CSPAN - Washington Journal 02/11/2025

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Feb. 11, 2025 06:59-09:59 - CSPAN

02:59:56

Washington Journal 02/11/2025

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Main

pedro echevarria

cspan 41:24

ralph norman

rep/r 11:39

Appearances

brian lamb

cspan 01:21

chuck schumer

sen/d 00:34

dan rayfield

d 00:35

donald j trump

admin 03:12

elizabeth warren

sen/d 02:08

rep jim guest

00:30

Clips

bret baier

fox 00:17

jesse ventura

00:12

jim marrs

00:29

michael walz

00:12

mike waltz

un 00:23

russell means

00:10

walter burien

00:01

willie nelson

00:05

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johnny in florida

callers 00:06

louise in virginia

callers 00:06

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		And then at 2, a House Subcommittee on Health will hear testimony on promoting healthy living and incentivizing patients to make healthier decisions.
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		Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live.
		Then, California Democratic Congressman Jim Costa on the recent actions by the Trump administration and the role of Democrats in the 119th Congress.
		And former USAID official Jeremy Konindik, president of Refugees International.
		He'll discuss Trump administration efforts to dismantle the agency and the future of U.S. foreign aid.
		Also, South Carolina Republican Congressman Ralph Norman will talk about the House GOP strategy to advance President Trump's legislative agenda.
		And later, Kent Lassman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute discusses regulation reform efforts in Congress and President Trump's approach.
		Washington Journal starts now.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is the Washington Journal for February 11th.
		As fast as President Trump is attempting to make changes in Washington through executive order, he's being met with challenges to those efforts by the federal courts.
		In the last few days, judges have put a halt on attempts for things such as banning birthright citizenship and efforts to dismantle USAID, and other decisions are pending.
		On top of that, the president himself, as well as the vice president, are taking the courts to task for their actions.
		To start the show today, when it comes to these efforts by courts to block Trump administration actions, do you support those efforts or do you oppose them?
		Call us on the lines, Republicans, 202748-8001, Democrats, 202748-8000, and 202-748-8002 for independence.
		If you want to make your thoughts known on whether you support or oppose efforts by the courts to block efforts by the Trump administration, you can text us at 202-748-8003.
		You can post on Facebook at facebook.com slash C-SPAN.
		And you can also post on X, C-SPAN.
		The Washington Post is keeping a running tally when it comes to those court efforts on the Trump administration's executive actions.
		And here's how they currently stand as of yesterday.
		Those efforts being blocked in court.
		These include efforts by the Trump administration to ban birthright citizenship, a freeze on federal grants and loans, that resignation offer for federal workers, efforts to dismantle USAID, and then the transfer of transgender prisoners, partially blocked efforts by the court.
		Under that category, the Doge accessing Americans' personal data, and then still awaiting decisions by the court.
		A ban on asylum, expanding fast-track deportations, removing employment protections for civil servants, firing commissioners without cause, banning on a ban on transgender troops, a ban on gender or transition care for minors, and the legality of the U.S. Doge Service.
		That's the current effort by the courts.
		This prompted a response a couple of days ago from the Vice President JD Vance when he posted on X the following.
		This was on the February the 9th.
		He said this.
		If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.
		If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal.
		Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.
		Saying that on X.
		That X prompted a couple of responses.
		Representative Dan Goldman, Democratic Representative from New York.
		You'll also remember he was part of the first impeachment efforts of President Trump.
		Post this saying, it's called the rule of law, JD Vance.
		Our Constitution created three co-equal branches of government to provide checks and balances on each other, the separation of powers.
		The judiciary makes sure that the executive follows the law.
		If you do, then you won't have problems.
		It also prompted a response from former Wyoming Republican Representative Liz Cheney, speak directly to the vice president, saying, if you believe any of the multiple federal courts that have ruled against you so far exceeding their statutory or constitutional authority, your recourse is to appeal.
		You don't get to rage quit the Republic because you are losing.
		That's tyranny.
		That's just some of the responses.
		And overall, when it comes to the legal actions by the courts to block efforts by the Trump administration, tell us if you support or oppose those actions.
		Here are the lines that you can do that.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202748-8000.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		Perhaps you prefer to tweet your thought or text your thoughts this morning.
		You can do that at 202-748-8003 and also post on our social media channels on Facebook and on X. Let's hear from James.
		James in Rome, Georgia, Independent Line on these legal issues and courts blocking the Trump administration's efforts.
		James and Georgia, go ahead.
unidentified		Okay, I'm a progressive independent.
		And, you know, I believe that Trump has the right to do what he's doing.
		He was voting in as president just because the Democrats are weak.
		They are mad because they don't want to do anything for black people.
		So what Trump is doing is a reflection of the majority of white people in this country.
		That's how they feel.
		They don't care nothing about the democracy.
		They don't care nothing about the rule of law.
		All they care about is ruling.
		They want to rule.
		And the Democrats are weak.
		They're going along with everything that the Republicans are doing, filing lawsuits.
		Look, you're lost.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, what about the court's direct actions against the Trump administration itself?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of that?
unidentified		I feel like they should just go around the courts and do what they want to.
		And I'm up, like I said, you know, I voted for Biden.
		No, not for Biden.
		I voted for Harris.
		But Trump won, and he should be able to do.
		Biden was in that president.
		He could have used all those things to do something.
		And plus, Trump, I agree with him pardoning those people on January the 6th.
		Why?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Okay.
		Let's hear from Steve.
		Steve in Philadelphia, Independent Line.
		You're next up on the court's actions against the Trump administration.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yes, good morning.
		Well, put that aside for a moment.
		I have.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's start with that, actually.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about the court's efforts?
unidentified		Well, I think it's a political ploy that the Democrats are using.
unidentified		But, you know, that's.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Can I ask you to elaborate on that why you think it's that, especially if it's coming from the federal judiciary?
unidentified		Okay, I'll elaborate.
		I'll give you, for instance, Trump between USAID and the Department of Education and other places he wants to cut the fact.
		He should take all that money that he's finding that is disappearing, take that money and sure up Social Security and sure up Medicare with it for the next hundred years.
		And the Democrats and other political opponents will have nothing to say and will not have elderly people take to the street saying they're taking your Social Security.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, back to the topic.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do you think as far as the court's actions, do you support these actions or not?
unidentified		No, I don't support them.
		I think they should give the man the chance to fix what he promised to fix, and he's trying to fix it.
		But to prove that he fixed it, take all that money, like I said, and I'll say it again, that he's finding cure up Social Security and Medicare with us for the next hundred years for our children.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Steve in Philadelphia.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Cassandra in Maryland, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		Good morning.
		I'm calling because, you know, I think this, you know, it's a shame what's going on in this country.
		And Donald Trump, I know he was elected, you know, and, you know, the Democrats, yes, they tend to be weak.
		And they, you know, we should have protected the border and everything.
		But this deportation, you know, that's going on, you know, I don't think it was fair.
		You know, we should be careful who we let in our country.
		But, I mean, shutting down federal government agencies and, you know, and having people going in there in the Treasury and doing that and mess with the Department of Education.
		I don't think that's right.
		I don't think Trump should be able to do that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So when the courts step in to intervene, what do you think of those actions?
unidentified		Well, the courts have the right to say, hey, you know, you shouldn't do this, you know, because, you know, they went to law school, you know, and hey, and they have the right to say this is not right.
		You know, you got to look at people's jobs.
		You're messing with people's livelihood, okay?
		His family is rich, and so is the billionaires, okay?
		And look at people that don't have money.
		You're messing with people's Social Security.
		And that's not right.
		You know, he doesn't know what it's like not to have money.
		He had money all his life.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Cassandra there in Maryland Democrats line.
		The latest orders from the courts are being highlighted by the Wall Street Journal this morning.
		This is from yesterday saying that was a George, a judge that ordered the Trump administration to restore federal funding it had tried to free, saying the White House wasn't fully complying with an earlier ruling against it.
		U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island directed the administration to, quote, immediately take every step necessary to effectuate a previous restraining order he issued on January the 31st.
		The ruling from McConnell, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, came in a lawsuit that brought by 22 states and the District of Columbia.
		It also adds that another federal judge Monday temporarily restrained the head of the federal whistleblower agency who alleged he was unlawfully terminated by the president.
		U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington ruled that Hampton Dillinger, who was appointed in 2023 to head the office of special counsel, must be allowed to serve in that role through Thursday night so that she can hear more arguments.
		These are the legal issues facing the Trump administration and blocking some of those efforts by the Trump administration.
		Do you support or oppose that?
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		And text us, 202-748-8003.
		It was during that Super Bowl interview where the president was asked about the legal issues facing him in reaction to his efforts.
		Here's some of that exchange.
bret baier ▲ ● ▼		Some of your plays have raised some questions and had some pushbacks.
bret baier ▲ ● ▼		19 states attorneys general filed a lawsuit, and early Saturday, a judge agreed with them to restrict Elon Musk and his government efficiency team Doge from accessing Treasury Department payment and data systems.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		They said there was a risk of irreparable harm.
		What do you make of that?
		And does that slow you down on what you want to do?
		No, no, I disagree with it 100%.
		I think it's crazy.
		And we have to solve the efficiency problem.
		We have to solve the fraud, waste, abuse, all the things that have gone into the government.
		You take a look at the U.S. AID, the kind of fraud in there.
		And you found some points.
		Well, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of money that's going to places where it shouldn't be going.
		Where if I read a list, you'd say this is ridiculous.
		And you've read the same lists, and there are many that you haven't even seen.
		It's crazy.
		It's a big scam.
		Now, there's some good money, and we can do that through any one of a number.
		I think I'd rather give it to Marco Rubio over at the State Department.
		Let him take care of the few good ones.
		So I don't know if it's kickbacks or what's going on, but the people, look, I ran on this, and the people want me to find it.
		And I've had a great help with Elon Musk, who's been terrific.
		Tomlin, you say you trust him.
		Trust Elon?
		Oh, he's not gaining anything.
		In fact, I wonder how he can devote the time to it.
		He's so into it.
		But I told him to do that.
		Then I'm going to tell him very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education.
		He's going to find the same thing.
		Then I'm going to go to the military.
		Let's check the military.
		We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse.
		But I campaigned on this, Brett.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The Fox News host mentioning Elon Musk, the Treasury Department decision by the courts, that prompted a response from Elon Musk.
		He wrote saying that a corrupt judge protecting corruption, adding he needs to be impeached now in response to these back and forth from the various exes on when it comes to legal issues.
		It's President Biden's former Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, saying in America, decisions about what is legal and illegal are made by courts of law, not by the vice president.
		Again, you can add your thoughts to the mix if you support or oppose these legal efforts pushing back against the Trump administration.
		Republican line in Oklahoma, we'll hear from Teresa.
unidentified		Yes, I just have a short thing to say.
		Well, I voted for Donald Trump when he ran for, and that man had everything that he told the United States people he would do.
		He's trying to do it now, and everybody wants to put a stop to it.
		What about the $14 million that was sent for Condens?
		What about the $14 million sent for Sesame Street?
		What about the free housing, food, and education, all this stuff for illegal immigrants?
		Where's the American people's money?
		Now, Donald Trump is a millionaire.
		He's got money because he's a smart man.
		He knows he has money.
		So does Elon Musk.
		And I think the Democrats are.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So when you see the courts pushing back against some of these actions, what's your reaction?
unidentified		It makes me very curious.
		Where were the courts pushing back when Biden was in there giving everything away?
		Where were they at when they were funding everything except the United States people's homes, their children, our education, our health care, and all this?
		Biden, Trump is doing everything he said he would do.
		I think they'll leave him alone and let him do what he's supposed to do as our president.
		And Biden and the Democrats up there need to put a sock in their mouth, step back, and think if he didn't do it when we were in there.
		Why can't we let them do it?
		They can do it.
		I think Donald Trump's the best thing that happened to the United States of America.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Teresa in Oklahoma.
		George is up next.
		He's in Michigan, Independent Line.
		George from Michigan.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yes.
		My name's George.
		A little bit nervous here.
		I believe the judges are doing the right thing.
		We are separated into three equal branches.
		And just because they get told something by a legal authority doesn't mean that they should be ranting and raving on media.
		They should do it according to law, and then they don't have problems.
		It's been that way for 200 and some years.
		Why don't they like obeying the law?
		I have to obey the law.
		I expect them to obey the law.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Georgia, Michigan, up next, Susan in Tennessee, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I definitely support the legal actions.
		It's not like they're going to obey them because right now we have an autocracy blooming.
		And I don't know, I'm just sick.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But why specifically do you support the actions?
unidentified		Well, we have to do something.
		We can't just let this 80-year-old man take over our whole country and blow it up.
		It's really scary.
		China's mad.
		Canada's mad.
		All our friends, you know.
		And I think now it's time for the Washington Journal to change their name to autocracy unfiltered instead of democracy.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Democracy Unfiltered is the tagline.
		And here we're talking about efforts by the courts to push against those efforts by the Trump administration to make changes.
		You saw the list from the Washington Post on some of those legal decisions.
		What do you think about them?
		Do you support those decisions overall?
		Do you oppose them?
		You can tell us why.
		202748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8,000 for Democrats.
		And Independents, 202748-8002.
		The Associated Press takes a look at the highest court in the land and the possibility of what they'll play in the days ahead when these decisions have to be considered, saying that President Trump will need the Supreme Court with three justices he appointed to enable the most aggressive of the many actions he has taken in just the first few weeks of the second White House term.
		But even a conservative majority with a robust view of presidential power may balk at some of what the president wants to do.
		The court gave Trump, Mr. Trump, major victories last year that helped clear the way for potential obstacles in his reelection, postponing his criminal trial run in Washington, D.C., then affording immunity from prosecution for official actions.
		Mr. Trump's first term was marked by significant defeats as well as some wins at the court.
		Quote, it will be an extraordinary test for the Roberts Court whether it's willing to stand up for constitutional principles it's long embraced, said Michael Waldman of New York University.
		Some of the things we have seen are so blatantly unconstitutional that I am confident the court will stand up.
		Other things that align with the accumulation of the power of the presidency make me very nervous.
		That's from the Associated Press if you want to read more there in that story.
		Let's go to Susan.
		Susan in West Virginia, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yes.
		Hello.
		Well, you just talk about the Supreme Court given Donald Trump basically being a king.
		Well, the Republicans, like D.D. Vance, didn't complain about the judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon.
		Whenever Merrick Garland followed the law with her, he didn't interfere.
		She blocked a lot.
		We still haven't received or had any information about that, where he stole classified documents.
		So they're not complaining about that.
		That with her blocking of Merrick Garland, I don't understand.
		If you don't have a law in America, you don't have a country.
		He's running all three branches of government.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So, as far as the court's actions, specifically, what do you think about them and what the role they play?
unidentified		I think we have to have, they're doing the right thing.
		You've got to block it if he's doing illegal things.
		And that's what he's doing.
		And that's what I'm trying to say.
		The Supreme Court gave Donald Trump being a king.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, what do you think about Republicans like yourself hearing Republicans like the president and the vice president saying things about the court?
unidentified		That's what I'm saying.
		It's wrong.
		They should follow the law and follow what the courts are saying.
		Don't, when he says, stop doing what they're, you know, they're trying to do illegal things.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And Pino joins us from South Carolina, Independent Line.
unidentified		First of all, I want to say it's a lot of lines been drawn in the sand as far as Democrats and Republicans.
		Like I like to say from way back, it seems as though the positions that we take as far as Democrats and Republicans, we are Americans.
		Second of all, I want to say a lot of people don't like the fact that Trump is rich and he had money.
		He don't know the plight of the poor person.
		But I'm going to say this.
		I like the fact that he has motion, that he is changing things.
		There's more happening in the last two weeks than having in four years.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So, caller, then if the courts try to put a stop on some of that motion, what's your reaction?
