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March 2, 2025 10:01-13:07 - CSPAN

03:05:57

Washington This Week

Participants

Main

alexander vindman

36:22

cal thomas

28:50

eugene vindman

rep/d 08:17

tammy thueringer

cspan 26:13

Appearances

ben smith

01:48

brendan carr

01:23

volodymyr zelenskyy

ukr 00:40

Clips

bret baier

fox 00:16

donald j trump

admin 00:06

john mcardle

cspan 00:17

kurt nimmo

infowars 00:11

Callers

jeff in police force

callers 00:04

john in ohio

callers 02:42

kelly rushing

callers 00:04

kurt in indiana

callers 00:27

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		C-SPAN's Washington Journal, a live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. and across the country.
		And coming up Monday morning, NBC News congressional reporter Scott Wong previews President Trump's address to Congress on Tuesday.
		And then White House correspondent Philip Wegman of Real Clear Politics discusses the week ahead at the White House.
		Also, Gene Dodaro, U.S. Comptroller General and head of the Government Accountability Office, will talk about the GAO's latest report on federal programs deemed at high risk for mismanagement, fraud, and waste.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
		Join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Monday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at cspan.org.
		Weekends bring you Book TV featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		Ross Dalthat, 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 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.
		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 weekend on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule in your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
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tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		This is Washington Journal for Sunday, March 2nd.
		According to Gallup, Americans' trust in the mass media is at its lowest point in more than five decades, with the number of recent polling respondents saying they have no trust at all in the media, outnumbering those who said they have a great deal or a fair amount of trust.
		To start today's program, we want to hear your view of the news media.
		Here are the lines: Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can text your comments to 202-748-8003.
		Be sure to include your name and city.
		You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ.
		Good morning, and thank you for being with us today.
		We will get to your calls and comments in just a few moments, but first wanted to give you more information about that Gallup polling.
		From the Gallup, it says Americans continue to register record low trust in the mass media with 31% expressing a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly.
		That's similar to last year's 32%.
		Americans' trust in the media, such as newspapers, television, and radio, first fell to 32% in 2016 and did so again last year.
		For the third consecutive year, more U.S. adults have no trust at all in the media.
		That's at 36%, than trusted a great deal or fair amount.
		Another 33% of Americans say not very much confidence.
		And in addition to that's mainly looking at national news, Pew Polling doing some data as well.
		And something that they found is that a majority of both parties, the Democrats and Republicans, say that local media in their area is doing their job well.
		While Republicans and GOP-leaning independents are slightly less positive than Democrats and Democratic leaners of their opinion of local media, views of local news don't have the same stark political divides that exist within Americans' opinion about national media.
		It was this week during an event hosted by Semaphore.
		It was a summit discussing public trust in the news.
		It was Jim Brady, the Knight Foundation's journalism vice president, talking about why the trust in local news is higher than national news.
unidentified		Why do you think the local news, the trust in news is so significantly higher?
		Because at those numbers, you cited almost double or even triple some of the numbers on the national level.
		Yeah, I mean, I think it's because you're reporting about things people know about and care about.
		And I think there's a, you know, I think one of the things we did do very well for a long time in journalism, and I'll speak mostly from the newspaper world from where I came.
		I think even when the business of local journalism was really good, or the newspaper business specifically, I don't think that that actually meant we were deeply in contact with our audiences.
		I think the profit margins in some way were so good that we could kind of cover whatever we wanted and what the audience wanted was not necessarily something that was top of mind.
		I think that's changed a lot in the digital era where the business model of local news has gone from advertising to much more of a membership and a subscription model.
		And good luck building a viable membership or subscription model if the audience doesn't get asked what it is they want or have a way to express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with that work.
		So I think there's much more of a sense that local news organizations, especially the ones that have launched in the last 15, 20 years, start with the idea that we need to give consumers what they want.
		And of course, you have to start with the simple method of asking them, which I don't think we did very well in newspapers for a long time.
		So I think it's just, you know, there's an interesting newspaper publisher who appeared at ONA last year on my News Association conference made a point that said, you know, when you get 100 football high school football scores right, every day in the paper, people tend to believe the stuff you put in there about government and transportation and other things in the community too.
		And so I thought that was an interesting way of looking at it.
		But people can verify that you're getting things right because they're living among the people that are being covered.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Again, for this first hour, we are asking your view of the news media, the lines Democrats 202-748-8,000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		We will start with Kurt in Anaheim, California, line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Kurt.
unidentified		Kurt, are you there?
unidentified		Morning.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Kurt.
unidentified		How are you?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Doing well, Kurt.
		You're on the air.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		So what would you like to talk about?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		We will go on to Marvin.
		Good morning, Marvin.
		He's in Philadelphia, lying for Democrats.
unidentified		Yeah, I think local news is better.
		I think national news called it started becoming mark.
		I can't pronounce it.
		It's marketized.
		That means it's about money.
		They make money off of news.
		Every since, I think ever since Obama, Obama being the first black president, it just seemed like every day the national news, they try to make money off of news.
		I don't trust what they say.
		I trust C-SPAN because people call out with different points of views.
		And I can come up with my point of view.
		Fox News is more for Republicans or Trump supporters.
		And the NBC is more for Democrats or people against Trump.
		I think that is all about the money.
		I think it became marketized.
		And I don't really trust the national news.
		I'm an older gentleman.
		I remember when national news, you can get the information that was necessary to come up with a better conclusion.
		That's why I think that the election went the way that it did, because people don't know the truth.
		You know.
		Hello?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go ahead, Marvin.
unidentified		Yeah, that's what I came up with.
		If they would have knew the truth or had a better understanding of what Trump was contending to do with the government and everything like that, a lot of people might have voted different.
		You know what I mean?
		Because they don't have no people is not educated.
		And the news is supposed to give them educated.
		And I wish the national news catchers start doing their job.
		Well, I ain't up to them.
		The people that own the companies start trying to make money off of the news.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Marvin in Philadelphia.
		Philippe in Reading, Pennsylvania, lying for independence.
		Good morning, Philippe.
unidentified		It was actually Fully Pay, the proper pronunciation.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Oh, hey, Filipay.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Sorry about that.
unidentified		No, no, no worries.
		It happens about a billion times in my life.
		It's not a big deal.
		Hey, but here's the situation.
		What even the last gentleman really doesn't realize is that our media or journalism is privately held.
		And they are beholden to their advertisers.
		And they always have been and always will be.
		If anyone wants a lesson on that, go back to Citizen Kay and Watson.
		Excellent examination of journalism and what journalism is and isn't.
		And we have a society of professional journalism as a standard, but they are beholden, unfortunately, to the people that pay their bills.
		And where we're at today, we are so divided, it is unlike any other time before.
		And if you could look and see who advertises on Fox, they sell bone broth or some other possible scam, steak oil and stuff like that.
		It's nonsense.
		And then you have CNN, which has always been beholden to left-leaning Clinton News Network type stuff.
		And so you had to filter what's going on.
		And that's unfortunate.
		They are very reliable sources of information that do not add their spin to it, do not add their flavor or their opinion.
		And that's what I think that we've come down to, is that we live in a society that's not able to accept the answer, I don't know.
		And they look at the assembly saying, I don't know, as a position of weakness, where I consider that a position of honesty and strength to say, hey, I don't know something.
		Let me get back to you.
		And back to the other gentleman saying the truth.
		Truth is its lies agreed upon.
		We want facts.
		I don't want your truth.
		I want facts and facts alone.
		And to expect anything out of Captain Hyperbole, Mr. Trump, is ridiculous.
		I mean, I have to say this.
		I'll say this again.
		I have never been so embarrassed in my life to be where we're at.
		The way the president of Ukraine was treated in our home is just unacceptable.
		And we should have a countdown to when this is over because that's what we have only to hope for is when the next election comes and these people are gone.
		And that's what I hope for.
		Thank you for your time.
		Have a lovely day.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Felipe.
		We'll go to Mary in Fort Washington, Maryland, line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Mary.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		Good morning, Washington Journal.
		Folks, the news media has never told the truth for the last 30 years.
		They will not tell the truth to the people about the foreign policy in this country.
		If they did, the answers from everybody would be totally different.
		CNN, they don't tell the truth.
		They spin headlines.
		MSNBC, oh my God, terrible.
		Spin headlines.
		And they just get the panels on there, and all you get is their opinions.
		All we want is the truth which comes from facts.
		They're not telling the truth about the proxy war.
		If they did, we wouldn't be so upset about how Lizensky is feeling.
		Why would anybody support any more wars?
		We want the war to stop.
		We want young generations to continue to live.
		There's nobody else in Ukraine to fight.
		They're dragging people out of their homes.
		There's desertion there.
		They're using pregnant women.
		The war was lost three years ago, but the media didn't tell us that.
		So I don't have any faith in this media ever, especially as a black person.
		I get my media news from 89.3 FM and jazz injustice.
		I used to listen to Sputnik host before it was terminated because of people who own the networks.
		All of the access networks are owned by oligarchs.
		And every news channel is owned by the corporations.
		So do you expect us to get the truth from these corporations who stepped forward to take over this country right now?
		I'm right now, I don't know about this country.
		I don't even want to be here, especially with the person that's supposed to be the president.
		This is a joke.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		At your point, Mary, we'll go to Ed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Ed.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		In terms of the context for what we're discussing today with the news media, I would say that my general emotions about this beer are highly negative, although for a slightly different reasons than the other callers have said.
		I think that we watched, in real time, a great deal of our countrymen fall victim to disinformation and the ensuing feedback.
		Looks a great example for one is what happened in the Oval Office the other day.
		Even so-called left-leaning legacy media has largely failed to make mention of the fact that President Trump was successfully impeached, albeit not removed from office, for his behavior with President Zelensky in the past.
		And almost certainly what happened was prearranged.
		It's almost impossible to feel that it was not.
		And I think that a great deal of the despair and kind of honomy that our country are experiencing right now and the paranoia is by design.
		For example, a reporter from the Russian state media that was present during the meeting, but later escorted out, the amount of screening that members of the press pool are subject to makes that impossible.
		I would argue, you know, that people are in a very vulnerable place right now.
		And their knee-jerk reaction to what's going on is that they need to feel trust for something.
		Now, as a Republican, many of my colleagues, country, whatever I'm going to say here, have fallen victim, you know, starting Fox News and persisting in the current time of increasingly splintered and manic channels that mostly peddle in disinformation and talking points.
		And that includes, this function includes the vice president himself, who, when you see the nature of that escalation of that argument, it was because he was unable to give a good answer to the president of Ukraine when he was asked a very direct question that, as someone who's a statesman in waiting, he should have been able to answer.
		And I think that it's fair for people to be frustrated and confused by what is going on when they're expected to keep up constantly with a very frantic internal logic that only makes sense to people who have quote-unquote taken the red pill, so to speak.
		I think that there's an opportunity here as we move forward for people to remember that we do not live in Xi's China or Castro's Cuba or Putin's Russia, to put you to point on it.
		We still live in the United States.
		Our elected officials and the people who are out there who are supposed to be making our decisions are still not going to be killed or jailed for standing up and doing the right thing and speaking truth to power.
		They still have an opportunity to do the right thing, and I pray that they do so.
		I think there is an opportunity for people to get together and actually force the issue of leaning things back towards a fact-based reality.
		You know, we live in a very dire situation when the conditions on the ground are such that Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is at odds with the president of the United States of America, that they are less conservative than the leader of Free World, and that our leader appears to currently live in a totally insulated bubble where he is largely fed disinformation by people who are compromised by foreign seats of power.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Ed in Philadelphia.
		A partisan breakdown of Gallup's recent polling looking at confidence in the mass media.
		The blue line that you see at the top, that is Democrats, it's at 54%.
		The gray dotted line there is independents.
		That's at 27%.
		The bottom number, the red, 12%, just 12% of Republicans believe have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media.
		It was during last week's semaphore event looking at restoring trust in news that NPR's CEO was asked about accusations of the outlet being too liberal.
		Here's her response.
unidentified		One core critique from the right, this is one I think you're probably pretty familiar with, is that NPR is too liberal.
		This is like the kind of the cliche.
		What would you point to right now in NPR's programming that disproves that argument?
		I mean, our newscast, our morning show, the 10 million people who listen every single week, the fact that we are in every part of the country and have millions of listeners in every state, red, blue, otherwise.
		You know, in terms of the programming, our broadcast programming, I would say, is very much down the line and focuses on bringing the folks on who are making the news every single day and asking them the questions that matter.
		So we don't do opinion programming unlike other parts of the folks that we've had on so far today, and I think that that is a pretty big difference.
		So why do you think that people still have that view?
		You know, right, I listen, you know, I listen to the morning edition, you know, all things considered, you know, these are often pretty, yeah, I know plenty of the people who work on them.
		These are often quite, you know, rigorously very, very objective in the traditional journalistic sense.
		Why do you think that people then have that viewpoint?
		I mean, I would say a couple different things.
		One is public radio is public radio.
		Not everything you hear on public radio is NPR.
		And as you travel across the country, you may hear things that are appropriate to your local community.
		You're going to hear something very different on Harvest Public Radio or Prairie Public than you're going to hear in San Francisco, which has a totally different audience that it's trying to serve.
		So public radio has a different tone, and that's part of what makes it really special.
		The local communities determine what they program.
		They choose what to program.
		Not all public radio even programs NPR.
		And so that confusion is often something that we hear, and it's something that I heard John Collins saying earlier: we really have to advocate for what it is that we do and explain what we do.
		I think we have to show what we do.
		I think it's a really important part of piece of how we think about trust.
		And part of that is also articulating: hey, look, you actually listen to our coverage.
		Tell me what it is that you're hearing that you think is a problem.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We're taking your calls and getting your comments on what you think about the news media.
		This tweet from, or I'm sorry, this text from Harry in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania, he says, I'm a registered professional engineer.
		If I needed thorough, timely, accurate information or data, I would never use the American media industry or its cohorts.
		Awful doesn't describe it.
		It's 2025 and it's still tabloid USA.
		Let's hear from Rob in Port Crane, New York, Line for Independence.
		Good morning, Rob.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you.
		Look, here's why I don't trust the media.
		Here's some stories that you have not heard in the media, okay?
		Since Elon Musk got into this Doge thing and he got into USAID, it turned out USAID is paying for 6,200 journalists, 770 news outlets.
		Jamie Raskin's company, Global Community, took $160 million of USAID money just in 2023 alone.
		Sheldon Whitehouse's wife got $12 million from USAID money because she has some kind of ocean research company that's just a fraud.
		They gave $2 billion in climate money to that woman in Georgia that ran for governor, Stacey Abrams.
		$2 billion.
		Now, here's another crazy thing that you're not going to hear on the news.
		You know, our government said FEMA had no money for those people in Lahaina, Hawaii when they were burnt out.
		They didn't have any money for the people in Palestine, Ohio.
		They didn't have any money for hurricane victims in Florida, North Carolina.
		But in the time that those things were going on, they handed out $1.1 billion to illegal aliens, including the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, which is owned by the Pakistani government.
		So, you know, I have no faith in the media.
		Alex Soros and his father just bought hundreds of radio stations.
		And C-SPAN, you guys are about hit ready to put a traitor on the air at 9 o'clock, Alexander Vinman, who turned it, he leaked Trump's phone call to Zelensky when Trump was trying to find out why all those millions flowed into the Biden family pockets.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Rob, let me ask you this.
		You said you don't trust the news media, but you were citing some, you were talking about people who are getting paid.
		Where did you get that information from?
		Where did you hear it?
unidentified		I do my own research, and I'm not going to tell you where because I don't want those sites to be knocked offline as soon as I get off the phone.
		And our government has the opportunity to do that, and they've done it before.
		So our government is not working for us.
		They're working against us.
		And by the way, the other thing that the media has been lying about lately is how Russia invaded Ukraine.
		Well, Russia did not invade Ukraine for eight years.
		There was Victoria Newland in the U.N. State Department was recorded in a phone call where she said, we want Yachts.
		Yachts is our guy, F the EU.
		That was interference in another country's election.
		And by the way, Zelensky said out of that $177 billion we sent them, he only received $72 billion.
