| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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As a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | |
| Coming up on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | ||
| Then we'll talk with Philip Wallach, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, about President Trump's joint address to Congress tonight and the current balance of power between the executive and legislative branches. | ||
| And former IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel discusses concerns about how layoffs at the internal revenue surface could affect tax collection. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| It's Tuesday, March 4th. | ||
| Tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, President Trump will address a joint session of Congress. | ||
| He's expected to talk about what he's done since taking office and his agenda for the next four years. | ||
| This morning, we're getting your thoughts on the speech. | ||
| Are you planning to watch it? | ||
| If so, what are the topics you'll be listening for? | ||
| Here are the numbers: Democrats: 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can send us a text to 202-748-8003. | ||
| Include your first name in your city-state. | ||
| And you can post your comments on social media: facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Welcome to today's Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll start with the Washington Times. | ||
| On the front page, Trump says his speech will, quote, tell it like it is. | ||
| President Trump will double down on his America First Agenda Tuesday night, that's tonight, when he commands the stage for a joint session of Congress and makes the case for smaller government, more tariffs, and stricter immigration. | ||
| He promised a speech would lay it out for the American people. | ||
| Quote, Tomorrow night will be big. | ||
| I will tell it like it is, Mr. Trump said Monday on social media. | ||
| The president will outline the blueprint that got him elected in November and tie it to the flurry of action he has taken in his first six weeks in office. | ||
| He is expected to argue that those actions are key to implementing the drastic changes voters sent him to the White House to enact. | ||
| And we will have coverage of that speech in its entirety tonight. | ||
| Our live coverage will start at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| The speech is expected to start at 9 p.m. | ||
| You can watch it here on C-SPAN, also on C-SPAN2, and it'll be on our app, C-SPANNOW and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Let's take a look at Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer. | ||
| He was on the Senate floor on Monday, and he talked about what he says voters care about and how Democrats will respond. | ||
| You can see frustration boil over in town halls in Georgia and Kansas and Oregon and everywhere in between. | ||
| Republican leaders are telling their members to cancel town hall meetings. | ||
| They're running away from the people because they know how badly the people have been hurt by what they're doing. | ||
| Maybe they don't want to do it, but they're forced to because President Trump wants tax breaks for billionaires. | ||
| You can see the frustration in the polls, too. | ||
| A majority of Americans believe that Donald Trump has ignored the number one issue they care about: inflation, rising costs. | ||
| You can see the frustration online. | ||
| Last week, I joined a Zoom. | ||
| Over 3,000 New Yorkers got on the Zoom, ready to mobilize against Republican attacks on Medicaid. | ||
| And many of my colleagues had similar meetings with similar, strong responses. | ||
| People are ready. | ||
| They're energized. | ||
| You can also see it in the courts. | ||
| The American people can rest assured that whenever the administration breaks the law, we'll take them to court. | ||
| It will be one of our best tools to protecting our country and putting a stop to the worst abuses of Donald Trump's agenda. | ||
| And for the most part, the courts are rejecting much of what Donald Trump has tried to do. | ||
| The more Donald Trump pushes our democracy to the limit, the more Americans will push back. | ||
| Organizing is never easy, but it works. | ||
| It works. | ||
| That's what we'll continue to do. | ||
| We shall organize here in the Congress, organize in the public square, organize in court to protect the country we all know and love. | ||
| Nothing that Donald Trump says tomorrow will change that fact. | ||
| And we'll go to the phones now and start with Antone in Berkeley, California, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I am not going to watch President Trump this evening for these reasons. | ||
| One, everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. | ||
| Two, he assaults women. | ||
| Three, he's a convicted felon on 34 counts, and now he is in bed with Russia. | ||
| And as a child, I remember having to go under deaths at my grade school because of Russia's threat to attack the United States. | ||
| I remember provisions in the basement because Russia threatened to attack the United States. | ||
| And I remember kneeling down in the hallway, okay, for air raid drills because Russia attacked the United States. | ||
| And every home had a bomb shelter built in it because of this. | ||
| And now this president is in bed with Mr. Putin. | ||
| So I don't even want to look at this man. | ||
| I think he's thoroughly disgusted and disgusting. | ||
| And anybody who supports this man is just as sick and disgusting as he is. | ||
| You have a great day. | ||
| Here's Brian in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Brian. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi there. | |
| How are you doing today? | ||
| Good. | ||
| So today's discussion about Donald Trump, you know, a lot of people say they don't like Donald Trump, but I think he's, I don't really think there's a problem with him. | ||
| So basically, I've never met Mr. Trump personally, but I know that he had a lot of involvement with the annucators on Tweet Street. | ||
| Yeah, me and my friend Hunter Cullen. | ||
| Sorry, I have a bit of a cold. | ||
| My friend Hunter Cullen were, you know, talking about Trump's policies and how a lot of people thought that, you know, he's a bad guy. | ||
| And just because he's a felon, that indicates, you know, that's an indicator that he's not capable of running the country. | ||
| Well, you've got to keep in mind, all the protesters were harvesting a felon in 2013. | ||
| Kathleen in Illinois, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I would not be watching Trump sit up there and make a complete fool out the American people. | |
| First of all, he ran on getting rid of the illegal immigrants, in which nobody in this world is illegal because we are all God's children. | ||
| So he has accomplished that. | ||
| But he also ran over getting the price of eggs and milk down. | ||
| That did not happen. | ||
| And when did he say when he got in there that he was going to get rid of the Americans and their jobs? | ||
| How in the world can you be America first and you got in there and went after legal people in this country, if you want to say it, taking their jobs, the federal workers' jobs, putting people, how could you do that? | ||
| And you said you were president of all the people. | ||
| That is impossible. | ||
| Now you got people around here that don't borrow homes and then all this stuff that he's doing with Elon Musk. | ||
| Elon Musk was not elected to anything. | ||
| You said you don't care for immigrants. | ||
| Why do you have an immigrant running this country and you just sitting there letting it happen? | ||
| So what he's going to say tonight will mean nothing to the American people. | ||
| People miss us out here hurting because this man came in here and hurt the American people, not the immigrants. | ||
| So Kathleen, Kathleen, you said that you're not going to watch it. | ||
| What do you think Democratic lawmakers should do? | ||
| Should they boycott or should they attend? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bigger time. | |
| What do you think Democratic lawmakers should do? | ||
| The representatives and the senators. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Lawmakers should even show up. | |
| They shouldn't even show up because we know what he's going to say. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| He's going to stand up there and act like he don't did what the American people wanted him to do. | ||
| What American, including somebody like you, want him to get in here and take Americans who are going out here every day working. | ||
| You're going to make jobs for people. | ||
| All right, Kathleen. | ||
| Well, here is Democratic Senator Chris Murphy on why he's not attending tonight's speech. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that State of the Union speech is going to be a farce. | |
| I think it's going to be a MA pep rally, not a serious talk to the nation. | ||
| I think Donald Trump is going to spew a series of lies about his alignment with Russia, about what he's trying to do to allow Elon Musk to essentially monetize the American government to enrich Musk and his billionaire crowd. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'm just not going to be a part of that. | |
| Listen, the case I'm making to Democrats is that we have to fight every single day. | ||
| Every single day. | ||
| Republicans flood the zone, Democrats have to flood the zone. | ||
| They flood the zone with lies. | ||
| We flood the zone with truth. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are going to stop this billionaire takeover of government. | |
| We are going to stop their destruction of democracy, which they have to do because what they are attempting to do, gut Medicaid in order to feed another set of tax cuts to Elon Musk and his billionaire friends. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's unpopular. | |
| We're going to stop that billionaire takeover, that destruction of our democracy, only by fighting them every single day. | ||
| A lot of Democrats think maybe you should fight every third day. | ||
| You should reserve your power and jump out of the bushes at the right moment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just think that we have to be on the offensive 24-7. | |
| And this is Bloomberg saying: Americans want Trump to do more for the economy. | ||
| According to two polls, it says that two polls signaled that President Donald Trump risks putting off Americans worried about the economy and inflation with the broad flurry of measures during his first weeks in office. | ||
| While about 80% of adults surveyed said Trump should home in on the economy and inflation, they said they believed his top priorities were the U.S.-Mexico border, his effort to slim the federal workforce, and tariffs. | ||
| Only 29% said Trump was prioritizing inflation a lot, and 36% said the same about the economy. | ||
| Wonder what you think about that? | ||
| And we'll hear from Kathy in Colorado Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| No, I will not. | ||
| I agree with the First Lady. | ||
| I agree with Kathleen. | ||
| No, it's just going to be stand up and tell a bunch of lies, just like he always does. | ||
| So, no, I would not watch either. | ||
| Yes, I do think the Democrats should boycott it. | ||
| Why sit through that? | ||
| Why put yourself through misery to listen to all this BS from him? | ||
| And another thing I'd like to say: I tried to call, I believe it was Friday, when you were asking about how to cut the budget down. | ||
| One thing that could be done is Trump could keep his bet at the White House and do his job instead of running to his golf courses, Mar-a-Lago every few days, the Super Bowl, the Indy car race. | ||
| Give me a break. | ||
| Let's talk about taxpayers' money going to nothing but a bunch of users. | ||
| And that's exactly what he is doing. | ||
| That's why he wants to be president. | ||
| He wants to use people in this country. | ||
| He wants to use the government, just like Elon Musk. | ||
| He wants to use the government to keep getting rich, to keep getting power. | ||
| And I cannot believe the people cannot see through him. | ||
| All right, Kathy. | ||
| And Jeff sends us this on Facebook. | ||
| He says, I want to hear the truth, no matter how bad it is. | ||
| It will be refreshing after what I heard from the past administration. | ||
| Revitalizing. | ||
| And here is John in Portland, Connecticut, Republican. | ||
| Hi, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| First question, please. | ||
| Did we do this four years ago to President Biden the way the Democrats are rebelling against? | ||
| Don't cut me off. | ||
| I'm watching your finger. | ||
| Did we do this to President Biden four years ago? | ||
| Hold on, John. | ||
| John, you can't watch me on TV because there's a delay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Okay, so don't look at the TV. | ||
| Just talk in the phone. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| So we heard what you said about former President Biden. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Did C-SPAN do this to Biden four years ago? | ||
| Did the Republicans revolt against him the way the Democrats want to do this tonight to President Trump? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's my question, one of them. | ||
| Okay, what else you got? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| All I see, I saw Chuck Schumer earlier in the first thing this morning. | ||
| And why? | ||
| It's like you're talking like China just invaded us. | ||
| We're all in this together with the president. | ||
| Let's try to get this country straight again. | ||
| Every time I listen to your program, it's all you are not on filter, first of all. | ||
| You're more biased than anything, every one of you. | ||
| Okay, thanks for the feedback. | ||
| Staying in Connecticut, this is in Ansonia. | ||
| Democrat Josh, you're next. | ||
| And here is Mike, Norwalk, Ohio, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My. | |
| Boy, that last guy, that's a perfect example of what we're dealing with here in America. | ||
| Of course, I'm going to watch Trump. | ||
| He's opened my eyes for the last six weeks of them being, us American citizens being ripped off by the government and that bureaucracy behind you there, Mimi. | ||
| It's just unconceivable how people just can't understand or open their eyes and see the exact facts that are going on. | ||
| There's theft, trillions of dollars that have been stolen from us. | ||
| And people are more or less worried about Trump. | ||
| Trump didn't rip us off. | ||
| Your representatives ripped us off. | ||
| I'm talking Democrat and Republicans. | ||
| Now, Trump's going to try to fix this because it's such a mess, and it's going to take more than six weeks to fix the mess that Biden created in four years. | ||
| And as far as him being out of the office, wasn't Biden out of office for 570-something days because nobody wanted to, they didn't want us to see how incompetent he really was. | ||
| And wake up, people. | ||
| So, Mike, what do you want to hear tonight? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I want to hear exactly what he's been telling us, the exact truth. | |
| Let's talk about Zelensky. | ||
| Went to the scene the Democrats before the meeting with him, and they got him all riled up. | ||
| And next thing you know, he's backing out of a deal he already agreed to. | ||
| Come on, people, wake up. | ||
| The problem is our own government. | ||
| They're not out for us. | ||
| They're out for themselves. | ||
| Thank you, Minnie. | ||
| And this is speaking of Ukraine. | ||
| This is on the front page of the Wall Street Journal: U.S. Halts Arms for Ukraine in Sharp Turn Away from Ally. | ||
| That is, it says that the U.S. will pause all military aid to Kyiv until President Trump determines that President Zelensky of Ukraine is making a good faith effort toward peace negotiations with Russia, according to the White House. | ||
| This is Joey, Atlanta, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I just know that it's amazing how these Democrats are so pathetic. | |
| It's amazing how they could call and spread their hate and lies. | ||
| It's just amazing. | ||
| I don't understand why they can't put their hate to the side and give this president a chance. | ||
| I mean, it's amazing how they are so angry. | ||
| They hate this man for everything he's done, everything he could do. | ||
| He could do anything that's going to make this country great. | ||
| And they will not give this guy a chance. | ||
| They won't even give him a chance to prove himself. | ||
| They're so full of hate. | ||
| I just feel so sorry for these Democrats. | ||
| They're so hateful people. | ||
| So, Joey, what are you going to be listening for tonight? | ||
| I'm assuming you're going to be watching. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I am. | |
| And I actually, I am proud of the president. | ||
| I think he's doing a great job. | ||
| So, what are the topics you want him to talk about that you're going to be listening for? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I mean, I tell you, just the things alone, immigration, how the immigration, how immigration alone has been turned around. | |
| The Democrats were saying and yelling that we had a broken system. | ||
| What if it was so broken? | ||
| Why in less than a month, the system has already been proven that it has worked? | ||
| It's just that the Democrats never wanted to have a secure border. | ||
| And it's just amazing how much waste and abuse has been going on in this country. | ||
| And these politicians have been passing, just putting things under the rug and not addressing the issues. | ||
| It's just amazing how this guy in less than 30 days has done so much, so much. | ||
| You can see it. | ||
| You can hear it. | ||
| Everybody's talking about it. | ||
| The guy's a good man. | ||
| He's not perfect, but he's a good man. | ||
| And you could tell that he loves this country. | ||
| And for Democrats to just twist everything that he does and turn it around to make it look like he's trying to destroy America, why would anybody, why would anybody want to destroy if he is such an evil person? | ||
| What would benefit him by destroying America and by destroying the economy, by destroying our people? | ||
| What would be the benefit for someone that they say he's so hateful? | ||
| What benefit does he get? | ||
| Okay, Joey. | ||
| And this is Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. | ||
| He says on X, for folks asking if I'm going to attend Trump's joint address to Congress on Tuesday, no. | ||
| Instead, I'm choosing to hear directly from Oregonians, and we'll be hosting an open-to-all town hall on Facebook Live. | ||
| This is Tim in Rochester, New York, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Tim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm going to watch it. | ||
| He's the president. | ||
| You know, he got voted in. | ||
| It's called respect. | ||
| And all you Republicans talking like Democrats is all this and all that. | ||
| We're American first. | ||
| So divided we stand, divided we fall. | ||
| So, you know, I'm going to watch them. | ||
| I have no problem. | ||
| I haven't been really paying attention to politics since really like August because when they put Kamala Harris up, it was just too much for me. | ||
| And they could have had better, two better, you know, candidates, and we could have had a better president somehow. | ||
| I don't care if they're Republican or Democrat. | ||
| So did you vote, Tim? | ||
| No, I couldn't because the Democrats should have had a primary, and Biden should have stepped out two years ago. | ||
| So it was crazy. | ||
| I probably would have voted for another Republican instead of Trump. | ||
| But that's how the country is. | ||
| So you said you are going to be watching tonight? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I watch some. | |
| I don't watch a little basketball turn back and forth. | ||
| I don't got no problem with Trump. | ||
| He's a president. | ||
| And it's just called respect. | ||