unidentified		I want to say this.
unidentified		You can, you know, no one's perfect, but you must know that in the pursuit of perfection, there may be some casualties.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And what that means about the courts?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think?
unidentified		Well, I think, you know, you have to use some type of gauge to know when you, you know, a person going too far, we can't have a Hitler running around, of course.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's hear from Linda.
		Linda in Mississippi, Democrats line on these legal efforts, challenging efforts by the Trump administration, whether you support or oppose that.
		Good morning, Linda.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I support it because we are supposed to be a nation of laws.
		And Elon Musk is unelected.
		How can he tell what is fraud and a beach by going through 10 different agency doing the same thing?
		If he's going to cut those billions of dollars in government contracts, he has, I think that I agree with Lawrence because without the judges holding him back, we would not even have a country.
		We would have a dictator.
		And Trump thinks he's a dictator.
		He sits up at his resolute desk writing negative orders like a three-year-old, showing to his mama.
		Every time he signs his name, he shows it to the public.
		We need a president that cares about the rest of us.
		He cares nothing about the cost of eggs or brocule.
		That's what we elected.
		That's what they elected him for.
		I didn't vote for him because I knew he was a crook, a liar, and a 34-camp felon.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Linda there in Mississippi.
		The Washington Post in the fix column this morning takes a look at the statements recently made by the vice president about the courts.
		This is the headline: Trump, Vance, and Musk appear to lay the groundwork for defying the courts.
		Part of Aaron Blake's column reads, as such thing, the first thing to note is that defying court orders is something that is a particularly influential figure.
		Vice President JD Vance has been floating for years.
		In 2021, Vance said for Mr. Trump in his second term, should fire, quote, every civil servant in the administrative state.
		And quote, when the courts stop, you stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, quote, the Chief Justice has made his ruling.
		Now let him enforce it.
		Vance also was asked last year if he was explicitly saying the president should defy such an order and told Politico, quote, yep.
		And then in 2022, Vance suggested a president could disregard a, quote, illegitimate ruling in which the Supreme Court would say a president can't fire a military general.
		More there.
		Washington Post, where you find it by Aaron Blake this morning.
		Your thoughts on various legal efforts to stop the Trump administration from North Carolina, Republican line.
		This is Dick.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yes, I find it very curious that the Democrats are suddenly all upset about something for doing responsible governing.
		Mr. Biden ignored rulings on student loans, did he not?
		Mr. Biden ignored court rulings regarding the Stay in Mexico program.
		Mr. Biden also took monies from CMS for Medicare and Medicaid so he could fund his electric vehicle initiative.
		Now, that is not irresponsible.
		We need the same business-like principles that the private sector, including the not-for-profit world, applied to be applied by our government.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So how should Mr. Trump then or President Trump respond to these court efforts?
unidentified		Well, he should appeal them.
		And if we have to, we have to expedite it and get it right up to the Supreme Court.
		Everybody knows this is nothing more than a ploy to slow down and to clog the process.
		That's what it's about.
		The Democrats can't defend the fraud.
		They can't defend it.
		They cannot say, oh, this is okay that we are giving monies to produce cartoons about, you know, sex change procedures to countries in South America or Central America, or that they are wasting monies, giving monies to publications like Politico, which are quite left-leaning, right?
		That's what's wrong, and they should fight that.
		They're actually doing this, you know, meaning the Trump administration, to help Americans.
		And let me finish by one thing.
		Who had the smallest delta or gap between the haves and the have-nots?
		President Trump, Mr. Biden, or President Obama?
		The racial disparity, the economic disparity was at its smallest ever.
		Smallest ever under President Trump.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Janet next in Pennsylvania, Independent Line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hello.
		My name's Janet.
		I'm not sure where the previous scholar got his facts and statistics, but we don't have fact-checking on the internet anymore.
		So whatever.
		But the question is how I feel about the efforts to oppose Trump's actions.
		And it's an interesting academic debate, but it's already too late.
		You know, people come on the show and talk about how smart Elon Musk is.
		Well, he's a shrewd businessman, not a wise political leader.
		But I will give him credit.
		He is intelligent.
		He was able to live in this country 10 years illegally.
		But now he's gotten, and he's gotten himself to the point where he can decide what is fraud, waste, and abuse.
		That's scary.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, enter the political debate of whether you support or oppose these court actions.
unidentified		It is an academic question.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, you called on it, so I assume that you called towards it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So what's your thought on it?
unidentified		Well, they can fight all they want to, you know, and maybe we'll win some, maybe we'll not.
unidentified		You have to consider that Supreme Court is already in Trump's pocket.
louise in virginia ▲ ● ▼		Anything he does as president, well, in the role of president, can't be ruled illegal.
unidentified		So people are running around talking about the validity of the Supreme Court's rulings as opposed to the president's discussion or indiscussion.
unidentified		That's an academic debate because there are 100 unauthorized people going through our government files.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		David, next in South Carolina, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi, Dave.
		Here, the Republicans are going to win this, and I'll tell you why.
		Under Article 2, Democrats, under Article 2, the executive branch has the right to go into anywhere, anytime, to look anywhere.
		Also, they got passes to go anywhere to look.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If that's the case, why do you think so many court challenges to this, then?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		These things?
unidentified		Because the Democrats want to win this, and they're not going to win when it goes to Supreme Court.
		They just go through all these little peanut courts everywhere with the liberal judges.
		And guess what?
		When it goes to Supreme Court, they're going to get a slap on the wrist just like it should.
		And that's what's going to happen.
		So just sit back, relax, Democrats, because that's what's going to happen.
		Have a nice day, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, David, they're in South Carolina.
		People sharing their thoughts on the court's actions against efforts by the Trump administration.
		You can support those, oppose those, and you can tell us why you do either of those on the phone lines: 202748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and 202-748-8002 for Independents.
		Text us if you wish a 202-748-8003.
		And as always, you can post your thoughts on our social media platforms on Facebook and on X. Let's go to Matt.
		Matt is in Maryland.
		Hello.
		Matt and Maryland.
		Hello.
		One more time for Matt and Maryland.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hey, sir.
		How are you doing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hey, just, you know, the executive branch, the president, has enormous power, just as the gentleman said, according to Article 2.
		And I just wish that folks would, you know, just do a little reading.
		The court actions that are being brought, you know, and it's not only by liberal judges, there's a couple of Trump-appointed judges as well, is to slow him down.
		And I believe that once this is litigated and it either moves forward, you know, upon appeal, if he's found to not be able to do it, or if he wins, the American people are going to continue to see the transparency.
		You know, from the lists that are coming out to him signing executive orders in front of the public and explaining what those are briefly.
		But that's transparency.
		And I believe that he's well within his right as the executive, as the executive.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So the courts add to the so in your opinion, the courts add to the transparency process?
unidentified		No, I think the courts are, I think a lot of people are afraid at the moment that he's moving too quickly.
		So things are brought forward to litigation to the courts to slow it down because he does.
		And we've seen it in his first term.
		He is absolutely moving at a pace that no other president has ever moved at.
		And I believe that this system that we have, whether you believe in, you know, justice has served or justice has not served, I believe that the process in slowing things down, you know, could potentially bring better transparency, of course.
		But it's just, you know, the power that the executive has to look into these programs, to adjudicate these programs, is enormous.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John is next in Virginia, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I thought I'd bring a little sanity to the conversation about our politics versus our judiciary.
		The Constitution of the United States clearly lays out that there are two political branches of government.
		That's the legislature and the executive.
		And the third branch is one of the judiciary.
		And the Supreme Court has said in many different cases, you can look them up online, that essentially the Supreme Court, the judiciary, will stay out of politics and leave political issues to the first two branches, that the judiciary will only deal with issues of law, the Constitution, of course, and issues of equity under the law.
		What the people of the United States are responsible for is I think they are the political power under our Constitution.
		And that's what our Constitution requires.
		It requires a Republican form of government.
		And James Madison and Alexander Hamilton and Jefferson and so forth understood that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So when it comes to federal court actions that you've seen against the Trump administration pushing back on some of these things, do you think they're strictly legal or are there politics avoid politics not part of that as well?
unidentified		Yeah, to answer that particular question, I read the Letitia James and the other AGs submitted their request for a stoppage.
		And I read the DOJ's, the Trump administration, DOJ's response.
		And to me, it seems like the judge in this case is getting involved in politics where they should not.
		The people of the United States voted for Donald Trump and a certain membership in the House and Senate.
		And now they're allowed to exercise their political power.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What is it about the judge's response then that prompts you to think that it's political in nature?
unidentified		Well, because it's political in nature, in my opinion, because the judge has said that the political branches of government have to stop doing what they're doing.
		And they don't.
		And I think that'll be the resolution when there's a hearing, I think, on Friday.
		The judge said, you're going to stop your political endeavors.
		And that's where judges are not supposed to get involved unless it's contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John there in Virginia giving us his thoughts on supporting or opposing efforts by the courts to block efforts by the Trump administration.
		You can add yours to the mix on the phone lines.
		You can text us.
		You can post on social media.
		Let's go to Rick in Washington, D.C. Hi there.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm all for what the judges are doing.
		Thank God they are doing what they're put there to do.
		This is supposed to be about checks and balances.
		If they let felon 47 get away with this, there will be no need for a Supreme Court.
		There will be no need for Congress.
willie nelson ▲ ● ▼		We will, in fact, have a ruthless dictator in our midst.
unidentified		And it's up to the courts.
		We can't count on them to save us, but they've got to slow this guy down.
		He's on his way to destroying this country, and we won't recognize it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Rick in Washington, D.C., giving his thoughts yesterday, Stat News reporting that it was Attorney General's, the Attorneys General in representing 22 states soothing the Trump administration Monday, asking a federal judge to temporarily block a major policy change by the National Institutes of Health that would substantially limit payments for research overhead to universities, medical centers, and other grants recipients.
		Within hours, a federal judge in Boston, Angel Kelly, issued a temporary order halting the controversial policy within those 22 states.
		The pause is to remain until otherwise ordered by the court.
		A hearing was set for February the 21st.
		It was in Oregon that the Attorney General there, Dan Rayfield, doing an interview on local television, talked about why his state joined other attorneys general fighting the executive order specifically taking a look at birthright citizenship.
		Here's part of the exchange.
unidentified		Why are we so interested in that issue here in the state of Oregon?
dan rayfield ▲ ● ▼		This is in, A, every child that is born in our country should have a home and should have a place and should be accessed to services.
unidentified		We really need to protect children in that same space.
dan rayfield ▲ ● ▼		What the president did is with the stroke of the pen, attempted to rewrite our Constitution.
dan rayfield ▲ ● ▼		For more than 120 years, we have had the 14th Amendment, and for more than 120 years, you've had consistent judicial interpretation of that.
unidentified		You have had consistent presidential interpretation.
		Different administrations, Democrats and Republicans.
		With a stroke of the pen, the Trump administration attempted to rewrite that constitutional provision.
dan rayfield ▲ ● ▼		If you want to have that policy conversation about ending birthright citizenship, you should do that in Congress.
unidentified		You should do that among the states.
dan rayfield ▲ ● ▼		You, as the president and the executive, do not, under any circumstances, get to rewrite Oregon or the United States Constitution.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Dan joining us from Birdstown, Tennessee, Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Dan, hello.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
		Just a simple 70-year-old guy here in Tennessee.
		Put this in context before I say I'm pro or con for supporting the legal actions, but I had a grandfather that served in World War I against the Germans, served in World War II, come back as lieutenant colonel against the Japanese.
		We studied a lot of history back in the 70s in our high school and a little bit of college there.
		And what I see are too many similarities between the 1930s and Germany.
		Yeah, of course, I support any legal action on some of his policies because if you don't take action, it silences consent.
		But I'm just wondering how many people have referred to their Trump Bible and saw on the eighth day that Trump created Gaza.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		In Illinois, Republican line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
rep jim guest ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		I'd just like to say that 78 million people voted for President Trump.
		We didn't vote for these judges.
		78 million people didn't vote for these judges to make decisions about our president.
		I totally oppose them.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But why don't you think they have a role?
rep jim guest ▲ ● ▼		The man from Virginia already explained this.
rep jim guest ▲ ● ▼		I'm wasting my time explaining this.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's get your opinion, though.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think they should be not involved?
rep jim guest ▲ ● ▼		He explained exactly my thoughts.
jim marrs ▲ ● ▼		He explained, and the 78 other million I'm sure of us agree with him totally.
		We elected President Trump to run this country and do what he thought was.
		Why are Democrats so hell-bent on spending money when President Trump is trying to cut money from get rid of excessive spending?
rep jim guest ▲ ● ▼		Democrats want to spend it.
jim marrs ▲ ● ▼		Why are they so bent on spending this money on wasteless programs?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to LaShawn in Pennsylvania, Independent line.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
unidentified		I oppose the Supreme Court because they don't have anybody to look over them and see what they're doing.
		They're breaking the law in everybody's face, and they can't be held accountable.
		So how are they going to hold other people accountable?
		And why are we listening to them when they're breaking the law?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's step back one from the Supreme Court as far as federal courts putting some blocks on efforts by the Trump administration.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about those actions?
unidentified		They should have been did something about Trump.
		They waited and waited and waited.
		And as per usual, they waited till the last minute to do anything.
		And now everybody's paying for it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		LaShawn there in Pennsylvania, the Washington Examiner this morning takes a look at the legal strategy of the Trump administration when it comes to immigration policy.
		This is the story you can find on their website saying former President Joe Biden spent four years suing Republican-led states over border crackdowns that defied his federal policy.
		Now President Trump is turning the tables, taking sanctuary cities and states and cities to court in an attempt to force compliance with his own federal immigration enforcement.
		Last week, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against Illinois, Chicago, and Cook County challenging local laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
		The administration argues that these sanctuary policies obstruct federal enforcement efforts and prevent agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from carrying out their duties effectively.
		Nima Rahami, a former federal prosecutor, told the examiner that sanctuary jurisdictions are at a major disadvantage in this legal battle.
		Quote, sanctuary cities have an uphill legal battle stopping Mr. Trump or slowing him down.
		Some immigrations like immigration, some issues like immigration are exclusively controlled by the federal government.
		So there's little the states can do to slow down or speed up immigration enforcement.
		The Conservative Supreme Court handed the Biden administration multiple wins on this issue.
		It goes from there, but the Washington Examiner website is where you can find it if you're interested in reading more about some of the legal back and forth of the Trump administration, the legal challenges, or at least pushback from the courts is what we're asking you, whether you support those efforts or not.
		Again, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Let's hear from Marsha.
		Marcia joins us from Washington, D.C., Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, this is Marshall.
		The last thing I'm not going to waste time talking about the merits of what Trump is doing or the lack of integrity that Trump has.
		What I do want to say, though, is there's been no talk about the Congress.
		He has not followed one congressional rule.
		When you are talking about the power of the purse, which he is talking about for almost everything he's doing, including the Kennedy Center, he has not put one thing to Congress.
		He is a bull in a China shop, and he is absolutely, absolutely breaking the law.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So what that means for the courts, in your opinion?
unidentified		Pardon me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What does that mean for the courts, in your opinion?
unidentified		It means that he's doing it wrong, and he should be tried for that, which he is, but I think that they're barking up the wrong tree.
		I think the whole issue, I have not heard one person on the show so far talking about Congress.
		Congress, most everything he's doing must go through Congress.
		Pardon me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It's the actual court system that's pushing back is what we're talking about and their efforts and whether you support or oppose those.
