to mine Bitcoin, you want a big data center with a lot of power and electricity going into it and a lot of computing hardware inside it.
		And if you want to create AI or use AI on a large scale, you want a big data center with a lot of power and a lot of computer chips.
		So while there's not a lot of one-to-one technology relationship between Bitcoin and AI, you're doing very different kinds of computations when you're mining Bitcoin than when you're creating AI.
		A lot of the infrastructure, the surrounding infrastructure, is very similar.
		And so as the Chinese government has increasingly cracked down on cryptocurrencies in China, what that means is that there's a lot of data centers that are basically looking for customers.
		And they would love to bring in a bunch of AI companies to replace those Bitcoin companies who are no longer their customers.
		Now this is where the chip export controls come in.
		What China has is a lot of data center infrastructure hooked up to a lot of power.
		But what they don't have is the advanced kind of chips that you need to train and inference AI models, at least not in the quantities that they want them.
		And the chips that you use to mine Bitcoin are not the same kind of chips that you would use to run or to train an AI model.
		So there's a lot of similarities, but it's not quite identical.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Who's the chief maker of those needed chips?
unidentified		So again, in the United States, the leading designer of the chips is a company called NVIDIA.
		The leading maker of those chips, the people who NVIDIA call and say, please make me a million copies of these chip blueprints I've just designed, that's TSMC of Taiwan.
		In China, it's a bit different.
		Actually, the number one AI chip designer in China is Huawei, of all companies, who folks on the air may have heard of and think of as a telecommunications giant, but they have a very sophisticated chip design operation, and they market a chip called the Huawei Ascend, which is their competitor.
		Now, it's not as good as the NVIDIA chip, and part of the reason why it's not as good as the NVIDIA chip is, once again, export controls.
		But in this case, it's not export controls on the chips, it's export controls on the machines that you use to make the chips.
		And the Biden administration put in place very strict restrictions on what types of machines can go into China to be sold for uses of semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
		Unfortunately, there were some loopholes there too, which I'm hopeful that the Trump administration will work to rapidly close.
		But the basic point is they were mostly effective.
		Huawei would love to be making hundreds of thousands or millions of silicon wafers worth of AI chips per year or per month.
		But right now, they can only make 20,000 wafers per month.
		And there's about 10 AI chips per wafer.
		And in the case of Huawei, four out of five of those chips don't work when they come off the production line.
		But if the United States was to reverse course and allow a lot more semiconductor manufacturing equipment to go into China, that could change very quickly.
		Export controls restricting the sales of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, that is one of the key strategic competitive advantages that the United States has over China in the AI race.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If I understand it correctly, President Trump and some of his executive orders rolled back the Biden administration efforts on AI.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What were those changes and how would you describe the Trump administration's approach to AI overall?
unidentified		So that's a different category of AI policy than what we've been talking about.
		The Trump administration has not rolled back any of the Biden administration's export controls related to competition with China.
		What the Trump administration has rolled back is the Biden administration's AI executive order, which included a lot of work around safety and ensuring that the U.S. government did not use artificial intelligence technology in a way that violated Americans' rights or led to undue risks into the American economy or the American health.
		And those are areas where the Trump administration has said, look, this is not a time to be putting breaks on the U.S. AI ecosystem.
		We need to be moving faster.
		And all of this regulatory red tape is slowing us down.
		Now, one thing that the Trump administration didn't say is that a lot of the due dates for the Biden administration's AI executive order had already passed.
		So it said, you must do this by 90 days.
		You must do this by 180 days.
		You must do this by 270 days.
		And a lot of that stuff's already been done.
		So the Trump administration, if they really want to get under the hood and reshape what the Biden administration did on AI policy, there's more work to be done.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Robin in Ohio Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hello.
		I'm also interested in the human rights aspect of this.
		What's the human face behind AI in terms of digital labor?
		You know, we've seen some things happening in countries like Kenya where people are pretty much being treated like slaves behind AI coding and all that.
		Could you speak to that?
		So I believe the phenomenon that you're referring to relates to a specific aspect of creating AI models, which is called supervised fine-tuning or reinforcement learning with human feedback.
		So essentially, what those workers are doing is they are interacting with the AI systems while it's under development, and they're trying to see, is it saying something that is offensive?
		Is it saying something that is inaccurate?
		Is it saying something that is harmful?
		So it has to go through and interact with the AI, which, by the way, the AI is trained by downloading most of the data on the internet and force-feeding it into a learning algorithm that tries to strip out and say, you know, here's how we make a useful intelligence that is learned from everything there is to learn on the internet.
		Well, a lot of what's on the internet is pretty offensive.
		A lot of what's on the internet is pretty inaccurate.
		And so there is a sort of a process of data cleaning that does take place and of training supervision.
		And that's what those workers in Kenya are doing.
		Now, as to, you know, whether or not those jobs are especially fun to do, well, interacting with some of the worst parts of the internet is not really fun.
		But That is what those companies do to protect their end users so that they don't have to have those kinds of interactions.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		To what degree are you concerned about misinformation, disinformation being connected to AI use?
unidentified		Oh, this is absolutely a significant risk.
		I mean, essentially, imagine if you wanted to run a disinformation operation, right?
		But you only had the resources of one human.
		How many tweets per hour are you going to create?
		And how customized are you going to be able to make those tweets to every single demographic that you're trying to go at?
		Well, now you, plus a super-powered AI, maybe you could not just, you know, post a thousand tweets an hour, but you could have a billion conversations an hour simultaneously with almost every single person on earth.
		That's not available today.
		That's not something that's possible right now.
		But if you look at the trajectory of AI progress, it does seem that we're going to be able to create ever more sophisticated forgeries, basically video or audio purporting to be from a real event that in fact never actually took place, and also scale up the distribution of that misinformation.
		And putting safeguards on this for the American ecosystem, it's really tough.
		If you want to understand how you can make sure that what people see on their social media feeds, what people see on their nightly news programs is always real, it takes a lot of hard work to make sure.
		And AI authentication, making sure that something is real video, not something generated by AI, that's a really tough technical challenge and one that keeps getting harder and harder as AI keeps getting better and better.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We saw Congress haul in social media heads over concerns of misinformation and disinformation.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Could you envision Congress doing that for AI companies and how ready is Congress to regulate on these fronts?
unidentified		So Congress looked poised to regulate AI actually in the middle of 2023.
		That's when Chuck Schumer was then the Senate Majority Leader.
		He actually came to my institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and we had a conversation where he talked about drafting comprehensive AI legislation potentially as soon as over the next six months.
		Well, January 2024 came and went, and there was no comprehensive AI legislation in the United States, nor was anything passed later in 2024.
		And the Trump administration and now Republican majorities in Congress are not signaling much appetite to regulate AI.
		To the extent that there is an exception to that story, you could imagine it coming around areas like child sexual abuse material.
		This is something where there is some appetite in Congress, at least that I could observe, to ensure that AI systems are not used to generate non-consensual pornography or not used to generate child sexual abuse material.
		And that aspect of AI is like the one area where there's some real momentum for regulation in Congress.
		Otherwise, the United States appears to be very much in a deregulatory moment.
		Well, by contrast, in Europe, the AI Act was passed, and they're now in the process of implementing that law, which means coming up with a lot of the standards that companies are forced to follow.
