| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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These events all stream live on the free C-SPAN Now video app and online at c-span.org. | |
| Coming up on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | ||
| Then Notice politics reporter Rhys Gorman talks about Tuesday's planned vote on a House Republican measure to fund the government through September 30th. | ||
| And Emily Gee with the Center for American Progress and the Cato Institute's Romina Bacha on federal spending and the Trump administration's economic agenda. | ||
| Also, Rebecca Pincus, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center, discusses President Trump's interest in obtaining Greenland. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| It's Tuesday, March 11th. | ||
| Today, the House is set to vote on the GOP stopgap spending bill to keep the government funded ahead of Friday's deadline. | ||
| It's not clear if Republicans have enough votes to pass it without Democrats. | ||
| We'll hear from a politics reporter on the latest on that, and we'll hear from you. | ||
| You can share your thoughts on the continuing resolution, the prospect of a government shutdown, or other funding-related topics. | ||
| Here are the numbers: Democrats, 202-748-8,000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001, Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can send us a text at 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're glad you're with us. | ||
| We'll start with Reese Gorman. | ||
| He's a politics reporter at Notice. | ||
| Reese, welcome to the program. | ||
| Thanks for having me on. | ||
| So, we're just days away from a government funding deadline. | ||
| Get us up to speed. | ||
| Where do things stand right now? | ||
| Yeah, so right now, Republicans in the House have a purely kind of partisan bill that they're putting on the floor to kind of fund the government. | ||
| This cuts spending, this increased some spending to the feds programs, increased spending to kind of ICE agents. | ||
| But outside of that, it cuts a lot of spending, cuts some programs, allows for no kind of earmarks, which are these projects that members of Congress can request to be included in a funding bill. | ||
| And so, you're going to see a lot, you're going to see a lot of that kind of coming in. | ||
| Johnson's plan really is to pass this solely with Republican votes. | ||
| He's not counting on Democrats. | ||
| Right now, the only hard no is Representative Thomas Massey from Kentucky. | ||
| You have some other people that are on the fence, but Trump is even going all in on this bill. | ||
| JD Vance will be on the Hill today to kind of whip this bill in the GOP conference. | ||
| Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth talked to Representative Tim Burchett over the weekend about kind of government waste, fraud, and abuse, and spending, which is a big concern of Burchett. | ||
| And then, Trump is even personally calling members of Congress who are on the fence, trying to sway them to get over to the yes category and vote for this funding bill. | ||
| Or if they can't fund the government, if this bill fails, right now there's no plan B. | ||
| They don't really have another option other than what people that I've talked to, Republicans I've talked to, said their option really is just to blame Democrats if, in fact, they do not fund the government. | ||
| But I mean, if you look at it, Republicans have a trifecta. | ||
| So, Reese, let's go back to what's actually in the bill. | ||
| There's a decrease in domestic spending by $13 billion. | ||
| And you said that there would be programs that are cut. | ||
| Do we know what programs are being cut? | ||
| I mean, yeah, I mean, we're looking at the cut some funding to kind of just to, I mean, obviously, USAID kind of loses a little bit of funding in there. | ||
| They take out some of these earmarked programs. | ||
| They kind of really just take these programs that people had requested previously in December and last year's government funding program, and they take some of those projects out. | ||
| It's mostly just for more local community projects that are funded through kind of government spending bills, and they take those back in a way so that it doesn't attack. | ||
| What happened in December was Elon Musk came out and really attacked some of these programs that are included in that funding bill, which, as you saw, what happened, Johnson was lost a job for. | ||
| They wanted to avoid that, so they took that out and they kind of took those projects out. | ||
| And what about Ukraine funding? | ||
| Because that was included last fiscal year. | ||
| What about, is it in this continuing resolution? | ||
| It's not in this continuing resolution. | ||
| That was basically funded through a supplemental last year. | ||
| That was not funded in a government funding bill. | ||
| So all this does is just solely keep the government open. | ||
| It just kind of keeps the appropriations going. | ||
| So that was never in kind of the omnibus appropriations bill that we saw. | ||
| That was a separate supplemental. | ||
| And so this is kind of separate from that. | ||
| So this is different. | ||
| And you mentioned that Speaker Johnson isn't sure that he has all Republicans on board. | ||
| Representative Massey has said no. | ||
| So he can't lose any other Republicans. | ||
| What about Democrats? | ||
| Are they united in voting against this bill? | ||
| Right now, they seem pretty united. | ||
| No Democrats come out and said yes, they will, in fact, vote for this bill. | ||
| And if, but so, if all of them do vote against, you can only afford to lose Thomas Nassey. | ||
| Now, I know Johnson and House leadership are kind of betting on some Democrats voting for this bill as well. | ||
| They do believe that they could probably pull off a handful, maybe a couple of the more blue dog, moderate Democrats, people that are vulnerable that don't want to get challenged on this come the midterms. | ||
| But right now, it looks like they're kind of holding firm. | ||
| I know leader Hakeem Jefferson is kind of they're whipping against the bill. | ||
| He's asked people not to vote for this bill. | ||
| So right now, it really does seem like the earnest of all the Republicans to put forward the votes. | ||
| And Thomas Massey right now is a hard no. | ||
| And what are they saying is the reason they want to vote no on this continuing resolution? | ||
| Because Democrats really want a short-term bill. | ||
| I mean, House Appropriation Chair Rose DeLaura wanted more of a short-term, four or five-week bill that would allow them to then finish the appropriation process relatively quickly. | ||
| They also wanted to include in the CR some of these measures to kind of tie the hands of Donald Trump and Elon Musk to where they can't hire and fire employees, federal employees at will, where they have to go through more of kind of a, they have to get approval from Congress. | ||
| They can't just cut spending without the approval of Congress. | ||
| And they wanted to kind of tie the hands of Donald Trump and kind of put that stuff in there. | ||
| And Republicans, both appropriators and leadership, this is a non-starter for them. | ||
| They said, we're not going to do this. | ||
| This is not something that's going to happen. | ||
| And so they would, they realized that without that, Democrats weren't going to get along with the bill. | ||
| So they decided themselves just to kind of go and go their own way and try to pass the solar to Republicans. | ||
| But in the Senate, even though if you could pass it with Republicans only in the house of the Senate, you still need 60 votes. | ||
| So the Senate is really where the challenge is going to be. | ||
| And that's going to have to have to happen before Friday. | ||
| And also, there's really been no Senate Democrat that's come out and said they're going to vote for this bill, but you're going to need at least seven of them. | ||
| Well, hold on, look. | ||
| Before we talk about the Senate, I just want to remind people that we are taking calls as soon as we're done with Reese Gorman. | ||
| You can go ahead and start calling in now and we will come to your calls. | ||
| So let's talk about first, could this vote that's supposed to happen today, could it be delayed or is it pretty sure to be happening today? | ||
| And what's and about what time do you think that they'll start voting? | ||
| Theoretically, yes. | ||
| I mean, it could be delayed. | ||
| But the odds are not high that it will be because, I mean, I know House Democrats are going on their retreat tomorrow. | ||
| And so I guess the latest they could vote is tomorrow, unless Democrats want to prolong their or kind of push back the retreat to maybe Thursday or Friday. | ||
| But what you're, I do think the House leadership, actually, I know for the House leadership is very confident they could pass this bill today. | ||
| They believe that they could get everyone on board. | ||
| They see Massey as the only hard no, and they do not see the other people who are kind of like on the fence, whether it be Beth Van Dyne, Tat Kamick, Tim Burchett, Corey Mills, whoever. | ||
| They do not view them as hard no's. | ||
| They believe that these people can be kind of won over and swayed back to the yes category. | ||
| Okay, so if it does pass, it goes to the Senate. | ||
| And what are we looking at in terms of who, as far as all the Republicans are on board, who are the Democrats that might be swayed? | ||
| What are you thinking there? | ||
| So in the Senate, you're going to need 60 votes. | ||
| And right now, obviously, Republicans have 60 votes in the Senate. | ||
| Rand Paul has kind of, as kind of alluded to, that he's a no on this bill right now. | ||
| And so if you take that, you're going to need about seven to eight Democrats to vote for this bill itself. | ||
| And not a single Democrat has come out and said they support it. | ||
| Actually, quite the opposite. | ||
| A lot of Democrats who you would believe that might not want to shut down the government have said they're against this bill because of how partisan it is. | ||
| And Elon Musk really isn't helping either. | ||
| The type of Democrat, Mark Kelly, who would usually vote for a funny bill like this, Elon Musk took to action yesterday and called him a traitor for going to Ukraine. | ||
| And so the admin itself is not really helping their case and getting this bill over the finish line because they're going to need Democrats. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, Reese Gorman, Notice, politics reporter. | ||
| You can find his work at notice.org. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us this morning. | ||
| Thanks for having me on. | ||
| And we are talking about that funding bill, the continuing resolution. | ||
| It is set to be voted on today in the House and will continue funding up until September 30th, which is the end of the fiscal year. | ||
| And we'll get your input on that. | ||
| Here's Robert in Mesquite, Texas. | ||
| Democrat, good morning, Robert. | ||
|
unidentified
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I think Democrats should not help Republicans pass this bill. | |
| We do not know what's in it. | ||
| And I would like to know is there anything in it that's going to hurt any school kids about the food the kids get? | ||
| Plus, is there anything in it that may affect Medicaid? | ||
| Not Medicare, Medicaid. | ||
| Nobody knows what it is. | ||
| And they let Trump and his cronies do whatever they want to do by themselves. | ||
| But they're not doing anything. | ||
| I have to say one thing Trump and them talking about doing that is going to help ordinary people. | ||
| Everything about millionaires, billionaires, and how much money we're going to make. | ||
| He said we. | ||
| I mean, I won't get any because I'm on fixed income. | ||
| And I'm making it pretty decent. | ||
| Although he's in there and I would have done real good on the Biden. | ||
| But they need to let them do it theirself. | ||
| So whatever happens, happens. | ||
| But they're not going to do nothing for ordinary people. | ||
| And people better wake up and understand. | ||
| He haven't said one thing out of the whole two months he's been in there. | ||
| What are he going to do for you? | ||
| He lied to get in there. | ||
| And I definitely don't believe that he actually won the election. | ||
| I believe some kind of way they've done something cut people off that was trying to vote, purge a lot of people to let Trump get back in. | ||
| Because how could you turn him down one election? | ||
| He turned around and put him right back in there with all the faults he had. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here's James in Rome, Georgia, Independent. | ||
| Hi, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I think everyone should vote against this bill. | ||
| All these bills are about fascism to take over the United States government. | ||
| What you're looking at is Elon Musk. | ||
| They're letting him in. | ||
| He's not going to get out. | ||
| He's going to be able to blackmail and hold the United States hostage. | ||
| There will never be an election. | ||
| He's also got military contracts where he can give this information to Russia, China, or even other countries. | ||
| He's also in the governmental system for Social Security and different type of stuff where he could use it to discriminate against people with his AI and have voters that don't vote for Donald Trump or Republicans. | ||
| He could have their finances and stuff cut off. | ||
| All this with Elon Musk, the government must be shut down. | ||
| They must stop this. | ||
| That most common court order to get these people out of these systems. | ||
| Elon Musk is a fraud. | ||
| He's taking all this money and Trump. | ||
| They're also stealing money from the treasury transfer. | ||
| They're the ones stealing the money. | ||
| No one is stealing the money. | ||
| These billionaires, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, they're having a field day with the treasury. | ||
| It needs to be audited right now. | ||
| The Democrats need to go at it. | ||
| And everyone is Democrats that vote for this bill need to get out of office and need to be primarily. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And here is Ronald on the Republican line in Kaplan, Louisiana. | ||
| Hi, Ronald. | ||
| Ronald, you got to turn down your TV. | ||
| Yep. | ||
|
unidentified
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I did. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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This guy, this guy got something with Elon Don. | |
| I want to let everybody know that the government shuts down. | ||
| All this is all these lies about you not getting your Social Security check or you get your VA deals and all this and that. | ||
| That part of the government does not shut down. | ||
| And let me explain you something. | ||
| Social Security is a self-entity. | ||
| You talking to me? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| No, I'm not talking to you. | ||
| I'm listening. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Anyway. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Was that all you wanted to say, Ronald? | ||
|
unidentified
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No, but Social Security is a self-enty. | |
| Everybody worries about not getting their Social Security money. | ||
| They're going to get it. | ||
| Nothing stops that. | ||
| Only thing that shuts down are parks. | ||
| And that really don't stop the message. | ||
| They stop from going in. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Because those people don't work. | ||
| But they can work if they want to. | ||
| Nothing that the government stops. | ||
| So, because they're going to have a lot of trouble getting the 60 votes in the Senate. | ||
| They're going to get it in the House today. | ||
| It's going to be in the Senate. | ||
| They're going to have trouble. | ||
| So you're thinking the government will shut down? | ||
|
unidentified
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I have time for one more thing. | |
| Yep. | ||
|
unidentified
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Last week, I had some articles that were talking about the best way I can say this about how people were looking at Trump. | |
| It will give him percentages. | ||
| I think it was political and action or something like that. | ||
| your headquarters uh you can't you can't you can't you can put it y'all can put out 10 different polls and that'd be all different Okay. | ||
| And right now, right now, Trump's got a high popularity with the American people. | ||
| It's like almost 80%. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, Ronald, let's take a look at what Hakeem Jeffries said yesterday about the short-term funding bill. | ||
| He's the House Minority Leader. | ||
| Here he is. | ||
| Republicans temporarily control the House, the Senate, and the presidency. | ||
| Instead of using their majority to make life better for the American people, Donald Trump and House Republicans are crashing the economy and hurting hard-working American families. | ||
| And now, extreme MAGA Republicans want to shut down the government. | ||
| The House Republican so-called spending bill does nothing to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. | ||
| Quite the opposite. | ||
| The Republican bill dramatically cuts health care, nutritional assistance for children and families, and veterans' benefits. | ||
| It is not something we could ever support. | ||
| House Democrats will not be complicit in the Republican effort to hurt the American people. | ||
| And this is Fox News that says this. | ||
| Trump presses GOP rebels ahead of critical government shutdown vote. | ||
| It says that President Trump is making calls on Monday, that's yesterday, to potential holdouts on a plan to avoid a government shutdown at the end of this week. | ||
| It says three sources have said Trump World is making calls to Capitol Hill ahead of the late Tuesday afternoon vote. | ||
| And by the way, we will be, obviously, we'll have the House on C-SPAN, so stay with the C-SPAN networks to watch all of that unfolding. | ||
| And this is Betsy, North Carolina, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Betsy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for taking my call. | |
| I'm a retired advanced placement government teacher, and I worked and paid into Social Security for 52 years. | ||
| So I do feel like I am entitled to something. | ||
| We should not, as Democrats, support this bill. | ||
| This is the only way we can coerce some kind of cooperation from a treasonous president, a president who lies, and you can tell when he lies because his mouth is moving. | ||
| He has done nothing to help Americans. | ||
| He is going out of his way to create chaos and insecurity in the population. | ||
| He is a bad person. | ||
| So, Betsy, what do you think the reason would be? | ||
| Like, why would he want to be creating chaos? | ||
|
unidentified
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Because he enjoys it. | |
| He is mentally ill. | ||
| He gets a kick out of being in the media all the time, creating a commotion. | ||
| Sorry, I thought you were done. | ||
| Here's Vinny, a Republican in Hyannis, Massachusetts. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi there. | |
| My name is Vinny from Hannes, Massachusetts. | ||
| Hope everybody's having a good morning. | ||
| So the GAP government funding, House vote, it's crazy. | ||
| I mean, my experience personally, it made my wife, some kind of me mad. | ||
| She threw the indicator on the ground, and I had to go stay with my friend Brian. | ||
| My name's Bertie. | ||
| Mark in Philadelphia on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for taking my call. | |
| This to me is a no-brainer. | ||
| Shut it down. | ||
| Shut it down. | ||
| Democrats don't go along with anything, especially in the Senate. | ||
| You know, Johnson's talking about the Schumer shutdown. | ||
| Yeah, sure. | ||
| You know, the Democrats, Mimi, have a 21% approval rating. | ||
| I mean, what do they have to lose here if they shut down the government? | ||
| Their approval rating is already in the ditch. | ||
| So shut it, have Schumer in the Senate, shut it down, have it shut down, and then demand, one, that Doge and Musk go. | ||
| And number two, that Trump stops this, where he's not spending the money that Congress allocates. | ||
| He's been doing that. | ||
| Lay that out. | ||
| Now, I don't know, you know, of course, Trump will not eliminate Doge, but maybe the other thing we'll get, in other words, bargaining position. | ||
| And at the end of the day, Trump and the Republicans will get blamed for this shutdown. | ||
| So I say, shut it down for as long as it takes to get something. | ||
| The Democrats have Trump and the Republicans over a barrel. | ||
| Let's do it. | ||
| All right, Mark. | ||
| And let's take a look at Chip Roy. | ||
