CSPAN - Washington Journal 03/13/2025

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March 13, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:48

Washington Journal 03/13/2025

Participants

Main

pedro echevarria

cspan 29:53

Appearances

chuck schumer

sen/d 00:50

donald j trump

admin 01:42

linda mcmahon

00:31

marco rubio

admin 01:07

Clips

john mcardle

cspan 00:16

laura ingraham

fox 00:16

patty murray

sen/d 00:04

rep charles key

00:07

Callers

albert in austin

callers 00:19

bill in north carolina [2]

callers 00:07

joe in texas

callers 00:03

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Then Richard Rubin of the Wall Street Journal discusses his recent examination of how government spending has grown and where the money is going.
		He'll also weigh in on taxes in the U.S. economy.
		And we'll look at free speech on college campuses, including the Columbia University graduate detained by immigration officials in connection with campus protests against the war in Gaza last spring.
		We'll be joined by Connor Fitzpatrick with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
		Also, the University of Ottawa's Charles Etienne Bedri discusses the Trump administration's tariffs against Canada and threats to make the country America's 51st state.
		Washington Journal starts now.
		Join the conversation.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is the Washington Journal for March the 13th.
		One of President Trump's stated targets upon entering office was the Department of Education with goals of dismantling it and letting states take up more responsibility.
		Just this week, 1,300 Education Department employees were laid off.
		And in a memo to Department staff, Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote, We must start thinking about our final mission at the department as an overhaul.
		With that in mind, when it comes to the Department of Education, do you support or oppose eliminating that department?
		Here's how you can let us know your thoughts this morning.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents 202-748-8000 to 8002.
		School teachers and school administrators.
		You can get your thoughts in there as well.
		202-748-8003, a special line for you to call in on.
		Also, you can text us your thoughts on supporting or opposing the elimination of the Education Department.
		And you can post on Facebook and on X as well.
		The BBC takes a look at the Department of Education, giving some of the parameters of what it's done, what it does, and what its responsibilities are.
		Then this explainer, it says, what does the Department of Education do?
		It says, of the common misconception is that the Department of Education operates U.S. schools and sets curricula.
		That responsibility actually belongs to the state's local districts.
		The agency does oversee student low programs and administrate health grants that help low-income students attend university.
		It also helps fund programs to support students with disabilities and for students living in poverty.
		And the department enforces civil rights law designed to prevent race or sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools.
		Under the money aspects, what's the budget and how many people work there?
		The department's allocation was $238 billion in fiscal year 2024, less than 2% of the total federal budget.
		The agency says it has about 4,400 employees, the smallest of any cabinet-level department.
		And most public funding for U.S. schools comes from state and local governments.
		Just announcements this week when it comes to layoffs at the Department of Education, 1,300 expected layoffs that were reported earlier this week.
		And it was Linda McMahon earlier this week in an interview saying that Education Secretary said the mass layoffs were the first step towards shuttering the education department.
		She goes on to be quoted saying, actually, it is because that was the president's mandate.
		She told Fox News, his directive to me clearly is to shut down the Department of Education, which we know will have to work with Congress, you know, to get that accomplished.
		That's some of the expectations and the events surrounding the Department of Education.
		But when it comes to keeping it or eliminating it, what are your thoughts as well this morning?
		If you support or oppose eliminating the Department of Education, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202-748-8002, and educators and administrators for schools, you can get your thoughts on this topic as well.
		202-748-8003.
		It was the president himself in the Oval Office during that meeting with the Irish Prime Minister was asked about the Department of Education, his goals forward.
		Here's a portion of that from yesterday.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Like you hear other administrations given.
		In fact, I got 59 hostages out, and we gave nothing.
		In 59, we gave nothing, not including what's going on with Hamas.
		I mean, I consider that something where we're helping Israel.
		Linda McMahon is a real professional, actually a very sophisticated business person, and she cut a large number, but she kept the best people.
		And we'll see how it all works out.
		But our country was run very badly.
		I mean, whether it was that or contracts that were signed, that was so bad, so obviously bad.
		And I go through them in speeches.
		I could go through them all day long.
		I could read for billions and hundreds of billions of dollars.
		And all of that fat and waste and fraud and abuse is being taken out.
		But it's incredible what's happened.
		Now, Department of Education, maybe more so than any other place, has a lot of people that can be cut.
		They're number one, not showing up to work.
		Number two, they're not doing a good job.
		And if you take a look at our education process, and if you look at the charts, because they have numerous charts where they do the top 40, we're at number 37, 38, 39, and 40.
		And recently they hit during Biden's last few days, they hit last.
		So they were number 40, and yet we're number one in cost per pupil.
		So it's pretty bad.
		But we have a dream, and you know what the dream is?
		We're going to move the Department of Education.
		We're going to move education into the states so that the states, instead of bureaucrats working in Washington, so that the states can run education.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So those were the president's thoughts on the Department of Education when it comes to eliminating it or keeping it.
		What are your thoughts as well?
		Again, the numbers on the screen.
		Choose the one that best represents you.
		Some of you are already posting on Facebook this morning.
		This is Nancy Palier saying that she supports it, saying that's a useless agency, more damaging than helpful.
		Greg Moser saying he opposes it.
		The states will not replace the lost federal funding and programming.
		From Rob Hartman saying that's going to make local school taxes double.
		If you think senior citizens are struggling now, you better buckle up.
		And then Barry Davis from Facebook, get rid of it.
		It's going back to the states.
		More money for education, less the federal employees.
		Let's hear from you.
		This is Gary in New Hampshire.
		Democrats line.
		You're first up on this idea of supporting or opposing the elimination of the Department of Education.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
		All right.
		I am against eliminating the Department of Education.
		For one thing, the cities and the states, they get federal funding from the federal government for the programs that the kids in the schools need, particularly the children with disabilities.
		Children with disabilities have what's called an individual education plan.
		And what an individual education plan does is that it's a roadmap of services that the disabled child can receive the next academic year.
		So yeah, I am very opposed to it because the children with disabilities, learning disabilities, or whatever, will be at risk if the Department of Education is eliminated.
		Will not get the services that they need.
		OT, PT, one-on-one, and all that.
		And also, if there's anybody from New Hampshire listening, please, please get on the phone and fight the closing of the Littleton Social Security Office.
		Please, New Hampshire, I implore you.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		That's Gary there in New Hampshire.
		This is Penny in California, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hello.
		I completely support the elimination of the Department of Education.
		And the reason I support it is since it's been open, education has just deteriorated in the nation.
		And when something continues to deteriorate, then obviously it isn't working.
		So therefore, they need to find another way to make it work.
		And when you waste billions of dollars, that says do something else.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If Penny, there, if the states are the ones that are going to take up most of this responsibility under the Trump administration's goals, do you think California can rise to that challenge?
unidentified		Not with the current leadership in California.
		They have failed at everything.
		So no.
		Current leadership in California, no.
		It has to change.
		But the Department of Education as a whole has failed at educating our children.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Penny there in California.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Leslie in New York, Independent Line on eliminating or support or opposing the elimination of the Department of Education.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, I support eliminating the Education Department.
		Right now in New York State, our taxes are so high it's getting to the point where younger people can't even afford a home.
		Everything in New York is out of this world as far as cost of living.
		Something has to be done, and our children aren't being educated.
		When I went to school, we used to learn our ABCs and learn how to read.
		But today, children getting out of school, they don't even have the ability to read.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you say that, when you say things like that, what do you base that on?
unidentified		I base that on going to the store and watching a cash register break down and they can't even figure out how much you owe on a piece of paper.
		They have to have everything electronically.
		They have to have everything.
		They can't figure anything out in their head how to add or subtract.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Leslie there in New York, one of the organizations speaking out against eliminating the Department of Education is the American Federation of Teachers.
		They putting out a digital ad on this topic as of yesterday.
		We'll look at it now.
unidentified		The Musk Trump team taking a chainsaw to the Department of Education to pay for a tax cut for billionaires.
		Slashing critical services for poor kids.
		Special ed for disabled children.
		Career and technical education and student loans for working families.
		Cutting taxes for the wealthiest at the expense of America's children is wrong.
		Educators, parents, and advocates, make your voices heard.
		Call on lawmakers to reject the devastating cuts and protect our kids.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From John in California as well, Republican line.
laura ingraham ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		I appreciate C-SPAN having.
		I oppose these separate lines that you have for various and sundry interests.
		You had a conference the other day, and you had, it was limited to just government workers.
joe in texas ▲ ● ▼		I think that was a very crude form of censorship.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, this is the Department of Education we're talking about.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about the elimination of it?
unidentified		Well, I'm going there, Pedro, but this is the only chance I get to voice my opinion, and I will do so.
		The test scores are the lowest out of 40 some countries.
		The spending per pupil is the highest.
		And this was put together by Jimmy Carter as a reward to the teachers' union for supporting him in the 1976 election.
		That's what it was about.
		It's political.
		You listen to the woman that's the head of the teachers' union.
		She's sketchy.
		She doesn't care about children.
		They stayed out of the classrooms during the COVID thing when everybody knew that it was safe for them to go in and left the classrooms.
		It's not about children.
		It's about political graft and political rewards to political allies on the Democrat side of the aisle.
		And yeah, every presidential candidate has talked about closing down the education department.
		They're not going to miss it.
		As far as the special needs kids, they're going to be taken care of.
		Can California rise to the occasion based on past performance?
		Probably not, but they've got their worst schools.
		And they went, when I was in school in the 50s and 60s, we were number one in California at almost everything.
		Today, California is in like the last 46, 7th, 8th.
		Okay.
		The more liberal a state, the worse the education system.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John in California there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Clarence in Oregon, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I don't necessarily want to see it eliminated.
		I'd like to see it reduced because by totally eliminating it, it eliminates the president's ability to pressure the states into doing the proper training.
		The state of Oregon is despicable when it comes to education.
		They're more concerned about teaching kids sexual stuff instead of the basics, mascara, and arithmetic and reading and all that.
		Schools are not the place where you teach that kind of stuff.
		It should be at home.
		And that's the only way that government can hold the states accountable when they're doing the despicable job of teaching the kids.
		It's not the federal government that's the problem.
		It's the dang states that are not concentrating on what we're training them to do.
		And that's to take.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, under the president's ideal, then the states would pick up more of the slack, more of the responsibility.
		You're saying reduce the influence of the Department of Education.
		Exactly.
		What do you mean by that when you say reduce it?
unidentified		Well, if the state of Oregon was doing their job properly, then the government could say, get back to the basics, or we're going to remove some of your funding because the state of Oregon is sick.
		The school systems in the state of Oregon are an example of why we're so low.
		Our kids in the state of Oregon graduate and they can't read, write, and they can't communicate very well.
		They reduce the requirements to graduate.
		It's just despicable.
		The state of Oregon, the governor, and the school districts and the state of Oregon, they're more concerned about LGBT than they teach our kids how to read and write and be protective citizens in the state of Oregon.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we'll hear from Clarence.
		Actually, we'll hear from Sandra.
		Sandra in Texas, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yes.
		This has nothing to do with education.
		All the thing you got to do is kill these people anything to do with places.
		And they own to it with anything that Donald Trump is saying.
		Why would you want to eliminate the Department of Education?
		That makes no sense whatsoever.
		They haven't learned anything yet.
		So let Donald Trump keep on destroying everything until it brings them to their knees.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's go back to.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		As far as specifically, then, why would you support keeping the Department of Education?
unidentified		Well, why would you not keep the Department of Education?
		So when it was going to the state, they did nothing.
		It's going to be the same thing.
		They didn't teach anything.
		History, everything in history has always been a lie, and they're still lying.
		And they want to take books out of school.
		They don't want you to know what the real history is.
		So all of this is nothing but a farce.
		This is playing games.
		So just letting Donald Trump keep on destroying it.
		Just let him keep on doing what he's doing and destroying everything in America, bring America down to his knees because that's where they're going.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Sandra there in Texas.
		Your thoughts welcomed as we go on when it comes to the Department of Education.
		Do you support or oppose eliminating it?
		2027 88000 for Democrats.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Notice that line there, the fourth line there for educators and administrators.
		I know some of you going to school and doing your job and things like that.
		But if you have the opportunity to give us your thoughts on this topic of the last few days, 202-748-8003 is how you call in.
		You can use that same line to text us if you wish.
		And most of you, many of you posting on our social media sites, Facebook and on X, that's an avenue too, if you want to make your thoughts known.
		Let's go to Maine.
		This is where Matt is, Republican line.
		You're next up.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning.
		I think the path that our new administration is on is a good path.
		As with any responsible business owner, you have to trim the fat.
		And as it's been becoming more and more apparent, the fat that exists in the federal Department of Education needs to be scaled way back.
		And by putting that back onto the state's responsibility, that gives people the opportunity to vote with their feet and take their kids to the most productive school system in the nicest communities.
		And that would afford the educators the level of competition to provide the best product for our kids in putting out a level of education that is going to set them up best for the future.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is your state there, the state of Maine, equipped when it comes to school choice matters and what you talked about is giving that options for parents?
unidentified		Well, under the current governor, I would have to say no.
unidentified		But communities around the state, we've done a very good job redistricting all of our school districts around the state to afford equal opportunity statewide to children statewide.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Matt there in Maine giving us his thoughts this morning.
		USA Facts, the website shows some of the departments and the spending by the Department of Education.
		And this was as of the fiscal year 2024 when it comes to the top spending category, the Office of Federal Student Aid, that top category when it comes to the highest spending divisions.
		That's followed by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, and then the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.
		It goes down drastically from there.
		But that's the list as far as programs, what's spent on them.
		If you want to look at that and as you think about the Department of Education and the future of it in Maryland, our line for others, this is Nissa, teacher.
		Nissa, hello.
unidentified		Hi, it's actually Nisa.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Nisa, I'm sorry.
unidentified		I am an no problem.
		I absolutely oppose what the Trump administration is doing.
		I'm not only an educator, I'm an attorney and an advocate.
		And so far, what I'm hearing from the lines are people who haven't stepped foot in a public school in the last 60 years.
		And the problem with dismantling the Board of Education or the Department of Education is that it is ushering in the problems or allowing them to return the same reasons that we truly had it created.
		We need a national standard.
		We need a national oversight to ensure racism, classism is not playing a role in the type of education students get.
		Students who live in affluent communities with high property taxes have nothing to worry about.
