CSPAN - Washington Journal 02/27/2025

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Feb. 27, 2025 06:59-09:01 - CSPAN

02:01:57

Washington Journal 02/27/2025

Participants

Main

don bacon

rep/r 16:02

gwen moore

rep/d 19:57

mimi geerges

cspan 19:47

Appearances

donald j trump

admin 02:02

elon musk

02:10

melanie stansbury

rep/d 01:36

Clips

barack obama

d 00:05

bill clinton

d 00:05

george h w bush

r 00:07

george w bush

r 00:04

jim marrs

00:17

jimmy carter

d 00:07

joe biden

d 00:03

john mcardle

cspan 00:17

michael flynn

r 00:10

roger stone

r 00:02

ronald reagan

r 00:05

susan cole

00:05

william lewis

00:19

Callers

ken in wisconsin

callers 00:57

Large

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Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		This morning, a hearing on the nominations of William Pulte to be director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Jonathan McKernan to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Stephen Myron to be chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, and Jeffrey Kessler for Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security in the Commerce Department.
		Watch the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3, C-SPAN now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-SPAN.org.
		C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
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		Charter Communications supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy.
		Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning, we'll take your calls and comments live.
		And then Nebraska Republican Congressman Don Bacon on the House budget and GOP strategy to advance President Trump's legislative agenda.
		And we'll continue the conversation on Congress with Wisconsin Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore, a look at the Trump administration's recent actions and the role of Democrats.
		Washington Journal starts now.
		Join the conversation.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Thursday, February 27th.
		Yesterday, President Trump held the first cabinet meeting of his second term.
		He was joined by Elon Musk, who spoke about the ongoing actions of Doge.
		Polls show that a majority of Americans support efforts to cut government waste, but there are sharp disagreements on how best to do it and how to define wasteful spending.
		So this first half hour, we're asking you, how do you think the government can become more efficient?
		And how would you define government waste?
		Here's how to reach us, Republicans 202748-8001, Democrats 202748-8000, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		We have a line set aside for federal workers, or if you've been recently laid off from the federal government, call us on 202-748-8003.
		You can also use that same line to text us, include your first name in your city-state, and you can post your comments on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
		Welcome to today's two-hour Washington Journal.
		The House will gavel in at 9 a.m. Eastern Time.
		We'll start with a poll.
		Here's the Hill reporting on it with the headline, most voters support having agency focused on government efficiency.
		And we'll just drill down a little bit on the results of that poll.
		So it's the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found 72% of registered voters support such an agency, including almost 9 in 10 Republicans, two-thirds of Independents, and 6 in 10 Democrats.
		Pollsters found bipartisan support on a few general questions about government expenditures and waste, suggesting a path forward on the issue with support from both parties.
		Two-thirds of respondents said the current level of debt for the federal government is unsustainable.
		And 83% said the government should reduce its expenditures rather than raise taxes to lower budget deficits.
		More than three-quarters of respondents said a full examination of all government expenditures should be undertaken rather than not interfering with current contracts and expenditures.
		And this was the front page of the Washington Times this morning with this headline: Trump backs Musk amid cabinet gripes.
		Here's the picture.
		And the caption says, Elon Musk took command of Wednesday's cabinet meeting, the first of President Trump's second term.
		Mr. Trump urged his secretaries to, quote, speak up if they had issues with the public face of the Department of Government efficiency.
		Well, let's take a look at a portion of Elon Musk talking about the actions of Doge.
		Here he is.
elon musk ▲ ● ▼		The overall goal here with the Doge team is to help address the enormous deficit.
		We simply cannot sustain as a country $2 trillion deficits.
		The interest rates, just the interest on the national debt, now exceeds the Defense Department spending.
		We spent a lot on the Defense Department, but we're spending like over a trillion dollars on interest.
		If this continues, the country will become de facto bankrupt.
		It's not an optional thing, it is an essential thing.
		That's the reason I'm here.
		And taking a lot of plaque and getting a lot of death threats, by the way.
		I mean, I like to spec them up.
		But if we don't do this, America will go bankrupt.
		That's why it has to be done.
		I'm confident at this point, knock on wood, knock on my wooden head, that we can actually find a trillion dollars in savings.
		That would be roughly 15% of the $7 trillion budget.
		And obviously that can only be done with the support of everyone in this room.
		And I'd like to thank everyone for his support.
		Thank you very much.
unidentified		This can only be done with your support.
elon musk ▲ ● ▼		So this is really, Doge is a support function for the president and for the agencies and departments to help achieve those savings.
		And to effectively find 15% in reduction in fraud and waste.
		And we bring the receipts.
		So people say, well, is this real?
		Just go to Doge.gov.
		Line item by line on it.
		We specify each item.
		And I should say, also, we will make mistakes.
		We won't be perfect.
		But when we make a mistake, we'll fix it pretty quickly.
		So, for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola, Ebola prevention.
		I think we all want Ebola prevention.
		So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption.
		But we do need to move quickly if we're to achieve a trillion-dollar deficit reduction in financial year 2026.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was Elon Musk yesterday.
		You heard him there mention canceling Ebola prevention at USAID.
		The Washington Post has this.
		Musk claims Doge, quote, restored Ebola prevention effort.
		Officials disagree.
		It says current and former USAID officials said that Musk was wrong.
		USAID's Ebola prevention efforts have been largely halted since Musk and his Doge allies moved last month to gut the Global Assistance Agency and freeze its outgoing payments.
		The teams and contractors that would be deployed to fight an Ebola outbreak have been dismantled.
		And we're taking your calls this half hour.
		We'll start with Kathleen in Bayfield, Wisconsin, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just wanted to thank everybody at C-SPAN for offering this.
		I noticed that C-SPAN was able to get into the cabinet meeting yesterday, and I appreciate that.
		I wanted to know if in your collection of articles this morning, if you have one from Forbes magazine basically outlining where Trump's government layoffs are taking place.
		And the one that I find most horrifying, seeing as I'm 67, is that he would like to cut the Social Security Administration in half.
		I suggest people take a look at this article.
		It is very neutral.
		Forbes is really a good publication.
		And it might help kind of define where it is that Trump and his people are at this point in his attempt to downsize the government, which I think is reckless and scary and will affect just about everybody in my community.
		Thanks for your time today.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sorry.
		And Kathleen, we will look for that article at Forbes, and if we can find it, we'll show it.
		Here is a federal worker, Mike, in Pickerington, Ohio.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Just wanted to call in and say thanks again for all that you all are doing to cover.
		From my side, I understand the intent of what cutting for government waste, fraud, and abuse, but I think what is usually missing from the narrative that most people, you know, they've been focused on the federal agencies and the federal workforce.
		But it all starts and comes from laws that are created by Congress.
		And I think from that end, it really is frustrating because we're executing the missions that are laid out before Congress.
		And Congress keeps adding and changing unfunded mandates that are continuously created.
		And from the same time.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Explain unfunded mandates for people that might not know what that means.
unidentified		Certainly, yeah.
unidentified		So unfunded mandates are when Congress enacts their little pet projects or laws such as a five-year pilot, and the federal agency has its authorized or appropriated budget for that program.
william lewis ▲ ● ▼		And then what ends up coming about is they say, well, you're going to do X, Y, and Z on top of what your current mission is, but we're not going to provide you any additional funding.
unidentified		What ends up happening is that, okay, well, it's not funded, but then there is the demand or the need that is expressed that, yes, we need to do this, and we're going to require X number of dollars to do this.
unidentified		And then eventually, over the cycle of a couple of years, additional funding ends up getting appropriated or authorized for that program.
william lewis ▲ ● ▼		And oftentimes, too, what we don't see is that this pilot is run and then it gets institutionalized as part of the program.
unidentified		And so from that, that ends up becoming a lot of additional costs and expenses.
		And to address the needs of customers, but then oftentimes, too, that's where we start running into additional duplications.
		And one of the particular demographics that we see throughout our field oftentimes is veterans, veteran services.
		We want to all serve veterans.
		Congress members always want to do something for veterans, but there's a lot of additional programs and services that are out there to help veterans.
		And what ends up happening is then you have a duplication of services because, oh, well, it's not through the Department of Veterans Affairs that does it.
		It's other federal agencies.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, what do you think, Mike, is the best solution in this case?
unidentified		Well, I think definitely GAO has been doing inventories of duplications and redundancies and services.
unidentified		I think that's a good place to start.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, this is a government accountability office that reports to Congress, but then if Congress doesn't act, nothing happens with those GAO reports.
unidentified		Exactly.
		And that becomes kind of the catch-22 of this all: you have the will and whim of what the administrations want to do when it comes to executing the mission, but then you also have what Congress is enacted through Congress and what occurs with Congress when it comes to the creation and passage of laws.
		And from there, you get those negotiations with the budget cycle between the House, the Senate, and the administration.
		And oftentimes, it just becomes an endless cycle.
		And some things do get cut a little bit, and some things get additional funding added to it.
		And so, what I see from Doge is that they're trying to essentially force a function on Congress.
		And we all agree in the federal workforce that there are things that do need to be modernized.
		There are things that do need to be streamlined.
		But then the question always comes up of running afoul of current laws or regulations that are based upon the laws and how we are able to work around those existing structures.
		But do I agree with how they are looking to force a function and seemingly crash through existing laws?
		That I think is where we're going to run into an interesting dilemma.
		And it's certainly going to have to force the hand and functions of Congress, especially if they start reorganizing and reshuffling agencies because the statute's pretty specific on which secretaries have what responsibilities.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mike.
		I got to move on to Ronald in Woodhaven, New York, Republican line.
		Good morning, Ronald.
unidentified		Good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
		It's interesting that here is the President of the United States hasn't been in office but 37 days, and he's attempting to cut waste and find the fraud.
		And every time I listen to either commentators or callers, everybody is Ronald.
		Yes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Oh, okay.
		You dropped out.
		Everybody's speculating.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Everybody's speculating about what can happen if Elon continues his audit.
		Why not give him a break, allow him to do his job, and let's say a year from now, let's see what happens.