| And people in Congress need to show up and show that man respect. | ||
| You know? | ||
| So have a great day. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And Larry in Gates County, North Carolina, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| The gentleman that just spoke, thank you. | ||
| As an independent, I try and look at both sides. | ||
| And right now, we have Democrats that unfortunately are resisting everything that this administration wants to put forth. | ||
| Someone talked earlier about Trump traveling here, there, and everywhere. | ||
| Well, I could swear that President, former President Biden, was in Rehoboth Beach almost every weekend. | ||
| So, you know, this tit-for-tet just can't stand anymore. | ||
| And I really wish that, well, after tonight's speech, which I won't be watching because I'll be sleeping because I got to work early, is going to be a tomorrow's Monday morning quarterbacks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All of the Republican or conservative stations are going to be saying, what a great speech. | |
| It was fantastic. | ||
| It's so positive for the country. | ||
| And then every liberal station, which outnumber the conservative stations, at least three or four to one, will be saying, it was the worst thing ever. | ||
| Oh, my gosh. | ||
| The end of the world is coming and we'll never be able to do anything for the country. | ||
| Oh. | ||
| Well, the Democrats really, I wish they would get off the Al Sharpton scenario. | ||
| Resist, we much. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for your time. | |
| All right, Larry. | ||
| And just a reminder that our coverage does start at 8 p.m. tonight. | ||
| You can also watch it on our website, cspan.org, and on our app, C-SPANNOW. | ||
| If you want, you can go back and watch it later if you're going to be going to bed early and not able to watch the whole thing. | ||
| Jason in Ohio, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Jason. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jason, are you there? | |
| Nope. | ||
| Nope. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can you hear me now? | |
| Yeah. | ||
| Go ahead, Jason. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you know what I'm going to be watching tonight? | |
| Carrie in Illinois, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I'm going to watch tonight because I'm going to watch to see how much more he hollows out the government because he's hollering the government out. | ||
| And one, we have a measo outbreak. | ||
| We have Ebola growing. | ||
| And we got Kennedy in charge of our health, of our health. | ||
| So someone tell me, is he better than Fauci, who knew how to control AIDS, who knew how to keep this country health. | ||
| And oh, well, by the way, the guy for Joe Biden, Joe Biden didn't take, he didn't let Elon Musk come in and take everyone's personal information and social security numbers and wreck this country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What this president is doing is destroying this country. | |
| You can be red, you can be blue, but you're going to be filling the blues when you watch Trump. | ||
| And he's giving it to all of us. | ||
| And it needs to stop. | ||
| Because Donald Trump is nothing but a crimer. | ||
| He's criming. | ||
| He's grifting this country out of billions of dollars, and people can't even see it. | ||
| So one of the callers, Kerry, was saying, you know, why would he do that? | ||
| He has nothing to gain. | ||
| When you say he's a grifter, what does that mean to you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What that means to me is because he's firing people who shouldn't be fired. | |
| He's hollering out the government. | ||
| And he's taking the, all he wants is, all he wants is the money and power. | ||
| That's all he wants. | ||
| And if anybody believes that, come next month, let's see where everybody get their social security. | ||
| Let's see where everybody get their Medicare and Medicaid. | ||
| Because if he put those people out on the streets and those people living in those retirement homes, that's where they're going to go. | ||
| So he's grifting. | ||
| He's been grifting since he's got in. | ||
| He's been grifting since he was born. | ||
| His father gave him half a billion dollars. | ||
| He blew it. | ||
| He blew the casinos. | ||
| This man is, look at how he treated Zelensky. | ||
| Why would you treat your allies like that? | ||
| And then this guy going to talk about he's going to take Canada. | ||
| What are you going to talk to the UK about that? | ||
| That's what's going to be next? | ||
| Because this country is, it shouldn't be divided. | ||
| They better start coming together before it gets to an end. | ||
| But the man is a grifter. | ||
| Kerry, since you mentioned Zelensky, let's show up a portion of President Trump with reporters in the Oval Office yesterday about what he says it'll take to restart talks with President Zelensky. | ||
| Well, I just think you should be more appreciative because this country has stuck with them through thick and thin. | ||
| We've given them much more than Europe, and Europe should have given more than us because, as you know, that's right there. | ||
| That's the border. | ||
| This country really was like the fence on the border. | ||
| It was very important to Europe. | ||
| And I'm not knocking Europe. | ||
| I'm saying that just they were a lot smarter than Joe Biden because Joe Biden didn't have a clue. | ||
| He just gave money hand over fist, and they should have been able to equalize with us. | ||
| In other words, if we gave a dollar, they should have given. | ||
| Well, we gave $350 billion. | ||
| They probably gave $100. | ||
| But on top of it all, they get their money back because they're doing it in the form of a loan, and it's a secured loan. | ||
| So when I saw that, which I've known about for a little while, I said it's time for us to be smart. | ||
| At the same time, it's great for them because they get us in the country taking the rare earth, which is going to fuel this big engine and especially the engine that we've in a very short time created. | ||
| And we get something, and we're there. | ||
| We have a presence there. | ||
| With all of that being said, I want one thing to happen. | ||
| I want all of those young people to stop being killed. | ||
| They're being killed by the thousands every single week. | ||
| Last week, 2,700 were killed. | ||
| 2,700 young, in this case, just about all young boys from Ukraine and from Russia. | ||
| And that's not young people from the United States, but it's on a human basis. | ||
| I want to see it stop. | ||
| I was the president yesterday, and he did mention the amount that Europe is giving. | ||
| This is BBC.com, BBC Verify showing a chart of a percentage of total government support to Ukraine. | ||
| So you have here on this side Europe at 49.5%, the U.S. less at 42.7%, and then other countries at 7.8%. | ||
| And it says that the government support is made up of financial, humanitarian, and military donations. | ||
| This is Ricardo in Philadelphia, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you? | |
| Yes, I hear a lot of the Republicans talking about, oh, what does Trump want to get out of this? | ||
| Oh, he's shrinking the government like it's a helpful thing to kitchen table issues. | ||
| He's shrinking the government so he can pass his tax cuts for the rich. | ||
| So that's why he's shrinking the government. | ||
| He's going to jump into Medicaid. | ||
| He's going to jump into Social Security to get tax cuts for the rich. | ||
| That's why Donald Trump is doing that. | ||
| By the way, this big negotiator, why is he allowed, why is the United States now taking the posture of stopping cyber planning and cyber attacks against Russia when they just had a cyber attack in Arizona hospitals and the Russians were behind it? | ||
| What did the Russians give up for the U.S. to stop that? | ||
| The U.S. is also stopping sanctions against Russia. | ||
| What did Russia give up to Donald Trump for Donald Trump to stop sanctions against Russia? | ||
| But yet, instead of him attacking Putin, no, he goes and attacks our ally and tries to corner him into accepting a deal for peace just so he could pound his chest and say, look, I stopped the war. | ||
| No, imagine if Russia decided to come take Alaska. | ||
| Do you think we would say, well, okay, let's just give them a little portion of Alaska. | ||
| We don't want any dead bodies. | ||
| No, we would fight for Alaska like the Ukraine is fighting for their country. | ||
| This war will stop when Russia leaves and lets Ukraine be the country, the sovereign country that they are. | ||
| And then, once Russia leaves, then we can start making concessions to Russia. | ||
| But why give Russia concessions and insult Zelensky in our White House in front of the world? | ||
| The Kremlin is now saying that the United States has taken a foreign policy posture that they think is the correct posture. | ||
| What are the Republicans thinking? | ||
| Where are these Republicans to come out and say, no, this is a sworn enemy of the United States? | ||
| They're scared. | ||
| Donald Trump has scared the Republicans. | ||
| And this right-wing ecosystem of social media is fooling all these Republicans. | ||
| And they're going to wake up one day. | ||
| And that gentleman was right. | ||
| The checks are going to stop. | ||
| And your friends are going to get unemployed. | ||
| And the Medicaid is going to stop. | ||
| And then it's going to be too late. | ||
| Look at the price of eggs. | ||
| It happened to day one. | ||
| All right, Ricardo. | ||
| And this is what he was talking about on cyber from the Washington Post. | ||
| As Trump warms to Putin, U.S. halts offensive cyber operations against Moscow. | ||
| Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to pause cyber and information operations against Russia as Trump seeks to bring Putin to the negotiating table to end the war in Ukraine. | ||
| You can read that in the Washington Post if you'd like to learn more about what Cyber Command does and what they have been ordered to stop doing. | ||
| Here's Jose in Melbourne, Florida, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Jose. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you doing? | |
| Good? | ||
| No, I'm not going to watch. | ||
| I'm a Republican, but it's not going to watch that. | ||
| This country belongs to Russia. | ||
| Look, people have forgot that this man was putting for six hours. | ||
| But we forgot that. | ||
| This man is a pro-Russian. | ||
| This man comes from the outside. | ||
| Elon Musk, the outsider, destroyed all the office of our country, central intelligence. | ||
| So that's benefit who? | ||
| Benefit the Russians. | ||
| Every move that you see is a benefit to the Russians. | ||
| So that's why, America, you better wake up. | ||
| You quit idolizing the main and love America again. | ||
| You love a demand and forgot about your country. | ||
| But guess what? | ||
| You lost your country because now this belongs to the Russians. | ||
| You're going to see that from now on. | ||
| I'm not watching that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, one of the other topics expected to come up is tariffs. | ||
| And the New York Times has this: 25% tariff set to hit Mexicans and Canadians, another 10% on China. | ||
| U.S. industry scramble as Trump says fees begin Tuesday, that is today. | ||
| And he said this yesterday: that sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico would go into effect on Tuesday, stating in remarks at the White House that there was no chance for a last-minute deal to avert the levies. | ||
| And Carol's calling from Tucson, Arizona, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Carol. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I got to first correct the record here. | |
| Zelensky met with a bipartisan group of senators and congressmen before he met with Trump. | ||
| So I, you know, it's so hard to talk to Republicans when they constantly repeat the lies that are told through their little mouthpieces that they call their OANs and Fox and all that. | ||
| And as far as this president, he's lied so much. | ||
| And someday they're going to wake up because all these reduction of government is going to affect them. | ||
| And I know there's probably 20% that'll still think that Trump is God, but the others will have woken up. | ||
| And that's all I can count on. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Vinny in Hyannis, Massachusetts, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Vinny. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi there. | |
| This is Vinny from Hyannis, Massachusetts. | ||
| I don't really have anything to say besides like a lot of people hate Trump, but he puts our people first. | ||
| You know, he doesn't really, he's not into supporting foreign wars and sending them money and stuff. | ||
| I honestly think what Trump is doing for us is really skibbity brand on 33. | ||
| Logan Tetra Alt. | ||
| And continuing the conversation on tariffs that went into effect today, this is also the Washington Post saying China puts tariffs on U.S. farm goods, blacklists American companies. | ||
| Beijing retaliated quickly after Trump further raised tariffs on Chinese goods, a major escalation in the trade war between the world's two largest economies. | ||
| Todd, Louisville, Kentucky, Democrat. | ||
| Debbie in Pennsylvania, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Debbie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, I'll be watching tonight. | ||
| And I support President Trump. | ||
| I believe the last four years that we were actually already heading for recession and depression. | ||
| And I think President Trump's doing what he can. | ||
| And also, I have a question. | ||
| February 16th on one TV station. | ||
| Had heard that nobody else was showing or saying on any local station or worldly news that the Democrats were planning on getting rid of the electoral vote and that only 10 blue Democratic states would be allowed to vote. | ||
| And they showed a map of the United States and it was 10 states in the upper part of the United States, side by side. | ||
| There was nothing in the middle of the states or the southern states. | ||
| And Debbie, tell me where you saw this so I can look it up. | ||
| It was in central Pennsylvania on one of the TV stations. | ||
| I'm not sure if it would was like PCN or PBS, I'm not really sure what TV station it was, but only one station was showing it and nobody else was showing it. | ||
| So, in other words, the Republicans, Independents or conservatives wouldn't be allowed to vote, only the Democrats, and I don't think that's accurate. | ||
| Debbie, have you looked that up? | ||
| Have you done any fact checking on that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't have a computer or that or cell phone to look it up, but it was on one TV station that showed it and nobody else said anything about it. | |
| And you haven't seen anything since about that. | ||
| No no, I've been watching, because I look at all the different news stations and that, and. | ||
| But you know, I just thought it was odd that only one person was saying something about it and nobody else was going to be watching tonight's speech. | ||
| Yes, I am on C-SPAN. | ||
| Yes, I support the President and his members and you know, like I said, the last four years, I felt that we are already in a recession and depression and I think he's only trying to do what he can to. | ||
| You know, cut down. | ||
| I mean, I've been seeing on TV also other businesses that are having problems also and cutting their employees and cutting down their menus. | ||
| Starbucks is cutting down their menus to serve the people. | ||
| Well Debbie let's, let's hear from the president on talking about tariffs and defending the use of tariffs. | ||
| Well, Honda's coming, and I told you about Apple that they're going to be starting to build massively here 500 billion and we have many other companies going to be announced, but we had many that have already announced and no, it's going to be great it's. | ||
| It's looking. | ||
| It's looking really strong. | ||
| I don't think this country has ever seen anything like we're seeing right now. | ||
| Now, the tariffs, as you know, it'll start a week earlier than the reciprocal, which is going to be on a couple of weeks earlier. | ||
| Reciprocal starts, reciprocal tariffs start on April 2nd and I wanted to make it April 1st but I didn't want to do it. | ||
| I didn't want to go April Fool's Day because that cost me, that costs a lot of money, but that one day. | ||
| But so we're going April 2nd but, very importantly, tomorrow tariffs, 25 percent on Canada and 25 percent on Mexico, and that'll start. | ||
| So they're going to have to have a tariff. | ||
| So what they have to do is build their car plants frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs. | ||
| In other words, you build, and this is exactly what mr Way is doing by building here. | ||
| Otherwise they'll build. | ||
| If they did them in Taiwan to send them here, they'll have twenty five percent or thirty percent or fifty percent or whatever the number may be. | ||
| Someday it'll go only up, but by doing it here he has no tariffs. | ||
| So he's way ahead of the game. | ||
| And I would just say this to people in Canada or Mexico, if they're going to build car plants, the people that are doing them are much better off building here because we have the market. | ||
| We're the market where they sell the most. | ||
| And this is Representative John Joyce, a Republican, posting this on X. Tomorrow, President Trump will share his vision during a joint address to Congress on how he will continue the successes we have already seen during his second term in office. | ||
| The golden age of America will continue to open doors for all Americans. | ||
| There will also be a response, a Democratic response after the speech. | ||
| We'll carry that here on C-SPAN. | ||
| And that is being given by Alyssa Slotkin, a Democratic senator. | ||
| And this is from ABC News about her. | ||
| It says that Slotkin made her name during her six years serving in the House of Representatives as a moderate, unafraid to, at times, challenge her party's conventions. | ||
| She has promised a rebuttal to Trump's speech focused on economic and national security. | ||
| She says this: I'm looking forward to speaking directly to the American people next week. | ||
| The public expects leaders to level with them on what's actually happening in our country, from our economic security to our national security. | ||
| We've got to chart a way forward that actually improves people's lives in the country we all love, and I'm looking forward to laying that out. | ||
| Diane and Maryland, Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| With what he's going to say tonight, you know, all he does is lie. | ||
| Last week, the three world leaders had to correct him when he was talking about the money for Ukraine, saying to all the other countries it's a loan. | ||
| And they correct him. | ||
| It's like, no, it was a gift. | ||
| And Zelensky correcting him on a couple accounts. | ||
| The European Union has been given more money than the United States has. | ||
| He's told about exaggerated the amount of money that the U.S. has. | ||
| And if we expect Ukraine to pay back the money, why don't we expect the other countries that we give, you know, help out to give back their money? | ||
| And they've opened up the restrictions on, or lifted the restrictions on trade to Russia. | ||
| And I'm wondering if he's putting these tariffs on these other countries so that the Russians we could start importing from Russia and it'll be cheaper than it is for Canada, like for the aluminum. | ||
| Makes me wonder if it's all part of his plan to go more towards Russia, as with the other things he's been doing. | ||
| So, Diane, you're calling on the Republican line. | ||
| Did you vote for President Trump? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The first time, yes. | |
| The second and third time, no. | ||
| And what made you change your mind between those times? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The narcissist that he is, and also doing some more investigating. | |