| He's a Republican, a key fiscal hawk, and appropriations chair Tom Cole at yesterday's Rules Committee meeting expressing their support for the stopgap measure. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Appreciate it. | |
| I think this is a responsible step forward. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I know, look, I've got some on my kind of more moderate flank and my conservative flank that have concerns. | |
| And a lot of people have said, well, you know, we're moving a full-year funding and continuing resolution. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's not how we should do business. | |
| Well, I think the chairman of appropriations would agree. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| I would agree, right? | ||
| That's not. | ||
| We would like to have 12 appropriations bills. | ||
| But we didn't get it done. | ||
| And we didn't get it done in significant part because the Senate refused to pass a single appropriations bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So here we are, and we're trying to clean up that mess. | |
| And now we can move forward with this bill, hold spending roughly flat, be able to advance the cause for our defense, be able to advance the cause to be able to move the appropriations bills for this year. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Funding's up for veterans. | |
| Funding's, we've got the extension in for crop insurance. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We don't have any earmarks in there for better or worse. | |
| Some of us think that's a good thing, some less so. | ||
| And we've got a reduction, to the best of my understanding, in some of the IRS expansion, a lot of things that are priorities. | ||
| I think this is a big step forward, and we should now focus on FY26 to get the appropriations bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I appreciate the testimony of the job. | |
| I would add, if I may, we don't do this, it shuts down. | ||
| You tell me how that's better. | ||
| And whatever your individual concerns are here or there in the bill, fair enough. | ||
| But you tell me how government shutdown for no purpose at all to achieve no objective that I can see is better for the American people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just think it's not. | |
| And we are taking your calls this morning. | ||
| You can give us a call. | ||
| Our lines are open. | ||
| So Democrats are on 202748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202748-8002. | ||
| We're talking about the GOP funding bill that is set to be voted on today in the House Stay with the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| On that, here is Axios. | ||
| House Democrats whip no on GOP plan to avoid government shutdown. | ||
| It says that leaders are urging their members to oppose the stopgap spending bill Republicans plan to bring to the floor Tuesday. | ||
| That's today. | ||
| According to AIDS, this raises the likelihood that the government could shut down on March 14th. | ||
| Wonder what you think about that. | ||
| And we'll hear from Calvin, who is in New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| It seems strange to me that Mr. Trump wants the government to pass a bill. | ||
| When he was running for election, he didn't want, he wanted the government to shut down. | ||
| So now that he's in Bitcoin, where he can take bribes from overseas, I guess he doesn't mind the bill being shut down. | ||
| And here is Kent in Erie, Illinois, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Kent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| When I hear Hakeem Jeffrey speak, it reminds me of an old, I think it's an Arab saying, where the dogs bark, but the caravan passes. | ||
| What Trump is trying to do is maybe keep the country out of bankruptcy. | ||
| And he's got one of the smartest people in America trying to help. | ||
| And it's a terrible thing. | ||
| Every time the Democrats talk about Musk or in his billionaire Musk, billionaire Musk, it's like when the Democrats are little teaching her children to talk, they say, now the first thing you learn is no tax breaks for the billionaires. | ||
| What they're trying to do with this government, with this bill, is there's a terrible amount of waste and fraud, and people all oversell their food stamps so they can buy drugs and try and get some of this stuff corralled into where the country can survive. | ||
| And all the Democrats can do is just talk about their own personal things. | ||
| Whatever the Democrats call in, it's never the country. | ||
| It's never the country they're concerned with. | ||
| It's always, well, I'm spending so much money on eggs and all this. | ||
| For four years, these people were silent while tens of millions of people come into the country and change the paradigm of our country. | ||
| They have nothing to say about that. | ||
| So how could anybody in their good right mind listen to these Democrats now and they say, well, Trump's doing it for money? | ||
| Hell, if Trump buys a Pepsi, he can't buy any better Pepsi than I can buy. | ||
| What would he do with all this money if he had it? | ||
| It's everything with the Democrats is, well, the Republicans are billionaires. | ||
| They're doing everything for the billionaires. | ||
| The biggest percentage of people that benefited from the Trump tax cuts are the lower income people. | ||
| Should they not renew the Trump tax cuts? | ||
| All these morons that call in and talk about tax cuts for billionaires are going to find out that the biggest percentage of the tax cuts that Trump gave were to lower people on the income scale. | ||
| Now, type that up on your thing and see if I'm lying. | ||
| All right, Kent. | ||
| And this is the front page of the Wall Street Journal about the stock market. | ||
| It says the market plunges, recession worries spread. | ||
| It says a new round of recession fears rattled markets on Monday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down 890 points, eroding Wall Street consensus that U.S. stocks would be among this year's biggest winners. | ||
| It says worries about a trade war, signs of flagging growth, and splinters in the artificial intelligence trade have taken some of the shine off that optimism. | ||
| President Trump declined over the weekend to rule out a recession this year, setting off a fresh wave of declines in U.S. stocks. | ||
| And he was interviewed by Fox News on Sunday and talked about the possibility of recession. | ||
| Here he is. | ||
| Look, I know that you inherited a mess. | ||
| I've only been here too much. | ||
| But are you expecting a recession this year? | ||
| I hate to predict things like that. | ||
| There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. | ||
| We're bringing wealth back to America. | ||
| That's a big thing. | ||
| And there are always periods of it takes a little time. | ||
| It takes a little time. | ||
| But I think it should be great for us. | ||
| I mean, I think it should be great. | ||
| It's going to be great ultimately for the farmer. | ||
| You know, don't forget I made the deal with China on a farmers who had it by $50 billion worth of product. | ||
| $50 billion from $15 to $50. | ||
| Did they happen to it? | ||
| They did it when I was president. | ||
| What happened is when Biden was president, they didn't buy any longer. | ||
| Yeah, because there was nobody to call them. | ||
| I used to call President Xi. | ||
| I said, you got to do me a favor. | ||
| You've got to, you know, live up to that agreement. | ||
| And he was great. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He did. | |
| Before you came into the Oval Office the first time, you were a very successful businessman, very successful real estate executive. | ||
| And a lot of people said, oh, this is the business president. | ||
| This is it. | ||
| He's watching the stock market. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He knows all about, you know, he doesn't want the market to go down. | |
| And now we've got tariffs and the market has been going down. | ||
| Well, not much. | ||
| I mean, in all fairness. | ||
| You said, look, we're going to have a disruption, but we're okay with that. | ||
| Is that what you meant? | ||
| The stock market going down was the disruption. | ||
| What other disruption were you alluding to? | ||
| Look, what I have to do is build a strong country. | ||
| You can't really watch the stock market. | ||
| If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective. | ||
| We have a quarter, we go by quarters. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's true. | |
| And you can't go by that. | ||
| You have to do what's right. | ||
| And back to the phones to Monique in Washington, D.C. Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, Hi. | |
| I have two quick comments, two quick comments. | ||
| My first one is to the guy in Illinois. | ||
| Trump taxes under Trump taxes. | ||
| Me and my husband have been writing a check to the federal government and our local state for the past three years under that tax bracket, under that tax code that Trump created. | ||
| We have been writing a check to the federal government and our local city government. | ||
| And the reason why I'm calling is I am a D.C. resident, and I'm behooved because Congress is trying to force the District of Columbia to make a $1 billion cut to our budget when we don't have to. | ||
| D.C. paid more in federal dollars than 21 states. | ||
| We are not a part of the federal government. | ||
| Our budget does not coincide with anything that is going on up in the hills. | ||
| We earn and spend our own money, and yet we do not have a vote in the Congress or the Senate. | ||
| I don't know why they're trying to break anything that is good. | ||
| The city takes care of itself. | ||
| I don't understand how they're going to force us to cut public safety, education, and housing when we don't have to. | ||
| Our budget has been balanced for 28 consecutive periods. | ||
| Mayor Bowder have done an amazing job with this city, just like President Trump just said on the on his, just like President Trump just said, it takes time. | ||
| Give it time. | ||
| The District of Columbia, we have come from the worst possible situations from the crack pandemic to immigration to everything else. | ||
| And our mayor has done everything possibly that she could have to bring our city to where it is today. | ||
| And she's still working on it. | ||
| But how can you force us to cut $1 billion from our budget when we don't have to? | ||
| Our budget is balanced and paid for. | ||
| Leave us alone. | ||
| Okay, so Monique, I want to share what you're talking about to get everybody up to speed. | ||
| Here's the Washington Examiner. | ||
| Stopgap funding bill would cut D.C. budget by $1 billion. | ||
| It says that the continuing resolution would treat Washington's budget like a government agency's, rolling back discretionary funding. | ||
| It would also break with 20 years of precedent. | ||
| Since 2004, Congress has allowed Washington to maintain its budget levels without disruption if a stopgap funding bill needed to be passed. | ||
| And it is here is D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser talking about how the short-term CR would impact D.C.'s budget. | ||
| Here she is. | ||
| Our budget was balanced and approved. | ||
| And if we go back to fiscal 2024 levels, we would be forced to reduce spending by $1.1 billion in only six months. | ||
| But here is why we're here today, because Congress can fix this. | ||
| They can fix this $1.1 billion problem that we have brought to their attention in the draft CR. | ||
| The Congress can add the language back to the continuing resolution, the same language that's been there for the past two continuing resolutions that authorize us to spend our locally generated revenue according to our own approved budget and timeline. | ||
| And I want to emphasize the local part of that statement. | ||
| The District of Columbia raises and spends its own money, just like every other state. | ||
| So remember that the budget we're talking about, this budget, the approved FY25 budget, was introduced by me and approved by this council. | ||
| It focuses on three main areas: public safety, public education, and economic growth. | ||
| Disrupting those investments won't be good for DC or our country. | ||
| And we are taking your calls until the for about another half an hour. | ||
| Here's Mark in Hamlin, Texas, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This may be out there in different. | |
| I'm not into politics, but what I'm seeing is a destruction of the White House in our country. | ||
| What I'm trying to say is that we're not looking at the fact that maybe Donald Trump has another agenda completely with bringing these people into the House, tearing our government down. | ||
| Maybe he has what he's done four years ago and attacking the White House is my point. | ||
| I'm not into politics at all, but what I'm seeing is just a totally different agenda. | ||
| What I've been looking at, he might be having something way out of line that we're not even aware of yet that he's up to. | ||
| Don't even know if that's part. | ||
| I'm sorry, my phone's breaking up. | ||
| If that's the case or not, but why aren't we even looking at that? | ||
| This guy, and I'm not having anything against the guy, but it looks like that. | ||
| This is totally unorthodox for what I'm used to seeing when I turn the news on. | ||
| That's all. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| On the Republican line in Decatur, Alabama. | ||
| Audrey, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mamie. | |
| How are you this morning? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm very pleased with it because I called in a couple of months ago and talked to you about how we're six months into the fiscal year already. | |
| And then if you give them a full budget, then, you know, they get one and a half times the money. | ||
| No, no. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'm very pleased. | |
| But remember, I told you. | ||
| Yeah, it doesn't work that way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, but I'm pleased that it's going to extend for six months. | |
| And it has $500 million in it per WIC. | ||
| And it's got money for the PACT Act, not as much as we hoped for, but it does have money. | ||
| D.C. was cut because they had the inauguration money in there last year. | ||
| And Virginia Fox gave y'all a shout out yesterday in the budget committee. | ||
| And Tom Cole and Rosa DeLauria really explained what's in H.R. 1968, which is the continuing resolution. | ||
| And it doesn't cut Medicare, Medicaid, anything like that. | ||
| They also went over a bill that would extend looking for those people that got unemployment during the pandemic for 10 years because the statute of limitation was running out in 17 days. | ||
| So I would suggest people should watch the budget committee and get more about this because all it is is like if we were getting a bridge in the 5th district of Alabama, then the bridge wouldn't be in there this time. | ||
| So that accounts for a lot of the cuts is what pork they put in it. | ||
| The only thing I'm worried about is we're going to have to put the pork back in it in the Senate to get enough votes. | ||
| So hopefully the government won't shut down. | ||
| But 90% of the VA employees are essential. | ||
| So I shouldn't have an interruption in, you know, where I go to the doctor and stuff. | ||
| But I thank you, and you have a very blessed day. | ||
| All right, you too, Audrey. | ||
| And Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky posted this on X on Sunday. | ||
| He said, unless I get a lobotomy Monday that causes me to forget what I've witnessed the past 12 years, I'll be a no on the CR this week. | ||
| It amazes me that my colleagues and many of the public fall for the lie that we will fight another day. | ||
| And then this is what President Trump put out on Truth Social about Congressman Tom Massey. | ||
| He says, of beautiful Kentucky is an automatic no vote on just about everything, despite the fact that he has always voted for continuing resolutions in the past. | ||
| All caps, he should be primaried, and I will lead the charge against him. | ||
| He's just another grandstander who's too much trouble and not worth the fight. | ||
| And here is Sharon calling from Oregon, Line for Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I wanted to kind of, I'm one of those, and please bear with me. | |
| I've got a couple things. | ||
| I'm one of those moron Democrats. | ||
| I deal with numbers. | ||
| In the last tax cut that that Republican referred to, if you earned less than $30,000, you got $110 back. | ||
| If you earned between $2,700 and $100,000, you averaged $700,000 back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
If you earned over $370,000, you got $12,000 back. | |
| If you were the top 1%, you got $220,000 back. | ||
| It was, and that's what this is all about. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He, in his inauguration, behind him were billionaires. | |
| All those guys want this tax cut. | ||
| This continuing resolution isn't about funding the country. | ||
| It's about getting that tax cut through because once it goes through, we're already trillion. | ||
| The last time it put us trillions in debt, it'll add to the debt. | ||
| And then that will give an automatic reason for cutting Social Security, Medicare, et cetera, that are big spending bills. | ||
| On the backs, the rich will get their tax cut, and then it'll be, wow, the debt's imploding. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We've got to cut Medicare. | |
| We've got to cut Medicaid. | ||
| Elon Musk said yesterday that Social Security was not needed. | ||
| It should be wiped out. | ||
| That it was an entitlement that just needs to go away. | ||
| They tell you ahead of time, he told you he wanted this tax cut ahead of time. | ||
| He tells you ahead of time, people don't listen and believe it. | ||
| But you can see what's happening. | ||
| They're cutting little things in the government. | ||
| Those things aren't going to amount. | ||
| Those little things, the things he's cut so far, that's a drop in the bucket. | ||
| That's a teardrop in a bucket of tears to get us in line. | ||
| And if you add big benefits, tax cuts for the billionaires, Bezos paying nothing, Elon Musk paying nothing, those people pay nothing. | ||
| You're not balancing the budget. | ||
| Massey is actually an honest man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He says, I'm not going to vote for a bill that gives tax cuts when we have debt. | |
| He's actually doing what Ted Cruz and Biggs and all those other guys railed when the Democrats were in. | ||
| But they lied. | ||
| Very quickly. | ||
| Sharon, let me show what Elon Musk said about entitlements. | ||
| This is Bloomberg reporting. | ||
| Musk says entitlements, quote, big one to cut in Trump's Doge push. | ||
| It says that billionaire presidential advisor Elon Musk called entitlement spending, including Social Security and Medicare, a key target for cuts, arguing the federal programs are plagued by fraud. | ||
| Musk, who is guiding President Donald Trump's government downsizing effort, said Monday that entitlements with annual budgets of hundreds of billions of dollars were ripe for steep reductions. | ||
| He made unproven claims about benefits, including that Democrats use them to, quote, attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters. | ||
| He also said there are widespread payments to dead people. | ||
| And here is Scott, Republican, Rainier, Oregon. | ||
| Hi, Scott. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, whoa, okay. | |
| From listening, okay, the last time Trump was in office, I was living in Portland, Oregon. | ||
| And before COVID hit, everybody, all the Democrats, all the riots and everything. | ||
| But before COVID hit, everybody I knew started to say, wow, look how good everything's going. | ||
| Trump's actually pretty badass. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Now, Donald Trump, he was a badass. | ||
| He's a workaholic. | ||
| Elon Musk, he's the richest guy on the planet. | ||
| He's got all the space X or whatever you call it. | ||
| He's got spaceships. | ||
| He does all kinds of stuff. | ||
| He's a genius. | ||
| And do you think they're going to go in there and screw things up and make them themselves look like idiots? | ||
| No. | ||
| They're going to run the country like a business. | ||
| And everybody's going to go, oh, my God, they are badass, aren't they? | ||
| And that's what I'm doing. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| John in District Heights, Maryland, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, John. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Listen, ever since Ronald Reagan, they've had that trickle-down theory, trickle-down theory. | ||
| They give the money to the rich and expect for the rich to trickle it down to take care of it. | ||
| I have not heard not one Republican or one Democrat talk about the poor people of this nation. | ||
| The fourth cause of death in this country today is poverty. | ||
| You don't hear Trump. | ||
