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Our weekly hour-long conversations that regularly feature fascinating authors of non-fiction books on a wide variety of topics. | |
| Find all of our podcasts by downloading the free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts and on our website, c-span.org slash podcasts. | ||
| Joining us now to give us a sense of what's the week ahead like for the White House is Taylor Popolars. | ||
| He's with Spectrum News. | ||
| He serves as their national political reporter. | ||
| Mr. Popolars, thanks for your time. | ||
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unidentified
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Great to be here, Pedro. | |
| Mr. Populars, what do we know as far as the agenda for this week for the White House? | ||
| A lot going on in previous weeks, but what are they looking for this week? | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah, it's a slightly quieter week. | |
| I'm hoping not to jinx it by saying that, but the president is right now down in Florida. | ||
| He went to his Mar-a-Lago club last Friday, and he's staying in Florida at least through tomorrow, Wednesday, because a White House official confirmed to me tomorrow he's set to attend a Saudi-backed investor conference in Miami before returning here to the White House. | ||
| We know that on yesterday, the President's Day holiday, President Trump went to his golf club that's near Mar-a-Lago and he played some golf. | ||
| Today, he doesn't have any public events scheduled, but the White House tells us he's going to sign some executive orders later this afternoon. | ||
| And then later on toward the end of this week, we expect him to speak at CPAC, the conservative conference that'll happen here in Washington. | ||
| But right now at the White House, it's pretty quiet. | ||
| Can you elaborate more on the investor conference and the purpose of that? | ||
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unidentified
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So it's interesting. | |
| There are some limited details about it, but this is a huge gathering of kind of global financiers that is essentially hosted by prominent Saudi Arabian investors. | ||
| And we know that the president is going to speak there. | ||
| He's expressed interest in having Saudi Arabia invest more into projects here in the U.S. Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy country. | ||
| They have a giant trillion-dollar wealth fund that the president has spoken directly about. | ||
| What's interesting, though, of course, is on this very day, some of Trump's top advisors are meeting in Saudi Arabia with their Russian counterparts to talk about the Russia-Ukraine war, and Saudi Arabia is serving as the host of that. | ||
| So it's just interesting that both of those are kind of happening one day after the other. | ||
| For those meetings taking place in Saudi Arabia, we saw concerns from the Ukrainian president about having a seat at the table so far as the discussions are concerned. | ||
| What is the White House saying about those concerns and the part that Ukraine will play in all of this? | ||
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unidentified
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So we heard from Secretary of State Marco Rubio shortly after these initial meetings wrapped in Saudi Arabia. | |
| They were essentially going on overnight, and he indicated that this was kind of a first step after President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone last week. | ||
| Now, Rubio has said that Ukraine will have a seat at the table, but as you alluded to, Ukrainian President Zelensky is really frustrated that neither he nor any of his representatives were at this meeting in Saudi Arabia. | ||
| This was just U.S. and Russian officials with Saudi Arabian officials serving as host. | ||
| But the Trump administration insists that Ukraine will have a voice in these negotiations and that this is just the beginning. | ||
| But Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said that this was a very productive first meeting. | ||
| Later on this week, we're expecting more nominations to be put through the Senate, the Commerce Secretary, the FBI director, the White House, as far as their optimism concerning the FBI director's part. | ||
| Where are they as of today? | ||
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unidentified
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They're feeling confident, especially after other controversial nominees like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard were able to get confirmed by this Republican-led Senate, but that's dealing with a slim majority. | |
| They're expecting Kash Patel to be able to sail through, especially because those other nominees cleared that benchmark. | ||
| People like Howard Luttnick, the incoming commerce secretary, they're expected to sail through as well. | ||
| But really, the GOP has succeeded in staying united behind President Trump and allowing all of his nominees to really get through without a lot of issue. | ||
| Mr. Populars, he wasn't a nominee for a position, but Elon Musk consistently in the news over the last couple of weeks. | ||
| What's the White House doing to at least give the message out when it comes to Mr. Musk's ability to do his job? | ||
| Not only the independence he has from the president, but who he actually reports to being the president of the United States. | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah, this is really fascinating and kind of ever-evolving. | |
| There was actually a court filing released overnight where the Trump administration said that Elon Musk is essentially serving as a senior advisor to President Trump and that he's technically on paper not even affiliated with the so-called Doge, Department of Government Efficiency. | ||
| But we know that Musk has kind of free access to the Oval Office, that he's been one of the president's top advisors throughout the last couple of weeks. | ||
| They're even appearing later tonight on a pre-taped interview on Fox News with Sean Hannity that was taped last week here at the White House. | ||
| So Musk is playing a direct role. | ||
| Democrats are really voicing frustration over it. | ||
| I even asked the White House press secretary a couple weeks ago about the apparent conflict of interest of Musk owning giant companies that have federal contracts with the government worth billions of dollars that he hasn't separated himself from while now being a special government employee. | ||
| But the White House insists that he's doing everything by the book and that he'll essentially police himself and that right now he and the president have a great relationship. | ||
| Mr. Popalars, you're a member of the press, the back and forth over the last couple of days about the Associated Press' ability to cover, particularly over their views on the Gulf of America. | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah, this has been kind of a bubbling issue that especially members of the press have been paying attention to. | |