| As far as him being a businessman, he does stuff with other people's money. | ||
| He doesn't use his money for stuff. | ||
| Case and point way back to Atlantic City. | ||
| There was one lady there that he did everything he could to get her property with Vera coking or cooking, I forget what her name was. | ||
| And he harassed her basically for years because she would not sell. | ||
| She's one of the only people that I know that beat him in the long run. | ||
| All right, Diane. | ||
| And this is what Diane was talking about from Reuters. | ||
| White House seeks a plan for possible Russia sanctions relief, according to sources, and that's on Reuters. | ||
| If you would like to read that whole, it says under the summary, it says, White House has asked state treasury to draft options for easing Russia sanctions. | ||
| It's unclear what Washington could seek in return for sanctions relief, and U.S. sanctions may not be eased immediately. | ||
| Here's Aaron, a Democrat in Alexandria. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| It's been a while since I called, but to answer your main question, and I'd like to make a couple points after that based off of the calls that we received. | ||
| Yes, I'm going to watch because you can even discern the truth from hearing lies. | ||
| So I'm going to watch. | ||
| I'm going to encourage the Democrats and those who hold offices to be present because it's stand and be counted and just to show support that you're not gone. | ||
| We need to see you there, so please do not boycott. | ||
| As far as someone saying Democrats are violent, I don't remember us building a gallows outside of the Capitol. | ||
| As far as someone saying that the Democrats never, you know, the Republicans never berated the previous administration. | ||
| I want to remind you that Marjorie Taylor Greene interrupted Biden's speeches several times. | ||
| So Democrats, feel free to do the same thing and speak the truth. | ||
| I want to remind folks that when they say Donald Trump is for the people first, no, he fired the American people first. | ||
| And also for those who get letters from OPM, OPM only has the ability to fire their own employees. | ||
| Remember that. | ||
| If you're a government worker, do not fall victim to the scare tactics that Elon Musk, someone who probably doesn't have a security clearance that's truly vetted to do business in the United States, is making decisions and is standing in the Oval Office in a T-shirt and hat when they berated Zelensky for not wearing a suit. | ||
| If you watched SNL, you saw something funny like that. | ||
| So the hypocrisy is overflowing. | ||
| And for the last time I called, and I believe there was someone who said in response to me that I sound like I'm uppity or snarky. | ||
| No, I'm just well-educated, informed, and black, and I pay my own bills. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So there's that part. | |
| I wish you all have a good day, but definitely stand in opposition to lies because it happens all the time. | ||
| And if we don't call it out when it does happen, it's a problem. | ||
| Donald Trump is only interested in enriching his rich friend and Russia. | ||
| He's always been for Russia. | ||
| He's going to be pro-Putin all the time. | ||
| So if you're wondering what he has to gain, he has to gain by gutting the FBI by putting in someone who's anti-FBI as director and the deputy director position. | ||
| Google that and see who he picked, who shouldn't have a job bagging groceries at Trader Joe. | ||
| All right, Aaron. | ||
| Here's Scott in Oline, New York, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I hope I can get everything off. | ||
| I mean, most of the people who call on here are 30 days and more, and we get nervous when we get on the phone. | ||
| People call a lot of them and freely talk. | ||
| You know, you have a lot of people calling all the time, talking bad about you guys. | ||
| I think you guys monitor it the best you can. | ||
| Now, I blame the media because what the problem is is Donald Trump, and here's the cause. | ||
| Everybody's saying he lies. | ||
| Just the clip that you played of Donald Trump saying that we spent $300 and some billion dollars and we spent more money than Europe over in Bosnia was three or four lies right out of his mouth right there because you proved it. | ||
| You put it up on the TV set. | ||
| What they have to do is they have to quit letting him freely spew lies out of his mouth and not tell the world this guy is lying. | ||
| We need to stop it. | ||
| And we have it that you have the Republican callers. | ||
| They keep on calling and spewing the same lies that Trump tells them. | ||
| And God forbid, I love you, Republicans. | ||
| I love all the humans. | ||
| But listen, Trump lies. | ||
| And if you look in the Bible, the devil, the devil's main tool to take the world away is a lie. | ||
| We've got to quit with the lies. | ||
| Now, I'd like to address Elon Musk and getting all of our information. | ||
| A couple months ago, we were raising heck about TikTok because we were so afraid of TikTok getting all of our information. | ||
| Well, look at now. | ||
| We have a man who has his own companies, X, who would pay billions of dollars for our information. | ||
| Now we're giving it to him for free. | ||
| We don't know who this guy is. | ||
| And I have one more question. | ||
| How many Trump and how many Musk family members since the history of America have given any blood in battle or to protect this country? | ||
| Trump is not a flipping savior or a battle-hungry guy. | ||
| He's a weak bully who beats up the weak, as you see it. | ||
| Oh, and one other thing. | ||
| The only thing that ain't going down is the price of fentanyl right now. | ||
| Everybody's worried. | ||
| There's no fentanyl coming from Canada. | ||
| It does come from down South America, but it comes from China originally. | ||
| The fentanyl in the first Trump's first four years was 100 times better than it is now because it used to be made over there in whatever by the Chinese under supervision. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Now it's made in the jungles of down in South America. | |
| Of course the fentanyl is good right now. | ||
| All right, Scott. | ||
| And Aaron, our previous caller, talked about the deputy FBI director. | ||
| It says, who is Dan Bongino, right-wing firebrand, tapped to be the FBI director? | ||
| Bongino is a former Secret Service agent, turned podcaster. | ||
| Trump said he will serve as the FBI's deputy director, a role traditionally held by career agents. | ||
| That's him. | ||
| And you can take a look at that by reading about it in the Washington Post. | ||
| And here is Sarah in Cole City, Indiana, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, Mimi. | |
| First of all, I am going to be listening tonight. | ||
| And I wanted to tell you something. | ||
| You're always looking up everything, especially about a Republican. | ||
| Last week on Channel 59 up in Indianapolis, it said that somebody had been drawing Social Security for a century, which added up to be like $230,000. | ||
| Somebody that, you know, said that it was a dead person. | ||
| So you can look that up if you want. | ||
| It's on Channel 59 up in Indianapolis. | ||
| So, and another thing, it's kind of funny, all these people bad mouthing Trump and everything. | ||
| And I can't believe it. | ||
| But anyway, you always look up whenever a Democrat gets on there, you let them go on and on and on. | ||
| And you don't look up the stuff, but the minute a Republican says something, you start looking, see if you can find something. | ||
| You know, not, you know, I guess I just can't believe. | ||
| I tell my husband all the time, I've listened to you guys for years, but it's getting pretty close. | ||
| They're cutting me off, you know, not watching you anymore because that's what I used to watch CNN and MSNBC and all them. | ||
| And it was so much hate from the Democrats, I just couldn't watch it anymore. | ||
| So I hope you will do better, Mimi, and be fair. | ||
| If not, you know, I'm going to leave. | ||
| Thanks for your feedback, Sarah. | ||
| This is Speaker Mike Johnson on X with a picture saying preparations are underway to welcome POTUS for his joint address to Congress tomorrow night. | ||
| It's going to be big. | ||
| Exclamation Mark. | ||
| And this is Mary in Vermont, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Mimi. | |
| Good to see you this morning. | ||
| And I just have three short things to say. | ||
| The first is that I am not going to watch tonight. | ||
| And the second is that I feel very deeply saddened that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer in our country. | ||
| And the third is I would like everyone to read the book Putin's Playbook. | ||
| And who's the author of that, Mary? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Rebecca, and that's R-E-B-E-K-A-H Koffler, K-O-F-F-L-E-R. | |
| Russia's secret plan to defeat America. | ||
| And what you've read it. | ||
| What's the major takeaway from it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It just tells where Putin is coming from, how he was raised, his life. | |
| It's just, it's, yeah, it's so interesting and so wonderful. | ||
| I think everybody should read this book and make their own decisions on what it's truly, how they feel about it, and what they see and what they see that's happening going on right now in the world and how this seems to be that we're playing right into Putin's hands. | ||
| And here on the Independent Line in Tennessee is Pat. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I'm a very old person. | ||
| How old are you? | ||
| I'm 83. | ||
| I've lived a lot of years and I've seen a lot of stuff. | ||
| You know, Americans have just gotten lazy. | ||
| Yes, I'm going to watch the president tonight. | ||
| Americans do not understand. | ||
| They've got so much freedom. | ||
| They've got freedom of speech. | ||
| They've got so much that they have that they don't understand that it's going to be gone. | ||
| I mean, I'm old, and when they stop or cut my Social Security, I will be one of those people pushing a grocery cart down the street. | ||
| I mean, and Americans say, oh, no, nothing like that can ever happen. | ||
| Yes, it will happen. | ||
| And what Donald Trump is doing, I voted for Donald Trump the first time. | ||
| What he is doing, he will take over this country. | ||
| He will be your dictator, and he will never, ever have another election that's right. | ||
| I mean, it just will never happen again. | ||
| I mean, he will be president, and after he's president, Lord knows he'll put Donald Jr. or Musk or somebody in there. | ||
| But, Pat, how do you think that would play out? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, so in four years in four years, he doesn't even, I don't even think he wants to be president, or he wouldn't be letting Elon Musk do what he's doing. | |
| He just wants to play golf and own the U.S. | ||
| And he will do it. | ||
| I've been around for a lot of years. | ||
| I've listened to a lot of politicians. | ||
| I mean, you've got where you can't hardly believe any of them anymore. | ||
| But I'm not stupid. | ||
| I watch TV. | ||
| I watch what's going on. | ||
| And he does not tell the truth. | ||
| And I have a lot of Christian friends. | ||
| And they honestly think he's the new coming of the Lord. | ||
| You know, and it breaks my heart. | ||
| But, like I said, Americans have just gotten lazy and used to it. | ||
| But I want them to be able to look their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren in the eye. | ||
| And when they ask them, why did you let this country get like this? | ||
| I want them to look at them and say, well, you know, I just believed what I wanted to, and I didn't really care about y'all. | ||
| That's all I got to say. | ||
| All right, Pat. | ||
| And our previous caller, Sarah, was talking about A news item she saw in Indianapolis. | ||
| This is the Kansas City Star that says this: wife lies about Indiana husband's death for years to collect Social Security. | ||
| It says she collected more than $230,000 in Social Security benefits over 15 years. | ||
| It was not intended for her. | ||
| It was for her husband, who was dead, according to prosecutors. | ||
| The woman is ordered to pay back $231,000 in change she illegally received from the Social Security by neglecting to report her husband's death in 2006. | ||
| She has pleaded guilty to making a false statement, according to court documents. | ||
| Here is Steve in Putney, Vermont, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello there. | |
| My name is Steve. | ||
| I'm in Putney, Vermont. | ||
| Hope everybody's having a great morning this morning. | ||
| So, a funny story enough, I actually met Donald Trump quite a while back. | ||
| I don't really have much memory of it. | ||
| But I believe we were talking about something like heat, Logan Tetra all from Loganetics, sold him a whole bunch of indicators. | ||
| I believe they were for the early alert system. | ||
| And that just has to do with the country's infrastructure. | ||
| You know, Donald Trump is putting his smarts forward to keep our country safe. | ||
| And this was so apparent, very apparent. | ||
| And I don't know how people can hate him so much. | ||
| You know, I mean, those indicators were used all over the place in Tweet Streets, all over Rhode Island. | ||
| I mean, he's just a good guy. | ||
| Good guy. | ||
| And when I'm Frank in Savannah, Georgia, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Frank. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, back to the universe for C-SPAN. | ||
| It's the one essential news network. | ||
| I do plan to watch his speech tonight because I want to know what he's going to say. | ||
| A few years ago, I said, okay, he can't say any more that will shock me because I'm numb. | ||
| But every day, it's almost like he tops himself. | ||
| He says something. | ||
| And I think, where did that come from? | ||
| What is he saying? | ||
| So maybe tonight he's going to announce the invasion of Canada or what? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I mean, I turned 70 last year, and he is definitely the most entertainment president, entertaining president in my lifetime. | ||
| Yeah, I don't understand how he got elected twice with what we know about him now. | ||
| Yeah, and that woman was right. | ||
| The Christian Nationals did put him over the top. | ||
| I don't think she had to worry about being in a shopping car and losing her Social Security because things will come to a head long before that. | ||
| I think something's going to happen. | ||
| I just have a feeling you can only fake so much. | ||
| So, Frank, are you going to be watching tonight? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I just said that. | |
| No, you did. | ||
| Sorry, I did. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I will be watching, yes. | |
| And yeah, I do believe Elon does want to take away Medicare and Social Security from the poor people and give it to him and his billionaire friends. | ||
| But I don't think even he can do that. | ||
| So I see his downfall pretty soon, one way or another. | ||
| I have one last thing I want to say. | ||
| I had to use metaphors for this, but now that we see that Putin and Trump had this partnership that exists, so I wonder, you know, just how far does this partnership go? | ||
| In other words, the question I'm asking is, which one of these men is the pitcher and which one is the catcher? | ||
| I want to know the answer to that question. | ||
| But anybody let's go to Ray in Georgia, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| No, I'm not going to watch. | ||
| I just can't take any more Trump's lies. | ||
| I'm amazed how Republicans get on this phone and they call and they defend his actions. | ||
| It's like half of our country is brain dead. | ||
| It's like they are members of a cult. | ||
| He lies. | ||
| Even the number he spews about Ukraine is wrong. | ||
| The government agencies can give you the exact number and he triples it. | ||
| Everything that comes out of that man's mouth is a lie. | ||
| It's disappointing. | ||
| They're going to cut billions from poor people. | ||
| And the poorest in this country are in the red states, and they are going to vote for him. | ||
| Or tomorrow they'll call and say, oh, he did a great job. | ||
| He's a pathological liar. | ||
| We need to get rid of him as soon as possible. | ||
| Even JD Vance said Trump was America's Hitler. | ||
| He's an opioid on America. | ||
| He doesn't care about poor people. | ||
| He never has. | ||
| Joe Biden should have left office a long time ago, but he always talked about prescription drugs, prices, and helping people. | ||
| Trump is for himself and his billionaire friends. | ||
| And America's too stupid to wake up and understand that this man is lying. | ||
| They need to get out of that silo they're in and freaking pay attention to what's really going on. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And here's Ron in Michigan, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I am going to watch tonight, and I'm also going to listen to the Democrat response by Elizabeth Slotkin. | ||
| I'm calling from Michigan. | ||
| I'd just like to remind everybody that they supported, we couldn't go see our loved ones during COVID, so they had to die alone. | ||
| But Governor Whitmer flew to Florida with her husband to see her father. | ||
| And also, we weren't allowed to go out on our boats, and her husband was. | ||
| You can look that up. | ||
| Those are facts. | ||
| Now, as far as tonight, I just want to explain to the people out there, Trump is not for the Russians. | ||
| He's the one that gave the Russians, cape, the Ukrainians, the javelins. | ||
| And if you remember, famously, it was Obama that gave him sheets. | ||
| So people need to remember that. | ||
| And also, as far as it goes with the Europeans, well, they're buying their gas and oil right now through a third party buying it from the Russians. | ||
| So you tell me who's really for the Russians. | ||
| And then last that I'd like to say is that remember, this party, the Democrats, are the ones that covered up Biden's mental acuity for four years. | ||
| So that should tell you everything you need to know about the Democrats. | ||
| And up next, we'll take a closer look at the dynamics between President Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress with Philip Wallach. | ||
| He's author of the book, Why Congress, and a congressional scholar at AEI. | ||
| And later, former Biden IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel discusses the impact of Doge and mass government layoffs, what that impact could have on this year's tax season. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Tonight, 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. | |
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We're joined now by Philip Wallach. | ||
| He's a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the book called Why Congress. | ||
| Phil, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great to be with you. | |
| So just start by telling us about your background and your areas of expertise. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, I'm a political scientist who studies American politics and especially our constitutional system, our policymaking system, and the separation of powers, how our branches fit together. | |
| And over the last seven or eight years, I've mostly focused on studying Congress because I really am concerned that Congress is in some ways the part of our government that's having the most trouble. | ||
| And because Congress has troubles, we get a lot of problems passing laws that are legitimate, that the whole American people accept that will be binding. | ||
| And we end up putting so much stress on our presidential elections that it really strains our political system. | ||
| So you're a senior fellow at AEI. | ||
| Does that mean you have a conservative point of view? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think of myself as a center-right person, but I'm especially, I'm a little unusually concerned about process and sort of the way we do things and not just a particular set of priorities. | |