| You don't hear the Democrats. | ||
| None of them talking about poverty. | ||
| They're always talking about the middle class. | ||
| But the middle class is okay. | ||
| It's the people at the bottom that I'm talking about. | ||
| These ones calling here now. | ||
| These poor white folks calling here now. | ||
| They don't understand. | ||
| They really don't understand. | ||
| They are being led by Donald Trump because he's a bigot. | ||
| That's the first president ever seen in my life come on detached national television and brag about his bigotry, brag about it. | ||
| And the Republican Party stood there and applauded it. | ||
| These people don't care nothing about you poor whites, poor blacks, or nothing. | ||
| All the thing they want to do is stay in power. | ||
| And Donald Trump, that man is mentally ill. | ||
| The man is a convicted felon, but still yet he's trying to talk about law and order. | ||
| It's a shame and the scandal. | ||
| Now, when Hannity questioned Donald Trump and he questioned Elon Musk about Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, Hannity asked them twice. | ||
| They said no. | ||
| Now, where is Hannity holding Donald Trump accountable for what he said on that program that he had? | ||
| I was watching it. | ||
| But these people better wake up. | ||
| It's called Trickle Down Theory. | ||
| That's what's going to happen. | ||
| Let me say one more thing. | ||
| NIH saved my life. | ||
| It literally saved my life. | ||
| I wish you'd have a program for the people who NIH have saved their life. | ||
| I had an operation, eight-hour operation on me. | ||
| Nobody else could do it. | ||
| They're killing that. | ||
| Schools. | ||
| My father could not read or write because the education system was in the state of South Carolina. | ||
| It was so bigot. | ||
| My grandmother could not read and write. | ||
| I was raised in a home, but people could not read. | ||
| I'm 80 years old. | ||
| Thank you, ma'am. | ||
| Caleb is in Grandview, Texas, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, everyone. | |
| I just wanted to discuss. | ||
| Jim in Delaware County, New York, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Yeah, about the in December when they had the balanced budget and all that stuff, and they wanted Trump wanted to raise the ceiling, the debt ceiling. | ||
| And the only one in the Republican Party who said anything was Chip Roy, which was a complete surprise. | ||
| And he mentioned that they're going to do it a trickle-down, which they know it doesn't work, and all it does is add debt. | ||
| Now, here it is, so many months later, and they want to do it again, so they give all the money to Millie and Billy. | ||
| What sense does that make? | ||
| Now, on the other hand, all you Republicans that watch Fox News, you don't know what's going on. | ||
| I talked to a friend of mine who is a devout Republican, and I said that Mr. Trump said that Zelensky started the war. | ||
| He said, no, he didn't. | ||
| I said, they won't show that on Fox. | ||
| So there's got to be a little, you know, evenness going on so everybody knows what's going on. | ||
| It's all right, Jim. | ||
| Well, let's take a look at Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. | ||
| He was on the floor of the Senate on Monday talking about trade and tariffs. | ||
| For my colleagues who are protectionists, I think that when it comes to the issue of trade, we need less of Peter Navarro and more of Adam Smith. | ||
| I think the certainty that comes with trade policy will benefit our economy the most. | ||
| Hopefully we don't have a government shutdown this week. | ||
| I want my colleagues to remember that it costs money to shut down the government, costs money to open the government up. | ||
| There's even some money being wasted this week as bureaucrats plan for a possible shutdown. | ||
| And the government is supposed to be servicing the American people. | ||
| And you can't serve the American people if government is not functioning. | ||
| And back to the phones to Thomas, a Republican in New Jersey. | ||
| Hi, Thomas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, how are you doing? | |
| I just listen to your show all the time. | ||
| And it's nothing but everyone close in with fake stuff. | ||
| It's hilarious how people create these stories of this guy's no good or this guy's great. | ||
| This lady's fantastic. | ||
| This lady's horrible. | ||
| It's all fake stories. | ||
| It's really, to me, it's a comedy show, and that's why I listen to it. | ||
| I sit here doing my laundry, and it is just hilarious the stories that come out of this channel. | ||
| There's nothing true. | ||
| 90% of it's all fake. | ||
| So listen, good luck with everyone's life. | ||
| Save your money and try your best. | ||
| Bye-bye now. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Kathy in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Kathy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm really worried. | ||
| I'm 75 years old. | ||
| I am very worried about what's going to happen with Social Security and Medicare. | ||
| I rely on Social Security. | ||
| I have no other source of income. | ||
| I live in a complex where my rent is reduced based on my income. | ||
| My rent is not going to go down enough if I end up with no Social Security. | ||
| We have to stop fighting amongst ourselves. | ||
| This guy's got to stop. | ||
| I got my first job when I was 14 years old. | ||
| I lied about my birth date in order to qualify to work in the state of Illinois at that time. | ||
| I worked 40 hours a week at the age of 14. | ||
| I paid into Social Security for over 50 years. | ||
| I don't think I should have to go to bed every night worried about whether or not I'm going to have income. | ||
| They need to stop torturing elderly people. | ||
| Thank you so much for your time. | ||
| Bye-bye. | ||
| And here's CJ in Florida, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, CJ. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm just calling in to just express my feelings also. | ||
| I feel that everybody has taken the situation as a sporting event. | ||
| I believe that there is no more, hey, you have your opinion, I have my opinion, and whoever we vote in is who we vote in in this generation, since the past now decade, I want to say. | ||
| It's been a sporting event. | ||
| I feel that Republicans, not all, but majority of MAGA Republicans have treated this as a football game and winning something that honestly the world is seeing, plus us here in the United States is seeing that we lost. | ||
| Inflation is coming. | ||
| Analysts is telling us it's coming, but yet they decide to have that win. | ||
| And I don't understand. | ||
| Well, CJ, speaking of other countries, Canada has a new prime minister, Mark Carney, and this is part of his victory speech that he gave on Sunday. | ||
| Take a look. | ||
| There's someone who's trying to weaken our economy. | ||
| Donald Trump. | ||
| Donald Trump. | ||
| And Donald Trump, as we know, has put, as the Prime Minister just said, unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we make a living. | ||
| He's attacking Canadian families, workers, and businesses. | ||
| And we cannot let him succeed. | ||
| And we won't. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We won't. | |
| I am proud. | ||
| I am proud of the response of Canadians who are making their voices heard and their wallets felt. | ||
| I am grateful for how our provinces are stepping up to the fight because when we are united, we are Canada strong. | ||
| The Canadian government has rightly retaliated and is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impact here in Canada. | ||
| My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect. | ||
| It's the new Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, and this is the Associated Press. | ||
| Ontario slaps 25% tax increase on electricity exports to the U.S. in response to Trump's trade war. | ||
| It says that the tariffs will go into effect Monday, charging 25% more for electricity to 1.5 million American homes and businesses in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war. | ||
| It says Ontario provides electricity to Minnesota, New York, and Michigan. | ||
| And here is John in Washington, D.C., Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Leonard. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would like to speak to Americans right now. | |
| C-SPAN is the place that I think is going to help save America, believe it or not. | ||
| Because all Americans, all walks of life, can call here and express themselves. | ||
| And I've been a Democrat all my life. | ||
| I come up in Washington, D.C. I've been born and raised here. | ||
| And I've seen the politics over the years here in the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., because everybody migrates here with their ideas of making things better, so-called. | ||
| So I'm going to say this to American people. | ||
| I turned into an independent listening to C-SPAN because of the wide variety of ideas and the complaints and the problem-solving techniques that people have used when they call here. | ||
| Einstein had theories, not the theory of relativity, but the theory of insanity. | ||
| He said if you do the same thing repetitively, that's the idea of insanity. | ||
| That's insanity. | ||
| I got a novel idea. | ||
| How about every election from now until the next election of the next president of the United States? | ||
| We all get together as Americans and shake the foundation of America by all voting independently. | ||
| That would force them to work together. | ||
| That would force them not to take sides because they would have to come down the middle. | ||
| I don't care whether you're Republican. | ||
| I don't care whether you're Democrat. | ||
| I don't care whether you're independent. | ||
| Let's change things. | ||
| Let's make things different because DOSH is going in there firing all these people who pay taxes and add to the economy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They have children that's in school. | |
| They have college. | ||
| They have to pay. | ||
| Why fire people when you can take money from all of the government employees and leave everybody working? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Common sense things that you can do to help the economy. | |
| So I don't want to go on because I got a lot of stuff I could talk about, but those are some of the things I was thinking about that can help shake the foundation of America. | ||
| Everybody vote independent. | ||
| Got it, John. | ||
| And here's James in Granville, Massachusetts, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, yes. | |
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| I'm calling just to probably reiterate what the last gentleman just said. | ||
| It's time to think differently. | ||
| I was a registered Democrat for many years. | ||
| I became an independent during the last few years during the fiasco that we've all been living through. | ||
| And I call it fiasco because that's exactly what it is. | ||
| And unfortunately, those that are supportive of the MAGA movement don't agree. | ||
| They absolutely disagree. | ||
| And I'm not sure what they're basing the disagreement on because it's gotten to the point now where we no longer talk. | ||
| We don't talk to each other. | ||
| We talk past each other. | ||
| So, first thing we need to do is communicate. | ||
| So, that's my suggestion. | ||
| We need to start talking to one another. | ||
| Talk to your neighbor. | ||
| Talk to the person you're not quite sure who they are. | ||
| You know, take that little step because sometimes when you reach out like that, great things happen. | ||
| Yes, sometimes terrible things happen, but most of the time, great things happen. | ||
| So, that's all I have to say: the positivity in our country needs to come back a little bit more, folks. | ||
| You know, the negativity has gotten so bad that now we're looking at like our democracy falling apart. | ||
| We're looking at our economy falling apart, our government falling apart. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because we don't believe each other. | ||
| So, let's start talking. | ||
| Let's start understanding what truth is, and let's start applying it to our lives and to each other's lives. | ||
| Let's look at each other. | ||
| We're all the same, folks. | ||
| We're all on this planet together, and I don't give a hoot what Elon Musk wants to do in terms of Mars that's out of this world as his concepts and so forth are. | ||
| Good luck with Tesla and carry on, folks. | ||
| We will get through this. | ||
| All right, James. | ||
| By the way, C-SPAN wants you, our viewers, to have a voice in the White House briefing room. | ||
| If you have a question for Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, send us an email to whquestions at c-span.org. | ||
| Be sure to include your first name in your city and state, and you might hear your question asked at the next briefing. | ||
| And here is Logan in Spokane, Washington, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are they? | |
| My name is Logan Wee. | ||
| I'm in Spokane, Washington. | ||
| Hope everybody's having a good morning this morning. | ||
| So, basically, I was thinking this newly unstable, uncertain policy is bad for business. | ||
| I'm personally affected by this because I actually own a business named Collectus Controls. | ||
| The payers with above-average increases and the policy uncertainty are just detrimental for businesses, small businesses like me. | ||
| I specialize in making annuators. | ||
| Ray in Cocoa, Florida, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I've known Donald Trump for about 50 years. | |
| I specialize in making any line. | ||
| And he, all he does is lie. | ||
| Ray, in Coco, Florida, Independent Line. | ||
| Did you need to mute your TV, Ray? | ||
| You know that, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, hold on. | |
| Let's find a remote here. | ||
| Okay, while you're doing that, here's Jennifer on Facebook. | ||
| While I disagree with simply trying to pass the Biden administration's last budget to keep status quo, I get it. | ||
| Hopefully, cuts and more responsible spending will come soon. | ||
| However, the best entertainment for the day is reading all of the comments. | ||
| So many people making assumptions and do not bother actually paying attention. | ||
| Okay, Ray, you with us now? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'm with you. | |
| Okay, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I've known Donald Trump for over 50 years. | |
| And all he does is lie. | ||
| And he said he's a great businessman, but he's not. | ||
| Every business, 85% of his businesses, he fell bankruptcy on or lost them. | ||
| These people have got to realize He can't run a country. | ||
| You can't file bankruptcy on a country. | ||
| All right, Ray. | ||
| And Kathy on Facebook says, it will be okay. | ||
| It will pass. | ||
| Democrats calm down. | ||
| They will not cut Social Security. | ||
| That's just your Democrat Party scaring you for future votes. | ||
| Wake up, people. | ||
| Democrats have been saying this for years and you still have Social Security. | ||
| And that's the time we've got for this hour. | ||
| But coming up next, we'll continue our conversation about federal spending and President Trump's economic plans with Emily G of the Center for American Progress and Romina Bacha from the Cato Institute. | ||
| And later, a conversation with Rebecca Pincus, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center, about why President Trump wants to take over Greenland. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nearly 3,500 students participated in this year's C-SPAN Student Camp Documentary Competition, where we asked students to craft a message to the new president, exploring issues important to them or their communities. | |
| This Wednesday, tune in to C-SPAN's Washington Journal at 8 a.m. Eastern, where we'll announce the grand prize winner of this year's competition. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're joined now by Emily G. She's Senior Vice President for Inclusive Growth at the Center for American Progress. | ||
| And Romina Bacha is Budget and Entitlement Policy Director at the Cato Institute. | ||
| Welcome, ladies, to you both. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Let's start with you, Emily, and just describe your organization and what position you take on economic issues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we are a nonprofit, non-independent think tank. | |
| So we develop policy ideas and bring those into action. | ||
| And are you on the left? | ||
| Are you center, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we are a left-leaning organization. | |
| And what about you, Romina? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank here in Washington, D.C. | |
| And we believe in free markets, individual liberty, and peace. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So Emily, let's talk about the current state of the economy. | ||
| Where are we right now? | ||
| And what would you say are the current strengths and weaknesses of the economy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we appear to be heading into a Trump slump. | |
| If you look at the data, there are some very worrying signs for the economy. | ||
| Consumer sentiment has fallen by a few different measures. | ||
| We expect inflation to be ticking about one percentage point higher because of the Trump tariffs. | ||
| We came into the year with a fairly strong economy with historically low unemployment rate. | ||
| The economy keeps adding jobs. | ||
| But under the surface, there are some worrying signs for a labor market that's going to be worse for workers and perhaps unemployment ticking up. | ||
| Well, let's take a look at the unemployment rate and I'll just get your reaction to that, Romina, in the meantime. | ||
| Do you agree that we're heading into a Trump slump? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's not clear. | |
| What we are seeing is a lot more volatility in the markets, in part because of the uncertainty of Trump policies, including the tariffs that keep being introduced, pulled back, delayed. | ||
| The economy and people investing in the economy really thrive on certainty, and expectations have been all over the place and they keep changing. | ||
| So that's really affecting the figures right now. | ||
| I don't know that we can say that we're going to for certain have a recession. | ||
| What I'm actually most concerned about is that inflation has been ticking up slightly again and that with what we're looking at with the budget, both in the House and the Senate, it would increase spending, it would increase deficits, and that could add to inflationary pressure. | ||
| So even if we don't end up in an economic slump, we may find that we will pay higher prices as a result of tariffs and higher inflation from deficits. | ||
| So why do you think inflation rate is going up right now? | ||
| Is it because of the uncertainty or is it the tariffs? | ||
| What's going on right now? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I think it's because of the tariffs because we do expect that to increase prices, especially for imports, but also for intermediate products that U.S. producers use to produce things here in the United States. | |
| We live in a global economy, so it's not as simple as President Trump and some of his advisors make it out to be that if you just slap a tariff on another country, that that's going to produce production in the United States. | ||
| In many cases, it actually reduces U.S. production because you've just increased the price of those intermediate goods. | ||
| So Emily, I've got the numbers for the unemployment rate for February. | ||
| 4.1% is the unemployment rate. | ||
| Jobs added 151,000. | ||
| What do you make of those numbers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So those are fairly strong headline numbers. | |
| But if you look under the hood, there are some more worrying signs. | ||
| Even though we added jobs, you saw a huge jump in the number of people who are working part-time for economic reasons. | ||
| So 460,000 more people were working part-time either because they couldn't get full-time hours or perhaps their company cut back on their hours. | ||
| That's one worrying thing. | ||
| We've also seen the unemployment rate tick up for some groups. | ||
| And we've also seen early signs of jobless claims ticking up. | ||
| The full effect of the federal layoffs has not filtered through the job market yet. | ||
| Some people might be in administrative leave. | ||
| We're still to Romina's point about economic uncertainty. | ||
| We're still not quite sure the extent of those layoffs. | ||
| They could be even bigger than they are now. | ||
| But we expect to see those filter through jobless claims and the jobs numbers in coming months. | ||
| Let's take a look at National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett. | ||