		Dropping or the dismantling of the Department of Education is going to directly affect Title I schools, students who don't have money, families who don't have money, that's going to affect their ability to go to college through student loans.
		And it is absolutely going to affect special education students.
		So that movement about autism and people needing more resources for their children, I need to hear all of those parents, black, white, whatever, to stand up now because your special needs child is going to be thrown out like the baby in the bathwater if the Department of Education is allowed to be dismantled.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you say thrown out, you mean no access to education, or what exactly do you mean by that?
unidentified		What I'm saying is that the services that students, particularly special needs students, receive, are expensive.
		And most states, because of the variation in property taxes, depending on where you live, that is how our schools are funded, or with local property taxes.
		If you live in an area where most of the people live in subsidized housing, this is not only in urban areas, but this is in middle and poor America.
		And if they do not have the tax property taxes to properly fund their schools, they need funding from the federal government.
		That is how we have been able to provide services for students with special needs.
		Now, if you live in Beverly Hills, California, then you're not going to have a problem.
		But if you live in an urban area, like where I teach right out of Washington, D.C., if you live in Middle America, I hate to say the flyover states, but I'm speaking specifically of poor whites who are also beneficiaries.
		So this is not only a race, but a class issue, and it's going to end up having a horrible ripple effect by reducing the number of students of color and students with disabilities pursuing higher education.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's hear from Barb in Texas, a retired teacher, independent line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yeah, I actually think the lady that just went was fabulous.
		I think my concern is there's waste everywhere, and we probably need to make sure that we're not, the Department of Education doesn't have waste.
		But she said it very well, which is our special ed children are going to, I guess for lack of a better term, be toast.
		I'm more concerned right now here in Texas with them wanting to pass vouchers.
		At the very beginning, I thought it wasn't a bad idea, but we're back to if you allow this to the states, you're going to get people like the state of Texas who are going to allow vouchers.
		Well, the problem with that is I live in a very rural area, and to use the woman before, that your rural areas she didn't really mention.
		They're going to be in big trouble because we found out with COVID how rural areas don't even have access to the internet.
		And so our very small schools here in Texas, I can't imagine that we're going to survive with vouchers and the loss of education.
		Okay.
		The department.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Barb in Texas there giving us her thoughts.
		Some of you texting us this morning.
		This is Dave in Charlotte, North Carolina.
		Will different states stress different educational areas?
		Seems all students should be taught the same panorama of subjects.
		From Barb in Illinois, I oppose eliminating the education department.
		State budgets are too small to handle the expense.
		And then this is from Schaefer, I believe, in Sturtis, Michigan.
		Eliminate the Department of Education.
		They are of no value proven by test scores over 30 years.
		Again, texting is a way you can reach out there to us, too.
		202748-8003.
		You can use that same number to call if you're an educator or an administrator to give your thoughts there.
		Matt is up next.
		Matt in New York State.
		This is on our line for Democrats.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hello.
		Excuse me.
		Yes, I oppose the eliminating education department.
		Did I say that correctly?
		I oppose it.
		I live in New York.
		The education of children.
		I don't know where they get their stats.
		I have children.
		They go to public schools.
		They're very intelligent.
		They were teaching my kids in third grade how to properly type on a typewriter, how to put their hand on a computer keyboard.
		I still peck with one finger.
		In third or fourth grade, they were teaching these children how to type on a typewriter, on a computer.
		Our kids are geniuses.
		America is great.
		It's a great country.
		We've always been great.
		This is all a big scam at what's going on.
		How do you get in a fight with Canada?
		We don't make America.
		People wanted to come to America because we were great, we're cool, and we're smart.
		And it's being torn apart by somebody.
		I'm not going to mention any names, but people that don't see this, I can't believe it.
		The education of these kids today, I don't know where they get the stats.
		They're very intelligent.
		They're smarter than I am, and I am a college-educated person.
		Thank you very much.
		Spread peace throughout the world.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Matt there in New York.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Eleanor in Kansas, Republican Line.
unidentified		Hi, this is Eleanor, and I just want to make the comment that the education here in where I live, the taxes have gone up tremendously.
		They've built many, many schools, brand new schools with everything they can imagine, and yet they're holding the grade level of our students 50% or less.
		And in order to do that, they're getting government aid.
		So they're sacrificing the training and teaching of our kids, which should be the basics instead of going into the political thing.
		They should keep it where all the kids can get the education they need in order to make their proper decisions as they get older.
		But they're using it as a political ground.
		They're introducing people with special needs and all that should be a whole separate thing.
		Because growing up, we just had the kids that, and education was free because I'm 80 years old, and education was free.
		We could all go.
		And it was just the discretion of the teacher as to whether she was going to be, because I'm Hispanic, and so whether or not she was going to be a little bit unless it's like they ignored you, and so you did your best, and it was there.
		And so I'm 100% behind President Trump.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		John joins us from Oregon.
		You're up next on this idea of supporting or opposing the elimination of the Education Department.
unidentified		I'll be brief.
		Please do not reduce substantially the Department of Education nor eliminate it.
		There are so many important responsibilities for the care and teaching and development of students, especially after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
		That has given a new meaning towards an equal opportunity for education for those children with disabilities all the way through higher education, as well as the grants.
		These things take people, they take technology to administer the way this has gone about.
		We can all be more efficient.
		We can all be more careful in how we take care of the taxpayers' money.
		But yet, with so many right-wing ideologues out there that will do anything to get elected and raise political money, we have to be very, very, very careful in what we do because it will have a lifetime effect for many, many children.
		So thank you very much.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John and Oregon, there, we'll keep going and you can make your comments on supporting or opposing this idea of eliminating the Education Department.
		Again, the lines: 202-748-8,000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		Use the 202-748-8003 number to text us your thoughts if you wish, or you can use that line to call in if you are a teacher or an administrator in a school, and then you can post on social media as well.
		So we'll keep going and taking your calls on that.
		We'll pause briefly only to update you on where the federal government is when it comes to that funding deadline at midnight, the House passing their short-term funding bill.
		The Senate now has to make that decision as well.
		Punch Bowl news reporting this morning.
		It's the federal government shutting down Friday at midnight, and we've hit some major bumps.
		It was Wednesday afternoon when the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared Republicans don't have the votes to clear a procedural hurdle and pass the House Republican drafted CR.
		That measure would fund the federal government through September 30th.
		Mr. Schumer, the leader Schumer, said instead saying they wrapped his arms around Democrats' proposed short-term CR running through mid-April.
		However, according to Punch Bowl, that currently isn't a live option.
		Here's more from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on this topic yesterday.
chuck schumer ▲ ● ▼		Mr. President, the Democratic leader, funding the government should be a bipartisan effort.
		But Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input, any input from congressional Democrats.
		Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR.
		Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11th CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass.
		We should vote on that.
		I hope, I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday.
unidentified		I yield the floor.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That was yesterday, the Hill reporting this morning saying that Senate Democrats say privately that they will not allow the government to shut down on Saturday despite growing pressure from activists and liberal lawmakers who want them to kill a Republican-crafted six-month stopgap spending bill, saying that Senate Democratic sources say that the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, is giving plenty of room to centrists in his caucus to vote for the House pass continuing resolution if doing so is the only way to avoid a government shutdown at week's end.
		So this story will still play out.
		Stay close to C-SPAN, particularly C-SPAN 2, which covers the Senate when it comes to the latest on this short-term funding bill.
		Back to your calls, taking a look at the Education Department.
		We'll hear from Brandy in Indiana.
		Republican line, thanks for waiting.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm calling.
		I think that, yes, they should shut it down.
		We've not seen anything productive from it in several years.
		I personally, I have some family in public education.
		I have heard many, many stories.
		I myself have sent all of my kids to a private school.
		The area that I live in are all failing schools with a lot of violence.
		The first five years, I had to work two jobs to pay for it.
		And then, thank God, our state introduced a voucher program, which was heaven sent, and has saved several children from going to these awful public schools.
		So, yeah, I'm all for it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Stephen.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Stephen in Kentucky, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hey, good morning.
		Good morning, Pedro.
		I appreciate you letting me speak.
		And good morning, America.
		This is kind of crazy that this is even a conversation.
		No president in the past has even threatened it.
		It's like a lot of people that voted for Trump are very gullible in the sense that how can you get rid of something that gives consistency and standard across the United States?
		If you get rid of it, you're going to have states that are just teaching Christianity and no science and math, and you're going to have other states that go on the other end and teach, you know, just straight up diversity, and that's it.
		It makes no sense.
		You have to have a standard across all 50 states or else everyone's going to do their own thing.
		And to think that I got the opportunity to go to college because of the Department of Education loans, you're going to take opportunities from other people like me.
		I'm a millennial.
		Just like that teacher lawyer said, like most people calling in, they probably collect their Social Securities right now.
		They're like living large in their house that they paid off with two sheeps and a donkey.
		Like they don't care about the kids.
		They really don't care.
		It's not like if you cut the budget from the Department of Education, it's not like you're going to get money in your own pocket.
		It doesn't work that way.
		I don't understand what the deal is with all these old people, elderly people, trying to take money from society that helps them.
		They're all happy and content, but we are out here suffering.
		Us younger people are having a hard time.
		So, you take another resource, another tool from us to better ourselves and our kids, it makes no sense.
		So, I'm blaming all the gullible older generations that think this is a good idea.
		It's not.
		It's a terrible idea.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Stephen, there in Kentucky, let's hear from Pennsylvania.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Michael, Republican line.
unidentified		Just how you're doing, Pedro.
		This should have been done 20, 30 years ago.
		It's a big stamp if you pull up.
		I saw 2010, Pelosi, Schumer, and Sanders.
		They all said it's full of fraud.
		They have to do something about it, but now they change their tunes because the Republicans want to do it.
		Thank you.
		Have a good day.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Michael there in Pennsylvania.
		You can continue on with your thoughts there as well when it comes to the future of the Department of Education.
		If you call us, please pick the best line that represents you.
		If you've called within 30 days, if you can hold off from doing so today, we appreciate it.
		USA takes a look at one aspect which was brought up by one of the callers when it comes to the possible future, depending on what happens to the department, saying that preliminary tally of most of the cuts shown at the Department of Education when it comes to layoffs shows the federal student aid office, which handles student loans and the financial aid disbursement, and the Office for Civil Rights, which protects students and teachers from discrimination, were most affected by the reduction in force announced on Tuesday.
		Current and former employees expressed major concerns Wednesday about how the agency could still accomplish its objectives without the staff has long had to achieve them.
		There's a lot of confusion about there of what the federal agency does.
		For starters, the department doesn't control what gets taught in schools.
		The idea of closing it and sending education, quote, back to the states, which the president has repeatedly called for, is based on a false premise.
		Most curriculum decisions are hammered out at the local level.
		The federal government has some broad authority over what can happen within the classroom environment.
		No educational program, including K-12 schools and colleges that receive federal funding, may permit discrimination.
		More there from that USA Today story on those departments within the Department of Education.
		Let's go to Virginia and South Carolina Democrats line.
		Hi, you're on.
unidentified		Yes.
		The whole reason behind, first of all, I'm opposed to what they're trying to do with the Department of Education.
		The whole thing behind what Trump and his band of thieves are doing is they're trying to turn this country into an aristocracy.
		You have two categories of people in this country.
		You have the haves and the have-nots.
		By eliminating education or making it harder for working class and poor people to be educated, that will give them more power.
		So definitely, I am opposed to it.
		And some of the people who are now for it are going to find out down the line, if it's allowed to go through, that they're going to be the ones that are hurt.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Virginia there in South Carolina from Asia in Bowie, Maryland, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi, I'm a teacher in the DMV area, and I'm directly opposed to eliminating the Department of Education.
		I heard someone say a couple calls ago that because education was so bad in their state, they thought that it should be completely dismantled.
		But what I was hoping that they would realize was that if the Department of Education is eliminated, then the states will continue to be even more directly responsible for those funds.
		And if they're not handling them well now, then they're going to continue mishandling the funds.
		And, you know, I hear a lot of people complaining, but there are practical ways to get involved with your local state's education.
		You can go and volunteer at a school.
		You can go and read a book to people, to students.
		You can volunteer to tutor like neighborhood kids.
		And so I think that when we just try and completely dismantle the entire thing, we're not looking at ways that we can actually participate in aid and help these students who will suffer.
		And I just think it's really terrible because a lot of people don't realize that when they say, you know, back in the 50s and 60s, education was great, but it was only great for the majority of white Americans.
		And it wasn't that way for a lot of people.
		And so when you have that narrative in your head that education was better during the height of Jim Crow or when people were still fighting for basic human rights and women couldn't even get credit, like it's just a complete, it's misinformation.
		And our literacy level as a country is already at a fifth grade level.
		And so what we really need is literally people coming in and being like, hey, this is actually the problem that you're facing.
		And we want the same thing.
		We want our children to be able to be literate.
		And we want them to be passionate about education.
		But completely disregarding the impact that it will continue to have on a state's poor performance is not the solution that they think it is.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Asia there calling us from Maryland, giving us her teacher's perspective on it.
		One perspective a couple of days ago was the Education Department Secretary herself, Linda McMahon, Fox News in that interview, talking about the layoffs and how they factor into the overall goals for the Department of Education and the Trump administration.
		Here's that interview from a couple of days ago.
laura ingraham ▲ ● ▼		Is this the first step on the road to a total shutdown?
unidentified		Yes, actually it is because that was the president's mandate.
unidentified		His directive to me clearly is to shut down the Department of Education, which we know we'll have to work with Congress, you know, to get that accomplished.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		But what we did today was to take the first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		And that's not to say that a lot of the folks, you know, it's a humanitarian thing too.
unidentified		A lot of the folks that are there, you know, they're out of a job.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		But we wanted to make sure that we kept all of the right people and the good people to make sure that the outward-facing programs, the grants, the appropriations that come from Congress, all of that are being met.
unidentified		And none of that's going to fall through the cracks.
laura ingraham ▲ ● ▼		So that was my next question.
laura ingraham ▲ ● ▼		So the criteria for keeping that 50% is related to expenditures and key programs?
unidentified		Correct.
unidentified		Like Congress appropriates the money that is going through Title I to IDA programs.
laura ingraham ▲ ● ▼		What's that stand for?
unidentified		Well, do you know what?
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		I'm not sure I can tell you exactly what it stands for, except that it's the programs for disabled and needs.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Here's some reaction from legislators.
		Representative Sylvia Garcia, the Trump administration wants to shut down the Department of Education like it's one of Trump's bankrupt casinos.