| So let's talk about the speech tonight that the president will be giving. | ||
| What are you looking for in terms of how President Trump defines his role and his powers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think President Trump in this second term has been very clear that he thinks he won a huge victory, a mandate from the American people, and that gives him pretty much entitles him to do whatever he thinks is right. | |
| And of course, the president takes an oath to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, right? | ||
| And sometimes President Trump seems to think that when he finds laws inconvenient or bad, they don't apply. | ||
| And so I wonder if he'll say anything on that score to reassure those of us who are worried that they're playing a little fast and loose with the law in this new administration. | ||
| But, you know, I expect President Trump to revert to form as a showman, right? | ||
| He will tout his accomplishments. | ||
| He will say, this is the, we've seen more good things happen in the last six weeks than ever before in American history. | ||
| There was a posting on X, I believe, where President Trump wrote, quote, he who saves his country does not violate any law. | ||
| That is quoted. | ||
| It's tributed to Napoleon, who crowned himself emperor. | ||
| What was your reaction when you saw that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gosh, I mean, Trump is the master troll, right? | |
| He knows how to provoke reactions, and he can always say, oh, I was just kidding around. | ||
| I was just trying to get a rise out of my opponents. | ||
| But it's crazy for the President of the United States, we a constitutional republic, to be favorably citing this Napoleon Bonaparte, who made himself emperor, who ended the republic in France and converted it into an empire and went trying to conquer the whole of Europe. | ||
| That's a crazy thing for a President of the United States to be favorably quoting on his social media. | ||
| So, you know, I do consider myself successfully trolled. | ||
| It did get a rise out of me. | ||
| That's not what kind of country America is supposed to be. | ||
| We are a country where we have the rule of law. | ||
| The law is king in America. | ||
| There is no other king. | ||
| We don't elect a king. | ||
| A president is bound to be an officer of the law. | ||
| Tell us about unitary executive theory. | ||
| What does that mean and where did it come from? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| So there's a question about how the executive branch ought to be organized. | ||
| We obviously have literally millions of people who are employed in the executive branch of our government today. | ||
| That's quite a contrast from the beginnings of our country when there were just a few hundred in 1789. | ||
| So the question is, how much do we need to have it be so that the president as the boss at the top of this pyramid sort of is literally responsible for everything that happens in the executive branch and has the ability to hire and fire as he sees fit? | ||
| The unitary executive theory says, yes, the Constitution makes the president the sole head of the executive branch, and there really isn't room for independence within the executive branch. | ||
| So independent agencies, which we've had for many, many decades, are suspicious. | ||
| We think, why are they independent? | ||
| Why don't they answer to the democratically elected president? | ||
| So President Trump and his supporters have leaned very hard into the unitary executive theory to justify why the president needs to be sort of having direct control over every part of the government. | ||
| They've maybe taken it even farther in sort of suggesting anything the president says goes, which the unitary executive theory doesn't necessarily need to say. | ||
| Philip Wallach is our guest. | ||
| He's the author of the book called Why Congress. | ||
| He's also a senior fellow at the AEI. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation, you can do so. | ||
| Start calling in now. | ||
| Democrats are on 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| So where does that theory leave Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, so the executive branch is one thing, and Congress is another thing, right? | |
| Congress is the Article I branch of government. | ||
| It doesn't get its power from the President. | ||
| gets its power from the people who elect our representatives and senators. | ||
| So Congress is meant to be the preeminent branch of our government that makes the big decisions. | ||
| They are the ones who make the law and the president is supposed to be executing the law. | ||
| So that really ought to give Congress pride of place. | ||
| But it's clear that Congress in recent years has often sort of marginalized itself. | ||
| Members of Congress, you'll see them sort of begging the president to do things. | ||
| Well, you could just make a law, but instead you're going around the lawmaking process and saying the president is the one who somehow is supposed to make all the policies, make all the decisions. | ||
| And so as a member of Congress, the most effective thing I can do is bend the president's ear. | ||
| That's really a dangerous shift for Congress that suggests that it's a subordinate branch. | ||
| Do you think that the power of the executive had already been expanding in the past even before our current time? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I think it's a long upward trajectory. | |
| Not always steady, right? | ||
| After Watergate, Congress seized back a lot of powers. | ||
| So there have been times when Congress has shown that it can stand up for itself. | ||
| But in the 21st century especially, we've seen some very assertive presidents. | ||
| You know, you had Barack Obama say, well, when Congress isn't doing what I want, I have my pen and my phone, and I can do an awful lot of policymaking just with those by ordering people to do things in the executive. | ||
| So Trump has fit into this upward trajectory, but I think it's fair to say that this second Trump administration is making the most aggressive claims of really any administration we've ever seen. | ||
| You published a commentary with the title, The Rule of Law Has Seen Better Days. | ||
| Explain what you mean by that and if you think that there are laws being broken right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's clear that there are. | |
| You know, some of them are kind of detailed, not likely to be things that the ordinary American is experiencing directly. | ||
| So there's a question about the funding of research labs and Congress very clearly set out a formula that it wanted and said it had a disagreement with the first Trump administration and so it very clearly put this into law. | ||
| The second Trump administration says, well, sorry, we're giving less for overhead. | ||
| It doesn't matter that the law says otherwise. | ||
| So there's little things like that. | ||
| That is an important policy, but something most people won't notice. | ||
| Then there's just the question of the civil service laws and how the federal employment is structured and what kind of procedures you have to go through to shut down an agency, right? | ||
| The USAID is established by law. | ||
| The president has made it sound like, nevertheless, he can just disappear it because it's wrong. | ||
| Under unitary executive theory, that whole branch belongs to him. | ||
| So he could shut down an agency if he chose to. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, again, the president is charged with taking care that the laws are faithfully executed, and those are good laws on the books. | |
| So the president has to have sort of direct lines of control through the executive branch under unitary executive theory. | ||
| But traditionally, they don't have the power to just disregard the law. | ||
| Now, another place where this is going to come up is this question of impoundment, right? | ||
| This spending. | ||
| When Congress passes spending laws, is the president required to spend up to the amount that Congress has said? | ||
| Or does the president have an inherent power to say, actually, I don't want to spend as much on this. | ||
| That's just a ceiling for how much I could spend. | ||
| So President Nixon made some very aggressive claims about how he could simply impound funds if he thought the policy was bad. | ||
| President Trump seems to be moving in that direction, although he hasn't formally made any claim of that yet. | ||
| And I would just put up what the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 requires the president to spend appropriated money unless he obtains congressional approval within 45 days not to disperse the funds. | ||
| And has that ever happened? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Many presidents since the passage of that 1974 Act have successfully gotten rescissions, they're called. | ||
| So we rescind the spending that originally was in the appropriations laws. | ||
| It does require going to Congress and working with members of Congress to pass those bills and certainly easier for the president to just say, I can do this all on my own. | ||
| But certainly since the big clashes with Nixon in the 70s, no president has really gone outside of that framework to say, I have a strong impoundment power. | ||
| President Trump looks like he may. | ||
| Let's talk to callers, and we'll start with Mary on the Republican line in Smithville, Texas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yeah, go ahead, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, my name is Mary Smith, and I come from a long line of Democrats, and I voted for Obama and for Biden. | |
| But I had a friend that was very politically astute who informed me that Biden was pro-abortion up to the ninth month, and I'm a pro-life person. | ||
| So I made a 180 and became a Republican. | ||
| And then I started watching Newsmax and Fox Nation, and I became a conservative Republican. | ||
| And I will be watching the president tonight. | ||
| And I appreciate your show very much today. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here's Carol in Illinois, line for Democrats. | ||
| Carol, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm very concerned that all of our relatives died in the past to have our U.S. constitutional rights. | ||
| And Congress is not stepping up and doing their job. | ||
| What can we do to get Congress up doing their job instead of taking away from the people and giving it all to the oligarchs? | ||
| It doesn't hurt them, but it hurts the American people. | ||
| And that's money. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much. | |
| Well, thanks for the question, Carol. | ||
| I say there's some complicated reasons why Congress is sort of shirking its responsibilities in our time. | ||
| Part of it is the change in the media environment. | ||
| Members of Congress can sort of reach a huge crowd of people on social media and get rewards from those kinds of interactions, including raising funds from all around the country. | ||
| That sort of incentivizes them to the sort of spectacle rather than the hard work of policymaking. | ||
| And I think a lot of our members of Congress today need to remember that their job is to be a lawmaker and to really figure out how they can get together with all the other members who come from all around the country, work through the country's difficult problems, and figure out some compromises that we can all live with. | ||
| If we do that, we end up with laws and policies that are acceptable, broadly acceptable, and that can endure, that won't just snap back and forth when the control of the White House changes hands. | ||
| The way we have it now, where so many members of Congress are just cheerleading or jeering the president, depending on whether their party is in control of it, we really get a kind of whiplash, and that's not healthy for our country. | ||
| Here is Stephanie in South Carolina, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| If I'm a veteran and I'm calling because I'm concerned about the documents seized by the FBI when they raided Trump's house for the documents he stole during his first term, now I'm reading in the Washington Post, they're saying that those documents were returned to his house. | ||
| I'm wondering who's keeping an eye on that and why do those documents need to be at his house? | ||
| I'll be watching his speech tonight because I don't hear anybody reporting on this, and I'll be watching the speech for clues as to why he needs those documents at his house, the same documents that he stole before. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Not very related to the topic, but do you have any comment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would say that I don't know so much about the details about where the documents are today, but it does seem that the caller is right that people have moved on from this issue. | |
| Trump is the president now. | ||
| He has security clearance, obviously, for anything and everything. | ||
| So I think it's sort of become a non-issue. | ||
| Here's Carol, Republican in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Good morning, Carol. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Speaking to Mr. Wallach's point of the whiplash, we need checks and balances in the congressional procedures. | ||
| We have a seesaw effect that occurs when one party is in power. | ||
| The fact that the other party has no rights to bring things to the floor is unhealthy for our Congress. | ||
| And Joe Manchin has rightly said that 50% of the people are centrists. | ||
| And the way our system has evolved, it's just going whiplashing, as he said, between radical left and radical right. | ||
| Well, thank Carol for that comment. | ||
| I very much agree that the way we organize the procedures in both the House and the Senate today really cuts down on our members' ability to work things out and sort of look for bipartisan compromises where they can find them. | ||
| We have very leader-dominated institutions today relative to most of the history of Congress. | ||
| And the top partisan leaders, Republicans in both chambers today, have a very tight control over the agenda. | ||
| And we have a very sort of cramped lawmaking process. | ||
| We don't often see good sort of nose to the grindstone work in the committees leading to bipartisan bills that then get brought to the floor where other members have a chance to offer amendments. | ||
| That's really become very uncommon in our time. | ||
| And that process of lawmaking is good for building, again, compromises that we can all live with. | ||
| When we try to do everything through our top partisan leaders, they tend to think mostly about how things look for the next election, which again doesn't always motivate them to think about how can we calm things down. | ||
| Well, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was speaking last month in Florida, and she was asked about the continued relevance of checks and balances and the power of Congress to appropriate funding. | ||
| So I'm going to play a portion and then get your response. | ||
| Our founders believed that they had created pretty, and they had and have created a pretty incredible checks and balances system. | ||
| The woman who asked Franklin, she said, do we have a monarchy or something else? | ||
| And his response was a republic. | ||
| Our founders were hell-bent on ensuring that we didn't have a monarchy. | ||
| And the first way they thought of that was to give Congress the power of the purse. | ||
| And because that's an incredible power. | ||
| They gave the presidency the power of the military. | ||
| And that's also, and that means not just armed forces, but law enforcement, which is an incredible obligation of a president. | ||
| They gave the courts the power to interpret. | ||
| And we have to do it by persuasion. | ||
| We have to, in our opinions, make it clear to the society, to the presidents, to the Congress, to the people, that we are doing things based on law and the Constitution as we are interpreting it fairly. | ||
| And so our goodwill or our power is the power of reason. | ||
| And that's most people would consider a soft power, but it's the most powerful of all of it because money can be taken away by Congress. | ||
| They give it, they can take it away. | ||
| A president has four years and he or she could be removed. | ||
| Those things are ephemeral in that sense of it. | ||
| Court decisions stand. | ||
| Whether one particular person chooses to abide by them or not, it doesn't change the foundation that it's still a court order that someone will respect at some point. | ||
| What do you think, Phil? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I share the justice's love for that Benjamin Franklin quotation when asked what kind of government have you made coming out of the Constitutional Amendment. | |
| He said, a republic if you can keep it, right? | ||
| And so it is always the responsibility of the American people, we the people, to make sure that our government remains responsive to us and doesn't get out of our control. | ||
| So I think the justice did a good job outlining the different spheres of each of the branches, but I will say that it's controversial exactly where the executive power ends, you know, and exactly how far court decisions can go. | ||
| So she suggested that Supreme Court decisions are really the most powerful thing because they last until they are overturned. | ||
| But there is a view that has periodically popped up in American history called departmentalism that says actually judges get to decide cases and that's it. | ||
| So everyone else is bound to follow the decisions they make in particular cases, but they don't have to treat everything the court says as having great precedential value. | ||
| They can keep pushing. | ||
| So I think you see some signs that the current Trump administration has a view like that. | ||
| It wants to very narrowly limit how it's going to read the Supreme Court's rulings. | ||
| So do you think the Supreme Court will ultimately decide all these questions as far as the power of Doge, their ability to fire federal workers, the power of the presidency? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's dozens and dozens of lawsuits that are currently playing out. | |
| And lawsuits take time. | ||
| We're only a few weeks into this administration, really. | ||
| Lawsuits play out over the course of months and years. | ||
| So we're going to see, I think many of them will end up in the Supreme Court eventually, but there's sort of a whole lot of action that plays out while the judicial process is unfolding. | ||
| So Jimbo in Bakersfield, California, is asking you if you think that when the president disregards or ignores court orders, that by definition is a constitutional crisis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think crisis sort of depends on how things play out. | |
| Is disregarding something that most people would find unimportant, a crisis? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I think... | ||
| But if it's a court order. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think the other question is whether they pretend that they're complying and then sort of in fact aren't doing what's ordered. | |
| I think if they openly said, we don't have to follow what the court says, that would be sort of maximally aggressive and I think would lead to the question of whether the president has any limits on what he can do if ultimately he can just ignore a court of law that says that he's not following the law. | ||
| Here's Doug in New Semyon Beach, Florida, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Doug. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I just have a question to ask for general understanding. | ||
| Congress has the budget and they appropriate money to whatever cause it might be, whatever situation might be. | ||
| The money is then given or passed, I believe, to the executive branch to execute that. | ||
| But Congress doesn't look line by line for every single item in which that department is spending the money or allocating the money, however it should be called. | ||