		So there's $105 billion worth of equipment running around here.
		Where is it?
		And why won't the media talk about that?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Rob, I do want to share.
		You were talking about Stacey Abrams.
		I wanted to share something with Political Fact.
		They looked into this, and they're saying that there's no evidence.
		It says that Abrams was a senior counsel to one of the five member organizations of a clean energy coalition that received $2 billion in funding from Biden's EPA.
		Abrams was not paid by Power Forward Communities and did not receive any federal funds.
		Its CEO said.
		The EPA said it's awarded the grant through a competitive review process.
		There's no evidence the funding was fraudulent or that Abrams personally benefited from it.
		Power Forward Communities recently announced the first phase of its projects funded by the grant, and they rate the claim false.
unidentified		That story from?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That's PolitiFact.
unidentified		PolitiFact.
		Okay, they're garbage.
		Political, PolitiFact.
		All these New York Times, Washington Post, you guys got to quit using these for your source.
		Good God, they're lying to you every day and you keep, forget it.
		I'm done.
		Have a good day.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Rob in New York.
		We'll go to Gary, also in New York, lying for Democrats.
		Good morning, Gary.
unidentified		Hello.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Gary.
unidentified		Hi, how are you doing?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Doing well.
unidentified		Hi, I'm just on a call.
		Definitely a Democrat.
		My honest opinion, I think Trump, all those felonies he's had, he should definitely be put in jail.
		The Republicans are all afraid of him.
		They don't dare say anything.
		They should impeach him, I think.
		I don't think he should even be a garbage person.
		Trump.
		And anyway, no, honestly, even my son voted for Trump, and I couldn't believe he did.
		But honestly, he shouldn't be put in jail.
		The Republicans are afraid of him.
		What him and the president from Ukraine, when they were talking on the news, that was ridiculous.
		I mean, what they did to him and what it made the United States look like compared to other countries.
		I mean, and he's supposedly the president.
		I don't, honestly, he shouldn't be president.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Gary in New York.
		This headline from the outlet, The Conversation, White House spat with AP over Gulf America, ignites fears for press freedom in the second Trump era.
		A federal judge in the District Court of Columbia will shortly decide if the U.S. President Donald Trump is allowed to dictate terms of service of the Associated Press.
		That's the AP, the U.S. wire agency that proudly claims it's read by 4 billion people every day.
		It was last week during the event looking at trust in media that Brett Baer of Fox News was asked about the White House blocking access to the Associated Press.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		What do you make, though, of the speaking of the controversy of the day, the White House decision to block the White House course to block the AP's access specifically, I guess, because they won't say Gulf of America, and also to sort of make a play to take control of the pool.
		You've been in the mix of these kind of controversies for a long time.
		What do you make of that?
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, listen, we support the White House Correspondents Association.
		We always have.
		They do good things, not just the organizing of the pool.
		They do scholarships, all kinds of things.
		This is a reordering.
		We'll have to see how it shakes out.
		For the TV side, it's going to be the same kind of thing.
		You know, the five TV networks are going to still do the same job.
bret baier ▲ ● ▼		I just, you know, I worry about setting precedent that changes things down the road, and maybe they don't realize the implications of it.
unidentified		I think that they're talking about more transparency.
		You can't argue that this White House isn't answering questions and opening up.
		He's answered, I think he's had 1,100 questions in the first month.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, I saw your report of that.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		There's a power struggle, right, over who controls access to the president.
unidentified		100%.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		Do you think the media deserves, ought to have control ultimately over that, you know, over who gets sent to follow him around?
unidentified		Yeah, listen, we stood by the AP.
		We signed that letter of the networks standing by, not blocking somebody for editorial decisions.
		I've stood up for CNN when they were in a pool.
		People have stood up for Fox.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		I think the concern is partly just to make it explicit, like President AOC tosses you out of the pool, right?
unidentified		It would happen different times, yeah.
		I mean, it would set precedent.
		So, yeah, I think it's something that you have to be concerned about.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		And I've always admired Fox's stance on it.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		There have been a bunch of these controversies, and Fox has always, I think, you know, to some degree, probably in a way that its audience might not love, you know, foster these kind of micro-prerogatives in the White House that do have consequences.
unidentified		But I will say, telling the story about that is not something people care about in middle America.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		Well, this is something I'm interested in because I watched the show.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		You don't talk, this is not a thing you talk about on the street.
unidentified		It's very processy.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		It's boring.
unidentified		It's very Washington.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		It is very Washington.
		It's very boring.
		But are you worried that also your audience would be upset?
		No, it's not the landscape.
unidentified		If it was a bigger story, if somebody cared about how the White House press pool is going to operate, for us, it's very processy.
		It's big here in Washington, and I did it on social media, and Jackie Einrich's on the board.
		But it's very processy for anybody watching.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		On the same topic, this is the headline in the opinion section of this morning's New York Times.
		Trump loves free speech only when it's his.
		The opinion by the editorial board in part says, over the past month, Mr. Trump and his allies have embarked on an expansive crackdown on free expression and disfavored speakers that should be decried not just as hypocritical, but also as un-American and unconstitutional.
		It's in the distorted view of the Trump administration.
		Protecting free speech requires controlling free speech, banning words, phrases, and ideas that challenge or complicate government-favored speech.
		Officials in Washington have spent the past month stripping federal websites of any hint of unfavorable words and thoughts, disciplining news organizations that refuse to parrot the president's language, and threatening to punish those who have voiced criticism of the investigations or prosecutions.
		The Orwellian nature of this approach is deliberate and dangerous.
		This posture is not about protecting free speech.
		It is about prioritizing far-right ideology and at times celebrating lies and the hate speech under the guise of preventing the criminalization of language while trying to silence independent thought, inconvenient truths, and voices of distance.
		It goes on to say the current administration may argue that these steps are simply setbacks for an American payback for an American political left that can be rightly criticized for policing speech in recent years from trying to shut or shout down conservative speakers, trying to enforce and adhere into its own list of acceptable words and phrases like pregnant people, the unhoused, incarcerated individuals, and Latinx.
		But the Trump administration early and furious reaction to criticisms and pungent speech isn't just guilty of the same sins.
		It expands on them, worryingly with the powers of the state.
		If the mega movement were really confident about the American public, it stood firmly behind these new intolerant when why not welcome serious reporting or even the jeers of critics and let the best idea win.
		Back to your calls, we will talk with Sue in Traverse City, Michigan, line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Sue.
unidentified		Good morning.
		So you have two things going on here.
		You have an issue with propaganda.
		Now, in 2012, Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which through Schmidt Mund allowed propaganda to be spoken by all of our news media.
		They all do it.
		They can lie to the American people.
		This was a political act that allowed it.
		You certainly remember at C-SPAN.
		Fair and balanced, that idea.
		Equal time.
		That does not exist anymore.
		They can lie, lie, lie.
		And then you have the ownership.
		Thanks to the Telecommunications Act.
		You should be able to talk about that as C-SPAN because we go back that far.
		That was Bill Clinton.
		And Bill Clinton made sure that the public airwaves were given over to private interests.
		And now we have six big corporate entities, and they're not owned by the Irish.
		Guess who owns them?
		And guess what kind of propaganda we're getting behind the scenes?
		So you ought to do the history here.
		These people are all from vested interests right now.
		And it's an antitrust issue because we cannot get the facts.
		All we're getting is opinion and propaganda.
		You should be telling the truth to the people.
		C-SPAN, totally corporatized.
		Did not used to be.
		You're not honest.
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		No, Sue in Michigan.
		We'll go to Joseph in Boston, Massachusetts, line for independence.
		Good morning, Joseph.
unidentified		Morning, C-SPAN.
		Yeah, national news and local news.
		I'm a news junkie.
		I want to pivot to the speech that President Zelensky in Ukraine and Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, and Vice President James Banks had about what's going on.
		The news media letting people know what's happening in the world.
		How we can lead to World War III.
		I appreciate that.
		You went around the world.
		The news media have changed.
		I grew up on CNN.
		I joke with my friends.
		I say, I watch CNN.
		I watch Fox News just to get the truth because I know the opposite of what they're saying is the truth.
		But I watch Fox News because they're more honest.
		We need a change of America.
		Donald Trump's job is to make America great.
		The media often try to make illegal immigrants, the migrants seem that they're immigrants.
		I mean, even the immigrants here legally are worried about the border, worry about the news media that are coming that because they want that cheap labor.
		That picking your fruit, picking yourself.
		What about one black man to pick cotton and say people won't work for that kind of job no more?
		They'll work for that.
		They'll work for that.
		Donald Trump will go change America forever, change the world for better.
		We can't provoke Russia.
		The news media is on the Ukraine side.
		And that's what's wrong.
		They're not getting the truth.
		So I'd just like to leave with this.
		I appreciate President Donald Trump.
		I think he's a great man.
		I think we need people in high places to have a heart.
		Care about right or wrong.
		Last point was Sudan.
		Sudan has been fighting a civil war since I was a sophomore in high school in 1981.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We'll leave it there, Joseph.
		We'll go on to Homer in Kansas City, Missouri.
		Line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Homer.
unidentified		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		Thank you very much for what you do.
		And I wish I had a dollar for every independent caller that called in as a Trump supporter.
		Anyway, let's go back to the fairness doctrine during the Reagan administration, which is where truth and which is basically advertising now for our pharmaceutical companies, which, you know, it's basically, this is where Rupert Murdoch took off and ran amok, and all the AM radio stations rushed Limbaugh, and nobody was held accountable.
		And Fox News, which should be SAUX News, paid $700 and some odd billion dollars for their lies.
		But when you have a president that just, you know, in front of everybody says that we've given $360 billion to Ukraine when it's only $170 at the most, and then just continually, he's like from the Gebel's rule book, just continually spout the lies.
		And, well, it's actually Roy Cohn, we know this.
		But, you know, this is why people don't, you can't trust your president, but they do.
		His cult, they do believe him.
		And it's just amazing.
		I mean, we're going from Eisenhower to Reagan.
		All these guys got to be spinning in their graves.
		And it was a complete embarrassment.
		It's an embarrassment the way this man comports himself and puts himself in front of the world every day.
		And I still can't believe people supported this man and put him in office.
		It's a disgrace.
		He's a disgrace on our country.
		And hopefully people rise up and we do get some leadership.
		You know, Klobucher should have been the vice presidential pick by Biden in the first place.
		And Biden should have stepped down in 23.
		This is just ridiculous.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That's a fire point, Robert.
		We will go on to Chaz in Wisconsin line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Chaz.
unidentified		Good morning.
		There was a guy earlier on the Republic line giving you a bunch of stories that was awesome because he's right.
		You guys don't even talk about that stuff.
		I try and watch, you know, I'll put on CNN, I'll put on MSNBC.
		And anytime when I get home from work and Trump is answering questions from the meeting in the Oval Office or something, MSNBC is the only one not airing it.
		And so how is that giving their viewers a true insight on what is actually being talked about?
		And, you know, so these people on the left that all they want to do is bash Trump.
		And you guys are included in this because earlier this week, a caller tried to tell you that you guys are spreading a left-wing narrative.
		And you are, because I don't hear you ever.
		Rarely does a Washington Journal actually use Newsmax or Fox as a reference.
		Every paper in front of you is a left-leaning paper, and nobody trusts those people anymore.
		So until you guys kind of, you know, get back to where you should be and be fair and balanced, we're not going to get the answers that we want value.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Chad in Wisconsin.
		We'll go to John in Ohio, line for independence.
		Good morning, John.
john in ohio ▲ ● ▼		I agree.
		The media is corrupt and controlled by the six biggest corporations syndicated in control of the media in this country, and they're right-wing.
		And there's the 1,500 radio stations, AM radio stations that are right-wing.
		And they constantly call the Democrats falsely liberal, leftist, Marxist, socialist, or communist, a return back to the McCarthyist period.
		That's all we get is the right-wing pro-Republican media and the right-wing pro-Democrat on the most important issues, foreign policy and war, intervention, and subversion of countries around the world.
		They're both the same.
		And people have been completely deluded into thinking that they're smart by choosing one or the other of those sets of right-wing media, Fox or CNN, CNN or NBC or Fox.
		But I think you've got to go beyond that.
		And it's exactly the elements that are censored totally by the media that have accredited people in all fields who are censored.
		And those are sources such as Global Research, GlobalResearch.ca, and the GrayZone, thegrayzone.com.
		These are completely censored and blacklisted and lied about.
		But I think if you look at the attempts to justify that war in Ukraine, an earlier caller talked about how the United States government spent $5 billion overthrowing the democratically elected pro-Russian government in 2014 under Biden and Obama.
		And they're still having that same kind of lies at this point.
		The attempt by all of the media to demonize any country that disobeys what the proven crooks and liars in Washington are to be demonized, and I put together an article, a phrase, a search phrase of my own.
		CIA controls media to demonize countries for war, for U.S. attacks against them.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was John.
		He was talking about media regulation.
		That was a topic that was discussed during last week's Semaphore Summit.
		It was discussed by FCC Chair Brendan Carr.
		Here's that clip.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		For people who care about free expression, which I think, both of us, the framers of the Constitution, just the typical long-standing American view is that vastly the biggest threat to free expression in the United States is the government, is you.
		And you wrote in 2021, a newsroom's decision about what stories to cover, how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official.
		And I wonder, has your view on that changed now that you're in power?
brendan carr ▲ ● ▼		Look, what I said is that the greatest threat that we have seen over the last several years really has come from large social media companies that have amassed incredible amounts of power.
		The social media companies got more power over more speech than any institution in history.
		And what we saw them doing with that power was discriminating against viewpoints, and the government was involved.
		The government, particularly the Biden administration, was pressuring social media companies to shut down core political speech.
		You had Mark Zuckerberg last summer put out a letter sort of saying we felt pressured to do that.
		My position is we want more speech, not less.
		That's my approach on...
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		But you're not a cable news commentator.
		You're a government official who can threaten companies, can impact their businesses.
		Don't you, I mean, do you, it seems like you no longer think the government is the man for threat to speech now that you're the government?
brendan carr ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the government should follow the law.
		I mean, President Trump issued an executive order to stop government officials from calling into social media companies and asking them to take down posts.
		I think that's a good thing.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		But look, this is how you do it on Twitter.
brendan carr ▲ ● ▼		Well, look, you've got social media companies on the one hand, and you've got, again, licensed broadcasters on the other.
		If people don't want to have the public interest obligations, my job to enforce it.
		If people want to change that, they can go to Congress.
		But if you're going to have a license to be a broadcaster, it comes with something called you have to serve the public interest.
		And if you don't want to do that, that's okay.
		And I will give you the address of the FCC.
		And if you're a broadcaster, you don't want to serve the public interest, you are free to turn your license in, and you can go podcasting, you can go over the top.
		But as long as Congress says that you have unique access to spectrum, valuable spectrum, we can find something to do with that spectrum.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		It's terrifying.
ben smith ▲ ● ▼		For those of thank God, I'm not, you know, I live on the internet.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Just about 15 minutes left in this first portion of today's Washington Journal asking your views of the news media.
		Let's hear from Tom in Tucson, Arizona Line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Tom.
unidentified		Hello?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Tom.
unidentified		Hi, how are you doing?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Doing well.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Tom.
unidentified		I've been listening to some of these people about Fox News.
		If they're such a great organization, why were they framed $807 million for the lies that they spread about the voting machines in the 2020 election?
		The problem they have with the news media right now is they're not asking the hard questions of the Republicans that are in power in the House and the Senate.
		And why these people seem to think that they can get by and follow Donald Trump and all his lies.
		Is there anybody in the Republican Party that's got the guts to stand up to him?
		I mean, if they don't, they need to get a new job, get a shower, and start picking a bab dirt off of people's hands because they don't deserve to be in the House and the Senate.
		Well, they're courageous.
		I mean, they're like a bunch of sheep, and they make me sick.
		I mean, Trump couldn't, damn the stuff he did, is doing better if he didn't have the backing of the House and the Senate.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		And they got rid of Van Luz Cheney and the other fellow from Ohio that did stand up to him.
unidentified		I mean, this is a sad state of affairs.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Tom in Arizona, Brian in Salt Lake City, Utah.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Line for Republicans.
unidentified		Good morning, Brian.
		Hey, good morning.
		Hey, let me start this off.
		The truth has no agenda.
		The truth is the truth.
		CNN, MSNBC, that's all they do is lie on there.
		And everybody calls Trump's a liar.
		That's just all bullcrap.
		USAID, Samantha Powers run that.
		Samantha Powers is married to Cass Sunstein.