unidentified		Well, they can push back all they want, but the fact of the matter is, is that the Congress has a role in this, and he is snowballing Congress, and Congress is going along with him.
		I mean, I can talk from now till doomsday how complacent my own party is, and I'm furious at them.
		However, Trump is totally discarding our Constitution.
		He took an oath on that, even though he didn't put his hand on the Bible.
		Every one of those people take an oath before they are placed in their positions.
		Every congressperson takes an oath, and they're sitting back and letting him do this.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joel is next in North Dakota, Republican line.
unidentified		Yes, this is Joel.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Okay.
		Hey, you know, I oppose this only because I know the outcome of it, but I can also support it because it's calling out these judges and what they're doing.
		I can't support them, and there's millions of people that...
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's start with you opposing it and knowing the outcome of that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean?
unidentified		Well, I mean, how many judgments have gone against this administration and succeeded?
unidentified		Let's start there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And then to your idea that you support it as well, can you elaborate on that?
unidentified		Because it's going to call out all the judges that are putting forth bad policy or, you know, I don't know how you'd say it, but there's not, they're not putting up supporting the people, I guess you could say.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you say that it's going to call out those judges, to what end?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think is going to be the end result of that calling out?
unidentified		Well, hopefully I get, are these judges voted in?
		I don't think so.
		I think they're nominated.
		So maybe they should be removed.
		You know, if they're just there to delay a process and get in the way of progress, then I don't think they should be in the position they're in.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joel there in North Dakota giving us his thoughts this morning.
		You can do the same on the phone lines.
		This is from Larry in Arkansas, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		I oppose the Liberal Everett's, but the main, your question should be, why are the Democrats against transparency, cost savings to services, and bloody government?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you say you oppose it, elaborate and tell us why.
unidentified		Well, I would like to see the Democrats join in and try to find the trans get the transparency.
unidentified		The blow to government, reduce the size, and make our country more efficient.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, you said that, though, as far as when it comes to the court's actions, why do you oppose it?
unidentified		Because it's just employed by the Democrats.
unidentified		That's all.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Can you elaborate on that why you think that is?
unidentified		Because Trump wants to do something right for the country, and the Democrats go against what they want to do.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Larry in Arkansas, giving us his thoughts this morning.
		Couple things to keep you aware of during the course of the day.
		It's 10 o'clock this morning that the Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell, giving an update on the economy and monetary policy.
		He'll do that testifying before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.
		It's his first appearance since lawmakers, in front of lawmakers, since the 119th Congress.
		C-SPAN 3 is where you can see that.
		C-SPAN now and our website at c-span.org there too.
		And then 2 o'clock this afternoon, a hearing taking a look at ways to modernize American health care, focusing on prevention, flexible insurance, and technical technology innovations.
		Health professionals, stakeholders, and other people will be testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, Subcommittee on Health.
		That will be 2 o'clock on C-SPAN 3, C-SPAN Now, and our free mobile app.
		Just to keep you aware, it's the early hours of Wednesday morning that the president's nominee for the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is expected to get her confirmation vote.
		Also, there is set to be a vote taking a look, at least forwarding the process of approving Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become the Health and Humans Services Secretary.
		Stay close to C-SPAN in the days ahead as that plays out as well as other nomination efforts.
		Lopez in Alabama, Democrats line.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
		Hi.
		Hey, this is Lopez, Carla from Birmingham, Alabama.
		You know, with this issue, you know, I'm just a listener this morning, but I just want to say this.
		With this President Trump, you know, I just feel like I just want to call him Tricky Dicky, and he's so unpredictable.
		So I think every day we wake up, there's something new, there's something new.
		So what we have to do is just go day by day with this guy.
		I'm starting to have a little faith in Trump because he's our president.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, today's the day that we're talking about the courts involving itself in the Trump administration efforts.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about that?
unidentified		Hey, the court's involvement, I don't think Trump is going to let the courts make their own decisions.
		I think he wants to be in control of everything.
		He wants to corrupt everything.
		And I mean by corrupt, he don't want to let the process go through like they're supposed to, from step to step.
		You know, he wants to just say, hey, I want it this way and that way, and the way we do things in America by judicial and court system and legislative.
		He don't want that.
		I think he just wants to have it where he just can say it and it's done.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John is from Tampa, Florida, Republican line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hi there.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
unidentified		How are you?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I'm well, thanks.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Well, I'd like to say it's a glorious day in this country now that President Trump is back in office.
unidentified		And I'm glad to say I'm one of the 77 million people that did vote for him.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		And also, I would just like to remind listeners out there about executive orders.
		Now, I didn't hear a lot of people crying when Mr. Biden executive ordered himself or me and our country out of billions of dollars in student loan debt.
		Also, the Keystone Pipeline, that was an executive order.
		40,000 Americans lost their job with a stroke of a pen.
		Now, as far as getting back to the courts getting involved, I'd like to also remind the people that President Trump has beat every court case that has ever come up against him.
		These are all Democrat states.
		You've got Seattle judges.
		You've got New York judges that have tried to do this again.
		They didn't learn their lesson in the election.
		I'd like to remind everybody, this is only the fourth week of his presidency.
		You guys need to just chill out, let the man do his job.
		I elected him for exactly what he's doing.
		Everybody that I know elected him for what he's doing.
		You guys didn't want to.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So when it comes to the court's actions, do you think they're appropriate?
unidentified		I don't think it's appropriate at all.
		I think it's vindictive.
		I think that they're grasping at straws.
		I think that everything that President Trump's doing, I voted for, and 77 other million people voted for it too.
		So that's all I got to say.
		It's a great day in this country.
		God bless President Trump.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John in Tampa, Florida, Republican line.
		The New York Times takes a look at Doge, the efficiency team, and the records they are keeping and whether there's transparency to that record.
		It's Minho Kim writing that the White House making that decision to designate Mr. Musk's office, the United States Doge Service, as an entity insulated from public records requests or most judicial intervention, at least until 2034, by declaring the documents it produces and receives presidential records.
		That designation has a special legal meeting under law called the Presidential Records Act.
		The law shields from public all documents, communication trails, and records from the president, his advisors, and staff until five years after that president leaves office.
		That law still requires presidents to keep a broad set of written materials created or received by them while executing their duties.
		Nonetheless, presidents can also dispose of their records after getting written approval from the archivists at the National Archives, whom the president can remove from office.
		It was on Friday that Mr. Trump fired the nation's archivist, Colleen Shogun.
		No cause or reason was cited.
		Ms. Shogun said in her LinkedIn page that post announcing that dismissal.
		This is from Willie from Mississippi, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning, Pedro.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Thank you, C-SPAN, for taking my call.
		And, Pedro, I have to say, I remember when you first started, and it took a couple of years, but you are one of the most various and you do challenge foolishness.
		And this is why I like to say with C-SPAN, when you hear outlandish misinformation, please, other hosts, challenge it.
		Give a good, educated challenge.
		The reason I'm saying this is because I'm surprised people in Tampa, Florida, and people in Alabama don't understand civics, basic civics.
		There's three branches of the government, and all of them have equal, equal leverage under the law.
		They all can put each other in check.
		That's where the checks and balances are.
		And I'm happy that these courts are doing what they're supposed to do.
		And if anything would happen where they allow the Supreme Court to lose their power, it's going to be chaos in this country.
		And these idiots don't know.
		And the conservatives or the Republicans, the MAGA people, they know that half the country don't know.
		They know that they'd have miseducated these people.
		And it's very, very sad.
		Thank you for taking my call.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Willie in Mississippi, this is Leslie, Democrats Line, North Carolina.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, I don't support the courts in battling Trump and his initiatives.
		I just feel like a lot of people don't understand that there is no longer no executive, judicial, or legislative branch.
		It's all the Trump branch.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, those three branches do exist, but what do you think about the judicial role in this case?
unidentified		Well, the judicial role is That's Trump right there.
		That's his department now.
		He's got what?
		Three Supreme Courts that he put on the Supreme Court and stacked.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But this pushback, at least some of it's coming from the lower courts, the lower federal courts.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of those actions?
unidentified		Oh, I think they're great.
		I think that they should push back more.
		I think that the Republicans ought to stand with the courts and grow a backbone and stand against Trump because Trump's not good for this country.
		I don't care what nobody says.
		The guy that was just on there talking about he was one of the 77 meetings that voted for Trump.
		All I got to say is thank you for ruining this country.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Carol in West Virginia, Independent Line, the courts' role in pushing back against Trump administration efforts.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Carol, go ahead.
unidentified		Well, I oppose it because I think what's happening is the courts is being used to keep people from doing their jobs.
		And when Biden was in, when Obama was in, when Bush was in, nobody was running to the courts.
		There were executive orders written by each one, and the opposite didn't like it.
		But there wasn't court running and judge shopping.
		They need to let the president do his job, quit court shopping, and see what happens.
		I didn't vote for Biden, but was he a good president?
		He had his moments, but I wouldn't think that everything he done would have to be challenged and pushed into the court system.
		The court system is being used as a weapon.
		And that's just my opinion.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Carol in West Virginia giving us her thoughts on the issue of the courts and the Trump administration.
		Thank you to all of you who participated in this last 55 minutes.
		Joining us to end this hour, Representative Jim Costa, Democrat from California, he serves the 21st District, also serves the Foreign Affairs Committee, talking about efforts on Capitol Hill.
		And Representative Costa, one of those efforts, definitely taking a look at USAID and the future of foreign aid.
		You serve on that committee.
		What's the possibility of Democrats at least having some say as far as what happens to that future?
unidentified		Well, I hope we do.
		And I hope my Republican colleagues who I've worked with over the years, who I've traveled with in developing nations, who have applauded and supported USIAI in terms of the smart power that it provides,
		in terms of the counterbalance to China and to Russia and other adversaries that we deal with, remember that the incredible work that they've done in Republican and Democratic administrations alike has put America's best foot forward.
		And not only that, it's supported a lot of American agriculture in terms of the products we grow that have been purchased by USIAI and have been dealing with people who are food insecure.
		And, you know, this passed with an executive order of John F. Kennedy, but was asserted into law by Congress over 20 years ago.
		And to simply end a government entity that has worked so hard and done so much good makes no sense.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		They're talking about at least the possibility of folding some of the aspects of USAID within the State Department, if that were to occur.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Could that be something that works, in your opinion?
unidentified		Well, possibly.
		I mean, Secretary Rubio, when he was a former senator, I know, viewed firsthand the positive impacts of USIAI around the world.
		And it's not only in places that you might think of where in certain continents it's been very effective, like in Pet Farb that President Bush established during his term, but in places like Armenia.
		I have a significant Armenia community in California that I represent.
		The aid, as they've dealt with hostile neighbors like Azerbaijan and Russia, has been very important to the Armenian communities and the government there and trying to turn to the West and to try to have better opportunities.
		So we've made commitments and promises to friends, and they're now wondering what's going to happen to that commitment.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Because of your work on the committee and how USAID works, if funds or if the program is frozen as we know it, what's the immediate effect?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's the short-term and long-term effects of those who get foreign aid across the world?
unidentified		Well, I think it could be very harmful to our support around the world.
		And if Secretary Rubio wants to look at reforms and bring together a bipartisan effort on how we can improve USIAI, I think that would be welcomed.
		Certainly there's things that we can do that would improve it.
		And nobody wants to support efforts that are not efficient.
		But let's do it that way.
		And I hope that Secretary Rubio, understanding the good that has come from USIAI, will do just that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Representative Costa, as of this morning, there's reporting at least when it comes to those hostages that we're supposed to release in Gaza Saturday.
		That seems to put on hold.
		The president commenting on it yesterday.
		What does that suggest about the future of this ceasefire that was decided a few weeks ago?
unidentified		Well, I think the ceasefire is very delicate.
		And the Biden administration worked for months with our Arab allies and Israel to bring it about.
		I wish it had taken place six months ago.
		But there are still over 70 hostages that have to be released.
		There's a second and third phase toward this ceasefire agreement.
		And we need to make sure that Hamas, who is a terrorist organization, and Israel hold to it and that all the hostages are returned.
		But the comments that are made about taking 2 million people who live in Gaza and relocating them somewhere, I don't think helps this ceasefire progress.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Turning to other issues here in Washington, D.C., several Democrats across the House and the Senate expressing concern about the Doge Committee, their access to Treasury data.
		You have legislation fighting that.
		Specifically, what's your concern?
unidentified		Well, no one elected Elon Musk to any office that I'm aware of.
		And his committees where these individuals are in there without the proper security clearance, I have great concern about.
		Going to the Treasury Department and having access to American taxpayers' records, I think, is unwarranted.
		I think it's a violation of every individual citizen's privacy in which there's been no case made on why Elon Musk ought to have access to those records.
		And so, therefore, I think we've got to try to come together.
		I would think that my Republican friends, who are very protective about privacy and security for all American citizens, would be as concerned about this as I am.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do you see anything within the actions within the Treasury Department that suggests to you that those leaks of data, those compromises of data might concern any specifics?
unidentified		Well, this just happened in the last couple of weeks.
		So, I mean, we're trying to get a handle on just exactly what information they're accessing and for why.
		Because clearly, there is, I think, a report that's been written with bipartisan support on how you curb government waste and inefficiencies to a tune of about $500 billion.
		Why don't we work on that together, it seems to me, because we, I think, all share those concerns, as opposed to having some maverick group of folks who have no oversight, who are answerable, I guess, only to Elon Musk, I guess.
		And I think that creates alarm bells for many of us.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I suppose, though, that you've heard the Republican response thing that Elon Musk works at the pleasure of the president, which gives him the right to access these things.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How do you respond to that?
unidentified		The president's a very busy guy.
		He's got a lot of challenges that he's facing.
		And it seems to me, you know, Elon Musk is going to tell him whatever he thinks will, you know, soothe the president's concerns or ego, but I don't think that's sufficient to meaningful oversight.
		And Congress, and what's really fundamental here is checks and balances, our whole system of it, whether we're talking about the executive branch, the legislative branch, or our judicial branches of government.
		And they're being tested today as we speak.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Representative Costa, you and our audience, I'm sure, talking about and hearing about these efforts to streamline the federal workforce.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What does that mean for those who live in the 21st district, which you represent?
unidentified		Well, I have over 5,000 employees in the 21st District in the San Joaquin Valley, Fresno and Tulare counties that work for the United States Forest Service, that work for the Department of Agriculture, protecting our food supply, that focus on our veterans hospital, providing care for those men and women who served our nation.
		These 5,000-plus federal employees are very concerned.
		They've dedicated 15, 20, 25 years or more.
		You have experience and you have expertise for the people who work at the Veterans Hospital, our Forest Service, the people who protect our food supply, and why we would do that without any sort of reflection or focus on how do we deal,
		again, with government efficiency, but at the same time, not go into the core of this folks who have dedicated their lives to making sure that we have the best people working on our federal government that we possibly can.
		I think it sends out the wrong message.
		And by the way, the court that put the pause on this did so, I think, with justification.
		The Congress hasn't even provided a funding for this furlough to take place that the administration's offering.