		And it's possible that American companies, because they want access to the European marketplace, will adopt protections on how they implement and deploy their AI systems.
		And some of that might come back to American consumers and consumers around the world.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Jesse.
		Jesse's in Florida, Republican line.
		Hi there.
		Hi there.
unidentified		I suppose I have a question for the guests, and that is, I'd like to really know the essence of AI, exactly what it is.
		As I understand, AI is just dependent upon existing knowledge.
		Is there any way that an AI system can create new knowledge?
		And if so, is there a danger that that new knowledge might be something that actually controlled us more than helped us.
		So you're asking about the fundamental technology behind artificial intelligence.
		And here, I think it's helpful to think about artificial intelligence as an umbrella category, and then it has two big subcategories.
		And these terms are constantly conflated or confused in common discourse or in the media.
		So bear with me for a second.
		But there's two approaches that you can take when you're trying to create artificial intelligence.
		The first is what you might call an expert system.
		And there, the system is following rules.
		This is a computer program with a long list of if this, then do that statements of inputs and outputs.
		So in 1997, when IBM created an AI system called Deep Blue that beat the world chess champion Gary Kasparov, it was this exact kind of expert system.
		It was created by a team of chess experts working with a team of computer programmers to take all of their chess expert knowledge and supercharge it with computers that could run those rules much faster than a human brain could.
		That's one way of creating AI.
		And it's very difficult for that category of AI to create any new knowledge because effectively what it is is just very good at implementing rules that were given to it by humans.
		So that's one category of artificial intelligence.
		Another category of artificial intelligence is called machine learning.
		And in machine learning, it's not really humans who are creating the program, so to speak.
		What you're doing is you're taking a data set, you're feeding it to a learning algorithm, and then that algorithm is spitting out the AI model, which is effectively the sort of software package that actually goes off and does the work.
		Now, this activity is supervised by humans, and humans are deeply involved in calibrating and fine-tuning a lot of aspects of it.
		But fundamentally, the system is programming itself based on what it learns from data.
		And in that approach, that machine learning approach to artificial intelligence, you can absolutely generate new knowledge.
		So whereas Gary Kasparov, when he lost to a computer chess simulator, he said, you know, it's just so good.
		It can just think so far into the future.
		But it was doing things that fundamentally Garry Kasparov, that human chess champion, understood.
		Contrast that with the AlphaGo moment of 2014 and 2015.
		The World Go champion at the time, Lee Sadol, he was playing against a Go machine.
		Go is a board game that's very important in Asian cultures.
		And he said that, you know, this move that the machine learning AI system has just done, it was called Move 37, it's like nothing in the history of human reasoning about Go.
		No human would have ever come up with that move.
		He called it a beautifully creative moment.
		And that's the entire paradigm of AI, this machine learning paradigm that everybody has been working so diligently on ever since that AlphaGo moment.
		So it, of course, depends upon which product you're interacting with, what the developers had in mind.
		But in the sort of general abstract sense, can artificial intelligences be creative?
		The answer is an unambiguous yes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's see if we want more viewer.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is David in New York, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hello, good morning, Ms. Dan.
		Good to speak to you, Mr. Ham.
		This is all very interesting to me.
		But just basically, just kind of feeding off of what you were just speaking of.
		OpenAI has stated that they believe that DeepSeq is able to make such huge jumps and leaps in their progress, basically because they stole their larger language models and kind of took it and sanitized it.
		But like for instance, in China, you can't search anything with dealing with Diana and Square.
		It just won't pop up.
		So I was just wondering how can we guard against that, right?
		You know, is there an idea of, I was thinking kind of like blockchain technology where you have a decentralized ledger where the record of truth is not in one place, right?
		So it's harder to manipulate the data to kind of frame a certain narrative that a political establishment or group of people might want to put out there for people.
		Because it sounds like what you were saying was that the interaction that, let's say, an end user like me or anyone would have with chat GPT or DeepSeek.
		I'm not sure about DeepSeek, but ChatGPT would be as you speak with it or have a conversation with it, machine learning takes over and you're basically training that model.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
		David, apologies, we're slightly out of time, but got your point across.
		Thank you, though.
unidentified		Sure.
		So I think there's a couple of things in that question that I want to speak to.
		The first of which is, did DeepSeek harvest intellectual property from OpenAI in order to create its models?
		Well, there's no official answer out there.
		According to this, according to Microsoft, the investigation is still ongoing.
		But for my two cents, I think that investigation is going to be quite short.
		If you interact with DeepSeek, the original version, they've since updated it since it came out because of this sort of embarrassing fact.
		But when it first came out, if you asked DeepSeek, what AI model are you, it would say, hi, I'm ChatGPT.
		So the theory of they harvested a lot of ChatGPT data in order to train this model, I think it's a pretty clear-cut case.
		That is indeed what took place.
		Now, that's a technique called model distillation.
		And essentially what it means is ChatGPT, they had to download the entire internet.
		They had to have supercomputers analyze the entire internet.
		But now once they've created that first very compute expensive AI model, they can have it interact with a smaller model and who can teach itself through learning what the big model has to teach it.
		So it's sort of a student and teacher relationship in these AI models.
		And what that means is that you can create a much smaller model, a much more compute-efficient model using this teacher-student distillation technique, where the training data for the student model is millions of conversations with the teacher model.
		Now, the problem for a company like OpenAI, which has been using distillation in its own technologies, they know and love this technique.
		The problem is that companies like DeepSeek can pretend to be ChatGPT customers who have customer type queries, but in fact, what they're doing is harvesting the data to use it in training their own competing AI models.
		So nobody is saying that DeepSeek hacked into OpenAI, or nobody is saying that DeepSeek stole a bunch of hard drives and ran off.
		The key is this technique called model distillation, where they're interacting with OpenAI and ChatGPT just like any customer would, but they're doing it on a scale of millions or tens of millions of conversations and harvesting that data.
		And I think companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, which is a competitor of OpenAIs, they can ask two questions.
		Number one, is this fair?
		Is this legal?
		And drug smuggling is illegal, but it's very, very hard to stop it.
		So is it fair?
		Is it legal?
		And can we stop it? Are two separate questions.
		And if I was an investor in those companies, I would want to ask, can you stop it?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Their guest website is csis.org.
		Gregory Allen with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
		Thanks for your time.
		Thank you.
		Coming up, we're going to hear from Tulane Law School's professor Stephen Griffin, who studies constitutional law.
		We'll talk about President Trump's approach to executive powers that were granted to the president by the Constitution.
		That conversation coming up on Washington Journal.
unidentified		Weekends bring you Book TV, featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
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		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.
		And then 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 weekend on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
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pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joining us from New Orleans, Stephen Griffin of Tulane Law School.
		He's a constitutional law professor here to talk about the president's use of executive power.
		Professor Griffin, thanks for giving us your time.
unidentified		No problem at all.
unidentified		I'm happy to be here.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We've seen the president use this power for a little over a week now, almost two.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From that approach that you've seen, what would you say is his approach to the use of this executive power?
unidentified		Well, that's a pretty big question because there are several things going on at once.
		In one sense, President Trump is using executive orders to establish some of the themes and programs he talked about in the campaign.
		He's giving directives to executive agencies to sort of line them up along his policy objectives and perhaps spark some action.
