| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
A federal judge is extending the pause on implementing the Trump administration's federal buyout program after temporarily blocking the plan last week to hear additional arguments from employee unions. | |
| The offer went out to more than 2 million federal employees, promising to pay their salaries and benefits until the end of September if they agreed to resign by midnight last Thursday. | ||
| That deadline was later extended to midnight tonight based on the judge's prior order. | ||
| Reuters reports that unions have urged their members not to accept the buyout offer, saying the Trump administration cannot be trusted to honor it. | ||
| According to the White House, nearly 65,000 federal employees have signed up for the buyouts as of Friday. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including MIDCO. | ||
| Where are you going? | ||
| Or maybe a better question is: how far do you want to go? | ||
| And how fast do you want to get there? | ||
| Now we're getting somewhere. | ||
| So let's go. | ||
| Let's go faster. | ||
| Let's go further. | ||
| Let's go beyond. | ||
| Midco supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Joining us now is Stephen Newcomb. | ||
| He is co-author of Axios' Hill Leaders newsletter. | ||
| We are talking about Congress and the Trump legislative agenda. | ||
| Stephen, thank you so much for being with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thanks for having me. | |
| We'll start with Congress and what they're going to be working on this week. | ||
| Number one is the budget. | ||
| Remind our audience what the fiscal deadlines Congress is facing, what they are, and what the deadlines are. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so they've got a government funding deadline in March 14th. | |
| This is sort of the deal that Republicans made last year, late last year, after Trump had won the election, that they would kick government funding too early in his first 100 days, really. | ||
| So now they're coming up against that. | ||
| And the short of it is that they're just not on track to get this done by March 14th, at least a regular order passing all these bills. | ||
| So they need to sort of supercharge this process over the next month. | ||
| And if they're going to reach the March 14th deadline, we're really going to need some action here from appropriators and from leadership in the next two weeks. | ||
| Something that a phrase that we're going to be hearing a lot of is reconciliation. | ||
| This is a legislative maneuver that the GOP could use, explain what that is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so it's essentially the budget reconciliation process allows Republicans in the Senate to circumvent the filibuster process. | |
| So they won't need 60 votes in the Senate. | ||
| They only need 50, which is, you know, obviously the big hurdle for any party in the Senate. | ||
| And what they're able to do there is move money around, change federal spending priorities. | ||
| They can't necessarily make policy through the reconciliation process, but they can allocate money differently for different priorities and different offices. | ||
| So these next two, they're trying to take two bites of the apple, at least the House GOP is. | ||
| They want to do a border bill and then another one that has to do with taxes and tax reform and extending those tax cuts. | ||
| So this is the, in the first year really, of the Trump administration, this is the biggest thing that's in front of them. | ||
| Something else that we could be hearing is the phrase budget resolutions. | ||
| Both the House and Senate can use those, explain what they are, and what role they could play in the process. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, right now that's the big holdup are the resolutions and trying to figure out which chamber is going to go first in this process. | |
| The issue for Republicans right now, the biggest issue for them on Capitol Hill is that they have a very slim House majority. | ||
| Really, the challenge is to get anything through that House most likely is going to get through the Senate. | ||
| So they've been trying to figure out which chamber will go first. | ||
| They want the House to go first, again, because that's the biggest hurdle. | ||
| But they have had major delays in the markups of their budget resolutions, internal disagreements within each other. | ||
| But the Senate last week unveiled its first budget resolution ready to go if they have to. | ||
| Procedurally in the Senate, it's a little bit slower to get that started, and that's usually why they defer to the House. | ||
| But we're going to see how much patience Senate Majority Leader John Thune has with House Speaker Mike Johnson to be able to get the troops in order on the House side and get a budget resolution done. | ||
| And it was Senator Lindsey Graham, who's chair of the Senate Budget Committee, who announced that the Senate has their bill ready to go. | ||
| The House, like you mentioned, does not, other than the approach to passage, final passage, what do we know about the House and Senate, the differences in their priorities? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So they want to do the same things at the end of the day. | |
| They have the same agenda. | ||
| It's how do they get there? | ||
