| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
All determined to put an end to Putin's war? | |
| To do so together. | ||
| Ladies and gentlemen, we have work to do. | ||
| I will now ask the media to leave. | ||
| Later today, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt will speak to the reporters at the White House. | ||
| We'll have that live on C-SPAN. | ||
| You can also watch on the free C-SPAN Now video app or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Democracy is always an unfinished creation. | ||
| Democracy is worth dying for. | ||
| Democracy belongs to us all. | ||
| We are here in the sanctuary of democracy. | ||
| Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. | ||
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||
| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
| We are still at our core a democracy. | ||
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
| Welcome to today's Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll start with some of the charts from that CBS News poll. | ||
| And it says this, that this is what they asked Democrats. | ||
| Congressional Democrats' approach to Trump should be oppose Trump as much as possible. | ||
| In January, that number was 46%. | ||
| That went up to 65%. | ||
| Then the question of try to find common ground with Trump, 54% had responded with that in January. | ||
| Now only 35% say that Democrats should try to find common ground with Trump. | ||
| This was another question aimed at Democrats. | ||
| Confidence that congressional Democrats can oppose Trump effectively. | ||
| So those that said a lot stayed about the same. | ||
| Some was at 44% in January. | ||
| It dropped to 36%. | ||
| And those that said that their confidence level was not much or none was at 40% in January and then 48% now. | ||
| So here's what the question was for Republicans. | ||
| And it said, among Republicans, should congressional Republicans' approach to Trump be support when agree and push back when disagree? | ||
| 60% agreed with that. | ||
| 40% said that congressional Republicans should support whatever Trump wants. | ||
| So I wonder what you think of that and where you would be in that, if you were asked those polling questions. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| Here's an article from ABC News about Elon Musk. | ||
| It says he was grilled about Doge transparency and conflicts. | ||
| He was in the Oval Office yesterday with President Trump, and here's a portion of that. | ||
| Everyone's very quiet, brother. | ||
| Nobody's quiet. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have to what? | |
| Including a lot of Democrats. | ||
| I have detractors? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You do, sir. | |
| I don't believe it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Say that you're orchestrating a hostile takeover of government and doing it in a non-transparent way. | |
| What's your response to that criticism? | ||
| Well, first of all, you couldn't ask for a stronger mandate from the public. | ||
| The public voted, to have a majority of the public vote voting for President Trump. | ||
| We won the House. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We won the Senate. | |
| The people voted for major government reform. | ||
| There should be no doubt about that. | ||
| That was on the campaign. | ||
| The president spoke about that at every rally. | ||
| The people voted for major government reform, and that's what people are going to get. | ||
| They're going to get what they voted for. | ||
| And a lot of times, you know, people that don't get what they voted for, but in this presidency, they are going to get what they voted for. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's what democracy is all about. | |
| And I'll just show you this article from The Hill, and then we'll take your calls. | ||
| It says, GOP senators terrified of crossing Trump facing Musk-funded challengers. | ||
| The article says that the White House has signaled that Republicans who thwart Trump's agenda by voting against his controversial nominees or opposing efforts by Musk to freeze government funding and slash federal agencies such as USAID will pay a political price. | ||
| It says, and that's a threat that carries a lot more weight when Musk, the world's richest person, could easily pour tens of millions of dollars into a Senate Republican primary. | ||
| It says that Musk warned Republican lawmakers in December that he was compiling a, quote, naughty list of members who buck Trump's agenda. | ||
| He also pledged shortly after Election Day that his political action committee would, quote, play a significant role in primaries next year. | ||
| And we'll go to the phones now and start with Mary, a Democrat in Fort Madison, Iowa. | ||
| Good morning, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| The Supreme Court has the ability to reverse decisions they've made. | ||
| They see what's going on. | ||
| It's time for them to step forward now and reverse their immunity decision now before we have old people dying in the streets. | ||
| Mary, what do you think about what Congress can do? | ||
| Mary? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just think the Supreme Court holds the key to the whole thing as far as their immunity, getting him immunity to do anything he wants to do. | |
| It's time for them to reverse that decision. | ||
| They can do it. | ||
| They have that. | ||
| They need to do it now. | ||
| And what did you mean by old people dying in the streets? | ||
| What are you worried about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
If they mess with Medicare and take away Social Security, I mean, what are people supposed to do? | |
| Just die in the streets? | ||
| I mean, they won't be any health care. | ||
| They won't be any money coming in for food or anything else. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Come on, Supreme Court. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do something. | |
| Here's William, a Republican in Orange Park, Florida. | ||
| Good morning, William. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| I think Mr. Trump should be allowed to do whatever he wants to do. | ||