		But there are other executive actions that raise serious constitutional questions and or are attempts to follow up on a lead, and this is a theme I'd like to introduce, a lead given to him by the Supreme Court.
		So in some sense, the Supreme Court has itself has key up the power he's now exercising through executive orders.
		So there are several categories there, and of course, some are more controversial than others.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That lead you talk about.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is that connected to the Supreme Court case or the Trump case taking a look at executive power Trump v. United States?
unidentified		Actually, so I've had this, sorry, I'm just doing the I've had this question from reporters, but I'm actually not talking about the executive immunity decisions.
		I would really like to highlight the cases that are in every case book that are called removal power cases.
		And people have noticed that the president is doing some arguably unusual things as far as removals.
		But I don't think they've quite grasped that there's a direct connection between what the Roberts Court has been doing since Roberts got in there in 05 and what President Trump is now following up on or also pushing the envelope.
		And those are removal cases like the Free Enterprise Fund case or especially the Sella Law case in 2020.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Can you elaborate then when it comes to removal cases?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Where has the president applied his power?
unidentified		All right.
		So I also should have said that all of these cases relate to the important concept, which we really started hearing about perhaps in the Bush II administration of the unitary executive.
		For quite a while, conservative legal thinkers, Justice Scalia on the court and other people on the court have been pushing the idea that the president really should be in sole control of the executive branch.
		So when I talk about removals, you need to think power over the executive branch, president versus Congress.
		And it can seem like a technical issue of who gets to fire whom, but the real issue, the underlying issue, is control and power over direct power over the executive branch.
		And so those decisions had to do with extending the reach of presidential authority to fire.
		For example, until the Sell-A-Law decision, you couldn't remove the head of the Consumer Finance Protection Board.
		Both President Trump and President Biden availed themselves of this power to dismiss.
		President Trump just did it again to try to get his own people in.
		But there are broader issues, broader issues having to do with so-called independent regulatory agencies that Congress designed to be somewhat independent of presidential power, and also a huge issue, control over civil service employees.
		And those are really big issues, and I'm not sure they've been discussed that much quite yet.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We'll continue on with our conversation with our guests.
		And if you want to ask about the president's use of executive power, Stephen Griffin joining us for this conversation, 202748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents, 202-748-8002 for independents.
		If you want to text us, 202-748-8003.
		So, Professor Griffin, you talked about the Supreme Court, a lot of cases looking at removal power, but essentially, what has the court done as far as this type of power given to the president?
unidentified		All right, I would characterize it this way.
		There was an uneasy balance in the law and an understanding stemming from two early 20th century decisions, the Myers decision in the 1920s, having to do with the post office of all things, and the Humphreys executor decision in 1935, about 90 years ago.
		The Humphreys executive decision has, in effect, been mentioned in some recent news stories because in that decision, the Supreme Court seemed to say that the president could not exercise removal authority, could not control what we normally call independent regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission,
		and President Trump's specific action that I think may tee up a major lawsuit has to do with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the EEOC.
		Now, this is a thin layer of people operating in charge of these agencies where it's been designed in by Congress that they should have fixed terms and can only be removed for cause.
		At the same time, everyone agreed on the basis of the Myers decision that the president should have removal authority over cabinet-level agencies, and there's really been no question about that.
		So, there was an uneasy compromise or line drawn between, for example, cabinet-level agencies and these independent regulatory commissions.
		Starting in the 1980s, people associated with the Reagan administration and Justice Scalia in particular started raising serious questions about this line and, in effect, embracing the unitary executive model announced in the Myers decision.
		And they've really been responsible for a sort of a decades-long campaign to get that removal authority at will, removal authority extended to the entire executive branch.
		And if that were to happen, that would indeed be big news.
		And separately from that, there's the whole question of presidential authority over the civil service, which are lower-level employees, but which are protected.
		And you see, it's not just about removal, it's about influence and control.
		And President Trump pretty clearly wants to control, in a very direct sense, the entire executive branch of government, irrespective of laws passed by Congress.
		That's just the issue I'd like to highlight.
		There are other important issues like birthright citizenship.
		I certainly don't want to ignore those, but it's just that this issue that I just talked about has received less attention.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What does the, and you probably get asked this question a lot, specifically what the Constitution says about executive power and why you think it's grown so much since then.
unidentified		Well, look, I'll start with what I learned, and still where many books start, which is Article II of the Constitution doesn't give a lot of detail about presidential power, and it certainly doesn't give a lot of detail about the structure of the executive branch.
		That's really for Congress to build out.
		But that's the conflict.
		What's the limit of Congress's power to specifically organize the executive branch versus, okay, you ask the source of the power?
		Well, it's a famous gap in the Constitution.
		The Constitution has an appointments clause, but it doesn't have a removal clause.
		But the people who have been advancing the unitary executive idea believe it's nested, it's encapsulated in the very first sentence of Article II, which talks about vesting the executive power in the president.
		And Justice Scalia argued in a case called Morrison versus Olson, he laid down a marker.
		He was a lonely dissent, but he laid down a marker saying this means all of the executive power.
		And what he meant is what Chief Justice Taft talked about in the Myers case, an unlimited power of removal, even in the face of congressional statutes to the contrary.
		At least in separation of powers, land, that's a big conflict, and it has real world implications.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Republicans, 202748, 8001.
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		Independents 2027 for 88002.
		Ron is in Michigan.
		Democrats line you're on with Stephen Griffin of Tulane Law School.
		Good morning.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
		In my opinion, what Trump is doing, he is eliminating all supervisor roles the federal government had to safeguard, we'll just take Social Security.
		And he has put Musk in charge of going through the records of Social Security to eliminate people from Social Security.
		And so what that's going to do is they're going to just eliminate people from Social Security.
		And the normal in the past where you could call the federal government and get help, there will no longer be any help.
		And so those cuts will go through with Trump's and the billionaires forcing them down our throats.
		And there will be no more recourse.
		Those benefits of Social Security will start, and then they'll go on to VA cuts and Medicare cuts.
		And there'll no longer be any recourse.
		And the billionaires are in charge.
		And the people, and he's taking control of the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies that would back up to the, if there was, but they're no longer in place.
		And the only thing that stands in his way now is the military.
		And he's got Pete in there.
		And so it's either fascism or fight.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Ron there.
		Professor, he puts out a lot of scenarios, but I want to start with the FBI.
		We saw the removal of some within.
		Does that fall within the president's power because it's not an outside board?
		Or you would know more than I, but where does the power fall on that front?
unidentified		Well, you know, the news stories about the FBI often make it sound like an independent agency.
		And these confusions trip up a lot of people.
		Similarly, with stories, let's say, about the Food and Drug Administration.
		But these are not independent agencies.
		They have elements, maybe.
		The FBI is inside the Department of Justice.
		And that was commented on in the hearings on Pam Bondi, for example, appointed Attorney General.
		But there's another issue there when you're talking about the Department of Justice.
		And I can perhaps talk a little bit about Musk.
		But the issue is there's been a post-Watergate understanding that the Department of Justice should operate informally, independently, somewhat at arm's length from the White House.
		President Trump, pretty clearly, even from his first term, doesn't have much time for that, doesn't believe in that.
		And there is a connection Between that and Trump versus United States, the immunity decision.
