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March 19, 2025 20:01-21:31 - CSPAN

01:29:52

The C-SPAN Story

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Main

brian lamb

cspan 13:36

karoline leavitt

admin 07:46

susan swain

cspan 20:39

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katie pavlich

fox 00:42

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barack obama

d 00:08

brett m kavanaugh

00:12

donald j trump

admin 00:23

george w bush

r 00:04

jimmy carter

d 00:24

mimi geerges

cspan 00:14

patty murray

sen/d 00:09

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Taking offensive cyber operations against Russia off the table.
unidentified		It might make Russia more susceptible to coming to the negotiating table and giving up things in return.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Martin Mataszak is the senior cybersecurity reporter at The Record.
		You can find his work at the record.media.
		Martin, thanks so much for joining us.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
		Mr. Speaker, on this historic day, the House of Representatives opens its proceedings for the first time to televised coverage.
		Since March of 1979, C-SPAN has been your unfiltered window into American democracy, bringing you direct, no-spin coverage of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House.
		Is this Mr. Brian Lamb?
		Yes, it is.
		Would you hold one moment, please, for the president?
		It exists because of C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb's vision and the cable industry's support, not government funding.
		But this public service isn't guaranteed.
		All this month, in honor of Founders Day, your support is more important than ever.
		You can keep democracy unfiltered today and for future generations.
patty murray ▲ ● ▼		To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN.
unidentified		Your gift today preserves open access to government and ensures the public stays informed.
		Donate now at c-span.org slash donate or scan the code on your screen.
		Every contribution matters.
		and thank you.
		The hour to which the House will arrive.
		Adjourned.
		Having arrived, the House will be in order.
		Prayer will be offered by the Reverend Chaplin.
		Chair's Examiner General last day proceeding announced the House approval thereof.
		As soon as a clause one of Rule I, General Stanza approved.
		Gentleman from Tennessee.
		As you now consent to address the House one minute, Mr. Speaker.
		No objection.
		Mr. Speaker, on this historic day, the House of Representatives opens its proceedings for the first time to televised coverage.
		I wish to congratulate you for your courage in making this possible and the committee who has worked so hard under the leadership of Congressman Charles Rose to make this a reality.
		Television will change this institution, Mr. Speaker, just as it has changed the executive branch.
		But the good will far outweigh the bad.
		That was then Representative Al Gore, Democrat of Tennessee, on March 19th, 1979, the date that C-SPAN first brought live gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House of Representatives via cable television to homes across the country.
		As we celebrate Founders Day here at C-SPAN, we're here with the founder, Brian Lamb, to tell us more about C-SPAN's origins and its growth.
		And of course, joining us in that conversation, former C-SPAN CEO Susan Swain.
		It is an honor to sit here with the two of you today.
		Brian, let's just start with what inspired you to create C-SPAN.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Came from a small town, Indiana, Lafayette.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Had a great high school teacher in broadcasting, a great mentor at the local radio station, the guy that introduced me to television there.
unidentified		And it's, you know, these stories are so often told by people in this business.
		I love to hear them.
		I just want to make sure that when I tell my own, that it's interesting enough to listen to.
		But I moved to Washington and the Navy at the Pentagon for a couple years.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And you just notice that there's so much that happens in this town that nobody knows about.
unidentified		And it just seemed at some point we ought to figure out a way to get more public affairs television to the public.
		So what was the biggest challenge getting it off the ground?
		Technology, money, and personal backing.
		You know, you call me the founder of C-SPAN.
		I'm actually one of 22 founders because that was very important in the beginning to corral folks together.
		And they became a part of founding this institution.
		And I love that part of it because they were the ones that came up with the money.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And it wasn't a lot of money.
		The most that any one company paid was $25,000 to start it.
		And then the technology.
		You've been in this business for a long time, 33, four years.
		It was the founding of the domestic satellite system that changed everything in this country when it comes to communications.
unidentified		Were there one or two people that you connected with that actually unlocked it?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I worked for a man named Tom Whitehead in the Office of Telecommunications Policy and the government for three and a half years.
		He was brilliant.
		He was an MIT graduate, Ph.D.
		He was the guy responsible for pushing the FCC to launch domestic satellites and make it competitive.
unidentified		They were headed to giving it to one company, which so often happens, AT ⁇ T.
unidentified		And he said, no, no, no.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		If you give it to one company, the cost to outsiders will be extraordinary.
unidentified		So he got it done, and we ended up going up on the RCA satellite.
unidentified		We went up in 79.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		HBO went up in 75.
		They were the first ones up there.
		But that satellite is the whole technology change that mattered the most to us.
unidentified		Talk a little bit about the Congress part of it.
unidentified		How did you get Congress to agree?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		There was a great two congressmen, one a Republican, one a Democrat, that were deeply involved in the very, very beginning.
unidentified		Lionel Van Derlen from California, a Democrat, and he was an old broadcaster.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And Bud Brown from Ohio, a Republican, he owned newspapers.
		And both of those guys were on the communications subcommittee.
		But Van Dierlen at the time was the chairman.
unidentified		They knew this possibility right out of the box.
		And I was sitting in Lionel Van Dierlen's office one day interviewing him for a cable magazine.
		And there was this little television set over there.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I said, what's that?
unidentified		And there was a line between it.
unidentified		It turned out to be a close-circuit black and white version of what was going on in the floor of the House.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And it was closed circuit.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He could watch it.
unidentified		And I said, how's that happen?
unidentified		And he said, well, we've been experimenting with it for several months here.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And I said, wow, is there any chance that that'll ever be available to us, outsiders?
unidentified		And he said, they're talking about it.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		It could happen within the next couple years.
unidentified		And he said, and I gave him some figures about the new satellite dishes and how small they were and how inexpensive they were.
		And he said to me, and I was a journalist, he says, could you write me a speech on that?
		And I said, well, yeah, that's not really my role.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		But let me think about it.
unidentified		I'll go back to my office.
		And I was working as a one-man band on cable vision magazine work, and I went back to my office.
		This is a true story.
		Two hours later, the phone rings.
		Brian, Van, they're going to vote on this in another hour.
		Tell me all those statistics you were telling me about it.
		And I gave them to him over the phone.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He walked on the floor.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He gave a very short speech, but laid it out saying, this will not end at the floor of the house.
unidentified		It will be sent to the satellite, and it can be sent into cable systems.
		We just saw the legendary speaker Tip O'Neill at the beginning of the program.
		What was his take?
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		He took credit for it in his book, which is a good thing, right?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it is very good.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		There was another very important part of this process, a guy named Bob Schmidt.
unidentified		And Bob Schmidt ran the National Cable Television Association, and he was a big Democrat.
		And he was a big friend of Tip's.
		And he went to Tip and told him about this.
		And Tip didn't know anything about technology.
		He didn't care.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He was a great, fun guy to know.
unidentified		I didn't know him.
		And Bob said, I want you to go see him and tell him the story.
		So I went to see Tip O'Neal.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And he was there with a great, great, great human being, Gary Himel, who worked for him.
		And Gary was a godsend to us in the future.
		And Tip O'Neill said, okay, I'll support you.
		And it was all because, you know, it's like networking, connections.
		You've lived that your whole life.
unidentified		It's Washington.
		That's how that happened.
		All right.
		Not long after Susan, 1981, you joined the network.
		What?
		1982.
		What was it like to work at this upstart network that not too many people had heard of?
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Pretty crazy.
		Really?
		There were about 18, maybe 20 people here when I started.
		When I started, we were just moving on to satellite.
		You should tell the satellite story because we didn't have our own satellite.
		We were sharing.
		And when I came on board, we were moving until midnight.
		And then eight months later or so in September of that year, we went to 24 hours on the satellite.
		So I was brought on board to produce the prime time program.
		And I was doing this with quote marks because what did we know of primetime?
		There was no marketing of C-SPAN.
		We didn't know how many homes we were really in.
		I was in the control room with Craig Brownstein occasionally saying, do you think anybody's watching this?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		His mother was.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		And mine, too.
		But it was so much fun.
		I mean, really, we were working 18 hours a day.
		You know, you'd go home and sleep and you'd come back the next day because there were so few of us and we were trying to put this whole network together.