| For several days in a row, the Associated Press has had reporters and photographers barred from everything from Oval Office events to press conferences to even a seat they had reserved on Air Force One to go down to Florida with the president. | ||
| We've seen the White House Correspondents Association that helps represent all of us express concern about this and call for the White House to you know kind of reverse everything. | ||
| But the White House is arguing that because the AP, which serves a global audience, is not recognizing kind of the America-only guidance that the Gulf of Mexico should now be called the Gulf of America, they feel they have the authority to bar the AP from various events. | ||
| There's been a whole lot of members of the press here over the last few weeks, so they have been also saying, oh, there's a bunch of other media who we can bring in to fill their spot who will adhere by our guidelines. | ||
| But press advocates argue that this is concerning because if there are other times that the administration kind of changes wording on something and insists that everybody follows along and a news outlet doesn't, this could foreshadow that they could also be potentially banned from an event. | ||
| Taylor, before we let you go, a quick bit about the thing you mentioned earlier, the president's returning to CPAC later this week. | ||
| Tell the audience the event and what to expect. | ||
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unidentified
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So CPAC is a years-long conservative kind of gathering and it's taken place in various places over the years, but it's set to happen in Maryland, just across the river from D.C. In many ways, it's transformed into being the gathering of the Trump MAGA movement and kind of the Trump wing of the Republican Party. | |
| President Trump has spoken there year after year and he gets a hero's welcome. | ||
| But all the prominent kind of Make America Great Again influencers, members of Congress who are aligned with Trump, they'll all speak at this conference over the course of the latter part of the week, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. | ||
| And we expect to hear from the president there, where I'm sure he'll give a long address talking about his accomplishments of the last few weeks and his goals for the months ahead. | ||
| Taylor Popolars is with Spectrum News. | ||
| He's their national political reporter and you can find him online. | ||
| What's the website for the news website? | ||
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unidentified
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SpectrumNews.com or Spectrum News Local, if you look it up. | |
| Mr. Popolars, thanks for your time. | ||
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unidentified
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Thank you, Pedro. | |
| Two open forum. | ||
| Thanks to those of you who called and waited, starting with Les, Les and New York, Republican line, your first up. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
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unidentified
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Yes, I'm very upset with the open borders. | |
| I served in Denmark with 11th Special Forces one time and we were actually attacked by some Muslims. | ||
| And they destabilize places and they don't integrate. | ||
| There's been an awful lot of people killed in the United States by illegal aliens. | ||
| Illegal aliens were identified over 20 years ago as a future problem to destabilize countries. | ||
| And that's what's going on in Europe right now. | ||
| You keep having drive-bys and people plowing in the crowds and everything else. | ||
| And I served with a sergeant in special ops once, and his favorite line was, never trust the CIA. | ||
| Marilyn, up next in Ohio, Democrats line. | ||
| Marilyn, thanks for calling. | ||
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unidentified
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Go ahead. | |
| Yes, I was calling about the Gaza and other subjects as much as I can get in. | ||
| Usually when we talk about a two-state, Republicans are the first ones to call in and talk about the Bible, the Holy Land, and prophecy and how sinful it would be. | ||
| But yet they're going to let America own Gaza. | ||
| And he's going to use the tax dollars that he's taken away from America to help build up that country so he can plant his hotels, casinos, and golf courses. | ||
| He's going to use that money for Panama and all the other countries he's wanting to take over. | ||
| Those costs money. | ||
| Pat is next. | ||
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unidentified
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Another thing is the policy of the Republican Party is to give more to the rich and take from those who have the least. | |
| They're the first to call up here and defend a rich man. | ||
| Okay, Pat is in New York, Independent Line. | ||
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unidentified
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Hi. | |
| Hi, can you hear me? | ||
| Yep, you're on. | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah, I just want to say that we were looking at the last interview regarding Gaza again. | |
| You know, we know the history. | ||
| We know the injustice. | ||
| We know the power of the lobby in this country, which takes away the democracy that we supposedly have because we're controlled by the money of an elite minority. | ||
| The solution, from the northern border of Gaza, going to the sea, we should create that new state of Palestine. | ||
| And it would help us politically. | ||
| It would help us internationally. | ||
| We would get the agreement of a lot of nations that are against us. | ||
| It would lower our security problems by doing the right thing and showing the old American belief in doing what was right as compared to doing what's wrong. | ||
| And also help perhaps even make Jerusalem an international city with no flag and protecting what is the new borders of Israel and the Israeli people within it while protecting the Palestinians. | ||
| It would be a show to the world that we're doing the right thing and it would work for us. | ||
| It would alleviate a great deal of animosity against this country and help us in so many ways. | ||
| And, you know, that's the solution. | ||
| We should talk about solutions and we should be real about them. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Pat in New York, the New York Times reporting that Russia released another American held on drug charges Monday. | ||
| And what the Kremlin acknowledged was a goodwill gesture in the eve of those talks between senior Russian officials and the U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia. | ||
| The American Caleb Byers Wayne was arrested February 7th in a Moscow airport on charges of carrying a small amount of marijuana in response. |