		Because if the Supreme Court in that case had been more mindful of what some of us regard as Watergate precedents, the decision wouldn't have come out that way because Nixon was clearly, you know, it was possible.
		People thought it was possible, certainly, to indict Nixon.
		Now, I'm sorry that's a little telegraphic, but the point is that the conservative legal thinkers, including people on the court, obviously don't have the same respect for the post-Watergate precedents with respect to the FBI and the DOJ as do the people in the Trump administration and possibly on the Supreme Court as well.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		In Kentucky, Republican line, this is George.
unidentified		Good morning, yes, sir.
		I'd like to know at what point would they say that a president has crossed the line?
		What would that line be?
		And what exactly could they do to actually stop him?
		As a disabled veteran, I'd really like to know.
		Thank you.
		Well, if this is about the possible interference with payment systems, I don't think there are enough details on why Mr. Musk has asked for this permission to scrutinize what's called the Bureau of the Fiscal Service and the Department of the Treasury.
		And I think we're kind of at early days as far as whether that represents even something that President Trump is interested in.
		But in terms of the DOJ-FBI angle, I think there's just a desire from him for just more direct control.
		And this has often been thought to be sort of a limiting case that no one would really be in favor of presidents directly controlling, say, who gets prosecuted and who doesn't.
		But that may be challenged.
		Now, another way for me to engage with the question is: is it really true that the Supreme Court would back up President Trump on all these removal questions?
		And I'm not saying it's guaranteed at all.
		I think that the judiciary is going to be a check on President Trump, just like it was in the first term.
		People forget about that, that President Trump lost a lot of the cases brought in court, that the court was not a rubber stamp.
		And I think that's important to say.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I was going to ask you to elaborate that the role the courts have about this idea of crossing a line that the viewer brought up.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Can you elaborate a little more where you see the courts going even in these first tranche of executive orders being issued?
unidentified		Well, to the extent it's somehow teed up on control of the Department of Justice, I'm not quite sure how that would arise.
		But what I was trying to get across is the Supreme Court has kind of given Trump, whether it knows it or not, a green light to challenge the independence of these agencies I was talking about, as well as even possibly undermining the civil service.
		And it's unclear how just how far the court would let Trump go.
		And you can read the decisions that I just mentioned, like sell a law in a limiting way that they're not interested in destroying the whole structure of independent agencies.
		But I think we have to face the fact that the Roberts Court gave a green light, sort of opened a door, and President Trump is walking through it.
		That's not to say he's going to win all of the cases that I mentioned, but there's an interactive effect here that I think we have to pay attention to.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Andrea.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Andrea in North Carolina Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello, good morning.
		Thanks so much for taking the call.
		Actually, this is something that's really concerning me, and I would like to know what you think about this.
		So, based on the fact that the president does not believe in the law, he does not really respect the country.
		What is the worst case scenario?
		Can he, for example, use his executive power somehow to gain access to another term, for example?
		Can he, for example, legalize the use of militias to keep him in power?
		How much should we rely on the president's morals and love for the country to not see something like this happen?
		Or is there any way we can?
		I think we cannot stop Trump.
		I think at this point, I'm very concerned about this country.
		What would you think about this?
		I mean, to the extent you're raising the 22nd Amendment, limiting presidents to two terms in office, I really don't see somehow some magic way around that.
		So, I think this is President Trump's last term.
		I was thinking to myself that some of the earlier callers might have been raising concern about executive orders with respect to appropriations.
		And there, I think there's a serious concern that has to do with what's called impoundment.
		And I'm sorry I didn't mention it from the beginning.
		There are a lot of issues to keep track of here.
		That's one of the most direct ways that a president could trump, in theory, do something about the benefits that people like.
		But another, the caller was raising, you know, what's the worst case?
		The worst case, I'll just stick with my Watergate era observation that people haven't wanted to think about what would happen if this informal understanding having to do with the DOJ and FBI collapsed.
		But if it did collapse, that means the worst case scenario is, well, what was asked about in the Pam Bondi hearings, for example, that President Trump will constitute himself an enemies list, and he'll direct government agencies to go after all the people on the list.
		And if people complain, they'll be on the list.
		And there's no doubt that even investigation by the FBI or other agencies can cause people serious problems, even if there are no court cases.
		I think that is one concern that at least people in my area, constitutional law professors, have worried about.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You talked about civil service.
		The president is requiring people to come back to work here in Washington, D.C. offices.
		He's offering some resignations to some within the civil service.
		Does that fall within the president's power?
		As you were talking about what, to the extent it does to civil service employees?
unidentified		I was really discussing just blowing through the protections that people have.
		Again, I'm not sure this has been well covered.
		For example, he dismissed a bunch of the January 6th prosecutors with no real reason other than they don't have trust and confidence in them.
		In the language of the law, that's not a reason.
		A reason for the civil service would be people aren't doing their jobs.
		They're incompetent.
		They're not showing up for work.
		That requires proof, proof that would satisfy a court.
		But if the courts help President Trump tear down those civil service protections and make civil service employees the equivalent of at-will political appointees, then we're looking at a repolitization, something that looks more like the patronage system of the 19th century in the Jacksonian era.
		And that's another concern that people in my area worry about, that you'll lose the benefits, and they are very real, of the civil service and have really a more chaotic administration of the government.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Jim in Minnesota, independent line for Stephen Griffin of Tulane Law School.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Thanks for coming on to this and some of your comments here.
		President Trump's use of these, it's hard for me to even call him president and he doesn't act like it.
		His use of the executive orders for me, it reflects Project 2025 and also the Powell memos.
		You talked about President Nixon and Powell was on Supreme Court at the time.
		Their power grab.
		This whole thing is just, for me, it looks like a massive power grab to take over and basically rule by authoritarianism.
		Just look at what Musk has done in Social Security, where he has no business, even legally, to be in that place.
		I'd like your thoughts on that.
		You know, I think this has been actually undercovered by the news media that there are some parallels between the Nixon administration and Nixon personally and Trump.
		Because Nixon came in, remember, after multiple Democratic presidents from Kennedy to Johnson.
		And he had been vice president and he had a good knowledge of the executive branch, but he also believed that the executive branch was controlled by Democrats, people hostile to him.
		So he really wanted to run things, run the entire executive branch, first of all, from inside the White House.
		And he wanted very direct control over what was happening in the executive branch.
		I'm not recalling that he challenged the independent agencies, but the point is he believed that the executive branch was fundamentally hostile to him.
		And he had a program to combat that or undermine that.
		And part of Watergate actually grew out of Nixon's desire to run things from inside the White House.
		Now, there is a parallel here with Trump's view that Democrats have been in power for four years, but furthermore, he views the entire civil service in some sense as party-based.
		And I'm really not sure that's true.
		But to the extent you have that attitude, you'd be looking to undermine the civil service.
		As far as what people keep mentioning about payments to Social Security or whatever, I'm afraid I can't speak to that.
		I don't know the basis.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Professor, where does Congress fit into this?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You kind of insinuated that they have a role to play here, but how do they flex that muscle, so to speak, to push back against the power used by the president?
unidentified		All right.
		Now, this may sound abstract, but this, look, this tees up our civics book understanding of the way the Constitution is supposed to work versus how it actually works.
		In the civics book understanding, each branch has a check, and there is no doubt whatsoever that Congress has lots of tools it can use if it wants to to defend the traditional way of organizing the executive branch where you have, in effect, silos and the president can't instantly control everything if he wants.