| But I got a question for you. | ||
| Who's the top law person in this country now? | ||
| Everything happens so fast, I can't keep up. | ||
| Who's the what? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Who's the top law person, like the sheriff or whatever, whatever, DOJ? | |
| Who's in charge of that? | ||
| You're talking about the Attorney General, Pam Bondi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I don't think she's worth spit if she don't bring charges against Schumer for going after two Supreme Court justices. | ||
| You want her to bring charges against Senator Schumer for what exactly with regard to this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He threatened two Supreme Court justices. | |
| How is he still walking around? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Here's Richard in Millsboro, Delaware, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Richard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I'm a retired federal worker as part of my career. | |
| About a third of my career, I was a retired federal worker. | ||
| I worked at EPA, and I worked as a consultant also for part of my career, the rest of my career, I guess you could say. | ||
| And I'm also in a hospital bed for the last year and a half going on. | ||
| And I guess I can't hear you. | ||
| Answer me if you can. | ||
| No, I wasn't talking, Richard. | ||
| Just go ahead and talk right into the phone. | ||
| Don't look at the TV. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, thanks. | |
| So what I was trying to say is I'm surviving by Medicare and Social Security, and I am, You know, someone who is worried about, | ||
|
unidentified
|
from a standpoint of the environmental progress that's been made over the last 50 years, that we will return to it, but we will lose some of that progress if the EPA isn't there and strong. | |
| And I would like to add that as far as civil service goes, I worked in the government for 11 years. | ||
| And I'm proud to have done that work because the civil servants are the backbone of the government. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're the people that get hired to do the work that Congress and the President pass laws to have the government do for the American people. | |
| Now, Richard, let me ask about waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| Elon Musk is saying that that's what he's going after. | ||
| Do you think in the EPA, since that's where you worked, that there's wasteful spending, there's people abusing the funds that are supposed to be allocated for something else? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not on the grand scale, like they're alleging and making the American public believe. | |
| I think you can always find ways to improve the efficiency of organizations. | ||
| That includes both the private sector and the public sector. | ||
| But it's not a whole-scale throwout, the baby with the bathwater kind of situation. | ||
| All right, Richard. | ||
| This is Dave in Santa Barbara, California, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Go ahead, Dave. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd just like to say a common sense approach is nothing wrong with that. | |
| And if they're trying to do that, why interfere? | ||
| You know, people want to interfere just because they want to interfere. | ||
| And it seems like they're pushing socialism over democracy and acting like dirty opposite, is what I'm saying. | ||
| So, Dave, the previous caller just said that they're, you know, he said that they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. | ||
| Do you think that there might be a better way to go about finding efficiencies? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they're doing the best they can right now. | |
| They should appreciate that. | ||
| That's what's happened. | ||
| They don't appreciate the effort being made is 100% effort. | ||
| So why stall it or stop when they're doing it in a godly way? | ||
| There's nothing wrong with that. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But there's something wrong with socialism where anything goes, and that's a miracle. | |
| Anything goes not really. | ||
| That's not really how America works. | ||
| Anything goes. | ||
| Doesn't make sense. | ||
| All right, Dave. | ||
| Let's take a look at Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer yesterday talking about the threat of a possible government shutdown and the several legal cases against the Trump administration. | ||
| The trend is clear. | ||
| Donald Trump cannot bulldoze his way through the rule of law. | ||
| That's what the courts in America are saying. | ||
| Donald Trump isn't allowed to break the law to achieve those goals. | ||
| That's not how America works. | ||
| And my Republican colleague should not sit idly by while he does it. | ||
| Now, in five weeks, funding for the federal government will run out. | ||
| Let's remember that when there's talk about a Republican shutdown, President Trump and Republicans are already shutting down large chunks of the government. | ||
| Democrats do not want to shut the government down, but the Republicans are in charge, and they should fund the government. | ||
| Since the inauguration, President Trump and Republicans have been actively working to shut down the government entirely on their own. | ||
| CHCs, research institutions, export for farmers, protections for Americans. | ||
| Nobody's working harder right now to shut down the government than Donald Trump and congressional Republicans. | ||
| That was Senator Schumer yesterday, and we're taking your calls on this topic. | ||
| What's your message to Congress on the Trump agenda for about the next 15 minutes? | ||
| We got some comments from Facebook. | ||
| Michael says, yes, we Democrats need to let the American people know that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches exist to hold each other to account and ensure checks and balances. | ||
| Suzette said, Trump is doing the people's work and doing exactly what he was voted in to do. | ||
| Promises made, promises kept. | ||