		Anyone who's ever, no matter what field they're in, had the energy of working on a startup will, this story will resonate with them because you work your tail off, but you're doing it in a collective good and you feel like you're really building something.
		So it was a great deal of fun.
unidentified		How long did it feel like it was a startup?
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Oh, until about 15 years ago, I think.
		Yeah, a long time.
		Yeah, honestly.
unidentified		A long time, yeah.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, we were always knocking down doors and building new things.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		So it had that air about it for a long time.
unidentified		So I heard a story, and I don't know the details of it, that the House of Representatives was bounced from C-SPAN by a basketball game.
		Well, there's not a basketball game.
		We were on a satellite channel that we shared with Madison Square Garden, who had only nighttime events.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		But they controlled it.
unidentified		They owned it.
		We had great, $100 an hour was our satellite time.
		It was unbelievable.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And Kay Koppelbitz, who ran that organization and was in business with Bob Rosencrantz, who had been our first chairman, one day said, there's the NBA, the draft.
unidentified		The NBA draft's coming up, and we're going to cut you off.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And she did, and I laughed a long time about it.
		I said, Kay, you know, this hurts.
		They're going to cut us off.
		So during that day, when they were doing it, they were, Gram Ladder was the bill, it was the budget bill.
		And never will forget it.
		And they were arguing that.
		And I said, you couldn't hit us on a worse day because this is the money bill.
		And so they knocked us off.
unidentified		And we knew we needed our own satellite channel where we couldn't get knocked off.
		And that was, of course, the next big step.
		How did you hire people for this place called C-SPAN that no one had ever heard of?
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I think mostly young people, honestly, walking in the door.
		And really, one of the pipelines was Capitol Hill.
		People who had been press secretaries or legislative assistants on Capitol Hill, not just because they knew us, but because they had a shared view of wanting the public to understand how Congress works.
		We figured we could teach people the television part because our television is pretty straightforward.
		And so a number of our early employees, I'm thinking about Lou Ketchum, Carrie Collins, and others, all came from press secretaries on Capitol Hill at one time, Bruce Collins or another.
		So that was one pipeline.
		I think the thing for us is when people walked in the door and said, I really want to work in television, they probably weren't going to be happy here because we're no whiz-bang, have never been whiz-bang.
		And so we were really looking for people that wanted to do serious television and really cared about communicating what was happening in Washington.
		So I think in the interview process, you can figure out people's real interests and motivations.
		And we were just lucky.
		We had so many people, how many?
unidentified		1,500 now that we've counted up?
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		1,500 people over the years who have had a shared sense of the mission of this place.
unidentified		I want to talk about the mission for a second because my first day here, everybody talked about the mission.
		Have you read the mission?
		Do you know what the mission is?
		Talk a little bit about the mission, which it's literally posted on every wall of the C-SPAN headquarters.
		Talk about the mission.
		Where did it come from?
		What was the idea?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Susan was responsible for getting the mission on paper.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		So tell the story.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Oh, well, we felt like we needed to have one.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Again, not just to tell the world what we were doing, but also as a tool for people who worked here to keep your eye on the ball.
unidentified		We're a nonprofit.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Every other place that you work in in a for-profit media, the mission's pretty clear.
		How much revenue are you bringing in?
		Are the advertiser base growing?
		What are our goalposts?
		So the mission became our goalposts.
		And we formed a committee here that worked on it.
unidentified		Very Washington.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Yes, Ray Washington.
		And we tried to hit, there's about five paragraphs in it, but we tried to hit all the important things.
		The fact that we're committed to gavel-to-gavel coverage, the fact that we don't get in the way of what's happening in Washington or try to alter the point of view of the people that we're covering.
		It's the straight story as it happens.
		True journalism, we always thought.
		And then really codified the importance of viewer interaction through the, at that point, call-in program, but it was meant to be technology as it evolved.
unidentified		I think a lot of people don't know that sometimes when they're watching C-SPAN, it's C-SPAN cameras.
		But when they're watching the House floor and the Senate floor, they're not C-SPAN cameras.
		Does it matter?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I think it used to matter more than it does now only because the world has changed so drastically in the last 47 years.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		It matters to me because when this whole place started, one of the things I felt very strongly about was that we wanted to be totally independent.
unidentified		We wanted the audience to trust us that the cameras were being controlled by us.
unidentified		And we tried in the very beginning to get the House of Representatives to allow us to put our cameras in.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		There's a long story that I won't bore you with now, but it is really interesting what the members think about somebody outside bringing cameras in there.
		They don't care about the hearing rooms, where really the most fun happens, but they do care about the floor of the House of Representatives.
		So we have been taking their feed from the beginning, asking them every five years, let us put our cameras in.
unidentified		But almost everything else is our cameras.
		And that we've told the audience that enough.
		Members of Congress have no idea.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Members of Congress have no idea.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		They think those are the C-SPAN cameras are the C-SPAN cameras.
unidentified		They're not our cameras.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but I think it does matter, Sam.
		But there's a practicality and reality aspect of Washington to it.
		And I think anyone that's taking the time to watch this will remember one of our most high-profile events in the past several years was the vote on the speaker, where we had our own cameras in the chamber for that.
unidentified		14 votes for the speaker.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Yes, exactly.
		And we were able to show the real drama on the faces, the small negotiations going off to the side, people on their cell phones texting to the president.
		I mean, now that's a really significant event, and that's not the day in and day out, but it does demonstrate when journalists are in the room, you see different things.
		So every, Brian says every five years, but we had a history.
		Every time there was a change in speakers, we would send another petition to put our own cameras in.
		And they would form committees to study it.
		We'd be brought up to testify on Capitol Hill.
		You know how this works in Washington.
		And it would always be, let's wait them out.
		So they quit asking after a while.
		So I think even in this age with you here, it's important for us to try as many times as we can to get our own cameras in the House and Senate chamber because we do see things there that they would prefer that you don't.
		I mean, really, there's a lot of negotiations going off on the back of the floor when there's big, big votes on things.
		And that is important because you're seeing people come together, which is what politics are all about.
		And that static shot just doesn't capture that.
unidentified		There was another day that C-SPAN's cameras were in the gallery, January 6th, 2021.
unidentified		Tell me a little bit about that day.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it was a tough day.
		I think really, I mean, we didn't have any idea what was going on.
		I mean, you can show the drama of that day when they were adjourning the House and sending the members to their safety.
		We really didn't get much sense back here.
		We're about two blocks away from the Capitol building, except through our own camera crews.
		And we had camera crews that were outside, and we also had camera crews in Statuary Hall who had to be evacuated by the Capitol Hill police and sheltered in rooms with staff and members of Congress on that day until the challenge passed and their safety could be assured.
		I have to say as a manager, I was mostly concerned about the safety of the people who work here in the middle of all that.
		That was a very scary day because that's your first priority when you manage people is make sure their health and safety is ensured.
		But it was amazing to watch it unfold.
		We also in the parking garage here shared the parking garage with a whole bunch of the protesters on Capitol Hill.
		And I will remember leaving the building and there were lots and lots of cars going out with people that had just come from the rally and they were carrying their signs and still hyped up and there was just a day of so many small vignettes that will be forever burned in my brain about January 6th.
unidentified		So I want to go back to the Congress for a minute.
		For seven years, the first seven years, C-SPAN only aired the House of Representatives.
		But then C-SPAN got access to the Senate.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		The Senate will come, Daughter.
unidentified		Today's historic in many ways.
		It's exciting in many ways.
		I would guess that now the TV in the Senate is here, now that the public has an opportunity, and we underscore opportunity, I doubt that we'll ever be without television in the Senate.
		I think today we, in effect, to sort of catch up with the 20th century.
		We've been the invisible half of the Congress the past seven years.
		Walk me through how you were able to get access to the stodgy United States Senate.
		When it came to the Senate, that actually is an interesting story.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And Susan worked hard on this because we had a little newspaper.
		And the Senate said, no, we're not going on television.
		Howard Baker was the first one to drop a resolution when he became majority leader on the first day in 1981.
unidentified		And everybody said, no way.
		He wants to run for president.
		We're not helping him.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		So it was dead.
unidentified		And there were really two or three major members of the House that were over my dead body, will there ever be television?