		But then you have party-based government, and President Trump's party is in control of Congress and has so far shown no inclination to check him.
		So that's why I talk about the courts.
		That's why I talked about the courts first rather than Congress.
		Now, I think Congress, especially the Senate, may become more concerned if President Trump actually does something more concrete with the way, especially the government is funded.
		Congress is very jealous historically of its appropriations power.
		But that would run right into the fact of if President Trump really wants this to happen, he's got plenty of supporters in Congress, and they are very likely in the first instance to give him a pass.
		So I don't think Congress, and that really, you don't want to say Congress, you want to say Republican Congress, isn't going to be much of a check on what Trump wants to do, at least at first.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Dan in Indiana, Republican line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, I'm watching the show, and I'm kind of shocked.
		I mean, I'm very shocked.
		Biden started the executive orders, jumping them up to 26.
		The Biden-Harris controlled the FBI.
		I mean, you guys all know that.
		They went after Trump on every station they could get him.
		And then it's common sense.
		Trump's following common sense and the law.
		He didn't break the law like Hunter Biden and Biden and the gang.
		And then you talk about the J6.
		I watched for two years as the Democrats burned all our cities and they killed over 28 people.
		I feel like I'm watching MSNBC.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So what's the question for our guest?
		Oh, he is gone.
		But if you wanted to respond to that, sir, go ahead.
unidentified		Look, first of all, I probably should have said something about the Biden administration's exercise of power.
		So by way of providing a little perspective, I did go back and look.
		And first of all, this tendency to use the first weeks of the presidency to lay down a new line through executive orders.
		You might attribute this to the Bush II administration, but I really see it happening with President Obama, where he wanted to set a new tone for how we fought the war against terror.
		But it really did take off with President Trump's first term.
		President Biden follows with a lot of executive orders himself.
		And so now we're in a tit-for-tat situation.
		But yes, yes, Republicans believe that the whole DOJ FBI has been politicized anyway.
		And they're very resentful of all the investigations, especially the Russia investigation.
		That's, you know, the Special Prosecutor Mueller.
		From their point of view, didn't go anywhere.
		I have the traditional point of view that you had to investigate some of these, but you were taking a clear risk in building an image of the FBI as politicized.
		And so this stuff about post-Watergate obviously doesn't impress some Republicans because they don't see that there was much of an arm's length.
		I keep talking about that, arm's length relationship in the Biden administration.
		So there's a real problem of a reset here.
		However, the issues I discussed are real.
		And despite any mistakes that were made in the Obama-Biden administration, the dangers that could follow from a more thorough presidential control of the FBI or DOJ are still there.
		They don't go away simply because bad things happened in the Obama or Biden administrations.
		So we've got a bad situation here with respect to the administration of justice.
		And President Biden did try to take some steps to rebuild it.
		But once the January 6th prosecutions got going, obviously that proved difficult.
		And furthermore, President Biden, all these recent presidents have arguably abused their pardon power in such a way as to make people cynical, perhaps, about the administration of justice.
		That's a serious problem.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Miriam is next for our guests in Texas Democrats line.
		You're on.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes.
		I wanted to ask you if the president can rescind funds that have been already appropriated by the trivia Congress.
		And can he allow a billionaire to run the Social Security funds?
		I really can't speak to Social Security, but I wish I had said more about this impoundment situation.
		This badly worded order from the Office of Management and Budget, which has now been enjoined or rescinded, but there's a general by the White House is a troubling feature here.
		But there's a more general issue, which is, you know, President Trump has acted as if since he won, he ought to be able to put on pause any flow of federal funding that he doesn't like.
		And put that way, that's not right.
		That is both illegal under the Empowerment Control Act and it's unconstitutional.
		But the way he's gone about it so far has been so unclear that it's unclear even whether he wanted to impound some of these funds.
		So I tend to give him a pass on that because some of these orders were simply unclear.
		And it's unclear even if the president knew about them.
		But there are people associated with the administration who somehow believe that the Empoundment Control Act that Congress enacted again in the Watergate era, there's a reason why we keep talking about it, is unconstitutional.
		And I just don't follow that reasoning.
		I don't think that's right.
		The Supreme Court, even in a pretty recent decision written by Justice Thomas, redeclared that Congress has control of the purse.
		And I don't think these rescissions or impoundments, whatever they are, will succeed.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joy in Savannah, Georgia, Republican line.
		You're next up for our guest, Stephen Griffin.
		Joy, go ahead.
unidentified		Morning to you, Pedro.
		Yes, what I want to say is Trump is so far ahead of all of you.
		He is the one that's trying to take the drugs out of this country so our businesses can function.
		My mother-in-law came from China in 1928.
		The country was brain dead on opium.
		She walked her grandfather to the opium house.
		That's all he was interested in.
		Japanese took him over.
		He knows in this country, if he doesn't get the drugs out of our country, we will not have a country because everybody wants to be a dishwasher just to get enough money to be able to buy the next fix for a drug.
		We can't function like that.
		We've got to have people with smart minds.
		They've got to be clear.
		Drugs don't make you smart.
		We've got to clean the country up before we can get anywhere before China.
		That's how they're eating our lunch.
		People have got to know that.
		The leaders of this country have got to know that.
		That's what's wrong with us.
		Please, I beg, help get the people off the drugs that drugs are killing this phago.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joy in Savannah, Georgia, to that.
		And I wonder if there's any parallel to this idea of the use of power from the president yesterday, signing these new tariffs against specifically these three countries.
		The larger ideas to stop trafficking in drugs and things like that, Professor Griffin.
unidentified		I don't mean to give the impression at all that somehow all of these executive orders are legally questionable in important areas, including trade policy.
		Congress has delegated vast power to the president.
		There can be questions raised about this or that tariff, but President Trump's on pretty firm ground in exercising when he exercises authority actually given to him by Congress.
		And that's generally true in the trade area.
		But let me derive a larger point from what the caller just said, which is that to the extent President Trump links otherwise questionable exercises of executive power to goals that most Americans share, he has a good chance of expanding executive power.
		But to the extent he does it in a blunderbuss fashion and possibly puts in question programs that everyone likes, like maybe Social Security, I don't know.
		But to the extent he does it in some extremely broad actions that cross a lot of wires, then he's likely to fail.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From James, who is in Maryland, Independent Line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Appreciate it.
		My whole thing is it seems like we actually live in a tiered justice system.
		I feel like Trump is really allowing us to see that criminals can actually live in different, by different standards and different rules.
		And the whole time, I was under the impression that, hey, America has a justice system that will take care of itself.
		And it's not as such.
		Not only does the Trump administration blame or give a lot of credit to the Constitution, but it seems like when they put an executive order to do away with the Second Amendment, my bad.
		The 14th Amendment, there's no squabble about that.
		It seems like the Trump members are really hypocritical when it comes to Trump's moves and actions.
		And I don't understand hypocrisy.
		Yeah, I'm not sure.
		I'm not sure it was the question about having to do with birthright citizenship issues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		He talked about that as the larger aspects of who gets protection under the law.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And I'm paraphrasing.
unidentified		All right.
		Well, I'll respond in maybe a not helpful abstract way, which is, look, President Biden did have the goal of trying to make people feel that the justice system was nonpartisan.