| The Democrats certainly don't have a better plan to attack the problem of this nation's debt. | ||
| In fact, they have no plan at all other than to add to it. | ||
| Keeley says, of course they want to oppose him. | ||
| He's exposing all of their idiotic, selfish policies and their fraud. | ||
| That's why they didn't get elected. | ||
| And Edie said, I don't believe this poll anyway. | ||
| And here's Dolores, a Democrat in Collierville, Tennessee. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would like to make, can you understand me, please? | |
| I have had surgery. | ||
| My speech is impaired, so please give me a few minutes. | ||
| Sure, go ahead, Dolores. | ||
| We can understand you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, baby. | |
| What the Republicans is doing to our country is just like my brother-in-law said, he's from Nigeria, how South Africa, how they did over there, the apartheid. | ||
| It's slowly happening here in our country. | ||
| He left away from over there and came here for freedom. | ||
| And he sees this happening all over again. | ||
| Trump and the Republicans, they are bought and paid for by those billionaires. | ||
| We can see it. | ||
| This man sit out there and lie, say he didn't know nothing about 2025. | ||
| He knew it all. | ||
| And these people are falling for it. | ||
| And guess what? | ||
| The American people are the ones who are suffering. | ||
| He wants to take away Medicare, Medicaid, food from children, women's rights, voting's rights. | ||
| They want everything in America just like apartheid. | ||
| Please wake up. | ||
| And another thing, may I say right quick, here in Tennessee, they're killing people every day. | ||
| Even children, they're not saying anything about that. | ||
| Marsha Blackburn and the other Republicans, please put that out there. | ||
| Trump is taking on selling our country out. | ||
| Wake up, America. | ||
| He's not doing anything for the average person. | ||
| They put him in there, and he's making fools out of them and laughing about it. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Steve, an independent in Lakeland, Florida. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
| Yes, I was calling, just like Elon said yesterday, are we a bureaucracy or democracy? | ||
| That's what I'm looking at. | ||
| Also, you're quoting that YouGov stuff on ABC. | ||
| I've been doing the UGOV survey for over two years now. | ||
| And yesterday, when I done that, it was the most biased survey I've ever done. | ||
| All the answers to the questions were pigeonholed, and I felt like... | ||
| Wait, wait, explain that, Steve. | ||
| Can you explain that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The questions that were asked each time it was negative about President Trump. | |
| Like I said, I've been doing this for two years. | ||
| Not one time has you gov ever done a survey with negative stuff about Biden and everything else. | ||
| And every answer, it was basically pigeonholed that I couldn't answer what I really wanted to answer. | ||
| Hold on, hold on. | ||
| Wait, let's talk about this, Steve. | ||
| I pulled it back up. | ||
| This is a CBS News YouGov poll. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sorry. | |
| Is it YouGov? | ||
|
unidentified
|
YouGov. | |
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's the one I've been doing for two years, and on TV, it said ABC, YouGov. | |
| No, it's CBS. | ||
|
unidentified
|
CBS. | |
| Okay, awesome. | ||
| so here's the question congressional democrats approach to trump should be so this is democrats to work with trump not work against him Why are they against all this stuff, money going to other countries? | ||
| So the question is, should congressional Democrats oppose Trump as much as possible or try to find common ground with Trump? | ||
| Those are the two questions. | ||
| That's not pigeonholed when you're asking Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is pigeonholed. | |
| But you're only asking Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, no, no. | |
| So this is the one that's asking Republicans. | ||
| It says this. | ||
| So Congressional Republicans' approach to Trump should be support when agree, push back when disagree, or support whatever Trump wants. | ||
| So how is that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're saying it's not how it was in the survey, ma'am. | |
| You're not listening. | ||
| Once again, I done the survey. | ||
| Are you sure you're doing the right one? | ||
| Because you said it was ABC. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, now you're insulting me. | |
| But you said it was ABC. | ||
| This is CBS. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're insulting me. | |
| Okay, sorry to insult you, Steve. | ||
| This is Julian in Stanford, Connecticut, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| How are you? | ||
| I'm doing okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, instead of asking all these hypothetical questions, right, why don't you post a list of USAID as to where that money was going? | |
| Why don't you post that? | ||
| Because most of these people that call you are CNN viewers and MSNBC viewers that don't know anything. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| So why don't you post a list, Mimi? | ||
| How do you know all of our viewers are CNN and MSNBC viewers? | ||
| Are you not? | ||
| You're a viewer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, no, I'm not. | |
| I'm not because I know what's going on. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But why don't you? | |
| We'll find that for you. | ||
| We'll try to find a breakdown of USAID funding. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mimi, Mimi, Mimi. | |
| Why don't you post the list as to where that money is going? | ||
| I'm telling you, we're going to try to find it for you. | ||
| We're going to try to find information at the breakdown of that. | ||
| Julie, you got anything else for me? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you are a lovely woman. | |
| Clay in Augusta, Georgia, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Clay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, how you doing? | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Morning. | ||