		But to just continuously dog this man and say what's going to happen, in my opinion, it's speculation.
		This can happen.
		Oh, Medicaid is going to be cut.
		Oh, social.
		Nobody said that.
		Let the man do his job.
		Now I understand him coming in the way he's coming in.
		You're going to have problems.
		It's no different than if you're trying to build the house back up.
		You're going to run into problems, but you deal with it as you get there.
		Give him a break.
		Let him do what he said he was going to do.
		Thank you very, very much.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Paul is a federal worker in California.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Paul.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My name is Paul, and I'm very against this shutdown of firing the government workers.
		I worked for the government 32 years.
		I'm retired.
		And I don't like the way you're doing the veterans.
		I'm a veteran.
		I serve in Vietnam.
		I have a purple heart.
		I have a bronze star now, boots on the ground.
		I work where they bury the veterans.
		Now, I'm going to tell you something.
		You need to visit the veterans.
		You need to visit the cemeteries.
		You need to visit and see how they work.
		Government workers are very good workers.
		We are precise.
		We go by the book.
		And they take care of the families.
		We respect the families.
		So you don't know about all the government workers.
		You need to visit the government workers.
		You need to visit the cemeteries.
		Thank you.
		I hope you get this merchant.
		All for the veterans in the national cemeteries.
		Vietnam veterans, boots on the ground.
		Thank you very much.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Paul, there is, since you mentioned veterans, USA Today has this article that 1,400 more VA employees laid off in Trump's latest purge of federal employees.
		Oops.
		And so it says the 1,400 workers laid off on Monday were all bargaining unit probationary employees in non-mission critical roles, including DEI-related positions, the VA said in a statement.
		That's on USA Today.
		And this is Shirley in Stratford, Connecticut, Democrat.
		Good morning, Shirley.
unidentified		Good morning, Cecil.
		Good morning.
		I am so grateful for federal workers.
		I'm not a federal worker, but I know that they do their job.
		When they do their job, we do not have problems in this country.
		The fact that this man came in, a so-called genius, geniuses are people who are genius in one area.
		He never started with all the funds that he himself had taken from our government for things like his cars and things like his space program that have nothing to do with the American people or beneficial to the American people.
		We already have car companies.
		Now, he never started taking money, billions of dollars that he had accrued from our federal dollars to do and make himself a millionaire.
		But he's going to start with the American people, the needs that we have, the CDC, and important matters that help American people stay alive and get medical care and medicine.
		And the thing is, is that this man is reckless.
		He's always been reckless.
		None of his companies have panned out the way they should.
		His space program has blown up in his face.
		And the thing is, is that he's coming in and destroying our country, but people are thinking that he's doing waste.
		Let me explain.
		The federal worker does explain in Ohio how it works.
		Congress is supposed to do that job, and they are not doing their job.
		If anything needs to be downsized, it should be them, not the federal workers who are doing the job to make this country run smoothly.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so Shirley, let's talk about what should be downsized.
		Because I mentioned the poll.
		Most people agree that there is waste and that there needs to be more efficiencies.
		So, how would you do that?
unidentified		There's always waste in every big corporation.
		And yes, they do find waste.
		That's what we had hired the attorney general for all these different programs to watch for.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The Inspector General's waste.
unidentified		Well, I'm not sure what their position is right now, but they oversee these programs.
		They find waste or they find problems because they get a report, ask any federal worker, they have to give an account for what they are doing to these supervisors and heads of these programs.
		And they find the problems and they fix the problem.
		Now, if there was a, there's always waste in all big corporations because I work for a big company.
		My brother works for GE, and they have to find what the problems are and they fix the problems, even with cars.
		You have cars that have recalls on them or food products that have recalls on them.
		Those are problems, and they fix those problems before it hurts anybody.
		Now, this is what our federal government does, too.
		When you have a large corporation or hundreds or thousands of people that work in an area, there's about to be a problem.
		And I never ever doubted that there was a problem or there was something that happened that caused money to be wasted or whatever the case may be.
		But this is not new.
		He comes in with this idea, Elon Musk, to deceive the American people into thinking he's doing something to help us.
		And he's not.
		All he's doing is making sure that him and the 1% can get more money added to their bottom line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Shirley, I got to move on.
		Sorry.
		This is Sarah in Edgewater, Maryland, Independent.
		Good morning, Sarah.
unidentified		Good morning.
		One of the biggest reports this last week was that about $70 or $83 billion in overpayment has been made to United Healthcare in excess, right, to United Healthcare in regards to Medicare Advantage plans.
		So they have overbuilt the government by $83 billion, and nothing has been done to get that money back.
		Look back 10 years more, and you can collect another couple of hundred billion dollars at least that have been done in overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans.
		Congress has investigated these fraudulent charges by Advantage plans, but it doesn't seem that anything has been done.
		Here's one question for the administration and its attempt to look at inefficiencies.
		One of the most inefficient and dysfunctional parts of the government is actually Congress, because Congress is supposed to be part of a three-legged stool that provides a system of checks and balances.
		And when you have one man, the president, with a handful of billionaires, single-handedly running the countries, basically stating that there is no laws that really apply to him, what message does that send to the country?
		How relevant is Congress?
		I think Congress has made itself into a more and more irrelevant institutions because they don't do what they're supposed to do.
		And I think, you know, I wonder if Elon Musk sent them an email saying, hey, what productive tasks did you do last week to serve the American people?
		That's what I would like to know.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is John in Holbrook, New York, Republican.
unidentified		I was looking to see if our musk says demo.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		John, you there?
unidentified		Yes.
		Hi.
		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes.
		I'm listening to these people talk.
		I mean, Elon Musk doesn't need the money, that's for sure.
		And neither does President Trump.
		And what they're doing is putting their lives out there for the American people.
		I mean, when you got social security people collecting money that are 150 years old, you know, give us a break.
		They're finding billions and billions of dollars of fraud and waste.
		How could anyone on both sides complain?
		It's beyond me.
		I'm a veteran from the Vietnam era.
		I locked out.
		Went to Germany.
		Got nothing to do with what we're talking about here, but it's really sickening.
		Got to really get together and unite.
		The Democrats have not stopped spending, spending, spending, give me, give me, give me no show, no show jobs.
		Come on.
		We're paying people all this money.
		They're not even there in the office.
		I know firsthand.
		I went to the Social Security office with my wife to collect two people standing in the window behind it.
		There had to be 30, 40 empty chairs and tables.
		I mean, these people are getting paid enough.
		Give credit where credit's due.
		Thank God we got Trump and Elon.
		They don't need it.
		We need it.
		Stop all the complaining.
		Know what you're talking about before you just open your mouth.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, John.
		And this is, if you're looking for more information on Doge, this is, you can look at doge.gov and you'll see a website that looks like this with the information that they are posting.
		And at a Doge subcommittee hearing on foreign aid funding, Ranking Member Melanie Stansbury criticized cuts to USAID and its impact on foreign relations.
		Here's a portion.
melanie stansbury ▲ ● ▼		Over the last five years, USAID has funded international aid to 212 countries around the world to promote international peace and security, to help maintain stability and ensure that we are making good on America's promises.
		These investments are a fraction of the cost of weapons and defense, and the U.S. in the process is able to help promote national security, stop global pandemics, prevent hunger and mass migrations, and make the world and the United States a safer place.
		So when we hear conservative allies of Donald Trump repeat wild and unfounded claims about international aid, and we see a coordinated attack by conservative media think tanks like those who are here today, members of Congress, the administration, we have to ask ourselves, what is really going on here, folks?
		Why the hell are they so hell-bent on dismantling an organization that has been so vital to American interests and Western democracy for so long?
		Over the last several days, they have fired thousands of federal employees.
		It really does make you wonder, doesn't it?
		And by the way, while they've been doing that, China has actually moved in already to places in South Asia that had their funding cut and is beginning to replace American diplomacy and aid in those places.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And let's hear from Ed, who's in Maine, who's a retired federal worker.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Ed.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I'll try to get this out as quick as I can.
		If you want an example of how to do this and do it right, go back to the Clinton administration during the last administration that ever balanced the budget.
		The lady that John was interviewing a few days ago that worked for an organization that he set up to streamline the government, if you listen to that interview on C-SPAN from a few days ago, that's how you do it.
		I was at a public shipyard.
		I was a machinist during black.
		That's another way you do it.
		You set up a commission, you interview the joint chiefs, find out what they need for their mission.
		They tell you, they go and they visit the sites and determine why do you have this or that?
		How does that match your mission?
		And every place that you can't come up with an answer, you lose it.
		It's as simple as that.
		And I went through it, five rounds of it.
		I was laid off three times and hired back three times.
		But that's what you got to go through as much as I hated it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, Ed, we do have a clip of that interview that you were talking about.
		This is Elaine K. Mark.
		She's at Brookings Institution now.
		She led the effort of cutting government waste in the Clinton administration.
		Here's a portion.
unidentified		The Reagan administration had something called the Grace Commission.
		And it was a lot of people from the business world coming in, spending a year looking at the government and saying, do this, do this, do this.
		And we decided that, no, that nothing happened with the Grace Commission.
		And we decided that, no, what we really had to do was we really had to get inside the belly of the beast.
		Just like, by the way, any good consultant does when they come to a company, right?
		They get in there to figure out how does this work and what's working and what is not working.
		So we did that.
		And that, by the way, is not what Elon Musk is doing, right?
		They're not trying to understand what the mission is.
		Otherwise, they wouldn't have fired people working on avian bird flu, just as avian bird flu seems to be peaking.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		They have gotten a lot of pushback for wanting access to the agency systems of Doge staffers going in.
		You read the news stories, the Doge staffers arrived at X agency this week.
		Is that part of what they're trying to do, trying to go into these agencies and learn about them?
unidentified		Well, they're going into the agencies.
		They're not trying to learn about them.
		That's the difference, okay?
		And the other difference is we're looking for fat.
		They're actually cutting muscle with this, and that's going to boomerang on them already, has come back in a backlash.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Mary in Delmore, New York.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning, Mary.