| He gave a pretty bullish outlook on the economy during an interview with CNBC yesterday, and then I'll have you respond. | ||
| Near term, we've got a Biden economy that, you know, still most of Biden policies are in place. | ||
| If you look at the Atlanta Fed GDP now number, it's showing negative first quarter, which is kind of, if you like, a metric of the inheritance of President Biden. | ||
| A lot of that is also from a big increase in the trade deficit, which, as you know and you've been covering, Joe, is happening in part because people are anxious about future tariffs, and so they're stockpiling. | ||
| And so that's a very, very temporary phenomenon. | ||
| I think that medium term, what you're seeing is the biggest tax cuts in history, a massive deregulation, a productivity boom from artificial intelligence, and tariffs, which even if you take the high-end estimates of the tariff revenue, they're going to be just a tiny fraction of the size of the tax cuts, which are almost surely going to be in place by the summer. | ||
| So if you're thinking about what's going to happen to capital formation in the U.S., if you take our cost of capital measures, it goes up 10, 11% over the next year. | ||
| There are a lot of reasons to be extremely bullish about the economy going forward. | ||
| But for sure, this quarter there are some blips in the data, including the negative GDP DAO, which are related both to the Biden inheritance and to some timing effects that are happening ahead of tariffs. | ||
| Emily, your response to that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I disagree. | |
| I think it's the Trump policies that are pushing up inflationary pressures. | ||
| To Romina's point, a lot of inflation is about expectations. | ||
| If firms think that their input costs are going to increase, if they think that they need to pull ahead inventory in order to get ahead of tariffs, they will do that. | ||
| And so we've seen companies like Best Buy and Target already say that they're poised to increase prices. | ||
| You also see we saw a decline in consumer spending. | ||
| Consumers, because of the uncertainty, may be putting off purchases of big ticket items like cars or home renovations because they don't know what their situation is going to be a year from now. | ||
| The effect of the tariff for consumers, for households, for people like you and me, is starting to amount to a loss of over $1,000, $1,200 to $1,600 by different estimates. | ||
| So you do see that chilling effect on consumer household behavior, as well as retailers saying that they expect slower sales and higher prices in the year ahead. | ||
| What do you think of that, Romina, and the outlook that Kevin Hassard? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so I agree with Kevin on the medium and long-term outlook. | |
| The United States has a lot going for it. | ||
| We have a fairly strong economy. | ||
| The foundations are there for growth. | ||
| We are leaders in the AI boom. | ||
| We have to see how that disperses throughout the economy and what the impacts of that will be in the future. | ||
| But the tariffs are just, frankly, horrible policy. | ||
| And I can only hope that President Trump, as he sees these negative economic numbers come in with the drop in the stock market, the drop in GDP, that he will come to terms with the fact that the tariffs, while they may look good on paper, in the end are very destructive for the American economy. | ||
| Why is it destructive? | ||
| Because it drives up the cost of goods in the United States, and it takes more money out of people's pockets to buy these imports. | ||
| And there's also a misunderstanding about the trade deficit. | ||
| A large chunk of that is due to the fact that the federal government is borrowing so much money. | ||
| It's not just a reflection of our import and export relationships, but the fact that one of our primary exports is, in fact, the U.S. dollar, which is used in global markets and is also used as a reserve currency in other countries. | ||
| And so for as long as the U.S. is going to run a current account deficit, if we're going to keep borrowing and have these high U.S. fiscal deficits, that also creates that trade deficit that President Trump has been lamenting. | ||
| And they're talking about adding to that with the tax cuts that wouldn't be paid for, neither under the House nor the Senate plan. | ||
| And then President Trump has a whole nother agenda that would also add to these deficit pressures and could fuel inflation. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation with Emily G and Romina Bancha, you can do so. | ||
| Our lines are open. | ||
| Democrats 202748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202748-8002. | ||
| Romina, Republicans are hoping to pass a continuing resolution in the House to keep the government funded up until September 30th. | ||
| What do you think of that effort? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so we looked in the details of the continuing resolution. | |
| It is 99 pages long. | ||
| So for something that just is supposed to continue current policy, there's a whole lot more going on in those almost 100 pages. | ||
| And so there's several anomalies, in part because it is highly unusual for the United States to have no budget for an entire year, especially when it comes to defense. | ||
| And so there have to be some flexibilities to allow for that kind of mechanism to take place. | ||
| But it is ultimately an abdication of fiscal responsibility, and it's admitting that there's not enough strength in the Congress to actually pass a budget. | ||
| So this is really just a band-aid to avoid a government shutdown, which is politically bad for both parties potentially. | ||
| It depends on who manages to pass the blame. | ||
| But it doesn't do anything to rein in spending. | ||
| And it also doesn't lock in the savings that Doge has been putting forth or the Office of Management and Budget has been putting forth. | ||
| So what we're seeing now is there's this shiny object called Doge where people think all these spending cuts are happening in efficiency gains, but Congress ultimately has the power of the purse. | ||
| And if they don't enact the policies to actually lock in those savings in the future, they will be easily reversed, whether through the courts or the next administration. | ||
| Emily, your response to the GOP budget plan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I also worry that Congress is giving carte blanche to Elon Musk and Donald Trump to continue their reckless firing of federal workers to make freeze funding for Head Start facilities to lay off people who work on suicide counseling or cancer research. | |
| As Romina said, this is not a clean CR. | ||
| This has all sorts of other things in it. | ||
| This is not just a continuation of the budget. | ||
| And as Patty Murray has said, it's essentially creating a slush fund for Elon Musk and Donald Trump to continue to take away that power of the purse, to erode checks and balances. | ||
| Congress is supposed to be the one who is deciding how our tax dollars are spent. | ||
| And the White House, even this morning, according to Politico, has been twisting the arm of lawmakers on the Hill, telling them that they will illegally impound money if they have the funding for the government. | ||
| What about entitlement programs, which costs a lot of money? | ||
| A lot of people are worried about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. | ||
| What do you think needs to be done to make those programs fiscally viable? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So there are all sorts of reforms we could do to make sure there's enough money flowing into the government, including making sure that the wealthy incorporations pay their fair share. | |
| But really, the biggest threat on the table this moment is the Medicaid cuts that are in the reconciliation instructions passed by the House at the end of last month. | ||
| Does it specifically say Medicaid would be cut? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So reconciliation instructions are instructions to congressional committees on how much they need to cut. | |
| And the instructions for the Energy and Commerce Committee were to cut $880 billion out of that committee's jurisdiction. | ||
| The way the math adds up, there's simply no way to do it without massive coverage losses for Medicaid. | ||
| In fact, the Urban Institute projects that if Congress were to do that, say, through a decrease in the federal matching funds that go to support states, about 16 million people could lose Medicaid coverage. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Let's talk to callers and start with Ed, a Republican in Williamstown, New Jersey. | ||
| Good morning, Ed. | ||
| Ed, are you there? | ||
| Sam in Woodland Hills, California, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Sam. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| So I have a couple of questions. | ||
| The first is: can, is a hypothetical? | ||
| I know it will never happen, but can a president lawfully refuse to add to the debt? | ||
| In other words, refuse to borrow, which will force Congress to balance the budget. | ||
| Second question is: I mean, the reason I'm looking forward to what President Trump can do to reduce prices. | ||
| So, what can he do? | ||
| I remember, you know, pre-COVID, did this jingle on the radio, five dollars a foot long from Subway. | ||
| I don't think we'll ever reach that point again. | ||
| But I mean, you can't even get a six-inch for $5 now. | ||
| So, what can you do to bring down prices? | ||
| I know inflation is one point, but I actually want deflation to reduce prices. | ||
| So, what can be done? | ||
| So, two questions. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Romina. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There are a lot of policies that would help ease pressures on prices, including adopting a credible fiscal framework. | |
| The reconciliation bill before Congress right now is the avenue to do that. | ||
| Unfortunately, there isn't enough appetite among Republicans to actually reduce spending enough to stabilize the debt over the long term. | ||
| At this point, given our deficits, which are $2 trillion annually, it would take about $9 trillion and 10-year spending cuts just to stabilize the debt, meaning not add to it further as a percentage of our economy because the debt is already too high at 100%. | ||
| But that's not what they're looking at. | ||
| They're looking at most $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in spending reductions over 10 years, and that would be coupled with about $4.5 trillion in revenue reductions from extending the 2017 tax cuts. | ||
| So, the math there doesn't add up. | ||
| It will actually add to inflation. | ||
| Another way to reduce prices is to reduce regulation, which is also a priority for President Trump. | ||
| And they were very successful in that regard during the first term of the Trump administration, which boosted people's wages and created one of the fastest growing economies in the recent decades. | ||
| So, those are some of the proposals. | ||
| Can the president just refuse not to borrow money by basically saying I won't keep borrowing, perhaps once we hit the debt limit? | ||
| Not really. | ||
| If Congress authorizes more borrowing, which they likely will do, the House budget resolution will increase the debt limit by $4 trillion. | ||
| The president is bound to execute the law faithfully, and that means continuing to issue bonds to cover that massive deficit financing gap that we have. | ||
| Any comments, Emily G? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so the Trump administration has pledged, Donald Trump himself has pledged to lower prices and lower costs, and this is an area where he keeps making promises and breaking promises. | |
| So, one thing that would lower prices and lower inflation is reversing the tariffs. | ||
| The tariffs that Trump put in place on Canada and Mexico, in particular, are tariffs on our biggest trading partners, and these are very broad-based tariffs. | ||
| This is foreign policy and international economic policy by hatchet, not by scalpel. | ||
| And so, Americans are going to see higher prices for energy. | ||
| They're going to see higher prices for groceries, for sporting goods, for clothes. | ||
| And so, this is you know, these are not targeted measures. | ||
| These are tariffs that are going to increase costs for families by $1,000. | ||
| And so, one simple way to do it would be to decrease prices. | ||
| And, you know, one particular pain point let me talk about is eggs. | ||
| We've seen prices for eggs continue to increase, and part of that is the effects and concerns about bird flu. | ||
| At the same time, the Trump administration has laid off workers who do the medical research to develop future vaccines. | ||
| They've laid off people who do surveillance of epidemiological situations. | ||
| They've laid out forkers at the United States Department of Agriculture at HHS. | ||
| And so, I worry about our ability to handle shocks like future pandemics or things that could affect our food supply. | ||
| Here's Ed, an independent in Williamstown, New Jersey. | ||
| Good morning, Ed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm listening in, and I'm listening to them carry on and say about the tariffs and how Donald Trump is not lowering prices. | |
| But where I'm confused is no president prior has tried to address this issue. | ||
| So, if he's going about it saying that I'm going to do something that's reciprocal, that's going to take time. | ||
| They're saying that the inflation, the prices is going up caused by him. | ||
| They've been up in the prior administration. | ||
| It's been going on for so many years. | ||
| So, the only way to attack that is to do something. | ||
| So, he's trying to do something. | ||
| But at every avenue that he goes, they criticize him. | ||
| He's not even there four or five months. | ||
| I would say when you enact a policy, it takes time to trickle down. | ||
| He's trying to negotiate, trying to bring back corporations back here, manufacturing back here, so we won't be relying on somebody else. | ||
| And at the end of the day, if I'm going to pay more money for trying to make America better and bring back our work here and supplies here that we need, then I guess I'd rather pay that than to pay it based on a green new idea, telling me that natural gas is no good and fossil fuels, and so on and so forth, making mandates that we should use electric cars. | ||
| Ed, we'll take your question. | ||
| Go ahead, Emily. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, I would welcome from the Trump administration policies to lower the prices and the costs of things that are the biggest chunk of Americans' wallets, say child care or housing. | |
| We have yet to see that from this administration. | ||
| Instead, we're seeing these tariffs. | ||
| We're seeing the argument that these things take time to actually fix things. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So if you actually wanted to fix things, tariffs could be part of your toolbox. | |
| But what you would see is we should be making investments in American manufacturing. | ||
| We should be investing in American education so that we have the skills for advanced manufacturing. | ||
| And that is what the Bipartisan Chips and Science Act did, for example. | ||
| So that was passed back during the Biden administration. | ||
| Congress passed a bill to revamp U.S. manufacturing and semiconductors. | ||
| And so that was a multi-pronged strategy that involved investments in manufacturing here. | ||
| In fact, we've seen manufacturing construction go up over the last few years. | ||
| And it was also export controls. | ||
| It was trade policy that aimed at making sure that we could build things in America, but also that we weren't being flooded by cheap imports. | ||
| I really appreciate the patriotism that this caller, Ed, has shown in terms of saying, I'm willing to pay more if it means that we have a stronger country down the road. | ||
| The thing is, you don't have to. | ||
| To the extent that we're paying more, it is not a result of our trade policies. | ||
| It is because the Federal Reserve printed $5 trillion, so the government could spend about $6.5 trillion during the COVID pandemic. | ||
| It's a pure increase in the money supply, devaluing the U.S. currency, and that's why we're paying more for everything. | ||
| And these tariffs aren't going to change that. | ||
| I would, however, agree with the caller that the Biden's green energy subsidies are one of the most distortionary policies adopted by this last administration. | ||
| There are indications now that one of the reasons we are seeing a national shortage in some of the infrastructure for natural gas is in part because investment shifted towards green energy sources as a result of government subsidies, the Inflation Reduction Act in particular. | ||
| And I must disagree with Emily on this. | ||
| The way to bring down prices is not for the government to spend more money and dole out subsidies to corporations. | ||
| The way to increase our energy supply is through deregulation. | ||
| And there, the Trump administration is actually on the right course. | ||
| Would you like to respond? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| So the investment, you know, recent investment laws, including the Chips and Science Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, actually crowded in private spending. | ||
| So this is not just federal government spending. | ||
| This is private companies who've chosen to make investments here in America to build factories for semiconductors, for clean energy. | ||
| Those laws also made clean energy cheaper, are making sure that Americans can manufacture solar panels so we don't have to import everything from China. | ||
| And the tariffs are doing the opposite. | ||
| Right now we are seeing not just the outgoing tariffs on tariffs coming from the tariffs by the United States on foreign goods, which American consumers, to be clear, will be paying. | ||
| But we're also seeing reciprocal tariffs from our neighbors, including Canada, which will increase energy prices, particularly for northern states. | ||
| We've got a text from Kevin in Milton, Delaware. | ||
| He says, what are the guests' understanding of why the president seems to have unlimited power to levy tariffs? | ||
| It's my understanding that it's up to Congress to do so. | ||
| What do you think, Emily? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I think this is another area where Congress, I think there are different types of levers that the U.S. government has at the disposal to place tariffs on foreign countries. | |
| I won't get to the details here, but I think this is another case where Congress is, you know, the Republican majority in Congress is essentially rubber stamping what the Trump administration is doing. | ||
| And they're not standing up for going through the sorts of accountability measures that they should be holding Elon Musk and Donald Trump accountable for increasing Americans' prices, for making decisions about how federal dollars are spent that are different from the instructions that came from Congress. | ||
| And we should be asking a lot of questions about what's the value of increasing prices for households on things like food and groceries. | ||
| Here's Chance in San Diego, California. | ||
| Chance? | ||
| Nope. | ||
| Roy in California, Republican. | ||
| Go ahead, Roy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, it's refreshing. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| It's refreshing to me to hear these two young women that are actually spouting facts, accurate facts. | ||
| Now, I know, although I'm a Republican, we're going to hear quite a bit from the galactically gullible and intellectually deficient and morally challenged MAGA cult members who are convinced that by cutting the federal employees and adding more people to the unemployment rolls is going to be beneficial for the country. | ||
| Actually, it's not going to be. | ||
| And I'm happy and I'm hoping that so more Republicans would listen to this. | ||
| It's been the agenda since Reagan to cut taxes. | ||
| He phrased this as starving the beast. | ||
| Cut taxes, deny more government spend tax revenue coming in. | ||
| The government is not a for-profit business. | ||
| It can't be operated as a prophetic business. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| Romina. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think we've seen that starving the beast doesn't work because we didn't get to a $36 trillion debt because we didn't tax people enough, but because we're spending too much. | |
| And so what we're actually seeing is that as the government decides to spend more, primarily on autopilot entitlement programs, the major health care programs and Social Security, as well as interest on the debt, which is one of the fastest-growing categories now and actually exceeded our spending on defense last year, the budget is growing further and further out of balance, regardless of the level of tax revenue. | ||