		And three of them, if I can think of all three of them, Russell Long, Bob Byrd, and there was one other.
		Excuse me.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And we did this poll every year.
		We decided to do a poll.
		And Mike Michelson, who was executive vice president here and a wonderful human being, long deceased.
unidentified		Mike got on the phone.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He loved the Congress.
unidentified		He had worked over there.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He called each of the 100 senators for or against or leaning.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And we put this thing out.
unidentified		And every year the numbers went up a little bit.
unidentified		And one day I was sitting at my desk, and Bob Byrd, senator from West Virginia, minority leader, not majority leader, called me and said, Brian, are these, I didn't even know him.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He said, Brian, are these figures in this poll you have accurate?
unidentified		I said, well, Senator, I don't know.
unidentified		We just called and people told us this.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And he said, will you come over and talk to me about this?
unidentified		And I said, sure.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		So he'd been opposed.
		Oh, vigorously opposed.
		So I went over there and I sat in his dining room with him for two and a half hours.
unidentified		And I didn't say a word.
		I got over there and I remember walking over there.
		Mike Michelson liked to talk.
		And I said, Mike, put a sock in it.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		We're not.
		Don't be talking.
		We're just going to listen.
		So we went in and sat.
unidentified		And Bob Byrd started out by saying, you know, something's happening.
unidentified		I went back to my state the other day and they introduced me as the Speaker of the House.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And he said, I think they think because of my hair and Tip Blonillo's hair that I'm the Speaker of the House.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I don't think they understand.
unidentified		And he said, then another thing, I was in a hotel and I turned on the set and there was C-SPAN on my set.
unidentified		And he said, do you let people speak that way all the time?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Can they finish their sentences and all that?
unidentified		I said, that's the whole reason we're in business.
		He said, well, I'm going to sponsor television in the Senate.
		And I'm going to go to Russell Long and I'm going to say, Russell, step aside.
		It's time.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And so he did.
unidentified		Russell Long stepped aside.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He brought up the vote.
unidentified		Bob Dole was the majority leader, and Bob Doe obviously was running for president too, but he just kept his mouth shut.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He got the thing passed.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And it was interesting.
unidentified		Some of the people that didn't vote, Dan Quayle, for instance, from my home state didn't vote for it.
unidentified		I could never understand that one.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		But it passed like 70 to 21, and we were in business.
unidentified		Bob Byrd helped flip the switch.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Totally.
		And there's a reason for that that's very consistent.
		Bob Byrd was an institutionalist till his dying day.
		He loved the institution of the Senate.
		And why he was against it, that he was concerned that television would shape or change the institution.
		Why he ultimately flipped is that he saw it being subsumed to the House, that it was taking playing second fiddle to the House of Representatives.
		And that was a sword in the heart for him.
unidentified		He wanted to protect his place.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Exactly, protect the institution and its place within the public perception.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		So I think that was very consistent in the end when he said that.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And he used it.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He would get on the floor and talk about Roman history.
unidentified		He could talk as long as he wanted to.
unidentified		And he loved it.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He talked and he talked and he talked and he talked.
		He used it more than anybody else.
		And he then, you know, he became majority leader.
unidentified		I mean, it's really, he's a, he was an, and most people didn't pay attention to Bob Bird.
		He never appeared on the Sunday shows.
		Nobody interviewed him very often.
		But he was an institutionalist, like Susan said.
		And he's the one that made it happen.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Another coda to that story is that in 1981, when the Senate flipped hands and Senator Howard Baker became the majority leader, it was the first resolution he put in way back in 1981 to televise the House of Representatives.
		Went down in flames.
		Excuse me, the Senate went down in flames.
		And it took five more years, 1986, when it finally went on camera.
unidentified		I'm sure the argument against it at the time, and even some now, is that the Senate or the House, they should be able to deliberate away from the cameras.
		What's your response to that?
		Well, not only is that true, but the first day, John Glenn got on the floor of the House, a Senate, and he had powder and a brush, and he started, you know, making a big thing out of that and kind of putting it down the whole floor.
		On the floor.
		On camera.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Made the evening news.
unidentified		And that night, which this is really weird, that night, I hope Bennett Johnson won't hold this.
unidentified		I don't think, I don't know if he's he alive, Senator Bennett Johnson.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		I'm not sure.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Well, anyway, that doesn't matter.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He won't be mad about this.
unidentified		Anyway, I was invited on the PBS News Hour, and I went on, and I'm standing outside the studio, and I look at Bennett Johnson standing right there, and I look up and I said, oh my God, he's painted his head black.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He wasn't as bald as I was, but he had put spray on his head.
unidentified		You know, Larry King used to do that all the time.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		But fill in the holes.
		And so because he was on the floor of the Senate and he didn't want to look, you know, and it didn't last, thank goodness.
		He got over it.
unidentified		But that was one of my first indications of how serious they were taking the whole thing.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, playing to the cameras, and then after a while, the novelty wore off.
		Right.
		And they just were themselves on the floor for the most part.
unidentified		I think some people, a lot of people are surprised that C-SPAN doesn't receive any government funding.
		They just assume it's a public service.
		It's a nonprofit, must get some government funding.
		Never thought about it?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Not only never thought about it, I would have never been involved in it.
unidentified		I think it's a very bad idea to have a government institution fund media in any way.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I've always felt that way all my life.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And when I got involved in this, I said, no deal.
unidentified		And the board, one of the things we haven't talked about is the cable television executives that really made this happen.
		I mean, these were guys that stepped up and said, I love this idea.
		And Bob Rosecrat's one, Bob Tish is a guy that we never talk about, but he started way before everybody funding a little project called Cable Video, where I went around and interviewed people in their offices with a tape recorder and a small camera.
		But yeah, the idea, right out of the box, by the way, Sam, Congressman Charlie Rose called me.
		And it just played out this way beautifully.
		He called me up and he said, actually, Chief of Staff, come to my office and bring your mail with you.
		And I said to the chief of staff, I said, uh-uh, I'm not bringing mail.
		I tell you what, I will do.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I'll bring mail and I'm taking the names off because people were writing us as an independent institution.
unidentified		So I went over to see him, sitting in his office, and he said, well, I have an idea.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I want to use our facilities over here to do a weekly program on C-SPAN at the end of the week to talk about the events of the week.
unidentified		And I said, Mr. Congressman, there's a chance that we could do this, but you've got to have a Republican sitting on the other side.
unidentified		And he said, well, I don't know.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I'll think about it.
unidentified		Well, I knew what was going to happen.
		He didn't want to do that.
		But that was the first indication that I had that we, and I knew it was going to happen, that they were going to want to run the show.
		And we had members of Congress, not members of our cable board, they didn't care.
		Members of Congress wanted to tell us what to do, what hearings to cover.
		And we were ready for that.
		But if you're funded by them, then they think they can tell you what to do.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		We're seeing great examples of what the government giveth, the government can take it away.
		And would you want to be sitting in appropriations hearings every year and defending why you sent your cameras to one hearing and didn't send them to another, being a political football with all that?
		And the most important reason is public trust.
		We never wanted the public to see this as a propaganda arm of the government.
		It's done by private industry and people here who work for private industry, not for the government, making the editorial decisions.
		That's important.
unidentified		So talk about the public trust for just a minute.
		C-SPAN is viewed really as the most non-partisan news and media outlet in America.
		Talk about how you pulled that off and how you kept it that way, because particularly now, that's really unfortunately not the case anymore.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Well, the mission statement had a lot to do with it.
		The fact that people here told you about it when you first came on board.
		Everybody that works here is invested in it.
		And from the get-go, people, when they're sitting in editorial meetings, they are aware of when we've put a point of view on, when we've covered a hearing from this side, and we'll purposely look for things that counterpoint to it.
		We keep track of the guests on our call-in programs and where they fall in the political spectrum to make sure that we give voice to all sides.