		The losers are kids, teachers, and families who rely on public schools.
		This isn't draining the swamp.
		It's draining opportunity from future generations.
		Congresswoman Yasimin Ansari from Arizona.
		Education is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy.
		Mr. Trump's plans to destroy the Department of Education will kick kids out of kindergarten, leave students with disabilities without support, and put teachers out of work.
		Education is how we build a better future for us all.
		From Mark Harris, a Republican from North Carolina, just adding that the Department of Education should get an F-.
		And then Senator Jim Banks of Indiana, Republican from that state in Indiana, we have one of the best school choice programs in the country.
		We empower parents.
		We let teachers teach.
		We get the government out of the way.
		President Trump is abolishing the overreach of the federal government education, and I'm with him.
		That's just some of the legislative reaction to it.
		This is from Augie in North Carolina.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Pedro, good morning, longtime listener, first time caller.
		I wanted to weigh in on this issue as a public educator in Eastern North Carolina.
		I just wanted to follow up with the callers from Maryland and Kentucky.
		They were spot on with their analysis of the educational system and some of the dynamics going on around the outside with our older generations, our grandparents and our parents.
		I am 48 years old, so I consider those folks my parents.
		What I wanted to address was the golden opportunity for the President of the United States to launch a national plan of education, a national standard, a organized plan of education to not have 50 different ways of tackling public education in our country.
		And I thought he missed an opportunity here to announce an initiative and bring all states into the fold with an organized plan for the 21st century.
		So at the ground level, we are tasked with teaching students how to be 21st century citizens at the very microscopic level, at the county level.
		But the national level, we don't really hear that.
		We hear about school choice.
		We hear about choices for education other than the public educational system.
		And what I'm seeing out here in North Carolina, just to conclude, is we're seeing a drawing off of the public school student, bringing them into an academy, a charter school of some sorts, using the state funds to create this school.
		So we're having reduced numbers in our school.
		We're having resources taken from our public schools for the charter schools in this region, and it's having a catastrophic effect.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Are you there in North Carolina?
		This is Nelson in Baltimore, Maryland, Republican line.
unidentified		So I'm for cutting the education because I don't want my tax dollars to be paying for a school that doesn't want to teach that it's the Gulf of America.
		I don't want my tax dollars funding going into states where the colleges and universities allow their students to go out there and protest Israel.
		No, if you don't want to teach the American traditions of what's good for America, then you don't deserve federal funding.
		That's my opinion.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Nelson in Maryland.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Richard in New Jersey, Democrats line.
unidentified		Yeah, hey.
		Actually, the thing of it is, is that as I've stated before, the states set the education agenda in each state.
		So you just have the whole country falling behind.
		That's really not the place to look.
		The place to look is each individual state.
		And when you look that up and you find out that some states are doing great in their education and some are doing very poorly, Massachusetts is number one.
		And if you look at the funny enough, mostly the blue states have the better education things going on.
		So it's a don't care condition whether you get rid of the divide of education or not just in terms of the outcomes.
		What we should be doing is copying Massachusetts.
		That's what should be happening.
		Let's look and see who's succeeding.
		And don't forget, our co-president famously said he prefers uneducated people.
		So this may have something to do with it as well.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Richard there in New Jersey, there, some other news to let you know about besides what we're talking about.
		The Washington Examiner with their follow-up story saying the White House cheering a drop of inflation in February as President Trump fends off growing scrutiny over his handling of the economy.
		The latest consumer price index released in a new report Wednesday showed annual inflation dropping from 3% in January to 2.8% in February with core inflation, which factors out food and energy prices recorded at 3.1%.
		Both metrics registered a tenth of a percentage point below forecast.
		That's from the Washington Examiner when it comes to the future of the Senate.
		An announcement yesterday from Senator Gene Shaheen, the senior Democratic senator from New Hampshire, The Hill, picking up this story, announcing she will not run for reelection in 2026, creating an open seat race in a battleground state former Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly carried in November.
		She said that she denounced what she describes as a difficult decision in an interview with the New York Times, saying it was that difficult decision made more difficult by the current environment in our country by President Trump and what he's doing right now.
		She told the New York Times, also highlighting what she saw as the president's focus on dishing out retribution to his political opponents, looming cuts to the federal budget, and Mr. Trump's antagonistic stance toward Ukraine as personal concerns.
		And then when it comes to the astronauts that are on board the International Space Station, a launch pad issue forced SpaceX and NASA to delay that mission to the ISS Wednesday, postponing the arrival of a replacement crew for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams, who have been stranded in orbit for nine months, standing down from tonight's launch opportunity to NASA's crew mission.
		Newsweek reaching out to SpaceX Wednesday evening for comments.
		So look for follow-up on that as well and the days ahead.
		Let's go to James.
		James in Waldorf, Maryland, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi, and good morning.
		I am totally opposed to them dismantling the Department of Education.
		As a former educator, I've seen the importance of students being able to come in early in the morning, getting fed those students who have not been able to eat the night before.
		It would also disrupt summer programs as well as the opportunity to reach families who are the least aloft and the left out.
		Our administration is not concerned or does not appear to be concerned about those who are in the lower socioeconomic bracket.
		And so just pulling on this thread will completely continue to make this nation unravel even more.
		We have students that are dependent upon the oversight that comes from the federal government when it comes to the states.
		There are so many states that don't have as much as others, and we need that assistance to ensure that our students across the board have a fair playing field.
		They are more than a test number.
		They are more than a test score.
		And so these students, just because certain test scores are not where we want them to be, it does not mean that those funds that are coming into the states are being misused or misappropriated.
		We need to keep the Department of Education open and make sure that our students are being taken care of.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Up next, we'll hear from Lewis Lewis in New Jersey, Republican line.
unidentified		Hello, good morning, all.
		I'm 71 years old now.
		And when I was about 47 years old, we had visitors from Italy come to see us.
		I asked them, how did they speak such fluent English?
		And they said to me, they're taught English in schools.
		And when they get out of high school, it's like our college education.
		Since then, I think we don't speak English.
		I think we speak American.
		And maybe we should go back to one-rueled schoolhouses.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Kevin is up next.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Kevin in Kentucky, Democrats line.
unidentified		Yes.
		First, I'd like to thank you, Pedro, for being on every single day.
		And I love the issues you discuss.
		I would like to go slowly.
		When I was in school, and that was some time ago, I am 62 years old.
		And I don't know if you have a chart of the first to the 50th state of the ranking of what they are now.
		Kentucky is a basically rule, rural state, and other than Jefferson County.
		And they're trying their best here to disrupt them as much as possible.
		In my education process, and I have no experience in education, but when they switched it to a federal Department of Education, you could tell that the Kentucky public education system just elevated because there is more resources devoted to our state.
		We are basically rural state.
		And I don't know that any, any of our lawmakers from Kentucky are actually in support of the Department of Education because they were that bad.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So Kevin, all that said, where are you as far as keeping or getting rid of the Department of Education?
unidentified		I'm opposed to that because when they created the Department of Education, I know it was another government bureaucracy, but it was needed.
		It's still needed because people do not concentrate on education here.
		People are not tutored.
		People are not – we need more higher-paying teachers here in the state of Kentucky.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's go to Michael.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Michael in Arizona, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Michael in Arizona.
		Hello.
		One more time for Michael.
unidentified		Hello.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Michael, go ahead, please.
unidentified		Okay.
		Yeah, I'm definitely against it completely.
		It's the same Michael from Arizona.
		I'm actually from West Virginia.
		But the education, I don't think it's the teachers that it's the issue.
		It takes more than the teachers to educate these kids.
		They've got to have education brought in from home, too.
		If the parents aren't being supportive, I mean, we've already took discipline from the parents.
		We've took it out of the schools.
		I think it all boils back down to that.
		These kids, if they're not going to listen to their parents at home, they're not going to listen to these teachers at school.
		These teachers are all underpaid.
		They're not getting the salary that they're deserved.
		If you take somebody making $100,000 a year that does their job versus somebody that makes $30,000 a year, who's going to do better?
		I'm totally against taking away from the teachers.
		I think we need to focus more on how we can spend our tax dollars on paying these teachers to be able to educate our children.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Michael Barry in Arizona, one of the topics about the future of the Department of Education was part of a conversation with the National Education Association's president, Becky Pringle.
		She was on this program last month, gave her thoughts on the topic.
		Here's a bit of that conversation.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Play out what you think would happen if the Department of Education is downsized in the ways that they were discussing there.
unidentified		We know that every level of government has responsibility in the education of our students, the federal government, the state, and localities as well.
		Our school boards, all of them play a role.
		If the U.S. Department of Education was downsized, we know that there are vital services that our students wouldn't get.
		I was talking to a parent from Virginia, actually, who was concerned because they depend on the services that the Department of Education provides for her student with special needs.
		And we know that the federal government, actually, the funding from the federal government supplies over 420,000 jobs, almost a half a million jobs.
		So we know that if those jobs aren't there, that class sizes are going to balloon.
		Know that that one-on-one attention that we know that students need will not be there and it will affect our most vulnerable students, those who are living in poverty, those who have disabilities.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		In terms of what the Department of Education does, does the Department of Education get to tell individual school districts what they should and shouldn't teach?
unidentified		They don't.
		That decision is left up to those school districts who, together with parents, parents are involved, educators are involved.
		Some of the school districts, of course, involve students too, and making those determinations themselves.
		The federal government's role, which was established really at the end of the civil rights legislation of the late 60s, so that it would play that job of ensuring that every student, when we say every student, every student has access and opportunity.
		You know, you heard Linda McMahon talking about going back to a time when there was a time when our students with disabilities didn't have access.
		There was a time when we didn't provide those additional resources so they could learn with their classmates in class.
		There was a time when we don't want to go back to that.
		Our parents and educators all over this country, that's not what they need.
		They need more resources, not less.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If you're interested in seeing that whole conversation, you can go to our website at cspan.org.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Bonnie, Bonnie in Arkansas, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I think I'm one of the best qualified persons to speak on this matter.
		We've had six children.
		The ages are 45, 39, 38, 31, would have been 29, and a 22-year-old.
		Over 36 consecutive years, we educated our kids in public, private, and charter schools.
		In the process of doing so, we also retaught every lesson plan from first grade to sixth grade to my children.
		Teachers were required to give that to me every year.
		And I retaught it because I was not satisfied with where the education was going.
		We came from Virginia.
		Now, what we found in the process of all this time, we found that the education department there in Washington, D.C., they had a program called Title I. Title I needs to be eliminated because what Title I did, it ruined some of the schools in the area in which we lived in at that time in Jacksonville.
		And when that did that, it used Title I to basically say, okay, if kids are not reading at a certain grade level, and we were under every program that the school district offered at that time, every time the school district failed at something, they didn't tell the parents.
		They would just move on to a new program.
		And when moving on to a new program, it basically went from phonetics in 1985.
		Then in 1992 and 99, it finally moved to whole language.
		Whole language was a program where you teach children by sight words.
		Then it went to grammar.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So all that said, as far as the future of the education department, what do you think of it?
unidentified		I think the department needs to be streamlined because they are too much bloating.
		Because what happens is a lot of times, I've watched teachers, they get into teaching profession sometimes, and after a year or maybe three, they go back to school, get a master's degree, we're going to become counselors.
		Then after they do that, they go on and be principals.
		Then they do that for another three years, then go on to be superintendents.
		They forget what goes on into the classroom, how much work it takes for planning and putting together a curriculum.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we have to go to the next one.
		Okay, Bonnie, and I apologize.
		So sorry about that, but thank you for your thoughts.
		Let's hear from Rob, Robin, Ohio, Republican line.
		Robin, Ohio, hello.
		Robin, Ohio, one more time.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hello?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, please.
bill in north carolina [2] ▲ ● ▼		I was just going to say that, you know, for all these backseat drivers out here that think they know everything.
unidentified		I mean, I remember as a kid, I was born in 75, and I remember, you know, there wasn't much money in the world back then.
		A lot of them poor people.
		And education, you know, they didn't really get a good education.
		Like, they dropped out of school in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.
		Had to get out and get a hard-working job.
		And I remember how I always talked about our government, you know, just wanting our money and spending it however they see fit.
		My people out here are starving.
		And yes, there's poverty kids that need food in schools.
		They gave the programs for that, but now it's just a myth.
		It needs cleaned out.
		It needs revamped.
		And I can't agree more with what he's doing.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, one more call.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sherelle in New York, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		As far as eliminating education department, I think what they should have done was go in and find out who is there the longest if you're going to streamline.
		Because just giving people $25,000 is not the answer.
		When you give people $25,000, that money evaporates very quickly.
		And the people will go through their savings.
		How are we going to educate our children?
		When I was growing up, all five boroughs, I don't care what school you went to, everybody was learning on the same page.
		We should be trying to make sure that our children get an education so that they can become a part of society, not stripping the education so that people will fall through the cracks.
		And we will have so many people falling through the cracks.
		How are we going to get them to come back up and do what we have to do as far as education?
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and I apologize, Sherelle.
		You'll have to be the last call.
		And thank you for the call.
		And thank you, callers, for everybody who participated in the first hour this morning.
		Several guests joining us for the remainder of the show.
		First up, we're going to hear from the Wall Street Journal's Richard Rubin.
		A news story of his takes a look at government spending, how much it has grown and where that money is going.
		And you'll have to get a chance to ask him questions about it.
		That will be next.
		And then later on in the program, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression's Connors Fitzpatrick discusses the case of a Columbia University graduate student who was detained by immigration officials in connection with anti-Gaza war protests held on the campus last spring.
		Those conversations and more coming up on Washington Journal.
unidentified		This weekend, C-SPAN's Book TV will be live from the Tucson Festival of Books.
		You'll see discussions on a variety of topics, including America's changing political landscape and global competition for natural resources, plus viewer call-ins with some of your favorite authors.
		Beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern, Saturday's highlights include Juan Williams, Jason DeLeon, Kate Conger, and Rosanna Xiao.
		And then on Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern, we'll feature authors Jonathan Turley, Amanda Becker, Clay Risen, and Paola Ramos.
		The Tucson Festival of Books, live this weekend beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2.
		Mr. Speaker, on this historic day, the House of Representatives opens its proceedings for the first time to televised coverage.