| So what authority does the executive branch have to determine what individual items within that appropriation should be spent in what way? | ||
| Thanks for the question, Doug. | ||
| It's a really subtle question, and you're right that it's kind of complicated. | ||
| The money gets appropriated by Congress, and then it's in different accounts that are managed by the Department of the Treasury, but ultimately, you know, tied to different departments within the government. | ||
| And yeah, the government moves money around to execute its programmatic responsibilities. | ||
| Congress has intentionally given the executive branch quite a lot of flexibility in how it moves money around between these different accounts because it thinks that's necessary to just deal with the realities of a complicated world. | ||
| Now, I think I should say, does Congress continue to keep track of things line by line? | ||
| Yes, they really do. | ||
| The GAO, which was originally created as an accounting office, now called Accountability Office, is responsible for auditing the books of the executive branch and reporting back to Congress. | ||
| So Congress does have the capacity to keep track of the way money is moving around in the executive branch. | ||
| That said, you know, when this new administration starts making things happen really fast, I think it's fair to ask whether Congress really even has a good grasp over what's happening. | ||
| So that's an important question. | ||
| Here's Charlene in California, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah, I just wanted to say, you know, it's very hard for either of the branches to work together because they're attempting to operate out of spirit of fear. | ||
| They're afraid. | ||
| Mr. Trump has a lot of people that support him that are not, does not have the country's unity and progress for all in their best interest. | ||
| Between the wrestlers, the Prowboys, the 1600 that were let out of prison, jail, wherever they were. | ||
| Between all of them, most people would be afraid to do their job too. | ||
| But I hope we have enough people at the top that know Jesus, know the Lord, know the Creator, know that he's the boss, and not Trump and not Biden and not nobody else. | ||
| And I hope they do their job for the betterment of the people. | ||
| Phil. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that's a great comment, Charlene. | |
| I think we need our lawmakers to remember that they take an oath to the Constitution, that they have a responsibility to their constituents who sent them to Washington and to the whole country. | ||
| And I think, yeah, there are an awful lot of people who think that the other side is so bad that compromising would somehow be suspicious or treasonous even. | ||
| And that's an assumption that we just can't have if we're going to have a country with a functioning politics. | ||
| We have to believe that even though we disagree with each other on an awful lot, we can still work through our problems, hear each other out, figure out where we can come to agreements and go from there. | ||
| And Rich is a Republican in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. | ||
| You're on with Philip Wallach. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you. | |
| Yes, first, I guess, as a comment, it appears to me that there's not been any fact yet of President Trump violating a court order or a decision from the Supreme Court. | ||
| Yet I recall the activity of Mr. Biden, his predecessor, with student loan forgiveness, an utter disregard. | ||
| And I don't recall a similar level of scrutiny. | ||
| That prompts two other questions from Mr. Wallach's commentary this morning regarding employment oversight on the federal employee workforce. | ||
| If that is not a function of the executive branch of government, then I fail to see whose it would be. | ||
| They're the ones who are supposed to make sure the money that is spent on them is appropriately spent, not excessively spent, and that the people are being productive and efficient in their work to serve the American taxpayer. | ||
| The last thing I guess I would like to raise as a question relates to any disruption, since there's some things I've seen in the news that could suggest disruptions for the president's address to Congress tonight, and would welcome any of your comments. | ||
| All right, Rich. | ||
| Thanks for those questions. | ||
| They're really good ones. | ||
| So first, let me say I wrote about Biden's student loan policies. | ||
| I criticize the way that he went around Congress to try to put those plans into effect rather than trying to see whether he could secure legislative package to offer relief to those who really needed it. | ||
| I think that that was troubling the way that he stretched legal powers in ways that ultimately the Supreme Court repudiated. | ||
| But I don't think you're right to say that he just disregarded what the court said. | ||
| He most certainly shut down the particular program that the court said was unlawful. | ||
| And then he went ahead and tried to find other ways of doing some student loan relief that would be lawful. | ||
| So I don't see that as an open, openly disregarding the court decision. | ||
| Now, you talk about federal employees and controlling them. | ||
| If that's not an executive function, what is? | ||
| And I think that makes a lot of sense. | ||
| But nevertheless, it's a very huge workforce set up in all these different agencies. | ||
| These agencies are creatures of law. | ||
| We've evolved a civil service system where laws govern how we have to deal with federal employees. | ||
| We have these laws because we want a high-quality workforce that doesn't merely do whatever the top brass say they should, but who actually are devoted to doing their jobs right and are going to keep doing them from one administration to the next. | ||
| We want a non-political civil service to some degree, and we have laws in place to ensure that that's the case. | ||
| So I think Trump harkens back to Andrew Jackson and the spoils system as somebody who basically thinks that everybody in the executive branch ought to be answering directly to the president and that would be better. | ||
| But that's not the laws that we have in place. | ||
| Finally, you ask about possible disruptions at the speech tonight by Democrats. | ||
| I can only say that I think that would be a huge gift to the president. | ||
| I think that's exactly what he hopes will happen. | ||
| He's very lucky in his enemies, Mr. Trump. | ||
| That's one of his great political talents. | ||
| And I think getting certain people to make a spectacle is just the kind of thing that he can sell to his supporters as justification for the way he's conducting himself. | ||
| Let's talk to Kevin in Ackworth, Georgia, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Philip. | |
| Appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. | ||
| And I was glad to hear you mention that the law is supposedly the final authority in our country. | ||
| It begs the question, if the power is ultimately resting with the individuals who voluntarily delegate that authority to various levels through representation. | ||
| Those representatives in the Congress are responsible for making the laws. | ||
| And the executive branch is responsible for the enforcement of those laws. | ||
| There are obviously subsidiary enforcement agencies and local police forces. | ||
| Where does the responsibility lie when the laws are not consistently and uniformly enforced by those representative bodies? | ||
| Yeah, so when the law doesn't seem to be making sense in practice, what are we supposed to do about that if the executive branch doesn't seem to be applying the law in a consistent way? | ||
| It's a great question. | ||
| I think the judiciary certainly has a role in trying to order consistent conduct to say this is the right way to interpret this law and it needs to be applied fairly in all similar situations. | ||
| I think ultimately though, Congress has to look after its own laws. | ||
| If it finds that the executive branch is not executing the laws that it has passed, that ought to be offensive to Congress as an institution. | ||
| And Congress has all kinds of tools to look after its own interest, the most important one being the power of the purse. | ||
| It can defund the executive branch. | ||
| It could throw the president out of the White House if it really wanted to. | ||
| It has an awful lot of power to have the last say. | ||
| But again, Congress has been a little bit passive and really likely to minimize its own responsibility in recent years. | ||
| So when that happens, and then you have laws that don't seem to be getting carried out uniformly, it is a fair question. | ||
| Is there really any recourse? | ||
| This is Angela, a Democrat in Lancaster, Ohio. | ||
| Good morning, Angela. | ||
| Angela, are you there? | ||
| In Lancaster? | ||
| Here's Lynn in Charlotte, North Carolina, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I hope everyone there is doing well this morning. | ||
| Hey, I have a couple of comments about I always watch the Washington Journal every morning. | ||
| You know, what a shame that the Democrats can't get on board and recognize that we are $37 trillion in debt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And this goes back to there was clips of Clinton saying, oh, we need to audit. | |
| We need to get the debt under control. | ||
| Then there was clips of Obama. | ||
| There was clips of the Biden administration. | ||
| Instead, you know, no one addressed it. | ||
| And now that Trump is trying to address it, America could literally go bankrupt. | ||
| And we could be in a lot of trouble. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So Trump is taking a lot of flack for trying to straighten the United States out. | |
| We've got a debt here to pay, and no one has addressed it. | ||
| Can't just keep supporting a never-ending war. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look, I feel sorry for the Ukrainians, but look, you've got to have a peace still there. | |
| I understand that, you know, you've got to have the best interest of the Americans at heart, whether you're a Democrat, whether you're a Republican, or whether you're an Independent. | ||
| America first, whether you're a Trump fan or not, you need to think about this $37 trillion of debt so we can continue to enjoy our freedom. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thanks so much, Lynn, for your comments. | ||
| I'm in full agreement with you about the seriousness of our debt problem, $37 trillion in debt, as you say. | ||
| And what are we doing about it? | ||
| Well, Trump says that by getting Elon Musk to slash various departments of the federal government, that's going to fix it. | ||
| I'm sorry, the math does not add up. | ||
| That's not where our government spending is mostly going. | ||
| I believe personnel costs are 8% or something, and most of that is military. | ||
| You can't cut your way to a balanced budget just by throwing out some federal employees or by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| Much as I wish that were the case, if we could get there, if Elon Musk manages to do it in spite of what I'm saying now, I'll be thrilled. | ||
| I would be so happy to be wrong. | ||
| But that's just not mostly where our federal spending goes. | ||
| Mostly goes on these big entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. | ||
| And so, if you want to actually shrink our budget deficit and therefore get the debt a little bit more under control, you're going to have to find ways of getting those programs under control. | ||
| And I just don't know if Republicans are on the way of doing that. | ||
| They're going to pass a tax package that will likely increase the size of our deficits. | ||
| So, I agree with all the rhetoric about the need to get the debt under control. | ||
| I'm not sure that the current Republican Party is on the way to doing it, notwithstanding President Trump's claiming that he's on the way to balancing the budget. | ||
| I don't see it. | ||
| Valerie's in Indiana, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I thank you very much for what you said, did say just now to that lady. | ||
| It can't be done, not the way that he wants to do it. | ||
| But I was just wondering, after looking at the two idiots with a gentleman the other day, it was so embarrassing. | ||
| And it really put our country in a down position. | ||
| And my question is: is there any way to get rid of this president through dereliction of duty or unfit? | ||
| Well, Valerie, there's two ways that we have under the Constitution to remove a president. | ||
| One of them is impeachment, which has to do with high crimes and misdemeanors. | ||
| So you have to get members of Congress to agree that the president did something so egregious that it would warrant removing him from office. | ||
| We saw that that didn't happen in Trump's first term in spite of two attempts by the Democratic House of Representatives that did impeach him, but the Senate did not convict. | ||
| Then there's the 25th Amendment, in which you get all of the members of the cabinet together to say that the president is somehow unfit to hold office, possibly because of physical or mental debility. | ||
| Let me tell you, that's not happening anytime soon, and you still need Congress to go along with that. | ||
| The truth is that President Trump has a lot of support in his party right now, very strong support amongst Republicans. | ||
| That would have to change dramatically to have a realistic chance of removing him from office. | ||
| So right now, it's not on the cards. | ||
| William in Burlington, North Carolina, is asking you on text: would you say that identity politics and a two-party system are more the problem overall? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we've had a two-party system for pretty much our entire political history, and we find ways to make it work. | |
| Parties are coalitions. | ||
| They're not all people who agree on exactly the same ideas. | ||
| There always is internal dissension within parties, internal disagreements that have to get worked out. | ||
| The truth is, that's very much true of the Republican Party today. | ||
| But at least in some of his moods, President Trump likes to make it seem like disagreeing with him is itself a questionable act. | ||
| So I think that's not healthy for the way that our parties have to function in our two-party system. | ||
| Identity politics, I would say, can be a real poison for our system if people think that certain people's identity makes them suspect, makes them so we can't work with them. | ||
| Basically, if I see my group as sort of implacably opposed to your group, then what are we going to compromise on? | ||
| I think if people think of themselves in those terms, we're really sunk. | ||
| I don't really think most Americans do, though. | ||
| Even those who feel some strong feeling of identity in different racial or ethnic or religious groups, I think still they feel themselves as Americans, as people who can work with other Americans of good faith, and we need to get back to that. | ||
| All right, Philip Wallach, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the book, Why Congress? | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| Up next, former Biden IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel on the impact of Doge and mass government layoffs, what that could do to this year's tax season. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Discover the heartbeat of democracy with C-SPAN's Voices. | |
| As we hear from you ahead of President Trump's address to Congress, we're asking what you'd like to hear from the President during his speech. | ||
| My name is Steve Ayers from Walmart, Texas. | ||
| And the main thing I was looking at him to address would be more of the spending, both good and bad, where we need to increase to make stuff better and get rid of some stuff that we don't need. | ||
| And he's doing a good job for the border. | ||
| My name is Alex, and I would like the president to talk about the recent firing of federal employees. | ||
| I'm Brandon from Mississippi. | ||
| And what I would like to hear the president address is what he's doing to promote peace around the world, especially in very uncertain times that we're in, a lot of geopolitical conflicts, and what he's doing to try and get us out of conflicts that we don't necessarily need to be in and places of the globe that we're just enforcing, you know, unfortunate policies. | ||
| Hi, my name is Robin Denson. | ||
| I'm from Washington State, and I would love the President to address how he's going to protect our national parks. | ||
| These are national treasures that have been valued throughout time. | ||
| They're important environmentally, as well as for recreation and the heritage of our country. | ||
| And I want to know how he's going to protect these national treasures. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're joined now by Danny Werfel. | ||
| He's a former IRS commissioner under the Biden administration. | ||
| Danny, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's good to be here. | |
| So you're part of a group of former IRS commissioners who are warning that the Trump administration layoffs of IRS employees, it's about 7,000. | ||
| That would be a dangerous thing. | ||
| What prompted first the creation of that op-ed? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, as it turns out, the former commissioners, all the former IRS commissioners, going back to Ronald Reagan, we connect with each other. | |
| We have a network. | ||
| They were very supportive of me when I was the commissioner and going through Senate confirmation. | ||
| And when there's news about the IRS and we think we can help or explain what's going on to members of the public, we do so. | ||
| So when we heard about the layoffs and we understood that the stated purpose of the layoffs was cost efficiency, we all scratched our heads and said, how can this be about cost efficiency if the IRS is the primary agency responsible for collecting virtually all the revenue and receipts of the U.S. government? | ||
| Well, because they would say it's a bloated agency and you don't need those $7,000. | ||
| We're paying them for no reason. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I would say that that would also misunderstand the history of the IRS. | |
| And the fact is, is that the IRS has already gone through over a decade of budget cuts. | ||
| From 2010 through 2022, the IRS budget was cut year over year or held constant, but against inflation, it was essentially cut. | ||
| The staff size in 2022 before the Inflation Reduction Act was passed was at its lowest point since the 1970s. | ||
| In the meantime, our population has grown, the number of filers has grown, the economy has become larger, more global, the tax system has grown. | ||
| So if you have a growing tax system and a decreasing number of employees to manage the tax system, you have the emergence of challenges, including not only challenges in answering the phones or meeting people in walk-in centers to deal with their tax questions, but also you start losing pace on collecting what is owed. | ||
| These are not new taxes. | ||
| Whether the IRS staffing is high or low does not dictate whether your taxes are high or low. | ||
| Congress decides whether your taxes are high or low. | ||
| All the IRS is responsible for is collecting the taxes that are enacted by Congress. | ||
| And right now, we run about a $700 billion deficit each year in terms of what is owed versus what is paid. | ||
| And in this way, the way the op-ed is set up, in particular, because our understanding is many members of the Doge are coming in from the private sector with private sector experience. | ||
| We're basically saying, let's ask all the CEOs across the country, if they had a mission to cut waste and create cost efficiency in their organization, would they take an axe to the accounts receivable department, the part of the organization that's responsible for collecting the proceeds of your sales? | ||
| A CEO who does that would in essence be saying, well, we sold a lot of goods and services last year, but let's deplete the capacity of the part of our organization that collects the proceeds of those sales. | ||