		And he did this by appointing people like Merritt Garland that he thought would have the confidence of both parties.
		But I think it's apparent that the only real way to approach these issues, at least in terms of something presidents can actually accomplish, is not simply to appoint people or say things, but actually bite the bullet and propose legislation so that we would have a new understanding of how our justice system should work.
		In other words, if you think the prosecutorial functions of the Department of Justice should really be above party and should be executed in a nonpartisan fashion, then you kind of have to make it formally independent in such a way that both parties would have confidence going forward.
		That would mean changing the structure of our government.
		And President Biden wasn't interested in that or didn't even think about that.
		He did appoint a commission.
		People seem to forget about the Supreme Court.
		And it did produce some suggestions, but President Biden was never interested too much in rocking the vote.
		But that caused the sort of came back to haunt him when the Department of Justice made decisions that were seen as politicized.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One more call from Marion, Ohio, Democrats line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My original question was on Musk, but sounds like you don't really have anything to say on that.
		So I guess my next question would be, during Trump's last term, McConnell was very good at stocking the judges with Republican-leaning judges, pretty much on all levels.
		So now that Trump is basically the only guardrail that is through judges, what are odds of them not making horrible decisions on the issues that Trump is trying to put forward that are unconstitutional?
		I just, I'd like to know if you think that our judges will actually do their job.
		So I'll take my comment offline.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Marion, Ohio.
unidentified		Well, look, the baseline here, I'm going to stick with what I see as the conventional wisdom among legal commentators that I respect, which is that, first, let's remember that, and viewed globally, President Trump lost a lot of cases in court in his first term.
		That's solid empirical evidence that the courts did not simply roll over for whatever he wanted.
		At the same time, in some really high-profile decisions, including the immunity decision, the court also seemed to support Trump down the line.
		That's why I highlight the importance of the court opening the door on questions of removal.
		And I think you will also see the courts stand up to President Trump on the issue of birthright citizenship.
		I don't think there's much doubt about that.
		But the callers seem really interested in these issues of appropriations and possible interference with the flow of the payment system.
		But I'm afraid it's early days on that.
		That's why I haven't had much to say about that.
		I'm sorry.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Stephen Griffin from Tulane Law School joins us.
		He's a constitutional law professor, law.tulane.edu.
		Professor Griffin, thanks for your time.
unidentified		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Open Forum will finish out the program.
		And if you want to participate, it's 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can call in and we'll start open forum when Washington Journal continues.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		In his latest book titled Wasteland, author Robert Kaplan focuses on the importance of technology on determining the world's future.
		Kaplan, author of 24 books, holds the chair in geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Institute.
		In the chapter number three, in his 177-page book, Kaplan claims, Civilization is now in flux.
		The ongoing decay of the West is manifested not only in racial tensions coupled with new barriers to free speech, but in the deterioration of dress codes, the erosion of grammar, the decline in sales of serious books and classical music, and so on, all of which have traditionally been signs of civilization.
unidentified		Author Robert Kaplan talks about his book, Wasteland: A World in Permanent Crisis, on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts.
		Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, U.S. District Court Judge Frederick Block shares his book, A Second Chance, where he talks about the application of the 2018 First Step Act.
		under which federal prisoners who've served decades in prison can petition the court for reductions in their sentences.
		The First Step Act is called the First Step Act, and Congress implicitly was contemplating there'd be a second step back, then maybe a third step act.
		It was the beginning.
		It kicked off the football, and finally, people recognizing, regardless of your political persuasion, regardless of the emotionality which governs much of our mentality and our reactions and like, that it was necessary for us to do something concrete.
		So that was the well, the First Step Act has been considered to be Justice Gorsuch wrote about it, that the most significant sentencing reform piece of legislation of the century.
		Judge Frederick Block with his book, A Second Chance, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA.
		You can listen to QA and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Again, it's open forum: 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents, 202748-8002.
		Republican Line, this is from London, Kentucky.
		Charlotte starts us off.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Yes, actually, I would just like some clarification about executive orders that Biden did on student loan forgiveness.
		And to my knowledge, the Supreme Court even said that they could not do that.
		But yet it's been done.
		So I would like a little clarification.
		What's the difference between him forgiving student loans and Trump putting on executive orders to stop excessive spending?
		That's what I would like to know, please.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Unfortunately, the guest is gone.
		I'm sorry about that.
		Let's hear from David.
		David in New York, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yes, I voted for three Republicans, and I voted for three Democrats over the years.
		I grew up through Watergate, and what I'm seeing now is more divisive with our government than ever.
		And I mean, people are saying, you know, they're saying that Bush lied about going into Afghanistan and Iraq, especially Iraq.
		And they're saying that Trump's lying all the time.
		And they're saying that Biden there, he lied about basically the doors were closed to the country, and that's not the case.
		And then I'm listening to you guys talking here about removing the president.
		And it's like we've had a lot of opportunities in the past that we could have and should have.
		And I just, I don't know, it's kind of like there's an old song I used to hear all the time.
		It kind of went like, ha ha, ha, ha, they're coming to take you all away.
		And I think that's really, you know, probably maybe the moon is a good place for the Democrats to go right now.
		Okay.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		New York, that's David in New York.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Lewis is in Alabama, Democrats line.
unidentified		Yes, what I'd like to say is that the blacks that voted for Trump didn't have to wait long to regret what's going on.
		You look at Scott, Ogin, South Carolina, down in Florida, that blacks that voted for Trump.
		Now they've tucked that tail thinking that they might have been named as the vice president nominee, but they see that wasn't happening.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Lewis there in Alabama, Axial's reporting that it's Ken Martin, who was elected Saturday to serve as the next chair of the Democratic National Committee.
		He puts him at the helm of a party trying to rebuild its image after a disappointing 2024 cycle.
		He's the longtime chair of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party, wants to help the party, quote, get back to basics with a revamped messaging strategy aimed at winning back working-class voters who have drifted to the right.
		C-SPAN was there as the process of electing the new Democratic National Committee chair took place.
		Here are the comments from Ken Martin, the incoming chair.
unidentified		Now, look, it's time for our party to do three things.
		First is to unite.
		We have to rebuild our coalition.
		We have to ignore the noise.
		We have to focus with intensity on the goal ahead, which is winning elections to improve people's lives.
		Second, we need to go on offense.
		Trump's first weeks have shown us that what happens when amateur hour meets demolition derby, right?
		And at the same time, he's invited all these billionaires into the Oval Office to mine, extract, and profit off of our government.
		This is our time right now.
		It's the people's government.
		It's not another resource for ultra-elites to exploit.
		Lastly, and the third, is we're going to take tonight to enjoy the moment and we're going to build new alliances.
		But then we're going to get to work.
		We're going to get to work.
		We're going to fight.
		We're going to go out there and take this fight to Donald Trump and the Republicans.
		And we're going to fight for working people again in this party.
		Thank you, Democrats.
		Thank you so much.
		It's the honor of my life.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The incoming chair, Ken Martin, there, you can see that full speech on a variety of our platforms, cspan.now, our app, cspan.org, our website, Carl in Connecticut, Republican line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		And it is a blessed morning.
		Just think about all the opportunities we have in this country.
		We have to stay focused on the important things.
		And I'm 68 years old today.
		Today's my birthday.
		And I grew up during the ending of the Vietnam War.