		I think it's the fact that you believe in this that makes it easy to do.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		You just didn't give your views.
unidentified		Everybody that appeared on the, you know, did the call-in shows and the hosts just don't give your views.
		It's not hard.
		Everybody says, how do you do that?
		I said, it's easy.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		We split the lines, we hear from the right, the left, the ups, the down.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		What I think is not any more important than what the public thinks.
unidentified		And it works.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And if you're in the business, first of all, you take money out of it.
		You know this.
		You take money out of it and everything changes.
unidentified		In other words, if we were all stars and the harder, you know, the higher the ratings went, the higher the money went, then everything changes.
unidentified		Chemistry changes.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I know you, spending all those years with CNN, knew what it feeled like to walk into the place every day, and now you know what it feels like to walk in here.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		It's a very different feeling.
unidentified		It's a very different feeling.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And it is.
		It's just, and we fit in.
		We were early before any new television came to news and public affairs.
unidentified		We came in March 19, 1979.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		CNN came in June 1st, 1980.
unidentified		And nothing like this had ever happened before.
		So everybody was kind of, what is that?
		Why would I watch that?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Except our board that realized that we were doing something unique.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		It wasn't going to be terribly expensive.
unidentified		And we were not going to be involved in politics other than to show events as they happen.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		You know, when you take advertising and you take the money that you need that comes in with advertising off the table, and then the need to be a personality in order to track those eyeballs, the egos go out the door too.
		There's really nothing here that is egocentric that's driving the place.
		It's really just providing good information to the public that's the driver.
		And that's what's kept it on the straight and narrow all these years, I think.
unidentified		So we've talked a bit about the House floor and the Senate floor, but some of the most iconic moments on C-SPAN actually happened during congressional hearings.
		Let's take a look at a few of those.
		Sure.
		But these operations were designed to be secrets from the American people.
		Mr. Neils, I am at a loss as to how we could announce it to the American people and not have the Soviets know about it.
		I have suggested that I was afraid of retaliation.
		I was afraid of damage to my professional life.
		And that's one of the things that I have come to understand about harassment, that this response, this kind of response, is not atypical.
		I will not provide the rope for my own lynching or for further humiliation.
		I am not going to engage in discussions, nor will I submit to roving questions of what goes on in the most intimate parts of my private life or the sanctity of my bedroom.
		People have no use for this president.
		None.
		Zero.
		Zip.
		82% of the people in one part of my district want to throw him out of office.
		If I followed the polls, I could sit up here and rant and rave and become governor at home.
		I don't want to be governor that way.
		I want to be a good congressman who, 30 years from now, not just 30 days from now, people thought did the right thing.
brett m kavanaugh ▲ ● ▼		I liked beer.
		I still like beer.
		But I did not drink beer to the point of blacking out.
		And I never sexually assaulted anyone.
unidentified		C-SPAN's covered every major hearing in Congress, confirmation hearing and otherwise, over the last 40-something years.
		Any jump out at you as particularly memorable?
		Obviously, they were important.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, a bunch.
		But one that I'll never forget was, and I'm not going to get the exact institution.
		There was a hearing on the House side where you had a chairman of, I think it's not the Atomic Energy Commission.
		Anyway, he was the chairman, and there were four members, both Democrats and Republicans, and they didn't like him.
unidentified		And they wanted to get rid of him as the chairman.
unidentified		And right in front of your eyes, with the members coming down hard, they didn't like him either.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		It's probably better off.
unidentified		I just don't use his name.
		He's still around in this town, so is his wife.
		She's on television.
		But anyway, it was something to watch.
		These four people come against him.
		And it was a hearing that no, CNN would never cover this hearing.
		Neither would ABC, NBC.
		This would not be one of them.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		But those kinds of things happen all the time, and they happen when you least expect them.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Do you have one?
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I'm not going to say one, but I mean, you had two clips of Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and I think over the decades, those have been the most significant that we've covered, the most important and most interesting to watch.
		One of the reasons why is over that time, I'd say the partisanship about Supreme Court nominations increased, increased, increased, and they became more and more tense, probably starting with the Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill hearings.
		Do you remember the story that those went on for days and the networks actually pulled up and stopped televising them and we kept going?
unidentified		Well, they didn't cover them until the Anita Hill thing.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And the other thing that people noticed is the way our cameras operate, we don't do the drama thing.
		We don't, you know, coming in close like they did on Anita Hill.
		And for a reason, because that just creates an unfair drama situation, good for television, but not honest for what's really going on in the room.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Can I tell you, with our camera crews, we actually had training sessions for all the camera crews.
		We had a college professor, Dr. John Splain, who worked with us for years, who would teach the art of C-SPAN television to incoming camera crews.
		And folks that have been around for a while would show the difference that Brian's talking about with the drama shot, the 60-minute shot where you're zeroing in on someone's eyes versus our neutral shot, which is intended to show things as they really happen, as if you were sitting in the room.
		So we take this hearing coverage pretty seriously.
unidentified		So covering hearings can run into the pledge to keep, to have gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House and Senate.
unidentified		How did you navigate that?
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		There have been a few instances where that's been really tough.
		Technology has made it easier because in the early days we didn't have the internet.
		Now we can stream hearings on our app or on the website and offer so many more choices.
		But when we only had one or two television networks, it was often a problem.
		I'm remembering a story, actually, when you mentioned the mission.
		It was during the vote.
		Brian, correct my details if they're wrong, but during the First Iraq War.
		And there was a hearing going on that was on the Senate side, carried on C-SPAN 1, but it was critical to the decision about whether or not we were going to authorize the youth.
		And the House was in special orders, and we had sort of telegraphed in advance that we would tape the special orders and carry the Senate hearing live.
		Well, talk about clash between two bodies and the mission statement.
		So Terry Murphy, who is our longtime wonderful vice president of programming, and I were called up to the Speaker's office.
		And Sam, this was quite an event.
		We had all of those aides around, and they had the mission statement in front.
		And they read that nothing shall interrupt gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House of Representatives.
		Guess what?
		They caught it.
		I mean, really, we stayed with the House and put the important hearing on later.
		But that was a moment when you were thinking, darn, caught by, hoisted by our own batard.
		Is that the expression?
		There, because that our commitment to the House.
		And sometimes it is painful.
		I mean, now they don't do as many special order speeches, as they're called, as they used to in the old days.
		But there would be times when there were hours on end when a single member would be on the floor for an hour long, one after the other, until 9 or 10 o'clock at night.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Every night.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		And we would be sitting back here with our whole evening planned, ready to go with all the things that we had covered that day that we thought were important for the public to see and couldn't get it on.
		And our poor staff in the programming operations department and master control rewriting their programming schedules again and again and again because the House sessions with one member at a time were just dragging on for such a long time.
		So there's been times when the commitment has been painful, but we've never walked away from it.
unidentified		A hallmark of C-SPAN since almost the very beginning has been viewer calls.
unidentified		Let's take a look at a few.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		What's the name?
unidentified		Yankton.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		We have Yankton, South Dakota.
unidentified		Hello.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Yes, C-SPAN.
unidentified		Go ahead.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Memphis, thank you very much.
		Let's go to Wichita Falls, Texas.
		You're on C-SPAN.
		The subject is television in the Senate.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to get a few calls from Louisiana this morning.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		West Monroe, Louisiana, good morning.
unidentified		You're on the air.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		East Brunswick, New Jersey for Wolf Witzer.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, please.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		It's time to hear from you and your reaction to last night's debate.
		Franklin, New Hampshire on the independent line is first up.
		Good morning, caller.
		Thanks, caller.
unidentified		Tampa, Florida, Democrat.
unidentified		How are you doing?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		All right, Washington, one last time.
unidentified		If he's there.
		Go ahead, please.
		Hello, is this Mr. Brian Lamb?
		Yes, it is.
		Would you hold one moment, please, for the president?
		I'm an entertainer.