| We don't think the boards of directors would be happy with that. | ||
| We don't think the shareholders would be happy about that. | ||
| We think the only people celebrating that would be the company's competitors. | ||
| So another point, just one more, Mimi, about this question of a bloated agency. | ||
| One of the things that the former commissioners absolutely support is modernizing and moving more to technology solutions over time. | ||
| We were on a path with Inflation Reduction Act resources and have had good momentum in getting the organization ready for automation, ready for more AI and solutions that potentially would allow a smaller staff size. | ||
| Were you not able to modernize in those four years of the Biden administration? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yes, yes. | ||
| I mean, there were more updates to the way in which taxpayers could file online in the two years that I was there than in the previous 20 years combined. | ||
| The IRS really only had a two-year window to modernize because the Inflation Reduction Act finally provided funds to the IRS. | ||
| Look, modernizing costs money. | ||
| You can't invest in technology with no resources. | ||
| When the Inflation Reduction Act was enacted and passed, the IRS was depleted of resources. | ||
| They had record low customer service on the phones, record low customer service in the walk-in centers, record high paper backlogs, anemic audit rates at every level because of the budget resource drain finally caught up with this organization around 2021, 2022. | ||
| There was not the opportunity to modernize because you're plugging holes in the dam. | ||
| You're really just trying to stay afloat. | ||
| Finally, you get the funds in the Inflation Reduction Act to modernize and the journey started. | ||
| And what that modernization is intended to do is to help taxpayers, to make it easier, so that they can get more solutions on the website so they don't have to call into the call and send it. | ||
| Well, let's talk about taxpayers. | ||
| First, I want to show people this from Federal News Network about the number of employees at the IRS going back to 1980 through 2024. | ||
| And this is kind of the curve. | ||
| And you see a very low dip here in the first Trump administration. | ||
| What happened there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, this was about the ongoing budget cuts and the growth in the number of people leaving government through retirement, other forms of attrition. | |
| And if you don't have the funds, you can't hire behind those people. | ||
| I mean, we've been talking about for decades the fact that the baby boom generation is eligible for retirement after 2010. | ||
| So we're in the heart of it right now. | ||
| We are in the heart of a lot of baby boomers retiring, and that was clearly in the heart of it during the first Trump administration. | ||
| These people leave, you don't have the budget to hire behind them, you lose people. | ||
| And what does that mean? | ||
| That doesn't mean the loss of an IRS agent knocking on your door looking for money. | ||
| It means the loss of people that are there to help, to answer the phone, to help you with a tax issue, to be sitting in our walk-in centers, to have that appointment for you, to be processing your tax return to get your refund out to you as quickly as possible. | ||
| 7,000 people that were laid off, are they the ones processing our returns? | ||
| Is this going to have an impact on this tax season and our taxes right now? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We don't have, I don't think, all the details on exactly who was laid off. | |
| What they did was they focused on probationary employees, which are relatively new employees. | ||
| My understanding is that most of the employees that were laid off were in the collections part of IRS versus what I call this or what we call the services part of IRS. | ||
| But a layoff this size, nearly 7,000 people in the middle of filing season, it's hard to imagine how that wouldn't be disruptive to all parts of the operation. | ||
| All the former commissioners, we all talked about the fact that during filing season, the last thing you want to do is take increased risk, take on additional operational complexity. | ||
| You want things steady as she goes. | ||
| And a layoff of this size in the middle of filing season creates a lot of risk for our tax system, and we would have preferred to avoid that risk. | ||
| We don't think the layoffs are appropriate, especially in the name of cost efficiency, because we think in the interest of the American government and its fiscal solvency, we should be collecting the receipts that fund this government and not leaving them on the table. | ||
| We also want a fair tax system. | ||
| The fact that the IRS has diminished capacity to collect taxes that are already owed shifts the burden of our tax system from those that play by the rules to those that, or shifts it from those that don't play by the rules to those that do. | ||
| And they're carrying more of the load of funding this government. | ||
| So there's just a fiscal sensibility issue. | ||
| Why not go out and collect what's owed if you're trying to improve the bottom line? | ||
| You know, I think you learn on your first day of business school or in your first business class, day one, what does it mean? | ||
| What is a company or an organization's bottom line? | ||
| Well, it's both made up of cost and revenue. | ||
| It's both pieces together. | ||
| So cutting costs makes sense if you're trying to improve the bottom line. | ||
| But you're also trying to at least maintain or increase revenue to improve that bottom line. | ||
| So accounts receivable is such a critical part of the government's bottom line that depleting our ability to collect those receipts will do damage to our bottom line. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation with Danny Werfel, the former IRS commissioner, you can do so. | ||
| Our lines are Democrats: 202748-8000. | ||
| It's 202-748-8001 for Republicans and 202748-8002 for Independents. | ||
| I want to play a portion of the confirmation hearing of Scott Besant, and he was asked about his view of tax collection enforcement towards the wealthy. | ||
| Here's an exchange. | ||
| Again, what you've seen, because we don't have the resources to go after the wealthy tax cheats, people who use the earned income tax credit or something, they're the ones who get the audits and the like. | ||
| And I want to see, in this position, somebody make a commitment to making sure we'll have the resources to go after the wealthy tax cheats who have this unique kind of system. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I would acknowledge your point that certainly it's going to be a challenge in the years ahead with respect to AI and other technologies, but we're still going to need resources. | |
| Are you going to support that? | ||
| If confirmed, I will come back to you with a plan for upping collections. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Unwealthy tax cheats. | |
| Well, you seem to believe that the wealthy cheat more, but that I think across the entire income spectrum. | ||
| So you were saying that the wealthy have this special cachet. | ||
| And if there is some large mother load there, then to figure out how to crack that, whether it's through AI or some other means, that I will commit to coming back to you. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, when I was at the IRS, here's what I learned. | |
| I don't believe that the wealthy cheat more than anyone else. | ||
| Not at all. | ||
| I think there are many wealthy individuals, large corporations, large complex partnerships that play by the rules. | ||
| I also think these same individuals, most of whom play by the rules, want there to be accountability for those that don't. | ||
| Especially if I'm the CFO or CEO of a major company and I'm not going to go to sleep at night unless I play by the rules, I want to know that my competitors are being held accountable to play by the rules. | ||
| Otherwise, it's not a fair marketplace. | ||
| Here's why what Senator Wyden is saying is so important in my opinion. | ||
| It's that when you underinvest in the IRS, when you basically say, well, we don't really care that much about data science or subject matter expertise or staff size, we're going to have a smaller, less impactful, less effective IRS. | ||
| Then it's harder for the IRS to determine where the tax evasion is occurring. | ||
| And it makes it harder to determine where there's tax evasion in complex situations. | ||
| Look, for the average taxpayer who's going to work nine to five, your taxes are pretty simple. | ||
| But imagine a company that's operating all around the world in many tax jurisdictions, has subsidiaries on subsidiaries on subsidiaries, has all kinds of organizational complexity. | ||
| And their tax returns are sometimes thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pages long. | ||
| It's very difficult to understand in those situations what the balance due is and versus what is being paid. | ||
| And so the idea is to invest in an IRS that not only has the ability to find the balance due in the simple taxpayer who's working nine to five or that small business, but also invest in an IRS that can figure out what the balance due is in the most complicated, largest organizations in the world. | ||
| And if we don't invest in that capacity, then we don't have a fair tax system because the IRS can more easily determine your balance due as a small business or a middle-class working class individual than they can for a very wealthy person. | ||
| Not that the wealthy cheat more, but if you don't have an IRS that has the capacity to find those balance dues, then two things happen. | ||
| One, there's a risk that we audit people that are playing by the rules or large corporations. | ||
| Again, I'm that CEO or that CFO at that large corporation. | ||
| If you ask me, do you want an IRS that has the capacity to better see where the evasion is so they can audit them and not you, I'd say yes. | ||
| Do you want an IRS that has a better capacity to hold your competitors accountable to make sure they're playing by the rules just like you? | ||
| I say yes. | ||
| And that's what it means to have an IRS that you're investing in. | ||
| It's about a healthy tax system. | ||
| Look, taxes are unpopular. | ||
| And I get that as the former IRS Commissioner. | ||
| Also, all the former IRS commissioners agree there's absolutely opportunity for more efficiency in both government and in the IRS. | ||
| And we applaud efforts to be looking for that efficiency. | ||
| What we're suggesting is, first of all, if you're going to do something big, do it after filing season. | ||
| Don't create risk during this critically important moment. | ||
| But also, if you're going to attack cost efficiency in the IRS, recognize the budget trajectory that it's been on, which is it was pretty down to the bone just a few years ago before the new resources came in. | ||
| And second, in the name of cost efficiency, don't discount revenue and receipts because cost efficiency is both. | ||
| The bottom line of the U.S. government is not just about cutting costs. | ||
| It's about revenue and receipts as well. | ||
| And I'm not saying we should raise taxes or lower taxes. | ||
| I have no opinion on that as an IRS commissioner. | ||
| What I'm saying is let's collect the taxes that have already been enacted. | ||
| I want to ask you about the privacy of our tax records. | ||
| This is the Washington Post that says, Doge presses to check federal benefits payments against IRS tax records. | ||
| Officials with Elon Musk's group say they want to search for fraud. | ||
| Privacy law bars the IRS from disclosing tax information to other parts of the government. | ||
| How safe are our IRS tax records? | ||
| And does Doge already have them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's such an important question. | |
| And if you allow me, Mimi, I want to talk a little bit about this question of fraud. | ||
| And what is fraud and what is error and how do you stop it? | ||
| And then I'm going to address your question about the data. | ||
| Because when the you and I've been working on this question of fraud, error, improper payments for virtually my entire career. | ||
| And one thing that I've learned, and again, I don't have the monopoly on the right answer. | ||
| I'm not here to say that I figured it all out and I know exactly how to solve the problem. | ||
| But I do have lessons learned. | ||
| And one of the lessons learned is as you're getting ready to make a payment to a grantee, to a contractor, to an individual, you 99 times out of 100, if not more, you don't know whether this is going to be fraud or error. | ||
| If you do know, then you would stop the payment and they do stop the payment when they know. | ||
| But in most cases, they don't know whether it's fraud or error. | ||
| And in order to figure that out before the payment goes out versus after the payment goes out, there's typically two things that need to happen. | ||
| One, you need to gather more information about the recipient. | ||
| You need to know more about them. | ||
| You need to know, for example, how many, what is the asset total they have, because that could be a relevant criteria for eligibility. | ||
| You may need to know their household size, because that might also be a criteria for eligibility. | ||
| All kinds of data would help you determine whether this is the right payment. | ||
| So you ask for more data. | ||
| And the other thing is you need more time. | ||
| I need to get this data in, and I need to now look at this more closely and determine whether this payment should go out. | ||
| So two things happen when you try to address error. | ||
| One, you increase burden on the American people. | ||
| You have the government collecting more information about them. | ||
| And you take more time to make the payment because you're doing all this checking. | ||
| And over the years that the government has been attacking fraud and error and has made substantial progress that should be built on, but there's still more work to do. | ||
| When these two issues come up, in order to address the issue, we got to get more data from the public and we got to take more time. | ||
| There's pushback. | ||
| I don't want the government taking all my debt. | ||
| I want them to know what's in my bank account. | ||
| I don't want them to know what's going on inside my household. | ||
| I don't want that. | ||
| And so the government says, okay, we won't collect that information. | ||
| And then so then there's higher risk of fraud and error. | ||
| Or I don't want there to be a delay. | ||
| I'm a hospital provider. | ||
| I don't want you to delay three months that Medicare reimbursement you owe me. | ||
| Well, but we're checking to see if it's fraud. | ||
| No, pay me now. | ||
| And that tension plays out and you end up in a situation where you balance burden, speed, with error. | ||
| Now here's a great example of that in the question you asked. | ||
| The Doge is going in and saying we got to stop error and they're running into the same thing I ran into. | ||
| We need more information. | ||
| So how are we going to get that information? | ||
| Oh wait, the IRS has information. | ||
| They can tell you what your household size is, which may be a relevant criteria before you get this education benefit or this agriculture benefit. | ||
| Let's grab the IRS information. | ||
| Well now you're saying as a taxpayer, do I want the IRS spreading my information out to all these other government agencies? | ||
| That sounds very big brother-ish to me. | ||
| I don't like that. | ||
| Some people don't like that. | ||
| Well, there's a whole law. | ||
| It's called Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code that determines when and if the IRS can share information with another federal agency for this very purpose. | ||
| And over the years, Congress has been pretty stubborn in changing 6103. | ||
| It can take years and years and years of lobbying Congress. | ||
| I remember when I first started in government in the 1990s, we were trying to get the IRS, I wasn't at the IRS at the time, I was at OMB, we were trying to get the IRS to share taxpayer information with the Department of Education to validate whether these Pell Grants were improper or not. | ||
| Well, they finally got that authority, but I think it was like maybe close to 20 years later that it finally went through and Congress finally enacted it. | ||
| So I think what's going on right now is Doge is running into the same thing I ran into when I tried to address improper payments. | ||
| I need more information. | ||
| But Congress and only Congress historically has decided whether the IRS can share information with other federal agencies. | ||
| All right, let's talk to callers. | ||
| We'll start with Leonard in Massachusetts Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, everyone. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| I'm really excited to hear you talk about 6103. | ||
| I didn't know the number of the Internal Revenue Code, but data privacy is something that's obviously super important, super interesting. | ||
| Just my question, though, is, wasn't there some study done by economists saying that the IRS and maybe it was like the Department of Education was one of the best returns on investment where every dollar spent auditing these complex tax entities brought back something like $4 to $5 or for in the case of education, it's every dollar spent generated three times as much in the future based on what you invested in the people. | ||
| So that's my question to you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, I mean it's a great question. | ||
| You know, I think Meanie's first question to me is, shouldn't we cut accounts receivable if it's bloated? | ||
| The reality is that every person in the IRS that's doing these collections earns for the American taxpayer close to $6 of revenue for every $1 we spend on their salary. | ||
| So it's a good deal. | ||
| We should be, you know, if you're trying to be efficient, you would add more. | ||
| But the point is well taken, that you can save money by sharing IRS data to other federal agencies because you cut down on fraud and error if you give those federal agencies more information to be able to detect that fraud and error. | ||
| So yes, from just a quantitative dollar standpoint, you would save money. | ||
| But there's a cost to it with respect to privacy because there should be limits. | ||
| Let me give you a good example of this to the caller. | ||
| One of the biggest error rate programs in all of government, it has the largest error rate, is the Earned Income Tax Credit. | ||
| It's a program run through the IRS. | ||
| It's a very important program. | ||
| It's an anti-poverty program. | ||
| It's well researched. | ||
| It's having a huge impact on reducing poverty in America. | ||
| But it has a really high error rate. | ||
| And one of the reasons it has a high error rate is because it's very difficult to determine eligibility, including one of the primary eligibility criteria is that you live with the dependent child that you're claiming for six months or more. | ||
| But when the IRS pays this out, we don't know where the child is living. | ||
| We don't have real-time information. | ||
| Now, we could essentially eliminate all error in the program if we had a national childhood residency database with real-time information. | ||
| Imagine, and this is completely hypothetical because it would never fly, but just I'm going to play it out hypothetically. | ||
| Imagine a world in which each parent had to swipe their child in in the morning and swipe them out the next morning. | ||
| So we knew at the IRS where every child in America was. | ||
| If we knew that, then we could count whether they've actually lived with the person claiming the EITC. | ||
| We would never even propose that because it's so invasive. | ||
| It's such a violation of our values in this country. | ||
| But yet, if we fall short of that, then we will not know where these children live and we will risk error. | ||
| And that error is worth it versus the other solutions. | ||