| So we really need to look at reducing spending and capping the growth in spending, which is out of control, because to the degree that people value the services that the government provides and the benefits that, in particular, | ||
| support vulnerable Americans who rely more on government services, we won't be able to afford those if we're going to have a massive fiscal crisis that we're quickly racing towards with debt at 100% of GDP. | ||
| And after this budget cycle plays out, if the Senate gets its way and adopts a so-called current policy baseline where they pretend like the 2017 tax cuts, extending them now won't cost anything, that could drive the debt to 130% of GDP over the next 10 years. | ||
| And so the question really is like how high are interest rates going to go? | ||
| How much is the federal government going to spend on interest on the debt, which consumes more and more of our revenues and eats into the ability for the government to actually exercise its core functions? | ||
| In terms of downsizing government, though, the way to do it is right now the administration is doing what they think they can without Congress because Congress has abdicated so much responsibility. | ||
| But there is a bill, the Government Reorganization Act, that would initiate this process of eliminating inappropriate government spending, including on programs such as Head Start and consolidating federal functions, | ||
| getting rid of duplication, addressing some of the waste fraud and abuse to $500 billion annually in a more organized fashion where Congress can also vote on those recommendations so the administration doesn't have to go it alone. | ||
| Can I pick up on one point your caller made, which I thought was a great point, which is that you can't run government like a for-profit business because when you don't perform those essential functions, people die. | ||
| There are real consequences here. | ||
| So as a couple of examples, Doge has gone over, gone after air transportation funding and to the point where Sean Duffy, Transportation Secretary, has been worried about air safety. | ||
| They've also cut spending on biomedical research to the point where there are cancer researchers who can't go through with the medical trials that patients are enrolled in. | ||
| So we are undermining our future development of drugs, our future cures for cancer. | ||
| And then the administration also laid off and then called back some of the people who are responsible for looking after the U.S. nuclear arsenal. | ||
| So these are things that we all rely on. | ||
| And there's too much at stake to be playing roulette with federal firings. | ||
| I want to show you from yesterday on ABC This Week, Sean Fane, who's the United Autoworkers president, talked about his support for the president's tariffs, and then I'll have you respond to it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's simple for us. | |
| Look, we're in a crisis mode in this country. | ||
| You know, there is no single issue in this country that has affected our economy and working class people and their jobs than NAFTA, the USMCA, and our trade laws, our broken trade system. | ||
| And we're in a crisis mode. | ||
| And, you know, we are triaging right now. | ||
| So I hear this debate about blanket tariffs and all this stuff. | ||
| But look, we're in a triage situation. | ||
| Tariffs are an attempt to stop the bleeding from the hemorrhaging of jobs in America for the last 33 years. | ||
| So, you know, and as we speak right now, I mean, decisions are still being made. | ||
| Warren Truck Plant right here in Michigan, there's over 2,000 people laid off. | ||
| And a simple decision. | ||
| Stellanis is shifting truck production to Mexico. | ||
| They could change overnight and move those trucks right back here to Warren, Michigan and put people back to work. | ||
| You know, you have deer workers in Racine, Wisconsin. | ||
| We have MAC truck workers in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where the company's saying are going to move their jobs to Mexico. | ||
| So tariffs aren't the end solution, but they are a huge factor in creating and fixing this problem. | ||
| What do you think of that, Emily G? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So look, tariffs are a tool that we use for trade and for economics. | |
| There's a right place and there's a wrong place. | ||
| And Donald Trump has instituted very broad sweeping tariffs against our biggest allies. | ||
| I think the fact that you saw the administration delay the auto parts tariffs by a month is a sign that the reality that these tariffs are going to be increasing costs for American consumers on cars to the tune of thousands of dollars, that they are going to hurt business. | ||
| You saw the big automakers come and lobby the White House to try to push back these tariffs because this is going to be a big hit for them. | ||
| Here's Eric in Duluth, Minnesota, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Eric. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I have three issues. | |
| I'm reporting a $4.5 trillion theft against our government. | ||
| I'm reporting a cover-up, and I'm reporting an accomplice. | ||
| A $4.5 trillion theft is occurring because he is taking the salaries of good working people, vital people that monitor our airways, et cetera, and he's going to give that money to billionaires. | ||
| That's a theft. | ||
| Mark Zambi from Moody's, who is one of the top accountants in the world, went on C-SPAN and said that the tax cuts since Reagan are the number one driver of the deficit that has appeared since Clinton. | ||
| End of story. | ||
| Others can say, oh, it's because you're giving out Medicare. | ||
| That would be a choice. | ||
| If you want to cut off your grandmother, that would be a choice as opposed to giving it to a billionaire. | ||
| You're going to have to decide right about now, is grandma more important or is it more important to stuff the pockets of the billionaire? | ||
| What is the cover-up? | ||
| Fox. | ||
| The Russian mob. | ||
| They are creating an agenda that is driven by facts, but by the need to pump up this group that's undertaking this theft. | ||
| And you hear it in the voices of the C-SPAN people who are calling in saying, you don't know the facts at all. | ||
| Trump's doing great things. | ||
| They are being fed a line, which is akin to what happened in the Third Reich, where Goebbels fed false facts and people, in their desperation, followed up. | ||
| Well, how did that work out for the Third Reich? | ||
| They all died. | ||
| All right, Eric. | ||
| Romina. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The rhetoric on the tax cuts and what's driving the growth and the spending just doesn't match up with reality. | |
| There's this convenient myth out there that if we just taxed corporations and the wealthy more, that we could close our federal budget deficit and make sure that we can fund unsustainable programs like Medicare and Social Security and not have to worry about it. | ||
| That is simply not true. | ||
| If you raise taxes on wealthier individuals and corporations, which by the way, the taxes levied on corporations are paid for by workers and consumers. | ||
| But leaving that aside, at most, even Democrats have conceded you might raise another 2 percentage point of GDP in revenues. | ||
| We're at 17 right now. | ||
| That gets you to 19% of GDP in revenues. | ||
| Meanwhile, spending is growing to almost 30% of GDP over the next 30 years. | ||
| And it's primarily driven by health care and Social Security. | ||
| And my good friend Chuck Blahouse, who's a former trustee with the Medicare and Social Security program, has put forth a great paper that details what exactly is driving the growth in the spending. | ||
| And it's not the tax cuts. | ||
| It is Medicare and Social Security and also the introduction of Medicaid. | ||
| So I am excited that the House Budget Committee is looking at addressing some of the worst offenders in the Medicaid program, including the provider tax money laundering scheme that is bleeding about $600 billion from federal taxpayers. | ||
| That is a loophole that even President Obama suggested we need to address, as well as the Medicaid expansion to able-bodied individuals, which has taken away services from the traditional Medicaid populations, including pregnant women, | ||
| children, and individuals with disabilities, because under the Obama administration, they decided that the federal government should reimburse states at much higher rates for covering able-bodied individuals instead of the most vulnerable Americans that primarily rely on Medicaid. | ||
| You've got another half a billion in savings there if you just address that issue. | ||
| Look, there are ways to streamline government, but gutting people's retirement security and taking away health care coverage from 16 million people on Medicaid, the majority of whom are working, is not the way to do it. | ||
| If you want to be fiscally responsible, one thing that is before Congress is the tax cuts that expire at the end of this year. | ||
| Donald Trump has said he wants to go through with this $4 trillion tax package that would benefit the wealthy. | ||
| It would give a trillion dollars of tax cuts to the top 1%. | ||
| And they are doing this by gutting Medicaid, by gutting food assistance. | ||
| What do you think of that, Romina? | ||
| Should those tax cuts, do you believe that those tax cuts should be allowed to expire or should be made permanent? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The tax cuts should be made permanent. | |
| And if you look on a percentage basis, the biggest tax cut is actually going to the bottom 50% of earners. | ||
| On a dollar basis, which is what Emily compared, you see a higher tax cut for higher earners, but it's because about 75% of our tax burden is borne by the top 10% of earners. | ||
| We have a highly progressive tax code. | ||
| And what the American people need to understand is if we do not reform federal health care and retirement programs, middle-class and lower-income Americans will have to pay higher taxes in the future. | ||
| So you cannot extend tax cuts now if you don't also reduce the spending that those taxes would otherwise fund. | ||
| So it has to go hand in hand. | ||
| So yes, extend the tax cuts, make them permanent because that provides certainty for businesses, which will boost growth, but you also have to pay for them. | ||
| And you have to do that with spending reductions. | ||
| And that's where we're falling short. | ||
| Here's Doug in East Newmarket, Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Doug. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yeah, I just want to talk about the budget. | ||
| We're in such a deficit. | ||
| We have Trump in his first term ballooned a deficit. | ||
| Every other president has also, but he's in officer. | ||
| We're talking about him now. | ||
| It's obviously going to balloon again. | ||
| We want to, he attacked NATO, threatened to leave NATO in his first term. | ||
| That's obviously coming back around again. | ||
| Secretary Musk is on board with it. | ||
| So we want to lose NATO in our defense around the world. | ||
| We won't have any strategic areas for our military to defend ourselves. | ||
| But we're going to keep hoping China buys more of our debt so we can keep spending our military. | ||
| Our military spending is going to have to triple what we're spending now if we lose NATO. | ||
| We're not going to have any protection around the world, and we're just going to keep hoping China buys our debt so we can defend ourselves. | ||
| What do you think, Emily? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So if you are someone who believes that, as I do, that your budget is your values, I think the budget proposal that's on the table right now, the reconciliation bill instructions that Congress passed the end of February is very revealing. | |
| It's going to be extending those tax cuts while also cutting programs that Americans rely on for food and for health care. | ||
| And if you look at the growth of our debt to GDP ratio over recent decades, the biggest factors for those were the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed under Donald Trump and the Bush tax cuts. | ||
| Here is Joanne in Nevada, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Joanne. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Well, I don't agree with any of these two ladies that is on right now, but I want to ask Ms. G, who says that all the manufacturing jobs are back. | ||
| Well, I just checked on the labor statistics. | ||
| 2024, Joe Biden and all your great economy, they lost 80,000 manufacturing jobs. | ||
| Where did those go, ladies? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Emily, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, if you look over decades, we've seen a lot of manufacturing move overseas. | |
| And I'm talking, you know, pre-Biden, you had this China shock where a lot of manufacturing moved to China. | ||
| And I think that's why you've seen not just Trump, but also Biden put tariffs on Chinese goods to try to prevent, to level the playing field for fair competition there. | ||
| What I was referring to earlier with manufacturing construction, the reality is that when you, you know, whether it's a private or public investment, it's also been private companies like Intel and Ford and Solantis that have been investing in plants in the United States. | ||
| It takes a while for those to just get built. | ||
| You got to build a plant and then you got to, you know, you have to hire the workers. | ||
| And so we're still at the point from the infrastructure investments, from the chips and science investments, where things are being built. | ||
| And you see that in the numbers. | ||
| You see a sharp increase in manufacturing construction since 2022. | ||
| And eventually those will become manufacturing jobs if the Trump administration doesn't interrupt that. | ||
| And you saw at the State of the Union, his joint adjust to Congress, Trump taking a dig at the Chips and Science Act. | ||
| And so if that is an investment that is on track to build semiconductors here in the United States. | ||
| We've got a question on text from Kristen in Portland, Maine. | ||
| Can you speak about the Trump deportations and how that will affect the economy? | ||
| I live in a small town in Maine. | ||
| We have a lot of older homes and a limited number of construction workers. | ||
| One of our local contractors had a Guatemalan roofing crew. | ||
| They were great, helping a lot of older homeowners. | ||
| Last week, they were all deported. | ||
| She continues, but what do you think of that Romina Bacha? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think immigration is a boon to the U.S. economy. | |
| The people who come to the United States primarily come here to work. | ||
| We should have more legal immigration and an easier pathway for people who want to contribute to the U.S. economy to do so. | ||
| Our immigration policy is broken, and this is another example of congressional abdication and dealing with an issue that really could both fuel revenues for the U.S. federal government. | ||
| Many immigrants, even those who are here illegally, are contributing to Social Security and Medicare trust funds and never collect those benefits. | ||
| If people are concerned about immigrants consuming U.S. welfare, there's a very simple fix to that. | ||
| Close up the welfare system, don't close the border. | ||
| What do you think, Emily G? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we do see in the economic data that Trump's threats of mass deportation of immigrants is pushing up prices. | |
| Immigrants, as Romina said, are part of the economy. | ||
| People come here and they contribute. | ||
| We are overdue for reforms to create better, more effective legal pathways to immigration. | ||
| But the bluster that Trump has, what his administration is doing toward deportations, has a lot of people concerned about the ability of businesses to hire the workers they need. | ||
| And that could put upward pressure on prices, making it more expensive for households to buy things and adding to the pressure that's coming from tariffs. | ||
| Janine is in North Manchester, Indiana, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Janine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, good morning. | |
| Do you think that the President and Musk are actually encouraging a government shutdown so they can further the Project 25 plan to dismantle the government? | ||
| Romina. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nobody wants a government shutdown, which is why we have this very weak continuing resolution to basically keep government spending going the way it was initiated last year during the Biden administration. | |
| would think that Republicans with their newly gained majority would seize the reins of the federal budget process and do all those things they say they support, including, for example, eliminating the Department of Education, which is something that Elon Musk and President Trump have put a spotlight on, but that's not what's happening. | ||
| I worry that there's a lot more rhetoric about spending cuts, but in actuality, spending is continuing to grow. | ||
| On the point of shutdown, it's clear who controls the White House. | ||
| It's Donald Trump. | ||
| And Republicans control both chambers of Congress. | ||
| So if there's a shutdown that happens, it's very clear who wasn't able to pass that bill. | ||
| And what do you think about, you know, the President and a lot of Republican lawmakers are saying that Elon Musk's effort with Doge is going to provide revenue that will offset those tax cuts. | ||
| What do you think of that argument? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So there's, I think it's very unclear what he is, what Elon Musk is doing. | |
| You know, every day we hear news about new federal layoffs or hirings, and then they call back some of those people. | ||
| So I think the scope of this is still a big unknown, and that's part of what's driving this policy uncertainty that is plaguing business investment decisions and helped drive the S ⁇ P 500 down 2.7 percent yesterday. | ||
| But I think the end game is clear. | ||
| They want these tax cuts, which benefit billionaires and the wealthiest, and they're doing it by gutting services that ordinary Americans rely on, whether that's freezing funding for Head Start, taking away school lunch programs that go to the pockets of farmers all across the country, or gutting food security and health care. | ||
| Here's Ron in Michigan Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'd like to make a comment to both you ladies. | |
| I taught school for 32 years, and I'm up here in my low 80s. | ||
| But I really commend you for your honesty and the facts you are putting forward to the people of America. | ||
| I think Trump's New Deal is out the window. | ||
| I'm waiting for midterm when people like you will change the attitude of the people in this country to change Congress to the Democrats. | ||
| I'm not necessarily a Democrat. | ||
| I listen to the facts, and I follow the facts, and I follow through. | ||
| And you ladies are doing an excellent job of teaching the American people. | ||
| And I think that's what we need. | ||
| We need people to stop listening to some of these Fox channels because I think C-SPAN is letting people know exactly women like you need to run for office. | ||
| I would love to see you in the Congress and challenge the people with your knowledge. | ||
| So for that, I am looking forward to seeing Trump gradually deteriorate the value of the Republican Party because they are basically destroying this country as a whole, economically, socially, and spiritually. | ||
| And that I do not like. | ||
| So anyway. | ||
| Romina, are you going to run for Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't have plans to at the moment. | |
| I would, however, say that our spending crisis is a bipartisan problem. | ||
| As several callers have mentioned, presidents from both parties have overseen a huge increase in our debt. | ||
| And this is not a problem that we're going to solve on a partisan basis. | ||
| So people often think, well, just vote in the other party, but we've seen debt go up under both sides. | ||
| And so that's not what's going to solve it. | ||
| I have been a big advocate for recognizing that Congress is not willing to make the tough spending reduction decisions that are necessary to stabilize our debt and ensure future prosperity and also the national security of our country. | ||
| So I've been calling for Congress to establish a commission. | ||
| I think it should be structured like the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which closed obsolete military bases after World War II as a great model for how Congress can overcome political gridlock and stabilize the debt, which has eluded them for far too long. | ||
| Last year we had the Fiscal Commission Act passed out of the House Budget Committee under the leadership of Budget Committee Chair Jody Arrington, who's the budget committee chair right now as well. | ||