unidentified		Good morning, and thank you for everything you're doing.
unidentified		Can you hear me?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go right ahead, Mary.
unidentified		First of all, I'd like to discuss the gentleman that just called about people receiving Social Security who are 150 years old.
		And that has been debunked.
		The Social Security Administration has an old system that is written in COBOL.
		And when they don't have a date of birth of somebody, they put in a date that defaults to 150 years old.
		And that means for them to go back and research it.
		It doesn't mean that somebody's dead.
		So, and I believe that the people in the Social Security Administration who know their system know that.
		Unfortunately, Eon Musk and his people apparently didn't know that.
		And it would be nice if they would retract it, though, because it's been, I've read about it, and they haven't said anything about that.
		Secondly, I've worked both in finance and budget in both private and government.
		And there's waste, fraud, and abuse everywhere.
		One woman said in GE, I worked at GE as well as a very small company.
		The small company had the most waste I've ever seen.
		GE had more.
		And the state government that I worked in had the least.
		And about state workers, I wasn't a federal worker.
		I was a state worker.
		But, you know, the federal workers are getting a bad name, and I don't believe it should be.
		The state workers that I worked with were all very, very bright.
		We had to take civil service exams to enter the workforce.
		We had to take tests to advance.
		And they picked only the top three, so everybody was bright.
		We were nonpartisan.
		We never talked politics.
		And we just worked all day long.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mary.
		Thanks for sharing that with us.
		And our first caller was Kathleen in this segment, and she asked about a Forbes article.
		So here it is.
		It says, here's where Trump's government layoffs reportedly are, Social Security Administration, FEMA, IRS, and more.
		It says the Trump administration is moving towards its largest round of federal government layoffs yet.
		According to multiple outlets, agency is directed to submit layoff plans by March 13th.
		And that is at Forbes if you'd like to take a look at the rest of that article.
		We'll have more time later in the program for your calls.
		But up next, we've got Nebraska Republican Don Bacon, who serves on the Armed Services Committee.
		He'll discuss the budget and House GOP strategy to advance President Trump's legislative agenda.
		And later, Wisconsin Democrat Gwen Moore, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, discusses recent actions by the Trump administration and the role of Democrats in the 119th Congress.
		We'll be right back.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are joined now by Representative Don Bacon.
		He's a Republican of Nebraska and a member of the Armed Services Committee and also the Agriculture Committee.
		Congressman, welcome.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Thanks.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		It's always good to be here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk about the budget.
		You told Roll Call last week that the GOP budget resolution appeared to cut too deeply into Medicaid, but you voted for it anyway.
		Were you given assurances about cuts to Medicaid?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		I was.
		So the leadership, you know, talking to the WIP, the speaker, also the two chairmen of the areas that the cuts were big, I'll just say it that way.
		The unified story there was: yes, the level of cuts of the House is over here.
		The Senate is over here.
		We're going to end up somewhere in the middle.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Which means there will be cuts to Medicaid.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but not cuts that will affect the quality of care.
		So, for example, they're going to add work requirements for able-bodied adults that don't have children.
		They're going to audit all the lists.
		They stop doing that.
		And if you don't belong on Medicaid, they'll take you off.
		But they're not going to go after the quality of care.
		And that's the assurance I have.
		And it's the expectation for President Trump that that will not happen either.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about, since you're on the Armed Services Committee, you served in the U.S. Air Force for over 30 years, retired as a one-star general.
		Let's start with Ukraine.
		President Zelensky is set to come to D.C. tomorrow.
unidentified		President Trump has said, you know, he's called him a dictator.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		He said that Ukraine started the war.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We know that it was Russia that started the war.
unidentified		Why do you think this is happening?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		There's a couple possibilities, but I think from my perspective, I just have to state the truth.
		Ukraine is our national security interest that remain independent.
		If Ukraine falls, Moldova will be next.
		Maybe the Baltics, Georgia, and so forth.
		An independent Ukraine that's aligned with the West is a game changer for the United States and Europe.
		And so it's in our interest to ensure that Ukraine prevails.
		So I just want to say that's my perspective.
		We've got to be clear.
		Russia did the invasion.
		And I don't know why people have a hard time with this.
		It's, you know, it's a black and white issue.
		It's an absolute fact that Putin invaded.
		He wants to restore his old borders from the Soviet Union time.
		He has said that.
		And he doesn't see Ukraine as an individual people.
		He sees them as little Russians.
		He wants to eliminate the language, the heritage, the culture.
		So it's just clear what's going on here.
		This is a war of aggression just to take over Ukraine's territory.
		And that's just a fact.
		Now, why is President Trump saying this?
		I'm not really sure.
		There's a possibility he's trying to do this for negotiations.
		Or maybe he's got a different worldview than maybe I have.
		I have a mix of realism and idealism in how I see national security.
		We've got to protect our country.
		But I think we have an idealist strand as well that our country has to be an advocate for freedom, democracy, free markets, rule of law.
		And I don't know that he has any of the idealism side.
		I think it's more of just a straight realism and more transactional in nature.
		So it could be that.
		So I'm not really too sure why folks in his administration and himself don't see this clearly.
		I think it's very important we have moral clarity on this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So is it just a moral issue or is it a national security issue?
		You know, this new alignment with Russia as opposed to our European allies and Ukraine.
		What happens in that case?
		Why not let the Europeans deal with it and we put America first?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		I think NATO is important.
		And a lot of the statements that they're not carrying their own weight, I think there's some truth to that.
		I think President Trump has been good at pushing NATO to do more.
		But we also got to realize that there are a lot of countries putting more in a defense than we are right now per share of GDP, right?
		So you can't overgeneralize, say all of NATO's not pulling their weight.
		Some are doing way more than we are for the share of their economy.
		And some of these countries have done a lot more for Ukraine than the United States has.
		And that story hasn't got out there as well either.
		Frankly, America is the leader of the free world.
		We're the indispensable nation.
		And without America, Russia and China, Iran are going to fill this void.
		It's a more dangerous world.
		So I see it from a national security perspective, but I also see it as a moral perspective.
		What we stand for is right.
		What Putin stands for and what G stands for, it's wrong.
		It's a dictatorship, no rule of law.
		And we support what is right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you'd like to join a conversation with Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, you can do so.
		Our lines are by party.
		Republicans 202748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		And Independents 202748-8002.
		President Trump recently fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Charles Brown, or CQ Brown.
		He was about a year and a half into his tenure.
		What was your reaction when you heard that news and that he was being replaced by a retired three-star?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Concerned.
		Now, the president has every authority, a constitutional authority to put in who he wants.
		I do think there's a level of decency that you've got to state why you fire someone.
		It should be a firing for cause.
		And I think the voters deserve to know why was General Brown replaced?
		And that wasn't done.
		In fact, there were seven generals and admirals that were fired.
		No explanation given.
		And I knew four of them.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's being called a purge.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, he doesn't call it that, but you're right.
		Folks have.
		But I think there should be forthcoming why would you fire seven generals and admirals?
		I think we deserve an explanation.
		And I know General Brown.
		I served with him when he was a colonel, and when he's a one-star, we were colonel and one-stars together.
		And when I got out, he progressed up and made four stars.
		I'm not aware that he did anything wrong.
		And I think it sends a bad message to our military that if you do what the previous president wanted, and it's lawful orders, and that's what our military does.
		We follow lawful orders.
		And then you get a new president.
		He didn't like the orders from the previous president.
		They were going to hold these generals responsible.
		The military responds to the commander-in-chief.
		If you get a new commander-in-chief, you pivot and you do what the new commander-in-chief wants.
		And my impression is these generals and admirals are getting fired mainly for the behavior that was being demanded by the previous administration.
		I don't think that's right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do we have the A-team in the military right now?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Well, I know a lot of the, I know like the chief of staff of the Air Force is one of the smartest guys I've ever met.
		I went to school with him twice.
		And so we have, I think we have great people in the military.
		We have a resilient military.
		I'm more worried about the level of decency.
		And the voters deserve to know.
		Our citizens deserve to know why this decision is being made.
		I do think it's not normal to bring in a three-star that has had no major command experience, no combatant command experience, no service leader command experience.
		So he didn't lead any of the services, was never a major command commander, and never commanded at a combatant command, a joint command.
		Normally, to bring in a chairman of the Joint Chiefs, they have one of those three experiences.
		So on paper, I would say he's not as prepared.
		Now, I don't know him.
		Maybe he'll exceed expectations.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's take some calls.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We'll start with David in Swainsboro, Georgia, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning, C-SPAN.
unidentified		How are you doing, Don?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Very good, sir.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		I appreciate all you've done.
		But let me point to two things.
		And these are the highest portions of our tax money go to.
		One of them is the healthcare marketplace, which is an invention of Mitch McConnell.
		And it's based in Lexington, Kentucky.
		I mean, you know, how much more barrel can you roll in there?
		But it cost us $1.3 trillion in $4.5 trillion of taxes that we're taking in off of people's paychecks.
		And it could almost all be pointed to the care marketplace.
		And if you want to know, our robocalls, we funded it.
		If you look at the way I am, it's a healthcare marketplace.
		Well, that's $1.4 trillion.
		And these are procedures which are just done for no good reason.
		My ex-wife, who's 76 years old, I watched it go on with her for about eight years.
		I said, I've had enough.
		And now the other is, and bless the military, for those folks, they do their job, but they get punished for doing their job.
		And now that's a lot of money that we're putting from our payroll taxes into it, who the wealthiest folks who depend on that military to protect the infrastructure around the world so they can run their multinational companies, but they're not putting in their fair share.
		You talk about people in NATO not paying their fair share.
		Well, let's get the wealthiest people in this country to pay their fair share, not the 9.6% that they're paying right now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, David.
unidentified		Thank you so much.