| So my answer to this caller, it's a balance point between reducing fraud and error, but preserving our values around privacy and non-government overreach that I think is so important. | ||
| Here's Nelson in Pembroke Pines, Florida, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Can you hear me okay? | ||
| Yep, we sure can. | ||
| Go ahead, Nelson. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, Mr. Werfel, with all due respect, sir, first I thank you for your service to the country. | |
| However, I would like to point out that even the Internal Revenue Service has its own waste and its own problems in regard to trying to balance its own budgets and trying to ensure that the funds paid to the IRS are used appropriately. | ||
| The Trump administration has to start somewhere, and I think it has done a good job up to now in trying to deal with the ballooning federal deficit that we have. | ||
| I do my own taxes. | ||
| I'm in my mid-70s. | ||
| I would never file online because of the problem of identity theft. | ||
| That's one thing. | ||
| Also, I have made errors in the past, and it has been corrected in a timely manner by the IRS. | ||
| So, as far as I can see, they're doing a pretty good job, at least as far as I'm concerned. | ||
| And I would also like to point out that in regards to the people who are trying to have a fair system, 50% of the population does not pay any income tax at all. | ||
| And I think that is just a matter of time before the United States is going to have to look at another method of collecting tax revenue rather than income taxes might want to consider going to a sales, | ||
| federal sales tax that would allow everyone to pay their fair share of taxes and not just the wealthy and the middle class whom pay too much taxes as it is. | ||
| Anyway, your comments, sir. | ||
| All right, Nelson. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nelson, I really appreciate the question. | |
| First of all, in your first point, I completely agree. | ||
| There is absolutely inefficiency in the IRS that can be cut out. | ||
| I would propose that, and I think what the Trump administration wants to do is to modernize the IRS in the way that it's far more automated and far less reliant on employees. | ||
| And that is a reasonable ambition to have. | ||
| Now, when and how they do that is the question. | ||
| Nelson, think about the IRS kind of as an assembly line. | ||
| There's a lot coming in and a lot going out. | ||
| What's coming in are tax returns and correspondence and phone calls and people into the walk-in centers. | ||
| Those are all kind of coming in. | ||
| And what's going out are payments, refunds, and credits and audits. | ||
| So there's, and what also is coming in is remittances or payments of people's taxes. | ||
| And I think the idea is, can we make that far more automated and have less people managing the assembly line? | ||
| And the answer is yes. | ||
| And I would argue or offer that in the last two years of the Biden administration, important progress has been made that the Trump administration can build on to further automate that assembly line and therefore further reduce the need for people to manage. | ||
| But we're not ready yet. | ||
| And if you pull people off the assembly line too quickly, you end up with backlogs and messiness. | ||
| And that messiness is going to hurt people like you. | ||
| It's going to mean that you can't get through to the phone if you happen to make an honest mistake. | ||
| Or it's going to hurt your neighbor who has some kind of issue that they need to see an IRS person in a walk-in center to really go over something and that walk-in center has been shuttered or closed. | ||
| And so the idea of a more efficient IRS is the right goal. | ||
| It's more a question of how and when. | ||
| And my opinion that I'm offering on this show and elsewhere is that this idea of downsizing the workforce and replacing it with technology, it's a reasonable one. | ||
| It's more of a question of when and how versus this vision. | ||
| So related to that, Kristen in Portland, Maine says, can you speak about the IRS completely modernizing before the American public is completely modernized? | ||
| She says, my stepdad, and I know he's not the only elderly person, doesn't have a cell phone, a computer, or the internet. | ||
| Unfortunately, I believe that's why progress needs to go slow. | ||
| And related to that is the question about why we are, where we are with not having to use the price gouging products to file taxes. | ||
| That's from Colin in Baltimore. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, great question, Colin. | |
| First of all, yeah, I mean, as the commissioner, I interacted with other commissioners around the world, and some other tax jurisdictions have gone completely to computers and require all citizens, regardless of their situation, to file electronically. | ||
| That is not us. | ||
| That is not the U.S. When I was commissioner, I used to say, you file the way you want to file. | ||
| Filing electronically and selecting direct deposit is the quickest way to get your return process and to get your refund. | ||
| If you do it and there's no errors, you can get your refund in under three weeks. | ||
| And we were successful in doing that in the two filing seasons that I was there. | ||
| But not everyone wants to file electronically or has the capacity. | ||
| There's something called the digital divide. | ||
| And whether that is people that don't have access to technology or people that don't have access to high-speed internet, you want to make sure, again, that the system is fair and that you're meeting taxpayers where they are. | ||
| And for that reason, the IRS should have a set of menu options. | ||
| Here's what you can do to file. | ||
| And this goes to your second question about filing online with the IRS. | ||
| When I was there, we launched DirectFile. | ||
| And really, that was not intended to replace any of the other options. | ||
| It was intended to add a new option to the menu. | ||
| Because taxpayers, like you would ask the question, if I'm going to file online electronically, why do I have to always work with a software vendor, even if it's free, even if I qualify for their free program, can't I file for free electronically online with the IRS? | ||
| Can I have that option on the menu? | ||
| And what we did during my term was we made that option available. | ||
| And it was very controversial, but I never, it was always a head scratcher for me why it should be controversial because we weren't denying anyone. | ||
| You don't have to do it. | ||
| You didn't have to use it. | ||
| You could opt in or opt out. | ||
| And so I agree. | ||
| I think the more options for taxpayers, the better. | ||
| Here's Stephen in Washington, D.C., Line for Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| So I would like to know more about the $7 billion difference between taxes owed and taxes paid. | ||
| A couple of questions. | ||
| What percentage of that is corporate versus personal income taxes? | ||
| And amongst those two groups, how much of it is coming from large corporations versus small businesses or large income earners versus small or middle-class income earners. | ||
| And then third, what are the main reasons that this fraud or error is taking place? | ||
| Is it fraud? | ||
| Is it illegal? | ||
| Is it intentional to not pay their taxes and therefore they can be charged with the crime? | ||
| Or is it error and what errors are being made? | ||
| And how much of it is simply due to the enormous complexity of it? | ||
| Even for us, rich individual taxpayers, it's very complicated with questions I don't really understand. | ||
| And that causes just frustration and errors. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, a really important question. | ||
| Look, every year the IRS publishes what's called the tax gap and has as much detail as we can assess around what makes up that tax gap. | ||
| And it's pretty, you know, it's an interesting, pretty fluid distribution throughout. | ||
| We have people at every income level. | ||
| We have small businesses and large businesses. | ||
| We have multinational corporations and complex partnerships and more simple partnerships, all with a balance due higher than what they're paying. | ||
| And then within that, there's the complexity of sometimes it's inadvertent. | ||
| Sometimes just because of the weight of how complex our tax laws are, people often make honest mistakes and therefore pay less than they actually owe. | ||
| But of course, there are people out there that are not only evading taxes, but also actively perpetrating a fraud. | ||
| And so the answer to your question is that it is all over the map. | ||
| There is materiality at every level, I would say. | ||
| There is a lot of money being left on the table in terms of balance due versus balance paid for every taxpayer type. | ||
| And the focus that the Democrats, for example, have had on the large corporations, the partnerships, and the wealthy, from my vantage point, there's certainly a political argument that can be made there. | ||
| That was never my vantage point. | ||
| My vantage point, as I mentioned in response to the clip, Mimi, that you showed me, is when the IRS is not getting invested in, then we lose the capacity to figure out where the fraud is amongst the wealthy, to figure out where the balance due is amongst the wealthy. | ||
| The other big issue is because of how quickly our economy is reconstructing itself, the digital economy, things like Uber and PayPal and all of these activities that have moved in these directions because of globalization and the fact that an increasing number of companies are operating and selling their goods and services in different tax jurisdictions. | ||
| The fact that these companies are sometimes completely virtual, it's not like they have workers down in France or in the Nordics or in Africa. | ||
| They just, they might be headquartered in the U.S., but they're selling goods and services and interacting in an electronic way. | ||
| All of that is new. | ||
| And therefore, I'm not as confident as I used to be that we've actually captured all of the tax gap between balance due and balance paid. | ||
| But this is why it's so important to be making these investments in the IRS because it's such a high return. | ||
| At $700 billion a year in this gap, again, not new taxes. | ||
| No one's taxes are getting raised. | ||
| It's just making sure that people are paying what they owe and not a penny more. | ||
| Sterling, Colorado, Republican line Lance, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh man, do I feel lucky? | |
| I'm going to have to play the lottery. | ||
| I'll be honest about it. | ||
| But I am retired. | ||
| I pay for $10.99. | ||
| I still work. | ||
| Thank Donald Trump that I can make $56,000 extra. | ||
| And I'm going to say this. | ||
| The weaponization of the IRS is one thing that I think really hurt the IRS. | ||
| The thousands of weapons and ammunition that you have stockpiled to go after American people, taxpayers raiding their houses is really a shame. | ||
| But I saw you almost cry a while ago in your first part. | ||
| And what I'm saying is this, you want to walk a mile in my shoes and then you'll know how to cry. | ||
| All right, Lance. | ||
| The weaponization of the IRS and the stockpiles of ammunition and weapons. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so I'm glad, Lance, you're asking this question because it's important to understand what the facts are on the ground. | |
| So less than 3% of the entire IRS operation is armed, and that's our criminal division. | ||
| You know what our criminal division is involved in? | ||
| Our criminal division is involved in breaking up organized crime, human trafficking, drug trafficking, counterterrorism. | ||
| What happens is that law enforcement often work together and we're going after some type of terrible criminal actor that is really a danger to your neighbors, to your children, to society, because they're doing really, really bad things. | ||
| And whether it's the FBI and other law enforcement, sometimes the best way to take down these criminal enterprises is through tax crimes. | ||
| It's just how we are playing the chess game against these criminals. | ||
| And so they partner with the IRS, and then the IRS has the jurisdiction to assess the tax crime. | ||
| And that means they're serving search warrants and arresting these bad people. | ||
| Again, these are not your everyday citizens. | ||
| These are not grandmas and grandpas who maybe have paid $10 less than they were supposed to. | ||
| There's no armed agents knocking on any of those people's doors. | ||
| It's really about these criminal enterprises. | ||
| Now, the stockpile is under the rules. | ||
| In order to be an armed agent in the U.S. government, you need training. | ||
| You need a lot of training. | ||
| And so virtually all the ammunition that the IRS has is for training on the gun ranges. | ||
| And that's why the stockpiles are so high. | ||
| The number of times that an IRS agent's weapon has actually been discharged, you could count on one hand. | ||
| You would hear a lot more about it in the news of an IRS agent discharging their gun in any way, shape, or form that was inappropriate. | ||
| It is an absolutely never or exceedingly rare occurrence. | ||
| I can assure you, Lance, that this small number, less than 3% of the IRS workers that actually have a gun, that they need it because they're going into very dangerous situations. | ||
| They're heroes. | ||
| They're going into situations with criminals, organized crime, drug traffickers, human traffickers who are also armed, and they're going to serve warrants and they're going to make arrests. | ||
| I'm proud to have worked with them. | ||
| Pamela and Marietta, Georgia, by text. | ||
| What about the report of IRS employees being highest violators in not filing annual tax returns? | ||
| And are they losing their jobs and penalized like ordinary taxpayers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, this is really important. | |
| I mean, one of the things about working at the IRS is you go through a tax check. | ||
| You essentially, if you sign up to work at the IRS, you're essentially signing up to be audited and to really kind of scrutinize at a very detailed level your taxes. | ||
| And as a result, we have really good information about our employees. | ||
| And our employees are human. | ||
| Our employees are moms and dads and little league coaches, people of faith. | ||
| We have every walk of life in the IRS. | ||
| And people make mistakes. | ||
| The difference is because they're going through an audit, those mistakes are surfaced. | ||
| We report it publicly. | ||
| There's no secrets here. | ||
| It's transparent. | ||
| We give that information to oversight entities that report it publicly. | ||
| And if you fail to pay your taxes, you are either terminated from employment or you're put on suspension or depending on the circumstances, you're given an opportunity to make it right. | ||
| You know, we give people grace if they make a mistake. | ||
| And if they pay up quickly, maybe they're disciplined and then they come back to work. | ||
| Just like any taxpayer would have that grace. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Any taxpayer would have that grace. | |
| So look, again, I am never going to sit here and claim that I'm perfect or any of the IRS employees are, but we're human, like everyone out there and all your callers. | ||
| But they are doing an important function. | ||
| They are choosing public service as a mission. | ||
| And I would hope that as we think about the IRS employees who are doing their jobs, not in D.C., by the way, more than 98% of IRS employees work outside of DC in cities and suburbs and small towns all across America. | ||
| That we understand that if they get laid off, let's not celebrate that. | ||
| Let's not demonize people that come to work and have come to work every day and chosen an unpopular profession, but have been passionate about it and have done it effectively for many years. | ||
| One more caller? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Bill in Texas, Democrat. | ||
| Go ahead, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I want to know. | |
| My wife died in 2018. | ||
| I had a scroll and I got my tax, my RS give them my number, and they booked me for $4,000. | ||
| I don't have no $4,000 for these years, and they're telling me I can't put my tax in because I've got a scroll. | ||
| Can you help me get these things off of me? | ||
| I thank you. | ||
| Yeah, so Bill, look, I've heard from taxpayers, while I was commissioner, and even since, heard from taxpayers like you who are struggling with a tax debt. | ||
| There are programs at the IRS, installment agreements that can be set up. | ||
| We always at the IRS try to train our employees to have empathy, to look for solutions for taxpayers that are in financial dire straits. | ||
| Our tax system is way too complex, and it often leaves people like you in a situation where you can't figure out heads or tails of what you're supposed to do. | ||
| That's why it's so important to work with Congress to make sure that our tax system is fair and not as complex as it is. | ||
| And also to invest in an IRS that knows and is trained to help people like Bill as effectively as possible. | ||
| The sad outcome would be Bill can't get through to the IRS. | ||
| The bill can't get through to a trained agent who knows all the different levers that we have to help people like Bill. | ||
| The idea is not to harm people like Bill. | ||
| When we hear stories of people like Bill, it breaks our hearts. | ||
| I think one of your callers said he thought I might cry. | ||
| I do get emotional when I talk to people like Bill specifically who are struggling and I want an IRS that's well equipped to help the people like Bill that are out there. | ||
| That's Danny Werfel, former IRS commissioner under the Biden administration. | ||
| Danny, thanks so much for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Amy. | |
| Coming up, more of your phone calls on Open Forum. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| The numbers are 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans, and 202748-8002 for Independents. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| Democracy is always an unfinished creation. | ||
| Democracy is worth dying for. | ||
| Democracy belongs to us all. | ||
| We are here in the sanctuary of democracy. | ||
| Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. | ||
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||
| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are still at our core a democracy. | |
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, on this historic day, the House of Representatives opens its proceedings for the first time to televised coverage. | |
| Since March of 1979, C-SPAN has been your unfiltered window into American democracy, bringing you direct, no-spin coverage of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House. | ||
| Is this Mr. Brian Lamb? | ||
| Yes, it is. | ||
| Would you hold one moment, please, for the president? | ||
| It exists because of C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb's vision and the cable industry's support, not government funding. | ||
| But this public service isn't guaranteed. | ||
| All this month, in honor of Founders Day, your support is more important than ever. | ||
| You can keep democracy unfiltered today and for future generations. | ||
| To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
|
unidentified
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Your gift today preserves open access to government and ensures the public stays informed. | |
| Donate now at c-span.org slash donate or scan the code on your screen. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| A couple of things for your schedule for later today. | ||
| So at 10, in about 25 minutes, over on C-SPAN 3, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will consider the nominations of Christopher Landau to be Deputy Secretary of State, Michael Regas to be Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, and Matthew Whitaker to be U.S. Ambassador to NATO. | ||