		Cass Sunstein says all Americans are mostly like Homer Simpson.
		The jelly told it.
		You know, that's what they think of us.
		And here they are spewing all these lies, but Samantha Powers needs to be arrested.
		That USAID, that's all kinds of waste money that went to Abrams.
		That guy was talking about.
		He was point on.
		And, you know, I just, the truth has no agenda.
		Speak the truth.
		And it'll save our country because we're going down.
		Salensky, that was Barack Obama.
		He always called Salinsky, he's a socialism.
		That's Barack Obama, who was brought up in socialism.
		His whole family was that.
		And then you got Cloward and Piven.
		You got to disrupt.
		You got to get everybody on welfare.
		You got to get everybody given money.
		That's exactly what Obiden done.
		I call him O'Biden because Obama was running the country.
		You got, what's your name?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Brian in Utah.
		We'll go on to Joseph and Florida line for independence.
		Good morning, Joseph.
unidentified		Yes, thank you for taking my call.
		I'm an independent, and let me just explain how I got there.
		You can't believe the left and you can't believe the right, particularly on television and social media on television.
		And what I did was I would listen, and I beg everybody that's listening to try to do this because it's very difficult to change people's views.
		Is watch a right-wing television or social media or right-wing television, and then turn around and watch the left.
		And somewhere there is the truth.
		I became an independent because you hear, you see different views, and both of them are extreme to the left or extreme to the right, nowhere in the middle.
		The only one I can find closest to the middle is News Nation.
		Now, the older people watch television.
		See, we have a tale of two cities here.
		We have the older generations watching television, watching the legacy stations.
		And now we have the younger people who pick up their news on social media, which is even worse because it's very difficult to filter it.
		I take very umrage with your previous caller about Utah talking about welfare.
		My mother was a widow with five children at the age of 34.
		We were on the welfare system, okay?
		We all had clean clothes.
		We all went to colleges because we had a strong mother.
		There was a lot of abuse in the welfare system.
		I agree.
		There's also, you look at the Republicans, they're lining their pockets with NRA's money on guns.
		So somewhere, I just ask everybody to watch both stations.
		Don't just keep your views because the only way America is going to get better is if the independents take control of this.
		And the only way you're going to be independent is you've got to be educated.
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That's Joseph in Florida.
		Let's go to Mary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Mary.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, C-SPAN.
		You know, people need to realize we cannot rely solely on the media.
		You know, I'm a retired government worker.
		All this information is supposed to be listed in every city and state, basically what they have been doing with our tax dollars.
		We should not be $37 trillion in debt.
		We have been funding the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on terror, I would say for almost 60 years now.
		And we have no idea that we have been funding these organizations, these nonprofits, and it's very difficult to find out exactly what they have been doing with our money.
		The cities in the states are required by law to post a semi-annual report and an annual report exactly what happened to our tax dollars.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Mary, we'll go on to Tom in Portland, Indiana, line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Tom.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		You know, most of the Republicans call in and they take you on a bad mouth you and stuff, but I just wanted to congratulate you because you went from like 20% supported the Democratic agenda to now you're up to like 50%, 50 callers to one.
		I mean, wow.
		You just, you're horrible and you don't even see it yourself.
		So there you go.
		That's all I got to say.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Tom in Indiana.
		Let's go to Juliet in Rockport, Massachusetts, line for Independence.
		Good morning, Juliet.
unidentified		Good morning, Tammy.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		So I was fortunate enough to watch the semaphore conference last evening as Cease Stan Reed Arident, and I was fascinated.
		There was such a star-studded panelist of media, you know, Titans, if you will.
		Not all, but some.
		But interestingly enough, Megan Kelly was a guest, and she said that her show, now, she's a former Fox News host, as you know, and her show has more viewers at any given time than any of the top brass in the network news on cable TV.
		What she said is that when she worked for Fox News, she never would have been able to join Trump at the place in, what was that, New York City, Madison Square Garden.
		She was a guest speaker.
		She never would have been able to do that had she still been on Fox.
		In addition, the CEO of Global CNN, now again, global CNN, which sort of caught my eye because you think CNN is just, you know, out of New York and, you know, South Carolina.
		However, or is it Georgia?
		I think is there another satellite office?
		But in any event, yeah, okay, thank you.
		So he was saying that it's all about the branding because CNN has been hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging viewership.
		I mean, look what happened to Jim Acosta.
		I mean, Jim Acosta was, you know, told to go to Midnight, and he said, forget you.
		He's now, he has his own podcast.
		And I'm not really sure.
		I think he's with one of the Titans on the internet.
		And he has more viewers there than he did on CNN.
		So we're talking about branding.
		The CNN brand has been decimated because of the lies that they spewed during the 2016 election.
		Not only that, but the 2020.
		Look at Jim.
		No, Jake Tapper's book.
		He's just come out with a book stating that he knew all along that Joe Biden was mentally unfit to run for president, even early on in his presidency.
		So, you know, and then there's another person, oh, the CEO of CNN, I'm sorry, of NPR.
		I'm a very, well, I love NPR in the morning and I'm a Fox person at night.
		And then I do a lot of research.
		I mean, I read Sputnik International, which Sputnik International is a Russian-based media company, but they have broadband licensing out of Washington, D.C.
		So how do you like that?
		And there's some really interesting news reporting.
		Mostly they report on military, the wars, et cetera.
		And one more quick thing about NPR.
		They are being investigated right now by the Federal Communications Commission.
		They are funded by WeU, the taxpayer, but their news reporting sounds more like advertising, which is kind of interesting, right?
		Because I listen to NPR a lot, Morning Edition.
		I listen to All Things Considered.
		I love, you know, there's another one on the financial one in the evening.
		In any event, so it's quite interesting, the panoply of news.
		Oh, and one more fact, Tammy.
		Thank you for giving me so much time.
		You know, that 22% approval rating in the media is not written in stone.
		One of these guests on semaphore last night said it is 8% that people believe that the media is honest.
		So that is 92% of our citizens.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Juliet in Massachusetts, and she was talking about this MF4 summit, Trusted Media Summit, that we have been showing you clips from this morning.
		If you would like to watch the event in its entirety or go back and look at specific clips, you can find it on our website at c-span.org.
		Just about five minutes left.
		Let's hear from Jerry in New Jersey, line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Jerry.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I was just wondering.
		I'm a critical care registered nurse, 30 years in a retirement area.
		And for four years, the media said Biden was sharp as a cat.
		Biden could do rings around you.
		He could think and do all sorts of things.
		But I got blocked from YouTube and Facebook because I said he showed signs of dementia.
		Now, didn't the left cover everything for four years?
		And they all said Biden had no dementia until we all saw it.
		And then I was just wondering also: we watched Biden when he would talk to the press.
		He had five people.
		He had their names.
		He had their questions and he had their answers.
		It was just five people.
		So I don't know how you can say that, you know, the right is lying and restricting.
		Now, Zuckerberg even said the FBI controlled the narrative for four years and blocked me.
		They blocked me and hundreds of Republicans.
		Now, they loved Musk until he bought Twitter.
		And now he's getting death threats.
		So why don't you ever have like the New York Post or the Epic News or anything that is more balanced than the far left newspapers?
		Because you're part of the problem, aren't you?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That's Jerry in New Jersey.
		Let's hear from Tony in Coralville, Iowa, line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Tony.
unidentified		Thanks.
		Good morning.
		I think I got a real simple solution to the Ukraine-Russia war.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Tony, we're talking about your view of the news media.
unidentified		Oh, well, I think that it's been four long years of censorship.
		Well, longer than that.
		I think it's just the last four years have been the most pronounced.
		And the last caller just kind of emphasized that.
		And hopefully, the conservative media won't jump on board and start doing it too.
		But appreciate C-SPAN.
		Thank you.
		Have a great day.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Tony in Coralville, Iowa.
		Looking at the Pew poll again of trust in local news, it's showing that a growing share of Americans prefer to get their local news online as opposed to those getting it from TV or print.
		It says that newspapers are no longer primarily consumed as a print product.
		The majority of readers of local daily newspapers now access them digitally.
		It also says the share of U.S. adults who say they are paying close attention to local news has dropped since their last major survey of attitude toward local news in 2018.
		That's mirroring a decline in attention to national news.
		Just a couple more calls in this first hour.
		Let's hear from Alan in Minnesota, line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Alan.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Just a couple points that okay, let me get my thought minute.
		A lot of the experienced reporters are retired, and right now we have inexperienced journalists report news.
		But the big problem that I see is social media because they can say what they want, conspiracy theories, disinformation.
		You guys had callers today that if you don't play what they want to hear, they get mad at you.
		And I feel bad for those people, not you.
		And that's all I got to say.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Alan in Minnesota.
		And our last call is Cal in Jessup, Georgia, line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Cal.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you today?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Doing well, Cal.
unidentified		Yes, I would like to comment on the views of, I guess, the U.S. in regards to the media population.
		I think that the U.S. news has dropped or resulted to bias based on the mere fact that due to the attention or the publicity stunts have somewhat become less circular and it's more of an argumentation.
		So therefore, when the views from or the survey is made of most callers or most viewers of today's news, they are really, I guess, confused about the modern-day views which is presented in the news, which is actually state and much less a president is lying when he's not.
		And then another president is biased.
		And so what happens is a lot of the information that is presented to the viewers is somewhat leaning towards a type of prejudice and is getting away from the advancements of news.
		You highlight it where majority of the Americans who view television news are less than whereas the more of a population is going to online news reporting.
		That online news reporting, it seems to be more like it can be compromised by hikers, which is also becoming a problem.
		But I think that the greatest interest of news is to remain as standard news and news reporting and really don't, I guess, digress into a type of fascism.
		And that is my opinion.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Cal and Georgia, our last caller in this portion of Washington Journal.
		Next on the program, we'll be joined by syndicated columnist Cal Thomas.
		We'll talk about the President Trump's first or second administration so far, as well as news of the day.
		And later, former National Security Council European Affairs Director Alexander Venman will join us to discuss his books, The Folly of Realism, How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		This week on the C-SPAN Networks, the House and Senate are in session.
		The House will vote on legislation to repeal Biden administration energy and environmental rules.
		The Senate continues voting on President Trump's cabinet nominations, including secretaries of education and labor.
		Both chambers are facing a March 14th government funding deadline.
		The House could begin voting on legislation to extend funding to the end of September to avert a shutdown.
		On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee considers a nomination of Matthew Whitaker, former acting attorney general during President Trump's first administration, as U.S. Ambassador to NATO.
		And Tuesday evening, President Trump delivers an address before a joint session of Congress.
		Wednesday, the mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver, and New York City testify before the House Oversight Committee on the policies of sanctuary cities.
		And C-SPAN continues our comprehensive coverage of confirmation hearings for President Trump's leadership nominees.
		The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will hold hearings for two nominees.
		On Wednesday, Stanford University professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health.
		And on Thursday, Johns Hopkins surgical oncologist Martin McCari as Commissioner of the FDA.
		Watch live this week on the C-SPAN networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app.
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		c-span democracy unfiltered weekends bring you book tv featuring leading authors discussing their latest non-fiction books Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		Ross Dalthy, 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 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.
		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 weekend on C-SPAN 2 and fund a full schedule in your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Washington Journal continues.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now to discuss President Trump's second term and news of the day is Cal Thomas.
		He's a syndicated columnist, also author of the book The Watchmen in the Night.
		What I've seen over 50 years reporting on America.
		Cal, thank you so much for being with us.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Tammy.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Tell me I don't look that old.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		You don't look anywhere near old enough.
		Let's get started with the news that we saw on Friday.
		That was the Oval Office meeting with Presidents Trump and Zelensky.
		Give me your thoughts on that.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's been a lot of speculation about it, of course.
		Some people think it was a setup to embarrass Zelensky, to weaken his position, and to strengthen President Trump's position in his negotiations and dealings with President Putin of Russia.
		I thought of Vice President Vance when he said that Zelensky hadn't offered proper thanks to the United States, meaning Trump, was way off base.
		Zelensky has done that numerous times before Congress in numerous interviews here in the United States and also in Ukraine, has expressed gratitude during the Biden administration and the current administration.
		So I don't know what he was talking about unless he was trying to foment an argument.
		This whole thing about making a deal, you can't deal with evil people on the same plane.
		I met with a group of Ukrainian Christian ministers this week who were in town at the same time of the dust-up in the Oval Office.
		And they were telling me about the Russian troops and what they were doing, even to children.
		They were kidnapping children, they said, taking them to so-called orphanages, indoctrinating them.
		They've closed down over 700 churches in the occupied territories of Ukraine, except for the Russian Orthodox Church.
		One of the pastors told me he knew of a group of 140 who tried to escape.
		Only 12 survived.
		Many were shot.
		Others have disappeared.
		This is the kind of stuff you're dealing with.
		It's fine to get a deal, but in war, you have two options: victory or defeat.
		Stalemate is not a good one.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And what have you noticed?
		Again, President Trump is only just a little over a month into his second term.
		The differences between his first term and what you're seeing now.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, of course, he has a Republican Congress now, and he has a cabinet that he likes.
		I think that the best thing for any person in power of any kind, whether it's political or any other sort of power, is to have people around you who love and support you, but on the other hand, tell you when you're doing something wrong.
		I like what Maureen Dowd is writing this morning in her column in the New York Times.
		Imagine me quoting the New York Times.
		She said, even though we should be used to it by now, it was still shocking to see Trump parrot the view of Vladimir Putin, a murderous tyrant who wants to swallow Ukraine in a fit of nostalgia for the Soviet Union.
		Trump insisted that they were fellow victims.
		Now, this is a kind of immoral equivalency, I think, that is not defensible.
		Putin has said openly, and why shouldn't he be believed, that he wants to recover what he regards as the golden days of the Soviet Union.
		He wants to recapture Estonia, Latvia, these former Soviet republics.
		Why shouldn't we believe him?
		And if he is allowed to claim victory in Ukraine, who or what is going to stop him from achieving his goals?
		These are the big questions I think that have yet to be answered.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned President Trump's cabinet.
		It was this past week that he had his first cabinet meeting with them.
		What are your thoughts on the people who he has in those positions?
		Everyone has made it through the confirmation process so far.
		But your thoughts on who it is that are leading these major departments.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think there's some very good ones.
		I think Marco Rubio is a very good pick for Secretary of State.
		There are some others.
		We're going to have to see how it turns out.
		The proof is in the pudding to resurrect a cliché.
		But some of them are experienced.
		Some of them we don't know.
		Kash Patel at the FBI, for example.
		We don't know how that's going to turn out.
		Tulsi Gabbard, no experience in intelligence.
		We'll see how that works.
		So I think the big difference is that he thinks now that he has people around him in his cabinet and on his staff who truly support his agenda.
		And he has said that the problem with his first term in office is there were a lot of people in government who were trying to undermine his policies.
		And that's one of the reasons, among others, that he's brought in Elon Musk and Doge to try to get rid of a lot of these people who are not supportive and are trying to jam up the system.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Our guest, Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist and author, he'll be with us for the next 30 minutes or so.
		If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now the lines, Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		Wanted to talk a little bit more about President Trump's actions.
		He had a few weeks ago threatened tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada.
		And it was just a few days ago that he announced that they are going into effect despite the agreements that he had come to with the leaders of those countries.
		This is what he had said on Truth Social.
		Drugs are still pouring into our country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels.
		A large percentage of these drugs, much of them in the form of fentanyl, are made in and supplied by China.
		More than 100,000 people died last year due to the distribution of these dangerous and highly addictive poisons.
		Millions of people have died over the past two decades.
		The family of the victims are devastated and in many instances, virtually destroyed.
		We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the U.S.
		And therefore, until it stops, we're seriously limited.
		The proposed tariffs are scheduled to go into effect on March 4th.
		They will indeed go into effect as scheduled.
		China will likewise be charged an additional 10% tariff on that date.
		The April 2nd reciprocal tariff date will remain in full force and effect.
		Thank you for attention on this matter.
		God bless America.
		Do you think that this is an effective strategy to deal with the issue of fentanyl and other illegal drugs?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the president is right that there is a lack of equality when it comes to tariffs.