		Yes, Mimi, thank y'all.
		Y'all be good.
		Hey, keep it up, Don.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, David.
		Well, there's a lot to be said in all those comments.
		First of all, I want to point out two-thirds of NATO is paying more than what we were asking them.
		So there is a third that should be doing more, but two-thirds are ours.
		I just want to put that on the table for clarity.
		I do think he raises a good point.
		We do not want to cut the quality of health care and Medicaid.
		The president said that.
		And I talked to the leadership in our team and the two chairmen, and I got those assurances.
		I think what David's saying, there are ways we could look at all the spending and see how can we reduce the spending without touching the quality of care.
		And I think there is money going around in places that we should study it.
		And so there's some opportunities to reform Medicaid, but we've got to protect it.
		In my district, 50% of all the Medicaid recipients are children.
		Another 25% are disabled adults.
		But the area that concerns us is the able-bodied adults.
		And of course, if they're under the safety nut, we should protect them, right?
		But we want to encourage them to get work, to get training, and try to get them back in the workplace and get them off Medicaid.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is an Independent Line, Auburn, New York.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		David, you're next.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		I just wanted to follow up on the discussion about how many four-star generals we have and how many we had in World War II.
		And the numbers are kind of astonishing.
		There were seven four-stars generals in World War II at the max.
		And there were maybe four or five million men under arms.
		Now we've got 44 four-star generals, and there's a million and a half in all the branches together.
		It looks like it's lopsided.
		And what I always keep thinking is that every time they try to refocus, which we're trying to focus this military now as a warfighting machine, really, which is what it was intended from the very beginning, they just keep adding on to it rather than, You know, you keep the old stuff in place.
		Like the guys you're trying, they just got fired, I guess was the word.
		So you need to refocus this thing.
		And somebody else, another caller, mentioned something earlier about the efficiency of government employees.
		Well, I'll just say I worked 35 years as a government employee in the Department of Corrections, and I could say that that is not the epitome of efficiency.
		I did work two years for Uncle Sam in a military uniform way back in the 60s, and that was efficient.
		I mean, that was it.
		You did it.
		They gave you time to get it ready and be ready to go, and it got done.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, so David, going back to your first question, you want to know why the military keeps increasing in size as far as the numbers go and the budget?
unidentified		Well, the number of administrative, I can only, there's 10,000 lawyers, they say, in the Department of the DOD.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's get our response.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		There's a lot of truth to what David just said about World War II versus today.
		But you've got to remember, World War II, I can't remember the exact number.
		We actually had like seven five-stars.
		We don't have any five-stars today.
		So I think the number he was using was the four stars.
		And we had a lot more four-stars in Europe and fighting the wars in the Pacific as well.
		But the fact is, I think we should assess: do we have too many four-stars or too many generals in the military today?
		And one of the reasons we have so many is we had the Goldwater-Nichols bill in the 1980s, and it put up theater commands for Africa, Europe, Asia.
		So we have all these theater commands, and we put four-star generals in charge of, or admirals, and each of them.
		And in some cases, they have very little forces, like, you know, the four-star for Africa, right?
		But they, but they could get a lot of forces.
		Some kind of says a fight between Egypt or somebody.
		And also, this four-star gets a lot of forces.
		And we may want to reevaluate because a lot of these generals don't have a lot of forces under their command, but it's written in law by Goldwater Nichols in the 80s.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Alex in Brooklyn, New York, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Alex.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Representative, I just wanted to go back to what you started with, which was, you know, the necessity to help Ukraine to need to push back on Putin.
		Your president basically has aligned with Russia, made a deal with Russia behind Ukraine's back, Europe's back.
		The new Chancellor of Germany wants to literally protect Europe and basically push itself out of NATO because it sees the United States as a danger.
		Just yesterday, Trump posted this video, AI video, of Trump's Gaza.
		He's extorting Selinsky for a deal for the minerals in Ukraine.
		And you mean to tell me that you're saying that you You believe this, and yet none of you in Congress, none of you in the Senate are really pushing for there to be a real position for the United States to be the leader of the world.
		This country is no longer the leader of the world.
		Everywhere that the United States is pulling out of through USAID, China is coming in.
		China, I'm Colombian.
		China is all over South and Central America now, because the United States, under the leadership of the Republican Party, has turned the world against us.
		And the way that Bush had two literal lying wars that you people were not accountable for that raised the debt trillions of dollars, I hope that people hold your party accountable for all of the disaster that's going to come because what your party is doing right now is destroying the federal government, weaponizing every agency, and made a mockery of the cabinet and the presidency.
		Thank you.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Well, Alex had a lot of feedback there.
		First of all, we do hold people accountable through elections, and that's what happened in November.
		People were so disgruntled at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we got President Trump.
		And so there is accountability.
		And, you know, President Biden was polling the lowest of any president going back to 1952.
		And that's how we got here today.
		But for the caller to say that, I'm not saying anything vocal here.
		I've been one of the more vocal people about Ukraine.
		I've been very vocal about the need for NATO.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is there anything you can do, though, through the committee, through your position in Congress, getting the other like-minded Republican congressmen with you?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I mean, is there anything you can do besides, you know, we appreciate you coming on T-SPAN and talking about it?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Well, he is the commander-in-chief.
		So there is only so much we can do.
		But we do have the power of the purse.
		And so there's, you have a talk from the Secretary of Defense that they want to cut 40% in areas of the defense budget.
		It's not going to happen.
		You know, we have the power of the purse.
		So we have the ability to have some control through the budget and through policy and law.
		Of course, the president could always veto it.
		You've got to have two-thirds.
		So there's checks and balances there, but there's no doubt that the president has a large say here.
		He's the commander-in-chief, and he got elected.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Johanna in Stony Point, New York, Republican.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
unidentified		How are you?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		I'm going with a question.
		I'm just wondering, as he was just speaking about checks and balances, how come the Republican congressmen and senators nowadays have no backbone to stand up against the things this president is doing and saying?
		You all just fall in line to whatever he says, talking about not cutting Medicaid, Medicare.
		Now you're talking, well, we're not going to cut the quality of care.
		You're still going to cut the people.
		He's talking about President Putin is not a dictator, and there's not a peep from the Republican side.
		What happened to the backbone of the Republican Party?
		You can't stand up to this president.
		You think you have no say anymore?
		He's not supreme leader.
		And I think that the Republicans need to realize that and stand up and finally do something.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Johanna must have been listening to me earlier.
		I've been very public.
		I've been talking about Ukraine since the invasion.
		I've been talking about Ukraine since President Trump got elected.
		I was very vocal last week with the president's comments.
		I was very discouraged about his vote and our vote in the United Nations.
		So I've been very public, and I'm not the only one.
		There's 10 or 20 on Ukraine for sure.
		And it's probably more behind the scenes that feel that way.
		You know, the Ukraine issue divides the Republican Party.
		And we have two strands in the Republican Party.
		You have an isolationist strand, and you have, I would say, the old Reagan viewpoint out there.
		And I represent that point that America is an indispensable nation for freedom.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Would you be willing to vote against President Trump's agenda?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		It depends what it is, but yes.
		I mean, and I have.
		He campaigned against me two years ago because I voted for the infrastructure bill, for example.
		So my job is to do what's right for our country.
		This is how my priorities are.
		I'm a Christian first.
		I'm an American second.
		And then way down here somewhere, I'm a party guy.
		And it's about doing what's right for our country.
		Now, Medicaid needs to be looked at.
		We're going to have to reform it, but we've got to protect the quality of care.
		Just to say we shouldn't touch it, that doesn't make sense.
		It's a huge program here, and it hasn't been audited for the role for what people are on.
		If we go through it, we'll likely find people who shouldn't be on there.
		And so we should give it a scrub.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Joe, an independent in Bitterford, Maine.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Oh, my God.
		Good morning.
		Thanks for taking that call.
		Don, you probably don't remember me, Donnie, but we spoke before October 7th.
		And on that program, you were peddling your lies.
		But my question is this: President Trump has lied repeatedly about the amount of money that the U.S. has given Ukraine.
		Given Ukraine.
		How much have we given?
		Please give me a number.
		Is it $360,000, like Donnie Deliha said yesterday in his big cabinet meeting?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Is it no, I think it's $180 billion.
		That's what we've done.
		And a lot of it's been weapons.
		And we give them weapons and we get to replace them here with newer weapons.
		So this has actually been good for our military.
		We've been able to set off older weapons and replace them with newer weapons.
		And I'd also point out the nations of the European Union, if you consolidate them, have put in more money than we have.
		So I haven't lied at all.
		I've been pretty honest about this, and I continue to do so.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Tracy and Clinton, Maryland, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Tracy.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I agree with the last Republican caller.
		I don't understand how you clearly state that Russia started the war with Ukraine, but yet the president is saying the complete opposite of that.
		So we're supposed to believe everything that this man is telling us.
		I don't understand why you all don't call out the lies.
		I don't understand why you would believe that there will be no harm done to Medicaid and to the people that rely on that.
		Why do you trust him so much when he can't even clearly state the fact and the truth?
		You all never go toe-to-toe with him on anything that he says.
		I mean, he even dates back to the whole alternate truth.
		It's either a lie or true.
		So please explain to me how you all follow this man word for word, and you all don't hold him accountable for anything that he says.
		He's clearly lying to the American public, and you all are okay with that.
		I don't understand it.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Well, Tracy, evidently, you haven't been listening to me again.
		I've been very clear.
		Russia did invade Ukraine, and I've pushed back on it.
		So maybe you should talk to another Republican, because I think I've been honest and very clear.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Regarding Elon Musk and Doge, you told Axios this: quote, before making cuts rashly, the administration should be studying and staffing to see what the consequences are.
		Measure twice before cutting.