		Oh, what kind of entertaining?
		Are you USO?
		No, I actually was called by the USO, but I'm just, I'm an entertainer.
		I really, I don't want to go much past that.
		But.
		Is this Cher?
		Yeah.
		Okay.
		You're right.
		I'm from down south.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Oh, God's mom.
unidentified		And I'm your mother.
		And I disagree that all families are like ours.
		I don't know many families that are fighting at Thanksgiving.
		Is this your time?
		I was very glad that this Thanksgiving was a year that you two were supposed to go to your in-laws.
		And I'm hoping you'll have some of this out of your system when you come here for Christmas.
		I'm a white male, and I am prejudiced.
		And the reason it is, it's something I wasn't taught, but it's kind of something that I learned.
		What can I do to change, you know, to be a better American?
		Heather McGee.
		Thank you so much for being honest and for opening up this conversation.
		Either of you have a favorite call or caller?
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my goodness.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, how painful it is to work on television for 40 years and watch yourself age, right?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Especially the hair thing.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you look like a young pup in those aren't.
		Not I.
		So I think those are some priceless moments.
		And I actually, people that are longtime participants in the call-in program or viewers of the call-in program, I think what they cherish about it is hearing from so many voices around the country, the day in and day out, of people that have different points of view than that are willing to share them.
		There's really nothing like it anywhere in the media where people from all points of view are willing to stake their claim on what they have to say and have a guest respond to it or have other callers.
		I just heard one on the way in.
		Two calls back, I heard a guy say something that I want to respond to.
		I mean, that is a tremendous town hall that has been going on here for 45 years now that has been a very, very important part of what we do.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		There's a story I want to tell you about because it really was meaningful.
unidentified		And it goes back to about 1982 when we switched to a full satellite channel.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		There was a guy in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		New Jersey, Bud.
unidentified		William Bud Harris was his name.
		And Bud, and Susan and I both hosting, and so Bud would call all the time.
		And Bud kind of down the middle and always ask a very important question.
		And for some reason or other, I said, either he probably called me off mic, and we started almost a daily conversation.
		And I said, and Bud, what are we doing right?
		What are we doing wrong?
		This is just a citizen.
		I didn't know him.
		So this went on for a very long time.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And we were headed towards switching satellites.
unidentified		And we knew we were going to run into trouble from some of our less committed cable operators.
		And there was a very large company at the time that's no longer in business.
		And we rolled into the big change.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And that afternoon, before the change happened, Bud Harris called up and said, I want to start a friends of C-SPAN.
unidentified		And he said, I'm going to give you my home number.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And anybody in the audience can call me.
unidentified		And I will take up your situation.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And we will work with your communities and all those things.
unidentified		One man band.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He had retired.
		He was 60 years old.
		He had been an insurance guy.
unidentified		He had a bad heart.
unidentified		And he sat home and he took calls.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And we had one company that dropped us from 400 different systems.
unidentified		Right.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		So what they would do is create a citizens coalition in that town to call the cable operator and say, put it back on again.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		It's better than that.
unidentified		He'd call a local newspaper.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		The New York Times owned 55 little communities in southern New Jersey.
		And the New York Times let it know they were going to drop C-SPAN.
		And Bud Harris called, he was up there in Terry Hill, he called the Philadelphia Enquirer and got the media reporter.
unidentified		And he said, you know, then the New York Times, the newspaper record, is going to drop C-SPAN, the network of record.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And he called, Bud Harris called the president of the New York Times and said, why are you doing this?
unidentified		This doesn't make any sense.
unidentified		And 5:30 in the afternoon was the deadline.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And right before 5:30 in the afternoon, the New York Times called the Philadelphia Enquirer and said, we're going to keep them on.
unidentified		And if it literally hadn't been for the citizen Bud Harris, we would have not, the New York Times would have kicked us off.
unidentified		Thank you, Bud.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, Friends of C-SPAN was really very active for a long time.
unidentified		And this was pre-social media days.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		So this was a lot of letter writing and phone calling that was happening on their own initiative.
		You know, Sam, when you go back to the very first question about how C-SPAN was founded, I always think about it as a coalition of the Congress saying yes to it, Brian in the cable industry providing the technology and the idea and the wherewithal to get it on board.
		Journalists in those early days who wrote about it, which was really important, and who would come on the call-in shows, even when it wasn't seen in the District of Columbia, so they weren't really sure where they were going to be seen.
		And also the viewers from the very, very beginning, viewers who were part of this and understood that it was important to them to preserve and expand what we were doing.
		And I think that's so true today, even with the work that we're doing here with participants in the call-in program, how active our social media channels are.
unidentified		For those people that get it, it matters.
		So, a question I get asked all the time, I'm going to pass along to you from our viewers.
		When you have a really colorful viewer calling in, really colorful, how do you keep a straight face?
		It's really easy.
		I'm not one, and when I watch television, and I'm probably one of the worst, when I see I don't care what channel they're on, and this didn't used to be what it is now, now it's everybody's on a side.
		And it didn't used to be, but they play like they were not on a side.
		And, you know, the eyebrow would go up.
		You know what it's like.
		You watched it all your life.
		I just decided that I didn't care.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I think citizens say the same thing.
unidentified		You just don't care what they're saying to you.
		You want to just hear what they say.
		And sometimes they sound like hayseeds because, hey, they're out there.
		And I don't mean that derogatorily.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I come from a state that had a lot of farmers and hayseeds in it.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And I was probably one myself.
unidentified		So what?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		You know, you may not have a college degree.
		Most of the Americans don't.
		And in this town, there's this bubble that we're all from the East and we go to Yales and the Harvards and all that stuff.
		And the West of this country isn't even close to that.
		So we had an enormous amount of respect to hear what people were saying to us.
		And the worst thing you could do was act like it mattered that you, you know, grimace because you didn't like what they had to say.
		It drives people crazy, though.
unidentified		Beyond hearings and the House floor and the Senate floor and callers, C-SPAN's also done a lot of interviews over the years, including interviews with presidents.
unidentified		Let's take a look.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		The last two nights I was president, I never went over to the White House.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		I stayed here in the Oval Office for three full days negotiating with the Ayatollah Khomeini through the Algerians to get the hostages released.
unidentified		And inauguration morning at 10 o'clock, we had been completely successful.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		All the hostages were in an airplane at the end of the runway in Tehran, waiting to take off.
unidentified		And I kept anticipating a message that they were free.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		But the Ayatollah didn't let the plane take off until about five minutes after I was no longer president.
unidentified		I think it's very important for the president to be resolved during war.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼		The truth of the matter is they're asking, did I make a mistake, for example, in the liberation of Iraq?
unidentified		And the answer is, no, I didn't make a mistake in my judgment.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		Somebody said, you know, this is the greatest home court advantage that you could have in this office.
unidentified		And I do think that people feel a certain reverence for the space because it symbolizes the presidency and it symbolizes what has been the extraordinary record of tough decisions, monumental decisions that have been made in this room.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		You get in and I say, what's the event of the day, what's going on, who's calling, what's happening.
		And my life has been a pretty rapid, you know, I've seen a lot of changes, a lot of rapid changes.
		I see it certainly in the White House.
		You come in and everything is going great, and then you find out that there's a tremendous conflict with another nation.
		You know, big stuff.
unidentified		How old is Sadie?
		About four and a half, five.
		She was trained to be a great huntress, trained in England.
		We haven't hunted her yet, but she's a great rabbit chaser.
		Whoops, just a minute, Sadie.
		And she's just the joy of Barbara's life and mine.
		And she's fast as lightning, and she's a kind dog, and she makes friends easily.
		Any favorite presidential interviews?
		You thought that one, didn't you, Brian?
		Any favorite or not favorite interviews with presidents?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I almost want to turn the question on you because I'm sure you've got stories that presidents are everybody pays attention to every interview you do with the president in this town.
unidentified		It just, you know, they're all waiting for the headline.
		I would say that I've got one story.