		Since March of 1979, C-SPAN has been your unfiltered window into American democracy, bringing you direct, no-spin coverage of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House.
		Is this Mr. Brian Lamb?
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pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our first guest of the morning is Richard Rubin with the Wall Street Journal.
		He is a tax policy reporter and in recent days put out this story.
		Here's how the government spending has grown and where the money is going.
		Richard Rubin, thanks for joining us.
unidentified		Sure.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You start the story by taking a look at changes over the last 10 years.
		Let's start there.
		What's changed in that time period?
unidentified		Yeah, so if you look just in terms of the nominal dollars, the number of dollars the federal government is taking in and spending, they've, you know, it's gone up significantly over the past decade.
		So if you look from 2015 to 2024, the revenue went up 51% and spending went up 83%.
		But what we tried to do is kind of dial that back a little bit, say, okay, well, we know there was, you know, this inflation that happened over that period and there was population growth that happened over that period.
		So my colleague Kara DePena and I kind of went and said, okay, what if we adjusted for inflation and adjusted for population?
		What do you see the increase in spending and revenue being?
		And when you do that, you get about a 9% increase in revenue and a 32% increase in spending.
		So it's definitely, spending has definitely gone up.
		The federal government has spent more, spends more now.
		And we can talk about some of the reasons why than it did a decade ago.
		But when you hear this, oh, we went from $4.5 trillion in 2019 to $7 trillion of spending in 2024, that sort of conflates a couple of things that are happening.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So let's start with that idea of the specifics of why.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's start there.
unidentified		Yeah, so you've got a couple different things going on.
		One is just sort of the aging of the population and healthcare cost inflation.
		So, right, some of the biggest expenses of the federal government are Social Security and Medicare.
		And Social Security has we've known for decades, right?
		As the population ages, more people are eligible.
		Those payments go up.
		Medicare, same thing.
		More people are eligible.
		Healthcare is more expensive than general goods and services.
		So those costs are going up.
		So we've seen that kind of steady growth happen over time that was pretty well known 10 years ago.
		A couple other things have changed.
		So, you know, national defense spending has gone up a little bit.
		We've also seen that one of the biggest categories that we've seen go up in terms of spending is interest costs.
		So if you remember a decade ago, we had this long period between the 2000 and largely between the 2008 and 2009 financial crisis and the beginning of the pandemic, where interest rates, what the federal government has to pay to borrow, because we have deficits between what we collect and what we spend, what the federal government has to borrow was relatively low, was in the 2% range on a 10-year treasury note.
		Now we're sort of in the over four range.
		And so those interest costs are going higher and higher.
		And on top of that, the federal government is borrowing more money than it used to.
		Some of that is just this structural gap between revenue and spending that we've had.
		Some of that is the money that the government borrowed to get through the pandemic, the PPP money for small businesses, the stimulus payments, all of that.
		That was basically borrowed money.
		And so now the federal government is paying back the bill on that.
		And so those are really the big categories.
		The other stuff is there.
		You know, if you look at other healthcare programs, Medicaid costs have gone up.
		If you look at other federal agencies, that's a relatively small slice of the budget, but there's been some growth there too.
		But the federal government has largely driven the big factors on the spending side, Social Security, Medicare, defense, and interest.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Richard Rubert joining us for this conversation about government spending.
		And if you have questions to ask them, you could do so on the lines.
		202748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and 202-748-8002 for Independents.
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		Richard Rubin, you talked about the spending side.
		Let's take a look at revenue over the last 10 years or so.
		How has that been impacted?
unidentified		Yeah, revenue has gone up in nominal terms.
		Just the number of dollars have gone up.
		But as we talked about before, if you adjust it for inflation and for population, it's up about 9%.
		So it's up.
		But the couple of big things that have happened on the revenue side is number one, there were tax cuts in 2017 that Republicans pushed through.
		Those, even though there's necessarily more dollars coming in, a lot of that is just because of inflation.
		And so if those tax cuts had not been in place, there would be more revenue there.
		The other thing is, then we saw kind of a surge in revenue coming out of the pandemic.
		So if you recall, it feels weird to talk about it now because the stock market has been down in the past week, but in 2021, the stock market and cryptocurrency really soared in value as the economy recovered from the 2020 shock of the pandemic.
		And a lot of people sold stocks, sold cryptocurrency, realized those gains and paid taxes.
		So there was kind of a big surge in federal revenue in 21, 22.
		And then that's kind of dipped back down to more of the levels that you would expect post-tax cut.
		And now we're in this phase where Congress is debating about whether there should be additional tax cuts extended or additional tax cuts put on top of that.
		But we're kind of heading down kind of roughly back to where we thought revenue would be.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So one of the charts in the story shows the revenues, shows the outlays, and then that dotted line which says deficit.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And you mentioned it, but factor this into the discussions of where we are when it comes to spending and revenue.
unidentified		Yeah, so where we are in terms of the deficit is at a place we haven't really been before.
		The U.S. has run deficits this large at times, but that's been during emergencies, war, pandemic, recessions, things where the government has had softer revenue collections because the economy is weaker, or and the spending has gone up to get to get through those periods, spending to fight a war, spending on stimulus payments and support for businesses to get through the pandemic.
		Same thing for a recession.
		So during those periods, you tend to have wider deficits.
		And then during strong economic times, the deficit tends to close.
		But we're at a place where we're in relative peace and prosperity.
		There's stuff happening for sure.
		But, you know, historically, we're at peace and prosperity.
		And the federal deficit is 6 or so percent of GDP, 6 or 1% of the economy.
		That's historically large.
		We've got a structural gap between spending and revenue.
		And if you look at the forecast going forward, that's basically where we're heading as the population ages even further.
		That gap is going to continue to be there between where spending and revenue are.
		And that's what Congress and the president are struggling with at some level right now.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Calls lined up for Richard Rubin of the Wall Street Journal.
		This is Lawrence starting us off.
		He's in Nevada, Independent Line.
		The story takes a look at government spending and revenue.
		Lawrence in Nevada, hello.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, Mr. Rubin, and hello, C-SPAN.
		I'm just curious, in light of what you're saying, what you think this fares for the strength of the U.S. dollar being weak or potentially strong when all this works out.
		But also, I used to deal in distressed debt when I was on Wall Street, and I remember trading Trump bonds when they were basically at 20, 30 cents on the dollar.
		And I'm just curious, you know, when you have somebody who's such an expert at reorganization and bankruptcy running the country, I mean, it's great.
		We're a capitalist country and everything, but, you know, how does that fare for a potential reorganization of the U.S. dollar?
		Mexico, Russia, Argentina, their currencies have all devalued to zero several times.
		And I'm just curious what you think about that.
		When will it finally happen to the United States?
		Yeah, that's really the big question is, okay, we're carrying these deficits in federal debt that's heading to a place that's larger than it's ever been, right?
		Deficits are the annual gap between revenue and spending.
		Debt is the accumulated borrowing of the United States.
		Those are going to unprecedented levels.
		The question is really when unprecedented becomes too unprecedented and becomes problematic.
		So as the caller notes, the U.S. dollar is effectively the reserve currency of the world.
		It's the treasury bills and treasury notes are among the most traded assets in the world.
		The U.S. has an incredibly unique and strong position compared to the rest of the world because of that.
		We're borrowing our own currency.
		We've got, you know, people still want to see us, and people do see us in the U.S. as one of the safest places to invest.
		So we have a lot more running room for deficits than, say, some of those countries you mentioned, Mexico, Argentina, wherever, that have run into trouble with excessive borrowing and had to do those kinds of restructurings.
		The U.S. has just always been in a different place.
		The challenge is we don't quite know where the limits are.
		So we don't know when that there's two sort of elements of this.
		One is we don't know where, you know, we assume that at some level, the U.S. deficit right now is what we call crowding out private investment, that money in the economy is going for borrowing for the federal purposes as opposed to private investment.
		The question of a crisis, a crunch where we can't, we're not liquid, where we can't go out and borrow and need to restructure.
		That's, I think, pretty, probably pretty far down the road, and we don't know quite where that limit is.
		So it's a sort of slow, slow, slow, and then maybe really bad.
		But all the experts I talk to suggest that the really, really bad crisis thing, because we're the world's reserve currency, is somewhat farther out.
		And that keeping that status is really important.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Steve is in Indiana, Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're next up.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		I was wondering, after you make $200,000, do you have to pay into Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid?
		And also, back in the Bush years, during the Iraq war, did they take out Social Security then?
		That's all I was about to say.
		Thank you.
		Yeah, so it depends on the program.
		So Social Security, you pay about the first $170-ish thousand, the number of changes each year of your earnings are taxed for Social Security purposes, 6.2% from the worker and 6.2% from the employer.
		Medicare, and there are Medicare taxes that don't fully fund the program.
		Those don't have an income cap, and there's some graduated rates on those as you go particularly higher.
		Medicaid comes out of the general budget, and so covered by income taxes in general.
		As far as Social Security paying for the war, Social Security has a trust fund or is sort of a separately accounted for program in a sense.
		During the years when there was more money coming into Social Security than going out of Social Security for benefits, effectively that money was being used for general government purposes.
		Now we're kind of in the reverse phase where Social Security is taking in less than it's paying out.
		And you can think of it as the trust fund paying for benefits now or general government paying for benefits now.
		And we're sort of on the back end of that.
		So, you know, during the time when the baby boomers were in the workforce paying those Social Security taxes, the situation you described is kind of what was happening.
		And now we've gone to the other side of that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On your chart and your story in FY 2015, when it comes to outlay, Social Security was at $3,693 a person.
		If you go forward to 2024, $4,385 a person, a 19% increase.
		What were the causes of that increase?
		Was it cost of living or were there other factors in there as well?
unidentified		So I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think that's, you know, if those are the inflation-adjusted numbers, then roughly that's going to, it's not going to be cost of living increases.
		There are cost of living increases built into Social Security every year so that benefits go up along with the cost of living.
		What drives that is really the aging of the population and more people being eligible.
		So, you know, a large portion of that is people reaching retirement age and claiming benefits.
		Some of that is people who are newly eligible for disability, right, which is the other part of the Social Security program.
		So it's really very much driven by those factors, just people becoming eligible for the program.
		The Congress has not, you know, other than one change that they made at the end of last year, has not really made Social Security benefits more or less generous over that time.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is from Kurt Kurt in Florida, Republican line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have a question for the guest about taxation on Social Security on everyone's wage.
		I might have misheard him, but it's 11.9% I pay for Social Security, and 3% of my wage goes toward Medicare.
		And now I'm retired now.
		I started pulling at 62.
		At my rate of pay, I will have, you want to say, extinguished my contributions in about a little less than 11 years, 10 years.
		And Medicare, I've paid a total, I believe, about $51,000 into that.
		That will be gone with one trip to the, what you want to call Medicare emergency or just plain Medicare coverage.
		So my point is, I think that the base rate that we're being taxed at has to go up.
		There's no other way that that program can survive when you're paying out your benefits and everyone's still alive.
		So I'd like his opinion on that and the clarification of how much money actually does go into Medicare and Social Security from each employer and each individual.
		Thank you again.
		Have a good day.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Kurt in Florida.
unidentified		Yeah.
		So on the Social Security side, it should be 6.2% of wages from the employee and 6.2% from the employer.
		Medicare is 1.45 for employers and 1.45 for employees.
		And then there's some higher rates on top of that if you're in the top couple percentage of the percent of the income distribution.
		So I'm not sure where you're getting the 11.9 from.
		As far as the overall program, yes.
		I think like Medicare in particular, people who are beneficiaries of Medicare today are, if you look over the long horizon, are getting more in benefits than they paid into the system.
		And that's necessarily true in some ways because it's general funded now in part.
		It's not like the Medicare taxes that we all pay don't cover the cost of the Medicare program.
		Social Security is a little trickier because there's not quite that imbalance.
		And you say that raising the taxes is the only way to fix it.
		That's not necessarily true.
		There are a number of proposals out there to change how benefits are indexed to inflation, to change who's eligible, to change retirement ages.
		Those are all incredibly controversial, but there are a number of levers that Congress can pull.
		And they'll look at that probably in the next eight to 10 years because we'll reach a point where the existing benefits would have to be cut if Congress doesn't act.
		So there's a decision moment coming for Congress in the next decade on Social Security in particular.
		And then broadly, yes, as those deficits that I talked about before increase, then there's going to have to be some discussion in Congress about what to do with these large programs that are driving the federal budget.
		These are, as you can imagine, incredibly politically controversial when you start touching them, either on the tax side or on the spending side.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On the Medicare, according to the chart, 2,200 plus a person back in 2015, 2,600 plus a person from 2024.
		There was a little bit of a large dip going starting in 2019 and then rising up again in 2022.
		What's to account for that?
unidentified		Yeah, I'm not sure.
		I haven't looked into that necessarily particular.
		I think, you know, one guess is people may have delayed some trips to the doctor and things during the pandemic that then caught up with itself.
		You know, there have also been efforts to try to limit health care inflation, and some of those have worked.
		There have been ways in which healthcare costs have not grown quite as precipitously as people had thought maybe 15, 20 years ago.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Rubin, then, for everything you found in this story, how does that set the stage as Congress has to consider what they want to do with a budget ultimately and what they want to do about future tax cuts?
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, this is really the backdrop for those conversations.
		Congress is trying to figure out how to solve this big fiscal puzzle that we've talked about, where there's this continued gap between how much money the U.S. collects and how much it spends, and at some point, whether that causes a challenge or a problem for the economy.
		So, yeah, I think this is something they've got to figure out.
		I think you'll see Democrats point to the revenue line being relatively flat over the past decade, noting the impact of the tax cuts, noting that a lot of tax cuts are expiring and saying that the way to solve this problem is largely by increasing revenue, letting tax cuts expire on some people.
		And then you'll hear Republicans say, no, we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.
		And that this is what's driving House Republicans in particular to look at changes to Medicaid.
		It's what's driving them to look at changes to student loans, food stamps, those sorts of programs that are significant cost drivers for the federal government.
		And can they make changes that would limit the cost of those programs?
		And so, yeah, this is absolutely part of the backdrop, the setting for both the narrower budget and spending fight that Congress is having this week and the bigger one that will play out over the course of the year.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If tax cuts do expire, what's the impact on, I guess you could break down my category, but if the average, for the average American, whatever that is, but what's the potential?
unidentified		Yeah, so there was a set of tax cuts that Congress enacted in 2017 that they scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
		And if those expire, you'd see tax increases on about 62% of households.
		Those will range in amounts, but they're not insignificant.
		They can be $1,000, couple thousand dollars for middle or upper or middle-income family.
		Particularly, they get larger and a bigger percentage of income for people toward the very top, but not maybe not all the way at the very top.
		And it's things like the standard deduction would shrink, the child tax credit would shrink, tax rates would go up.
		There's pretty broad agreement in Congress that in both parties that that's not an outcome that they want.
		I think Republicans want to extend all of the tax cuts, and Democrats would like to, they don't have any control, but they would like to extend the tax cuts up to some income level and let them expire at the top.