		They have had to backtrack multiple times.
		Does Congress have a role in stopping what you're calling rash cuts?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Two types of spending here.
		One, if we've earmarked it and it's been signed into law, the president has to spend it, right?
		So if we write into law, you know, spend so much money for Project X, and it's been signed into law by the president, you know, constitutionally has to do it.
		There's been other money that we put into a pot and say we give it to USAID, and then they get to determine where that money goes.
		Well, the president does have the right to move that money around.
		So I just want to put that on the table.
		Excuse me.
		Does it do two things?
		The first thing it's doing is highlighting where all this money is going.
		How's it being spent?
		I welcome that.
		We should have a full audit, very accurate audit, and let the voters see what's going on.
		And I would say many voters would be concerned about what USAID was spending money on.
		The second part is, okay, now they're going to make cuts.
		And what I've found is that they're making them too quickly, and they're not measuring the consequences of some of these cuts, and it's hurting.
		And so they've had to go back and rehire people they fired or realize, okay, this money was going to fight AIDS in Africa.
		That's a good program, PEPFAR.
		So they put that back on.
		The problem is they fired the administrators that were doing it.
		So we still got a problem there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Ebola prevention.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Ebola prevention.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Mentioned yesterday.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Nuclear folks with our nuclear weapons have had to rehire them.
		FAA, we need people manning our air traffic control towers.
		I could just go on and on.
		So my point is, let's do a full audit by all means.
		Put a spotlight on our spending.
		But when it comes to cutting, let's make sure we do the analysis and know what we're cutting so that we don't hurt our country.
		I saw a lack of caution in these cuts.
		And we've had to numerous times rehire people back in because what's wrong.
		I don't think that's smart.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And they sometimes can't find those people that they laid off.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		That's a fact.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Duane, a Republican in Winfield, West Virginia.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, sir, President.
unidentified		I don't agree with your idea about firing all these generals.
jim marrs ▲ ● ▼		If you'll look, General Milley went behind President Trump's back, consulted his equal in the Chinese Army, told him that he would let him know if Trump was going to do an attack on China.
unidentified		Now, do you think that a man like that should be the joint chief of staff?
		And also for General Charlie Brown.
		Charlie Brown is a poster boy for DEI.
		And something else.
		You say you're a Christian.
		Do you believe that God knows all, sees all, and hears all?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Okay, last question.
		Yes, I do believe I believe in an Almighty God of our Bible, that he knows everything.
		And I try to read four chapters a day in the Bible and pray.
		But when it comes to General Milley, I've got to just point out Gerald Trump, or President Trump, didn't fire Gerald Milley.
		He was already out.
		So we're talking about seven generals and admirals.
		And people, I mean, I know I've heard this said about General C.Q. Brown.
		He's the poster boy for DEI.
		People say that, but back it up.
		Why do you say that?
		Right?
		Now, he was doing some programs that President Biden wanted, and that's because President Biden was the president, and he had asked the military to do these things.
		President Trump comes in, and he gets the chance to tell the military, okay, I want to do it differently.
		Let's do a 30-degree change, whatever it may be.
		The military will respond.
		So to fire General Brown for doing what President Biden asked him to do, I don't think that's right, unless it was an unlawful order.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Ken, a Republican in Louisa, Virginia.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have a question about the original help that we gave Ukraine.
		Now, was this agreed to as a loan before, prior to this?
		Or was it determined later after Trump got into office here?
		Then he made up his own mind.
		And also, as a sidebar to that, all the help that we've been giving Israel, has that been considered a loan or has it been ironed out yet?
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		The answer to both those questions is no.
		They weren't loans.
		It was aid, one to Ukraine and also aid to Israel.
		And they were not premised initially as loans.
		And again, I'll just come back to it.
		It's in our national security interest for Ukraine to win this war.
		If Russia prevails, we're going to be spending a lot more money, whether it be NATO or in other ways.
		And so you stand up to a bully.
		If you do not stand up to a bully, they act out even more.
		And I'm reminded of what happened in 1938 when Nivelle Chamberlain met with Hitler privately and they carved up Czechoslovakia without the without Czechoslovakian leaders even there.
		And then a year later, Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia and invaded Poland.
		And we call that appeasement.
		Appeasement does not work with these dictators, and I believe in being firm with them.
		And so I have a different view about how to go about this than our president.
		I want to point out, I don't think President Biden did a great job here either.
		He was always late with the best weapons, F-16s, ATACOMs, anti-shipping missiles.
		He gave it to them a year, probably later than what they should, at a level that was too little, and then gave them rules of engagement that made it hard for him to fight Russia.
		So I was very critical of Joe Biden, too, on this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		That's Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska on the Armed Services and the Agriculture Committee.
		Thanks so much for being here.
don bacon ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Later, in about a half an hour, we'll hear from Wisconsin Democrat Gwen Moore about the recently passed House budget plan and the role of Democrats in the 119th Congress.
		But first, it's open forum.
		You can start calling in now.
		The numbers are on your screen.
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		democracy unfiltered.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is worth dying for.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼		Democracy belongs to us all.
bill clinton ▲ ● ▼		We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼		Great responsibilities fall once again.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		to the great democracies.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		American democracy is bigger than any one person.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		We are still at our core a democracy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
unidentified		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		It is open forum for about 25 minutes.
		We'll start taking your calls shortly.
		But first I want to show you a clip from yesterday's cabinet meeting.
		It was the first of President Trump's second term talking about the visit of Ukrainian President Zelensky.
unidentified		We're doing very well with Russia, Ukraine.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		President Zelensky is going to be coming on Friday.
		It's now confirmed.
		And we're going to be signing an agreement, which will be a very big agreement.
		And I want to thank Howard and Scott for the job you guys did in putting it together.
roger stone ▲ ● ▼		Really did an amazing job.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		And that'll be on rare earth and other things.
		And as you know, we're in for probably $350 billion.
		Europe is in for $100 billion.
		And that's a big difference.
		So we're in for probably three times as much.
		And yet it's very important to everybody, but Europe's very close.
		We have a big ocean separating us.
		So it's very important for Europe, and they hopefully will step up and do maybe more than they're doing, and maybe a lot more.
		The previous administration put us in a very bad position, but we've been able to make a deal where we're going to get our money back and we're going to get a lot of money in the future.
		And I think that's appropriate because we have taxpayers that shouldn't be putting the bill.
		And they shouldn't be putting the bill at more than the Europeans are paying.
		So it's all been worked out.
		We're happy about it.
		And I think that very importantly, we're going to be able to make a deal.
		Most importantly by far, we're going to make a deal with Russia and Ukraine to stop killing people.
		They'll stop killing young Russian soldiers and young Ukrainian soldiers and other people in addition in the towns and cities.
		And we will consider that a very important thing and a big accomplishment because it was going nowhere until this administration came in.
		They hadn't spoken to President Putin in two years.
		And so we'll keep you advised.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Getting your calls this morning on Open Forum and we'll start with Mary in Bonneville, Arkansas, Independent.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes.
		I've spent 30 years in the military and one thing I understand is implied intent.
		The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse and gives them the authority to set up these agencies.
		So the implied intent there is that Congress should be conducting an audit, not the executive branch.
		Why isn't Congress doing their job and the diplomacy branch having to do their job for them?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And David in Riverside, California, Republican Line, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi, and good morning, America.
		I want to talk about JD Vance, who is our new vice president.
		He went to the German security conference in Munich and warned them of the threats to free speech and Christian persecution going on in Europe and in the USA, and how we must have free speech if we are to preserve democracy.
		It was a very gutsy speech that he knew would not be well received.
		In Germany, people are being put in jail for insulting another person over the internet or in person, as the 60 Minutes TV show and podcast featured recently.
		I think free speech is a wonderful thing, but everything has its limits.
		Obscenity like pornography or filthy talk and F-words should be pushed out from mainstream society.
		And you should not be able to slander somebody by saying something scandalous unless it's true.
		Also, you should not be able to threaten violence.
		Having said the limits on free speech, I would say I'd like to say to point out what I can say on open forum or in person.
		I can't say I'm a Christian and I love Jesus.
		Don't agree with me?
		Fine, you can say so.
		I can say I think abortion is murder or at least manslaughter, depending on your knowledge before you do it.
		The way I figure, we have free speech, but we have to exercise it.
		As some people say, use it or lose it.
		I've actually gone to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, and worn a I Love Jesus hat in front of 100,000 people.
		Nobody ever picked on me about it.
		In fact, people would say to me, man, I want a hat like that.
		Where do I get that from?
		I did get negative comments rarely, but not at the Rose Bowl, but mostly positive overall.
		We take free speech for granted, but the way things are going, it's not a done deal.
		It always exists.
		Free speech is essential to every other freedom.
		Thank you, Mimi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Donovan in Spring Lake, Michigan, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		How are you this morning?
		Good.
		Good.
		Say, just a couple of things on my mind here.
		One is when you come to your reporting here and you have your newspapers and your stuff there like the Wall Street Journal.
		And now I hear that Jeff Bezos wants his New York Post column to only have articles that he agrees with.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Washington Post.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Yeah, the Washington Post.
		You know, he wants to have his opinion columnists write things that he agrees with without having anything that might, you know, throw a different angle in there.
		So kind of, you know, then you have people calling, you know, that say, you know, this TV news program, MSNBC, CNN.
		But then we have Fox News that paid $780 billion to not go to court over their lies about Dominion.
		And then another thing going on from there, just bantering here.
		A couple weekends ago, you had Ralph Norman, I think you talked to him from South Carolina, and he was talking about how he's so concerned, you know, in the Ways and Means Committee or whatever he belongs to about the American taxpayer dollars.