| You know, the Democrats have to just do just like the Eagles did, the Chiefs. | ||
| Don't let up. | ||
| Don't let up. | ||
| Start talking about groceries. | ||
| Start talking about the price of eggs. | ||
| That's all he talked about was grocers and groceries. | ||
| So you can't let up. | ||
| That's how you win. | ||
| Let the American people know all the lies that this man told when he was running for president. | ||
| So just like this, real quickly, Ivan, what's his name? | ||
| Yvon Musk? | ||
| Musk, yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This man is from South Africa. | |
| The United States destroyed his company, I mean, his country. | ||
| And don't you know Elon is trying to do the same thing for the United States? | ||
| He was 18 years old when we destroyed, what is that, Pot Tie? | ||
| So he is trying to do the same thing for the United States. | ||
| So please wake up. | ||
| It doesn't make any sense. | ||
| And thank you so very much. | ||
| And Julian wanted to see a breakdown of USAID spending. | ||
| This is a Newsweek article with that. | ||
| If you'd like to take a look, it says, what does USAID spend money on? | ||
| Here's a list of potential cuts. | ||
| So here's what it says. | ||
| I won't read all of them, but here's the top ones. | ||
| $16.8 billion for governance, $10.5 billion for humanitarian assistance, $7 billion for health. | ||
| And if you'd like a further breakdown of those, we'll try to find a little bit more information for you. | ||
| But there is, I believe it's USAspending.gov, but we will continue to look at that and provide the information as we get it. | ||
| John in Granada Hills, California, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I want the Republican Senate to start doing their job. | ||
| They have just laid down like weeks. | ||
| They are letting Trump jump all over them. | ||
| They are totally afraid. | ||
| It says the Republican Party that has this ideology. | ||
| If you don't do what King Trump wants, we're going to use Musk's money and get you out of office. | ||
| That would never occur to Democrats. | ||
| I mean, Republicans just don't understand the three equal branches of government. | ||
| And man, does this show not a single peep about Trump's latest, he wants to be a worldwide real estate agent and have a big deal going on in the Gaza Strip. | ||
| Not a single peep from the Republicans. | ||
| It's just sickening how banal they have become that they just are nothing but a stamp pad for Donald Trump. | ||
| And this is Dennis in Hudson, Indiana, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Dennis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Congress needs to get on board. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Democrats need to get on board or resign. | |
| Get on board or get out of the way. | ||
| And as far as these people like Chuck Schumer, why is Chuck Schumer not in prison for the crime he committed of trying to intimidate the Supreme Court from the steps of the United States Supreme Court? | ||
| Chuck Schumer is a felon and he should be prosecuted. | ||
| And how do we know that these Democrats all listen to MBC, MSNBC, and CNN? | ||
| Because they all dribble the same talking points, the same exact talking points you hear on CNN and MSNBC. | ||
| They need to wise up, quit listen to the idiot Democrats that are trying to control them and turn this country into a socialist country. | ||
| The reason the Democrats want to spend all this money is to get people dependent on the government, because when they have them dependent on the government, they can tell them what they have to do. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And this is Jim in Crown Point, Indiana, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
State Supreme Court. | |
| Chuck Schumer. | ||
| You got to turn down your TV. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How do we know that? | |
| Yes, I'm here. | ||
| Yep, go right ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I just wanted to make the comment of I believe the Democrats should be working with the Republicans. | |
| And as a lifelong Democrat that is now starting to lean Republic, I'm tired of the rhetoric from Jeffries and Schumer about this is the Republicans' government. | ||
| This is the Republicans to finance the government not shutting down. | ||
| They sit back and they do nothing, which I've opened my eyes to see that that's the way that they just want to sit back and blame the Republicans on everything, but they don't want to offer anything up. | ||
| And, you know, to hear Schumer, who's been in office for so long or in his position for so long, you know, make these kind of comments, but he sits back and he doesn't do anything except for try to block what we need to do. | ||
| We are the American taxpayers, and we need transparency to know where our money is going. | ||
| And because we are the ones that fund the government, the government makes up our money just for their own agendas. | ||
| And we don't see, you know, we need to know where our money is going. | ||
| And the one last comment I want to make about eggs. | ||
| Everybody is so focused on eggs, but with this bird flu that's going around, these manufacturers have to kill these chickens and destroy these eggs. | ||
| So it's basically a supply and demand issue at this time, primarily why these eggs prices have gone up so much. | ||
| But nobody wants to talk about the real impact, you know, for why egg prices are so high. | ||
| They just want to blame people for it, but not look down to the root cause. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| So, Jim, you mentioned transparency. | ||
| One of the criticisms that the Doge activities are getting is that they're not being transparent. | ||
| They're saying we're finding all this fraud and abuse, but not really showing evidence for it. | ||
| What do you think of their transparency? | ||
| Do you agree with that criticism or you disagree? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I kind of disagree with it and agree. | |