		So, you know, the consequences of expiration are something that no one, a full expiration is something that most people don't really want.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The Wall Street Journal's Richard Rubin joining us for this conversation.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Pam in Florida, Democrats Line.
unidentified		Good morning, everyone.
		I have a few questions.
		They're fairly simple.
		I want to talk about Social Security and what is being done to protect us from us losing our Social Security.
		And for the second question about Elon Musk and his people, how did he get into our government with no background check, none of the people that work for him, no background checks from them?
		And why does he not have to go in front of the Senate like everyone else and answer the hard questions?
		Yeah, that's my question.
		Yeah.
		On Social Security, I think there is a broad bipartisan agreement to not cut Social Security benefits.
		I think you're seeing some changes at the Social Security Administration and how the program is run and what sort of assistance may or may not be available to beneficiaries and claimants on the phone or in person.
		And so that's something we're watching.
		I think it's something a lot of people are watching for not sort of the overall size of benefits really, but about how to access them and whether, you know, how you deal with a person when you have a problem.
		On Musk, I think White House staff in general are not Senate confirmed.
		Like this is true, it's true in every administration that cabinet officials go through Senate confirmation, and many senior White House officials do not.
		They're appointed by the president.
		The president has pretty extensive authority to appoint people and run the executive branch.
		And this administration is clearly testing some of the limits of that.
		And that's what we're seeing play out.
		But this is really an extension of presidential power where the president has given Musk and his group pretty broad authority to go into various agencies and make suggestions and do things.
		And so this is really, you know, we can think about it as something that Elon Musk is doing, but it's really something that he's doing because the president has empowered him to do so.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And so to that end, Richard Rubin, then how do the activities of Elon Musk fit into future decisions about spending?
unidentified		Yeah, so big question.
		I want to focus on what we call the discretionary spending, the agency spending level.
		So what we've seen a lot of is the sort of first wave of layoffs that have happened at federal agencies driven by this process.
		You know, in the short term, that's not really much savings because if you're laying people off, paying severance, like the federal, the budgets for those agencies haven't changed.
		You're like, you may see the administration come in with what we call a rescissions package to actually cut some of this year's spending and claw it back.
		And then the real big fight is going to be the fiscal 2026 budget that will debate in Congress that'll happen after this spending bill gets resolved this week or whenever it gets resolved.
		In those cases, you say, just pick a federal agency, you know, the education department, well, Mirror or HUD or whatever, say, you know, they've come in and they've cut 40% of the people.
		And then they're going to go to Congress and say, hey, we can do this with 60% of the budget or 70% of the budget that we had before.
		And then Congress will either say yes or no.
		And so those are not the big drivers of federal spending.
		It's not Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid benefits, but they're trying to really pinch down that discretionary side, what federal agencies spend, what the federal workforce costs are.
		And that will come to a head in this fiscal 2026 debate that's coming.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hunter lives in New Jersey.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hey, good morning, and I really appreciate the jest.
		Here's my take.
		I think we overcomplicate it.
		We as a nation spend about, I don't know, $7 trillion a year.
		We take in a revenue about $4.5 trillion.
		It's pretty simple math.
		And it's the Congress and particularly the Republican Congress and the last Trump administration that broke the bank, spent, and overspent.
		But it's the Congress who has determined what they want to spend money on.
		So why don't, and we, as a, our national GDP is like $30 trillion.
		So just tax the corporations appropriately to make up for that and then have the Congress do their job and manage what we should spend.
		Cutting some of these federal functions are not going to get us there.
		And one last thing.
		Every 10 years, we as a nation grow by about 10 million people, right?
		So we do need programs.
		We do need to spend, but it's the Republican Congress that really put us into a big hole.
		And they are giving up their sort of their whole purpose.
		And if they want to give it up their whole purpose, then they are as useless and dose to get rid of them.
		Right?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Hunter there in New Jersey.
		Thanks.
unidentified		Yeah, I think this is the fiscal state that we're in is the product of many Congresses over the past many years, right?
		There were surpluses in the late 90s and early 2000s.
		And then, you know, we've had a series of tax cuts.
		We've had a series of emergencies.
		And we've had a series, you know, the by emergencies, I mean 9-11, the financial crisis, the pandemic.
		And we've had spending increases in an aging population.
		So this is not a one-cause situation.
		It's a multi-cause situation.
		And, you know, yes, this is on Congress to figure out what the right level of, to sort of determine what it thinks the problem is.
		Is the problem too much spending, too big deficits, too low taxes, and come up with a solution and put that into place.
		And yeah, this is congressing is hard, as we say here.
		You know, this is something where people have real disagreements.
		You start looking at, okay, well, what things can we cut?
		And then you start cutting Social Security offices and IRS offices and USDA offices and districts, or you start cutting benefits and constituents start calling their members of Congress and complaining.
		So this is a, you know, it's easy to look at spending in the aggregate.
		And there obviously are areas that can be cut and waste and fraud and abuse is there at whatever level.
		But this is not a simple exercise.
		It was not a simple exercise for us to get to the point we're at.
		And it's not a simple exercise to reverse that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Richard Rubin, you've probably then heard the argument to the caller's point as tax corporations or tax the wealthy and that will resolve the issues we have financially in the United States.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Where's the reality in that?
unidentified		There's certainly room to economically and mathematically to raise taxes on corporations and high-income people.
		The tax, you know, taxes as a share of the economy are a little bit around or a little bit below their historic averages, even as spending has climbed.
		So, yeah, there's certainly it's doable.
		I'm not sure.
		It depends what problem you're trying to solve.
		If you were trying to solve, close the entire federal deficit, that's 6% of GDP solely with tax increases at the top, that's very mathematically difficult, if not impossible.
		If you're trying to make a significant dent in that and get deficits lower, then there's some scope for doing that.
		We saw President Biden roll out a series of tax proposals that would get a chunk of the way there.
		Former Vice President Harris ran on a bunch of those in the campaign last year.
		Democrats didn't do that, most of those when they were in charge of Congress for a variety of reasons.
		And Democrats lost last year.
		So we're now, mathematically, you could get money, absolutely, trillions of dollars over a decade out of higher taxes at the top.
		But that's not in the cards right now.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Kevin is next.
		Kevin joins us from Missouri, Republican line.
		You're on with Richard Rubin of the Wall Street Journal.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, I just wanted to say, you know, I have to sit down every month and work my budget out on what I've got.
		And we haven't seen that in Congress for a long time.
		They just keep spending and spending and spending and then want to raise taxes to cover their excess of spending.
		Something I haven't seen since the Clinton era was the president used to have a line item veto.
		And if it wasn't good for the country, he drew a line through it.
		And I think we just need to get back to some sense, just basic common sense.
		You can't spend more than you take in.
		Every American home has to sit down and work a budget out.
		And at some point, our elected officials up there need to start doing it or they need to be replaced.
		As far as Social Security, I've paid in for 50 years on Social Security, and I'm a recipient.
rep charles key ▲ ● ▼		And it keeps getting wrapped in as an entitlement, and it's not an entitlement.
unidentified		We paid in.
		Our employers paid in so that we could have that right along with Medicaid and the Medicare.
		And at some point, it needs to be set aside and quit being a slush fund when they dip into it to make up for shortfalls.
		That's all I have.
		Have a great day.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Kevin in Missouri to his first part, Richard Rubin, then this idea of structurally, why can't the federal government set itself up to balance books, so to speak?
unidentified		Yeah, first on the line item veto, there was a line item veto, and the Supreme Court said that you can't do that.
		So there is no more line item veto.
		On balanced budget, it's not necessarily the case that the federal government has to be balanced, right?
		The government is different from households.
		It has an infinite time horizon and it's going, hopefully will be here for, you know, the U.S. government will be here for a long time.
		And it will and it can, and for very good reason, sometimes borrow relatively cheaply because the U.S. government is so big to deal with things that are important now, just like we all borrow for things that are important now and defer some of those costs until later.
		So, you know, a strict balanced budget requirement in the U.S. leads in times of emergencies in particular, can limit what the federal government can do in time.
		And if you look back at what the federal government did in borrowing to finance wars and fight emergencies and fight recessions, you can see there's probably a pretty good case for the value of some of that borrowing.
		Structurally, yeah, Congress struggles with this.
		This is, you know, this Congress is elected every, you know, House elected every two years, and they want to be able to deliver things for their constituents.
		And what constituents want are services, relatively low taxes, and this is the pickle you end up in.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Richard Rubin, then, according to the report that you put out, the category of net interest, $928 a person in FY 2015, $2,600 plus in 2024.
		First of all, what is net interest?
		And how do you explain those ballooning amounts?
unidentified		Yeah, net interest is what the U.S. government pays to anyone who holds Treasury notes and bills to, you know, is interest for that borrowing.
		So it's the annual cost of the accumulated borrowing.
		It's basically like mortgage payment, roughly.
		And, you know, it is, it's going up because interest rates have gone up.
		Borrowers are demanding more in interest from the U.S. government for a variety of reasons.
		We were in a period of low interest rates and now we're in a period of higher interest rates.
		And the amount of borrowing we've done, both because of those structural deficits we have and because of the emergency spending during the pandemic, is now higher.
		And so we're borrowing more.
		We're reaching a point where interest has either just crossed or is about to cross the amount that we spend each year on national defense.
		So it is a significant cost.
		And it's one that with many federal programs, it's very, very difficult to cut just politically.
		Interest mathematically is very difficult to cut because it really is the byproduct of past decisions.
		So that line item is scheduled to go up and up over the next few years.
		And really, the only way to address that is to address other kinds of revenue and spending decisions.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is from Sharon here in nearby in Alexandria, Virginia, Independent Line.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Good morning, everyone.
		I have a question.
		I'm not sure if you can answer it, but my main fear is my husband and I receive CSRS annuities and a FER annuity, which are the federal government's retirement systems.
		And we receive also Social Security, I do.
		And I guess I don't hear people speaking of the government annuities.
		So I'm not clear on where that sits in the process and where is that on your chart as far as government spending and what is the risk, if any, to losing those annuities or them being impacted.
		They basically are paid for life.
		And if you retired at a high GS salary of 15, for example, that's quite a bit of money.
		And that coupled with the COLA and those increases over time, what's the risk of those being impacted in this process at this time?
		I thank you if you can answer that question for me.
		Take care.
		Bye now.
		Sure.
		So I'm not sure exactly.
		My guess is that it probably sits in the other category of the charts that we did.
		I don't know.
		I think you're going to see in this process over the next year as Republicans try to, or the next few months even as Republicans try to extend the tax cuts and do additional tax cuts, that they're going to look for some spending cuts.
		Medicaid is clearly an area where there's going to be some efforts, but I think you may also see efforts in federal workforce retirement programs.
		I'm not sure about annuities in particular.
		We've clearly seen over the past six weeks that this administration, largely backed by support in Congress, is willing to make significant painful cuts for federal workers.
		And so I think if you're a federal worker or a federal retiree, it's hard to have the same level of comfort in the security of all of that you might have had a couple of months ago.
		I don't mean to be alarmist.
		I think in general, Congress has tried not to change the terms of the deal, basically, especially for retirees.
		That's certainly true on Social Security and Medicare, right?
		They never talk about, when they talk about any retirement age changes, those are all out in the future.
		But I think it's certainly, you know, they're going to be, at some point, they'll be in the couch cushion phase of figuring out this tax cut and spending bill and what feels like a tax a couch cushion number for Congress can be very significant for a household of retirees.
		So again, not trying to be alarmist, but I think there certainly are risks to federal workers and retirees that didn't used to be there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And before we go to our next call, you did mention that others category.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What catch-all is this?
unidentified		I mean, it's everything.
		Like a lot of it is, it can be federal agencies.
		Can be.
		You know just odds and ends of the federal government there's there's, you know we, we tried.
		This is really just a presentation issue.
		For us is like we were, you know, carried a pen and I put this together.
		It's, if you have, you know, 35 different categories, something can be hard to look at.
		So I we sort of found it helpful to separate out the big ones social Security Medicare uh interest, and then and defense and then kind of lump everything else together.
		So it's not uh, you know other, you could do it a different way and and you get the same result.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Uh, Vicki from Lincoln Nebraska, Democrat slide.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		First of all, i'd like to thank you for having this show.
		I really enjoy it.
		Um, i'm from Nebraska and um, I uh wanted to compliment the gentleman from Missouri on the social security.
		Um, I agree with him.
		I started working when I was 12 and i've paid in all my life.
		I've recently retired and, of course, now i'm stressed out every time I go to to the bank and see if my check is there or not.
		Um uh, I also would like to ask your advice on what do you think Democrats can do.
		I call my Congress, I call my senators.
		I pray a lot um, my husband and I.
		We live a very simple life.
		We just like to go to the parks and walk and I like to do random acts of kindness.
		We're very conservative with our money, but what would your advice be to me to help um to do a peaceful protest?
		So if the Republicans can do a better job, if you could help me out.
		I know it's not a money question or a tax question, but if you have any advice for me as a Democrat um, not really in the business of giving protest advice, but but I guess what i'd say is this is that you know, as I talk, members of Congress they, they are, in general, interested in hearing from their constituents.
		So I this, I would give this advice to anybody, which is, you know, if you have concerns call, write your member of Congress.
		You will get different levels of responsiveness depending on who that you know representative and who those senators are.
		But I, but I think in general people, members of Congress, try to be responsive and reflective of of their districts, and so the more they hear from people, particularly people who they represent, not people from out of district or out of state the more that they get that sense of what they're doing, so you can look for um town halls and things that they might or might not do, either by phone or in person in the district.
		Or, you know, call their district or Washington offices and, and you know, talk to whoever uh, you know the staff that answers the phone.
		They they are, in general, attempting to be somewhat responsive and want to hear what people are thinking.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So, Richer Rubin, as we finish up, when it comes to decisions about future spending and even taxation, what are you watching for?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What would you advise our viewers to watch for?
unidentified		Yeah, I think this, this process that the House and Senate Republicans are going through right now, where they're writing a what's likely to be a fully partisan bill that cuts taxes, extends Tax cuts and cuts spending and add some new spending on border security and national defense, is worth watching.
		It is not at all a done process.
		The general direction is pretty clear in those pieces I just outlined.
		But I think a lot of those details about what happens to Medicaid, what happens to tax cuts, what happens to nutrition assistance, what happens to student loans are not at all set in stone.
		And so we're watching kind of how, what position Senate Republicans take as they put together their fiscal framework.
		And then as they get, as House and Senate Republicans get into the nitty-gritty of writing their bills in the next two to six months to really see where that all lands and where the pressure points are.
		They really have these very slim majorities in both the House and the Senate.
		And, you know, members are very attuned to, you know, what decisions are saying and also to how some of this math is going to work out.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You can find our guest work at WSJ.com, Richard Rubin, tax policy reporter for the Wall Street Journal, joining us.
		And there's the story.
		Here's how government spending has grown.
		Richard Rubin, thanks for your time.
		Thanks.