		So I think there's a lot of flaws in this direction, and there's better ways that we could work toward government efficiency.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Before we let you go, the Republican leadership trying to determine what course of action will be when determining a budget.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think the role of Democrats will be as far as whether the process of coming up with that and also if they'll support it?
unidentified		Well, I think that it begins with reaching out to work on a bipartisan agreement on the budget.
		That's not happened at this point by the Speaker or by the leaders in the Senate.
		So with the very narrow margins that we have, it's going to be very interesting to see if they're going to be able to deal with the budget, the debt ceiling, and avoid government shutdown all at the same time with narrow margins of maybe one or two votes in the House and maybe three votes in the Senate.
		I think that recent history is any proven fact.
		It's only occurred when we've worked together in a bipartisan fashion to avoid government shutdown.
		It's irresponsible to ever be unable to reach an agreement and to have a government shutdown that harms all Americans.
		But it's up to the Republicans at this point.
		They have the majority in the House, the Senate, and in the White House.
		And so if they think they can do it on their own, we'll see.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Representative Jim Costa, who serves the 21st District of California, also a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for your time.
unidentified		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We'll continue on in our discussions of foreign affairs, joined by Jeremy Knindike.
		He's a former official at USAID.
		He'll talk about the current efforts to wind down the agency by the Trump administration.
		And then later on in the program, you'll hear from South Carolina Republican and Freedom Caucus member Ralph Norman as he discovered efforts by House leadership to pass a budget and what the Freedom Caucus wants to see from that budget.
		Those conversations coming up on Washington Journal.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		John Dickinson is one of the most significant founders of the United States, who is not well known by all the American public.
		Author Jane E. Calvert is trying to change that with her new biography, Penman of the Founding.
		John Dickinson is known for his nine essays under the title Fabius, published anonymously in newspapers during the time that the states were deciding on whether to approve the new Constitution.
		John Dickinson of Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania was the only founding figure present and active in every phase of the revolution, from the Stamp Act crisis through the ratification of the Constitution.
unidentified		Author Jane Calvert talks about her book, Penman of the Founding, a biography of John Dickinson.
		On this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now, Jeremy Kenindike.
		He's the former U.S. AID Executive Director for COVID-19, also worked in the agency under the Obama administration.
		Joining us to talk about the future of that organization.
		Mr. Kenindike, welcome.
unidentified		My pleasure.
unidentified		Thanks.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Can you tell us from your perspective your role at USAID?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Expand on that and how it informs your, I guess, knowledge of the discussion currently taking place.
unidentified		Sure.
		So I've worked with the two largest parts of the agency.
		I served as the head of disaster response and humanitarian relief during the Obama administration.
		And then I worked on the global health side, leading the COVID-19 relief effort in the first two years of the Biden administration.
		So those are the two biggest things that USAID does, disaster response and humanitarian relief and global health.
		But the agency does a range of other things as well, education, economic development, poverty reduction, water and sanitation, agricultural development, a whole range of things that aim to bolster American security and share American values with the world by supporting people around the world to improve their lives.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I suppose that in the last couple of days you've heard a lot about the agency.
		I suppose you would think there's a perception of what the agency is and you have the reality of what it is.
		How do those two things match up?
unidentified		They are not very well aligned.
		And frankly, it's very hurtful, it doesn't really capture it.
		It is deeply offensive and deeply disrespectful to the staff of USAID to be called things like criminals and terrorists by the President of the United States.
		I worked with many of these people.
		I deployed in 2014, I deployed colleagues into the Ebola hot zone at the peak of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa at a time when people remember in this country we were kind of freaking out over that disease.
		USAID personnel were running straight into that, running straight in there.
		Over the years, USAID personnel have been deployed on the front lines in the reconstruction effort in very, very violent post-war Afghanistan and Iraq.
		They have deployed to other crises.
		They have deployed to famines, earthquakes.
		Several times I deployed disaster response teams in the immediate aftermath of huge natural disasters under hazardous circumstances.
		So these are people who have really put their safety and their lives and their families on the line to serve their country by helping some of the people who most need it on the planet.
		So to be called that, it's really a you know, it feels like a betrayal.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Some would estimate about 10,000 employee 10,000 employees at the agency, a $40 billion budget.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How would you justify that to people?
unidentified		Well, it's a tiny, tiny proportion of the federal budget.
		The U.S. foreign aid is about 1%, a little under 1% of total U.S. budget outlays.
		If you poll Americans, they tend to think it must be about a quarter of the U.S. budget that goes towards foreign aid.
		And when you ask them how much do you think is appropriate, you'll often get an answer like, yeah, maybe 5% to 10%.
		When you tell them it's 1%, you see support dramatically increase.
		So the misinformation or disinformation that we're seeing now about this, about huge, huge spending and wasteful spending, that really is intended to distract people from the reality, which is we do a tremendous amount of good with this very small proportion of the federal budget.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I suppose over the last couple of days you've heard about these specific programs that come into question when you hear those lists.
		What do you think?
		And also, are all the programs that the spending happens, are they necessary?
unidentified		Are truly necessary in Europe?
		There is always from administration to administration some change in judgment in what the priorities are, and that's natural.
		I was part of the day one team for the Biden administration that came into USAID.
		We saw some things that the Trump administration had been doing that we didn't agree with, so we put a stop to those.
		We saw a lot of things that we thought made a lot of sense, and we continued them.
		That's normal.
		Every other administration transition in history of U.S., in the history of USAID, has gone through that sort of a normal process.
		You see continuity across most of the work, and then some things begin and some things end as policy priorities change.
		What we're seeing here is not that.
		What we're seeing here is really the reckless destruction of the entire agency.
		Elon Musk has been leading the charge on this, aided by a State Department official named Pete Morocco.
		Elon said over last weekend that he had put the agency through the woodchucker.
		So I think that really underscores this is not, in his mind, a reform effort or review effort.
		This is simply an effort to destroy the agency.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I suppose you probably heard some saying why you just fold it into state and operate that way.
unidentified		Yeah, and that's, look, I think that is a valid debate to have.
		I would disagree with that, and I can get into why.
		But that is not really what's happening here.
		What's happening here is they are trying to take an agency with a workforce of, depending on how many contractors you count, 10,000 to 14,000 people, and shrink that down to about 600 people.
		That is basically the elimination of most of the mission.
		And the other point I would make there is the president doesn't have the authority to do that unilaterally.
		Congress established USAID in law as an independent agency.
		So if you want to have the debate about folding it into state, the place to do that is not mean tweets from Elon Musk over Twitter.
		The place to do that is in policy debate with the U.S. Congress.
		And I think all of this so far, it's really important to underscore all of this is being done outside of the law right now.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jeremy Kanindike is our guest.
		He's a former USAID executive director.
		If you want to ask him questions about the agency and things that have been said about it, 202748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats and Independents, 202748-8002.
		If you want to text your questions or comments, you can do that too at 202-748-8003.
		The Congressional Research Service, in talking and writing about USAID, said this.
		Pursuant to congressional notification procedures, the administration can propose and execute structural changes related to USAID and state, including shifting certain functions from USAID to state.
		As USAID's internal organization is not set in statute, administrations have sometimes changed the internal structure, often reflecting a president's foreign policy priorities and foreign assistance initiatives.
		Does that give the president standing then, so to speak?
unidentified		Well, what that allows the president to do is what President Trump did during the first administration.
		That is talking about internal reorganization, not shutting down the agency, but reorganizing it internally.
		And so, yes, if they are going to do that, they don't need to change the law for an internal reorg, but they do need to consult with Congress.
		And they did that.
		There was a significant restructuring within USAID under Administrator Mark Greene during the first Trump administration.
		I agree with a lot of the changes they made.
		I thought they were good changes.
		One of the things that they did was create an elevated humanitarian response bureau, which I thought was a very good move.
		And in doing that, they consulted extensively with Congress.
		So I think it really shows how differently they're operating this time.
		They are completely cutting Congress out.
		There have been no serious consultations with Congress so far.
		And meanwhile, you have multiple senior officials saying already we've prejudged the outcome and we're basically shutting everything down before they've really begun any meaningful discussion with Congress whatsoever.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One of those critics of the organization is the director of the National Security Advisor to the White House, Mike Walty, was on the Sunday shows talking about specific programs.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I want to play a portion of what do you have to say and get your response to it.
unidentified		Yeah.
michael walz ▲ ● ▼		All too often, these missions and these programs, number one, are not in line with strategic U.S. interests, like pushing back on China.
mike waltz ▲ ● ▼		They're doing all kinds of other things that, frankly, aren't in line with strategic interests or the president's vision.
		Number one, number two, often, all too often, only cents on the dollar actually makes it to people in need between the big contractors, the subcontractors, the local contractors.
		The dollars aren't being used wisely.
michael walz ▲ ● ▼		We need to take a hard look at it.
michael walz ▲ ● ▼		We need to move quickly.
mike waltz ▲ ● ▼		And that's exactly what's being done.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So that was just a portion of what he had to say.
unidentified		So there's two basic falsehoods from Mike Waltz there.
		The first is that somehow what USAID is doing is not advancing strategic competition with China.
		Actually, USAID has extensive work.
		I can talk about a few examples from my own career where we were able to block out malign Chinese influence through the strategic deployment of U.S. foreign aid.
		When we were distributing vaccines around the world, China had been in the practice of charging countries exorbitant costs to buy their vaccines.
		And as part of the deal, they would demand political concessions like refusing to recognize Taiwan.
		When we were able to provide our vaccines to those same countries, we did it for free.
		They were better vaccines.
		And we were not attaching these political strings because fundamentally we were trying to work with these countries to bring the pandemic under control.
		And suddenly China couldn't get that deal anymore.
		They could not extract those political concessions because we were putting a better alternative on the table.
		What we're seeing now is in multiple countries as the U.S. draws back, China is leaping in to fill the gap.
		And we've seen reports of that in Nepal, in the Cook Islands, which is a strategic island chain in the Pacific, in Colombia, in Papua New Guinea.
		We're going to see that all over the place if USAID really is pulled back.
		Nothing creates a bigger opportunity for China in the world than pulling the U.S. back.
		On his claim about cents on the dollar, that is a complete misreading and misunderstanding of a report that found that only 10% of U.S. aid funding is implemented directly by locally led organizations.
		That is very different from saying most of the aid doesn't reach people.
		Most of the aid does reach people.
		It just reaches them through American partners.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We have calls lined up for you.
		And our first one comes from David.
		He's a New Jersey Republican line.
		You're on with the guests.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		I'd just like to, this is a classic liberal.
		He feels that he should be able to operate in the government, that elections don't count, and they have their own little fiefdom.
		So, I mean, this whole idea of, oh, it's only 1% of the U.S. budget.
		Well, 1% is a lot of money.
		And we're $37 trillion in debt.
		And the left doesn't seem to even care about that.
		When is it going to stop?
		What about these programs in Kenya and Colombia dealing with transgender and other things in Afghanistan completely against the culture of those countries?
		So 1%, this is what the whole left is saying, but that adds up to a lot of money.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, David in New Jersey.
unidentified		So a couple pieces there.
		First off, if you are trying to balance the federal budget deficit or eliminate the federal budget deficit on the back of foreign aid, you've already lost that fight.
		If you're trying to balance the budget, you've got to look where the money is.
		And it simply is not, for the most part, in foreign aid.
		It's in entitlements, it's in defense spending, which is 20 times larger than foreign aid spending, than USAID's budget.
		So when you hear a politician saying we need to target foreign aid because of the budget deficit, you automatically know they're not terribly serious about actually finding the money to balance the budget.
		On some of the other programs that you were referencing, the White House had put out a sheet of claims of programs that it said were indicative of wasteful USAID spending, including not exactly the ones you referenced.
		I think you're skewing a few of the things they referenced, but many of those, and particularly the ones that were more, in their words, DEI or transgender related, were actually not USAID programs.
		They were State Department-funded programs.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Washington, Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Katie, hi.
unidentified		Hi, Jamie.
		Thank you so much for appearing this morning.
		I just wanted to ask if you could speak a little bit more about the role of Congress in authorizing or getting rid of agencies.
		I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding with the public and many people who've called in about who can create and disband federal agencies.
		You spoke a little bit to it.
		If you could speak on that and also about all of the lawsuits the Biden administration thinks for many of its actions, even though they may have slowed down progress, they might have had to take a different avenue to achieve those goals.
		How.
		This is pretty normal and every administration has this, where presidents use their executive authority and they have to, after courts tell them that they don't have that authority, have to figure out a new path.
		Thank you so much.
		Yeah thanks, that's a really important question.
		So there was an Elon Musk tweet uh, a few days into his assault on Usaid, something to The effect of live by executive order, die by executive order and it, you know, implying that the president could just unilaterally get rid of Usaid.
		That is a complete misreading perhaps a mill, a willful misreading of U.s law.
		Originally, back in 1961, president Kennedy did first establish U. Executive Order, but Congress in 1998 passed a law that permanently enshrined Usaid as an independent agency under the policy authority of the secretary of state.
		So to change that, you need to change that law.
		The president can't just unilaterally undo that.
		He needs to work with Congress on that and and he should look our our system of government is such that if you want to make major changes uh, you need to work between the executive branch and the legislative branch.
		It's also Congress that appropriates US Aid's budget and and I think, something people don't understand very well Congress writes US Aid's budget, so US AID does not sit there and decide how much they're going to spend on health and humanitarian response and education.
		It's actually Congress that decides that.
		Every year, when Congress does its appropriations process, they give us AID very, very detailed guidance, sometimes down to the country and program, of how much u.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So as a program director yourself, what controls are there to make sure that the money is being used in the most efficient way possible?
unidentified		Well, so it starts with that appropriations process and a lot of consultation with Congress over how that money will be spent.
		So when we were spending the COVID money, for example, Congress appropriated that to us.
		We then, after getting it from Congress, needed to put together a proposed work plan of how we intended to spend that money that would go back through the State Department and then through the White House Office of Management and Budget and then go back to Congress.
		And Congress would need to sign off on that before we could proceed with that.
		So there were a lot of checks at that level.
		It's not USAID just deciding on its own how to spend the money.
		They're doing that under a great deal of congressional and White House oversight and with a lot of consultation.
		Then once the programs are underway, USAID has some of the most sophisticated monitoring and evaluation systems in the world.
		And that's one of the downsides of moving things into state.
		State doesn't have that because they don't manage large-scale foreign assistance in the way that USAID does.
		So you would lose a lot of oversight and effectiveness expertise that has been built up over the years, often through congressional requirements.
		And then there is an independent inspector general and government accountability office oversight.
		If something goes wrong in a USAID program, there are investigative mechanisms to fix that and then hold the parties accountable.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Lyndon is up next for our guest.
		Lyndon is in Ohio, Independent Line.
		Hi there.
		Good morning.
		Lyndon.
unidentified		Good morning, gentlemen.
unidentified		I just want to say, can you hear me all right?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go ahead, please.
unidentified		All right.
		I just wanted to say that this update with the USAID was very expected considering that Elon Musk was already promising a lot of influence with the USAID.
		And I just wish in general that Trump and his team, including Musk, would focus their attention towards better things like, for example, the cost of housing.
		I haven't heard a single thing about that, nor have I heard anything about skibbity toilets.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Lyndon, let's hear from Mavick.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me, before that, the Washington Post highlights the fact that we talked about this earlier, the 1% of the congressional budget in fiscal 2023 to foreign aid, about $210 a year for the average taxpayer compared to more than $2,800 per year for those in defense matters or spending on defense.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Yeah.
		I mean, that's more than a tenfold difference between defense and foreign aid spending.