		Other nations, as he puts it, have been ripping us off for years, and we have a trade imbalance because we don't charge the kinds of tariffs that they charge on our products.
		I read a piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday dealing with the Volvo company that said a particular model they happen to be looking at, if tariffs were in place, would jack that price up to $90,000 for Evolvo.
		Now, nice car, but I don't know if it's worth $90,000, which is more than you paid for a house when I was growing up.
		Tariffs are really a tax on people, and I think the prices will go up.
		The president has said during his campaign that he was going to lower prices.
		Now, I understand bird flu has jacked up the prices on eggs, but you just can't do this overnight.
		Policies can't be reversed overnight.
		You can't have trickle-down lower egg prices from Washington, for example.
		But I think that this is an untested area in modern times.
		When he quotes former presidents who were big on tariffs, or even some of our founders who were fine, that was a different age.
		And I think we are in a more complex economic environment.
		We're interdependent on other nations.
		It's not one world government, but it is almost, at least in the West, a one-world economy.
		So I'm a little disbelieving on whether tariffs will have a positive impact on the U.S. economy.
		But once again, as you say, it's only a little more than a month in office for this administration.
		We're about to find out.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		The phone lines have lit up for you.
		People wanting to ask questions, we'll start with Frank in Catskill, New York, Line for Independence.
		Hi, Frank.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, America.
		Hey, I'm on with Kyle Thomas.
		Mr. Thomas, I have a question, a little statement to make and a question for you.
		I believe that what Putin is really after there is Odessa, the warm-weather port.
kelly rushing ▲ ● ▼		And tell me if I'm wrong or not, I really believe that's the prize.
unidentified		And then Moldova will be next.
		I spent five months ago, I took my grandson to Eastern Europe, and we went into Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and we saw many, many demonstrations in public squares there.
		And my grandfather came from Croatia, and I've been there, not last year, but I've seen what the Russians have done firsthand.
		I just wanted your thoughts on Odessa and the ports in Moldova.
		Thank you, sir.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, you're welcome, and thank you for calling, Frank.
		Yes, I think that's all part of Putin's package for the greater Soviet Union.
		He's spoken openly about it.
		This is one of the things that amazes me, not only in dealing with Russia, but in the Middle East too, with Hamas, who openly say what their goals are to wipe out the Jewish state, to kill Jewish people.
		And yet there are still people like the UK Prime Minister who came to Washington this past week who said the two-state solution is the only answer.
		Where has he been?
		You can't deal with evil.
		Evil must be destroyed.
		You know, there's a couple of Old Testament verses in Scripture that says you must purge the evil from among you.
		You have to stand up against it or it will spread.
		And so if there is not a positive outcome in this whole war with Ukraine, which was started by Putin with an invasion of a sovereign state, you're going to get more of it.
		It's just a fact.
		You don't have to look far back in history to see this.
		1938 in Munich.
		We'll just give Hitler what he wants and he'll leave us alone.
		It just encouraged him to go further.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Kelly and Dennison, Ohio Line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Kelly.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Mr. Thomas.
		Hello.
		I've been meeting you for years.
		I love your stuff and I really appreciate you.
		I would just like to, when you first came on, though, you talked about Russia and Ukraine, about America being involved.
		It scares me because I'm worried about World War III because how did Vietnam turn out?
		It was 50-50.
		How about Korea?
		Well, actually, we lost Vietnam.
		How about Korea?
		It's 50-50.
		How about, should we be in Iraq?
		We lost that.
		How about Afghanistan?
		God, we don't need to be over there.
		This is between Ukraine and Russia.
		This has nothing to do with us.
		We do not need World War III and the nuke slang over this.
		What do you think?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, thanks for the call.
		You're right to some extent.
		But the thing about war, if you get it, if you're going to war, and there are others who have talked about this, Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State and head of the National Security Council and Bush 41 administration, if you're going to go to war, the only objective is victory.
		And if you can't guarantee victory, then you shouldn't be involved.
		The late George McGovern, the former senator from South Carolina, 1972 Democratic presidential candidate, said we can't be the policeman of the world.
		That's true, but what we need from our administrations is an articulate foreign policy.
		What is the role of the United States in the world?
		When do we get involved and when do we not?
		Now we have these meetings in London now and with European leaders who are saying, okay, what can we do to defend Ukraine?
		That is a great moment.
		It is primarily Europe's problem and Europe's need to defend not only Ukraine, but the rest of the continent.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Keith in Denver, Colorado, line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Keith.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning, Cal.
		Morning, Keith.
		I agree with you fully on Russia, Ukraine.
		One question I have, and I really like you to give this some thought, is why Republicans cannot connect dots.
		Last week, or this past week, prior to the meeting in the White House, Trump was siding with Putin and calling Zelensky a dictator and accusing him of starting the war.
		Then you go back to the first impeachment, Mr. Vindman is going to be on later today, an American hero.
		And you know that it stems from that impeachment when he was looking for fodder against his political opponent, holding money and weapons approved by Congress.
		And that was clearly illegal.
		It was a quinto pro quom for political gain.
		Worse than Lighthouse, I mean than Watergate.
		So if you look at the pattern of behavior, voting against with North Korea and Russia against our allies and condemning Russia for the invasion, it's an alternate reality.
		How come Republicans continue saying Russia, hoax, hoax, hoax, when all we have to do is not look at these as one-off situations, but a pattern of behavior.
		Well, he will not criticize Russia.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Yes, well, the president said this week, of course, what good would it do if I called Putin evil and all of these other words?
		It wouldn't help us make a deal.
		Well, there's a point to be made about that.
		But the other part is that you can't deny what he's done.
		You don't have to call him names by acknowledging that he invaded, ordered the invasion of a sovereign nation, Ukraine.
		That's just a fact.
		You can do that without name-calling.
		And if the deal is the ultimate objective, I think that's the wrong objective because, again, going back to 1938, Neville Chamberlain, he made a deal, but it was a bad deal.
		So you can make a good deal or you can make a bad deal, but unless you acknowledge truthfully what Putin has done and what his objectives are and make him pay a price for this, then it's not a good deal at all for Ukraine or for the United States or for Europe.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk about some of your recent call-ins.
		This is a headline in the Washington Times: Democrats cry constitutional crisis, but they created it.
		Subheadline, first to blame the opposition party while enabling government overreach that founders warned against.
		Shows a picture of Chuck Schumer and other Democrats at a rally against Elon Musk.
		You mentioned Elon earlier.
		Your thoughts on his approach to cutting government spending and reducing the size of the federal government.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, I compare it to people who are overweight and want to lose weight.
		You have two choices.
		You can go on a diet or you can go for liposuction.
		Now, the liposuction is a little more radical, and it can be painful in some instances, but it will achieve your objective a lot faster.
		Even Democrats acknowledge now that there is waste, fraud, and abuse in government.
		The Inspector General for the Social Security Administration recently said that between fiscal years 2015 and 2022, there was $72 billion in improper payments.
		$72 billion.
		Some of this went to dead people.
		Some of it went to people who were 150 years old.
		Now, the oldest person in the world just recently died at 113.
		I don't know if she was getting Social Security or not.
		Maybe so.
		But it's clear that we are overspending, and this is how we got to a $36 trillion debt.
		Now, the question is, should we be taking a scalpel or a chainsaw, as Musk likes to do, to the federal government?
		Well, something has to be done.
		And I think that showing these examples of overspending and misspending are good ways to get the public attention.
		The polls show that the public is largely behind this.
		Not 100%.
		Nothing's 100% in Washington or the country anymore, but largely behind it.
		They realize they can't live like the federal government does.
		They have to live within their means and within a budget.
		And so I think they're on the right track here.
		We'll see how it turns out.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Last week, Elaine K. Mark from Brookings Institution, she led the effort to cut government waste during the Clinton administration.
		She was asked about Doge's efforts compared to previous administrations.
		I want to play the clip and then get your reaction.
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.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Your reaction to her comparison of cutting muscle versus fat.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm glad she picked up on my weight loss analogy.
		Yeah, I think, though, that we also had something called BROC, Base Realignment and Closing.
		And there was lots of screaming and yelling, particularly from members of Congress whose districts were going to be affected by the shutdown of bases and barracks that were left over from World War II.
		Ronald Reagan used to have a great line, the only proof of eternal life in Washington is a government program.
		It's easier to kill a vampire than a government program.
		And the analogy is good because both suck the lifeblood out of their host.
		We can't go on like this.
		No nation has ever been able to survive with this kind of debt.
		I wrote a book earlier called America's Expiration Date, The Fall of Empire Superpowers, and the Future of the United States.
		And I referenced a essay by the late diplomat Sir John Glove.
		He said, three things contribute to the decline of nations.
		One is massive national debt.
		The second is uncontrolled immigration without assimilation.
		Fortunately, that's being addressed now by the Trump administration.
		And the third is the loss of a shared moral value system.
		Any one of those, he wrote, has contributed to the decline of other nations.
		We've got all three going at the same time.
		What makes us think that we can escape the judgment of history?
		Or history, depending.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk with Naomi.
		She's in Baltimore, Maryland, Line for Independence.
		Hi, Naomi.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, Mr. Thomas.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		I have a number of questions.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Oh, better do one at a time because, you know, I can only think so far.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Well, then, number one, why does the Trump administration, well, I won't say why do they seem to, why are they realigning in terms of international policy and alliances?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Let me deal with that one first, because as I said earlier, I'd like to know what our foreign policy is.
		We haven't had someone articulate a foreign policy for the last several administrations, Republicans and Democrats.
		What should be America's role in the world post-Cold War?
		Where should we go?
		John F. Kennedy's wonderful line in 1961 in his inaugural address, we'll go anywhere, pay any price, bear any burden.
		We can't do that now.
		So what is our foreign policy?
		I would like to hear that.
		I have not heard that articulated.
		Question number two, Naomi.
unidentified		See, our foreign policy over the last 80 years has been that we have been aligned with Europe and our typical allies, and Russia has been considered to be an adversary/slash enemy.
		Trump is flipping the script and abandoning our allies, attacking them verbally, blaming the victim of Russia's, you know, abuses, horrors.
		You know, yes, I understand that.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Look, there's a flip side to what the president has said.
		He said you can't call Putin names and expect to make a deal.
		Well, the flip side of that, the other side of the coin, is you can't indulge in nice words and saying things like, Putin went through the same thing I did, I being the president on Russia, Russia, Russia, and all of the phony allegations with those 51 intelligence officers.
		So it's not about the words you use.
		It's about the policy you stand for and what your objectives are out of that policy.
		You want to go for a third one?
unidentified		Naomi, do you have one more question for Cal Well, I don't feel that that one was fully addressed.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, exactly.
unidentified		We're flipping the script completely.
unidentified		We're aligning ourselves with Russia.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		What we did during World War II for a greater goal, but I don't see what the goal is here.
		And that gets back to my point.
		What is the goal?
		Is the goal to get Putin to withdraw from Ukraine, which he said he wouldn't withdraw a single inch in any kind of deal?
		Maybe that's an initial negotiating position, possibly.
		But I think you have to take him seriously when he says he's not going to withdraw from any of the occupied territories in Ukraine.
		And he wants to restore the greater Russia, meaning grabbing back these other now independent nations.
		So I think we have to take him at his word.
		Thanks for the call, though, Naomi.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Trish in Chesapeake, Virginia, Line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Trish.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are y'all doing?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Better than I deserve.
unidentified		Thanks.
		My question was that when I watched the last bit before it all blew up on that little meeting that was going on with the Ukraine president and the president,
		it sounded like the Ukraine president was trying to point out that the treaty that was signed with the Europe and Russia, that treaty that dated back in, I guess, the 90s.
		Was that what he was trying to point out?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		I'm not familiar with that.
		I don't know.
		But, you know, I think one of these Christian ministers from Ukraine I interviewed this week said, I asked him if he thought that if he believed that President Trump, when he said that he thought Putin's word could be trusted, and he responded, you can't even believe what Putin says when he's talking about the weather.
		I thought that was rather profound.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Cal, another one of your recent headlines, Pride Before the Fall, a Nixon-era warning for Trump saying the precedent suggests humility matters more than political wins.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Tell us about this.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, I went back to reread a book written by the late Charles Coulson, who was President Nixon's top aide.
		And he had been exposed to this book by C.S. Lewis, the great writer, English writer.
		And there was a chapter in there on pride and how that was the first of all of the sins.
		It goes before the fall.
		It goes before everything else.
		And he realized, he said, that that's what he was really guilty of.
		And that led him into all of these other shenanigans in the Watergate affair.
		And so I wrote this column to say, you know, a warning to President Trump that pride is a very dangerous thing.
		And when you are surrounded by people who only feed your ego and only feed your pride, then you put yourself in danger.
		What you really need is people surrounding you who support you and who believe in you and your policies, but who will tell you, warn you when you're heading in the wrong direction.
		That's the best friend that anybody could ever have.
		And so I re-read this book.
		It's called Born Again.
		And it's a wonderful book.
		And it's a great confessional by a man who not only turned his life around, but started something called prison fellowship that has helped thousands and thousands of inmates and their families over many years.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk with Rick in Boston, Lion for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Rick.
unidentified		Good morning, America.
		What I want to say is that, I mean, people better open their eyes and listen when people talk.
		Donald Trump ain't nothing but a criminal.
		He's been a criminal ever since he's been in there, and we got a Supreme Court.
		That's criminals, too.
		And why not?
		There are 45 presidents that have been in it before Trump.
		And none of these things that Trump is doing, he can do it.
		The Supreme Court says he's doing anything he wants.
		And what these fools in the Supreme Court don't realize is that since you say he can do anything he wants, he can get rid of YouTube.
		You dummies on the Supreme Court, too.
		That's how stupid they are talking about.
		He could do anything he want.
		And talking about he's a negotiator.
		This guy has six bankruptcies.
		He's got out of no deal.
		And these people out there listening to this guy, he talked about when he's going to bring down a law prices.
		Let me tell you some of these stupid people that stand out there.
		Every time you see this guy on TV, he's always standing behind rich people, rich people, not no middle-class people, poor people, talking about he going to do this and he's going to do that.
		These dummies stand up there listening to stupid nonsense and whatnot.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Rick, we'll get a response from Cal.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, fortunately, I'm glad we have a criminal justice system so that just your accusation of the president being a criminal, and Republicans have said some of this about Democrats as well, doesn't lead anyone to conviction.
		I'm always amazed at people who attack the rich as if they have somehow acquired their wealth other than through hard work, investment, risk-taking.
		You know, poor people don't hire people for jobs.
		Rich people and corporations do, and they pay taxes to the federal government and state and local governments in some cases.
		I never envied a rich person.
		If you make $2 and I make $1, well, God bless you.
		You know, fine.
		I'm not demanding that you give me 50 cents to make it fair.
		I may want to come to you and say, well, how did you make the $2?
		What's your philosophy of life?
		I might want to be like you someday.
		But this whole thing of envy, greed, and entitlement I think has caused tremendous erosion and distrust in our country when we used to admire successful people who made it and who could employ other people.
		So I don't understand why this has all been flipped.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Kevin, Staten Island, New York, Line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Kevin.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
unidentified		How are you this morning?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
unidentified		Trust in the country.
		What do you mean?
		Question: Well, it's mine's a two-fold question.
		One is: the individuals today attacking the president administration, which just took office, did not even really give them really a chance.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, you may want to turn down the audio on your TV set.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		You got some.
unidentified		Oh, I'm sorry.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		That's all right.
		As long as you don't have to walk across the room.
		Hope you have a remote.
unidentified		No, that's okay.
		You know, they didn't give the administration a chance to even get inset their main objectives.
		But the idea is, is what I'm trying to say is we need to look at the individual Zelensky saying he never received the billions of dollars that they've really said that he got.
		And since he's attacking Russia in a lot of ways verbally, and I really seen Mr. Vance as a military person, thank God, he was there and he gave his input.
		But why is the public even addressing the issue of, how do you say, I don't hate to sound rhetorical, but what do you think about saying this and saying that?
		That's not really what I believe Donald Trump was trying to do.
		He was trying to put his own Christian values, which we are a Christian nation.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		I don't think it's rhetorical, but Kevin, we'll get a response from Cal.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I'm not sure I understand the question.
		It was kind of all over, and you were a little confused, I'm sorry to say, because you had the audio on your television and the delay of the audio.