| And I think that Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, wants to do this in two processes with one bill, one bill being for the border and energy and defense, and then another tax package. | ||
| They want to go first with the border bill. | ||
| On the Senate side, they want to do one big package, tax, border, all in the same package. | ||
| Mike Johnson sees it as easier to get two bills through the House, not packing everything into one. | ||
| He says that, you know, Senate leadership doesn't totally understand the reality of politics in the House, but Senate leadership wants to do it in one bill, get it done. | ||
| And I think that really, again, that's the tension point is how much patience does John Thune have with Mike Johnson and allowing him to try and do this two-bill approach. | ||
| Our guest for the next 25 minutes or so is Stephen Newcomb. | ||
| He is the co-author of Axios' Hill Leader newsletter. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now. | ||
| The lines, Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8003. | ||
| And it was last week that Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, spoke to reporters and pushed back on the idea that Democrats could hold up passage of a bill. | ||
| From Meet the Press yesterday, I want to show you this clip. | ||
| It's Senator Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey, on that same topic. | ||
| We'll get your reaction on the other side. | ||
| Okay, you take me to my next question because your colleague Jeff Merkley basically said he's prepared to try to shut down the government over some of these sledgehammer actions that he's seen by Elon Musk. | ||
| Are you prepared to shut down the government to join Democratic colleagues who want to stand in the way of keeping the government over? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you have to look at what the Trump administration is doing right now. | |
| They are simply trying to dismantle the government. | ||
| So yes, look, if we have to take steps to be able to hold them accountable, use the leverage that we have to force it. | ||
| I cannot support efforts that will continue this lawlessness that we're seeing when it comes to this administration's actions. | ||
| And for us to be able to support government funding in that way, only for them to turn it around to dismantle the government, that is not something that should be allowed. | ||
| So, just to be clear, Senator, you are open to voting yes to shut down the government. | ||
| So, make this point. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is on them. | |
| This is about whether or not they can get the votes. | ||
| They are the majority. | ||
| And if they cannot govern, then that's for the American people to see. | ||
| But I worked in government. | ||
| I worked through multiple government shutdowns. | ||
| I would be the last person to want to get to that stage. | ||
| But we are at a point where we are basically on the cusp of a constitutional crisis, seeing this administration taking steps that are so clearly illegal. | ||
| And until we see a change in that behavior, we should not allow and condone that, nor should we assist in that. | ||
| Senator, the Republicans do have control of both chambers. | ||
| How likely is it that Democrats could, in fact, shut down the government when it comes to these talks and the issues that they want to act on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, the reality facing Democrats on Capitol Hill is they don't have many leverage points at all. | |
| Like Senator Kim said, Republicans have unified control of the government. | ||
| The one leverage point they do have is government funding. | ||
| They have that leverage because, in all likelihood, House Speaker Mike Johnson is going to have to call on minority leader Hakeem Jeffries for some Democratic votes to get any funding resolution through the House. | ||
| And then the Senate Majority Leader John Thune will need a number of Democratic votes in the Senate, at least seven of them, to pass the bill. | ||
| So they need Democratic support. | ||
| The debate going on internally between Democrats right now is whether it is politically or politically helpful to shut the government down. | ||
| Can you blame it on the Republicans? | ||
| You've seen Senator Kim already making that argument that it would be Republicans' fault versus, again, when they were in power, when Democrats were in power, they were saying a government shutdown was harmful, it was dangerous for America, for national security. | ||
| Well, they need to look themselves in the mirror and decide if that is something that they're willing to do in the first 100 days of this administration, not voting to pass government funding. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Andrea in Illinois, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Andrea. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was calling because I haven't heard anything on the news about whether or not in shutting down all of these agencies, those services are still available to Americans, like student loans or any of the other things. | ||
| I know that some farmers are not getting some cost sharing, things like that. | ||
| Can he talk about what we know about whether the government is functioning at all? | ||
| Yeah, so it's pretty scattershot, right? | ||