| It was a very good approach to get members of Congress and experts on both sides of the aisle together under the shared goal of ensuring that we have a strong nation going forward and that we don't wait for a fiscal crisis to force Congress's hands because that's what's going on right now. | ||
| They're going to keep spending like there's no tomorrow until tomorrow comes and at that point we could face severe sudden austerity that would make the great recession look like a blip in the data or potentially we could use lose the United States status as a global reserve, the US dollar as a global reserve currency. | ||
| There's severe implications of letting debt grow out of control and now is the time to rein it in. | ||
| Mayor respond to your caller? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I just want to thank him for his kind words. | ||
| I think those are sort of an optimistic thing to say at a time when we are seeing attacks on people in public service. | ||
| And the sort of reckless layoffs by Elon Musk and Donald Trump are helping show Americans that it's not just faceless bureaucrats who run the federal government, it's park rangers all across the United States. | ||
| It's people who help you out your local Social Security office. | ||
| It's cancer researchers. | ||
| It's people who staff the VA system to make sure that people who served our country in combat can get the care they need. | ||
| And so thank you for that. | ||
| I think looking ahead into what the outlook for Congress is, I hope that people, regardless of their party, will stand up for the system of checks and balances that has been part of our country since its inception. | ||
| Congress has a power of the purse and they should be making sure that the Trump administration follows through on what they have appropriated. | ||
| The caller also asked, talked about the need for better education. | ||
| Where do people need to go for information about the economy, especially given that a lot of people no longer trust the media? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the Federal Reserve publishes statistics for the people who are really wonky and want for the latest data on, say, unemployment measures. | |
| There's a whole dashboard on a site called FRED FRED run by one of the Federal Reserve Banks. | ||
| You know, so that is a go-to place for us at Center for American Progress. | ||
| And so I think some of the things I will name that I am watching as we see what unfolds this year are these are those hard data sources that come from survey data from the federal government, which is why it's important to fund those so they're accurate. | ||
| But household surveys and firm surveys that talk about payroll and unemployment rates. | ||
| I'm also watching some of the consumer sentiment surveys, which I think are good early indicators of where the economy is headed. | ||
| So that includes the University of Michigan's Survey of Consumers, the Conference Board Sentiment Index. | ||
| Both of those things were trending down last month, and so that is a worrying sign for the economy. | ||
| Let's talk to Rick in Sheffield Lake, Ohio, Democrat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ladies. | |
| Morning. | ||
| I'm an average working guy. | ||
| I make about $60,000 a year and I pay taxes. | ||
| But I have some friends who are very wealthy and they're always complaining about paying too much in taxes. | ||
| So I made them an offer. | ||
| I said, look, I'll tell you what. | ||
| I feel bad for you. | ||
| I said, I'll switch places. | ||
| You make $60,000 a year and pay little taxes. | ||
| And I'll make all the money you make and I'll pay a lot of taxes. | ||
| But the funny thing is, none of them want to switch places with me. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Any comment to Romina? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's a very generous offer by the caller. | |
| The U.S. tax code is highly progressive. | ||
| The top 10% of income earners pay 70% of all federal income taxes. | ||
| While they rake in about the top 1%, rake in about 20%, 22% of total income, they cover about 40% of the total income tax burden. | ||
| So his friends may not be wrong that their share of federal taxes is much higher. | ||
| I would, however, point out that people making $60,000 a year do get hit with payroll taxes. | ||
| And if we decided not to reform Social Security benefits on slowing the growth and benefits in the future, but just tax people more in order to pay for the funding gap that we face in Social Security, people like the caller making $60,000 a year could face up to a $10,000 payroll tax burden with their tax burden going up by $2,600 per year. | ||
| So we need to also reform Social Security and federal health care programs if we want to keep taxes low and have a vibrant economy for the American people. | ||
| So it's not enough just to look at the income tax brackets and payroll taxes because a lot of the tax giveaways that we have in our tax code can be are mostly go to benefit the wealthy. | ||
| So things like lower rates on capital gains. | ||
| There are a lot of deductions that are basically end up lowering the tax obligations for people who are wealthy and make their money off things other than wages and salaries. | ||
| And that is part of the reason why the wealthy and corporations too aren't paying the fair share that they owe to pay for the government services that we need and to help pay down the debt. | ||
| One more call. | ||
| This is Anthony in Rochester, New York, Independent. | ||
| Go ahead, Anthony. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning, ladies. | |
| Great program this morning. | ||
| Good discussion here. | ||
| A couple of things I wanted to just address is, you know, I know the category of Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, referred to as entitlements. | ||
| Of course, they are. | ||
| But, you know, I've paid in my lifetime. | ||
| I've worked for about 45 years. | ||
| And I looked at it before calling, I looked at my Social Security statement that we get every year. | ||
| I paid over $340,000 combined, myself and my employer combined, into Social Security. | ||
| So with interest over the period of time of 45 years, it's probably doubled the interest that I didn't earn, the government did. | ||
| I paid over $100,000 for Medicaid, Medicare, I'm sorry, Medicare, again, combined between myself and my employer. | ||
| So if they're going to start cutting Social Security, can I get my money back? | ||
| And then we call it even, you know, with interest. | ||
| Elon Musk started his whole project off saying he can slash $2 trillion without touching entitlements. | ||
| Then he's on TV last night saying, yeah, we're going to have to take people's Social Security. | ||
| We have to cut that. | ||
| It was obvious in the beginning that he couldn't receive, get his goals without doing that. | ||
| You know, the other thing I'll talk about is they talk about having a president's now saying we have to feel some pain. | ||
| We have to be bad. | ||
| We have to be bad first before we can be good again. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| You know what pain would be? | ||
| Just leaving the tax cuts and letting them expire. | ||
| So Anthony, let's get a response. | ||
| Go ahead, Romina Bacha. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I haven't seen any legislator propose to reduce Medicare or Social Security benefits for people who are already on the rolls. | |
| However, I do think there's a real opportunity and a need to reduce the growth in those benefits, especially for future beneficiaries because they're incredibly unsustainable. | ||
| Most of Medicare is actually not funded by the payroll tax, but is already funded by general revenue taxes. | ||
| And in terms of the caller and others, they might have been much better off if they had been able to invest the money that they had taken from them by the government into private retirement accounts, private health savings accounts, and reaped actual returns because there's also this misconception the government didn't earn any interest on those Social Security revenues either because they were spent immediately. | ||
| In fact, Social Security is already running a cash flow deficit of more than $100 billion that will grow to almost $700 billion at the time the trust fund will be depleted by 2033. | ||
| Medicare and Social Security need to be reformed. | ||
| They are driving us into a debt crisis as the financial report of the United States government details. | ||
| More than 100% of our unfunded obligations, the gap between spending and the revenues that the government will bring in can be attributed to Medicare, two-thirds of that, and Social Security. | ||
| All right, that's Romina Bacha, Budget and Entitlement Policy Director at the Cato Institute, and also Emily G, Senior Vice President for Inclusive Growth at the Center for American Progress. | ||
| Ladies, thanks so much for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Up next, a conversation with Rebecca Pincus, Director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center, about why President Trump wants to take over Greenland. | ||
| That's after the break. | ||
| In the years right before World War II started in 1939, Winston Churchill had been out of government. | ||
| However, even though he was far from power, his country home, Chartwell, became Churchill's headquarters of his campaign against Nazi Germany. | ||
| Catherine Carter is a curator and historian who has managed the house and collections at Chartwell. | ||
| Her new book is called Churchill's Citadel: Chartwell and the Gatherings Before the Storm. | ||
| Catherine Carter reveals how Churchill used Chartwell, which is 35 miles from London, as his base during the pre-war years to collect key intelligence about Germany's preparation for war. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Author Catherine Carter with her book Churchill's Citadel, Chartwell and the Gatherings Before the Storm, on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb, BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. | |
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're joined now by Rebecca Pincus. | ||
| She's Polar Institute Director at the Wilson Center. | ||
| Rebecca, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much. | |
| So, President Trump has repeated his intention to make Greenland a U.S. territory in his address to Congress last week. | ||
| Let's just take a look at that moment and then we'll get your reaction. | ||
| And I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland. | ||
| We strongly support your right to determine your own future. | ||
| And if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America. | ||
| We need Greenland for national security and even international security. | ||
| And we're working with everybody involved to try and get it. | ||
| But we need it really for international world security. | ||
| And I think we're going to get it. | ||
| One way or the other, we're going to get it. | ||
| We will keep you safe. | ||
| We will make you rich and together. | ||
| We will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before. | ||
| It's a very small population, but very, very large piece of land and very, very important for military security. | ||
| He mentioned that it was important to U.S. national security. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Greenland has been strategically vital to the United States for 75, 80 years, ever since World War II. | |
| In World War II, the weather war was fought over Greenland because weather stations could give allies or Axis powers information about fighting conditions in the North Atlantic, which is obviously a strategic waterway between the United States and Europe. | ||
| The United States occupied Greenland during the war. | ||
| And then as technology advanced throughout the Cold War, we built a U.S. military base up in Thule in northwest Greenland. | ||
| And in the era of intercontinental ballistic missiles, we placed increasingly sophisticated radar systems up there to give us advance warning of missile threats coming over the polar region to threaten the United States homeland. | ||
| So throughout successive generations of military technology, Greenland has stayed vital because it's this far northern location that points at Eurasia. | ||
| And any missile threat coming towards the United States from Eurasia is going to be passing over those polar trajectories. | ||
| And we need to be able to see it as early as possible. | ||
| So from a homeland defense, a missile defense perspective, Greenland is really vital. | ||
| And the second piece of importance is that it sits at the western end of the sea lanes of communication across the North Atlantic. | ||
| The so-called GIUK gap, Greenland, Iceland, UK gap. | ||
| That's a sea lane where we can try to find and track Russian submarines exiting from their home bases in Murmansk down through the North Atlantic and getting out into the world oceans. | ||
| And it's incredibly vital that we track them there at the narrowest point before they can escape. | ||
| So from an anti-submarine warfare perspective, as well as from that missile defense perspective, Greenland is really, really important. | ||
| And it has been for a very long time. | ||
| So why don't we just expand the military base? | ||
| Why do we actually have to own all of Greenland? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think there's a conversation to be had about our security interests and the best way to meet them in the current era. | |
| We're in a new generation of military technology where we're dealing with hypersonic missiles and delivery systems, new space-based threats. | ||
| There's an important satellite station in Greenland. | ||
| And so I think it's part of a broader conversation when we think about the new era of missile defense. | ||
| I do think, you know, there's sort of a number of different approaches to securing U.S. security interests there, but those interests are vital and always have been. | ||
| There's also Greenland's mineral wealth. | ||
| Explain what they have and why that would be important to us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| So Greenland has a tremendous mineral endowment. | ||
| You know, virtually anything you can think of. | ||
| A lot of critical minerals, which we know are very important to modern technology. | ||
| A lot of interest in critical minerals today. | ||
| Rare earth elements, uranium, precious metals. | ||
| There's an active ruby mine in Greenland and a gold mine. | ||
| It's just a really rich mineral endowment. | ||
| It's a huge area. | ||
| You know, the island of Greenland is three times the size of Texas. | ||
| So we're talking about a really, really big island. | ||
| And there's been very little mining activity. | ||
| So it's in many ways very untouched. | ||
| And so that's tremendously important today as there's so much interest in critical minerals and everything else. | ||
| The reason that it's largely been untouched is that mining is very challenging there. | ||
| It's very expensive. | ||
| You're dealing with an Arctic environment. | ||
| There's a giant ice sheet. | ||
| And so there are some real hurdles to mining. | ||
| And I think that's important to bring into the conversation because too often we focus on the minerals and not necessarily on the process of getting them out of the ground. | ||
| Speaking of the environment, talk about the impact climate change has had on Greenland. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| I mean, it's, you know, we're seeing ice melt coming off that ice sheet, and that impacts sea level rise and potentially ocean circulation throughout the North Atlantic. | ||
| You know, the Gulf Stream and that Atlantic meridian overturning current runs up the north coast of the east coast of the United States, sorry, and over to Europe. | ||
| It keeps Europe warm. | ||
| There's some concerns about the future of Greenland's ice sheet and the future of that current. | ||
| Those are very, very macro and long-term trends. | ||
| But Greenland is certainly vital to global climate, absolutely. | ||
| And if you'd like to join our conversation, if you've got a question for our guest about Greenland, about the geopolitics of the Arctic, you can give us a call. | ||
| The numbers are Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| It's 202-748-8001 for Republicans and 202748-8002 for independents. | ||
| Greenland is self-governed territory. | ||
| It's controlled by Denmark. | ||
| Explain what that means and what the role of Denmark is in Greenland's economy and security. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| And that's, I'm happy you asked about that because it's really important. | ||
| Greenland is a former Danish colony. | ||
| And as with any former colony, there is a pretty fraught history there. | ||
| But over the last several decades, Greenland has moved more and more towards greater autonomy and political power, along with the Faroe Islands, which are also part of the Kingdom of Denmark. | ||
| So one of the most significant steps was in 2009 with the Self-Rule Act. | ||
| And the Self-Rule Act gave Greenland a lot of political autonomy, including control over its natural resources and education, healthcare, policing, sort of all of the domestic concerns are now fully controlled by the Greenlandic government. | ||
| Denmark does maintain control of defense and foreign policy, although it conducts those policies in consultation with Greenlanders. | ||
| And there are Greenlandic members of parliament who sit in the Danish parliament. | ||
| There's a lot of structures for interaction, but it is still part of that kingdom of Denmark. | ||
| And, you know, Greenlanders want independence. | ||
| That's been clearly expressed. | ||
| You can see that. | ||
| But they've been on a trajectory towards more and more political autonomy over the years, more and more control over their land. | ||
| And that process, I think, is something where we see the Danish and Greenlandic governments working together pretty closely along that pathway. | ||
| This is the Guardian. | ||
| Greenland calls for general election for 11 March amid Trump interest. | ||
| That's today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is today. | |
| What's going on and what do you expect to happen in this election? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's a regular election, so it's not any sort of snap or emergency election. | |
| But the Inatsarsa, the Greenlandic parliament, is up for election today. | ||
| There are 31 seats. | ||
| Greenlanders are voting, so we should see results hopefully probably tomorrow. | ||
| And it's going to be really interesting to see what happens. | ||
| Right now, the government is led by a coalition of the two majority parties, IA and Simuit, which are both relatively sort of center. | ||
| And IA is the largest. | ||
| They hold 11 seats. | ||
| Simeut holds 10. | ||
| And then there's a few more smaller parties. | ||
| There's about five or six total. | ||
| But it's going to be interesting to see if that distribution of seats changes as a result of all of the attention Greenland has been getting. | ||
| And what I think it's good to look for is going to be if there's a change in sort of the relative distribution of seats among parties that are more or less eager to pursue independence. | ||
| So there's a political consensus around independence in Greenland, but the different parties typically take more nuanced positions around how soon they want to get there. | ||
| And I'm happy to sort of talk more about that. | ||
| But the question is, what is the general public in Greenland, and I know there's only 56,000 people there, what do they think about becoming part of the United States? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Polls indicate that a majority of Greenlanders do not want to do that right now. | |
| But also, we know that there's a political consensus around independence. | ||
| So you see pretty significant majorities of Greenlanders who want to pursue independence. | ||
| I think many Greenlanders see the U.S. as an incredibly vital partner. | ||
| Again, we've had a presence there through the base for decades, and it's an important relationship. | ||
| And I think there's interest in a closer relationship with the United States with investment. | ||
| Greenland needs investment to develop its economy and to sort of achieve eventual independence. | ||
| It will need to grow its economic foundation. | ||
| So I think the United States is seen as a potential partner there. | ||
| But what we've seen from polling is that it doesn't appear that there is popular support now for becoming formally part of the United States. | ||
| And you mentioned the Arctic, the geopolitics of the Arctic. | ||
| China and Russia have been increasing their presence there. | ||
| They have been doing joint exercises together in the Arctic. | ||
| What's their interest there, and what's the concern for the United States? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, absolutely. | |