		It's a little bit longer than the Obama story is interesting, but the Clinton story, when we interviewed, we were allowed to go to Bill Clinton's Oval Office.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And the deal was we would have, he would mic him up outside.
unidentified		He'd walk up and I would meet him out there and then walk into the Oval Office and we'd walk around and talk about what was on the walls.
		The paintings and the photos and all that stuff and the books in the back.
		I always thought that was fun.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And we had an hour with him.
unidentified		It was supposed to be at 2 o'clock.
unidentified		So 2 o'clock came around.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		We're all set up in the Oval Office, ready to go.
unidentified		2.10, no president.
		No Bill Clinton.
		2.20, no Bill Clinton.
		2.30, no Bill Clinton.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And finally, about 25 minutes of two, of three, the Secret Service says he's on his way.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		So I go out and meet him outside the Oval Office.
unidentified		And I'm standing there waiting for him.
		And Bill Clinton comes, and Sox the Cat is there.
		So he decides to play with Sox the Cat for a while.
		Not terribly interested in what's next.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		So we miced him up.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And I walked in with him.
unidentified		And I walked around and he told us what things.
		And I went over to his desk then after 20 minutes, sat down.
		And Garney Gehry, one of our former employees, great guy, was on the camera.
		And I started asking him questions.
		And about maybe two, three questions in.
		And by the way, you know, Sam, what this is like.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		There's always 15 staff people at the back of the Oval Office standing there saying, basically looking at you and saying, don't you dare ask him a nasty question.
unidentified		And they're in the room.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		The press secretary's in the room.
unidentified		Dee Dee Myers was there.
		And all of a sudden, Garney Gehry looks at me behind the camera and goes, and I said, what?
		I've got 40 minutes left.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And so I decided I'm just going to keep going.
unidentified		So I asked two more questions.
		And Garney goes, eh, eh, now, now.
		And I realized what was happening.
		He was late.
		He was going to take our time away from us.
		So what?
		You don't matter.
		And I just, I was so mad, I can still remember how I felt.
		I unhooked my mic, and he didn't pay attention.
		He didn't know what was going on.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I don't mean that negatively.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He didn't know the schedule problem.
unidentified		So I decided, I'm getting out of here.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I can't take this.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And so he started saying, let's all have a picture.
unidentified		I said, I'm out.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And so they all went.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		They had their picture taken with them and all.
unidentified		And I remember coming back to the studio saying, we just got shafted.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And so I said, we're not going to make a big deal out of this.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		We're just going to run it, you know, as a part of a little documentary on the Oval Office.
unidentified		So we turned it into something entirely different.
		But you, playing with presidents is hazardous.
		Yeah, there's always, not just about questions, but time.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		And they're always behind you going like this to the watch.
		People that are watching home, you're trying to do an interview that's as intimate as our conversation now.
		And there's 10 people that are watching you the whole time.
		It's a very different dynamic than what you see on the TV.
		May I tell one more president's story?
		It's not in this group of clips, but it was in the last one.
		It was the, Mr. Lamb, would you hold please for the president?
		That was a series of interviews that we did with Ronald Reagan while he was in office called Students and Leaders.
		And we took students from the Close-Up Foundation, which still exists in this town today, brings high school students into Washington for a Washington experience for a week.
		But we were, and Brian can tell more detail about it, but through an old contact, had this idea of bringing students for one-on-one in the White House with the President of the United States.
		And they could ask any questions that they wanted.
		And when the President went back, he was watching our television, our telecast of it on TV.
		And we would do a call-in program with the students.
		We'd tape over at the old executive office building, bring the kids back, put them all in the studio, and Brian would interview the students.
		What was your experience like?
		What did you think of the president's answer?
		And Ronald Reagan was back in the White House watching this live telecast.
		And at least two times, he called in because he wanted to have another shot at answering the students' questions.
		And that was the hold please for the president call that you showed in the earlier show.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And by the way, there's another interesting thing about this.
unidentified		Ronald Reagan said to Joe Holmes, who is one of his longtime aides, I want to do the kids' show that I used to do in California when I was governor on cable television.
unidentified		And the rest of the staff didn't want him to do it.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Didn't want him to do it.
unidentified		So they kept pushing it off, pushing it off.
		And finally one day, this took a year, Ronald Reagan said to Joe Holmes, gee D, I want to do those now.
		So they came to us and we said, absolutely, we'd love to do them.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		So there were 30-minute shows.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And he was really good with the students.
unidentified		But the thing I want to mention is another factor in C-SPAN's history.
		Steve Janger started the Close-Up Foundation, which brought high school kids to town.
		He was totally civic-oriented.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He was fantastic at it.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He's now deceased.
unidentified		But if it wasn't for Steve Janger and Close-Up, we wouldn't have had our first two cameras.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		That's how this whole thing, this is a, I don't know, it's an erector set.
unidentified		I say bailing wire and paperclips.
unidentified		You can put us together in that.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		You just can't imagine how thrilling it was when I can remember driving up to New Jersey to get the first camera.
unidentified		We were so excited.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And Steve bought them and then let us use them all the time.
unidentified		And then we would also do shows with the kids.
unidentified		Yeah, that's what you have to understand.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		We were a television network with no cameras of our own because we picked up the signal of the House of Representatives in the very earliest days and put it on the satellite.
		That's all we could do.
		And Steve Janger, by buying those first cameras for C-SPAN and letting us use them to cover hearings, do call-in programs with them, really was the next step in our growth.
		It was really important in the early days.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I have to say one quick thing.
unidentified		Another fellow that we worked with who's extremely important to us is a guy named John Evans, who was on our board from the very beginning.
		John built the Arlington cable system.
		And John and I were friends.
		He and I both had been in the Navy.
		And we were working together to try to get the television over to the Arlington cable system before we had the satellite.
		And we went to this former congressman, Charlie Rose, and we said we want to do it through the Metro, run a cable through the Metro.
		And John was determined to do that.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Charlie Rose blocked that.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He didn't want us to have that ability.
unidentified		And it's just astounding how hard some people worked for us and how other people in the system worked against us.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		The District of Columbia was one of the last major cities to get cable television service.
unidentified		That's ironic.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		It's ironic.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		So you had a situation where the president actually couldn't watch the Congress and people in the suburbs, because of John Evans having Montgomery County and the Maryland suburbs and Arlington and the Virginia suburbs and had C-SPAN on the cable system meant any congressional staff members or reporters who lived there could actually see what we were doing in the early days when the president could not.
unidentified		So C-SPAN has something beyond the coverage of the executive branch and the legislative branch.
		Book TV.
		Interviewed a lot of authors.
		Would you rather interview a historian, a president, or a nonfiction author?
		Historian.
		I'd much rather interview a historian.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I still do in the little podcast I do.
unidentified		I love historians.
		They know something.
		You cannot interview a historian without learning something.
		You can interview politicians and not learn a thing.
		A nonfiction author, a journalist is also very good, especially journalists that have a specialist subject or they have written a book themselves.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		But historians are my favorite people.
unidentified		They are so inquisitive and they have done so much work before that book comes out.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Book TV has its earliest roots in the Vietnam War.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		So do you want to explain why?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Neil Sheehan wrote a book called Bright Shining Lie, and it took him 16 years to write it.
unidentified		And he was very active with David Halberstam in Vietnam.
		And they were doing some early reporting over there that the government didn't like.
		And they were seeing things that the government didn't want the rest of the public to see.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And after the war was over, Neil wanted to write the definitive book.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And I realized that when his book was published, and it was a big book, that he'd get six minutes on the Today Show.
unidentified		And that would be it.
		So I said to him, let us do five half-hour shows.