| I guess I'm 50-50 because I guess, you know, we're only a few weeks into these investigations. | ||
| And maybe before they make their announcements about what they have found, they should maybe get a little bit more detail into it and then provide that information. | ||
| But as I listened to the clip from Elon and President Trump, you know, this morning that you guys played, and Elon came right out and told the reporters that, yes, there's going to be some mistakes made because they're moving quickly and they have no issues coming back and retracting those statements or those comments or those issues made. | ||
| So maybe I guess in that aspect, they should maybe slow down a little bit and be a little thorough and get the information out there right the first time. | ||
| But in this world that we live in, everybody wants the news right now. | ||
| And unfortunately, they break off of four words that a person may say, a small comment, and that just blows up into whatever it may be. | ||
| But yeah, maybe they should slow down a little bit and to get the information out there to the people. | ||
| All right, Jim. | ||
| Well, let's hear another portion of Elon Musk in the Oval Office yesterday where he talks about potential conflicts of interest. | ||
| Here it is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Busk, the White House says that you will identify and excuse yourself from any conflicts of interest that you may have. | |
| Does that mean that you are, in effect, policing yourself? | ||
| What are the checks and balances that are in place to ensure that there is accountability and transparency? | ||
| Well, we actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. | ||
| In fact, our actions, we post our actions to the Doge handle on X and to the Doge website. | ||
| So all of our actions are maximally transparent. | ||
| In fact, I don't think there's been, I don't know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the Doge organization. | ||
| And so, you know, the kind of things we're doing are, I think, very, very simple and basic. | ||
| You know, what I mentioned, for example, about Treasury, just making sure that payments that go out, taxpayer money that goes out, is categorized correctly, that the payment is explained, that organizations on the do-not-paylist, which takes a lot to get there, actually are not paid, which currently they are paid. | ||
| These are not individual judgment decisions. | ||
| These are about simply having sensible checks and balances in the system itself to ensure that taxpayer money is spent well. | ||
| So it's got nothing to do with, like, say, a contract with some company of mine at all. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But if there is a conflict of interest when it comes to you yourself, for instance, you've received billions of dollars in federal contracts. | |
| When it comes to the Pentagon, for instance, which the president I know has directed you to look into, are you policing yourself in that? | ||
| Is there any sort of accountability check and balance in place that would provide any transparency for the American people? | ||
| Well, all of our actions are fully public. | ||
| So if you see anything, you say, like, wait a second, hey, Ilana, that seems like maybe that's, you know, there's a conflict there. | ||
| It's not like people are going to be shy about saying that. | ||
| They'll say it immediately. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Including you yourself. | |
| Yes. | ||
| But transparency is what builds trust. | ||
| Not simply somebody asserting trust. | ||
| Not somebody saying they're trustworthy, but transparency. | ||
| So you can see everything that's going on. | ||
| And then you can see, am I doing something that benefits one of my companies or not? | ||
| It's totally obvious. | ||
| And we thought that we would not let him do that segment or look in that area if we thought there was a lack of transparency or a conflict of interest. | ||
| And we watched that also. | ||
| He's a big businessman. | ||
| He's a successful guy. | ||
| That's why we want him doing this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We don't want an unsuccessful guy doing this. | |
| Back to the phones now to John in Donellan, Florida, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| My message to Congress would be just to actually stay out of the way and let these guys audit the federal government. | ||
| I mean, they've almost found up to $4 billion in waste and fraud a day. | ||
| I mean, you do the math on that. | ||
| That's quite a bit of savings per year. | ||
| I'm happy with what's going on. | ||
| This is what we voted for. | ||
| We want transparency in the government. | ||
| We're sick of the games and the bureaucracy. | ||
| I mean, you've got some of these judges who are putting holds on some of these programs that we're looking into. | ||
| Their daughters and sons work for USAID. | ||
| I mean, the corruption is deep in Washington, D.C., and we finally need to get a look at it. | ||
| And I like the fact that Elon Musk is in charge. | ||
| The guy's probably one of the smartest guys in the world. | ||
| Let him have a look. | ||
| They're mapping out systems, their programs. | ||
| We're following money around. | ||
| It's all transparent. | ||
| And what's crazy to me is why would anybody be against an audit of the federal government? | ||
| It's all of our tax dollars. | ||
| I mean, it makes me leads me to believe that people are guilty, I mean, of hiding money or maybe wasting money or stealing money. | ||
| If I went to my wife and my wife was at the kitchen table and I said, honey, what are you doing? | ||
| She says, I'm doing the bills. | ||
| And I say, oh, can I look at them? | ||
| I think I have a way to save us some money. | ||
| And she screams in my face, you're a threat to democracy. | ||
| Yeah, I think we know what's going on. | ||
| Yeah, but John, you're her husband. | ||
| I mean, you have a right to see that. | ||
| I think that the criticism is we don't know who, like this, the Doge team, have they been vetted? | ||
| Who are they? | ||
| Are they government employees? | ||