| Because there was a lot of orders that came from the White House, the Oval Office, an array of agencies were affected, and there's been an array of court decisions that have been handed down, whether it was injunctions or the courts blocking the move. | ||
| So it depends on what agency and which area of government you're looking at, of what is functioning. | ||
| Now, what Democrats on Capitol Hill have sort of raised the alarm about most is the government funding, the spending freeze, grants and loans and aid to community services. | ||
| We know that a lot of those in a lot of communities around the U.S. have been delayed, or if not canceled, the Head Start programs. | ||
| I think that that's what Democrats are going to call raise the biggest fuss about. | ||
| And I think that that's what they're carrying into this fight about government funding. | ||
| What they're saying in Democratic leadership that I talked to, that in any government funding conversation and any agreement that they make with Senate and House Republicans and with the White House is they need express language in this agreement to rescind that funding freeze and guardrails so that they make sure that the executive branch sort of spends the money in the way that Congress has appropriated that money. | ||
| Members have reported that they're getting calls in the thousands compared to the double-digit numbers that they may normally see. | ||
| How have members responded to calls about the calls that they're getting about Elon Musk and what they're seeing the Doge team do? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think that they're in a hard position. | |
| They have constituents calling them telling them that they need results, they need to do something. | ||
| But again, we've already talked about the sort of the futility of Democrats on Capitol Hill right now. | ||
| They can't do anything really concrete except this government funding deadline that they have coming up next month. | ||
| So they have constituents telling them that they want action, they want them to stand in the way, but there's only so much that they can do to stand in the way. | ||
| They've held a lot of press conferences raising awareness. | ||
| I think that the Democrats have really tried to use social media to get this message across. | ||
| But again, they're hearing from folks that they want action, and there's really just not much that they can do right now. | ||
| Let's hear from William in Tennessee, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, William. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| All I have to say is I think the Democrats should go aboard these cruise liners, have a fleet of cruise liners, and send the Democrats out to the deepest part of the ocean and pull the plug. | ||
| That's all I got to say. | ||
| Any response for William? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think the Democratic Party, if you take a big picture view at it in 2024, really catastrophic loss for the party. | |
| They were cast into the wilderness in the White House, in Congress, state houses across the country. | ||
| What they're trying to figure out right now is how do they get out of that wilderness. | ||
| So in some ways, they have been cast out by voters. | ||
| They've been thrown out of power in Washington, D.C. | ||
| And the internal debates that are going on within the party are what do we need to focus on? | ||
| What should our leadership look like? | ||
| What should our message be? | ||
| And how do we get that message across to Americans? | ||
| And who is it that we need to be talking to? | ||
| They lost the blue wall. | ||
| They held the blue states in California and New York, but lost the margins. | ||
| I mean, it was pretty catastrophic for the party. | ||
| Let's hear from Mark in Kerry, North Carolina, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| We're doing well, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Well, I got a bunch of questions, but let's just stick with this one. | ||
| You've got these people showing up at these different government agencies, the Treasury and so forth, and they're looking at this, what I consider to be secret documents or whatever information. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And why isn't the media pushing to see the receipts? | |
| You know, the federal government does everything in writing. | ||
| And they say, well, we're here for read-only. | ||
| Well, how do we know that? | ||
| And that's my main question. | ||
| Well, I think that that's a question for the courts, honestly, more than anything else. | ||
| And they have ruled against the read-only Situation for the Treasury Department payment systems. | ||
| Like they've ruled against that. | ||
| So the judiciary is obviously trying to set up some guardrails and stand in the way here. | ||
| I think that my colleagues in the media have done some really incredible reporting on sort of not only what the Department of Government Efficiency is trying to accomplish and what they're doing, but who works there, how they've recruited those folks. | ||
| So I think that there's a lot of reporting out there. | ||
| And if you're interested in sort of oversight, there's a lot of stuff out there, and you should also go read about it on Axios. | ||
| We may learn more about the work of Doge. | ||
| There's a hearing on Wednesday with the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency titled The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud. | ||