		You were listening to that and trying to formulate a question.
		I'm not sure what the question was.
		If I knew it, I would answer it.
		I'm sorry.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We'll go on to Kurt and Browns Mills, New Jersey, Line for Independence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Kurt.
unidentified		Hello.
		Thank you, Cal.
		I'm impressed with your 50 years of hanging, staying alive.
		You know, I got a tough one for you.
		Okay.
		We hear so much about Elon Musk as he's the evil doer on the Republican side.
		Now I'm independent.
		I wouldn't be surprised if the bullet that went by Trump's ear had Republican fingerprints on it.
		You know, I mean, so I have.
		But why don't we know more about Soros, George Soros?
		He's the dark side on the other side.
		atheist raised by the Nazis and he just got the Medal of Freedom from George from Joe Biden.
		I mean if you could go with that there's so much to talk about that I don't trust but why don't Democrats talk about George Soros?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well this goes back to the previous segment when Tammy had some people on talking about the American media.
		As a friend of mine says, the talk show host, Chris Plant, who's based here in Washington, the greatest power the media have is the power to ignore.
		So it's not just what you're covering, it's what you choose not to cover, and this is what has exercised a lot of people including, it appears, yourself about the state of the modern media.
		You see these demonstrations.
		No reporter that I've ever seen asks these demonstrators, where did you get your signs?
		Is, are you from out of town?
		If so, who's paying for your hotel and transportation and food who?
		Who is behind all of this?
		They never ask those questions.
		It's always appears, whether it's at Barnard College and the Anti-Semitic demonstrations or at Columbia, that all of these things are spontaneous when clearly they're not, and I think this is a dereliction of duty of our, of our media, to not ask these questions.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And I think you're on to something, Cal, a couple other headlines recently from pieces you've written talking about Doge.
		Democrats protest as Trump's Doge squad exposes federal waste.
		Trump and Musk are spring cleaning.
		The government, again, we are just barely into President Trump's second term.
		Doge has just got started.
		We're hearing a lot of outcry about the work that they're doing.
		What needs to be accomplished?
		What do they need to show at the end of it in order to claim or make people think that it was expensive?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		That's a great question, Tammy.
		I think, first of all, you have to show that the debt is being lowered.
		$36 trillion can't be sustained.
		The interest on it is greater than the Department of Defense budget.
		You just can't go on like this, logically.
		What the Democrats are doing is just protesting without giving an alternative themselves.
		I wrote recently they've even run out of bad ideas.
		The dirty little secret in Washington, as you know, is that if you solve a problem, you no longer have the issue.
		Everybody knows what needs to be solved.
		Social Security, Medicare needs to be reformed.
		They're going to run out of money.
		That's just a fact.
		But they don't want to touch it.
		I remember when Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House some years ago, and he proposed a serious idea for reforming Social Security and Medicare, keeping current retirees getting their checks and making some kind of accommodation for middle-aged people, but then helping young people to invest in stock market and other assets that would produce real returns.
		He was denounced by the Democrats who came up with this ad that showed a Paul Ryan lookalike, not a very good one, pushing an old lady in a wheelchair over a cliff.
		Now that was funny, but it wasn't a serious response to a serious issue.
		So again, if you solve the problem, you don't have the issue.
		And unfortunately, too many politicians in Washington on both sides would rather have the issue to run on and sustain themselves in office than they would to actually solve a problem.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk with Brent and Washington State Line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Brent.
unidentified		Hi, thank you for taking my call.
		First, as far as George Soros, I never saw him running around in the White House, you know, causing all sorts of havoc.
		But my real question was, you know, maybe I misunderstood, but a little while ago, I thought you were talking about Hamas and how they need to be, basically, they're evil and need to be purged from the planet.
		Were you basically saying that all those Palestinian children that have been murdered by the Israeli government, you know, that's somehow okay because somehow God sees them as evil?
		And as far as the Israeli government itself, every time somebody talks about the Israeli government, it becomes, well, you're anti-Semitic, you're anti-Semitic.
		Well, I don't hear anybody being anti-Semitic, but I know that there's a lot of people that are anti-Israeli government.
		And another thing, what do you think about the West Bank, you know, with them just keeping taking and taking and taking and purging more people off the land of the West Bank?
		I guess, are you okay with that?
		And do you see it as that like God's will?
		Is that what you're saying?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		You're welcome.
		Thanks for putting so many words into my mouth.
		I appreciate that.
		First, a little correction.
		George Soros has not been in the White House, but his son has been and got the Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden just before he left office.
		So there's really no difference.
		George Soros has turned basically his operation over to his son.
		I think he's in his 90s now, George Soros is.
		The Middle East is a very complicated thing.
		I highly recommend a book, a couple of books written by Bibi Netanyahu, who you probably don't like given your question, A Place Among the Nations and his autobiography, Bibi, which he wrote during COVID.
		The Jewish people and the state of Israel are the only nation and the only people who have been targeted for elimination.
		And there is no other people who have been under that.
		And so what you have is a need for them to defend themselves.
		As far as Palestinian children are concerned, first of all, the Hamas and these other terror groups, and I've been to these areas, hide out in hospitals among civilian areas and others, hoping that after they fire their rockets into civilian areas in Israel and Israel responds, that children will be killed and women will be killed and men will be maimed so they can call in the cameras and say, look what the evil Israelis did.
		This is all part of a political and media operation that has been going on for decades.
		And so I think you have to understand who the real evil people are here and who the good guys are who are trying to keep themselves from being exterminated as Hitler tried to do during the Holocaust.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Karen, Alabaster, Alabama, line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Karen.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning, Mr. Thomas.
		Good morning.
		Yeah, I just want to say real quick on Mr. Soros.
		Now, he's not in the White House, but he's backing a lot of political candidates behind the scenes throughout our country.
		So he is causing havoc.
		But what I wanted to talk to you about was the Ukraine war.
		And when this war first started, Turkey negotiated a peace treaty between the two countries.
		And the Biden administration came in and said, no, behind the scenes, I believe, but they kept pushing for Ukraine to join NATO.
		And Russia said, that's the line in the sand.
		If you insist Ukraine joins NATO, then we're going to invade.
		And that's pretty much what happened.
		They said Kamala Harris over there is talking about how, well, we want Ukraine to join NATO.
		So anyway, dealing with Ukraine now, now here we are, three years later, dealing with Ukraine now.
		Can Trump just stop all aid to Ukraine, stop the aid, legally, I guess, is the question.
		And let Russia keep the Southeast region, yeah, the Southeast region, because those people want to be part of Russia anyway.
		So it's not like he's land grabbing.
		He's taking back a part of the territory that these people want to be part of Russia anyway.
		I think Zelensky is someone is pushing him to continue this war.
		I don't know who it might be, but that's my opinion.
		Because if we withdraw our aid, he can go over to Europe.
		I don't know if they're going to help.
		I don't know how much they can help.
		But the best thing to do is just end the war right now.
		And I also, I believe he is acting like a dictator because he's refusing to hold elections.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Karen will get a response from Cal.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, you've got martial law there right now, of course, as well.
		And I think that this is a complicated situation.
		Just saying that you want to end the war is certainly a noble goal, but on what terms?
		You just don't end a war by saying it.
		You either end a war by losing it or by winning it.
		What does winning mean?
		I mean, what about Crimea?
		Putin gobbled up Crimea.
		Nobody's talking about Crimea now and getting Russia out of that area.
		So what does ending the war mean?
		A stalemate can't continue.
		This is one of the problems of the Biden administration, which supplied only enough weapons and reluctantly on many occasions and very reluctantly when it came to airplanes because Russia had superior power with its missiles and no Ukrainian response on that.
		And a stalemate is not good.
		As President Trump said rightly, you know, thousands upon thousands on both sides, young soldiers are dying in this with no end game in sight.
		Now, Putin has the benefit of being a dictator and a former KGB agent and having a very low regard for the value of human life.
		So he's just throwing these young soldiers into the meat grinder and apparently doesn't really care.
		On the other side, Zelensky and the Ukrainian leadership seem to care very deeply.
		But again, I just can't say, okay, the war is over.
		Let's all go back to what we were doing before.
		It doesn't work that way.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Judy and Bumpus, Virginia, line for independence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Judy.
unidentified		Yes, I have a question.
unidentified		Should we believe Trump when he says he's not against using the military to invade Canada or Mexico or Panama and maybe even Greenland?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		No, I don't think so.
		He speaks in hyperbolic words sometimes, like making Canada the 51st state, going to take over Greenland and that sort of thing.
		I just don't put a whole lot of stock in that.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Cal a headline in Axios, White House strikes back at AP takes press pool coverage from reporter group.
		The article says, Under Why It Matters for the first time in a century, the White House, not the independent White House Correspondents Association, will determine which news outlets are part of the press pool.
		As someone who has been in media and reported for over 50 years, your thoughts on this.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, the White House Correspondents Association is kind of an old organization that's been around quite a long time.
		They hold these dinners every year, and they usually have a left-wing comedian who comes in and attacks whatever Republican president has to be in office or supports any Democrat president who has to be in office.
		This is an old model.
		They get to pick the people who are going to be in the pool, the press pool.
		And I don't know why things shouldn't change.
		Why should they have a corner on the people who are in there?
		I think the White House press secretary is doing a good thing by opening it up to alternative media, as they call it, because social media and other ways of communicating now have, if not obliterated, that certainly reduced the power and reach of the legacy media.
		And I don't like the reason that Trump is doing it because the AP won't call it the Gulf of America.
		I mean, what's next?
		We're going to change the name of the United States to Trumpland.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		For people who may not be familiar, explain what the press pool is, who's part of it, and what they're responsible for.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, these are a small group of correspondents and photographers who come into small situations in the White House.
		It's not like a press conference in the East Room where there are 100 more reporters and photographers.
		This is a small group in the Oval Office or on a presidential flight between Washington and Mar-a-Lago or somewhere else where it's a small group of reporters and they report what the president says and does to other reporters who are not along, not in the room or not along on the trip.
		That's basically what it is.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Jillian in Suffolk, Virginia, line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Jillian.
unidentified		Good morning.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry, Julian.
unidentified		You got it.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, it could be Jillian.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Sorry about that.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		However, you identify it.
unidentified		Yeah, no question about that.
		Julian, yes.
		Yeah, and I'm a Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump MAGA, conservative Republican.
		The last time I voted for a Democrat was Jimmy Carter in 1976.
		So that's my perspective.
		With respect to the Ukraine situation on Friday, what Zelensky was pressing for was security guarantees from the United States.
		And I think that was totally reasonable.
		The Budapest Agreement circa 1994, the U.S., Great Britain, and Russia promised territorial sovereignty guarantees for Ukraine if they gave up their nuclear weapons.
		They gave up the weapons.
		So that's, I think it's totally reasonable to press for security agreements.
		The other thing with JD Vance, when he was a senator last year, he was quoted, and you have to take that with a grain of salt from the news media sometimes, but his quotation was: I've got to be honest with you, I don't care one way or the other what happens to Ukraine.
		And he followed that rather tringent comment with a refusal to meet with the Ukrainian delegation last year in Munich, which I thought was totally irresponsible since he's voting as a senator on whether or not to provide military assistance.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me respond to some of that, if I may, before I forget what your predicate is.
		I don't think the United States has an obligation to put boots on the ground, as they say, or planes in the air to guarantee security for Ukraine.
		This is primarily a Ukrainian and European issue.
		I think you might achieve some kind of partial security if a minerals deal was made.
		That was supposed to be signed off on the other day at the White House, but because of this uproar, it wasn't, and Zelensky was basically thrown out of the White House.
		So to have a mineral deal, you would have presumably Americans there on the ground mining minerals, and that would serve as something of a deterrent, goes the thinking, to any more Putin aggressiveness.
		At least that's what the thinking is.
		But until we get a mineral deal signed between the United States and Ukraine, we're not going to be able to test that theory.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk with Trey in Boston, Massachusetts, line for independence.
		Hi, Trey.
		Trey, are you there?
		One more try for Trey.
		All right, Trey, if you walked away, give us a call back.
		We'll go to Bob in Minnesota, line for Democrats.
		Hi, Bob.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, before your guest was talking about the rice shooting down the hospitals and what have you.
		The river is underground.
		Netherlands people have never been underground.
		That's where they are.
		They're trying to kill everybody in Bankrow.
		Not tried to starve to death.
		So they did destroy this ship.
		They tried to starve by keeping all the samis from going in there.
		And they did medicine, they ate drugs.
		How could that get away with trying to starve people?
		You know what it looks like to me?
		It's to it to the Palestinian people that say take Hitler did identical.
		It's a different tactic.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm not sure I fully understand that, partially because of the distortion in the phone line.
		The last war I saw underground was Lord of the Rings.
		I'm not sure what you're talking about in that regard.
		Sorry.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Cal, a question coming from text.
		It is from William in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
		He says, how would you get us out from under all this debt?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think what you have to do when you have debt, whether it's your credit card that arrives in the mail and you realize that you spent too much last month and you have to cut back some on some of the non-essentials, you do the same thing.
		And that's what I've long argued for, and I think we're getting close to that now, that every government agency and cabinet office has either a piece of legislation or a charter establishing its existence and its purpose.
		Now, if the agency or cabinet level department is living up to its charter, to its legislation, cannot be done better by the private sector and more economically, then we keep it.
		If not, we get rid of it.
		That's what businesses do.
		That's what audits are for.
		We have all of this waste.
		I mentioned earlier that the Inspector General at the Social Security Administration found in a seven-year period $72 billion worth of waste.
		Now, that's serious money.
		I don't know about you, but it's serious to me.
		Now, if the Inspector General can find that in the Social Security Administration, and it's being found in other departments of government, I think every government agency ought to come before Congress every couple of years and justify its existence.
		What would be wrong with that?
		But things keep going on.
		The federal government now employs more people than any other agency or industry in the country.
		For what purpose?
		Let's find out.
		It's our money that they're spending or borrowed money and the interest we're paying on it that they're spending.
		We deserve answers to these questions.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We have about five minutes or so left with Cal.
		We'll go next to Wes in Spartansburg, South Carolina, line for Democrats.
		Hi, Wes.
unidentified		Hi, thank you very much.
		I think going on about debt and deficits is such an age-old fight.
		And I don't think it really matters.
		I mean, Trump administration, Trump, Bush administration gave tax cuts to the very wealthiest.
		At the same time, they launched the war.
		I'll say this.
		You can cut all the jobs and do all that you want to, Cal.
		You can.
		You can wipe out the Federal Service, okay?
		Nobody's talking about that.
		Hold up.
		You can cut out the largest employer, and I promise you, my tax bill is not going to go down one cent, and you know it.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		No, I don't.
		It went down under the previous Trump administration.
		The tax cuts are still there.
		They passed on the latest House bill this week waiting on the Senate.
		Of course, your rates went down.
		The top rate is now 37%.
		It was 39% before Trump cut it, and he wants to cut it more.
		So, of course, it can go down.
unidentified		Yeah, it was 90% during Eisenhower.
		That's true.
		I want to ask you a question, though.
		I talked to you the last time you were on there, and I called Trump a serial philander and a habitual liar.
		You said all politicians lie.
		And you're right.
		They all do.
		They all do shave the truth.
		But I do want to ask you this, because I used to read your articles in our paper.
		But I liked it.
		I really did.
		I enjoyed those articles in our paper.
		I think the legacy media, we have all this information, but we're so much less informed.
		And I thought a daily paper is something that we're missing in this country to bring us together so we can get some kind of, I don't know, basic idea.
		I did enjoy reading your article.
		I think you didn't agree with them.
		Well, I did.
		And I do think we're all that.
		But I want you to talk about what we've missed, you know, by not having kind of a standard paper and standard information and facts.
		Every time I hear conservatives and liberals complain about the media, it's always about their lying.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Well, look, here's what you have to do.
		If you want to get in shape, you don't do it by watching an exercise video.
		You've got to go to the gym and press the weights and do the treadmill.
		And that's what I do, which is why I look so good.
		You can't just expect to get it from the outside.
		You've got to go work on it yourself.
		And it's the same with information.
		You can't just look at things.
		You know, if you're conservative, watch only Fox News.
		If you're a liberal, watch only NSNBC or CNN.
		You've got to entertain different opinions and you have to investigate yourself and look for something that is objectively true.
		So, you know, democracy is not the normal state of humanity.
		Otherwise, we'd have more of it around the world.
		So it has to be preserved.
		Reagan again said we're only one generation away from losing it all.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		One last call for you, Cal David in Arkansas City, Kansas, line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, David.