| That kind of thing. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| Do you think that there should be more transparency on who the people are on the Doge team and what their full credentials might be? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| I mean, if it makes you sleep better at night, but for me, I'm not too bothered because I have trust in President Trump and Elon Musk. | ||
| And I don't think two guys who aren't taking a salary are looking to rip anybody off. | ||
| I think they're looking to try and balance this $36 trillion deficit before, you know, my grandkids and my great-grandkids don't have a country to even be involved in. | ||
| I just don't understand why people are up in arms about an oil. | ||
| What would you think those two guys would be doing? | ||
| I mean, do you think they'd be stealing? | ||
| What would they be stealing? | ||
| They're literally trying to save money for us taxpayers. | ||
| I mean, and when you look at it and you see USAID and they're sending 20 billion to Afghanistan for Sesame Street, and there's, you know, it's a million here for condoms in Uganda and 50,000 for sex changes in Cambodia. | ||
| And meanly, the one thing I wanted to say is when you read what USAID, you know, the breakup of their budget, whatever you were reading from Newsweek, I mean, that really doesn't detail all the waste and fraud where that money was going. | ||
| And I suggest, and I recommend that anybody who really wants to know what's going on, follow a guy on Twitter called Mike Benz, B-N-Z. | ||
| He got the breakdown of everything that's going on, where all our taxpayer dollars are going. | ||
| And again, I mean, you could go right to Doge. | ||
| They have the transparency right there, and you can break it down and read it as well. | ||
| I find it hard to believe. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| Just real quick, since John mentioned the orders and the courts, it says there's an article here in the Washington Post tracking Trump's court, Trump's court wins and losses over executive orders and actions. | ||
| This is the Washington Post, so they are tracking all the different court cases and where they stand, and then they have a breakdown of the details on each one. | ||
| If you're interested in that, you can look at that. | ||
| That's at the Washington Post. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We are joined by Representative Mike Flood. | ||
| He's a Republican of Nebraska and member of the Financial Services Committee. | ||
| Congressman, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you very much. | |
| Good morning to you. | ||
| A lot of snow here in Washington, D.C. There is indeed. | ||
| You serve on the Financial Services Committee and it has oversight of the Treasury Department. | ||
| You recently met with Treasury Secretary Besant about Elon Musk's role in the federal payment system. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can you tell us what you discussed with him? | |
| Well, you know, basically two things. | ||
| I asked the Treasury Secretary what kind of access does Elon Musk have to the federal payment system because it is a question I'm getting quite often from people that live in the First District of Nebraska. | ||
| And he assured me that Mr. Musk has read-only access, looking at payments that have already occurred in our federal payment system, and that only two employees at the Treasury system, one of whom he personally interviewed, manage that system going forward. | ||
| And so I shared that with my constituents in a letter which has since become public. | ||
| And I also just said, you know, as a member of the legislative branch, I very much respect Article I authority and the power of the purse belongs in Congress. | ||
| At the end of the day, we have to work with the executive branch to deliver tax cuts to the American people and spending cuts to the American people. | ||
| And I feel like we're on the right path to do that. | ||
| And can you tell us about the individuals that Mr. Musk has employed to review that data from the various agencies? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I don't know many of them personally. | |
| There's one from my district, actually, an extremely smart young man, Mr. Farador. | ||
| He has been earning the news for, you know, earning news and news coverage for some of his other feats. | ||
| He's got an extremely bright mind. | ||
| I think he successfully decoded ancient scrolls using artificial intelligence. | ||
| So at the end of the day, as somebody who represents Lincoln, Nebraska, I'm extremely proud of him. | ||
| I think Elon Musk has demonstrated through his career that he can find innovative ways to solve very difficult problems. | ||
| And there's good in that. | ||
| It's good to be looking at our spending. | ||
| It's good to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| It's good to make sure that the American taxpayers are getting the value for their dollar. | ||
| And at the end of the day, I'm somewhat frustrated that there's been such a pushback on looking at our federal spending. | ||
| This is the number one question I get when I go to the VFW club in Columbus, Nebraska. | ||
| How are you going to rein in this crazy spending? | ||
| Now we see a president willing to slay this dragon. | ||
| And there's an article here from The Hill that came out yesterday with the headline, Judge Adjusts Ruling Blocking Musk and Doge from Treasury Department Payment Systems. | ||
| It said that the federal judge clarified the ruling preventing Musk's Doge from accessing the Treasury Department's payment system. | ||
| It does not extend to Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. | ||
| Are you comfortable with the access that the people around Musk has and the oversight of those individuals that they would not download personal information or make any adjustments? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we expect people's personal and confidential information to be safeguarded and protected. | |
| That is an absolute. | ||
| And I think on the same line, you have to give the Treasury Secretary the ability to run the Department of Treasury. | ||