		We'll put them on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And then on Friday, we'll have you sit and take calls.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		That's how book television started.
unidentified		And Susan had a lot to do with starting book television, book TV, as we call it, about books and all those different formats.
unidentified		But it was Neil Sheehan, which was the first interview, that got us going.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		What happened is when we did that call-in program on Friday, there were so many people wanting to participate.
		And we said afterwards, hey, this book stuff has some legs, right?
		So we really began to incorporate it more.
		Our first was a little block called About Books that was about four hours long.
		And then Brian was continuing to do his author interviews on a once-a week basis.
		And then later on when C-SPAN 2, we were looking for ways to expand it.
		We went to 48 hours, it was for many, many years of nonfiction book programming.
		And it's been a really important part.
		Our video library, which we haven't talked about and I know you will, has in it a compendium of every major nonfiction author for the past 35 years.
		And that is a capsule of American history through their eyes that will be there for generations.
unidentified		Library has 300,000 hours almost right now.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Right.
unidentified		It's a remarkable treasure.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		It is a remarkable treasure.
unidentified		And every week on Thursdays, Howard Mortmer from this network does a little iPod podcast that uses the library that is both sometimes hilarious, other times very serious, but it's something that people ought to try out because people can use this library a lot more than they do, as you know, Sam.
unidentified		All these clips today came from the video library.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		You need to mention Dr. Browning before you're going to talk about this.
unidentified		Of course.
unidentified		Robert Browning, he's the genius that started the video library.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He's out at Purdue University.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And it's his baby, and he's done a fantastic job with almost no staff.
unidentified		He completely built it from ground up.
unidentified		He conceived it, and he's taken it to 300,000 hours.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		It's really quite an accomplishment.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Every single moment of C-SPAN coverage since 1980, September of 1987, has been preserved because of Dr. Browning and his team.
		They're now C-SPAN employees who work in Indiana.
		And another story from the grassroots up, because in the early days, they were working with half-inch videotapes that they had to preserve.
		They had a satellite dish and they'd bring it down and record it on videotapes and keep it on stacks in the library.
		Now, of course, it's all digital.
unidentified		Dr. Browning from Purdue, you went to Purdue, Brian.
unidentified		If you hadn't started C-SPAN in 1979, what do you think you would have done with your career?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I probably would have bought, I mean, with a lot of help, radio and television stations.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		You know, I had some very good mentors right from that little town.
unidentified		Dick Shively bought the local television station.
unidentified		I worked for him for a while.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He would have done anything.
unidentified		He was very, very supportive.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Henry Rosenthal, who owned the local radio station, he'd been a haberdasher.
		And he loved the radio business.
		And one day, when I was 17 years old, he looked at me and he said, you want to work here?
		I'll pay you a dollar an hour.
		And this is kind of a nostalgic thing.
		Henry in his late years worked for us at C-SPAN, and we were paying him about $1 an hour until he was 92 years old, and he never stopped working.
		And then my broadcast teacher.
unidentified		It was all radio all the time.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I was in love, as so many people, Sam, you've got your own story to tell.
		You get in love with this business, and there's nothing like this business.
		I know the public tends now, because there's been a lot of uproar over the years, to hate the media.
unidentified		But if you're in the media, you love your work.
		And in most cases, people in the media are doing it for the right reasons.
		What about you, Susan?
		When you were in college, what was your plan?
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it actually started earlier than that.
		I used to come home.
		We had an afternoon paper in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Bulletin.
		And I would come home from school, lie on the floor in the living room and turn the pages of the bulletin and read all the stories in there.
		And in high school, I had a great, actually, English teacher who got us interested in comparative newspaper stories.
		And that was really very important.
		I went to college wanting to be in this business and worked at the local CBS affiliate.
		I went to school in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and worked on the local CBS affiliate.
		And they had a radio station while I was going to school.
		What turned the tide for me is about the time that I was graduating, local television news was really becoming much more happy talk.
		And I knew I wanted to do serious work.
		So I had a couple of other jobs in between, but I finally packed up my bags from Boston where I was living and moved here without a job, wanting to get into this business and do some serious journalism.
		And I was very fortunate enough after about 10 months of interviewing all over town to meet Brian and the aforementioned Mike Michelson.
		And I just knew I found my home as soon as I went through that interview.
unidentified		Before we finish, I have to ask you both: any advice for the new guy?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I'd like to turn it on you for a minute, because I think the audience ought to know who you are and why you came here, because you are the leader for, hopefully, the foreseeable future to take this place at a very important time.
unidentified		And I just, I throw out a question to you.
		Why'd you do this?
		Why did you come here as CEO?
		I grew up watching C-SPAN.
		It's an American treasure that you all built.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		I say Alts only because it makes us feel.
unidentified		No, I literally lived in a little town in Connecticut that was one of those towns that didn't get broadcast TV very well from either New York or Hartford.
		And so cable came to that town mostly because of TV reception.
		And one of the few channels that this little cable system had was C-SPAN.
		I was a political junkie and I started watching C-SPAN.
		And like many of our viewers, people watching right now, I hope, you fall in love with it.
		You fall in love with the mission, the content.
		And so I spent, you know, finished college, spent 30 years in network television.
		But C-SPAN has always been a part of everything that any of us who work in Washington journalism think about.
		And so when the two of you announced your retirement, the idea of coming to C-SPAN was, first of all, it was an easy decision because it's an amazing place that you've created.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Well, I should say to people that Sam was the bureau chief for CNN in Washington for many years before he applied for this job.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		And each one of the Fox, CNN, and the three broadcast networks have bureau chiefs that are responsible for all their coverage decisions.
unidentified		And we're all cooperative.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		We trade off.
		But sometimes we get into jams, I mean, with not being able to cover things.
		And I think the audience should know that over the years, of all the bureau chiefs, you were always the one that said, how can I help?
		How can I help you get what you need?
		And was always very, very instrumental in trying to let us get our cameras into places where we couldn't.
		So when we posted this position and we heard that you were interested, we were all really very happy about it because we understood that you got it.
		And it was really important to us.
		And we haven't mentioned our very special, longtime colleague, Rob Kennedy, who was the co-CEO with me for many, many years.
		When we were going through the interview process, it was very important for us that someone would not want to come into this place and knock it all down and build anew.
		I mean, it needs to change with times changing, but there are basic tenets about this that are worth preserving.
		And we understood that you got that.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And Rob Kennedy was an incredibly important part of this because he knew where every dollar was, and he had a structure.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		And he squeezed every dollar.
unidentified		And it's just like Matt Dupre, who's taking his place and working with you now.
		They're just key to the place.
		And the public never sees that.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		But the public is so important to keeping this place going.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		If we don't have the public, we're out of business.
unidentified		100%.
		Well, on behalf of all of those viewers and the staff, past and present, thank you for what you've created.
		Thank you for what you've built here at C-SPAN.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Happy anniversary, C-SPAN.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Good to have you, Sam, running the show.
		Thank you.
		It was great.
susan swain ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Sam.
unidentified		Mr. Speaker, on this historic day, the House of Representatives opens its proceedings for the first time to televised coverage.
		Since March of 1979, C-SPAN has been your unfiltered window into American democracy, bringing you direct, no-spin coverage of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House.
		Is this Mr. Brian Lamb?
		Yes, it is.
		Would you hold one moment, please, for the president?
		It exists because of C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb's vision and the cable industry's support, not government funding.
		But this public service isn't guaranteed.
		All this month, in honor of Founders Day, your support is more important than ever.
		You can keep democracy unfiltered today and for future generations.
patty murray ▲ ● ▼		To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN.
unidentified		Your gift today preserves open access to government and ensures the public stays informed.
		Donate now at c-span.org/slash donate or scan the code on your screen.
		Every contribution matters.
		And thank you.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum, inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy.
		From Washington, D.C. to across the country.