unidentified		Hi, Cal.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Hi, David.
unidentified		I love you, Burke.
		Thank you.
		I'm just a farm boy here in Kansas, but I know if you look at what a trillion dollars is, that's stacking $100 bills 670 miles high.
		That's a trillion dollars.
		Now, the other thing was, you know, when we get behind, we have to sell a little land.
		Why don't the government owns millions and millions of acres of land?
		Why don't they start selling some of that land off, putting it back on the tax rolls, and getting this debt paid down?
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, we also have a lot of empty federal buildings, even though a lot of employees have been ordered back to work.
		We can lease some of that too.
		But once again, it's not revenue.
		The federal government takes in record amounts of revenue every year.
		It's the spending.
		As fast as the money comes into Washington, it goes out the door for various projects and other things, many of which are not fulfilling the objective for which they were established.
		So we need to get off this business about the rich not paying their fair share, which is a line that's been used since the Franklin Roosevelt administration.
		It's not about how much we pay.
		It's about how much our government spends, and that's why we have this massive debt.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Our guest, Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist and author of his most recent book, A Watchmen in the Night: What I've Seen Over 50 Years, Reporting on America.
		You can find his work online at calthomas.com.
		Cal, thank you so much for being here today.
cal thomas ▲ ● ▼		Pleasure, Tammy.
unidentified		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Next on Washington Journal, we'll be joined by former National Security Council European Affairs Director Alexander Venman.
		He will discuss his new book, The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, we'll talk with National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts, who travels the world documenting underwater wrecks of some of the 12,000 slave ships that operated during the Atlantic slave trade.
		In her memoir, Written in the Waters, Roberts discusses the training and preparation required to undertake the diving missions and the work done by the nonprofit organization Diving with a Purpose, which is primarily composed of African-American divers.
		When I saw this picture in the museum, these women, and it turned out that they were a part of this group called Diving with a Purpose, and that they spent their time searching for and documenting slave shipwrecks around the world.
		I was like, oh my God, there are people who look like me who are living a life of adventure.
		Maybe this could be for me too.
		Tara Roberts, with her book, Written in the Waters, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA.
		You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app.
		Tuesday night, watch C-SPAN's live coverage of President Trump's address to Congress, the first address of his second term, and less than two months since taking office.
		C-SPAN's live coverage begins at 8 p.m. Eastern with a preview of the evening from Capitol Hill, followed by the President's speech, which begins at 9 p.m. Eastern.
		And then watch the Democratic response after the President's speech.
		We'll also take your calls and get your reaction on social media.
		Over on C-SPAN 2, you can also watch a simulcast of the evening's coverage, followed by a reaction from lawmakers live from Capitol Hill.
		Watch President Trump's address to Congress live Tuesday, beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, our simulcast live on C-SPAN 2 or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app.
		Also online at C-SPAN.org.
		C-SPAN, bringing you your democracy unfiltered.
		Washington Journal continues.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now is retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vinman.
		He is the author of the new book, The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine.
		Alexander, thank you so much for being with us.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Very much the control of this conversation, Tammy.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		You are also a former National Security Council European Affairs Director under President Trump.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Remind our audience or tell our audience about your background and work in the area of U.S. foreign policy.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
		So my family arrived to the U.S. as refugees in 1979 from the Soviet Union, fleeing communism and oppression.
		I grew up in New York City.
		We got here at the age of four, so grew up in the U.S. arrived in New York City, went off to university and immediately to the military, serving for 22 years.
		Served in combat as an infantryman in Iraq, then postings in Kiev, Ukraine, Moscow, Russia, obviously all in the news.
		Then at the Pentagon, I wrote the Russia strategy, then National Military Strategy for Russia, and then was invited to join the White House, where I was responsible for Russia, Ukraine, a bunch of countries in Eastern Europe, and I guess gained some notoriety or infamy, depending on how you look at it.
		When I reported a scheme to extort an investigation of Vice President Biden at the time going into the 2020 elections, perceiving the dangers of the impact on Russia's aggression towards Ukraine and the potential for an even larger war that started in 2014, as well as the impacts on our own free and fair elections, that this was an effort to tip the scales in President Trump's favor back then.
		And I reported it in official channels that ended up working its way through the government to result in a congressional investigation and Donald Trump's impeachment.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		His first impeachment.
		His first impeachment.
		We will talk more about your background when we get to your book, but you did work in the White House, and it was at the Oval Office on Friday that Ukrainian President Vladimir, or I'm sorry, Vladimir Zelensky met with President Trump.
		Your reaction to that meeting.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		It was visceral.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		There was a deja vu moment in there, putting myself in the shoes of the policy staff on the council and how they were heading into that meeting with probably a strong sense of foreboding, maybe a glint of optimism that somehow this deal could be signed.
		President Zelensky wanted to sign this deal to tether the U.S. to Ukraine on the basis of national interests, the fact that Ukraine has a rare earth that the U.S. wants and needs, and that Trump wanted this deal really desperately to demonstrate a win, to move the needle on what he's been pledging with regards to achieving a peace.
		Now, this deal wouldn't have gotten us very far.
		It's really more of a way for the U.S. to set the very, very base condition for subsequent conversations without even the Russians on board.
		But it was a start.
		And that all was blown up because of the erratic nature of the Trump administration.
		JD Vance, the vice president, decided to, and both the President and the Vice President decided to take a very, very provocative approach.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Sitting across the table from a wartime leader defending his country with countless thousands of victims from Russia's war of aggression, cast the enemy, U.S. enemy, by the way, not just Ukraine's enemy, Vladimir Putin, as a benign actor, as maybe not the culprit behind the aggression, and that Russia, after Zelensky just showed pictures of troops, POWs that were being abused,
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		spoke about 20,000 children that were stolen away from Ukraine and now are going through re-education, Trump and Vance, Vance in particular, attempted to say, well, that Russia is not a bad guy.
		That is a most obscene and disgusting way to deal with an ally and to flatter an opponent.
		The intent, I guess, was to somehow normalize the relationship with Russia to set conditions.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		But this is exactly what my book is about.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		It's the idea that we constantly accommodate Russia.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		We've done it throughout the past 30-plus years under six different administrations, Republicans and Democrats, all the way through.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Now we're doing it without any lessons of the past and in the most horrific way possible, burning all the bridges with our allies and embracing our adversaries.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And this devolved into, you know, Zielinski is one of the very few people, world leaders, that has come in there and stood his ground.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And Donald Trump is used to the flattery, to the ego-stroking, to the pandering he gets from his cabinet.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		That's why they're there.
		That's why they were selected.
		He's used to that same kind of flattery from the Republican Party that doesn't hold him to account, no matter how excessive his behaviors are.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And Zelensky, really, you know, good or bad, because both sides want that deal, just wasn't going to have it.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		It wasn't going to allow this inveterate adversary to be recast as a benign actor.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Our guest for up until 10 o'clock is retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Venman, author of the new book, The Folly of Realism, How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine.
		If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now.
		The lines, Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		Your book just came out last week on Tuesday.
		Explain the title and how it ties to what you were just talking about.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		So this book came out, was explicitly timed for the three-year anniversary of the war.
		That was the 24th, which was last Monday.
		It was the day that we had this UN vote where we again started the week by siding with our adversaries, North Korea, Belarus, Russia, and casting aside our friends.
		So it was really a strange start to the week on the third year anniversary of the full-scale war.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		The war itself has actually been going on since 2014 when Russia first attacked, invaded, and seized territory from Ukraine.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		The title, The Folly of Realism, refers to what we see Trump has adopted as a kind of a core component of his foreign policy.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Highly transactional.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Everything has got to be maximizing benefits to him, not even necessarily to the United States, but to him.
		This evolves out of something called realism.
		International relations suggest that realism is all countries in the world pursue their interests and pursue them maximally.
		So each side is looking to extract as much as they can out of each and every one of these engagements.
		And when you have that, you have a slide towards this lunacy of forgetting the lessons of the past.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Everything is immediately in front of you and you're looking to get the best deal possible.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And you're enticed by these false promises from the Russians that a deal is to be made, that you need to squeeze as much as you can out of even your closest allies, not necessarily even pricing in the other kinds of benefits.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		It's not just about trade with Canada and Mexico.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		We want fair trade deals, but it's the fact that they're extremely reliable partners.
		Canada will be there for us no matter what, or was going to be there no matter what, until we started talking to them as if they're 51st state.
		So that's the folly.
		The folly is that we've gone down this road to maximum short-sightedness, where we just grasp at bright, shiny objects, hopes of things that will never materialize, or succumb to fears, and look to mitigate risks.
		When Putin looks to saber rattle, he will eventually.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		He's going to say, I've got nuclear weapons.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		You guys are pissing me off.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to go ahead and fire my nuclear weapons at you if you don't knock it off.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		The reaction is going to be to cower in fear.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And that doesn't account for the fact that if you completely continuously bend to those types of nuclear extortion, you might reduce risk immediately, but he'll keep grabbing more territory like he has.
		He's graduated from just simple, basic mischief-making, hybrid warfare, interfering in elections, to military aggression, because we continue to bend at every one of these terms.
		We put Russia first.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		So that's the first part of the story.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And I referred to this current stage, this Trump stage, as the poison Kool-Aid stage of the cult of realism.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		That's where we are.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		We're really hurting ourselves.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		The subtitle, frankly, couldn't be more accurate.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		If I could, I'd go back and kind of revise it a little bit.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		It's how the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		But those Ds should be changed to S's.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		It should be how the U.S. deceives itself about Russia and betrays Ukraine because it's continuous.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		We saw that unfold over the past week.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		And it's to our detriment.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		It's not just about Ukraine.
		It is, frankly, about U.S. security.
		It's always been about U.S. security.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		If people paid attention to my testimony, I always catch things as how this affects U.S. security.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Europe is the U.S.'s most important partner, security partner, economic partner.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		If there is not stability and predictability in Europe, we suffer.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And this is a massive amount of instability that keeps creeping in because we keep deceiving ourselves about Russia and betraying Ukraine, betraying our own interests in the region.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		A quote from your book, and it's something that you said earlier, a word that you used, realism.
		The quote says, the post-Soviet history of U.S. relationships with Russia and with Ukraine presented in this book is a test case for the prevailing U.S. approach to international relations in general.
		Makes overwhelmingly clear that realism isn't, in its own two simplistic terms, realistic.
		In the process of selling out our values, we have failed to deter an aggressive yet deterable opponent, Russia, and lost a chance to form a strong relationship with the strategically critical, more likely Western allied partner, Ukraine.
		The alternative approach, fundamentally different, is neo-idealism.
		This is something that you talk about in your book a lot.
		You advocate for it.
		Explain what that is.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		So it's, you know, when you start to think about where we are and this cult of realism and how it put us in this jeopardy, automatically as a military guy trying to problem solve, I start thinking about alternatives.
		And I think about the absence of values, that everything is transactional, everything seemingly is interest-driven.
		And I start to think about, you know, how do we bring balance to that equation?
		One of the ways we bring balance to that equation and become more short-sighted, not just prone to minimize risk in every occasion, is to start to think about values, that you need both values and interests in the way we look at relationships around the world.
		And in this case, because of this slide towards the folly of realism, we need to rebalance where values become first.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Values primacy, the centrality of values to interests.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		We're going to see this eventually anyway, because Trump is breaking everything.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		It is such an extreme transactional behavior that on the back end of this, there's going to have to be a correction, a pendulum swing that's going to start to think about, okay, how do we, does the U.S. recapture moral leadership?
		How does the U.S. act more consistently long-term on this idea of values?
		What are those values?
		This is not pie-in-the-sky, you know, neoliberalism where you sacrifice your values and you look that discount the fact that sometimes you have to have unsavory relationships for U.S. security or that there is a partner out there in the world that may have something that the U.S. needs, is vital, is essential.
		And the fundamental idea is that you focus on the things that matter.
		You focus on hardening democracies around the world.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Why?
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Because of those security and economic relationships and the stability they offer.
		You start focusing on the erosion of democratic states.
		These are supports that we provide to countries around the world that have experienced democratic backsliding.
		We're experiencing some of that now.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		We're going to need some of that medicine ourselves.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And then democratic institutions, again, because as they evolve, they provide stability and predictability.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Neo-idealism is really, frankly, a pragmatic approach to rebalance away from the folly, from this cult of realism, to something that balances values and interests, recognizing that values are important to our interests.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		If we take that approach, what impact would it have on not only Russia and Ukraine, but other U.S. foreign relations?
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		The first thing is that we would start to realize that we have deceived ourselves about Russia and that at points along the way, inflection points, we could have really had a fair assessment of what we could accomplish with Russia, what we could accomplish with Ukraine.
		Practically speaking, if the 90s was a moment of maybe excessive hope, somewhat warranted exiting out of 40 years of Cold War, this threat of Armageddon and nuclear Armageddon,
		on the back end into the 90s, you start to think about, okay, very, very worth the effort to try to invest in Russia and Ukraine in pretty significant ways to help usher them into the democratic world, into capitalism.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		We didn't invest sufficiently, but that kind of dual approach makes sense.
		When I spoke to both President Clinton and President Gore, the methodology here was actually interviews with decision makers, the principal decision makers across different administrations in Ukraine and the U.S.
		So I talked to Condoleezza Rice about the 2000s.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		She was the National Security Advisor and Secretary of State.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		I talked to President Clinton and President Gore, a whole bunch of different principal decision makers.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		And they did have this notion of trying to bring both Russia and Ukraine into the fold.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		But by the time you start to get into the 2000s, you have this KGB case officer as president of Russia.
		You see it is evident that there's illiberalism, democratic backsliding.
		They were trying that experiment, but as soon as this individual went in, he started to destroy freedom of press.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		He subordinated all the independent press and put it under either the government or state-owned enterprises, attacks on opponents.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And then Ukrainians, in the same kind of moment, yes, they're imperfect, but they're striving for a democratic future, an integration with the West.
		They have this moment in 2004 when there's an Orange Revolution.