| Who's going to be testifying at that hearing and what are you expecting to come out of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I would say that the number one focus of that hearing and the most fascinating one for me is Marjorie Taylor Greene because she is sort of trying to transform herself from this right-wing flamethrower, this person who was sort of on the outskirts fringe of the party, who is now becoming sort of an establishment figure, having the chair of a powerful committee that is going to be in the spotlight for this first hearing. | |
| So I think it's interesting to pay attention to her. | ||
| And then from the Democratic side, who on that committee sort of becomes the, because a lot of these hearings are fought in the media, the social media clips, who has those moments of flair, who has the good back and forths? | ||
| I think that that's the challenge for the Democrats. | ||
| As Stephen mentioned, a lot of media outlets do show you clips. | ||
| You'll be able to watch the entire hearing here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Let's hear from Tracy in Kalamazoo, Michigan, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Tracy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| I think this is a very dangerous time for our country. | ||
| And the gentleman that called just recently saying that the Democratic Party should essentially be drowned in the ocean is reprehensible. | ||
| Donald Trump is spreading lies, and he has demonized half of our country for over five years. | ||
| People are not aware that USAID performed a vital function that crossed the good name of the United States of America across the world. | ||
| And people are not unaware that there is drug-resistant tuberculosis spreading among poor African children, especially in the West Cape. | ||
| And it's going to spread through Africa and it's going to take off and it's going to come to America. | ||
| And shame on America for turning its back. | ||
| Donald Trump is doing tremendous damage. | ||
| And we can't continue to demonize half our country. | ||
| That's just rotten. | ||
| And I think it needs to be called out every time we hear it on C-SPAN because it comes up very often. | ||
| And it's dangerous. | ||
| It's very dangerous. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| On USAID, though, I think that an argument that I've heard from Democrats on the Hill, especially folks who are worried about foreign affairs, veterans like Mark Kelly, Senator Mark Kelly, is the vacuum that the U.S. may be leaving on the international stage with these aid programs and the fear that it will be filled by China, by Russia, | ||
| sort of yielding this soft power that the U.S. has done so successfully over the last century, the fear that adversaries to the U.S. will move into that space and sort of fill the gap that the U.S. has left in places like Africa. | ||
| The Senate is gaveling back into session this afternoon, and they are going to be working on confirming more of President Trump's cabinet picks. | ||
| Tell us who they're going to be looking at and what we know about the status, the likeliness of them being confirmed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think that the biggest ones, obviously the headliners that have still yet to be confirmed, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cash Protel for FBI director. | |
| At Castratel they won't get to. | ||
| They have to do the committee vote this week. | ||
| It was delayed last week. | ||
| So the Gabbard nomination. | ||
| I think that if you talk to Republicans, they feel better starting this week than they did two weeks ago, especially after the Gabbard and the Kennedy hearings. | ||
| They got some good news from some swing votes, folks that they weren't sure would vote for either of these candidates. | ||
| They were able to pass both of their committees, which was a good indicator of Republican support, but it will be close. | ||
| I would not expect much, if any, Democratic support for either of RFK Jr. or Tulsi Gabbard. | ||
| United States of America. | ||
| There is no tariff, zero. | ||
| So if it's made in the United States, there is no tariff. | ||
| All you have to do is make it in the United States. | ||
| We don't need it from another country. | ||
| As an example, Canada, if we make it in the United States, we don't need it to be made in Canada. | ||
| We'll have the jobs. | ||
| That's why Canada should be our 51st day. | ||
| We'll bring back industries and we'll bring back our jobs and we'll make America industry great again. | ||
| So essentially, we're putting on a 25% tariff without exception on all aluminum and all steel. | ||
| And it's going to mean a lot of businesses are going to be opening in the United States. | ||
| Now, we're going to be meeting over the next four-week period, maybe on a weekly basis, and maybe we'll do a couple of them at different times and maybe together. | ||
| But we'll be talking about other subjects like cars. | ||
| We'll be talking about drugs and pharmaceuticals. | ||
| We'll be discussing chips. | ||
| And we're going to be doing some other things in addition to that, all which will bring in a lot of jobs into our country. | ||
| Cars is going to be a very big one and a very important one. | ||
| And America is going to be stronger than it ever was before. | ||
| So are you finished with everything, I think? | ||