		The men and women that were coming home that were crippled as a result of the drugs that were influenced in Vietnam.
		And this Child of ours that has become a major problem, the drug wars, has not been addressed by the majority of all our presidents in the last 50 years.
		It needs to be put down and stopped because it has too much of an influence of taking out our children every single day, whether it's fentanyl or heroin, whatever you want to call it.
		And the impact is 100% on every person's life.
		Every industry that you can imagine is affected by this.
		Now, the problem is that we've adopted it because it's been in our living room for so long.
		We expect it to be there and we tolerate it.
		That's not the way this is supposed to go.
		This drug is taking out our future children, and it needs to be stopped.
		If we have to declare war on the country that's providing this stuff, whether it's China or Mexico, then so be it, but it needs to be stopped.
		And I think this is paramount over all other aspects in this country.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Carl, on our Republican line, calling in on his birthday, best of birthdays to you, Mary in North Carolina, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		Very interesting discussion regarding the Constitution and separation of powers.
		I would suggest that we go back to FDR and his implementation of changes to our government.
		I'm not speaking in terms of Republican or Democrat because constitutionally there's no provision for political parties, which has become a big problem given that for the funding of campaigns, people sacrifice principles to the party.
		I would suggest that back when I was in college, I was a Democrat working to get Democrats elected, but I voted for Ronald Reagan for one reason.
		He said we needed to change the scope and direction of the federal government.
		This was not accomplished under his term, and we have a multitude of problems on a variety of fronts, which can be traced back to the fact that we do not have term limits for the House or the Senate.
		Okay.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mary Ver in North Carolina, one of the changes to how government runs is being highlighted and profiled in the Washington Post this morning, saying that billionaire Elon Musk deputies have gained access to a sensitive Treasury Department system responsible for trillions of dollars in U.S. government payments after the administration ousted a career official at the department, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
		It was on Friday that the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson approved access to the Treasury's payment system for a team led by Tom Krause, a Silicon Valley executive working in concert with Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
		David LeBreck, who served in non-political roles at Treasury for several decades and had been the acting secretary before the confirmation of Scott Besson, had refused to turn over access to Musk surrogates.
		People familiar with the situation told the Washington Post Trump officials placed LeBrecon on administrative leave.
		He then announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues, the story adding that the spokesperson for Treasury and Doge decided to comment.
		But it says the sensitive systems run by the Bureau of Fiscal Service control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually.
		Tens of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, and they're responsible for paying Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients, and tax refunds amongst tens of thousands of other functions.
		Lynn, up next in Illinois, Democrats line.
		Lynn in Illinois.
unidentified		Yeah, hi.
unidentified		Can you hear me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Yep, you're on.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Yeah.
		I kind of missed the beginning of the show, but I have extreme concerns.
		I'm an older Gen X and had uncles and a father who was in World War II and were from originally from Poland, Polish immigrants.
		I'm the second generation born here.
		I still have an aunt who's 100 years old and it's still lucid.
		And they left Poland and Lithuania from the tyranny caused by Russia, which we see is going on again.
		And it seems that Trump has aligned himself with Putin's policies.
		I'm old enough to know because I'm originally from New York State that Trump was bought out and helped by Russia and Russian mafia to bail him out and all his bankruptcies and fines over the years.
		And considering he abused his power several times, the first time he ran in 2016 through 2020-20 and was one of the worst presidents we've ever seen in this country, if not world.
		And again, he's come back to inflict more tyranny and abuse of power, and he really should have been impeached.
		And I just want to know what is our country and law and judges going to do to stop his abuse of power, especially with Elon taking over our Treasury Department this recently, his gutting the government, his dismantling the government.
		We're literally seeing 1930s Germany all over again.
		And we warned people about not allowing him to run again after he even tried to murder his own vice president to stop an election.
		Okay, okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And we'll end it there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jim in New York, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yeah, hi.
		I want to bring up something about your station.
		You brought up about a month or so ago commercials on C-SPAN and that Brian Lamb had retired.
		And I noticed that Brian Lamb retired because you're doing something that caused me to leave PBS.
		I used to support PBS.
		I used to send them money.
		I don't even watch them much anymore.
		You're doing what a lot of these stations are doing now.
		You did this for two weeks last week.
		And I turned you off.
		It's a shame.
		I only got two stations that I could watch that don't do what you're doing now.
		You have these little pop-up things in the corner of the screen that are completely unnecessary of what's coming up next.
		I think it's silly.
		I can't see them anyway.
		I can't read them because I have a small screen TV.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, it helps inform viewers about what's coming up on our various networks so they're interested in watching it.
unidentified		You've got a remote control, but you probably have to have one.
		And you can push the thing on the bottom.
		And here, at 8 o'clock, you've got QA.
		I can see it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sure, that's fine.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but as a means of advertising what we're doing on our network, it's a mean of just informing the public on a various networks.
unidentified		I can see it on the bottom of my screen.
		I can push the button and see what's coming up.
		It's an unnecessary distraction.
		And okay, let's go to Van.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Van in Ohio, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
		You're next.
		Van in Paris, Ohio, Independent Line.
		Let's hear from Annie.
		Annie's in Florida, Democrats line.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning, Pedro.
		Good morning.
		And happy birthday to the gentleman who called and to the lady who was concerned about the student loans.
		Other countries invest in their students and their professionals.
		And just go to a hospital, any hospital, and see if you can find how many American doctors.
		And if you don't want to invest in your own professionals, then what do you want to invest in?
		And regarding Trump, no Americans, especially Democrats, hate Trump, Elon, JD, or RFK.
		We simply didn't vote for them.
		And, you know, no one hates them.
		As far as the Iron Dome, Trump recognized that he wanted an Iron Dome like Israel has.
		And that's when the drones started to look around.
		And I don't do conspiracies.
		I just know that that was out of his mouth.
		So I don't do media.
		I don't do, it's not necessary to look at media.
		It's necessary to look at Trump's mouth and what comes out of it.
		And he wanted an iron dome just like Israel has.
		And that's when the drone started doing the, you know, looking around.
		And that's when the military was brand spanking new doing his dome project and flew in that area.
		So anyway, I don't do conspiracies.
		I don't do media.
		I watch Trump's mouth.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		And that's where I get my information.
unidentified		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Annie there in Florida speaking of Israel.
		The prime minister left Sunday for Washington, where he's set to meet later this week with the president declaring before boarding his flight that cooperation with the new administration could withdraw the Middle East.
		Benjamin Yetanyah, who said in his meetings in the U.S. Capitol, quote, we'll deal with important critical issues facing Israel and the region.
		Victory over Hamas, achieving the release of all of our hostages and dealing with the Iranian terror access in all of its components, an access that threatens the peace of Israel, the Middle East, and the entire world.
		That meeting with the president, I believe, is set this Tuesday.
		Let's go to James.
		James in Tennessee, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Oh, yes.
		I'm going to say I don't believe in the Constitution.
		For one reason, God said he made man.
		White man said he made vast deeds of human in this country.
		So you can't move me into God, get up off your throne, and come down here and rob the E. Lee and you DAC in one else day.
		And another thing, the White House is ran by Nazis Clam as a clam.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we'll go to Becky, Becky, and Republican Line, North Carolina.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		I was just wanting to know when are they going to confirm Kash Patel's nomination.