		Coming up on the program, we'll learn more about the case of a Columbia University graduate student detained by the Trump administration in connection with anti-war Gaza protests from last year.
		The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expressions Connor Fitzpatrick joins us for that discussion.
		And then with President Trump shifting positions on trade with Canada in the news, we'll examine the relationship between the two countries with the University of Ottawa's Charles Etienne Baudry.
		That will be later on in the program.
		Both of those segments coming up on Washington Journal.
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		democracy unfiltered.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now is Connor Fitzpatrick.
		He's the supervisor senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression here to talk about a case that's made news in the last couple of days involving free expression and other issues.
		Mr. Fitzpatrick, thanks for joining us.
unidentified		Thank you so much for having me here.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		A little bit about your organization.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What does it do?
unidentified		Sure.
		So FIRE, we are the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
		We are a nonprofit, nonpartisan dedicated to defending free speech and free expression for all Americans.
		We don't care if you're a Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian, or anything in between.
		If it's protected, we'll defend it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And how are you financially supported?
unidentified		We are financially supported by donors like you.
		We are a nonprofit.
		We are supported by both foundations and individual donors.
		We rely on people who share our passion for free speech, who share our passion for the idea that no expression and no idea should be out of bounds.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And so financially you come from many organizations, people, that kind of thing.
unidentified		That's right.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So when it comes to the case in the last couple of days, there's a gentleman named Mahmoud Khalil connected with an event that took place last year at Columbia University.
		However, he's currently in detention by the Trump administration.
		Can you give us the story on that?
unidentified		That's right.
		So Mr. Khalil was involved in some of the protests at Columbia University related to the war in Gaza.
		Mr. Khalil's advocacy was primarily pro-Palestinian, and to some viewers, his opinions veered on the side of almost being pro-Hamas or outrightly pro-Hamas.
		His expression and his views gained the ire of many in the current Trump administration and many on both sides of the aisle.
		Now, that's a healthy part of the First Amendment.
		What we expect in our country is that no idea and no opinion is out of bounds, and if you don't like an idea, you can counteract it with an idea of your own.
		But what's happened over the last couple weeks and why we're incredibly concerned for the state of free speech in this country is that the Trump administration has revoked or is attempting to revoke Mr. Khalil's green card.
		He is a lawful permanent resident here in the United States, though he's a native of Syria.
		And the administration is trying to cancel his green card and deport him because they say his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict endanger the foreign policy of the United States.
		Now, to be clear, he has not been charged with a crime.
		He has not even been alleged by the administration to have violated any school rules.
		The allegation so far from this administration is that we don't like what he has to say and we're going to ship him back home.
		And to us, as defenders of free expression, that's unacceptable.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If he's not been charged and he's not violated any school rules, why is he in detention then?
unidentified		So the administration's justification is relying on a 1950s era law in the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows the Secretary of State to personally determine that someone's views are so contrary to the foreign policy of the United States that they can be deported.
		So it doesn't require any evidence or even allegation of a crime.
		They're trying to rely on this very rarely used moribund statute to deport a permanent resident green card holder for, at this stage, nothing more than his protected expression.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The Wall Street Journal editorial mentioned your organization this morning saying that a March 10th letter to Mr. Rubio and other officials, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression wrote that the government must not use immigration enforcement to quote, quote, punish and filter out ideas disfavored by the administration.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Can you elaborate?
unidentified		That's exactly right.
		We should never be in a spot where guests and visitors in our country, permanent residents, visa holders, or just people here on vacation, think that once they arrive on our shores, they have to watch what they say.
		It's hard for me to think of any sentence less American than watch what you say or else.
		That's simply not how we do things here.
		And this is an authority that can be easily abused by either side.
		Imagine if President Biden tried to have Nigel Farage deported for attending the Republican National Convention.
		Or imagine if the George W. Bush administration tried to deport John Oliver for criticizing the Iraq war.
		I would imagine to many of your viewers, one or both, hopefully both of those examples are unacceptable.
		And it's why we need to keep and protect free expression.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Here's the Secretary of State even talking about this case yesterday.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I want to play a little bit of what he had to say about it, get your response.
marco rubio ▲ ● ▼		When you come to the United States as a visitor, which is what a visa is, which is how this individual entered this country as on a visitor's visa, you are here as a visitor.
		We can deny you that visa.
		We can deny you that if you tell us, when you apply, hi, I'm trying to get into the United States on a student visa.
		I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages.
		If you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this, and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, and by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, anti-Semitic activities, I intend to shut down your universities.
		If you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa.
		I hope we would.
		If you actually end up doing that once you're in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it.
		And if you end up having a green card, not citizenship, but a green card as a result of that visa while you're here in those activities, we're going to kick you out.
		It's as simple as that.
		This is not about free speech.
		This is about people that don't have a right to be in the United States to begin with.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So that's the Secretary of State from yesterday.
		What's your response to that?
		Because he even said this isn't about free speech.
		He even said that.
unidentified		So he's wrong.
		And there is a whole lot going on there.
		This is absolutely about free speech.
		Now, one thing is important.
		The executive branch does have significantly more discretion in deciding who to allow into the country in the first place.
		So he's right when he says that when we decide whether to give you a visa, the executive branch traditionally has more authority to decide whether or not to let you in.
		That is an accurate statement of the law.
		Where he goes wrong is first conflating advocacy for an organization and conflating that with illegal acts that that organization might do and trying to pin the speaker with the illegal acts of others.
		That's a big problem.
		And the second problem, and this is the more fundamental problem in why free speech is implicated, is the idea in the United States has always been that there is no idea too dangerous for you to express on these shores.
		And I'll give you an example.
		In Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural address in 1801, he took time in that address to defend the right of people who called for the disillusion of the Union, who called for that the United States just simply shouldn't exist.
		And he said that in our country, in our republic, the way to counteract an idea you don't like is with another idea.
		To use reason and logic to show the wrongness of somebody else's arguments rather than trying to use the strong arm of government to silence them.
		That's why this implicates free speech, and that's where the Secretary of State, in our view, is going wrong.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And just before we start taking calls, are you representing Mr. Khalil directly?
unidentified		We are not.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is the lines.
		If you want to call and ask our guest questions about this story, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can text us at 202-748-8003.
		You talked about the detention, and you talked about what led up to it.
		Is there any evidence that Mr. Khalil is directly related to or at least connected to Hamas?
unidentified		Certainly the administration has not presented evidence of that so far.
		Yesterday, the White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt came to the podium and made clear that the administration's basis for attempting to deport Mr. Khalil is his quote-unquote pro-Hamas views.
		Ms. Levitt mentioned some posters and flyers that Mr. Khalil's organizations were apparently passing around on Columbia.
		But posters and pamphlets and flyers have another name.
		Speech, expression.
		We've been handing out posters, pamphlets, since Boston Square in the mid-18th century.
		And if someone doesn't like what a flyer or a poster has to say, they can throw the flyer in the trash can.
		They don't have to read it.
		They can say, no, thank you.
		I don't want your flyer.
		They can read it and disagree with it.
		What they can't do is enlist a strong arm of government to try and throw out of the country the person who handed them the flyer.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		A story as of this morning say that a judge has decided he's going to remain detained in Louisiana.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		As far as legal recourse, what happens now?
unidentified		So right now there are habeas corpus proceedings going on in the Southern District of New York.
		And there was a status conference yesterday.
		Mr. Khalil's counsel is attempting to get Mr. Khalil returned to the Southern District of New York.
		The administration had transferred Mr. Khalil, it sounds like on Sunday down to Louisiana.
		So there was a status conference yesterday.
		The judge in the Southern District of New York has asked for additional briefing.
		And so we certainly hope there will be an expeditious resolution to those proceedings.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Connor Fitzpatrick of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression joining us.
		Our first call is from Dan.
		Dan is in Ohio, Republican line.
		You're on with our guests.
		Good morning.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Okay, so first of all, Republicans are the ones that stand for everybody having a right to express their opinion.
		However, these so-called protesters prevented Jewish students from attending class.
		They went into buildings during different protests, caused vandalism, broke things up.
		If I went to a college campus and I started bustling things up and causing vandalism, I rightly would be arrested.
albert in austin ▲ ● ▼		So protest is one thing, but when people pay the type of money that they pay for college education, and then others stand in their way and prevent them from going to class, that is not protest.
unidentified		Okay.
		This man should be arrested.
		He should be deported.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Okay, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, you made your point.
		We'll let our guests respond to it.
unidentified		Thank you.
		So I think the gentleman from Ohio actually raises a couple of important points.
		He's absolutely right that it's against the law to block people from going to class, for engaging in vandalism, for occupying buildings and trespassing.
		He's absolutely right that that's against the law and properly so.
		The problem here with Mr. Khalil and the problem with this administration's treatment of Mr. Khalil is that there are no allegations he did any of that.
		What they're trying to do is group Mr. Khalil in with a bunch of other protesters who did do those things and essentially trying to tar his name with the illegal acts of others.
		And that's what's not okay.
		Presumably, if this administration had any evidence that Mr. Khalil, the one they're trying to deport, had blocked anyone from going to class, had vandalized anything, had committed any crime, they would have provided it by now.
		One hopes so.
		They've detained a man down in Louisiana far away from his home and his eight-month pregnant wife.
		But so far, the only justification that this administration has provided for deporting Mr. Khalil, this individual, is that he distributed protests, is that he distributed flyers that they don't like and that he organized protests with messages that they don't like.
		That's what's not okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sonia in Washington, D.C., Democrats line, you're next.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I just wanted to make a quick comment.
		As an immigrant myself, I spent seven years trying to immigrate to the United States, many years on visas, finally got my green card.
		I knew as an immigrant that I could be deported at any time.
		I knew not to participate in protests, commit crimes, distribute any kind of, you know, contentious literature.
		I knew this.
		Every immigrant knows this.
		So for him to play like he didn't know what he was doing, you cherish the opportunity to finally come to America and you wait your time to get your citizenship and you're so grateful to finally make it here.
		So, you know, that's just the other perspective of it, where to say that he didn't know this could happen, you know, as an immigrant.
		This is a gifted opportunity.
		Thank you so much.
		I think there's no question that being an American citizen is one of the best benefits out there that there is.
		But one of the benefits of being an American and one of the benefits of being in the United States is that you shouldn't have to fear a midnight knock on your door because you voiced the wrong opinion.
		Think back to the Declaration of Independence.
		We hold that these truths are self-evident, all men are created equal, that they have certain inalienable rights.
		Among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
		In the United States, we get our liberty not because the government is nice and allows us to have liberty, but because of who we are as individuals, because it's a right of everyone to have liberty.
		And I can think of no idea more foreign to American exceptionalism and American liberty than the idea that when you're in the United States, you should have to watch what you say.
		That's simply not what we're about.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The president himself posted on Truth Social, and in part he said this, we will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country, never to return again.
		If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests.
		You're not welcome here.
		We expect every one of America's colleges and universities to imply to that last part.
		What does it mean then for colleges and universities as they decide how people express themselves on those campuses?
unidentified		Well, it's placed colleges and universities in an incredibly difficult position because particularly public universities, they are required by law to comply with the First Amendment.
		However, now we appear to have an administration who is threatening their federal funding if they comply with the First Amendment.
		It puts them very much in a catch-22 position, and I would not envy being in the university president's office at any public university right now.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What are rules?
		When protests are, when colleges and campuses, what are the rules of free speech and expression guidelines, at least?
		I know it probably varies from campus to campus, but for someone who watches like you do, what generally do administrations say to those participating in these kind of events?
unidentified		So on a college university campus, the general rules are if you're in a public area, if you're in the quad or you're on a sidewalk, the usual First Amendment rules apply.
		You can hold up a sign, you can hand out flyers for whatever cause you might want to, and the usual rules of the First Amendment apply.
		Now, universities are, of course, for learning.
		So what that means is that the First Amendment does not protect your right to disrupt a class.
		It does not protect your right to do a sit-in in a building and prevent people from going to their class.
		It does not permit you to actively prevent other people from receiving an education.
		But as long as what students are doing is to sort of simplify it, just talk, just voicing ideas, that is not only an important part of being an American, it's an important part of college.
		Unlike other countries in the world, America does not use its universities to indoctrinate the next generation.
		We expect that on college campuses, people can and should expose themselves to ideas that make their blood boil, that make them mad, that make them angry, that make them want to throw the remote control.
		Because in the United States, that's life.
		You don't throw people in jail when they have an opinion that contravenes the view of the government.
		So it's the colleges and the universities' responsibility to foster that open atmosphere of ideas and make sure that no one is punished simply because their opinions go against the ideas of the day.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Connor Fitzpatrick of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
		John is next.
		John on our Independent Line in Virginia.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hey, thanks.
		So this is fascinating because according to this guy, 40 countries can insert students on student visas and have them create absolute chaos in this country.
		And there's nothing that we can do about it because it's going to protect them under freedom of speech.
		Let me tell you, they're not U.S. citizens.
		Okay.
		On 9-11, those terrorists came over on student visas.
		Okay.
		This has been going on for a long time where countries will use student visas and activists to go insert and create chaos.
		Not just in this country, in other countries.
		And I'm not saying that we don't do it to, we do it to other countries as well.
		This is happening all around the world.
		So yeah, you're dang right.
		We have every we should have every option to identify these folks that are creating chaos, that are undermining our institutions, that are shutting down our campus operations, that are preventing education, that are preventing people from feeling safe on campus, which is what's happening with these guys.
		We got your point.
		So a few things there.
		Obviously, 9-11 was not protected by the First Amendment.
		Terrorism is a very serious crime, properly so.
		Nothing that happened on 9-11 was protected by the First Amendment.
		But to the idea of students coming here and voicing other ideas, I view that as a good thing.
		Ideas do not hurt anyone.
		If you hear an idea that you don't like or that you disagree with, in America, the way we handle that is you offer a counter argument.
		Or if the idea is just so reprehensible that you can't imagine yourself speaking to that person, you walk away.