| We have aluminum still discussing. | ||
| Okay, let's go. | ||
| So with respect to aluminum, similarly to steel, since 2018, a large number of exceptions and exemptions have been added into the law. | ||
| This eliminates all of those and also increases the obvalorem tariff rate from 10 to 25 percent. | ||
| Mostly the last part is the most important, right, would you say? | ||
| Totally. | ||
| So basically this is aluminum, the same thing, no exceptions, no nothing. | ||
| And it's going to bring our aluminum business back. | ||
| It may go higher. | ||
| I mean, frankly, it may go higher. | ||
| And we're going to also be talking about receptive. | ||
| We're going to be talking about things over the next three weeks that I think will be amazing for our country, amazing for our jobs, and will bring us to a new level of prosperity. | ||
| And I think, frankly, our allies and our enemies all over the world expected this. | ||
| They really expected it for years. | ||
| They really expected it sometime during the Biden administration, but they didn't do anything. | ||
| As you know, I put tariffs on China. | ||
| We took in hundreds of billions of dollars with those tariffs. | ||
| And Biden wasn't able to get them out. | ||
| He tried to, but it was too much money. | ||
| He couldn't do it. | ||
| And we're going to be doing a very concise and, you know, very, it's going to be good. | ||
| And I don't think if done properly, and we're going to try and do that, we don't want it to hurt other countries, but they've been taking advantage of us for years and years and years, and they've charged us terrorists. | ||
| Most of them have charged us, almost everyone, I would say, almost without exception. | ||
| They've charged us, and we haven't charged them. | ||
| And it's time to be reciprocal. | ||
| So very, very, you'll be hearing that word a lot, reciprocal. | ||
| If they charge us, we charge them. | ||
| If they're at 25, we're at 25. | ||
| If they're at 10, we're at 10. | ||
| And if they're much higher than 25, that's where we are too. | ||
| So that's having to do with everything. | ||
| That's not just steel and aluminum. | ||
| But we'll be discussing that over the next couple of weeks. | ||
| But we will be looking at chips, and we will be looking at cars, and we're going to be looking at pharmaceuticals, and there'll be a couple of other things also, in addition. | ||
|
unidentified
|
U.S. steel workers have said that they support this move. | |
| What would you say to American consumers who are worried the prices are going to be? | ||
| That they do support this move? | ||
| I love the steel makers. | ||
| Of course they do. | ||
| Because they want to save their businesses. | ||
| U.S. Steel will now be a very valuable company. | ||
| Anybody that makes steel is going to be great. | ||
| Anybody that works in big steel is going to be very happy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What do you say to consumers who are worried about prices, sir? | |
| Oh, I don't think you're going to. | ||
| No, you're going to ultimately have a price reduction because they're going to make this deal here. | ||
| There's not going to be any tariff. | ||
| These foreign companies will move to the United States, will make their steel and aluminum in the United States. | ||
| Ultimately, it'll be cheaper. | ||
| But we'll also have jobs. | ||
| Many, many more jobs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sir, what are you looking at in terms of tariffs on SARS and chips? | |
| Well, we're looking at numbers and we'll be coming up with a number. | ||
| But we make some of the finest cars in the world. | ||
| And some companies prohibit us from selling those cars in their countries. | ||
| But they sell us cars. | ||
| They send cars to us, and we don't do that. | ||
| We charge nothing or 2.5%. | ||
| And they'll be charging 100%. | ||
| They'll be charging much more than that if you look at some of them. | ||
| So I think those days are over. | ||
| But we'll be announcing on other things such as cars. | ||
| We've got some other things we'll be doing. | ||
| But the biggest thing is reciprocal. | ||
| We want tariffs to be fair. | ||
| If they charge us, we charge them. | ||
| Tomorrow, the reciprocal tariffs? | ||
| We'll be doing reciprocal over the next, I would say, two days, don't you think? | ||
| Two days, yeah, maybe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, the Australian Prime Minister has said that you are considering an exemption for Australia on steel. | |
| Is that correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And why? | |
| I just spoke to him, very fine man, and he has a surplus. | ||
| I mean, we have a surplus with Australia, one of the few. | ||
| And the reason is they buy a lot of airplanes. | ||
| They are rather far away and they need lots of airplanes. | ||
| And we actually have a surplus. | ||
| It's one of the only countries which we do. | ||
| And I told him that that's something that we will give great consideration to. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And would you consider one for the UK as well? | |
| Well, we have a huge deficit with the UK. | ||
| Big difference. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You don't have a deficit with Argentina. | |
| Is that country also going to be surprising? | ||
| We have a deficit with a little deficit with Argentina. | ||
| Almost with every country. |