| So you can watch all that live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3, C-SPANNOW, the app, and online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| And later tonight, we'll have the president's speech to Congress. | ||
| Our live coverage starts at 8 a.m. | ||
| The president will lay out his priorities and vision for the country during his second term. | ||
| Again, live coverage starts at 8 p.m. | ||
| The speech itself will be at 9, and then the Democratic response after his speech. | ||
| We'll also take viewer calls and get reaction on social media. | ||
| That's live on C-SPAN, also simulcast on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| You can watch it on the app and online. | ||
| Well, after the meeting with his European counterparts, British Prime Minister Kier Starmer briefed Parliament on a plan to support Ukraine and why it was necessary for Britain to do so. | ||
| He made the comments on Monday. | ||
| Not sure if that's ready yet. | ||
| But while we're getting that ready, we will take a call. | ||
| Here's Frank, Santa Ana, California, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mimi. | |
| I was going to ask the IRS fellas a few questions, but my biggest thing is I wonder if you could tell me the truth about this. | ||
| The European Union is given $100 billion or whatever, and Trump says we put $300 billion in there. | ||
| I wonder if he can give us your own numbers on that. | ||
| And did the European Union make them in loans? | ||
| And did we just give it to them? | ||
| And one more thing, Mimi, that's, you know, what I was thinking watching the IRS though, there was, you know, President Biden always kept looking in the mirror, pay your fair share, pay your fair share. | ||
| I'm just thinking to myself, this kid never paid any taxes on any of that money. | ||
| Then they got a millionaire to come in to pay his taxes. | ||
| I was wondering if he's still on the hook for paying money on the money that that guy gave him. | ||
| And then we got gold bar Bob in prison with gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in his closet. | ||
| These are all Democrats. | ||
| You know, they keep saying Elon's going to steal all this money. | ||
| They're just getting richer. | ||
| I got a feeling it's the complete opposite. | ||
| Then you got Fannie Willis over there. | ||
| She says that she reimbursed her boyfriend for all these tens of thousands of dollars on these trips, and it was all in cash. | ||
| Well, you're a government worker. | ||
| Where do you get all this money in cash? | ||
| What are you a drug dealer on the side? | ||
| I mean, we're not this stupid. | ||
| America. | ||
| Oh, by the way, Mimi, I did see the first sign of spring. | ||
| I saw a guy going to the pawn shop with a portable heater. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So, Frank, to answer your question about Ukraine aid. | ||
| So this is from the BBC article. | ||
| It's a group called BBC Verify, who does the fact-checking for that organization. | ||
| Total U.S. spending on Ukraine from the U.S. Department of Defense, $182.8 billion. | ||
| However, the Kiel Institute, which is a German think tank, estimates that number at $119, almost $120 billion. | ||
| And I showed this before: percentage of total government support to Ukraine, about half coming from Europe, less than that at 42.7% from the U.S., and then 7.8% from other countries. | ||
| And then your question about loans. | ||
| So, will Europe get its money back while the United States doesn't? | ||
| So, here the breakdown, the loan is blue, the grant is in green, and then a loan guarantee is in gray. | ||
| And so, here you can see EU institutions here, and then you can see the United States here on the top. | ||
| So, I hope that answers your questions. | ||
| And we will go to that portion from Keir Starmer from Monday. | ||
| Here it is. | ||
| So, we must proceed with strength. | ||
| And that does now require urgently a coalition of the willing. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, we agreed on Sunday that those willing to play a role in this will intensify planning now. | ||
| And as this House would expect, Britain will play a leading role with, if necessary, and together with others, boots on the ground and planes in the air. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, it is right that Europe do the heavy lifting to support peace on our continent. | ||
| But to succeed, this effort must also have strong U.S. backing. | ||
| I want to assure this House, I take none of this lightly. | ||
| I've visited British troops in Estonia, and no aspect of my role weighs more heavily than the deployment of British troops in the service of defense and security in Europe. | ||
| And yet I do feel very strongly that the future of Ukraine is vital for our national security. | ||
| Russia is a menace in our waters and skies. | ||
| They've launched cyber attacks on our NHS, assassination attempts in our streets. | ||
| In this House, we stand by Ukraine because it's the right thing to do. | ||
| But we also stand by them because it's in our interest to do so. | ||
| That's the UK Prime Minister. | ||
| And President Donald Trump has put out a truth this morning at 7:30 saying this. | ||
| All federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests. | ||
| Agitators will be imprisoned or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. | ||
| American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. | ||
| No masks. | ||
| Thank you for your attention to this matter. | ||
| Here's Charles in Jackson, Mississippi, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Charles. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hello. | ||
| How are you, Mimi? | ||
| How are you today? | ||
| Good, thanks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My question would have been for Mr. Werfold before he left. | |
| I was wondering if it's legal at any point for an individual to increase or inflate the cost of property, I mean, the value of his property, in order to obtain a loan and then to decrease the value of property in order to avoid paying taxes on it. | ||
| And to Mr. Frank, I think it was, who pointed out those poignant problems with the Democrats with money being spent. | ||
| And I was going to ask him to check into Mr. Donald Trump's ability to avoid paying taxes. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Bye-bye. | ||
| Eric in New Jersey, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Eric, are you there? | ||
| New Jersey? | ||
| Nope. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hey, Eric, go right ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sorry about that. | |
| I wish you had asked Commissioner Werfel whether or not he ever had the intellectual curiosity to figure out if Joe Biden had never earned more than $180,000 to $200,000 a year as a senator, how did he accumulate $20 million in wealth over the years and own multiple homes? | ||
| I wish I knew how to do that. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Here's Woodrow in Hepzabah, Georgia, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how are you doing this morning? | |
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, this IRS thing, it really plucks my nerve. | |
| I live here in Hepzabah, Georgia, and they're taxing us half to death. | ||
| And even I'm retired from the military, but we had to pay for Medicaid Part B. Why we take all of this money and it's taken up in taxes and we waste it all over the place. | ||
| We got two VA hospitals here in Augusta, Georgia. | ||
| They moved the HR department and the finance department out of the VA buildings where they've been for 40 years, and they're downtown Augusta renting some property. | ||
| So how in Hades is that saving our money or being a good steward of the taxpayers' money? | ||
| So I'm hoping President Trump or Elon Musk or somebody, Bob Swami, come to Augusta, Georgia. | ||
| We got two VA hospitals and see what they're doing with our taxpayer dollars because they're definitely not spending them on the veterans. | ||
| And we've done took care of every other country, but we don't even take care of our own. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And we are in open forum for the next 15 minutes until we take you over to the House. | ||
| That is gaveling in. | ||
| And the numbers are 202, 748, 8,000 for Democrats, 202748, 8001 for Republicans, and 202748-8002 for Independents. | ||
| By the way, this is from the AP that has just come out, Mexico, to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. following China and Canada as trade war heats up. | ||
| So we will expect to hear more about that in tonight's speech by the President on tariffs. | ||
| You can watch that, of course, here on C-SPAN starting at 3 p.m. | ||
| Here is Suzanne in South Carolina, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Suzanne. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My question is concerning Social Security. | |
| And we understand that they're overhauling everything, and it has to do with deficit. | ||
| Any of us, of course, want to make sure there's no waste or fraud in government or as little as possible. | ||
| My concern is that we understand they are in looking at Social Security right now. | ||
| And for we retirees who have paid in all our lives, that's a concern. | ||
| From what I understand, Social Security is a median venue on its own, which the taxpayers who are paying into that provide for that. | ||
| So it really has nothing to do with the national deficit. | ||
| So I'm certainly not understanding why this Musk gentleman would be in there overseeing and sort of dismantling things when Social Security really is not funded by the federal government, but by the by its own sort of sanctions, from what I understand, are the taxes that go in. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And Dennis and Marion, Illinois, Independent Line, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thank you for taking the call. | |
| My comment has to do with the tax system. | ||
| And I believe that there needs to be across the board a fair tax on spending only. | ||
| Property tax, no. | ||
| Income tax, no. | ||
| Spending tax, yes, because that takes everybody in the issue, including corporations. | ||
| Government is too big. | ||
| We have a situation where tariffs do provide support. | ||
| The Supreme Court of the United States in 1895 said that income taxes were unconstitutional. | ||
| When this country was formed, nobody wanted a tax on income. | ||
| The Stamp Act had something to do with that, and they threw the tea into Boston Harbor because of it. | ||
| We need to be able to be self-sufficient as a society where your merit and your efforts and your energy are rewarded, not taxed. | ||
| So, Dennis, when you say like an across-the-board sales tax for the federal government, what would that be? | ||
| So, every state has their sales tax, mostly. | ||
| What would the federal rate be? | ||
| What would you recommend? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they've done studies on this, and they said that if there is a spending tax only, the people will have at least 25% more money in their pocket instead of having to work six months out of the year just to pay their taxes. | |
| That's outrageous. | ||
| And I think that if the people will study this issue and enact it amongst the Congress, that we will see a much better system rewarding merit instead of punishing it. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here is Susan in Georgia, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, this is Susan in Georgia. | |
| Is that who you're calling? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Go right ahead, Susan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I have been a NAGA supporter since the beginning, and I was so shocked the way that President Trump and JD Vance talk to President Zelensky, who fights on the front lines with his own people, that I can't, I just could not believe it. | |
| I could not stand it. | ||
| And I'm worried about these tariffs. | ||
| I feel that my vote, I wish I could take my vote back. | ||
| I am shocked, and I'm no longer a NAGA supporter. | ||
| President Trump, look at what you're doing to your people. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| This is Anna in South Windsor, Connecticut. | ||
| Democrat, good morning, Anna. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| I wanted to have someone to explain what is happening with President Trump's audit on his taxes. | ||
| This seemed like this may be a Trojan horse. | ||
| They're investigating us, but what happened to President Trump's taxes that's being having an audit on? | ||
| And also his medical records, which we don't hear anything about. | ||
| And I like to know: is there any way we can tell how many people are living in the United States? | ||
| How many people? | ||
| Because people die all the time. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Tracy in Chicago, Illinois, Independent Line. | ||
| Hello, Tracy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, hello. | |
| Okay, so what I want to talk about is that I think that right now we need a reform in our democracy, okay, because it's corrupted on both sides. | ||
| This money, they have been wasting our money from the beginning of time. | ||
| Immigration has been existing, 10 million illegal immigrants every year, you know, from people that didn't get processed or whatever the purpose is. | ||
| So they've been here all the time. | ||
| So, all these issues, we've been real banding to them instead of really working together, you know, not just my way or the highway, you know. | ||
| And the other thing is that if you're going to cut federal the federal deficits, okay, and federal employees, we need to start at the top because there is wasteful spending for the Congress and the Senate, okay? | ||
| And you know, I'm saying it's like one billion or six billion dollars a year. | ||
| They get free fitness clubs off of us of a taxpayers. | ||
| Well, they need a fitness club membership, so they pay $20 and we pay 75% of that, okay? | ||
| Traveling, eating, you know, all kinds of perks. | ||
| They have the highest benefits and salaries. | ||
| So, you know, I guess I don't have that much time. | ||
| But I'm just saying to me, you want to cut our Social Security, our health care, but you're not cutting yours up. | ||
| You're not cutting nothing for you guys. | ||
| And they do, I mean, $6 billion for 545 people. | ||
| I think that's a literal. | ||
| And then Trump, every time he uses that airplane, it's $1 million. | ||
| They go to UFC games, golf. | ||
| You know, I mean, that's wasted. | ||
| So there's waste everywhere. | ||
| There's people stealing everywhere and everything. | ||
| But we need to do this in an organized and professional way. | ||
| And it's not just lay off everybody. | ||
| And, you know, just attack, just attack. | ||
| Here's Bill in Ohio, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I just looking at the big picture here with the whole thing in Ukraine and, you know, with our national debt, we can't afford to be shoveling all this money out there. | ||
| We can't even help our disaster victims in this country due to FEMA funds being used for illegal immigrants. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, there's no money for our people here. | |
| And, you know, it's just ridiculous to me that all that money is going overseas like this right now. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And this is Karen in Nebraska, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Karen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Mimi. | |
| Would you read the post again from President Trump? | ||
| Do you, or tell me again what it said? | ||
| The truth social one about funding, federal funding? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, about the college protests. | |
| Oh, okay. | ||
| So I have it here. | ||
| It says, all federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests. | ||
| Agitators will be imprisoned or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. | ||
| American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. | ||
| No masks. | ||
| Thank you for your attention to this matter. | ||
| What is an illegal pro what does he think an illegal protest is? | ||
| I'm not sure, Karen. | ||
| You're concerned about this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm very concerned about a chipping away at freedom of speech, and that's what a protest is. | |
| And who knows what he would consider illegal? | ||
| I am just terrified that this is going farther and farther. | ||
| We're not being able to protest, not being able to speak up, and being targeted because of what we say. | ||
| I'm terrified. | ||
| Chris in Barr, Vermont, Independent? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Barry, Vermont. | |
| Barry. | ||
| That's okay. | ||
| A lot of people do it. | ||
| I'm calling, I grew up during the Cold War, you know, in the 60s and 70s. | ||
| And I was taught as an American, as a patriot, that Russia was our biggest enemy. | ||
| Communism was our biggest enemy. | ||
| And granted, the Soviet Union fell and they claimed to not be communists, but to be real, they still are. | ||
| It's a monarchy, it's an oligarchy. | ||
| Russia is not our friend. | ||
| They should be treated as our mortal enemy. | ||
| And we're cozying up to them. | ||
| In my opinion, anyone that's cozying up to commies is a commie and a traitor and should be dealt with as thus. | ||
| We should put every resource we have into defending Ukraine against Russia, even if that means putting feet on the ground. | ||
| It's time to make a stand for what's right, for democracy in the world. | ||
| If we truly believe that democracy, and I hear all this spewing from all these politicians about democracy, democracy, democracy, and America is the greatest country, supposedly in the world. | ||
| Well, it's time to show it. | ||
| Time to put the money on the table. | ||
| Time to play our cards and show Russia what this is all about because Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are all cozying up to defeat Europe and the free world in America. | ||
| And we, in my view, we should wake up and put all our resources in that. | ||
| And, you know, you get the Republicans or whomever saying, well, we ought to, you know, we can't spend the money on this. | ||
| We got hungry people here. | ||
| Well, why don't we feed them? | ||
| You know, if they're so concerned, why are they cutting? | ||
| Why do they want to cut SNAP and Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security? | ||
| They care so much about feeding people here. | ||
| Why aren't they? | ||
| It's just the same old garbage. | ||
| So I say, take our money, put Russia in its place, make this place a free world and feed our hungry people. | ||
| And that's about all I have to say. | ||
| And here's David, a Republican in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Good morning, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank God America has Donald Trump and his team in the White House. | ||
| The people elected him to do a job, and he's doing it. | ||
| First of all, when it comes to the Ukraine, $269 billion worth of aid, $100 billion isn't accounted for. | ||
| And that's both in money, $58 billion, and materials, equipment, Humvees, MRAPs, ammunitions. | ||
| That needs to be accounted for. | ||
| And if that isn't accounted for, good. | ||
| He stopped giving money to the Ukraine. | ||
| And when it comes to Social Security and Medicare, they're not kicking anybody off unless they're an illegal alien. | ||
| Joe Biden put on all these illegal $17.5 million plus on supplemental Social Security and gave them Medicaid for their billing. | ||
| They don't deserve it. | ||
| They're not U.S. citizens. | ||
| They haven't paid into it like you and I have over the years and all the other seniors. | ||
| You're not a senior, but we're getting rid of the waste. | ||
| And that's what we need to do. | ||
| And these talk about democracy. | ||
| Democracy is a democratic code word for socialism. | ||
| They want their socialism programs back. | ||
| You know, if you like socialism, donate to that cause. | ||
| Just like they said USAID, all the people they gave money to are enemies of the United States. |