		What we don't do here is we don't enlist the strong arm of government to either throw people in jail or throw people out of the country because somebody voiced an opinion that we don't like.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned this, I think at least alluded to it, that it's the Education Department that sent out guidance to some universities this week from the Education Secretary.
		It reads like this, saying the department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue their fear for safety amid the relentless anti-Semitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year.
		University leaders must do better.
		U.S. colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers.
		That support is a privilege and is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws.
		That's the one aspect.
		But then ultimately in the issues of free speech, how does this impact that?
unidentified		Well, it's interesting because if you recall early on in the Trump administration, just a couple of months ago, they issued an executive order mandating that everyone comply with the First Amendment and the requirements of free speech.
		So it's a little bit of a puzzle, right, Trying to square the administration's executive order mandating and requiring that everybody conform to the First Amendment and requirements of free speech with these new directives.
		But I'll give it a shot.
		Again, the administration is right that many colleges and universities have done a terrible job handling these protests.
		We've seen instances of disproportionate violence against protesters, but we've also seen instances of complete passivity to students being blocked from going to class, from buildings being occupied.
		I think what is getting a lot of people angry, and rightly so, is inconsistency, inconsistent enforcement.
		That it seems to some like if you're expressing a view that the college is more sympathetic to, you're treated with kid gloves.
		But if you're voicing a view on some campuses, a more conservative view, the administration is going to use speech codes to try and come after you.
		So what we're looking for is consistency.
		But luckily, the First Amendment mandates consistency.
		It mandates neutrality.
		So for both the administration and colleges and universities, it needs to be equal treatment for opinions.
		And the way the First Amendment does that is by saying we don't subject people to punishment because we don't like what they have to say.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John joins us from Texas Republican Line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
		The first caller is what I was really going to talk about, but since they answered that, I want to go a different direction.
		The Secretary of State can act by statute.
		That means that judge is bound by that statute.
		Nobody's challenging that statute.
		That's point one.
		Point two, that guy supports an organization that cuts people's heads off.
		So that right there to me, I'm sorry, the guy should be deported.
		And this idea that his wife's eight months pregnant, well, she can go home with him.
		Why not?
		Be together.
		That's how I feel.
		But they treated Jews terribly when they paid for an education.
		Their rights were trampled on.
		So this, and you don't know if that guy was there at them riots last year or not.
		So I'd like to hear what you think about that.
		Thank you.
		Of course, and thank you so much for your call and your question.
		So your first point related to the statute that the Secretary of State is relying on.
		Now, under our Constitution, under the Supremacy Clause, the Constitution trumps any statute.
		Judges swear an oath not only to uphold the statutes of this country, but first and foremost to the Constitution of the United States.
		The First Amendment, which of course is a part of the Constitution, necessarily trumps any federal or state statute that would contravene that.
		But to get to your second point about, you know, why not just sort of ship him away and cancel his visa, that's a very dangerous path to put us on in terms of the Secretary of State's rationale by saying that the Secretary of State can deem someone contrary to our national interest and act against them.
		And I'll give you a very concrete example of it.
		We know this administration has voiced time and time again that they want to be tough like, that they want to be tough on China.
		But this statute they're invoking actually has many Chinese parallels.
		If you read Article 51 of the Chinese Constitution, it says that its citizens have freedom of speech and have their liberties unless it conflicts with the interests of the state.
		So this statute that Secretary of State Rubio is relying on by saying, well, usually I can't deport people unless I have determined that their actions or their words imperil the interests of the state, that is a very Chinese approach to citizenship.
		And I would think that that should give everyone on both sides of the aisle a very big pause because we know that a loophole like that can have a UPS truck driven through it because we've seen what happened in China.
		We've seen what happens when the government is given the authority to institute censorship based on its idea of what's in the national interest.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Eva joins us from California Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi there.
		Hello there.
		I just have a problem.
		I think President Trump, and I'll give him the title, he doesn't govern like a president of a democratic cadre.
		He governs like a dictator.
		I have experience.
		I came to this cadre because of a dictatorship in my cadre.
		I was a federal employee and I was threatened that they're going to let me go because of my daddy's beliefs.
		And I decided to write a letter and said it to one I knew that it was involved with the revolution.
		On the letter I wrote that when you came in power you said they are not leftists or rights.
		They are just Greek women.
		I'm a woman.
		I'm working to survive work habit.
		You're going to let me go my daddy's belief.
		If I'll go hungry, I will scream.
		That's how I felt.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So Carla, I appreciate the story, but what exactly do you want our guests to address when it comes to this issue?
unidentified		I'm going to address that then I was threatened with prison because of what I said.
		So I feel that the student expressed himself for his patriots down there.
		I don't think that he was supported Hamas.
		He didn't like both ways what was going on.
		And if he's an immigrant here and they say the secretary has the right to send him, to check him before he comes, after they give him the green card, yes.
		If he does a criminal activity.
		Okay, gotcha.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Got your point.
unidentified		Thank you.
		So I think one interesting point she raised is she mentioned coming from another country that was far more authoritarian.
		And I don't know about your viewers.
		I often love to travel and I especially love traveling through Europe.
		And oftentimes the countries are very close together and I'll ask friends for recommendations on which country I should visit next.
		And I'm trying to imagine what my reaction would be if one of my friends told me, hey, go to this country.
		It's beautiful.
		They have great restaurants.
		But just make sure you don't say anything bad about their president or they'll kick you out.
		Or make sure you don't say anything praiseworthy of Group X or they'll kick you out.
		I would think my reaction, and most Americans' reaction would be, what kind of a backwards country is that?
		Because we're so used to our First Amendment rights and our First Amendment liberties here in the United States.
		We proudly leave repression of ideas and opinions to countries like Russia and China and Turkmenistan.
		We should do our absolute best to not let it come to these shores.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Michigan, this is on our line for others.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Catherine, hello, go ahead.
unidentified		Hi there.
		You know, you sit here and you listen to this program and you hear people with accents and you hear the way that they come from other countries that they didn't like and so they came here.
		I just, I have a feeling that people come here and they still want to do what they were doing in the other countries.
		And it's people like you, Mr. Fitzpatrick, that, you know, they criticize when we try to stand up for America.
		And I'm just so tired of it.
		These people that come, it's a privilege to come here.
		It's a privilege to be an American.
		And I just can't see how you can sit there with a smirk on your face and defend this person.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Catherine, Michigan.
unidentified		So thank you from your call and good morning to the great state of Michigan, my home state.
		So a couple thoughts there.
		The first is what we're doing here is we are defending the right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
		And most people think that they favor freedom of speech.
		But when freedom of speech becomes really, really difficult, right, is when you have to start defending the rights of people who you disagree with, who make your blood absolutely boil.
		But one of the reasons that President Ronald Reagan called America a shining city on a hill is that in America, you have the right to your own opinion.
		I think of the common saying that, well, it's America.
		Everybody's entitled to their opinion.
		It's a free country.
		And we should keep it that way.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So as far as the next few days when it comes to Mr. Khalil, what are you watching for?
unidentified		So the first thing that we're watching for is if the administration can provide any actual evidence that Mr. Khalil was actually involved in any law breaking, in any vandalism or any of these building occupations or anything that actually could potentially provide a lawful basis for a deportation.
		So far, all they've provided is that he handed out some flyers with messages that they don't like.
		And in our view, that's simply not enough.
		The second thing that we're looking for is whether Mr. Khalil is going to be transferred back to the Southern District of New York for his habeas hearing.
		And that will also be the next step in the courts.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Have you heard from any other colleges or universities about concerns of free speech or how to proceed considering this case?
unidentified		There's a great deal of concern from both students and universities across the country about how to navigate their obligations under the First Amendment with all of these new directives that are coming from the administration.
unidentified		And what we would hope to see is the administration revert back to their executive order from the first couple weeks of their administration, which is that free speech and free expression are core to who we are as Americans and core to who we are as a country.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thefire.org, the website for our guest organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Connor Fitzpatrick serves as the supervising senior attorney.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for your time.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		With President Trump and his desire to make Canada the 51st state, how is that resonating with Canadians?
		We're going to talk with the University of Ottawa's Charles Etienne Baudry next about these issues.
		And this will happen when Washington Journal continues.
unidentified		Marking the recent presidential election, C-SPAN's student camp video documentary competition challenged middle and high school students nationwide to create short videos with messages to the new president, exploring issues important to them or their communities.
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		It is important for state and local governments to be given power and a voice to help support the communities they serve.
		Nearly 3,500 students across 42 states and Washington, D.C. produced insightful and thought-provoking films.
		Through in-depth research and interviews with experts, participants explored critical issues like the climate, education policies, health care, gun violence, and the economy.
		Our panel of judges evaluated each entry on its inclusion of diverse perspectives and overall storytelling.
		Now, we're thrilled to announce the top winners of Student Cam 2025.
		In our middle school division, first prize goes to Eva Ingra, Sophia Oh, and Eliana Way of Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring, Maryland for one-party, two-party, Red Party, Blue Party.
		What about third parties?
		For nearly two centuries in the USA, Democrats and Republicans have been the top dominating parties.
		Our High School Eastern Division First Prize goes to Daniel Asa of Winslow Township High School in Atco, New Jersey for saving Sudan, U.S. aiding in a forgotten crisis.
		Global solidarity is vital as Sudan's conflict is not isolated.
		In the high school central division, Benjamin Curry of Olundangi Liberty High School in Powell, Ohio won first prize for the road to Vision Zero, which explores AI-driven road safety solutions.
		Everyday, eight teenagers never make it home because of a car crash.
		The High School Western Division First Prize goes to three anonymous students from California for No Sanctuary, addressing transnational repression in the next four years, which sheds light on global human rights threats.
		This government needs to do better to make sure that the fundamental values of American democracy are not undermined.
		And Dermot Foley, a 10th grader from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, earns the grand prize of $5,000 for his documentary, Teens, Social Media, and the Fentanyl Overdose Crisis.
		His compelling documentary, which features interviews with parents who've lost children to fentanyl, has earned him the top award for the second time.
		A first in 21 years of the C-SPAN Student Cam competition.
		Yo, this year's C-SPAN Student Cam 2025 Grand Prize winner.
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		And don't miss the top 21 winning entries airing this April on C-SPAN.
		C-SPAN, bringing you democracy unfiltered.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now is Charles Etienne Baudry.
		He's with the University of Ottawa, a professor of political studies here to take a look at the relationship between the United States and Canada due to Trump administration policy.
		Professor, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Thank you for receiving me.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How would you gauge how the sentiment that Canadians have towards the United States these days?
unidentified		I'm very happy to join this broadcast in Washington because Canadians and Americans need to talk to each other, that's for sure.
		There's an escalation of tensions between us and this is not a good thing.
		This is not the path forward for North America.
		Presently in Canada, people are angry.
		So Canadians are usually very kind, very nice people.
		But these days, Canadians are united like I have never seen in my 45 years of life here in Canada.
		I've always been living here.
		And stores are emptying the shelves of everything that is made in the USA.
		And this is something I would have never expected to see.
		I think it's a misunderstanding.
		And I think we're at a turning point in North America.
		And I really think that we can resolve this issue by good communication.
		A lot of Canadians, they feel threatened by the Trump administration, but maybe threat is not the right word.
		Maybe we need to understand that Mr. Trump has issues with, I would say, President Trump has issues with the relationship with Canada, the economic relationship with Canada.
		But there's certainly a way to solve this problem.
		I saw that this morning the Secretary of State, Mr. Rubio, was in Charle-Voila in my own province here in Quebec, meeting with Melanie Jolie, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Canada.
		And I think it's a very good thing.
		I really hope that we can come to a common understanding and some win-win agreements.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Baudry, then you said that there's a lot there, but is it specifically the things like the tariffs that are angering the Canadians, or is it the larger sentiment or the attitude coming from, say, the President of the United States or others here in the United States?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Or is there a combination of things?
unidentified		It's a combination of two things.
		First of all, the tariffs, because we have a free trade agreement since 1988, the first one between Brian Maroney and Ronald Reagan back in the days.
		Then we have a larger free trade agreement with Mexico since 1984.
		And then the first Trump administration wanted to renegotiate NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.
		So we sat down at the table, we renegotiated the free trade agreement with the first Trump administration.
		And he said, President Trump said back at that time, 2019, 2020, that it was a great agreement.
		So then he comes back in power and he simply doesn't respect this agreement because in the new USMCA, here in Canada, we called it CUSMO.
		So we put the Canada first.
		But in the USMCA, you cannot put these kind of tariffs, like the 25% on aluminum and steel.
		There's a lot of steel and aluminum that is produced in Quebec.
		Like I said, it's my own province and it will hurt our economy.
		We have an economic structure that is integrated with the U.S. Canada is a very large country, but we tend, since we had free trade agreements, to do commerce, to do trading with our northern partners.
		So there's a lot of steel and aluminum that go in the factories in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New York State, etc.
		So it's really upsetting for people because workers in Canada, they are afraid of losing their livelihood, their jobs.
		Workers, then companies, you know, The big companies, the multinationals, they might be able to diversify their economy, their exportations.
		So, to export to the European Union, to Southeast Asia by boat, but it costs more.
		It's much easier to do trade with right next to at the south past the southern border.
		So, the big, big multinationals might be able to survive this and not go bankrupt.
		But what about small and medium businesses, family-owned in Canada?
		We have a lot that sells to the U.S. since 30 years, and then suddenly you put 25%.
		That hurts a lot.
		Yes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let me pause only to let our audience start to call in if they want to ask you questions again, audience.
		And you want to ask questions of our guests when it comes to the U.S.-Canada relations, particularly when it comes to policy issues.
		202748-8,000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202-748-8002.
		We have dedicated a fourth line for Canadian residents.
		If you want to call in and ask our guest questions, give your perspective as well.
		202-748-8003.
		You can use that same number to text us too.
		Professor Baudry, when you hear or Canadians hear the president say, let's make Canada the 51st state, what goes through the collective mind there of Canadians?
unidentified		Okay, so a trade war is something already that is that is making Canadians angry, but it happened in the past with wood and other and even aluminum in the first Trump administration.
		So it's okay to do some elbowing.
		We agree with that in economy.
		We're a strong powerhouse economically, Canada.
		We have a lot of natural resources, a lot of partners in the world.
		We're a G7 country.
		So we can cope with an economic competition.
		It can be LT competition.
		But by the time Mr. Trump insulted Mr. Trudeau, calling him a governor and insulted our country, calling our country a simple 51st state, this really, really, really, really made Canadians ballistic, go ballistic.
		So there's no way that Canadians will accept this.
		And this is a very dangerous path because Canadians are so angry.
		They're about to burn American flags, like in Iran.