		And not sure of the exact schedule.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The confirmation hearings took place last week.
		Still available on C-SPAN.
		If you want to go see those series of questions posed to Kash Patel, who is the president's nominee to head the FBI, you can go to our website at c-span.org to do that.
		And if you want to find out more about all those confirmation hearings that have taken place and will yet to take place, you can do that too at the website there as part of the president, a new administration coming in.
		Kenneth is up next.
		Kenneth in Illinois.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My name is Kenneth Copeland.
		I am originally from Chicago, Illinois.
		I was a drug addict.
		I went to prison.
		To stop the drugs, we got to stop pointing at other countries.
		We got to point at ourselves.
		They're not bringing that over here.
		We're letting them bring it over here.
		We're getting money from them to bring it over here to the United States.
		We're complaining about things that we can stop.
		You know, we can't even stop drugs in the prisons if Illinois is in Florida.
		And then we're worried about what's happening in another world, in another country.
		We need to worry about the United States.
		I'm a Democrat.
		I don't like the president as a man, but he's the president, and I respect him, and I'm listening to him.
		And I'm looking at the long run about these taxes on Canada and stuff.
		We need to stop building stuff here in the United States because most of my clothes got Mexico on it and Italy and every place else.
		You know, it ain't got Chicago or Washington, D.C. on the clothes.
		That's on us.
		We need to stop pointing fingers at other countries.
		I want to thank you for being on a station.
		I wish he was on seven stations at one time.
		I really do.
		But God bless you and have a blessed one.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Kenneth in Illinois there.
		You probably have heard much about the collision that took place here in Washington, D.C. between that airliner and that helicopter.
		The Hill takes a look at what Congress might be doing when it comes to investigating that matter.
		This is a story that appears today.
		Quote, Congress has an important role in conducting oversight of federal agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration and ensuring the aviation industry is the gold standard of the world.
		That's Representative Troy Niels of Texas, chair of the Transportation Committee's Aviation Subpanel, telling the Hill in a statement, we want the NTSB to do their job and investigate the situation, and we will do ours.
		Top lovemakers on both sides of the aisle are urging a cautious path forward as the NTSB continues the investigation.
		A source close to Niels told the Hill that the NTSB briefed the congressman along with Representative Sam Graves, Republican of Missouri, the chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Republican Rick Larson, Democrat of Washington, the panel's ranking member, among others, Mr. Larson, Representative Larson's quota saying it's important to let the NTSB complete its work before we consider any potential policy response.
		Carol in Texas, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro, and thank you for taking my call.
		Thanks for C-SPAN.
		I'm sorry for the earlier gentleman you had that confuses PBS with C-SPAN.
		They're two different networks, two different things.
		I wanted to say about the Constitution, just to inform people, the first three words of the Constitution are the most important, and they say, we, the people, all of this stuff that everybody's concerned about, where Elon Musk is taking control of parts of the government, he's taking control of parts of our government.
		The government does not belong to Donald Trump.
		The government does not belong to the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.
		The government does not belong to Elon Musk.
		It's our government.
		The money he's playing with is our money.
		It does not belong to him.
		And we're going to have to fire him.
		Either he starts being this common word that all parties talk about, transparency.
		Either he starts being transparent and starts outlining and saying exactly what he's doing with our money in our government.
		If he doesn't start doing that right now, it better start tomorrow.
		Right now, he better start saying what he's doing with our money and making it clear what he's doing, or we're going to fire him.
		And the only way we have to fire him is take through the streets.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Caller, I'm going to leave it there.
		Theodore in North Carolina, Republican line.
unidentified		We didn't vote in the recent election to allow a billionaire who wants to pray God to act like a dictator.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's the other there in North Carolina.
		Forbes reporting that President Donald Trump issued a proclamation.
		It was on Friday.
		This was reported yesterday.
		It was on Friday night declaring February to be Black History Month in a more muted announcement than those he issued during the first term following weeks of Mr. Trump attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives through executive orders.
		The proclamation, in the proclamation, Mr. Trump said black Americans have been among the United States, quote, most consequential leaders, naming Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, conservative economist Thomas Sowell, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Tiger Woods.
		Mr. Trump also expressing, quote, gratitude to black Americans for all they have done to bring us to this moment and advancing the tradition of equality under the law.
		And this Forbes story adding that Black History Month proclamations are typical for presidents.
		And Mr. Trump made one each year throughout his first term.
		So that's Forbes reporting there on this Black History Month.
		Gina up next, Alexandria of Virginia, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, Pedro.
		I just wanted to correct you in your last segment when you were talking about Doge and the Treasury.
		You said that Doge decided to talk about the situation when they actually said, and you showed it on TV, they declined to talk about the situation.
		So you flipped a word to those decided to talk about it.
		But actually, what I was reading while you were talking said they declined to talk about it.
		So, Pedro, I know it's the end of your morning show, but you got to get those two words right.
		Declined and decided.
		It's two different words.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That might have happened and didn't mean anything about it.
unidentified		It didn't happen.
		Play it back.
		Play it back.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, it didn't mean anything by it.
		Let's go to Jorge in New Mexico, independent line.
		Hi.
unidentified		American administration of the canal is key because they're currently draining the reservoir.
		America must ensure the flow for all of the Americans.
		There's different ways to do this.
		It'll also lower some of the effects of the tariffs.
		DACA and Dreamers need to become citizens.
		And I think that the positive that the administrations have done is that they got rid of who and they reinstated the soldiers that rejected COVID and they gave them back pay.
		But what about the ones that they forced the shot on?
		They should pay them to National Guard of Border Patrol and these horses.
		I think that C-SPAN should do a morning, an afternoon, and a nighttime for adults only where you could cuss.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Just for what it's worth on this Groundhog Day, Puxatani Phil seeing a shadow, six more weeks of winter, according to the headline there from USA Today.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is our last call, North Carolina, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		I just want to make a statement about the previous administration.
		They constantly referred to Trump being a threat to democracy.
		I guess they wanted to make it a democracy because unfortunately, the United States, or fortunately for us, we are a constitutional republic.
		Can you please comment?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's the last call we'll take on this morning where we've been on from 7 to 10 a.m. as we do every day.
		Thanks to all of you who participated in another edition of Washington Journal Comes Your Way at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning.
		See you then.
unidentified		C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington and across the country.
		Coming up Monday morning, The Hill's Emily Brooks with a look at the week ahead in Congress and the House GOP's work with the Trump administration on its legislative agenda.
		Then Brett Samuels, White House reporter for The Hill, gives an update on news of the day.
		And former Congressional staffer and George Washington University grad school professor Casey Bergen discusses his book, We Hold These Truths: How to Spot the Myths That Are Holding America Back.
		Washington Journal, join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Monday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org.
		Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, U.S. District Court Judge Frederick Block shares his book, A Second Chance, where he talks about the application of the 2018 First Step Act.
		under which federal prisoners who've served decades in prison can petition the court for reductions in their sentences.
		The First Step Act is called the First Step Act, and Congress implicitly was contemplating there'd be a second step act, then maybe a third step act.
		It was the beginning.
		It kicked off the football, and finally, people recognizing, regardless of your political persuasion, regardless of the emotionality which governs much of our mentality and our reactions in life, that it was necessary for us to do something concrete.

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