| And here in this case, we've got Elon Musk, who technically works for the White House, working to look at the payments that have already occurred. | ||
| How is that any different than a state that has a state auditor? | ||
| You know, in my home state of Nebraska, we have a state auditor who is aggressive and on it and working 24 hours a day to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| And it makes our system better. | ||
| I think this is good for the American people. | ||
| I think this review is very positive. | ||
| And quite frankly, as we're trying to extend the 2017 tax cuts here in Congress, we need to identify programs that we can eliminate to find the pay fors to make those tax credits work or tax cuts work. | ||
| I wanted to show you, Congressman, the Republican Senate leader, John Thune, yesterday, he was asked about legal actions against the Trump administration and whether it should comply with future rulings. | ||
| Take a look. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can I get your reaction to JD Vance's comment over the weekend that judges are not allowed to control the legitimate power of the executive? | |
| Do you agree with that? | ||
| And do you think the president and his administration should comply with federal court rulings? | ||
| Well, I think what you're seeing right now is the natural give and take between branches of the government. | ||
| We have three branches to our government, as you all know, and the courts have a way of mediating or refereeing, if you will, some of the disputes between the Article I and Article II branches of the government. | ||
| I think that's what you're seeing here. | ||
| And I think this is a process that will continue to play out. | ||
| But do I believe that the courts have a very valid role and need to be listened to and heard in that process? | ||
| The answer is yes. | ||
| And Congressman, just to clarify the question of the reporter, followed Vice President JD Vance's comments on social media saying, quote, judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power. | ||
| Your response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, listen, there's a natural tension between the three branches of government, whether it's at the federal level or the state level. | |
| And I know this firsthand. | ||
| I was the Speaker of the Nebraska Legislature. | ||
| I'm now a member of Congress. | ||
| Article 1 clearly gives Congress the power of the purse. | ||
| The executive branch clearly has enumerated authority that extends into running the government on a day-to-day basis. | ||
| Here's one of the things I think is important to talk about. | ||
| As President Trump comes into office, his administration will not be more vulnerable in this first two months because he's getting his leadership in place. | ||
| The Green New Deal, for instance, the Inflation Reduction Act. | ||
| We know there's a lot of folks out there trying to pull money out of the U.S. Treasury for grant programs and running basically on the system right away to try and get that money out of here. | ||
| I think President Trump was right to pump the brakes. | ||
| At the end of the day, the American people elected Donald Trump to impose his platform, which clearly is not in sync with some of the grant programs that the federal agencies were doing. | ||
| You can't let the courts micromanage the executive branch, but I agree with Leader Thune. | ||
| The court's rulings are to be respected. | ||
| But we also have to remember: you may have a federal district judge in Washington, D.C. that rules one way. | ||
| You might have a federal district judge in Colorado that rules a different way. | ||
| Ultimately, these things work their way through the appellate system and ultimately land on the Supreme Court's desk. | ||
| And I'm confident that the three branches of government will maintain their autonomy. | ||
| The courts will do what they have to in interpreting the Constitution. | ||
| And President Trump is going to do what he needs to do as the chief executive of this country to cut federal spending, to work with Congress to deliver reconciliation with us and provide an extension to his 2017 tax cuts. | ||
| And Congressman Mike Flood, a Republican of Nebraska, will be with us until almost the end of the program. | ||
| You can start calling in now if you'd like to talk to him. | ||
| Republicans are on 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats are on 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Congressman, since you mentioned the Inflation Reduction Act, I wanted to ask you about a bill that you introduced called Ending Green Giveaways Act. | ||
| And this would roll back funding for targeting so-called environmental and climate justice challenges. | ||
| Can you tell us a little bit more about that bill? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the EPA's own inspector general said this was littered with poor language, this act, and that it didn't make any sense. | |
| And that we had people that were drawing down money for purposes that weren't meeting even the intent of Congress. | ||
| This is just an opportunity, I think, for the Congress, and this is part of our job with oversight to put the brakes on some of the things that were happening under the Biden administration. | ||
| This Ending Green Giveaways Act has resonated with people across the United States. | ||
| Even folks that really care about renewable energy were like, what is environmental justice? | ||
| What are we doing here? | ||
| What are we trying to accomplish? | ||
| At the end of the day, what matters to Americans is: do we have energy independence? | ||
| Can we afford to heat our home or to cool our home in the summer? | ||
| Do we have enough energy to run our businesses? | ||
| Are we experiencing brownouts? | ||
| The idea of environmental justice-that's part of, in my opinion, the woke Biden agenda that fits right in with DEI and everything else that the American people have clearly rejected. | ||
| All right, let's talk to callers, Congressman. | ||
| This is Kenneth in Duplain, Illinois, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, Congressman. | |
| I hope you are well. | ||