		It's a rejection of these pro-Russian forces interfering, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy an election in Ukraine.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Putin is very, very heavy-handed, going in there advocating for his preferred candidate, and the Ukrainians reject that.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		They elect a pro-Western candidate, Individual that was actually poisoned and scarred as a result of that, Viktor Yanukovych.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And he attempts to take a Western line.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Still lots of problems to resolve, but that's a moment in which there should have been some clarity.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		The Russians are not going to be good actors.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		We need to start hedging.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Ukraine is the largest country in Europe, population of approaching 50 million, really important player in that part of the world.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		And that we also need to make sure that Russia, with its increasingly aggressive rhetoric, doesn't think that Ukraine, which is the most important aspect of Russia's former empire, of the Soviet Union's former empire, now outside as an independent state, but what Russia has been eyeing, what Russia has been attempting to secure for centuries, had under its control, dominated, but then broke free,
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		that this vital territory was not an easy target, not an easy mark.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And we just didn't do that.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		We didn't make any investments.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		We didn't try to rebalance our policies.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		It was all about Russia first.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		What do we do to keep Russia on sides?
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Is there something we could accomplish on some important or even less important policy agenda to keep Russia engaged?
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		And what do we do to not anger Russia, not piss Russia off?
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		And that means avoiding having these robust relationships with the countries that really mattered in that region, including Ukraine.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		So we also suppressed good policy with regards to Ukraine because we didn't want to trigger Russia.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		And there were opportunities along the way.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		You know, this was around independence in 1991, where the U.S. under George H.W. Bush said, calm down, Ukraine.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		No need to rush towards independence.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you've been struggling for your own national identity for centuries.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		You had a brief moment in the 20th century.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		I talk about some of that deep history.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		But don't rush.
		It might not be as bad under this reformed Russia that's unfolding.
		Or during the discussions around nuclear disarmament, we wanted Ukraine to denuclearize.
		They had 4,000 nuclear weapons.
		They wanted some security assurances.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		You don't need guarantees.
		We'll give you assurances.
		We may or may not be there.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Or around the Orange Revolution, when they broke towards the West decisively, and they're like, thanks.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		That's nice of you to lean so heavily towards the West, kind of burn your bridges with the Kremlin.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		But we're not ready for that yet.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		We are still concerned about Russia.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		All the way through the different moments of Russian aggression, 2014, we attempted resets all the way through.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Trump is attempting the same kind of resets he criticized throughout multiple different administrations.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		He's doing that now by attempting to normalize with Russia without any evidence whatsoever that the Russians are willing to come on board.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Actually, all the evidence is to the contrary.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		The Russians still want a complete capitulation from the Ukrainians, and they have made no indications of the fact that they're willing to end this war.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We will bring our audience into the discussion.
		We'll start with Bruce in Chicago line for Republicans.
		Hi, Bruce.
unidentified		Hello, how you doing?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We're doing well, Bruce.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Well, I was going to say, Lieutenant Colonel, I also deal in the realm of realism.
		And I just wondered what your take is on when a family takes a bunch of money from overseas, from Russia, from the Ukraine, from China.
		I just wonder, in my little world, when you take money, you owe something.
		And I just wonder if any of the money that came from Ukraine and went into the Biden coffers, if that has anything to do with the situation we're in now.
		And also I wonder if the money that flowed from China into the Biden coffers has anything to do with the way China is treated by us, given certain certain things that they probably the rest of the people don't.
		And also the money that flowed from Russia from the you know from the president or whatever he is of Moscow, the three and a half million flowed into the Biden family coffers.
		And the strange thing is, why would it all have to be washed through little companies?
		And thank you for your answer.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Bruce.
		I actually could swear that as you were setting up that question, that you were talking about Trump.
		I mean, like, all the data points are consistent, that it's the Trump family that's been prospering from all of these deals, whether it's trademarks in China that amount to millions and millions of dollars, or the Saudis giving sweetheart deals to Trump's son-in-law, a $2 billion investment fund.
		I mean, just look at what Nikolai Petrushev, KGB officer, the head of the FSB, said about Trump just this past week.
		Now, he may have been just throwing hand grenades, kind of just looking to sow discord in the U.S.
		But he said, well, Trump owes his election to us, and now he has obligations.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Now he has to pay him back.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		That is the overwhelming evidence is that this is not a Biden problem.
		I'm not aware of any credible evidence that suggests that Biden himself or his family has really profited in any significant way.
		That doesn't account for Hunter Biden and the fact that he sat on this board of Burisma and was getting a monthly retainer for X amount of dollars just because he had that name Biden and he was the son of the president or vice president at the time.
		That's a different story.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		The children of the elites with their names tend to profit that way.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		But in terms of corruption or funds flowing into a family, all the evidence points to Trump.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		And even then, frankly, this is not my core area of expertise.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Where there's smoke, there's fire, but I'd leave it to other folks that are more professional on understanding these kind of connections.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		I'm more interested in not families, but the geopolitics and countries and how the U.S. could be safe.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		President Zelensky was in Washington, D.C. this week or on Friday, supposed to be working toward a peace deal.
		This question is coming from Lisa P on X. Does Binman think Zelensky should have signed the minerals deal?
		Did he support the deal?
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		I think Zelensky did support the deal.
		I think he was ready to sign it.
		What he wasn't ready for was to be assaulted by the president and the vice president of the United States.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		I'm not sure what kind of hospitality that is, bringing in an ally, somebody that you're supporting for years, and then attempting to beat up on them, attempting to cow them into flattery or, I mean, there are crude ways of putting this.
		They wanted him to kiss some butt.
		I'm just going to, you know, sometimes you have to call things the way they are.
		And he was there, the leader of his nation, projecting strength to his people that are fighting a war, projecting strength to the European allies that want to know that if they're investing in Ukraine, that they have somebody that's going to be there and fight and projecting strength to this enemy, to Putin, that he is not a pushover.
		So yes, Zielinski wanted the deal.
		I think he came there prepared to sign the deal.
		I think Trump wanted the deal.
		The problem is that I think Vance literally just threw some hand grenades in there, couching the whole situation as Russia good, Ukraine bad, Ukraine unwilling to compromise towards peace, which nobody wants peace more than Ukraine.
		And that really devolved into a hot situation in which Zelensky found it impossible to sign that deal at that time.
		Is it salvageable potentially?
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		But maybe somebody else gets that deal.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		The Europeans also need rare earths.
		The Europeans are in the same neighborhood.
		The Europeans are actually willing to show support for Ukraine.
		The U.S. is under Trump is abusing that relationship and abusing Zelensky.
		So we'll see what ends up shaking out.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		But yes, the deal could have easily been had if it was properly managed and if there was a modicum of diplomacy and decorum shown in that room.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		After Friday's Oval Office meeting, President Zielinski spoke with Fox News about it and also what it means for the future of U.S.-Ukraine relations.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We're going to show you a clip and then we'll get your response.
bret baier ▲ ● ▼		Do you think the public spat in the Oval Office in front of the media served Ukrainians well today?
volodymyr zelenskyy ▲ ● ▼		I think this kind of spat is, I mean, this we have, I mean, this is not good for both sides anyway.
		And I will very open, but I can't, you know, change our Ukrainian attitude to Russia.
		And I don't want their killers for us.
		You know, this is very, very clear that Americans are the best of our friends, Europeans are the best of our friends, and Putin with Russia, they are enemies.
		And it doesn't mean that we don't want peace.
		We just want to recognize the reality, the real situation.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Your book looks at not just the past few administrations, but multiple generate presidents who have not done enough to address Ukraine and our relationship with them.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		How will that Oval Office meeting with Trump impact the future of U.S.-Ukraine relations?
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		I think it was an unmasking of the, if there was any ambiguity of where the U.S. proclivities under the Trump administration lie, they were unmasked in that week, actually.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		between the UN Security Council votes and the Oval Office meeting.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		It's clear that the U.S. has an inclination to normalize with Russia.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		It seemingly becomes clear that the U.S. could care less about what happens to Ukraine.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		It's willing to sacrifice Ukraine.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		It's willing for Ukraine to give up its people, give up its territory in the effort to normalize relationship with Russia.
		That is the height of self-deception about what the Russians will do.
		The Russians will bank everything that the Trump administration has offered, will take this break, this massive rupture, not just with Ukraine, but actually with the West.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		If you think about the response for the European allies, all of them were on sides.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		All of them were on board aggressively demonstrating their support for Ukraine, embracing Ukraine.
		From that meeting and that failed effort to sign a deal, Zelensky went to meet with his counterpart in the UK, P.M. Starmer.
		He's making the rounds in Europe.
		They're all showing that they will be there for Ukraine.
		How much they follow through on that is not yet clear, but I think it's going to be a big turn that there will be a doubling down on support for Ukraine.
		And the consequences for the U.S. are that the U.S. will be isolated.
		That is the most important thing, that we are breaking our relationships with our most important security and economic partners.
		We're already heading down that road with these absurd tariff deals that tax the U.S. consumer for no reason.
		We are attacking our allies for what reason is not entirely clear because there's not a deal to be had here so much.
		These are countries that we've had relationships with for decades.
		So to me, this is just a clear rupture.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		You could see it from all the corners of the world with regards to democracies, Australia, our Asian allies in Korea and Japan siding with support for Ukraine and recognizing that they may have to go it alone, that the U.S. has become an unreliable partner.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		That is the consequence of that Oval Office meeting.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Totally, completely unnecessary.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Most of the meeting actually went fine.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		I mean, East Side had a series of remarks.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		They had a Q ⁇ A. Literally the last question.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		JD Vance chimes in with this self-deception about the fact that the Russians want peace, that the Russians are not the bad actors, and that Ukraine is the one that needs to compromise.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		It is exactly the opposite.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		It is a bizarre world where Russia, in fact, shows no sign of compromise.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And the Ukrainians are willing, they're not going to say it publicly, they're not going to say it out of the context of a negotiation, but they're willing to trade a lot for a ceasefire, but a lasting peace.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		The meeting between President Trump and Zelensky, that was on Friday.
		The full event was just under 50 minutes.
		If you would like to watch it in its entirety, you can find it on our website, c-span.org.
		Let's talk with Lucille in Los Angeles, California, Line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Lucille.
unidentified		Good morning to everyone.
		First, I want to express my deep gratitude for the former Lieutenant Colonel Binman.
		I appreciate your courage.
		I appreciate your strength.
		And thank you for continuing to serve for our country.
		Next, I have suspicions about Trump.
		We all know he was a convicted felon.
		He had more indictments against him that never came into fruition.
		He's a real estate guy, and he's done a lot.
		I have heard reports where he's done a lot of real estate dealings between various Russian oligarchs.
		What would make him ask a depressed country, Ukraine, to hand over $340, $350 million of mineral rights when we only gave up something like $124 billion?
		He's asking for more than double.
		I do feel that if Zelensky was to sign that deal, there would be nothing to stop Trump from selling part of his mineral rights over to Putin.
		That would give Putin a chance to have some claim into Ukraine.
		I apologize for the way the administration handled their conversations with Zelensky.
		And I find no fault in Zelensky trying to fight for democracy.
		This is bigger than Trump.
		Trump deals with everything about his personal gain.
		He wants power.
		He's around a lot of oligarchs.
		I see him so differently.
		Tell me what's wrong with that.
		Thank you.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Lucille.
		I think you said a lot of powerful and accurate things.
		This is much, much bigger than just really the largest war in the world.
		We're talking about Russia, the largest country in the world, and Ukraine, the largest country in Europe, duking it out over the course of three years.
		It has every potential to draw in European powers now, especially with the U.S. taking a step back.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		The Europeans understand that Russia, with Ukraine, suborned and subordinated.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		It's a famous line from a former national security advisor that astutely pointed out that Russia with Ukraine becomes an empire, but with Ukraine, Russia, without Ukraine, ceases to become an empire, but with Ukraine subordinated, suborned, becomes an empire, becomes a power.
		That is what this is about, that Russia is empire building and that Russia has every intention to assert its authority in the region and globally as one of the critical poles in the world.
		And it's not just the Russians, the Asians, Asian powers, China in particular is, well, China singularly is also thinking about what this means and whether it could do some empire building, recapture Taiwan.
		Getting back to some of the numbers here, you know, there are, there's plenty of efforts by Trump to engage with Russia for business dealings.
		One of the biggest banks in Russia had enormous deposits from Russian oligarchs, a Deutsche Bank.
		He was sanctioned for various corrupt schemings, was one of the biggest loaners of funds to Trump and Trump Inc.
		Trump has been undertaking efforts to build a Trump tower in Moscow for years unsuccessfully.
		He's looked to engage both Russian oligarchs and the Russian state repeatedly with his first trip to the region in 1987, roughly coinciding with his political awakenings and his damning of NATO not pulling their fair share.
		I'm not sure if there's, you know, why those two data points seem to coincide.
		The fact is that moving on to this deal, it started out entirely lopsided.
		It started out with a $350 billion demand.
		Actually, it was a $500 billion demand to recover what Trump believes was U.S. resources that went into Ukraine at a rate of five to one, pretty, I guess, a loan shark level of extortion.
		But what it evolved into actually was a much, much more fair deal between the U.S. and Ukraine, establishing a joint fund.
		No dollar signs associated with that, no $350 billion.
		It was more of a framework for the U.S. and Ukraine to work together in a joint fund, where the Ukrainians were going to cede it with resources coming out of the earth.
		And the U.S. was going to be part of this fund, and it was supposed to help rebuild Ukraine.
		So it was very, very loosey-goosey.
		It didn't really amount to that much, but it was a start.
		It was a way to get the U.S. to see that there was an interest in continuing to invest in Ukraine, not just from this big picture democracy perspective, from a U.S. national security perspective, but in terms that Trump likes.
		Very, very transactional, this for that, you know, quid pro quo type of deal where there are minerals that Trump wants.
		He's been talking about them in the context of Greenland, that there is a way to get the U.S. hooked on that one.
		So it evolved from a pure shakedown into something that was manageable.
		Both sides were willing to sign it.
		But again, I don't, it's almost like, why would you allow JD Vance into future meetings if he's just going to blow him up?
		He's blowing up our relationships in Europe when he goes to the Munich Security Conference.
		He's blowing up these deals for Trump.
		You know, maybe he needs to take a timeout.
		Trump could put him in the corner until he learns to behave better so that deals don't go blown up and our relationships don't get blown up around the world.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Bill in Kentucky, line for independence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Bill.
unidentified		Morning.
kurt in indiana ▲ ● ▼		I wanted to ask the Lieutenant Colonel, does he think he has more qualifications than Pete has said?
kurt in indiana ▲ ● ▼		And talking about the money from Russia and stuff and China, that he just played it off onto Trump.
unidentified		I mean, everyone knows American people is not stupid.
		Biden's family is dirty.
		And he can just take up for the Democrat Party all he wants, but it's the truth.
		And he can get red in the face like he's getting right now.
jeff in police force ▲ ● ▼		But I'll just say, have a great day, y'all.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Bill.
		Appreciate that.
		It's a perspective, for sure.
		It's a perspective.
		I'm not sure how informed it is, frankly.
		The fact is that you could, if you do the digging on this one, and it's more than just accusations from Trump and his political coterie when they're trying to win an election, there's really not that much evidence to suggest this.
		I guess we'll see soon enough, right?
		If there is actually anything of this nature, you would expect to see some indictments from the Trump administration on criminal activity.