		And I think it's also important to understand, having, you know, that small investment in foreign aid also takes burdens off of the Defense Department.
		So when we have a robust USAID, they can go, they can respond to crises, they can deal with the civilian aspects of crises.
		Our disaster response teams have a lot of civilian capacity, occasionally need to draw on the Defense Department for airlift or things like that, but then are able to excuse them back out of that mission very quickly.
		If you took that away, if you take away that civilian capacity, then every time that there is an earthquake or an Ebola outbreak, that's more burden that's going to land on the military because we've gotten rid of the civilian capability to deal with that.
		One other just piece on the costing here, during the Ebola outbreak, we costed out how much it would take to run Ebola treatment units through USAID versus through DOD, and DOD would have been about twice as expensive, so we ended up doing it through USAID.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jeremy Kenindike used to work at USAID, now is the president of Refugees International.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What is that?
unidentified		Refugees International is a humanitarian advocacy organization.
		So we are sort of like a human rights organization, but we specifically focus on the humanitarian and refugee sector.
		So we work with refugee activists and leaders around the world, and we work with allies and supporters of refugees and humanitarian response here in the United States to advance policy and uphold, in a moment like this, to uphold the effectiveness and the rights, the effectiveness of foreign aid and humanitarian aid and the rights of people receiving it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If I may ask, if USAID funding is cut, is your organization affected and are similar organizations affected?
unidentified		So we don't take U.S. government funding because of the nature of our mission.
		We've always maintained a lot of independence, and that's one of the reasons I'm able to be out here talking about it.
		Many of the U.S.-funded partners right now are very nervous to be talking publicly because they're afraid of retaliation from the government.
		So we won't be directly financially affected by this.
		But obviously the mission and the things that we care about will be devastated by this.
		This will have huge devastating impact on people in crises all over the world.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Maverick and Las Vegas Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hi there.
unidentified		Hi, I have to agree with Jeremy on that.
		People don't understand that there's a lot of diseases and stuff that are an outbreak overseas that we don't want to have come over here and it's better to try to eradicate it over there.
		Secondly, you're talking about government waste.
		I think if they really look into what the government spends on kickbacks and deals with companies like Tesla, that they could probably find some savings there.
		Just like yesterday, the president signed a thing where there's going to be no more charging stations.
		Well, who do you think that's going to benefit?
		That's going to benefit Elon Musk because he owns most of the charging stations now.
		What we're doing is generating a gap and a hole for places like China to fill, and that's not going to do much for the United States.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Caller, thanks.
unidentified		Yeah, one interesting statistic.
		So in the period since the presidential election, Elon Musk's personal wealth has increased by several times more than the annual budget of USAID, just to kind of put that in perspective.
		On your point on diseases, that's a really, really important one.
		So I helped to lead the U.S. government response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014, and we mounted a really robust response in West Africa because we were very concerned, both to help those countries, but also to prevent that from reaching the United States.
		So zoom forward to today, there is a very frightening outbreak of Ebola beginning right now in Uganda, and the U.S. is pretty much missing in action.
		CDC is totally muzzled.
		They're not allowed to talk to other organizations.
		We've pulled out of the World Health Organization.
		Normally, CDC and WHO would be joined at the hip in a response like this.
		And USAID can't deploy because everything is frozen.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is from James in Virginia, Republican line.
		A little short on time, James.
		So jump in with your question or comment, please.
unidentified		Good morning.
		What I'm confused by there's 10,000 employees that's got a blank checkbook and writes checks like Sesame Street in Iraq for $20 million.
		And they don't answer to the State Department.
		They don't want to.
		I don't understand this.
		I mean, why is Political getting $8 million in subscription fees?
		I mean, C-SMAN could probably use that more money and use it more helpful than Political.
		I mean, why is Congress and people so scared of looking at the books?
		So, and thanks for raising a couple of those points.
		You've been lied to.
		None of those things are true.
		Well, the Sesame thing, the Sesame Street thing is true but valid.
		The political thing is totally untrue and it's been completely debunked.
		There was a Political Pro subscription that is a news service and congressional relations service that USAID subscribed to.
		A lot of Republican offices on Capitol Hill subscribe to that as well.
		That subscription was $44,000 a year.
		It was not $8 million a year.
		That was some people at Doge who didn't know how to read a spreadsheet properly.
		In terms of the Sesame Street example, that is actually a really important type of intervention to rebuild cohesion in a war-torn country after a conflict.
		And so, you know, it may sound a little bit trite or a little bit unserious, but you think about the kind of profound effects that Sesame Street has had here as kind of giving, I mean, I grew up watching Sesame Street.
		I'm sure many people in my generation did.
		It gives us a kind of basis for a common bond as a country.
		Iraq really needs things like that right now.
		And so there are a lot of, I see that as actually a really innovative way and a pretty low-cost way relative to deploying U.S. troops to try and rebuild some social cohesion and peace in Iraq after so many years of war.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jeremy Kennindike joining us talking and giving perspective on USAID, his work at Refugees International, Refugees International.org.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Kenindike, thanks for your time.
unidentified		My pleasure.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now from Capitol Hill to talk about the latest when it comes to the budget and other things, Representative Ralph Norman, Republican of South Carolina.
		He serves the 5th District, also a member of the Budget Committee, also a member of the House Freedom Caucus.
		Representative Norman, good morning.
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		How are you?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you very much.
		There's reporting this morning, Representative, that the House Freedom Caucus has its own vision of a budget.
		Can you tell us more?
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, we have two resolutions that really were born because we haven't been able to get together.
		And I'm on the budget committee, but we haven't been able to put anything out.
		I think that may change.
		There's a meeting going on now that I'll go to after this interview.
		But the bottom line is the Freedom Caucus put it on paper.
		And the first is the addresses the deportation and the fact that our military is just way underfunded.
		And the things that are going to the military are not what we need.
		And it's to the tune of new spending of $200 billion, offset with $486 billion in cuts.
		Cuts like the giveaway student loans, cuts like the EV mandates, cuts like the funding that illegals can take advantage of now, the federal government.
		As a result, we're saving $286 billion instead of spending.
		So the great part about what we're doing is basic.
		We ought to be able to do this with 218 Republicans.
		It increases the debt limit to $4 trillion so the president has leverage of his own and not with Chuck Schumer.
		That's the first one.
		The second one we just got last night is a thing that covers what the president wants in no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security if you wait till you're 70.
		And what's included, the big thing is the tax cuts that President Trump had during his administration and started in 2017 are extended for 10 years.
		That's the good news.
		And also, it's an additional savings and cuts things that should have been cut years ago or at least altered.
		Those are the two, and we shouldn't need any Democrats' support because they're not going to support it anyway.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our guest with us, because he has to go to that meeting, a little shortened segment, but if you want to ask him questions about these efforts, 202748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		We'll show you that outline of what's been introduced by the Freedom Caucus when it comes to their approach to the budget.
		Mr. Norman, Representative Norman, what reaction did you get from leadership over this?
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		We'll find out at 9 this morning.
		Andy Harris, who's our president of the Freedom Caucus, has had some conversation.
		But, you know, I get Mike is trying to, it's like herding cats with all the different mindsets that he has to put together.
		But this is bare bones.
		We're running out of time.
		You know, we've wasted a lot of time talking about it.
		We've had a retreat.
		It's time to put it in action and do what we say we were going to do to the American people, which is cut the deficit, cut unneeded programs, as Doshi's showing, and let's get the job and move on.
		And I think we're doing that.
		Our two plans are pretty simple, but they're on paper, they have numbers, and it makes sense.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You said you were waiting on the reaction from the House, Speaker.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do you think he'll meet you all the way on this?
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		No, I do not.
		Now, I don't know what figure he has.
		He's trying to get the 218, as I mentioned.
		So we'll see what comes of it.
		And bottom line is we can't keep going like we're going.
		We've always heard the figures, 37 trillion in debt.
		That's a real number.
		That's something nobody can disagree with.
		So how do you get there?
		It's not by spending more.
		You've got to have offsets, and that's what this attempts to do.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It was on the Senate side, Representative, that the House Minority, or sorry, the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, talked about the Republicans, their effort on the budget, particularly when it says the larger issue of a tax cut.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I want to play you a little bit what he had to say, get your reaction to it.
chuck schumer ▲ ● ▼		One bill, two bills?
		No.
		It could be 50 bills.
		I don't care.
		It comes down to the same thing.
		The end goal for Republicans to pass gargantuan tax cuts for Donald Trump and their billionaire friends.
		Cut the daylights out of everything else.
		Medicaid, Medicare, school lunches, prescription drug reform, medical research for these tax cuts.
		The American people are going to learn this as we move forward, and I don't think they're going to like it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So, Representative, that's how he characterizes your efforts.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How would you respond to that?
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		That's hogwash.
		He knows better than that.
		Well, he maybe doesn't know better than that.
		But, you know, his plan is to spin this country into oblivion and have the kind of rhetoric that he's always had.
		And no, it's not cutting Medicare.
		It's reforming it.
		Obama had the largest expansion of Medicaid, people on Medicaid in the history.
		And work requirements.
		He's opposed to that.
		He's opposed to anything that's not spending money.
		We just have a philosophical disagreement, which is no secret to all of us who are trying to put this country back on a fiscal path of sanity.
		What's his plan?
		Spend more.
		And that doesn't make sense.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, when it comes to the topic you brought up, Medicare, what would that re-envisioning look like?
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		Re-envisioning is block granting the dollars to the states, let them decide how it wants to be allocated, getting illegals off.
		any federal program, including Medicaid.
		And I would say the ones that really help puts the dollars to good use is getting people who can work off Medicaid.
		You got a lot of able-bodied adults who are on it, and it's just taking a, letting the states decide it, but having outlines that says what they can do and can't do.
		And if you're able-bodied, you shouldn't be on Medicaid.
		And that's not that complicated.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joining us from Capitol Hill, Representative Ralph Norman, a member of the budget committee.
		Here's Dave in New York, independent line for our guests.
		Dave, you're on.
		Go ahead with your question or comment.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		My comment is this is all about government spending and amount of waste.
		Well, recently, back when they issued those PPP loans, I found in, what was it, ProPublica, a list of all the people that got these.
		People that really, I don't think, needed them because I knew some of the people locally.
		They do it by zip code.
		And they all got forgiven.
		And I'm wondering, what is the strategy there?
		Because they say something like less than 23% of them was actually used for the payroll protection.
		And they bought, like, avionics for, like, jet planes and yachts and things of that nature.
		I just would like to know.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So, caller, what would you like our guests to address specifically?
unidentified		Why don't we address collecting some of that money?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Dave in New York.
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		Great question.
		There is money that's unspent in COVID that we're going to try to claw back and put to paying the debt COVID is over with.
		You're right.
		A lot of it didn't have strings attached to it or wasn't really monitored.
		A lot of the banks that had the authority to issue the money, it was made to customers.
		Not being paid back is something that should not have been tolerated.
		Now, a lot of it went to workers.
		We got a small part that went to our workers with the hotels in South Carolina.
		But overall, the money needs to be clawed back on anything left over, and I think that'll be on the president's agenda as he moves forward.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		In Michigan, this is Sam, Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, please.
unidentified		Hello, Mr. Ralph.
		You seem to be pretty concerned about clawing back money.
		Wasteful money being spent.
		Maybe you could take into consideration.
		I'd like you to answer it if you could.
		The $250 million that Trump spent golfing, Myle Iwan, around the country, maybe you'd claw back some of that money.
		You said living well right around the golf course.
		I know you're pretty worried about the money, so maybe you could go after Trump's money and keeping the hell off the golf course.
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		You know, it's amazing you say that.
		You're a typical Trump hater.
		Trump is not taking a salary.
		Trump is, the reason he got the 77 million votes that this country went to cast for Donald Trump is because he delivers everything he says.
		He loves America, unlike the other president.
		And the Doge Commission, he's finding things that should have been examined a long time ago.
		And he had the forethought to get somebody like Elon Musk, who I might add is kind of successful in the private sector, unlike a lot of politicians.
		And he's doing a great service for this country.
		And we just have a, you and I just have a philosophical disagreement on Donald Trump.
		He can spend his money like he wants to.
		He likes golf.
		What about Joe Biden who couldn't even do a press conference, who took more days off sleeping away from the job?
		What about that?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Representative Norman, when it comes to Elon Musk, what accountability should he have directly to Congress?
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		Elon Musk is unpaid.
		I look on him as an investigative arm.
		He's not making laws.
		What he's doing and what the Democrats are so mad at, he's uncovering the fraud and abuse.
		And I was listening in on the 20 million spent in Iraq for sesame seed books.
		Is that really a priority?
		What about the $16 million for inclusion in Vietnam?
		Is that a priority?
		What about the condoms that were put to different countries?
		You know, the analogy the Democrats are using really doesn't make sense.
		And the priorities are missing.
		And, you know, all of your listeners, what we all have in common, we examine our own budgets.
		What Elon Musk is doing is uncovering what's fraud and abuse and let the American people decide.
		And the biggest thing, it's not their money.
		It's the taxpayers' money.
		Let's uncover it.
		Let's decide, let the American people decide.
		And they will render a verdict.
		And I think it'll be in agreement with what Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		His investigation, as you talked about, directly affecting USAID and its workers, goes back to the question of who checks his power.
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		The only power that Elon Musk has is his brain power to be able to go into these, go into an agency and find them, find out where the money was actually spent.
		The algorithms, only he has been able to do.
		You couldn't do this on your own.
		A politician doesn't have the wherewithal or really the mechanism to go in and examine it.
		Elon Musk does.
		And guess where he's going next?
		The Department of Education.
		This is just one agency.
		USAID is one agency.
		And right now, the staggering part, the $154 billion that they found that went to other countries and went to other things, that's completely insane.
		And America is on a financial cliff.
		And for anybody to think any differently, I don't understand their logic.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is on our Republican line, North Carolina.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sandra, hello.
unidentified		Hi.
		I have a question for the representative.
		I'm confused about no taxes and tips and overtime.
		So are you saying that a waitress or someone who makes $100,000 in tips paid no taxes while a tax, a firefighter, teacher, secretary, or a lawyer does have to?
		And then the no tax and overtime, most people want overtime because they get double the pay.
		So are you saying that those who get the opportunity to make double the pay don't need to pay tax, but those who don't get that opportunity do?
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		Well, good question.
		I mean, the no tax on tips took off when Donald Trump said that some of those hardest hit in the United States economy was during COVID.
		People didn't go out to eat.
		And every waitress I've ever known is one of the hardest working people that I know of.
		They're on their feet all day.
		They're at the whim of people who decide to give or not give.
		It's going to have to be fleshed out in the details, which we don't know yet, but it's a starting point at least.
		And it is a slippery slope.
		Where do you stop it?
		But that'll be borne out as we move forward.
		And let each one of you judge, is it fair or not?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is from Ralph in D.C., Independent Line for Representative Norman.
unidentified		Hi, you know, we got Guantanamo Bay open, and now we're finding this fraud.
		I've got a good thing for waterboarding in Guantanamo Bay.
		These people took hundreds of millions of dollars and stole them, and then they don't, they just, you want to call it back?
		I want to put these people in prison.
		I want to take their U.S. citizenship, and I want to make sure that we take everything they got.
		But, you know, that's just one thing.
		And then all this complaining about, oh, my God, Elon Musk has got access to our Social Security numbers.
		You know, Elon Musk is worth nearly a trillion dollars.
		He's taking no money for this.
		Do you think he really wants to take your Social Security check?
		I mean, come on.
		The media is pumping this stuff, feeding the fear machine that Elon Musk is going to take all your money and he's going to take the country's money and everybody's going to be poor.
		No, what he's trying to do, he's trying to save the country because we're going on an exponential rise in our debt.