		But that's a man that's worth $40 some million dollars that did not have a problem taking $330,000 worth of PPP.
		So why doesn't Doge look into the Congress, the senators, and post who took PPP money, and then we'll know who really is concerned about the American taxpayer dollars.
		Thank you for your time, Mimi.
		Wake up, America.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Donovan mentioned the changes at the Washington Post.
		Here is CNN.
		Jeff Bezos announces significant shift coming to the Washington Post.
		A key editor is leaving because of it.
		It says that the opinion page that was led by David Shipley, the paper's editorial page editor, is going to be leaving the changes upended precedent and rattled a media company that has already been shaken by years of turmoil and leadership turnover.
		It says, so Bezos put out in an ex-post on Wednesday morning after announcing the change in a company-wide email.
		He said that Bezos wrote, Viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.
		So he said that he's got two editorial pillars, and that is anchored in freedom and free markets.
		I want to make sure I show you those two pillars, and I will find those for you.
		But we'll hear from Gina in Mount Vernon, New York, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hi.
		Hi.
		I just wanted to mention this.
		It says here that Donald Trump orders military to stop recruiting black people.
		Now, I have this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Wait, it says that where?
unidentified		This right here is on military.com.
		You guys, you know, I just want you to get it.
		But I just want to, because this right here, I really want you to hear this.
		I got this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Gina, you still there?
unidentified		Can you hear that?
unidentified		Can you hear it or you can't?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, no, no.
		You tell me.
		What are you.
unidentified		Okay, let me.
		Okay.
		Please, let me, please let me read this.
		I'm sorry.
		Okay, what it says here that really just tore my heart apart.
		I just cannot believe it.
		And then he did the.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so I think I've got what you're talking about.
		You said military.com.
		So it says military drops recruiting efforts at prestigious black engineering awards events.
unidentified		Yes, you got it.
unidentified		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's it.
		Okay.
		So it says the Army and other service branches are abandoning recruiting efforts at a prestigious black engineering event this week, turning down access to a key pool of highly qualified potential applicants amid President Donald Trump's purge of diversity initiatives in the military.
		Until this week, Army Recruiting Command had a long-standing public partnership with the Black Engineer of the Year Awards, an annual conference that draws students, academics, and professionals in science, technology, engineering, and math, known as STEM.
		It takes place in Baltimore, has been a key venue for the Pentagon to recruit talent, including awarding reserve officers training corps scholarships and pitching military service to rising engineers.
		And this is Larry, Pennsylvania, Democrat.
		Good morning, Larry.
unidentified		And good morning.
unidentified		How are you doing?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		All right.
ken in wisconsin ▲ ● ▼		Now, as a veteran and many family members who are veterans and some who served in wartime, now this morning, just recently, maybe about an hour and a half ago, on ABC News, there was a report that there may be cuts in veterans affairs and may not cover cancer treatments.
ken in wisconsin ▲ ● ▼		Quote, now for veterans, now, what other cuts could be in health care for veterans?
unidentified		You know, many veterans who served in Vietnam many years ago were exposed to chemicals.
unidentified		You know, some of them contacted Agent Orange.
ken in wisconsin ▲ ● ▼		Now, I would say that basically I don't think President Trump and his family members, I don't think any are veterans or Elon Musk.
unidentified		But I hope, you know, there's not too many cuts that could affect our veterans who need this care the most.
ken in wisconsin ▲ ● ▼		And Nimi, I just, I'm almost finished, but I remember about five years ago in 2018, I did an original video supporting President Trump and how the economy was going.
unidentified		And the video is called My Neighbor Larry.
unidentified		I want to thank you for your time.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Larry.
		And I do want to share the article that you talked about from ABC News.
		Headline: VA passes billions in cuts lauded by Musk as lawmakers and veterans decry loss of critical care.
		It says the Department of Veterans Affairs temporarily suspended billions of dollars in contract cuts after an uproar that critical veterans' health services were harmed.
		This says, so those cuts have been temporarily suspended as a result of that uproar.
		The cancellation would save $2 billion as the Trump administration works to slash cuts across the government.
		It says that Secretary Collins, Secretary of the VA, posted on X, quote, no more paying consultants to do things like make PowerPoint slides and write meeting notes.
		And here is Earl in Reading, California, Republican.
		Hi, Earl.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		Good morning, America.
		I'm a volunteer Agent Orange veteran, and I just want to say about the VA, they've kept me alive the last 30 years.
		I'm 100%.
		They didn't give the money to me lickety split, but as I added operations and procedures, my file kept getting bigger, and pretty soon they couldn't deny me, and I'm 100%.
		I just want to say it's one of the proudest things I've ever done in my life, and I don't have any regrets.
		There's two points I'd like to make quickly.
		One of them was the bringing back of retired Raisin Cain.
		Trump, in his own words, I heard him say when he went to Iraq, Afghanistan, he made a trip.
		He met Raisin Kane.
		He asked how long it's going to take to take care of ISIS.
		There were many people there said it's going to take years.
		Raisin Kane said not very long.
		And he went in and cleaned the house.
		They're coming back, ISIS, evidently.
		I heard him mention ISIS in the Congo, where they beheaded over 100 people.
		They herded them into a church and beheaded them for being Christians.
		Now, my second point is: bear with me.
		I've had some oxygen problems.
		It affects my memory a little.
		What was my second point?
		Damn, it's important.
		Oh, on Ukraine, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, people that are bitching about all this money disappearing and fraud and what have you, they need to take a look at Ukraine.
		I noticed every time billions of dollars was given to Ukraine, there was a bagman from the Democratic Party go over and present the check and probably came back with a suitcase.
		According to Trump, they got $350 billion, but they only got half of it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Earl, I do want to mention, since you brought this up, this is from Genocide Watch from Open Doors International.
		It's an organization saying that 70 Christians were murdered by ISIS, an ISIS affiliate in Eastern DRC, that's the Democratic Republic of Congo.
		It said that the militants rounded them up, took them to a church, and killed all 70 of them.
		So, yes, thank you for bringing that up to our attention.
		And this is Linda in Howell, Michigan, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, Mimi.
		I had wanted to talk to the representative, Mr. Bacon, and I just wanted to tell him how I appreciated as a Republican.
		He actually stood up for Ukraine and for all the values I hold dear as a veteran.
		And it was refreshing to hear him talk against his own party, which you don't hear anymore.
		That's really all I wanted to say, except for the fact that it makes me so sad to hear all the people denigrating veterans that work for the federal government, making it sound like that there's people out there that aren't even there and they're collecting a check.
		I mean, that is just sad.
		Veterans are hard workers, just like they were in the military.
		That's really all I have to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Lindsay.
		Here's Gregory in Belleville, New Jersey, Democrat.
		Hi, Gregory.
unidentified		Yes, hello.
		I like to say that this country is rotten within.
		And what's going on is greed is taking over this country.
		The Russians ain't going to have to come in here and do anything.
		America is undermining itself with Donald Trump in there.
		And first of all, the stealers and the big thiefs in there are the politicians.
		They steal more money and get rich on the taxpayers dimes.
		Donald Trump is no, he's not different.
		He's VSing the whole country, and he played on racism and misogyny and a whole bunch of stuff.
		So, you know, they've both been stealing both parties from the Social Security.
		They never paid it back the money they withdraw to pay other bills.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is George in Conroy, Texas, Republican.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, I had a quick comment about the Ukraine subject that Mr. Bacon was talking about.
		And that is that people need to do a little more reading of history and understand what's going on in that area for years.
		For example, the reason the Russians are so attached to the Crimea and Sevastopol is the warmwater part of Sevastopol.
		They've held that territory and been in that area.
		The Russian people have been in that area since 1783.
		Now, I'm not a big supporter of Putin or Russia, but I'm just talking about the historical facts in the area.
		The reason the Ukraini hate the Russians so much is because the Russians slaughtered millions of them in the 20s and 30s in the establishment of the CCC.
		So you've got two sides that there will never be peace between.
		So there has to be a negotiated settlement.
michael flynn ▲ ● ▼		And I'll guarantee you today that it will not include Ukraine keeping their territories out in the south and eastern part of the country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		George, do you think the United States should make security guarantees to Ukraine?
unidentified		Absolutely not.
		Absolutely not.
		Except to the extent that the western portions of Ukraine that may be salvaged, there should be an understanding with Russia that that's part of the deal, that the sovereignty of the western or central part of whatever they can maintain of a sovereign Ukraine shall remain sovereign, just as they would agree to the people over Crimea.
		Trust Russia to abide by those agreements without before you ask that question, let me ask you a question.
		They have held that territory since 1783.
		That's before Texas.
		This is no different than if Russia had come over here, messed around in Texas politics to try to get Texas to secede.
		How quickly do you think the United States would let go of Texas if Russia had done that?
		I guarantee you there'd be planetary warfare.
		Sorry.
		It's the same situation.
		Got it.
		And the problem is the public doesn't understand the historical background.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Tony in Martinsburg, West Virginia, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Tony.
unidentified		Good morning, folks.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, this country was established for the people.
		We, the people, are in a constitutional crisis.
		There shouldn't be an R in front of your name, an I in front of your name, a D in front of your name.
		We, the people, are getting bamboozled.
		And if we don't stand up together, instead of being divided, we're going to be in big trouble.
		And people need to realize that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Did we lose you, Tony?
unidentified		No, I'm here.
		I thought I was speaking to you earlier.
		I just want to say.
		Yeah, yeah.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're listening to the TV.
		You're getting confused.
		But I think we got it.
unidentified		Yeah.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Did you want to just finish up your point?
unidentified		Yeah, I'm just saying that we, the people, should be together.
		We need to stand together.
		We can't get divided because we're having Melanie in Louisville, Texas, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Tony, I know with West Virginia, kept getting kind of caught up in his thing, but I want to continue his point.
		We, the people, do need to band together.
		And I just don't know how we can fight this off when Elon and Trump are not listening to the courts.
		They're not listening to Congress.
		They're not listening to anybody.
		I was listening to Independent Senator King earlier, and he gave this big speech at the Senate last week about how, you know, power was split up for a reason so that no one person, no one president could take, you know, power away.
		But the thing is, they have thrown away the rule book.
		And Elon Musk hasn't been elected.
		He won't come to any Senate discussion, Congress, anything.
		He admitted that he made a mistake about the Ebola thing and that he took care of it.
		And as we know, that hasn't been taken care of.