		That makes no sense.
		And like I said, we're emptying the shelves of American goods, booing the American national anthems in hockey games.
		This is not the path forward in North America for peace, prosperity, quality of life, innovation, sports.
		You know, North America is all about the road trips, camping.
		It's all about freedom.
		Now we're checking everything that crosses the border with the U.S.
		This is this is so sad to witness.
		So and the insult, the problem is the insulting factor of the comments of Mr. Trump.
		I think that it's a misunderstanding.
		I know what Mr. Trump wants.
		He wants a common market with Canada.
		He doesn't want Canada to become the 51st state.
		He wants that a common market.
		So he said, get rid of the artificial line.
		I agree with that.
		We don't need the border between Canada and the U.S.
		We stay sovereign nations, but we have like a Schengen.
		Schengen is the treaty in the European Union when you can go from France to Germany without seeing a border agent.
		So this could be a great agreement to have a common market.
		You can work everywhere in Canada or the U.S. You can work in Toronto.
		The next year you work in New York.
		You don't need a green card or the equivalent in Canada, a work permit.
		Our agencies, CBP, would work with CBSA, Canadian Border Services Agency, to protect airports and ports, to protect the shores, the external borders.
		In the European Union, it's called Frontex.
		So we can find a name for this agency, a joint agency of border protection would be very efficient against terrorism, against any kind of threats to our security in North America.
		Canadians are certainly not a threat to the United States.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's take in some calls.
		This is from Ted.
		He's in Hawaii for our guests on our Democrats line.
		You're with Charles Etienne Baudray, professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hello, Mr. Baudre.
		It's nice to speak to you.
		I've lived in Hawaii for 48 years since the Vietnam War got over.
		I was in the Air Force there, came to Hawaii, and I've lived here all these years.
		I've spent the last 15 years.
		The place I would rather go and have a vacation is Canada.
		Canada is great the way it is.
		I would not take a chance on changing that, aka trusting in that change because it could change on you in the way that you may not like.
		And I just, I think Canada is great the way it is.
		You should leave it that way.
		Please.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		That's Ted in Hawaii.
		Professor Baudrey.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Thank you very much, Ted from Hawaii.
		Very nice to hear from you and to hear your comments on our country, Canada.
		Yes, Canada is great.
		So we don't have a movement that wants to make Canada great again because that was a little joke I wanted to make.
		And Ted opened the door for this.
		And Ted really, really exemplifies the close relationship that Canadians and Americans have.
		Personally, my mother owns a house in Florida, next to Fort Lauderdale.
		We travel there.
		It's a fun relationship in North America.
		That's what I said.
		It's sad.
		And I don't want to put the blame on Mr. Trump, on the President Trump.
		I want to open the discussion, the deal making, and tell him we need a common market.
		And just look at how it works in the European Union.
		It's called economic integration, economic integration, not political integration.
		So, Canada don't become a state.
		Canada remains sovereign, remain with a seat at the United Nations, but we don't have a border anymore.
		And you can work everywhere in Canada in your life and in the United States, whether you were born in Canada or the United States.
		Goods, they flow freely.
		We save billions for this line.
		It's like 5,000 miles long this line between we need to secure this.
		No, we need to secure the outside borders with the dangerous world we live in in the 21st century.
		So I think that Winston Churchill was saying, never go a good crisis, go wasted.
		So this crisis that we have right now, like I said, is just a misunderstanding.
		It must be some kind of mistake.
		And we can sit at the table with the Trump administration and do something great.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So here's a viewer from X who says that he says that Mr. Trump's approach is reckless at times, but adds, but Canada hasn't been fair with America and there is a large trade imbalance and Canada is cozying up to China.
		He says, play fair and there won't be any problems.
		That's when it comes down to fair trade.
		How do you respond to that?
unidentified		Well, we're not friends too much with China.
		Canada is a democratic country with freedom of speech.
		We have a First Amendment.
		It's a Second Amendment.
		It's a second article in the Charter of Rights and Freedom.
		And we have no interest in doing more business with dictatorships.
		We have interest in doing business with democracy.
		We believe in freedom, individual freedom.
		This is what Canada is about.
		A great territory with the beautiful landscape where people can move, people can have a great life.
		There's an American dream, but there's a Canadian promise.
		And the Canadian promise, it's all about traditional values, having a family, owning a home, and having a great career.
		We believe in that.
		We don't believe in strong government.
		We have good social security.
		And then on the topic of the relationship with the United States, if in any way the Canadian state has been mistreating the United States, we really apologize because it was not intentional.
		We never wanted to hurt economically our partner.
		We often say that when the United States costs Canada economically, it's like a figure of speech.
		Economically, when the United States costs, Canada has the flu.
		So it's a common knowledge in Canada that we need to strengthen the economy of the United States because we're integrated.
		We export 75% of our goods to the, I mean, 75% of the goods we export are exported towards the United States.
		So we need you to be strong economically and we don't want to hurt you.
		And we're very sorry if anything hurt you.
		And that's why I'm saying we need to go to a table of negotiation and come to a win-win agreement with our partner.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Even as we speak, Professor, our Secretary of State is meeting with your Minister of Foreign Affairs, talking about issues there just to show folks that taking place.
		Let's hear from Doug.
		Doug is in Pennsylvania, Republican line.
unidentified		Yeah, thanks very much.
		I actually tend toward libertarian, but I'm old and not naive anymore.
		I think both sides of the border, Canadian and United States, due to their wonderful democratic policies and their free markets, will be just fine.
		And as we all know, money and politics and power is what moves people and gets things to change.
		And I, for one, as a U.S. citizen and a 78-year-old, want to see some change.
		And it's really as simple as that.
		So my question is: I think both sides are going to be just fine.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Baudry, do you share that sentiment?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		Okay.
		So in the past 30 years, since there was this globalization, there was a lot of deindustrialization in North America.
		And I completely understand the angst and anxiety in the American society.
		We have the same thing in Canada.
		You cross the border from Canada to the U.S. You don't really feel you change the country.
		You just feel that you have more Tim Hortons.
		So we have a National Hockey League and we play together.
		We're like good friends.
		So the way forward, the path forward in order to reindustrialize North America and not just the United States is a common market, is economic integration, is a stronger partnership, a stronger free trade.
		Economic integration works like this.
		You have free trade, then you have a common market, and then you can have monetary union.
		So the same money.
		And it needs to be done in this order.
		But right now, we had a free trade agreement called USMCA, and President Trump is infringing the free trade agreement with the tariffs.
		And this makes us further away from economic integration.
		This makes us protectionist to each other.
		And this is counterproductive in the reality of 2025, which is 30 years later than the globalization, the commercial globalizations, and the incredible movement of goods in the world.
		We cannot turn the clock back.
		And there's a way, there's a path forward to keep peace, prosperity, quality of life in North America.
		And it's not tariffs.
		That's for sure.
		It's the opposite.
		It's a common market.
		So go further in economic integration than simple free trade.
		It's just the other way that we need to go.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Professor Baudry, you're going to have a new prime minister as of tomorrow.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Tell us your thinking on Mark Carney and what he faces as he faces a relationship with the United States.
unidentified		Thank you for this question.
		Obviously, Mark Kearney is a competent man because he's been dealing with money all his life.
		So he was working at Goldman Sachs, an American company.
		He's been the governor of the Bank of Canada dealing with the 2008 economic crisis.
		And on his resume, it said that he did well.
		So people agree that he did well.
		He did so well that he was hired by the Bank of England to address the issue of Brexit.
		So the negotiation with the European Union for the new economic agreements after the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, what's called the Brexit.
		So he did that for a couple of years.
		And then he was an economic advisor to Justin Trudeau that resigned in January from his position of prime minister.
		So right now, he's been running inside the Liberal Party, just like a primary inside the Liberal Party of Canada, and he won.
		And he won by 86%.
		So he's now the substitute prime minister because the prime minister in Canada is the leader of the party, of the political party with most seat in the parliament.
		That is the equivalent of your House of Representatives.
		So it's a different system.
		It's the Westminster system.
		And this situation makes him very weak democratically.
		He's not even elected in the House of Commons in the Canadian Parliament.
		He has been only selected by 150,000 Liberal members.
		So he needs to launch an electoral campaign very soon.
		It will be done by March 20th.
		He cannot wait longer because on March 24, the parliament will be recalled.
		And if he doesn't launch the election, the Liberal Party will be defeated in the House of Commons.
		And it's the opposite parties.
		It's the opposition parties, the Conservatives that are ready to go.
		And other, like the NDP New Democratic Party, which is a very left-wing party in Canada, they will bring down the government if he doesn't launch himself the election.
		The way it works in Canada, we have the freedom of launching elections anytime.
		The government can do it.
		The prime minister can go to the governor general and say, let's launch an election.
		And the parliament can do it.
		The House of Commons can vote non-confidence to the government and we go in election.
		So you can bet your bottom dollar there will be an election in Canada in April.
		And by the end of April, there will be a new government that will have democratic legitimacy.
		Because right now, Mark Carney may be a good public servant, a good banker, but he's not elected.
		So he's a substitute prime minister.
		He will be running to become the real prime minister with the legitimacy.
		And at the same time, he will be dealing with, he will form a cabinet like your secretaries.
		It's called ministers.
		So he will have 20 ministers around him.
		And he will deal.
		Probably Milani Jalie will remain the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
		And she's speaking right now with Secretary Rubio, and that's a great thing.
		And I believe that things will get better with spring, with the sun.
		We have the sun today in Canada, and we have hope.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Let's hear from John.
		John in Illinois, independent line for our guest.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, Professor.
		I've had the opportunity to meet several Canadians, all very nice people.
		And when I talk to them, one of the things they always bring up, virtually everyone, when I say that I'm from the Chicago area, they bring up the concept of hearing all the violence in Chicago.
		And it's true, it's very violent relative to the Canadian cities.
		And where that's come from over the years is deindralization.
		And the U.S. has lost a lot of jobs to places like Canada, which have lower production costs.
		And part of that is it's because the U.S. corporations have to pay the health care benefits.
		In Canada, it's provided by the government.
		So the Canadians are getting an unfair advantage.
		And what I think needs to be done is to scrap the present trade agreements and go to something that's totally fair, balanced bilateral trade.
		You buy a dollar of U.S. goods, we buy a dollar of Canadian goods.
		That will equal out the massive imbalance in the trade, the trade depth that the U.S. has with Canada.
		And I feel that's fair.
		I don't agree he's doing it too abruptly, but I feel that's the answer, and I feel that's fair.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John in Illinois, thanks.
unidentified		Well, thank you for your comment.
		And I agree with the concept of going to a table of negotiation.
		And I think all tariffs, if you want to have an LT negotiation between both of us, and if we have been taking advantage of the United States because of our universal health care system, I know that it's very costly for U.S. employers to pay the insurance for the workers.
		So if it's the issue, we will talk about it.
		We will sort it out.
		Certainly, we will keep.
		In Canada, we treasure our healthcare system.
		We wait in line.
		We don't mind because we don't want to let anybody in debt because they have health issues.
		So it's a choice we have been making in the past and we keep with it.
		But if this reality makes it unjust in the trade relationship and makes an imbalance in the trades, we are open to renegotiate again.
		We did it a couple of years ago.
		So we had NAFTA for 25 years.
		We renegotiated NAFTA.
		Now we have USMCA.
		And if it was supposed to be renegotiated in 2026, we were ready to do so.
		But if it can be done in 2025, because there's like an emergency, an economic emergency, there will be no problem.
		We will sit at the table again and we will hear what Americans have to put on the table and to the complaints that you have.
		And I know that our government will be very, very open to solve the issues and to reindustrialize the United States as the United States want to, because the strength of the American economy is ensuring the strength of the Canadian economy.
		We are integrated, we are connected, and we are the smaller one.
		So the richer you are, the richer we are, and we don't want to be seen as a parasite.
		This is the worst thing.
		We want to be seen as a great partner that helps like a friend that helps you to succeed.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Kathy joins us from New York, Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hi there, you're on with our guest.
unidentified		Oh, hi.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I am for Canada.
		I am so offended by our president and the ridiculous statements he makes about Canada being the 51st state.
		And he's out of line and we don't agree with him.
		We love Canada.
		My daughter lives close to the border.
		She goes up to Canada regularly.
		We spent our last two vacations up in Canada.
		We love everything about it and we are on your side.
		And I have to tell you that when Trudeau gave a speech about what Trump is doing to Canada, like I felt so much better, better than any politician has ever made me feel here in the United States.
		And thank you.
		Keep up what you're doing.
		And we will be praying for you.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Professor Baudry, the caller gives me a chance to ask also about the outgoing Prime Minister.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think his impact will be on Canada?
unidentified		Mr. Trudeau has been Prime Minister for almost 10 years.
		He was a very progressive, very left-wing Prime Minister.
		He believes strongly in the environment.
		So he was part of implementing the Paris Agreement.
		We had a carbon tax.
		We have a carbon tax that really angers Canadians because we have to pay more for our goods.
		And it comes from the government.
		And it's a way to lower the greenhouse emissions.
		So this is one of his big policies.
		And this is one of the reasons why he lost the confidence of his own party and had to resign in January, this carbon tax.
		He has been implementing a child benefit.
		I think that the Biden administration, inspired by the child benefit that left, I mean, that saved children from poverty in Canada, a couple of hundreds of thousands of children that are really helped by this child benefit.
		He has been working hard on indigenous reconciliation.
		We call it like this in Canada.
		So we are trying to promote indigenous communities.
		We have now a National Day of Remembrance of the suffering.
		of the indigenous communities.
		He was the child of a former prime minister, Pierre Lio Trudeau.
		And he was, when he was a kid, he traveled through the world.
		He's a unique character in Canada because he was always on the eyes of the public.
		So he met Richard Nixon and he met Jimmy Carter and he met Queen Elizabeth when he was a kid.
		And he was born and raised to be prime minister, but he had maybe his own perspectives, very progressist, very oriented towards the diversity and inclusion that is problematic for the Trump administration.
		In Canada, it was pushed a lot by the Trudeau government.
		It was everywhere in the government papers for years.
		That thing that there must be affirmative action in the government in order, and there must be a total tolerance towards other ethnicities and different sexual orientations.
		This is what was the Trudeau government.
		And for a while, for a while, it worked well because Canada is a progressive country.
		People are open-minded.
		But since a couple of years, it has fueled a conservative movement that is very strong right now in Canada.
		The Conservatives, they are ready for the electoral campaign.
		Mr. Pier Polyev is the leader of the Conservatives and he has a strong support in Canada and he's accusing his, let's say, he's blaming Justin Trudeau for problems in Canada of security in big cities and the price of mortgages,
		the price of housing in Canada is astronomic.
		When you live in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, it's very, very costly, even to rent an apartment.
		So downtown Ottawa, it costs you $2,000, $2,500, $3,000 to have a very ordinary apartment.
		So he blames, so Pierre Polyev blames Justin Trudeau for these economic hardships.
		The salaries, the average salaries in Canada stayed somewhere between $50,000 and $60,000 per year since 2015.
		But the prices, they went up.
		There's a lot of inflation.
		It costs a lot to live in Canada.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So we have just a few minutes.
		And before I let you go, I want to point people out.
		You're an author as well.
		Wrote a book, Radio Trump, How He Won the First Time in About a Minute or so.
		What's the book about?
unidentified		Well, the book is about what happened in 2016.
		So, 2016, 2016.
		So, it's the as a political scientist, I am very interested in the United States.
		So, I teach at the University of Ottawa American politics.
		So, I teach Canadians how it works, your Congress, your federalism.
		I teach history of the miracle of Philadelphia.
		I teach many things that Canadians don't know.
		So, that way, I think I help to strengthen the relationships, the relationship between Canada and the United States.

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