		Now, for those folks out there who don't understand what that means, that means within about five to ten years, we're going to be paying so much in interest, we're not going to have enough room on our budget to pay anything else.
		And if we don't stop it and we don't put the brakes on hard, this country is going to face something that's much worse than the Great Depression in the near future.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Ralph in Washington, D.C.
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		I agree 100%, and it's worse than that.
		Interest alone now will approach our entire military budget of $850 billion.
		And, you know, what Elon Musk is doing is just presenting it to the American people.
		Let them decide.
		And if they want to spend money on, you know, sesame seed books in foreign countries, if they want to pay for condoms in other countries, let the American people judge.
		But so far, from what I've heard, is just what you said, Ralph.
		People are excited.
		Finally, government has got a halter on them, and it's exposing it.
		Elon Musk didn't pass any laws.
		He's just putting things on the table, let the American people decide.
		And it's not government's money.
		He doesn't need Social Security.
		He doesn't need anybody's money.
		He wants a, he loves America, the bottom line.
		He loves freedom.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Representative Norman, remind people when the deadline is for funding and your concerns leading up to that deadline?
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		March 14th.
		That's why we've got the raising the debt ceiling with cuts to give the president leverage and not have to deal with Chuck Schumer when March 14th comes, which is sooner rather than later, and we haven't done anything.
		That's why Freedom Conquers put our plans out in two steps, one and two, and it all makes sense, and it puts money back in the Treasury.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's take one more call.
		This is from Katrina in Georgia, Democrats line.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hi, thank you for taking my call.
		I just wanted to state that the representative truly has a great bit of audacity to be on TV.
		Speaking like the both party does not have wasteful spending, it takes both parties to sign a bill and pass funding, so no one's hands is clean.
		My question to him is, how far would he let Elon Musk go into the senator's pocketbook and find out exactly where they are getting extra money from since you and to allow him into everyone else's personal information?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Katrina in Georgia.
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		Katrina, tell me where he's getting into personal information.
		Is he going to go into senators and money they took?
		Any American that took money, as an example, in U.S. AID, it's going to be exposed.
		And again, let the American people decide.
		And it's not.
		It's the government's money.
		It's taxpayers' money.
		That's what the left doesn't understand.
		And so, You know, he doesn't care where it leads to.
		He just, his investigations are enabling us to have a front row seat of where your money is going when you, on April 15th, when you pay taxes, where my money's going.
		It's the greatest day, and every state ought to be doing what Donald Trump is doing for the country.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Representative Norton, you talked about this meeting you have to go to.
		Is it budget-related?
		And if so, what's the nature of the meeting?
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		Nature of the meeting is the budget committee is responsible for putting out a resolution reconciliation.
		And what we're coming up with is baseline dollars to put on paper.
		And Jody Arrington, who's doing a good job, has met with leadership.
		And we'll hopefully see that when we meet at 9 o'clock.
		But we started at 8 o'clock this morning, the budget meeting, going over numbers.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And what's your ideal version of a reconciliation bill?
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		Ideal version is to have a baseline of $2 trillion to cut with an aspiration of $2.5 trillion.
		My aspirations are to have meaningful cuts, as has been shown in USAID, which should have been cut a long time ago.
		And you go into, I mean, the EV tax credits, the student loan forgiveness, the work requirements, that's all basics that the American people, I think, will agree with, regardless of whether you're Democrat or Independent.
		We're Americans.
		And it's gotten the debt numbers don't lie.
		And so we've got to get it on the path of solvency.
		And I think we'll do that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Budget Committee member of House Freedom Caucus member Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for your time today.
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		My pleasure.
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Coming up in about 40 minutes from now, we'll hear from Kent Lasserman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
		He's going to discuss recommendations they're making to Congress about reducing the amount of regulation that takes place in Washington, D.C.
		But first, open forum and here's how you can participate: 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats, Independents, 202748-8002.
		We will take those calls when Washington Journal continues.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		John Dickinson is one of the most significant founders of the United States, who is not well known by all the American public.
		Arthur Jane E. Calvert is trying to change that with her new biography, Penman of the Founding.
		John Dickinson is known for his nine essays under the title Fabious, published anonymously in newspapers during the time that the states were deciding on whether to approve the new Constitution.
		John Dickinson of Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania was the only founding figure present and active in every phase of the revolution, from the Stamp Act crisis through the ratification of the Constitution.
unidentified		Author Jane Calvert talks about her book, Penman of the Founding, a biography of John Dickinson, 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.
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		Browse through our latest collection of C-SPAN products, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories.
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		Democracy.
		It isn't just an idea.
		It's a process.
		A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles.
		It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted.
		Democracy in real time.
		This is your government at work.
		This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Open Forum, and if you want to participate, you can call the phone lines.
		As always, you can send us a text, and you can also post on our social media sites throughout the day at Facebook and on X, The Washington Times, highlighting an event from yesterday, late in the afternoon, the president saying that he will put a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports.
		This is the headline from the Washington Times.
		Here's the president from the Oval Office yesterday talking about this action.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		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, 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 tariffs.
		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 could be a couple of other things also in addition.
		That'll be a pleasure.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		First up on this open forum is Sip.
		He's in Texas.
		Democrats line.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning, C-Sam.
		I've been watching this program since Brian started.
		Brian Lam started years ago.
		But I want to take my little time to ask everybody to stand back and take a bird's eye view of our situation in our country.
		Everybody is focusing on insignificant stuff.
		Elon Musk wants to get in there to hide all the corruption and scamming he has already done.
		He's going to hide that and he's going to set it up to do more.
		President Trump is dictated by Stephen Miller, the guy that they just put over Voss.
		People like that.
		Project 25.
		That's what's going on.
		So let's stop worrying about this little stuff, aid going to people.
		It's what they've been, the Pentagon in the government.
		That's where the money is.
		That's what they want to do.
		They want to hide.
		He's not going to mess with our little Social Security and none of that.
		They had that big money up there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Sue is next in Ohio, Republican line.
unidentified		Hello, I'm Colin.
		I hear today on a business network that FEMA had given $50 million to New York to keep the illegal immigrants up in luxury hotels.
		And I think they just slipped it through.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Sue in Ohio.
		Things to watch out for in the next day or so.
		This is from Roll Call saying that Tulsa Gabbard, the nominee to become Director of National Intelligence, one step closer to confirmation after the Senate crossed a procedural hurdle Monday.
		Senators voted 52 to 46 to approve a closure motion on Gabbard's nomination.
		The vote on the confirmation will come as soon as late Tuesday unless members agree to shorten the time for debate.
		The Majority Leader John Thune praised Gabbard on a floor speech ahead of the vote, highlighting her, quote, plans to focus on identifying and eliminating redundancies and inefficiencies, as well as our intent to prosecute leakers to the full extent of the law.
		It also highlights the fact that Republicans moved her through committee on a party line vote.
		The Monday closure vote was also along party lines with Senators John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, and Tom Tillis, a Republican of North Carolina, missing the vote.
		Let's hear from Armand in Florida, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		And yeah, I'm calling because that first caller that you had had it right on the head.
		He wasn't articulating himself really clearly, but he knows where the big money is.
		It's up in Congress.
		That senator that you just had on, he didn't answer the question about whether or not he wants Elon Musk going into his finances.
		I think Elon Musk should have started with the IRS and all the tax loopholes because that's where all the revenue is.
		Because if they got all the revenue from all the, everybody's getting away without paying their taxes.
		They actually have commercials on TV to show you how to get your tax rate brought down and not pay your full expenditures in taxes.
		So yeah, go after the money, but go after the big money.
		What they're going after right now is hurting all the little people who don't have the money to defend themselves and help themselves.
		So yeah, why go after the little money when you can go after the big money?
		And Elon Musk, he's another one who doesn't want to have the tax internal revenue searched by himself.
		He's not going to search himself for all the tax loopholes he's been getting for his EVs.
		So yeah, I think the guy on the first guy was right.
		Go after the big money.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Armand there.
		Let's go to New York.
		This is Aaron, Democrats line.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hey, good morning, guys.
		This is so unbelievable because I get that you guys are going crazy about Elon doesn't need it.
		The gentleman said before that Elon doesn't need a paycheck.
		Of course he doesn't need one.
		But he made over a billion dollars in the space of a month.
		What is he going to do next?
		I think Nelson Mandela right now is rolling over in his grave.
		Okay.
		Elon is from South Africa.
		He doesn't need the money.
		Where did he get his money?
		Okay, how did he got in this country?
		What is he going to do next?
		Implement this Afrikaner language in our school system?
		What exactly is he going to?
		You need to talk about this man because he doesn't need a paycheck from us.
		He's already making it.
		And if he wants to cut some money or save some money, what about the government contractor?
		You have a lot of those contracts.
		Is he going to cut some of those money from the waste in his company?
		Okay, how is that going to work?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Robert joins us from Florida, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning, and thanks for C-SAN.
		C-SAN shows truth of who shot John and who said what and not.
		But basically, our whole nation, no matter what party we're on.
		Hello?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		No matter what fire we are, mindset we have, we need to figure out the part of agreeing to disagree.
		But the things we agree on is what we need to deal with.
		We all agree we're in debt.
		I learned as a youngster to balance out life finances with me.
		What do I need and what do I want?
russell means ▲ ● ▼		I take care of my needs, and my wants have to wait.
unidentified		I haven't had a vacation in 10 years straight.
unidentified		But I learned to pay my bills.
russell means ▲ ● ▼		Now I don't have to worry about a mortgage payment because I took care of a need.
unidentified		That's what America needs to do.
unidentified		That's what every citizen needs to get an accountable response from the Congress.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Charlie in New York, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Oh, hi.
		Well, just a couple of things.
		I mean, it's like a whirlwind of things going on from Trump every day.
		A couple of things I'm just wondering about.
		You see him all the time writing, and I'm wondering if he's writing an X because he can't sign or X represents Mr. Musk.
		Also, with Gaza, the thing of Gaza, because some people are just wondering what the heck's he talking about in terms of he's ready to buy it.
		But I guess he wants to put up a Trump Tower East, maybe in there.
		The question I want to ask you, though, is: I've heard on the news, you know, so much news coming out, what he's doing, this, that, the other, or wants to do.
		I heard about PBS and NPR being basically, because I'm not sure if they get some money through the government, whatever, but they have some issues where I heard a little bit in terms of that they may be affected by what he wants to do.
		I'm just wondering, where does C-SPAN stand in relation to anything that Trump might want to do, which might affect negatively C-SPAN?
		And that's just my question to you because you're one of the more independent entities that is out there to listen to.
		And unless you go on the BBC or NPR or the BBC.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Charlie, I appreciate the question and thank you for it.
		Just as far as C-SPAN is concerned, I'll stick to the financing.
		And this is things we've said over the years, and I've probably said it ad nauseum over the years, that we don't take any federal funds, and we're funded by the cable industry.
		The cable operators, ultimately, the people with cable support us and what we do.
		And in these times, we're looking for other means of revenue as far as you've probably seen us talk about donations you can make directly and things like that.
		But I'll just stick to that when it comes to the funding issue.
unidentified		Could I ask you a follow-up question in light of what you just said?
unidentified		In terms of, well, the Zuckerbergs and the Gezos changing direction, the cable companies possibly could put pressure on C-SPAN from the president and his minions, putting pressure on them to basically say, hey, C-SPAN needs to do this or do that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for the question as well.
		And I will say that our cable operators who support us, and we thank them for it, also allow us for this independence that we can show as far as our programming and what we do and what we air with no influence or interference from them.
		But thank you for the questions for both of them.
		Let's go to Maxine in Maryland, Democrats line.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hi.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		I was just wondering when Trump took office and he was saying that he's going to do this and do this.
		Hi.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Carl and Maxine, let me tell you, you're probably listening to yourself on television and you're going to hear a delay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So go ahead with your question or comment directly and ignore the television.
unidentified		I'm trying to figure out when Trump took office and he was saying that he's going to do this and do that.
unidentified		You know, I haven't heard anything on the matters that we need to be focusing on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Such as what?
unidentified		He's supposed to be focused on child care, food care, and whatnot.
		So my thing is, why come these two parties cannot get together and work together on this and get these matters straightened out?
		So right now, everybody is like bickering with each other.
		So.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Maxine there in Maryland, a couple of things, things you may not have seen in the coverage of the Trump administration.
		This from News 5 Chicago saying that former Illinois Governor Rob Lagojevich was issued a pardon by President Trump on Monday nearly five years after his sentence was commuted.
		He was convicted of trying to sell the Senate seat of then President-elect Barack Obama, had his 14-year prison sentence commuted by President Trump in 2020, but now the president has gone a step further, granted the former governor a full pardon, quote, I want to simply say I'm determined to do whatever I can as a private citizen, volunteer my time and efforts to the best I could fight for justice and do what I think is right, Blagojevich said Monday night outside of his home.
		Also, when it comes to actions by the Defense Secretary, WRAL News reporting that Fort Liberty is changing its name again, it was on Monday that the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegset signed a memorandum declaring the Army would rename the base from Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg.
		Hegseth posted video of him signing the memo on X. According to Hegseth, the fort will be named after private first class Roland Bragg, who served with the Army during World War II.
		During the Battle of the Bulge, Bragg drove a stolen German ambulance 20 miles to get a wounded soldier to an Allied forces hospital in Belgium.
		He was awarded a Purple Heart and a Silver Star for his actions.
		He was stationed at the installation when he was enlisted.
		Let's go to Marshall, Marshall in Florida, Republican line.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		What I'm wondering about is why are the Democrats and the Republicans, as most, worried?
		Are they worried that Elon Musk is going to find out what they have done wrong or where the money's going?
		I mean, this is what we need to find out.
		So either the Democrats or the Republicans, if they have committed fraud, okay, and took money and put money where it don't belong, hey, they should be tried and either made pay it back or be convicted.
		But I can't understand why the Democrats, to be honest with you, is so afraid of this, of trying to block Trump from having all this stuff done.
		And I don't think it's just the Democrat.
		I think it's some of the Republicans, too.
		And so they're so afraid of being exposed of what they've done.
		And I really believe that.
		Thank you for your time, and you have a good day.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joseph and Maryland, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
		My question is, but must be looking to everything.
		Why not look at the congressmen and the senators that come in as middle-class people that leave out as millionaires after 30 and 40 years manipulating with the stocks and hiring their cousins and their mothers and the fathers on their staff?
		Now, how much waste is that in the government?
		That's a question.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Darlene joins us from Florida, Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hello, you're next up.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		I have a couple of comments, I guess.
		My question or comment is regarding Musk and the USAID.
		I think it's all smoke and mirrors because I've been reading articles that the USAID Inspector General was investigating Musk SpaceX Starlink satellite terminals regarding Russia and Ukraine.
		And the other thing is: have you ever noticed when you ask a representative a question, they can never give you a straight yes or no answer?
		And my last thing is, didn't Obama have, didn't he have Doge?
		And my concern is that these people are not vetted and they should do it up and above board and not close all these departments.
		They should do it while the people are still working.
		That's all I have to say.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Darlene in Florida, several Democrats gathered in front of the Consumer Financial Protection Proto to express their concerns about its future in light of what's going on in Washington.
		The Hill reporting that Senator Elizabeth Warren Monday slammed the Trump administration's efforts to shutter the Bureau as, quote, another scam.
		You can see that whole event that took place on C-SPAN.