| You know, break them apart a little bit. | ||
| Russia is the largest Arctic state. | ||
| It controls about half of the Arctic's coastline. | ||
| So it's sort of always been incredibly important from a regional perspective. | ||
| China is interested in the Arctic and has been for many years. | ||
| Even though they're not an Arctic. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They are not. | |
| Yes. | ||
| And I definitely want to underscore that. | ||
| China's very far away from the Arctic. | ||
| And about a decade ago, they were talking a lot about being a near-Arctic state, about doing a lot of foreign investment in the Arctic region. | ||
| That wave of attention and pressure has receded to a certain extent. | ||
| So we see less, I think, pressure from Chinese investors, although there certainly have been attempts to invest in Greenland and around the Arctic region and Finland and Canada and Sweden and Alaska. | ||
| But China is, you know, it's a resource importing state and it's a major shipping state. | ||
| And the Arctic is full of natural resources and potential emerging shipping lanes. | ||
| So it's not surprising that China is interested in the Arctic region, but we do need to guard against their potential to gain influence there and to undermine the rules-based order up there. | ||
| And the growing alignment between China and Russia is, of course, extremely troubling. | ||
| We have seen joint exercises, joint naval exercises, a Coast Guard agreement. | ||
| Most of those have been focused on the Bering Sea off of Alaska. | ||
| But we do see Chinese research icebreakers conducting science missions, science missions in the Arctic region every summer. | ||
| And sure, they're probably collecting sensitive data as well. | ||
| That's sort of the reality of the world these days. | ||
| So you put it in quotations because it's probably spy missions, not science. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I think we have to assume that these days there's some scientific research and there's probably some intelligence gathering on, you know, what else is up there. | |
| We can't keep China out of the Arctic. | ||
| They're conducting science missions. | ||
| You know, they get permission to go into states' EEZs to do science. | ||
| The State Department has been granting Chinese research expeditions access for many years now, right? | ||
| This is sort of long-standing practice. | ||
| So has Canada and Russia. | ||
| You know, we see these Chinese expeditions. | ||
| But I think what it behooves us to do is to be smart about recognizing the reality of a global competition in which every part of state activity is competitive. | ||
| We know with China that they use their spending and their companies to compete with us economically. | ||
| They're competing with us scientifically. | ||
| We see espionage. | ||
| So I think the Arctic is part of that. | ||
| It is not immune from these global dynamics. | ||
| As much as in the past, there was a strong narrative that the Arctic was different. | ||
| It was separate. | ||
| What happens in the Arctic stays in the Arctic, and that's just not true anymore, and it hasn't been for several years. | ||
| All right, let's talk to callers. | ||
| We'll start with Kurt, who's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Kurt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you today? | |
| Good. | ||
| I have just a couple observations. | ||
| I'm a retired history teacher in high school and college. | ||
| And first of all, Article II does not permit Trump to just arbitrarily go out and say, I want Greenland. | ||
| That would have to have to be like Congress would have to go through and qualify that. | ||
| And Denmark is a sovereign nation. | ||
| If they say no, then you just can't bully somebody into doing that. | ||
| And as far, you've got to think about environmental factors also, where Greenland is. | ||
| I mean, it's a lot of fresh water goes into the Atlantic Ocean, and as your guests had said, it helps keep the conveyor the warm water around the coast could change the climate. | ||
| And then you have the environmental factors. | ||
| You just don't jump in there and say, hey, we're going to take Greenland. | ||
| I mean, I don't see that as ever going to happen. | ||
| They've already have a base. | ||
| They've already talked in the past 20 years about expanding the base there. | ||
| And we don't know what's there. | ||
| And as far as I'm going to go back to one thing, the Social Security Fund, that's been rated by Reagan and some other presidents. | ||
| So that's off our topic. | ||
| But go ahead and his comment about the base there. | ||
| And, you know, President Trump had said that, quote, we'll get essentially Greenland, quote, one way or another. | ||
| What are the possible scenarios as to how the administration would get Greenland? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, and I appreciate the President starting those comments by speaking directly to the people of Greenland and recognizing their right to self-determination. | |
| And I think that's really the starting point. | ||
| Greenlanders do have the right of self-determination. | ||
| And the pathways here for them to pursue change, whether it's independence or some other form of arrangement, would really start with Greenlanders. | ||
| I mentioned the 2009 Self-Rule Act. | ||
| It lays out a pathway by which Greenland can achieve independence. | ||
| And so that was negotiated between Greenland and Denmark. | ||
| There is a pathway for Greenlanders to gain their independence. | ||
| It begins with a referendum vote, and then negotiations would start between Greenland and Denmark. | ||
| And they would have to come to an agreement that would have to be accepted by both parliaments. | ||
| And so, you know, I think the caller is right. | ||
| This is something that would certainly take a very long time. | ||
| And, you know, I think from a practical perspective, for the U.S. to acquire Greenland would be practically very challenging. | ||
| There's a number of sort of hurdles there. | ||
| But I welcome the conversation about what options there may be for the U.S. and Greenland to work together more closely. | ||
| And I think that conversation, a productive conversation about deepening the relationship, recognizing the importance of Greenland to the United States and NATO tying us all together, I think that's really welcome. | ||
| And hopefully, you know, in President Trump's first administration, we saw interest in Greenland too. | ||
| And, you know, the net effect was closer U.S.-Greenland ties. | ||
| We reopened a consulate in Nuuk, the capital. | ||
| Several U.S. agencies began partnerships with Greenland that are benefiting both parties. | ||
| So I think there is a potential for this conversation to really yield some promising results. | ||
| During the first term, it was an offer to buy Greenland. | ||
| It seems that that offer is off the table at this point. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, it's hard to sort of tell what the specific policy options, you know, are under consideration. | |
| I think, you know, the Greenlanders at this point do not appear interested in becoming part of the United States. | ||
| And I think right now we're in this sort of phase where there's a lot of things being talked about. | ||
| But, you know, when you start looking at sort of the realities of different policy options and sort of the question of cost, risk, and relative priority vis-a-vis other U.S. challenges, I think, you know, we're going to get to a place where some of the more drastic choices probably slide off the table. | ||
| Rebecca Pincus is with us. | ||
| She's a Polar Institute Director at the Wilson Center. | ||
| We're talking about U.S. National Security and Greenland. | ||
| If you'd like to give us a call, the lines are open. | ||
| It's Democrats are 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans are 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents are 202-748-8002. | ||
| And we'll talk to Art, Illinois, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd like to ask why is there not a close tie between Denmark and Greenland? | ||
| Is there not a what, Art? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Between a very close tie between Greenland and Denmark. | |
| The relationship. | ||
| And so what's your question about that? | ||
| Is there a close tie? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Denmark is part of NATO and is also made to become a member of the United Nations. | ||
| How can we look at Denmark and Greenland separately? | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Go ahead, Rebecca. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So as I mentioned, Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, along with the Faroe Islands. | |
| And there is very close ties. | ||
| While Greenland has gained more political autonomy in recent years, there remains really significant legal ties there, constitutional ties, right? | ||
| It's part of the kingdom. | ||
| The Danish government maintains control over defense and foreign policy. | ||
| And also, the Danish government provides an annual block grant to Greenland. | ||
| It's a significant financial assistance that is really vital. | ||
| And so there's strong sort of economic connections there. | ||
| About how much is it per year? | ||
|
unidentified
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It's about half a billion dollars or so. | |
| It's roughly 40 to 50% of sort of the Greenlandic GDP. | ||
| So it's really pretty significant. | ||
| And that's always been sort of, once you start getting into the reality of the independence conversation, the financial piece becomes a little bit more challenging. | ||
| And I should also note that there's a really significant Greenlandic diaspora in Greenland, in Denmark, excuse me. | ||
| So there are thousands of Greenlanders who live in Denmark, live abroad in Denmark, and there are very strong family ties. | ||
| There's a lot of intermarriage and people traveling back and forth. | ||
| And so I think there are strong ties that bind Denmark and Greenland. | ||
| And that's important to recognize as well in this conversation. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here's Alex in Harvard, Massachusetts, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Alex. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Dan. | |
| My name is Alexis Thodes. | ||
| I'm calling from Havan, Massachusetts. | ||
| Hope everybody is having a good day today. | ||
| So personally, I don't think we're going to get Greenland just because it'll, I believe it'll compromise national security, in my opinion. | ||
| Our country already looks like a joke. | ||
| Here is Jennifer in Oak Park, Illinois, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Jennifer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Mimi. | |
| I am so excited. | ||
| Good morning, everybody. | ||
| I'm so excited to talk to you, Mimi. | ||
| This is the first time I've gotten to you, and I'm just popped. | ||
| But is this Riddle? | ||
| Boy, Jennifer. | ||
| So, Jennifer, are you Riddle on X? | ||
| Yeah, I am. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I see your stuff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I know. | |
| Sometimes I get a little, you know. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I get a little crazy on there. | ||
| Not to throw you off. | ||
| So you go ahead with your comment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| So, ma'am, for your custom, of course. | ||
| So I kind of find it ridiculous that we're even talking and discussing this and you're sitting trying to pretend like somehow this is normal and could happen. | ||
| I mean, he's talking about going to war and taking over another sovereign country that's a democracy and part of NATO. | ||
| So would that not trigger NATO to come and defend Greenland and Denmark against America? | ||
| Wouldn't we be breaking NATO's, like our contract with NATO? | ||
| This whole idea that this could happen, and then you're sitting here on here making it sound like this is okay, that this is normal, like that this should happen. | ||
| I just find just completely insulting. | ||
| I can't imagine people in Greenland and Denmark and all around the world listening to you talk like this is somehow possible. | ||
| Like this isn't the most defending, disgusting, awful thing that this disgusting man has been saying. | ||
| Let's get a response. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I think there's been a lot of attention on the fact that President Trump has refused to take military options off the table. | |
| And I understand that. | ||
| I do think that, you know, it's not surprising that the president would refuse to limit himself. | ||
| And I think, you know, we're seeing a sort of characteristic approach to this issue set. | ||
| I do think that military intervention is exceedingly unlikely. | ||
| And, you know, I think it's part of the conversation right now. | ||
| But again, you know, when sort of the realities of different policy choices start getting fleshed out, again, I think a lot of the options that are currently being discussed right now are probably going to slide off the table because they would not necessarily be appealing. | ||
| Again, you think about sort of cost, risk, and relative prioritization. | ||
| And those are sort of a typical sort of analytic framework, right? | ||
| So a military option would be extremely high cost. | ||
| It would be extremely high risk because of the NATO issue. | ||
| And when we think about sort of high-level U.S. priorities, again, I think, you know, I find that very unlikely. | ||
| And so I think it's getting a lot of attention right now, which again is sort of not surprising. | ||
| But I think focusing on what are the sort of really constructive ways that we can build closer U.S.-Greenland ties and what would the different options in that set look like? | ||
| You know, I think that gets us into a different conversation. | ||
| But setting aside the military option, there's also economic coercion. | ||
| I mean, you could put a lot of tariffs on Denmark and kind of pressure them that way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Denmark is part of the European Union. | |
| So it's hard to tariff them. | ||
| You can't do it specifically. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, you know, we're seeing a tariff conversation with the EU right now, and that's obviously creating some tension. | |
| But the fact that Denmark is part of that block and, you know, Greenland is part of Denmark, I think, makes this into a broader conversation. | ||
| And again, you know, we're seeing a lot of talk about tariffs and from the administration. | ||
| But then, you know, again, we sort of see that there's tariffs are being delayed or lifted a little bit. | ||
| So, you know, there's sort of the rhetorical piece of it, and then there's sort of the actual implementation side, and there's often a bit of a gap there. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here is Keith in St. Petersburg, Florida, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Great to have a great conversation about Greenland. | ||
| I think from my standpoint, I think from a lot of people's standpoint, Trump gets a bad rap about issues like this. | ||
| The way I think people like Rebecca who are in the know might say is that it's associated with Panama. | ||
| Panama was a, let's say, a small independent country that the U.S. feels is being managed, so to speak, by an adversary, China, in terms of the Panama Canal. | ||
| And he's looking at Greenland sitting out there with very few people in a very vulnerable position in a strategic place. | ||
| And he's thinking, yeah, I think we need to establish our influence and interest in protecting Greenland from adversaries that are also predators, predatory adversaries like China and Russia. | ||
| It's a dangerous world out there. | ||
| And people in this country who start worrying about talking about Marines invading Greenland in order to rag on Trump, I think are doing a disservice to the conversation. | ||
| And I'd like to get Rebecca's assessment of all that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| You know, I do think that it's so much of the time this conversation is at a really high level. | ||
| And it can be sort of hard to sort out some of the kind of key elements from the broader conversation. | ||
| So I think talking about the risks to Greenland are really important because that would be at the root of any, you know, sort of analysis of U.S. policy options. | ||
| Yes, Greenland is a very, very large island. | ||
| It's populated by about 57,000 people. | ||
| Most of the island is relatively uninhabited. | ||
| It is mostly covered by an ice sheet. | ||
| And there is a very important U.S. base, Batufik space base, in the northwest. | ||
| So the Thule Air Base was renamed Batufik a couple of years ago. | ||
| That base is very important for our missile defense. | ||
| And, you know, the risks to Greenland I would classify as primarily on the sort of economic and influential side. | ||
| I don't worry about necessarily an invasion of Greenland. | ||
| While it is relatively lightly defended, the primary sort of target there would be that base. | ||
| So I don't think we need to worry about sort of a seizure of Greenland by Russia or China. | ||
| I think the primary concern would be that kind of creeping economic influence that undermines the political independence of the country and puts the U.S. base and U.S. interests at risk. | ||
| And if that's the risk we're talking about, then the set of policy solutions would be tailored to that risk, right? | ||
| And again, we would be focused primarily on blocking potential Chinese influence and making sure that Greenland stays part of the NATO alliance. | ||
| So I think it's really important to kind of get the conversation into specifics because then I think we can have a much more useful conversation about what U.S. options would be, what the various costs and risks of those choices would be. | ||
| And for a long time, we have relied on not only the NATO alliance, but also the bilateral defense agreement that we've had with Denmark and by extension Greenland that went in in 1951. | ||
| So we've had a bilateral defense agreement that was updated in 2004 to give Greenland a greater say. | ||
| And we have the NATO architecture. | ||
| And those two pieces are really important. | ||
| In our evolving security environment, I think there's a conversation to be had about whether more is needed to make sure that Chinese influence doesn't grow in Greenland. | ||
| I think, again, that's a valuable conversation. | ||
| Thinking about Greenland's trajectory towards independence and its minerals and its growth trajectory, how can the U.S. support that in ways that don't, you know, in ways that ensure that our competitors don't get an edge? | ||
| Great conversation to have. | ||
| Absolutely welcome that. | ||
| Few Greenland facts to share with you. | ||
| I'll put them on the screen. | ||
| It's the world's largest island located in the Arctic. | ||
| By the way, it's about three times the size of Texas. | ||
| It's self-governing territory of Denmark. | ||
| The population is 56,000, mostly indigenous Inuit people. | ||
| 80% of its territory is covered by ice. | ||
| The economy is mainly based on fishing, and it receives large subsidies from the Danish government. | ||
| It accounts for about a fifth of its income or its GDP. | ||
| And here is Lancy in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Democrat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, the thing that I wanted to testify is why is it, you know, like, okay, President Trump is so bold, you know, like when he used to talk about you, the military or whatsoever, when it comes to Lancy, did we lose you? | |
| No. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm here. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Keep going. | ||
| Jeff in Port Angeles, Washington, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| As far as Greenland's defense strategic position, in the first place, there are sea floor sensors that track every single submarine on this planet. | ||
| As far as it being some sort of early warning against ICBMs, well, that's just, again, that's just not true. | ||
| Satellites are positioned geosynchronous and low Earth orbit. | ||
| And, you know, so thinking that Greenland is some kind of early warning system for strategic missile defense is just crazy. | ||
| As far as the economic aspect of it, I can't really speak to that. | ||
| But in terms of a defense strategic, that's just crazy talk. | ||
| And Jeff, what's your background in national security or in space? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I've been a military kid my whole life, and I've had a lifelong interest in following military, but I have no specific position in strategic defense or anything, but I've paid very close attention for virtually my entire life. | |
| We'll get Rebecca Pincus to respond. | ||
|
unidentified