		But nobody's looking at he, which is Elon Musk.
		And I'm afraid we have let the lion in, and he is gobbling up everything.
		And I just don't know how we can get it back.
		And I would love to have an answer.
		How do we get it back?
		How do we stop this from happening?
		Because nobody elected Elon Musk.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And for your schedule, later today, at about 2 p.m., President Trump is welcoming British Prime Minister Kier Starmer to the White House to discuss the war in Ukraine and other shared interests between the U.S. and the U.K. There will also be a joint news conference that's 2 p.m. Eastern.
		We'll have that live on C-SPAN here on C-SPAN Now, our app and online at c-SPAN.org.
		Well, up next, we've got Wisconsin Democrat Gwen Moore about the recently passed House budget plan and the role of Democrats in the 119th Congress.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		Book TV, every Sunday on C-SPAN 2, features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		At 8 p.m. Eastern, Ross Dalthick, author of Believe, and Jonathan Rauch, author of Cross Purposes, examine the decline of religiosity in America and what it means for the health of American democracy.
		And then at 10 p.m. Eastern on Afterwards, Kevin Fagan, with his book, The Lost and the Found, a true story of homelessness, found family, and second chances, reports on the underlying issues of homelessness in America, tracing the experiences of two unhoused persons in San Francisco.
		He's interviewed by former Obama administration Housing and Urban Development Secretary Sean Donovan.
		And at 11 p.m. Eastern, Pagan Kennedy, with her book, The Secret History of the Rape Kit, recounts the development of a forensic tool to collect evidence in crimes of sexual assault, now known as the Rape Kit.
		Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Saturdays, watch American History TV's 10-week series, First 100 Days.
		We explore the early months of presidential administrations with historians and authors and through the C-SPAN archives.
		We learn about accomplishments and setbacks and how events impacted presidential terms and the nation up to present day.
		Saturday, the first 100 days of Lyndon Johnson's presidency.
		He became president on November 22, 1963, after the assassination of President John Kennedy.
		President Lyndon Johnson kept Kennedy's cabinet in place and proceeded to push for legislation on taxes and on civil rights.
		Early in his term, he also declared a war on poverty in America.
		Watch our American History TV series First 100 Days Saturday at 7 p.m. Eastern on American History TV on C-SPAN 2.
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		Democracy.
		It isn't just an idea.
		It's a process.
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		It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted.
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jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is worth dying for.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼		Democracy belongs to us all.
bill clinton ▲ ● ▼		We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼		Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		American democracy is bigger than any one person.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
unidentified		We are still at our core a democracy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
unidentified		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We're joined now by Representative Gwen Moore, a Democrat of Wisconsin.
		She sits on the Ways and Means Committee and also is a member of the Progressive Caucus.
		Congresswoman Moore, welcome to the program.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Oh, thanks for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		As I just mentioned, you do sit on the Ways and Means Committee, and you also sit on the Social Security and Work and Welfare Subcommittees.
		As you know, on Tuesday, the House Republicans passed their budget resolution.
		All Democrats, including yourself, were opposed.
		The question is: those $2 trillion in cuts to mandatory federal spending, where do you think that that's going to come from?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, Mimi, you know, it's really clear from their reconciliation, their resolution instructions to the committees that a great deal is going to come out of agriculture.
		$230 billion, that also seems to be where, you know, SNAP, formerly, SNAP, formerly called Food Stamps, comes from, and $880 billion out of the Energy and Commerce Committees, which presides over Medicaid and also the Inflation Reduction Act energy improvements that were made under the Biden administration.
		That's where a great deal of the money is going to come from.
		And people who are concerned are rightfully concerned.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, then, where should cuts come from, in your opinion?
		Because most people agree that current deficit spending is not sustainable.
		The size of the national debt is not sustainable.
		So where would you cut in federal spending?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		I would cut the wasteful giveaways and tax breaks to people who don't need them.
		To wealthy corporations, there's a huge loophole in what we call a small business initiative, the 199A provisions that provide a pass-through income to businesses.
		We have businesses that have gross receipts of $10 million that are, as far as I'm concerned, are unworthy of this particular tax break.
		Bonus depreciation.
		would cut some of the fat from the tax breaks that we're providing the $4.5 trillion that's being proposed for tax cuts that primarily not totally but primarily benefit corporations and the wealthiest individuals in the United States.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now Politico reports that some GOP lawmakers are discussing enacting work requirements for Medicaid, closing some of the state loopholes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Would you be in favor of that?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me just say this, Mimi.
		Imposing work requirements has never created more work.
		People who are able to work are happy to work.
		When people are not working, there is often some really important reason, their own health, they have responsibilities for children, for elderly people.
		The only purpose for imposing work requirements is to discourage people who would otherwise be eligible from applying.
		Their whole strategy around work requirements is not to increase work, but to deny people who are eligible of those benefits.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you'd like to join our conversation with Representative Gwen Moore, a Democrat of Wisconsin, she will be with us until the end of the program at 9 Eastern when the House is scheduled to gavel in.
		The numbers are 202748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats, and 202748-8002 for Independents.
		Congresswoman, I'd like to get your reaction to the Doge, the activities of Elon Musk, what you have seen so far, and where you are on this.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I can tell you that Doge doesn't exist as a statutory department.
		It doesn't exist, really.
		There's nobody who's operating within Doge who has been confirmed by the Senate, that has been appointed by anyone.
		It is this very amorphous group of people headed by, I don't know if it's headed by Elon Musk.
		They're now denying that he's the head of Doge, but he's sort of calling all the shots.
		I want people to understand that this is not regular order.
		This is not normal.
		This is not constitutional.
		This is a group of people that are, from my opinion, continuing the insurrection that we saw starting on January 6th, 2021.
		They have breached not only the halls of Congress, but they're into the Treasury, they're into our military facility data, labor data, Fort Knox.
		They have breached our government.
		And it is totally inappropriate.
		And it is part of what I regard as a continuance of the insurrection.
		We have an unelected, unconfirmed by the Senate, a naturalized citizen, not even a birthright person in charge of our government, Elon Musk.
		It is not normal.
		It is not legal.
		It is not constitutional.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		When you say it's not constitutional, can you elaborate on that?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, you know, President Trump was elected as our 47th President of the United States, and he has completely ceded his power and control, calling the shots to Elon Musk.
		And not only that, the Congress has ceded its role to the president and to the executive branch.
		I mean, it is not legal for the president to be doing what he's doing to impound funds.
		We're Article I of the Constitution, the members of Congress.
		It is our job to discern whether or not we make cuts or withhold money based on waste, fraud, and abuse.
		This is not Elon Musk's call.
		It is not the president's call.
		And the Impoundment Act of 1974, which is a reaction to, of course, Richard Nixon impounding duly appropriated funds.
		And it has been affirmed by the United States Supreme Court time and again that the Article I functions, the power of the purse, resides with the Congress.
		And so everything that they're doing is unconstitutional.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's take some calls, Congresswoman.
		This is Dorothy in Baltimore, a Democrat.
		Good morning, Dorothy.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning, Congresswoman.
		You know, I have a problem with my Democratic Party with messaging.
		We have got to pick it up.
		Now, what I want to say to you, I'm going to tell you about two things.
		One is Social Security being taxed.
		Do you know that if we make $25,000 or over $25,000 a year, this includes adding your Social Security to what you made?
		I made like $12,000.
		They added my Social Security money to it so I could be taxed on my Social Security.
		That's crazy.
		Also, why don't you all get them to take the cap off?
		The Democrats could run on those two things alone and probably win election.
		But y'all don't even put it out there to the people.
		You don't message it.
		You should put it out there.
		The Republicans ran on the border.
		That's all.
		They didn't run on doing nothing for nobody.
		Just the border.
		And one, every house.
		You all run on that.
		I guarantee you you will win every house and the president, but you could do more.
		But them two things alone would put y'all back in the White House, the Congress, and the Senate.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Dorothy.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, Dorothy, you're just not by yourself in criticizing the Democrats for messaging, for not doing more.
		And you're right.
		Elections have consequences.
		And so the Democrats, if you say that it's our messaging, you know, people did not want to hear us talk about democracy being at stake.
		They did not want to hear us warn them about Project 2025.
		And about a third of that has been put in place with this whole Doge effort.
		They didn't want to hear it.
		They said we weren't getting through to them.
		And of course, elections now have consequences.
		The robber barons are at the door.
		They're looking for $4.5 trillion to give to the wealthiest corporations and individuals.
		You saw Elon Musk with a chainsaw, a really, I think, apt symbol of what they're doing.
		And not only that, you saw Dorothy, I mean, they cut employees that were responsible for ensuring that our nuclear plants were safe.
		The FAA, where, of course, Elon Musk has a lot of projects, his Starlink projects associated with the FAA.
		We've seen them sort of firing hordes of people.
		They're firing, I'm sure there are people who voted for Donald Trump that didn't believe that maybe they thought we weren't messaging well.
		Veterans and the VA is being dismantled as we speak.
		In my own district, just yesterday, we had three veterans dismissed, just unilaterally fired, and I guess their names were waste, fraud, and abuse, according to Elon Musk.
		So our message now is that the real thing that's going to save this country is you, Dorothy, you standing up against this insurrection.
		Because as Abraham Lincoln said, and Speaker America is fond of quoting, Abraham Lincoln, is that public sentiment is everything.
		And then without it, everything fails and nothing succeeds.
		So Dorothy, I would suggest instead of just saying what Democrats ought to be doing, you need to be calling up those Republicans who perhaps, you know, Republicans and maybe there aren't any Republican senators in Maryland, thank God.
		But there are Republicans all over this country, and you see people with their handmaids.
		And that is what is working.
		That is the only thing that will get the Congress more afraid of their behavior and holding up that chainsaw than they are of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Congresswoman, she also asked about taxing Social Security.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Where do you stand on that?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, the Social Security, I have a proposal in particular that would address some of what Dorothy has talked about.
		And Social Security, you know, taxes are things that have to be done.