		But here's a portion from Senator Elizabeth Warren over concerns of the future of the CFPB.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		Donald Trump and Elon Musk have told the financial cops at the CFPB to stand down.
		Now think about this.
		I want you to think about this for a minute.
		No matter how big the scam, no matter how bold the trap, they have said just stand by and let the Wall Street boys take your money.
		Well, we are here to fight back.
		We want our financial cops back on the beat.
unidentified		Yep.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		This is a fight.
		And I want you to watch who this fight is between.
		This is a fight between millions of hardworking people who just don't want to get cheated and a handful of billionaires like Elon Musk who want the chance to cheat them.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Again, that full event available on our platforms.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Bonnie is in Ohio, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		Nice to be with you.
		I was listening about what the last, you just showed a warren, given that.
		If the Democrats knew what they're doing, they're making fools out of themselves.
		They're getting out there like a bunch of fighting little kids.
		I'm so proud to be a Republican now.
		I used to be a Democrat.
		And Trump is doing exactly what he ran on.
		He's showing all the waste in our country.
		He's not even charging anything.
		And he's an honest man.
		He's pulling the dirt out of what's going on.
		He's saving the country money.
		And they're worried that he's going to get in on their money coming in from corruption.
		So they're just having a fit.
		Well, they're never going to get themselves back into office acting like that.
		It's stupid.
		They're not trying to put his people through on their nominations.
		Couting doing a sit-in for 30-some hours and just being like babies.
		It's disgusting.
		So I am so proud of our president.
		I'm proud to say he's my president.
		I didn't say that about the last president.
		I was embarrassed by him.
		So I just thank you for letting me speak my piece.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Bonnie in Ohio there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Stephen in Pennsylvania, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning.
		I did some research into the stuff that's going on with Elon Musk going around, deputized by the president.
		And as a deputy, he has the powers of what a sheriff would have anywhere in the United States to interpret the Constitution.
		The executive branch in 1963 created that U.S. aid building in the workforce and established other non-elected by the people institutions that run government and shuffle the money around.
jesse ventura ▲ ● ▼		They have no, the judges have no legislative right in the U.S. to block any type of closures or seizures of information that lead to fraud.
unidentified		Now, the people have been defrauded.
		Now, I was born in 1962, so due to math, there's a lot of stuff that's going down that's got to be corrected.
		Millions and millions and millions of dollars was taken from us when I was a junior in high school.
		They closed a bank account.
		My dad had to close his bank accounts for us, saving for college, because they were automatically taxed as income.
		So we liquidated our accounts so they couldn't take the tax money out of our child savings.
		Now, this has been going on for how many years?
		But the judges who stepped in and are blocking this have no right because they were legislative.
		They didn't create these institutions.
		The executive bench did.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Stephen there in Pennsylvania, the U.S. Vice President JD Vance, making his appearance on the world stage for the first time, outlining Tuesday the artificial intelligence policies of President Trump's administration, prioritizing innovation, deregulation, protection of free speech, and U.S. workers.
		And what he likened as the dawn of a new industrial revolution, he made these comments in Paris saying, quote, I'm not here this morning to talk about AI safety, which was the title of the conference a couple of years ago.
		I'm here to talk about AI opportunity, going on to say the Trump administration believes that AI will have countless revolutionary applications in economic innovation, job creation, national security, health care, free expression, and beyond.
		And to restrict its developments now will not only unfairly benefit incumbents in the space, it would mean paralyzing one of the most promising technologies we have seen in generations.
		This administration will ensure that American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide.
		And we are the partner of choice for other foreign countries and certainly businesses as they expand their own use of AI.
		Again, you're seeing video there from the Vice President's Travels.
		As you look at that, we will hear from Ron.
		Ron in South Carolina, Democrats line on this open forum.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have a couple of comments.
		I have no fight in this battle.
		I see Elon Musk as having a job to do.
		I want him to complete the job.
		Just because he finds fraud, or he says he finds fraud, we don't know.
		That's just the allegation.
		He needs the DOJ to come in and get lawyers involved and put these people on trial if there's something illegal going on.
		Instead, he's just going on starting another fire somewhere else, making people more upset over different things, saying there's fraud and there's theft and everything.
		He needs to finish one job before he goes to the next job.
		He's got all these whiz kids.
		He should be able to do that.
		The DOJ is open because they ain't done nothing else.
		So I want Americans to quit looking, have one job completed before they go to another job.
walter burien ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		In Iowa, Republican line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We'll hear from Mike.
unidentified		Morning, Craig Rue.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
unidentified		Yeah, I'd like to see the Republicans maybe get a couple Democrats and put them with Elon Musk to help him go through all the wasteful spending and saying just to see how the Democrats react about that.
		If they get a couple people in their own party in there to help assist Musk, and maybe that would calm them down a little bit.
		So it'd be interesting.
		All right.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is from the Hill that the president hosting Jordan's King Abdullah II today as he escalates pressure on the Arab nation to take in refugees from Gaza, perhaps permanently, as part of his audacious plan to remake the Middle East.
		The visit happening at a perilous moment for the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza as Hamas, accusing Israel of violating the truce, has said it is pausing future releases of hostages.
		And as Mr. Trump has called for Israel to resume fighting, if all those remaining in captivity are not freed by this weekend, look for that on our C-SPAN networks later on today.
		Let's go to Bill.
		Bill in Michigan, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, sir.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I just have been watching this program for years, and it gets me upsetting the way the people are in the government and individuals that they don't believe what they see.
		Starting with Afghanistan, starting with the border.
		And he had four years of just chaotic stuff that they thought the American people were blind.
		You watch it, but don't believe what you see.
		Believe what we tell you.
		Now, you get a president like Trump that tells you what he's going to do.
		He campaigned on what he's going to do.
		Now he's doing it.
		And these people can't believe it.
		I mean, it's like you said, common sense.
		Here, he's showing you.
		He didn't tell you what he was going to do and not come back out and show you.
		Like Biden did.
		He did.
		Okay.
		He said when he was going to be president, if he got to be president, he was going to show the American people.
		And every day he was going to tell you what he was going to do.
		And it's a common sense.
		So if you don't want to save your tax money, you know, well, then he won't do it.
		I mean, he can only get away with so much, but all he's doing is showing you where the government waste is.
		And these people don't want to know and don't believe in it.
johnny in florida ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I just don't understand why they can't see something and try to believe in it.
unidentified		And he's not going to get away with doing something illegal that he can't get away with.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Bill there in Michigan.
		One more call.
		This is from John in New York, Democrats line.
unidentified		Yeah, I'm a Democrat, but I voted for Trump for one reason.
		The Democrats opened the border and caused this whole mess.
		If they didn't do that, if they were smart on immigration, if they were correct on immigration, probably wouldn't have Trump today.
		And I called up C-SPAN.
		I was warming them warning.
		I said these caravans of illegals, caravans, it's going to come back to bite the Democrats and it did.
		Now on to Elon Musk, I tend to not trust him.
		He kind of looks like a psycho to me.
		But I'm going to let him kind of, you know, go and, you know, keep an open mind about it.
		But he just doesn't seem trustworthy.
		And lastly, the congressman that you had in earlier when he was mentioning that they're going to reform Social Security and Medicare.
		Whenever you hear Republicans talk about reforming Social Security and Medicare, that's cuts.
		They're looking at cuts.
		So wake up, people.
		We didn't all go to Trump University.
		Wake up.
		Okay.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John in Syracuse, New York, finishing off this open forum.
		Thanks for those who've participated.
		One more segment to go.
		We'll take a look at the amount of regulations being made by the federal government, particularly what the Trump administration should be doing in that regulation space.
		Joining us for that discussion, Kent Lassman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
		He serves as their president and CEO.
		Coming up next on Washington Journal.
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pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Kent Lassman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
		He serves as their president and CEO.
		How do you explain your institute to other people?
unidentified		Well, at CEI, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, we're focused on economic regulation.
unidentified		So primarily things that come out of the federal government from the bureaus and agencies, the departments, the regulations, the rules that tell us how to get along and how to interact and how to run our businesses.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How does regulation determine all of that and particularly how the federal government operates?
unidentified		Well, there's two questions there.
		There's the rules that the agencies create for how businesses do their job, do their work, how they interact with customers, what they're allowed to purchase, how they sell, how they advertise, where they can locate their facilities or not locate.
		All of that is the regulation that is created here in Washington and affects the rest of America.
		There's also very important regulation, the process.
		How do we go about creating those rules?
		How do we change them?
		How do we adjudicate when there's a conflict?
		So if a Bureau of Land Management at the Department of Interior says you're not allowed to do such and such on your land and you disagree, you think that that's not a problem, how do you resolve that conflict?
		Those procedural norms are also created through regulation and we study and make proposals on both sides of that equation.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You've had the Biden administration, I imagine you keep track of the rate of regulation that that administration created.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How would you compare that to what you're seeing at least in the first couple of weeks of the Trump administration?
unidentified		The first few weeks, I think we're 22 days into an administration, a four-year administration.
		The first few weeks here, we are watching what we see every four years, or at least every time there's a changeover from one president to another, which is to say there's a pause.
		Every time there's a new team, they come into town, they issue an announcement to the agency heads, and they say, put a freeze on the rules that you're creating.
		Give us a chance to get our arms around what's happening, what's moving through the system.
		Overall, when we look at the last four years, there was a great degree of growth in the rate of new regulation.
		Last year, we had 26 new regulations for every law passed by Congress.
		Previously, that sort of index had been as low as 19.
		So when we're looking at 100,000 pages of regulation coming through the system and then asking the American people to know it, to understand it, to understand how it affects their day-to-day lives, my sense is that's too much.
		And we have too many regulators doing too many things, instructing us how to live our lives in too many ways.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		To that end, I suppose people look at the topic of regulation and feel it as amorphous.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Give an example of how a regulation impacts directly to someone's life.
unidentified		So Congress has established a goal for connectivity to the Internet, telecommunications.
		We have a series of programs across the federal government, about a dozen of them, to provide connectivity, access, subsidies, all sorts of different ways to increase Americans' access to the Internet.
		Well, at the Federal Communications Commission, they have to not only manage the program, it's called the BEAD program, is the principal one, but they have to set the rules for how you apply.
		Once you apply, how much you will receive.
		So there are schools and libraries across this country that are, according to Congress, been granted the privilege of having subsidized service, and they need to then follow large manuals of rules about how to get that service.
		And on a day-to-day basis, we see schools hiring people to administer to the subsidy program or the grant program rather than hire people to teach or instruct children.
		That's the sort of thing where it doesn't take many steps to get from the objective of Congress all the way down to real-life effects in the cities and towns across America.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		For that all being said, then, what's CEI's philosophy of how an administration should handle regulation?
unidentified		Well, the top-level goal is simply to allow more people to live their life in their own way.
		And that means all regulation doesn't have to come from the government.
		We regulate every day through our purchasing power.
		You know, when you decide to subscribe or not subscribe, when I picked out a diner to go to this morning, did I go to the neighborhood coffee shop or did I come downtown and go to the coffee shop near where your offices are here?
		That's a form of regulation.
		There's other forms of regulation that include private standard setting.
		When it comes to the federal government, what we'd like to see are rules that are broadly or what are called generally applicable.
		That is, there's not special carve-outs.
		We don't make the decisions about who gets what based on political considerations.
		We create one rule, a broad rule that applies to all, and it becomes easier to administer, lower costs for the administration, but also easier for people to understand.
		And when it's easier for them to understand, it's more predictable.
		They can make investment decisions better, and everything hums along much better.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		A good discussion with Kent Lassman of Competitive Enterprise Institute.
		You can join in the conversation and ask your questions by calling the lines, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8002, or 8,000 for Democrats, and 202-748-8002 for Independents.
		And text us your questions or comments at 202-748-8003.
		On your website, they have regulation on the agency level.
		The most recent posting said this.
		There were 29 final regulations issued last week, 28 the previous week, 306 final regulations so far in 2025.
		That's on pace for over 3,000 in this year.
		And then adding that there were, when it comes to 2024, 3,200 plus, over 3,000 in 2023, 3,100 in 2022.
		On the agency level, is that rate concerning at this point?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		And what you're putting your finger on is we have not just this flow.
		Every year more than 3,000 new regulations, 3,000 regulations to digest by the American people, but we also have a stock of regulation, all the regulation that's been built up basically for a little more than 100 years now.
		And one feature of our regulatory state is that it's much easier to create new regulation than it is to either amend or repeal an existing rule.
		And as a result, we just keep accumulating and accreting more and more of these obligations for people that all come with the force of law.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And so then when it comes to advising Congress on the amount of regulation or advising the White House on regulation, what conversations have you had with this Congress and its leadership and what's been the response?
unidentified		Well, the very first thing that we do is we've created an agenda for Congress, right?
		And it's available on our website.
		It's a pro-growth agenda.
		We took a look at 15 different categories of economic activity and regulation.
		And we made proposals for Congress using the following criteria.
		We asked ourselves not what would be ideal or perfect from our analysts' point of view, but what could possibly attract support from across the aisle.
		So we have 51 proposals here for Congress that we think should engender support from across the aisle and each of which would do something positive for economic growth and for prosperity and to help make America and our economy a little bit more dynamic.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We just heard from Capitol Hill this morning.
		Congress is particularly on the Republican side and on the Senate side trying to come up with a budget in that budget creation process.
		Is there space there to limit the amount of regulations that are involved?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		And first and foremost, I say that this is not a joke.
		It's just axiomatic.
		Regulators will regulate.
		So fewer regulatory agencies with less legal authority would be a good thing.
		As I mentioned earlier, we have more than 460 rulemaking bodies.
		These are bureaus, offices, departments, agencies.
		And that is not the path toward a healthy economy.
		So the first thing they can do with their budget process is to look at the scope of all the different places, all the different ways that we regulate, and pull some of that back.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Then your concern is on the agency level as well.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you make of the work of Elon Musk these days?
unidentified		Well, that's not a short answer.
		You know, there is something really interesting that I believe the president put his finger on with the distaste for the way our government operates.
		So the Doge activity, it started as a line in a speech in early September.
		It transformed itself into some sort of meme campaign for several months.
		And now it's at the very early stages, just a few weeks into some sort of operationalized program.
		And that operationalized program, what we can say about it is they're moving very quickly.
		It's not clear what standards and legal protections and whatnot apply.
		Those things are being sorted literally day by day.
		And I'm overall quite optimistic that that project, this Doge project of Elon Musk and others, is something that has done at least one very good thing.
		And it has captivated the attention on Capitol Hill, where the attention should be focused on how the government operates.
		The Constitution puts Congress in Article I for a reason.
		It is the primary organ of our government.
		And we're asking Congress to take more care and be more deliberative and to do a little bit more work organizing the nature of our federal government.
		And Doge has been a spotlight, if nothing else.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Would you say that the Congress should be doing the work that Doge is currently doing?
unidentified		As a general rule, oversight is the responsibility of Congress.
		You know, their job is to pass laws that say what government does and then make sure that the executive branch does those things.
		For a long time, we've had a very unhealthy relationship where Congress says, we're going to pass a law, empower an agency to do something, and then we're going to look away.
		We're not going to pay attention.
		And if something ever goes wrong, if there's ever a scandal, if a goal is not met, then we're going to blame the agency.