| I just want to say, do not give these people a cut of money. | ||
| Kenneth, you've got to watch that language, please. | ||
| But he was saying don't give them a break. | ||
| I'm assuming he means don't negotiate or cooperate, maybe with Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'll tell you what, obviously, this reconciliation process will be a Republican-driven legislation, and it's going to entail the border wall, spending cuts, tax cut extension, and energy independence. | |
| But let's not forget, we have the expiration of the government funding on March 14th. | ||
| That will need to be bipartisan. | ||
| You know, I'm on the House Financial Services Committee. | ||
| We're looking at how to increase housing supply. | ||
| That will be bipartisan. | ||
| At the end of the day, reconciliation is going to go a different track, but everything else we get done, given the fact that we only have 53 Republicans in the Senate, will require bipartisan solutions. | ||
| And so, moving forward, I'm confident that we can really put our fingerprint on this 119th Congress with Donald Trump's big win and a majority in the House. | ||
| But there will be a number of very important issues that will require Senate Democrats at a minimum to accomplish the mission and to run our government. | ||
| And where are you on the budget process? | ||
| Are you in favor of Speaker Johnson's plan to try to put everything in one bill, or do you lean more towards the Senate bill and breaking it up into two pieces? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I very much agree with Speaker Johnson. | |
| I think this should be one bill. | ||
| There's a lot of complicated legislation that will be in this. | ||
| Everybody needs to be in the same boat. | ||
| It's been difficult in the past to unify each and every Republican in our conference. | ||
| And I think the only way to get across the finish line is to put everything in one bill, let the Senate have it, pass it, send it to the president, and get this done by Easter. | ||
| That would be the best case scenario. | ||
| Here's Chuck in Charleston, West Virginia. | ||
| Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Chuck. | ||
| Chuck, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I am. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I regret to say I think democracy is disappearing right before our very eyes. | ||
| We had Chip Roy and Elon Musk both saying that Trump should just ignore the courts. | ||
| Our vice president, JD Vance, he said judges aren't even allowed to rule against the president. | ||
| Here's, I'm quoting him directly. | ||
| He said, When the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did, and say, The Chief Justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it. | ||
| And now there doesn't seem to be any enforcement. | ||
| There doesn't seem to be any accountability. | ||
| And Trump can just ignore the Supreme Court if he wants, and not a single Republican like yourself will object for fear of being primaried. | ||
| He said he'd be a dictator on day one, and now day one has stretched out into three weeks. | ||
| So, to you and all the MAGA people out there who are listening, if you're content to have Trump be our dictator, at least have the guts to say so. | ||
| Congressman, what do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think that is not an accurate description of what's happening here. | |
| Yes, the president has a federal district court judge that has stopped parts of his agenda, and the president, I believe, said yesterday that they will appeal and they will go through the process. | ||
| This is the beginning of the Trump administration, and I understand how difficult some of this change can be for members of the other party. | ||
| And some of the hyperbol that you're hearing are people winding themselves up about things that have gone much further than the truth. | ||
| In this situation, we have a president who has a mandate from the American people to cut spending. | ||
| He has hired Elon Musk and a Treasury Secretary to look at the prior federal payments. | ||
| They are exposing a spending regimen that is out of sync with what Americans want. | ||
| And quite frankly, for a country that has $36 trillion in debt, we can't afford it. | ||
| People send me notes all the time. | ||
| My Social Security, let me tell you something. | ||
| If we don't get this under control, we will have a crisis much bigger than Social Security. | ||
| We will have a debt crisis. | ||
| We are going down a very, we're going to a very bad place if we don't get control of federal spending. | ||
| And so I have complete confidence that the executive branch, the judicial branch, and the legislative branch will each exercise their constitutional authority. | ||
| There will be friction. | ||
| There will be conflict and our system will work. | ||
| And I want to add one more thing. | ||
| When President Biden took office, he had in his mind, and I think clearly the support of a lot of people, they wanted to forgive everyone's student loans. | ||
| Clearly unconstitutional. | ||
| Clearly. | ||
| That went to the Supreme Court. | ||
| The Supreme Court said, you don't have the power to do it. | ||
| And what did he spend the rest of his time in the White House doing? | ||
| Undercutting and doing everything in his power to forgive student loans. | ||
| To the tune of about $5 billion per month, we were racking up that debt on top of a $36 trillion deficit. | ||
| I remember being extremely frustrated that the president seemed to not pay attention nor respect the Supreme Court there. | ||
| You'll find that this president, Donald Trump, he's going to put his best foot forward. | ||
| He's going to push the limits and he's going to test the courts. | ||
| And I'm confident the courts will apply the law and the Constitution and our three-tier system of government will prevail and we will be fine. | ||
| And I know that change is hard, but we will get through this and it will ultimately make us a better, stronger, more financially stable country. | ||
| And Congressman Flood, you mentioned increasing housing supply. | ||
| What is your plan for reducing the cost of housing for Americans? |