		We'll see if that unfolds and, frankly, if it's substantive or if it's just completely fabricated.
		We know that Trump, for his record, was indicted four times for mishandling documents, for the insurrection, for payoffs, to a prostitute, all sorts of different interference, trying to interfere in Georgia in elections.
		Those things were indictments.
		That means your fellow citizens, when impaneled, found enough evidence to indict him.
		We'll see if there's anything on the other side of the scales.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Like I said, there's some awful things that go on when the children and the families of the wealthy and the powerful elected office holders attempt to enrich themselves with regards to their names.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		That's pretty clear.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		If you heard my testimony or read the transcript, I actually maybe didn't make the funniest joke when I testified in Congress behind closed doors.
		Certainly neither the Republicans nor Democrats found it funding.
		Said this exact point: that people trade on their names and attempt to enrich themselves.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		That happens.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		But this idea of rampant corruption, I have not seen any credible evidence of that.
		With regards to, I'm not sure if there was more to that question, but yeah, it's pretty clear to me that this is generally lopsided.
		And I think it's one of those things that you see in propaganda and information wars accuse to basically deflect from your own behavior type of trademark.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk with Wayne in Douglasville, Georgia, line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Wayne.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		So, for all that you just said, Trump is president and you're not.
		The title of your book, I find it very interesting.
		I take a totally different view, though.
		I believe that Zelensky deceived himself and betrayed the Ukrainian people.
		How did he do this?
		Well, first, if Ukraine could not defeat Russia by themselves, they should not have invited other more powerful people into their country to assist them.
		The result is most likely going to be that now Ukraine will be divided between Russia, Europe, and America.
		And the Ukrainian people will suffer for that.
		And I totally empathize with the struggle that they're going through right now with the constant bombardment of their country and the destruction of their people.
		The second mistake that Zelensky made is that he actually believed his own propaganda.
		It seems to me that everyone there is fighting for the riches of Ukraine.
		Russia's propaganda is that they're fighting Nazis.
		They're not.
		They're stealing your resources.
		And Europe and America, unfortunately, you know, we have to get paid.
		So we are going to take your minerals as well.
		I'll take your answer offline.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I appreciate this perspective, frankly, and really look forward to responding because I think that from my perspective, you know, I wrote this book to explain how we got to this war.
		That was a fundamental question.
		When I left office and was forced out of the military, I wanted to continue to dive into my area of expertise.
		At that point in time, I left in 2020.
		We were five years into this war.
		Four of those years were under the Trump administration, right?
		No efforts were, or no, I mean, minimal efforts were made, but no success evolved out of that effort from Trump to bring a peace in his four years.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		He's in his second term now, and he's claiming that he's going to have peace on day one.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		He claimed that he's going to have peace.
		Actually, he claimed that peace is going to occur before inauguration, then day one.
		And now it just seems as far out of sight as possible.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Again, not because of the Ukrainians.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		The Ukrainians know the Russians better than anybody else.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		They've been in that neighborhood for a long time.
		They've been struggling for their own independence of freedom for a long time.
		And they understand that Russia has no interest right now.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		The Russians feel like they have the upper hand.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		They don't on the military landscape, by the way.
		The Russians are making the tiniest of gains and trading lots of personnel and lots of equipment for them.
		The question is, do they have the staying power to continue to do this indefinitely?
		And the answer is no.
		The Ukrainians also, before the inauguration, were not in the best spot, but they could hold their own, especially with the Europeans and the U.S. there.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Now it looks a little bit more precarious.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		The scales may be shifting a little bit in Russia's favor, but not in a way that allows the Russians to achieve a decisive outcome to gain that much more territory.
		So it's really still a test of who has more staying power.
		The Europeans are almost certainly going to step up now in a bigger way with the absence of the U.S.
		They have an industrial base.
		They have the economic base, frankly, to support this war for sure.
		They have an industrial base that needs to grow to more effectively support Ukraine.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		There are going to be impacts from the U.S. withdrawal.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		The U.S. is the most important country in the world.
		It has a massive industrial base to support this war effort.
		So the U.S. withdrawal of support is obviously going to be a significant challenge and a boon to Russia.
		Now, the fundamentals here are, to me, quite clear.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		The Russians have been looking to rebuild empire.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Whether the U.S. was going to be there or the Europeans were going to be there, they were going to try to snap up territory and keep creeping up, rebuilding empire.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		If you watch, if you understand Russia's history, it's expanded really since about the middle of the 1500s in all cardinal directions to be the size that it achieved at its height at the end of the Russian Empire.
		And then at the collapse of the Soviet Union, it receded in a moment of weakness, spinning off 15 different states.
		It wants those territories back in one way or another.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Either it wants to dominate them outright and absorb them, or it wants to just dominate them and dictate terms.
		It also, after World War II, during the Cold War, snapped up large portions of Eastern and Central Europe.
		Those territories are, for the time being, safe because they are part of NATO, a collective defense.
		Russia will continue to expand, absorb these populations, militarize, employ these different peoples to continue to grow because it is an aggressive imperial power.
		That's the way it sees the world.
		Putin's view, maybe now not too dissimilar from Trump's, is that there are only three real powers in the world.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		There's Russia, there's China, and the U.S.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		And those states are entitled to do what they want.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		It's the rules of the jungle.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		They prey on the weak.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		So as they infringe on Europe in particular, that has a direct impact on the United States on U.S. security, as long as the U.S. is part of NATO.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		And frankly, economic prosperity.
		One of the reasons we are the most powerful country in the world is because of our trade, our economic relationships around the world, and notably with the Europeans.
		We do not want the Russians to continue to be aggressive.
		We do not want the Russians to sow discord and break either NATO or the European Union.
		That would be disastrous for the U.S. We'd be isolated.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		We'd be in a much more dangerous multipolar world.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		What we want to do is we want to preserve these relationships, strengthen them, and make sure that these aggressive nations understand that there are consequences for their actions.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Alexander, your book looks at how we got to where we are.
		I wanted to talk a little bit about the future.
		This quote from your book, the Biden administration's deeply flawed Ukraine policy of incremental support, always a day late and a dollar short, dominated by misplaced caution and fears of escalation, left Ukraine vulnerable and emboldened Russian aggression.
		But Trump's doctrine, stripped of even that minimal sense of responsibility, takes the missteps to an entirely new level, actively undermining U.S. alliances.
		This is not a recalibration.
		It is a repudiation of America's role in the world and a clear signal that deterrence of aggression is no longer a goal, perhaps not even a consideration.
		The consequences of this are desire.
		You talked about the fact that the U.S. could become isolationist.
		Talk about the long-term impact that President Trump's actions could have.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Sure, I'm just going to maybe do this in a hypothetical scenario.
		We extrapolate forward the U.S. either formally withdrawing from NATO or just abrogating its responsibilities.
		We don't have to withdraw from NATO to make it toothless.
		We could just signal that we won't be there if our European allies are attacked.
		Russia tests that theory.
		It starts with hybrid warfare in the Baltics.
		It wants to want one of the things it's looking for is to make sure that its exclave, this place, Kaleningrad, that's between Lithuania, surrounded by NATO, Lithuania and Poland, has ready access to.
		And there's some territory that splits it.
		So the theory is that Russia tests the resolve of NATO and then maybe looks to capture this territory, demonstrate that countries will only support their own interests and won't act in collective defense.
		Russia then feels emboldened to do this strong versus weak play all around its region, continues to build its empire.
		Meanwhile, the Chinese in the Pacific take the signature or the signals that the U.S. won't be there for Taiwan.
		They conduct a war against Taiwan.
		They subdue Taiwan, which has an immediate, massive impact on the U.S. because the Taiwanese produce an enormous percentage of the chips around the world that we need for our tech industry, that we need for the growing AI sector.
		These aggressive actions have immediate economic impacts.
		We go into recession.
		As our allies get picked off and as the Europeans potentially embroil themselves in more localized conflicts with Russia, we are further isolated.
		And eventually, the U.S. finds itself in a situation in which our own interests here in the United States start to get attacked, whether it's through hybrid warfare or frankly, the fact is that we have territories in the Pacific that the Chinese don't like there as a means of force projection.
		We have Samoa or we have Guam.
		These are now vulnerable because we don't have an alliance structure.
		There lay in the Chinese sphere of influence.
		It becomes a far, far more dangerous world.
		We have a massive nuclear arsenal.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		We have a powerful military, but we are diminished without our allies.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		We are diminished without our friends.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		One of the most important things about our alliance structure is what we call access and basing.
		The fact that we have all these different posts, either like, you know, posts to watch out for danger or posts to project to secure our interests, various kinds of contingencies.
		We start losing those around the world.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		We're no longer out deterring North Korean aggression in the Korean Peninsula.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		We're no longer in Japan defending our interests in the Pacific and those very, very vital trade routes.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		The Chinese pick up that role.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		We're no longer in the Middle East because various aggressive powers, including Iran, that looks weak at the moment, but years down the road might not look so weak, especially when there are shocks to the system and commodities, oil prices increase.
		We are isolated, and we do not have that team with us when we're facing the various challenges that emerge around the world.
		That is a nightmare scenario for the U.S.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		It's about five or six minutes left with our guest, Alexander Vinman.
		We will hear next from Bradley in Michigan, Line for Democrats.
		Hi, Bradley.
kurt nimmo ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, hi, and thank you, Alexander, and your brother as well for doing what you're supposed to do, follow the Constitution.
unidentified		I guess it's not a common thing in today's world, which is sad in itself.
unidentified		Also, I'd like to rebuke our governors for not leaving directly after Trump threatened them, insulted them, and they just sat there.
kurt nimmo ▲ ● ▼		Gretchen Whitmer is my governor, and I let her know I didn't appreciate that.
unidentified		And also, not to be bitter, but I hope the layoffs that Trump must do only affect the people that voted for him.
		And lastly, I deeply apologize to my dad and other vets.
		World War II, living or deceased.
		They fought to rid the world of dictators while their ancestors have all but installed one here.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		I think there's a comment in response to that.
		I appreciate that, Bradley.
		I'd say, look, we are in dark days.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		They're going to get darker.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		I think the more vulnerable of our population are the ones that are going to suffer disproportionately.
		But because of Trump overreach, because of this, you know, the destruction of the institutions that provide services to our people that keep us safe overseas, there's going to be a correction.
		I think the fact is that people are not necessarily awake to the dangers of authoritarianism, not awake to the dangers of serving the interests of the billionaire class, cutting taxes on the billionaires and taking away from the folks that need those resources.
		And I think that neo-idealism, it's definitely a foreign policy approach, but it's also, frankly, a domestic approach.
		I think we're going to need a vision going forward that allows us to correct and understand the values, our core values in the United States, that we are inherently a good people, even if we're in slumber or deceiving ourselves about the direction this country is taking.
		And I think there's an opportunity to correct and maybe even do some bold things after 2028 when the American public that 90%, 90 million of us didn't vote, show up and reject this turn towards illiberalism and this turn towards servicing the interests of the very few, and that we could call back some things that provide opportunities to more Americans.
		I mean, it doesn't make a difference to me if these are folks call in from red states or blue states.
		You know, I frankly want us all to do better, and I don't see that happening in the direction that we're taking.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We have one last call for you.
		It's Kyle in Honolulu, Hawaii, line for independence.
		Hi, Kyle.
unidentified		Aloha.
		Thank you for taking my call, Lieutenant Colonel.
		I think you answered my question a while back, so I asked this.
		If there's so much worry By Europe about Ukraine.
		Why don't they absorb them into NATO?
		They refused them the last time.
		And my second question is: you know, as an advisor and as a service person, let me ask you this squarely.
		Why hasn't a nuclear attack happened yet?
		Okay, over so many years.
		And I'll listen off the air.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Excellent question.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		I'll try to answer those pretty quickly.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		So I think the fact is that the Europeans made a mistake in 2008.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		George Bush pushed for Ukraine's admission into NATO, and it was the Europeans that were also deceiving themselves about Russia.
		And they were the ones that rejected any kind of firm timeline.
		That is a mistake that resulted in 2000, well, it resulted in the Georgia War 2008, resulted in the war in Ukraine starting in 2014, resulted in a full-scale warrant of 2022.
		Now they are actually looking at security guarantees on the back end when we get to peace.
		But I think the U.S. should be a part of that because we're really the most important player in the international system where the ultimate security guarantor we provide the conventional and the military umbrella to warn off aggression.
		With regards to the second part of the question, I'm sorry, Tammy, do you?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		It was why there hasn't been a nuclear attack.
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		So why?
alexander vindman ▲ ● ▼		Because the doctrine is simple: nuclear, mutually assured destruction.
		Nobody wants a nuclear war.
		The consequences are cataclysmic, world-ending.
		So the Russians aren't suicidal.
		Trump should recognize that there's a reflection of him in certain regards with regards to Putin, maybe a little bit more sophisticated actor.
		But Putin is legacy building.
		He's empire building.
		He is not going to go in the other direction and blow up his world because he's not interested in provoking a direct confrontation with the U.S. Sometimes we need to understand that this is bluster to get the U.S. to back down.
		It's nuclear extortion.
		There is no interest in anybody employing that nuclear tool because of mutually assured destruction.
		So we need to be to warn off this idea.
		We need to hold our ground.
		We don't need to dismiss it because the consequences are so low, but we need to recognize that the probabilities are so infinitesimally small that sometimes holding our ground and calling that bluff reduces the risk, not accelerates it like we've done repeatedly by bending to Putin.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Our guest, retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vinman, he's the author of the new book, The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine.
		Also author of the Substack newsletter, Why It Matters.
		You can find it online at avendman.com.
		Alexander, thank you so much for being with us.
eugene vindman ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That does it for today's Washington Journal.
		We'll be back tomorrow morning with another edition at 7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Pacific.
		Until then, enjoy your day.
unidentified		And coming up Monday morning, NBC News Congressional Reporter Scott Wong previews President Trump's address to Congress on Tuesday.
		And then White House correspondent Philip Wegman of Real Clear Politics discusses the week ahead at the White House.
		Also, Gene Dodaro, U.S. Comptroller General and head of the Government Accountability Office, will talk about the GAO's latest report on federal programs deemed at high risk for mismanagement, fraud, and waste.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
		Join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Monday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org.
		Well, next, President Trump and Emmanuel Macron hold a joint press conference at the White House to discuss the alliance between the United States and France and the state of the Russia-Ukraine war.
		And then a House Judiciary Subcommittee holds a hearing on birthright citizenship in the United States, analyzing the text of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees that right.
		And later, the United Nations Security Council adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine that takes a neutral position on the conflict, calling for peace without assigning blame.
		Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, we'll talk with National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts, who travels the world documenting underwater wrecks of some of the 12,000 slave ships that operated during the Atlantic slave trade.
		In her memoir, Written in the Waters, Roberts discusses the training and preparation required to undertake the diving missions and the work done by the nonprofit organization Diving with a Purpose, which is primarily composed of African-American divers.
		When I saw this picture in the museum of these women, and it turned out that they were a part of this group called Diving with a Purpose, and that they spent their time searching for and documenting slave shipwrecks around the world, I was like, oh my God, there are people who look like me who are living a life of adventure.
		Maybe this could be for me too.
		Tara Roberts with her book, Written in the Waters, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A.

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