		I think, I think taking the cap, she mentioned one thing, taking the cap off Social Security, and my proposal does that.
		There's absolutely no reason that my daughter, who's a school teacher, has to pay taxes on her Social Security wages throughout the entire year.
		And by August, I no longer pay Social Security taxes.
		So that's one thing that I would agree with Dorothy on for sure.
		But that is not where we are right this minute.
		We're in the middle of trying to prevent the government from being shut down and trying to prevent these robber barons from stealing all of the money, putting youth, elderly, seniors, veterans at risk by taking medical care monies, by undermining Medicare, by withdrawing monies from hospitals in rural areas and low-income areas.
		That's where we are right this minute.
		We're in the middle of a crisis, and that debate is not what's on the table at this moment.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Jeff in Racine, Wisconsin, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Jeff.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		I was born in Racine, Jess.
unidentified		Hi, how are you doing, sweetheart?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		I'm doing great.
unidentified		I'm just wondering what this HUD scandal up there in Milwaukee.
		I'm just wondering what's going on with that.
		Are you involved with that?
		Is Tammy Baldwin involved with that?
		And what do you think about our Governor Evers with his impregnating women and all of this other stuff that he's putting out there?
		I thought we were all done with this crap.
		Didn't Democrats learn anything from the election?
		That's all I got to say.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, thank you.
		Governor Evers is not impregnating anybody.
		I can tell you that that's a fact.
		With regard to the HUD scandal in Milwaukee, you know, HUD has been underfunded for decades and decades with regard to the repairs and maintenance.
		And we really do need to lean more into providing decent facilities for those people who often have worked their entire lives and find themselves disabled or in retirement without the fancy benefits that some of us get.
		Public housing is extremely important toward our housing solution.
		And I think that HUD and hopefully this administration, as was true with the Biden administration, they have been working with the local housing authority to try to get things in shape and really authorizing sort of outside agencies to do some oversight.
		And thank you for the question.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Patrick, Seminole, Florida, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Patrick.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have a question for you.
		Since Musk is doing everything unconstitutionally, he's not invented by the Senate.
		Is there anything you could do to him out?
		Get him out off and out.
		In other words, make that dose go away.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, public sentiment is everything.
		You're in Florida.
		You've got Republicans.
		You're surrounded by Republicans.
		These are the people you need to be complaining to.
		You know, the people who are voting to do, to support him, like Byron Donalds, comes to mind as a Republican down there.
		These are people who are more concerned about the sentiments of President Trump than they are you in Florida.
		If they knew how pissed off and mad you were, maybe they wouldn't vote to gut Medicaid.
		Maybe they wouldn't vote to gut SNAP.
		Maybe they wouldn't vote to destroy the federal employees.
		You know, most of the federal employees don't even live in Washington, D.C. or Maryland or Virginia.
		They're all over the country.
		I have 18,000 of them in Wisconsin and certainly in Florida with Nassau and everything else there.
		You have a lot more federal employees than I do.
		You need to complain to Republicans.
		Republicans now are scared of Donald Trump and they're not scared of you.
		They need to be scared of you, scared that you're going to mobilize.
		You're going to get all your neighbors, your nieces, and nephews to vote against them in two years.
		That's the thing that will move them.
		As a single member of Congress in the minority, I don't have the power to move him.
		He'd be gone if it were up to me.
		He's unelected.
		He is unconfirmed by the Senate.
		This is unconstitutional.
		Here's a person who, as a member of Congress, I can't earn a penny more than $30,000 of outside income because that would be unethical and violation of my oath.
		Here's a man who has billions of dollars of contracts with the federal government sitting in on cabinet meetings.
		The house is on fire.
		And I want people to understand this, that there is nothing normal about this.
		And, you know, blaming Democrats for not having the right message or whatever, that's not the solution.
		Democrats are working hard.
		There's not a single Democrat anywhere that's going to vote for their stuff.
		We are working with the 70 so far lawsuits that are out there to try to stop them filing amicus briefs.
		But you, you, out there in Seminole, Florida, you are the solution to this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Mrs. James in Crownsville, Maryland, Republican.
		Good morning, James.
		James, you there?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Uh-oh.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Mimi?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Ron in Hunt Valley, Maryland, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, Representative.
		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		So I think first we have to back up and look at this at a broader perspective.
		How did we end up where we're at here today?
		And the Democratic Party really has to take that question seriously.
		And they're not.
		You know, when you mislead the country on the cognitive condition of our president, when you prioritize illegal immigrants over U.S. citizens, that's how we end up where we're at here today.
		And I noticed that you're using the same talking points that we can get off of YouTube, that we can hear on CNN or MSBC, but there's no substance to what you're saying.
		Half of America is suffering right now.
		And I'm an independent.
		My son's mom works for the DOD, and I'm just calling every day to see if she got her pink slip.
		So this is impacting me as well.
		But when I'm hearing from you and from Jeffries, that there's nothing that we can do, that right there should be a shock to every single Democratic constituent that voted for you.
		There's a lot that you can do.
		You can start getting out the air preparing for two years from now, right?
		So it seems as if your party has pretty much just, you know, just given up on those constituents who have voted for you.
		And this is really disappointing.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I'm sorry that you think that I am not being substantive in my discussion here today.
		And I apologize if you don't think it's substantive.
		And I apologize to you for thinking that I'm not representing my constituents, you know, and that the Democratic Party has failed.
		Apparently we have failed.
		And that, you know, we started with our not acknowledging the aging condition of our President Biden.
		You know, and I guess your suggestion is that Mr. Trump is somehow not compromised in his mental capacity either.
		I guess that's the assumption that I would have to make around that.
		And that people voted for Donald Trump because he seemed to be so much more prescient than Joe Biden, if that were the thing that determined the election.
		I think that Donald Trump and his team, that they were very clever in appealing to people's emotions, having people focus on the, say, the 0.002% of our population that were trans,
		and convincing people that we were more concerned about transgender people than we were about their grandmother who was in the hospital or who didn't want to pay more than $65 a month for her insulin or that we weren't concerned about addressing climate change, that we only cared about trans people.
		And that we wanted, you know, undocumented people, illegal aliens, as they called them, and that we were spending millions of dollars on them and not taking care of American people.
		That was the talking point of the Republicans that seemed to have pierced Americans' consciousness more than our concern about Project 2025, which is about third way through, and they're following it, you know, and Donald Trump's promises that, in fact, he knew nothing about it.
		They apparently thought that that was a much more compelling than our efforts to lower prescription drug costs, to maintain a safety net for people, and to address climate action and to continue our alliances across the oceans with our European colleagues.
		And so I do apologize for you, to you, for not appearing to be substantive and sounding like I'm on YouTube.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Diane in Bartow, Florida, Democrat.
unidentified		Hello.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		My name is Diane.
unidentified		I'm a Democrat.
unidentified		I do not have a complaint, but I would like to know why Elon Musk has not cut some of his billions of dollars he's getting from the government.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Good question.
		Just the other day, last time I checked, he just gave himself a $38 million contract.
		I doubt that he has any competitors against that.
		And you know, the really interesting thing is that the last time at the end of the beginning of this session, we were at the point when we were preventing the government from being shut down in December.
		There was a continuing resolution that the Democrats and Republicans had both agreed upon.
		And at the last minute, Donald Trump said, oh, I want you to raise the debt limit.
		And there was a lot of confusion.
		And, oh, we were just hours away from shutting the government down.
		And Elon Musk pulled one provision out of there where Democrats and Republicans, both of them being concerned about the Chinese Communist Party, there was a provision that would have prevented people like Elon Musk from interfacing with Chinese technologies, and that was pulled out.
		You know, and we know that Tesla's, Shanghai, the Chinese operations, are responsible for maybe about 50% of those productions.
		And so Elon Musk is protecting his interests as he runs the government.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Chuck in Adele, Wisconsin, Republican.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Wisconsin.
unidentified		Good morning.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		You sit there and talk about how it's Congress's job to find all this waste and fraud and all that.
		Why did it take Elon to find out that we're paying thousands of people that are over 150 years old on Social Security?
		What was Congress doing?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, let me just get one thing straight about that, sir.
		And I'm glad you really brought that up.
		There is nobody that is 150 years old getting a Social Security check.
		You know, my daughter was born, I happen to know this.
		My daughter was born January 1st, 1970, which began literally January 1st, 1970, was the beginning of a new year of computer timing.
		And people who, and at one point, the computer sort of timing for Social Security was that 150 years.
		And so that was a way for them to, the Social Security system to track the very, and route out the very kind of waste, fraud, and abuse we'd be looking for.
		That was a fluke that was announced inappropriately.
		It should be a source of great embarrassment to the tech titan Elon Musk.
		There's nobody who's 150 years old getting Social Security.
		That's a Republican talking point.
		He hasn't found any waste, fraud, and abuse that we can find.
		But that is our job as the Article 1 of the Constitution, which makes it very clear that it is our job to appropriate monies, to take monies back.
		That is our job.
		And of course, if people don't like it, we're up for election every two years.
		They can unelect them if they don't feel that we're doing that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Congresswoman, real quick, I mean, the government runs out of money March 14th.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What's the Democratic strategy for that?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, beware of the eyes of March.
		You know, and, you know, people don't want to hear it that the voters, I mean, 85 million people who were eligible to vote didn't even bother to vote.
		But that being said, very narrowly, the Senate, the House, and the presidency went to Republicans.
		And so I am praying that they have the power to keep the government open.
		They're in the majority.
		All they have to do is vote to keep the government open.
unidentified		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Representative Gwen Moore, Democrat of Wisconsin, thanks so much for joining us.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we'll take you right over to the House of Representatives, gaveling in right now.
unidentified		The Speaker.
susan cole ▲ ● ▼		The Speaker's Rooms, Washington, D.C., February 27th, 2025.

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