		And this sort of spotlight is stripping away that negative relationship that we've had in the past and allowing Congress to say, wait a minute, we actually don't understand how all these agencies operate.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our guest website is CEI.org.
		And if you want to see what he referenced as far as the free to prosper effort that they have, the message they have towards Congress when it comes to regulation issues, you can find that on their website.
		Jason in Texas, Independent Line, you're up first for our guest, Kent Lassman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
unidentified		Well, thank you for taking my call.
		The question I have is right now around the country, there's many software technical workers whose jobs are being outsourced overseas.
		And you don't hear a whole lot being talked about that.
		That's a case where regulation can help the average worker.
		So what, I mean, it's talked about that it's America first.
		So how can we help our technical workers not lose our jobs?
		I think the most important thing that can happen with a portion, a sector of the economy, a type of job that is undergoing rapid change is to allow those people and those employees to have opportunities to get reestablished.
		So there's two basic methods.
		You can try to protect and hold on to something that is slipping away because it's moving, in this case, maybe certain tech jobs are moving overseas.
		Or you can create an environment where for every job that goes overseas, we have 10 new ones created.
		And it's that latter approach, the dynamic approach, that is really most important.
		And it's not just for tech jobs.
		It's the same discussion that we have with steel tariffs.
		It's the same discussion that we have year over year when it comes to dynamic change.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Georgina in Miami, Florida, Republican line.
unidentified		Yeah, hi, I'm a Democrat, actually.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, then I'm going to stop you there.
		We'll go on to Louise and ask you to call the line that best represents you, Independent Line, North Carolina.
		Louise, hello.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, Pedro.
		I appreciate you cutting people off when they're calling the wrong line because, you know, you have your opportunity.
		Anyway, what I wanted to say was I think I like this Doge a lot.
		And what's the chances of us being able to keep this going?
		Because I really appreciate it.
		Me retired from the government, I know exactly where we could cut a lot of waste, and I see it.
		And I know they have so much money they can spend before the fiscal year, and they have to use as much as they can to keep their budget high.
		And I really appreciate seeing this going on.
		And what's the chance is this going to stay?
		That's my question.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Louise.
unidentified		Louise, thank you for that.
		I think you are tapped into something that both Vivek Kramaswamy and Elon Musk talked about early in this process, which is they wanted help.
		They wanted insight from people working in these agencies and in these programs because those are the people that know best how they operate and where they work well and where they fail to get the job done.
		What's going to be most important is not all the excitement about naming the problems and the spotlight effect that I described a few minutes ago, but in the coming months to make this durable or to really make this keep going, as you said, we're going to see that there is a problem presented to Congress.
		And the problem is, will they take a vote that might imperil some portion of an agency that is favored at home?
		In order to tackle waste or duplication or problems across the board, they're going to have to probably take votes that also gore their own ox a little bit.
		And that sort of collective action problem is something that Congress has done before, but it's rare.
		And my hope is that all of the energy and activity in the past few weeks can really get them excited enough that they're willing to do something serious about the way our government operates.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You put the onus on Congress, but to what degree are you concerned that members of Congress, particularly Republicans, will say Doge is doing it?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let them take care of that.
unidentified		They might say that.
		That would be irresponsible.
		Quite frankly, Congress is responsible for how the government is structured.
		Full stop.
		And if they don't want to take responsibility for that and write the law that either authorizes or does not authorize some of these programs, then our next available opportunity is to vote them out of office.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The president, in one of his early executive orders, said that for every regulation that's put into place in his administration, they're going to dismiss 10 of them.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What challenges face the president on that front?
unidentified		As I said, it is difficult, more difficult, to remove a rule than it is to put one in place.
		What he's describing here is sort of an acceleration of something that worked quite well during the president's first term.
		He had a rule, a rule of thumb, if you will, not a regulation, that called for two regulations to come out for every new regulation created.
		And this 10 to 1 ratio, it is going to put a lot of pressure on agencies to look at that stock of regulations that they have, the accumulated mass of regulation from over the decades, and start repealing, aggressively repealing old rules.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Andy, Democrats line for Kent Lassman.
		Go ahead.
		He's in Oregon.
unidentified		Yeah, I can't.
		I was curious about what the Competitive Enterprise Institute's position would be on, like, say, stop signs, speed limits, automotive restraints, and if they feel that American citizens have the right to self-regulate their driving habits.
		Thank you, Andy.
		Generally, these sorts of health, welfare, and safety questions should be handled in our state capitals.
		So this, I don't think, is a question for the Department of Transportation or for the White House.
		It is something for the folks in Washington or in Oregon or in California to handle individually.
		And as a result, we do see different, we have seen different seatbelt laws over the years, different helmet laws for motorcycles, speed limits, and the like.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Two specialists at Brookings Institution recently put out a paper taking a look at regulations.
		And one of the points they make is this.
		Regulations keep our food supply, automobiles, financial markets and institutions, pharmaceuticals and workplace safer, our environment cleaner, and our financial markets and instruments more transparent than they otherwise would be.
		That's because the market can, quote, fail in various ways.
		Private companies do not fully internalize the cost of activities, may impose on others.
		And without regulation, consumers may not be fully informed about the risk of products and services they buy.
		Private markets alone are likely to underinvest in so-called public goods.
		The larger question is, if you take away regulations, how do you ensure safety or the concerns that they have to the American public?
unidentified		So any one of those we could tackle.
		It's probably too much to tackle all of them at once.
		But let's talk about food safety, right?
		This is groceries, restaurants, things of that nature.
		First and foremost, on the front line, we have something called reputational value, right?
		No grocery store wants to be responsible for selling bad eggs.
		It's bad for business.
		It's bad for their customers.
		And frankly, the people who run those grocery stores, they're good people too.
		They shop at those grocery stores.
		They don't want contaminated foods on the market.
		The relationship between the growers or producers and the shippers and the retailers of our food supply is something where there's a lot of interdependence, and at each step, every actor has an interest in high quality.
		It is absolutely the case that most states and our federal government, through the Congress, has said we ought to have some standard.
		We ought to have some standard for dairy, we ought to have some standard for eggs, etc.
		If that's the case, I think we can separate safety standards from the economic regulation of how do you ship, how do you sell, what information can you present, do we need a regulation that says that eggs are large, extra-large, AAA?
		All of those things guided by the Department of Agriculture, I think can go by the wayside because consumers and grocers can figure out how to best sell their eggs.
		We don't need a Department of Agriculture to sort all of that out, even if we have set a standard for safety.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is it better than an industry to, in your mind, to self-police itself to make sure they're meeting these standards without some type of outside force looking in?
unidentified		I think we get halfway there.
		The self-police, I want to focus on the policing, right?
		And no one operates or no entity operates autonomously.
		And so as I was describing, the grocers, they're competing against other grocers.
		They're also competing against alternatives.
		We can buy our groceries in many places in this country online and have them delivered.
		So you don't even go to the grocery store.
		In addition, they're dealing with all of their vendors and suppliers.
		And then on the other side of the equation, they're dealing with all of their customers.
		And it doesn't take much for a handful of customers to say, wait a minute, I don't like the look of this.
		It smells bad.
		We're not going to shop there.
		And suddenly, their business tanks.
		So that's, it's not self-policing so much as policing within an ecosystem.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Jerry.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jerry's in Pennsylvania, Republican line.
unidentified		Go ahead.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jerry in Pennsylvania.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Jerry, how come the Democrats are down Trump and Eli Musk for taking over the buildings where they found out all the people, Democrats, were cheating the people?
		The Democrats should be investigated themselves instead of investigating Eli Musk and Donald Trump.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jerry in Pennsylvania.
unidentified		I think the key word of our caller's question is about investigations.
		And what I would like to see, and I think is available to us, is to have Congress take a closer look at what these agencies do and how they fulfill the mandates that are given to them by law.
		It is really important that we don't have agencies setting their own course, deciding for themselves what to work on, what to prioritize, and coloring outside the lines of the statutes given to them by our bicameral system and presentment clause.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The Trump administration has focused in the last day or so on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
		What's your opinion of the Bureau?
		Particularly when it comes to regulatory efforts.
unidentified		The long and short of it is I have something of an outsider view in that I don't think we need the CFPB.
		It ought to be shut down.
		Probably never should have been established.
		But here we are.
		So there's a couple steps that have been taken.
		The first was the interim administrator, similar to a past effort by an interim administrator, turned to the Federal Reserve and said, I do not need more money for the next quarter.
		The CFPB is insulated from our traditional accountability measures for spending in that they don't go to Congress for their appropriation.
		That means their checkbook is filled by simply sending a one-page letter to the Fed saying, I would like more money.
		They have a fund balance of more than $700 million, and so the interim administrator said, we don't need any money for next quarter.
		I think that's right and proper, and it probably could be extended.
		The big point is that the CFPB was set up to do specialized regulation, consumer finance products and services.
		These are credit cards and loans and other consumer finance activity.
		My sense is that the American people are quite smart, and we don't need special regulation on a sectoral basis any more than we need special regulation to tell us that we ought to look for a job that suits our interests or that we ought to educate our children or that we ought to buy eggs that are not fouled by contamination.
		These are the sorts of things that people can sort out for themselves.
		We can enlist and go to war.
		We can buy a house.
		Certainly we can decide whether or not to get a credit card.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One of those driving forces was the Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren.
		She took to X yesterday about the attention being paid to the CFPB and gave her defense of it.
		I want to play a little bit of what she had to say and get your response to it.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		If they succeed, CEOs and Wall Street will once again be free to trip, trap, and cheat you.
		The CFPB is the little agency working to shut down scams and fraud on payment apps like Zelle and PayPal and Cash App.
		It's the agency that steps in when the big bank trips up and repossesses your car.
		It's the agency that's working to cut those crazy fees that banks and credit card companies buried down in the fine print and then you got to pay for them.
		Already, this little agency has forced giant banks and corporations to give back more than $21 billion directly to families they cheated.
		And that includes hundreds of millions of dollars back for veterans who got cheated by predatory lenders.
		So why are these two guys trying to gut the CFPB?
		Not rocket science.
		Trump campaigned on helping working people.
		But now that he's in charge, this is the payoff to the rich guys who invested in his campaign and who want to cheat families and not have anybody around to stop them.
		Yeah, it's another scam.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So Kent Lassman, that's her assessment.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think?
unidentified		Well, I think Senator Warren has a great instinct.
		She wants to help people, but she's got this entirely backward.
		The CFPB that she has just described, scams, problems with fraud, all of these things are already illegal.
		We already have recourse.
		In fact, consumer protection in every single state nests within the Attorney General's office, and most have a consumer advocate that takes up this sort of issue.
		And I tell you, they do it.
		They do it over and over again.
		We don't need a special federal agency spending hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter in order to do the job that's already being done close to where the problem happens.
		So when it arises, people turn to their state government and they say, look, I was defrauded.
		Somebody broke the law.
		And that gets reconciled.
		The notion that this is just a payoff for corporate CEOs or something of the sort, I think is a little bit beneath her in the sense that she's attacking people and motives rather than really looking at the outcomes of the agency and the way it is structured and the way it fits, or in my view, mostly does not fit within our constitutional order.
		It was by design.
		In her own words and her testimony in 2009, subsequently as a senator, it was designed to be insulated from politics.
		And as nice as that sounds, it's actually opposite of what we want.
		We want our agencies accountable to the political actors, the political bodies in our constitutional order, including Congress.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Jeannie.
		Jeannie is in Arizona for our guests.
		Jeannie, thanks for waiting.
		On our independent line, go ahead.
unidentified		Okay, thank you.
		I'd like to know what that, you know, what they investigate regarding the lies that are spewed by some of the news stations, by the online communications that people go to, like Twitter and whatever.
		And basically, are they looking into that at all?
		Where they should hold them responsible because you hear so many people exaggerating and repeating the lies.
		Also, as an aside, the gentleman, Kent Lassman, stated that most people are able to judge for themselves about what's good and not.
		And that is, obviously, he hasn't been around a lot of people that are poorer or that are working two jobs that don't even have the time to study yet.
		They just end up paying the amounts stated.
		I mean, it takes a lot to fight anything, and that's a fact.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Jeannie in Arizona, thank you.
unidentified		Jeannie, fortunately or unfortunately, lying is not illegal.
		Traditionally, what we have said, a little phrase that comes from the Supreme Court, actually, is that the response to bad speech or lies or innuendo of this sort is more speech, that we want more people out there correcting the record.
		I think that's true in our current environment.
		That probably doesn't go far enough.
		We also need to ask ourselves to be better consumers of information to improve the quality of what we expect from where we turn to for news and sourcing.
		When it comes to, just quickly address the last point that Jeannie made, when it comes to the difficulty of working your way through, for example, some of the financial service offers that perhaps she was referring to what Senator Warren talks about.
		It is absolutely the case that the reason when you go to buy a car or an automobile, there are dozens of pages in a form with very small print, is because of the regulation.
		It's not the other way around, right?
		The regulation doesn't protect us from all that.
		It causes all of that.
		And the ability to go to a bank or go to a credit provider and say, this is what I'm willing to pay for such and such service, I think is well within everyone's means.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Leo joins us.
		He's in South Carolina, Democrats line.
		You're next up.
unidentified		Thank you for taking my call.
		My question is, why are we totally relying on a person that hadn't been vetted about the issues that they are investigating and all this downloading to their servers of all of our vital items from our files?
		Also, why aren't the IG, why didn't they keep the IG?
		Because the IG has that overall responsibility to make sure that things are done correctly.
		Another thing is, isn't the idea that they got doing this?
		He invested $270 plus million dollars into the presidency.
		It looks bad.
		It may not be, he may not have bad intention, but we should have, I think, the Congress have oversight responsibility.
		They should be a part of the team.
		They shouldn't have a team that's doing this.
		Everything should be above board.
		What's being done in the dark doesn't end up good.
		I don't think the overall intent is good here because it's being done in the dark and it's being done without interaction between the agencies, between the Congress and the executive branch.
		These things are already law.
		These institutions have been in place and they need to be vetted, not vetted, but investigated.
		Got the point, Leo.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Got the point, Leo.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		I think Leo is spot on about perhaps the most important thing that is happening right now, and that is an increase, an overall increase from all different vectors of transparency that we're better understanding and we're developing new information about the way our government operates.
		To the question about putting people in sensitive positions or vetting or whatnot, that's simply something that I can't speak to.
		I know the president has signed some 75 proclamations, orders, executive orders in the last three weeks.
		There are now at least, the New York Times is reporting 40 lawsuits about those executive actions.
		Those lawsuits, the very first thing that they do is find facts.
		And that's really important.
		It's difficult for us to be patient to understand who's going in where and getting what information with what sort of vetting or whatnot.
		But it's something that we have to rely on a system, a system of laws, and a system of institutions of liberty, like an independent judiciary, rather than rely on the word of one or another politician.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Barbara in Georgia, Republican line, we're running a little short on time, so jump in with your question or comment, please.
unidentified		Okay, thank you for taking my call.
		I just wanted to back up just a little bit, real quick.
		So Mr. Lassman, he said that Congress should really investigate Musk and the group that are going through right now trying to find waste in our spending.
		But my understanding is they have all passed the background that is required and been hired as federal employees.
		So why would it be different for them to be investigated versus every single federal employee that's hired to be investigated?
		And the fact that they're dealing with our money, we've had federal employees dealing with money.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Barbara, thank you.

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