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You know, I would say the U.S. Department of Defense would beg to get differ. | |
| But, you know, I think it's, again, that conversation is something where, you know, I think we've seen a lot of U.S. investment over the years and a lot of U.S. articulation of the importance of Greenland for those various purposes. | ||
| We know that the Russians remain extremely capable in the undersea domain. | ||
| We've seen a remarkable challenge for them. | ||
| And while a lot of their conventional forces have been eroded in Ukraine, at the high end, their capabilities remain very much able to hold U.S. assets at risk. | ||
| Their undersea domain is one of their particular areas of capability. | ||
| And the emergence of some of these new missiles and missile delivery systems, I think, again, are something that the DOD is saying very loudly these days we have not yet solved. | ||
| The conversation around missile defense and NORAD modernization, I think, again, is sort of further evidence that at least the Pentagon thinks that we still have a challenge. | ||
| And the possibility of hypersonic weapons coming out of Russia or China. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yep. | |
| And China has tested a hypersonic, and it's believed that Russia has as well. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yep, absolutely. | |
| Really challenging novel threats, space-based weapons. | ||
| You know, I think we're in sort of a technological revolution when it comes to missiles and missile delivery systems, and that's of absolutely vital concern to the United States. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Renee and Marietta, Georgia sent a text and says, What a waste of time. | ||
| This is a distraction to bring our attention away from all the harm this administration is doing. | ||
| When will men stop exploiting other people's land? | ||
| And here is Robert in Washington, D.C., Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Robert. | ||
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unidentified
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Greetings, blessings. | |
| Been at that you, and I'm about to use my 30 days, but that you're talking to me right now, that I am the very first Afro-American student in the United States, along with another that we have crossed the Arctic Circle and have touched base at none other than Thule Air Force Base in Greenland. | ||
| Now, a lot of this goes by way of that there's an Air Force base there, and I was there in 1981. | ||
| Now, I was in a special high school science project here in D.C. | ||
| And I was in Marine Science and Marine Biology. | ||
| It was known as Randall Senior High School. | ||
| And so it was a one-of-a-kind project, you know, that was ever done. | ||
| And I also was an aerospace where we had the Air Force and the Civil Air Patrol on one side of the school, and on the other side was the Navy and the Coast Guard. | ||
| And so while here at this special project, and so I was chosen during that year to be in the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary Program. | ||
| And so, as it were, that we were chosen to be on a Coast Guard, United States Coast Guard cutter, the West Wind. | ||
| And so we were the first students at that time to have reached the and cross the Arctic Circle and have stepped foot in Greenland. | ||
| And so I'm also as well as a, what is called a, in the military, it's called a blue-nosed polar bear. | ||
| And so when you cross the Arctic Circle, and if you want to go through the, and so at that time, so we did science research, and so most other research was I've done here in D.C. amongst the Potomac River and on pollution and things like that. | ||
| And so we also found out later on that there was a lot of high contamination up in the Arctic. | ||
| And so I worked alongside with the St. John's Newfoundland Coast Cold Water Research. | ||
| And so we did research on like icebergs. | ||
| And so we took like portions. | ||
| And so we were the first to have seen the first coastal shelf that broke off in 1981. | ||
| And none other than the United States Coast Guard cutter, the West Wind. | ||
| All right, Robert. | ||
| Well, we appreciate you sharing those memories with us. | ||
| This is John Hampton, Virginia, Democrat. | ||
| You're the last call, John. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| I agree with the young lady from Illinois and the lady from Marietta, Georgia. | ||
| It is a distraction. | ||
| The reason that Trump falls to Greenland is because of Menerris, as the young lady said earlier. | ||
| Also, that's why they want to take over Ukraine minerals. | ||
| So, you know, you have the next thing they'll say is fentanyl coming from Greenland. | ||
| And you have all these mega people agreeing that fentanyl is coming from Greenland. | ||
| However, the United States, or Trump rather, what is taking over Greenland going to do for price of eggs? | ||
| What is it going to do for price of child care? | ||
| What is it going to do for the price of housing? | ||
| So these people are just ate up. | ||
| Thank you, Mimi. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Last comment, Rebecca. | ||
|
unidentified
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I just wanted to say thank you to Robert for sharing those reflections. | |
| You know, the West Wind is a Coast Guard, was a Coast Guard icebreaker that was probably on its last gasp in 1981. | ||
| It was built in World War II and run by the Navy until the 60s and then transferred over to the Coast Guard. | ||
| And I think, you know, it's an illustration several decades ago. | ||
| You know, in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, the U.S. had a big icebreaker fleet. | ||
| We had a strong presence in the Arctic because of that geopolitical importance of the region. | ||
| And these days, part of the reason we're concerned about China and Russia is that our position there has really been eroded. | ||
| The Coast Guard has two icebreakers, both of which are old and at the end of their service lives. | ||
| So there's a lot of interest in the Arctic and there's a lot of recognition, I think, that the U.S. position, again, has eroded from where it was during the Cold War. | ||
| And we need to make some investments to bring it back there. | ||
| So again, you know, this interest in the Arctic and in Greenland, I think, is valuable because it points us in the direction of really important steps that are badly needed today. | ||
| Rebecca Pincus, Polar Institute Director at the Wilson Center. | ||
| Her work is at wilsoncenter.org. | ||
| Rebecca, thanks so much for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thanks so much, Mimi. | |
| And more of your phone calls after a break in open forum. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| The numbers: 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and 202-748-8002 for Independents. | ||
| And while you're dialing in, we want to remind you that C-SPAN wants you, the viewers, to have a voice in the White House briefing room. | ||
| If you have a question for Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, send it to us in an email to whQuestions at c-span.org. | ||
| Be sure to include your first name and your city and state, and you might hear your question asked at the next briefing. | ||
| Once again, send an email to whquestions at c-span.org, and we'll be right back. | ||
|
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Nearly 3,500 students participated in this year's C-SPAN Student Camp Documentary Competition, where we ask students to craft a message to the new president, exploring issues important to them or their communities. | |
| This Wednesday, tune in to C-SPAN's Washington Journal at 8 a.m. Eastern, where we'll announce the grand prize winner of this year's competition. | ||
| Democracy. | ||
| It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy, unfiltered. | ||
| 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. | ||
|
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We are still at our core, a democracy. | |
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
|
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If you ever miss any of C-SPAN's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. | |
| Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. | ||
| These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. | ||
| This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington. | ||
| Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| It is open forum until the House gavels in at 10 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| A couple of things for your schedule. | ||
| First thing at 10 a.m. is that during a speech to Congress last week, President Trump announced the creation of a White House Office of Shipbuilding. | ||
| Today, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Brett Seidel and others will testify on challenges and opportunities for naval shipbuilding from the Sea Power and Projection Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. | ||
| That's live on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| It's also on the app, C-SPANNOW and online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| And then at 2.30 p.m., a Senate panel looks at legislation to hold companies accountable for hosting child sexual abuse materials online. | ||
| The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism will be live at 2.30, also on C-SPAN 3, C-SPANNOW and C-SPAN.org. | ||
| And we will go to the phones now to Monica in Palm Harbor, Florida, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Monica. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi. | |
| I really have to say thank you to your station for putting the type of people on that really know how to carefully choose their words. | ||
| Just the information and the education just in the last hour or two has been tremendous. | ||
| I think we don't often get enough information in regards to what's happening in Greenland in specific and how the different things that we do are affecting them. | ||
| And the session before that that you had, the two women who were speaking, it was such a nice balance in information. | ||
| My frustration often is that I come from a large family. | ||
| We have different attitudes about political things. | ||
| And it's a challenging thing to talk and converse on these objects. | ||
| I really appreciate the fact that the people who are calling in have also been thoughtful enough to watch their words. | ||
| So I just want to really thank you for the kind of education that you are giving out there because I don't see enough of it. | ||
| I think that's one of the biggest problems we have is a lot of the voters are not educated about these issues. | ||
| I come from a background of having had a degree in political science and worked on a master's in public administration. | ||
| So I've worked both at the public sector and in the private sector. | ||
| And there are very, very, very big concerns that I have about how things are being handled so quickly without real serious thought of the implications of actions in the public sector that are different from how things happen in the private sector. | ||
| My biggest question is, how do we educate more of the non-voters to really understand the importance of educating themselves on these topics? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thanks, Monica. | ||
| And earlier today, Vice President JD Vance arrived at the Capitol, and you can see him here entering the House GOP conference meeting to push for passage of that CR. | ||
| You can keep an eye on the C-SPAN networks for all the developments on that front. | ||
| The House is expected to vote later this afternoon. | ||
| And this is Em in Dayton, Ohio. | ||
| Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Em. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, I have a couple things that I was just wanting to say. | |
| I worry about the Social Security because I have worked my whole entire life and I have paid into it. | ||
| And now that it's time that I cannot work no more because of my age and my back and everything, and I'm drawing my Social Security, which is my retirement. | ||
| The government set up for federal employees to have a three-tier retirement plan. | ||
| It was our retirement, our TSP, and our Social Security. | ||
| And now Elon Musk and Trump and Vance thinks that they could just go in and rip it out from underneath us, I think is totally wrong. | ||
|
unidentified
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We have paid into it. | |
| And another thing that I had that I've been trying to call in about was when they had the Ukraine on TV with Trump and Vance. | ||
| And all he kept asking was, what kind of deployment are you talking about when Vance kept saying, we're going to have a deployment, we're going to have a deployment. | ||
| He wanted to know what he was talking about. | ||
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unidentified
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And Vance couldn't answer that question. | |
| That was whenever everything started getting real nasty. | ||
| And all they're trying to do is get the Ukraine president to sign over their mineral rights before they will even answer his questions. | ||
| If anybody signed over their mineral rights before they had their information, they would be an idiot. | ||
| So if you could please answer those two questions for me, I would most certainly appreciate it. | ||
| And thank you for having me. | ||
| You're welcome. | ||
| And that Oval Office meeting with President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukraine's President Zelensky is on our website in its entirety. | ||
| If you'd like to go back and take a look, here is the New York Post with the news. | ||
| Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia University anti-Israel agitator detained by ICE for deportation, claims feds acted unlawfully as he makes bid for release. | ||
| Reminder, he is a lawful U.S. resident, a green card holder. | ||
| And CBS News says, Trump says arrest of Palestinian activists who helped lead Columbia protest is first of quote many to come. | ||
| And here is Guy in St. Augustine, Florida, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Appreciate taking the call. | ||
| The last couple hours have been very informative. | ||
| I was always threatened back when Kennedy was president in the Air Force that if we didn't shape up, we'd ship out to Thule, Greenland. | ||
| And I appreciated that, so I kept my slate clean. | ||
| The bottom line, as I see, we are doing exactly what Russia is doing to Ukraine by wanting to take over countries that do not belong to us, that have no connection with us. | ||
| And I understand Trump's interest in Panama since he has property there. | ||
| He isn't interested in the canal. | ||
| He's interested in his property. | ||
| But we better, I feel, straighten up and work on our own problems within our country and our education system. | ||
| And if we pull out all our funds from public education, most states don't have advanced schooling outside of the public system to be able to offer anybody. | ||
| It just isn't available. | ||
| And the areas like here in St. Augustine, the schools are running $27,000 a year for bowls, for example. | ||
| And most people can't afford $27,000 for elementary education. | ||
| So I think we have to stick with what we've got and improve it. | ||
| In the 50s, we were number one. | ||
| Now we're 28 in the world in our education system. | ||
| So obviously, we have a lot to fix. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| And here is DJ in Hampton, Virginia, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I'm calling about the lady that just called about Social Security. | ||
| I'm 84 and I'm not at all worried about losing mine. | ||
| But what I'd like is for each of you, all you hosts, would you please, would they start in on this? | ||
| Explain to them that it's not that they're taking your Social Security away. | ||
| They're cleaning up the files and removing people that should not be on it. | ||
| If you have no problem with that, you should not be worried at all because I'm not. | ||
| I want them to clean up Social Security because I know there's a lot of people out there that probably should not be on it. | ||
| But I expect you guys as hosts to correct people when they call in and they're worried about it. | ||
| Put their mind at ease and tell them they're cleaning up the files. | ||
| They're not taking your Social Security away. | ||
| Thank you, hon. All right, DJ. | ||
| And here is Ethel, Middletown, New York, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I'm one am concerned about them taking away my Social Security. | ||
| I'm concerned about them going in and going through the system. | ||
| Who's to say that they're not going to take it away? | ||
| They're racist. | ||
| They don't care about black folks. | ||
| And a number of us have worked and put into security, and we're titled to it. | ||
| Some of us are just living off Social Security. | ||
| So, yes, I'm very concerned. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And this is the Hill reporting. | ||
| Musk claims massive cyber attack behind X outage came from the Ukraine area. | ||
| The article says this: that Elon Musk said his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, was targeted in a massive cyber attack Monday and later claimed the attack was traced back to, quote, the Ukraine area, prompting outages for thousands of users. | ||
| Quote, we're not sure exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyber attack to try to bring down the X system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area. | ||
| He said that in an interview with Fox Business Channel. | ||
| And the yes. | ||
| Let's go to Lewis in North Miami Beach, Florida, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello. | |
| Hi, Lewis. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, my name is Lewis. | |
| Okay, I'm U.S. citizen, have immigrated here for a long time and became a citizen, and I'm very proud of it and thankful to God. | ||
| Okay, that has helped me. | ||
| Now, I have four different citizenship. | ||
| I'm Argentinian citizen. | ||
| I'm Australian citizen. | ||
| I'm Italian citizen. | ||
| And of course, I'm U.S. citizen. | ||
| Okay, my position is this. | ||
| Greenland should be very, very happy that Donald Trump, and thanks God that Donald Trump is our president, that Donald Trump is interested because Russia is interested also in Greenland and also China. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| And for Greenland to have a Donald Trump, which bless God that we have Donald Trump as our president, because Argentina also owns part of the Arctic. | ||
| I don't know if you know that. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| So in any case, my position is that Greenland should definitely seek the refuge that Donald Trump is offering them because the Chinese will swallow them up. | ||
| Okay, Denmark and Greenland, both of them. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| So in any case, my position is that Greenland should be very open to the interests that the U.S. have. | ||
| Here's Teresa in Chicago, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Teresa. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, who are you? | |
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, well, my thing here, right here, is I don't know why no one's looking at the AI part of this. | |
| I mean, Elon Musk is here to bring those robots in. | ||
| I'm sure that's what his real agenda is. | ||
| That's why he's shrinking government. | ||
| That's why he's getting rid of all these jobs because they're about to bring those robots in. | ||
| And once they bring them in, we are doomsday. | ||
| That's why he's getting rid of all these agencies. | ||
| I mean, Doji was called digital system before. | ||
| And, you know, I mean, it's going to be a total, it's just really going to be terrible once they do this because I mean, robots, are you serious? | ||
| I mean, oh, he, he's, they're working it out right now. | ||
| They want to bring it in AI for-profit, but Elon Musk wants to bring it in for free. | ||
| Why? | ||
| So he could bring it in to all these leftover government agencies so they could take full control over us. | ||
| And I even heard something about public sector service workers got to raise those are the people that go into your community and be making sure. | ||
| I mean, and then instead of the public sector service, it's going to be the robots. | ||
| Honest to God, this is coming. | ||
| And that's why it's so important to get him out, get him out, please, because he's really moving quickly. | ||
| Him and Donald Trump are taking all our rights away as fast as you could say, Jesus. | ||
| And once those robots are in, we won't even be able to breathe without asking. | ||
| I mean, can you imagine an America like that? | ||
| You know, this has to stop. | ||
| That's what their real agenda is. | ||
| Trust me. | ||
| All right, Teresa. |