		Coming up Thursday morning, we'll talk about potential changes to Medicaid coverage under the Trump administration with the Century Foundation's Chiquita Brooks-Leshure and the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon.
		Also, Doug Klain, non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center on the war in Ukraine and the Trump administration's efforts to reach a ceasefire deal.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
		Join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Thursday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org.
		C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
		We're funded by these television companies and more, including Charter Communications.
		Charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers.
		And we're just getting started, building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most.
		Charter Communications supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy.
		White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt spoke about a range of issues during a briefing with reporters, including the Russia-Ukraine war and judiciary rulings against the Trump administration's deportation efforts.
		Secretary Levitt began her remarks by highlighting the safe return of two astronauts who had been living on the International Space Station for nearly 300 days.
		Good afternoon, everybody.
		How are we?
		It's a newsy day indeed.
		And last night, we saw the very best of America.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		After spending nearly 300 days aboard the International Space Station, Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams are back on Earth.
		These two incredible astronauts were only supposed to be up there for eight days, but because of the Biden administration's lack of urgency, they ended up spending nine months in space.
		Joe Biden's lack of courage to act boldly and decisively was a big reason why Butch and Sonny did not make it back until yesterday.
		But President Trump doesn't waste time.
		Immediately after taking office, President Trump directed Elon Musk and SpaceX to rescue these brave astronauts alongside NASA.
unidentified		The President also called the acting administrator of NASA and told her to bring the astronauts home as soon as possible.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		As Acting Administrator Janet Petro said herself yesterday, per President Trump's direction, NASA and SpaceX worked diligently to pull the schedule a month earlier.
		The President looks forward to welcoming Butch and Sonny to the Oval Office when they are recovered.
		This historic mission brings new meaning to President Trump's promise to always look out for the forgotten man and woman.
unidentified		On another important matter, yesterday, President Trump and President Putin spoke about the need for peace and a ceasefire in the Ukraine war.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Both leaders agreed this conflict needs to end with a lasting peace and also stressed the need for improved bilateral relations between the United States and Russia.
		President Trump also spoke with President Zelensky this morning to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their needs and requests.
		As President Trump has said repeatedly, the precious lives and money that both Ukraine and Russia have been spending in this war would be better spent on the needs of their people.
		This terrible conflict would have never started with President Trump in charge, but he's determined to end it once and for all.
unidentified		President Trump also promised maximum transparency and a commitment to rebuild the trust of the American people in our intelligence community.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Part of that promise was to fully release previously classified records related to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, and he made that happen yesterday.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		This historic release consisted of approximately 80,000 pages of previously classified records that are now published.
unidentified		The records are available to access either online at archives.gov/slash JFK or in person, accessible to the American people at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Records that are currently only available for in-person viewing are being digitized and will be uploaded in the coming days.
		On another note, positive economic data continues to pour in showing the immediate impact of President Trump's pro-growth agenda.
		After suffering a steep decline in the final year of the Biden administration, the manufacturing sector came roaring back in February.
unidentified		Industrial production surged in February, these are new numbers, three times at a greater three times rate than the expectations to its highest ever recorded level.
unidentified		And President Trump's laser focus on massive deregulation and unleashing our domestic energy industry is leading to stabilities for Americans' bottom lines.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		As Newsweek summed it up today, gas prices are plummeting under President Trump.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		And the Trump administration continues to make American communities safer through our ongoing mass deportation campaign of illegal alien criminals.
unidentified		Yesterday, FBI Director Kash Patel announced the agency captured another fugitive from its 10 most wanted list, securing the extradition of Francisco Javier Roman Bardelas, a key senior leader of the brutal MS-13 gang.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		And the brave men and women of ICE also arrested a number of dangerous aliens across the country in recent days.
unidentified		You will see them on this screen.
unidentified		ICE San Francisco just arrested a citizen of Guatemala convicted of sexual battery.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		ICE New Orleans arrested a citizen of Ecuador convicted of rape in Suffolk County, New York.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		ICE Atlanta arrested a citizen of Mexico convicted of assault by strangulation.
unidentified		ICE Dallas arrested a citizen of Mexico convicted of assault with a firearm and rape with a foreign object.
		And ICE Houston arrested a citizen of Guatemala convicted of indecent sexual contact with a child in Texas.
		These are heinous, criminal, alien monsters who the previous administration allowed to flood into our country.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		And every time President Trump and this team deport one of them, our country becomes safer.
unidentified		Finally, before I open it up to questions, I want to tout how successful our efforts have been in filling out President Trump's administration.
unidentified		There have been a record number of 281 Senate confirmed nominations already, with another 280 in process.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Here at the White House, OPM, and GSA, we have filled 100% of the total number of slots.
unidentified		And this is a record number of placements in the first 58 days of any administration and a testament to the caliber and the sheer quantity of talented people who want to work for President Trump to make America great again.
unidentified		Here in our new media seat today, we have Katie Pavlich.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Katie is the editor of Townhall.com, which is a subsidiary of Town Hall Media.
unidentified		It's a leading conservative news and opinion outlet based right here in Washington, D.C., with writers and journalists reporting around the country.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Last year, Town Hall Media had 60 million unique users and 1.4 billion page views, with a broad reach on a number of social media platforms.
unidentified		With that, Katie, please kick us off.
katie pavlich ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Caroline.
unidentified		Really appreciate it.
katie pavlich ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
		So given the back and forth with this U.S. District Judge and the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act, does the President plan to send new and additional flights of Venezuelan gang members, now designated as foreign terrorists, from the U.S. to El Salvador or elsewhere?
		Can Americans expect to see those flights sometime soon?
unidentified		Americans can absolutely expect to see the continuation of the mass deportation campaign that has been successfully led by this president, Secretary of Homeland Security, Christy Noam, and also our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Since you brought up the judges, I would like to point out that the judges in this country are acting erroneously.
		We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench.
		They are trying to dictate policy from the President of the United States.
unidentified		They are trying to clearly slow walk this administration's agenda, and it's unacceptable.
unidentified		As the President said last night, we will continue to comply with these court orders.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		We will continue to fight these battles in courts.
unidentified		But it's incredibly apparent that there is a concerted effort by the far left to judge shop, to pick judges who are clearly acting as partisan activists from the bench in an attempt to derail this president's agenda.
unidentified		We will not allow that to happen.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		And not only are they usurping the will of the president and the chief executive of our country, but they are undermining the will of the American public, tens of millions of Americans who duly elected this president to implement the policies that are coming out of this White House.
katie pavlich ▲ ● ▼		And then one more question.
		Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said yesterday that he was united with Democrats in working against Americans who, quote, their attitude is, I made my money all by myself.
		How dare your government take my money from me?
		Or I built my company with my bare hands.
		How dare your government tell me how to treat my customers?
		What is the president's response to this given his upcoming tax agenda and need to work on capital health?
unidentified		Well, we certainly hope that Democrats all of a sudden are for more money in the pockets of the American public.
		The president has made it incredibly clear that he is committed to tax cuts.
		He is committed to passing a big reconciliation package later this year, ending no taxes on tips, taxes on overtime, no taxes on Social Security for our hardworking seniors.
		And we encourage everybody on Capitol Hill to support that when it comes to the finish line, especially Democrats who clearly need a boost from the American public right now.
		Their approvals are at an all-time record low.
		Thanks for being with us, Katie.
		Garrett.
		I have one other question, but I want to follow up on Katie's question, actually.
		You said the mass deportation campaign would continue, but she asked about the flights specifically.
		Will those flights to El Salvador continue while this case is being appealed?
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Don't have any flights planned specifically, but we will continue with the mass deportations.
unidentified		And I would just like to point out that the judge in this case is essentially trying to say that the president doesn't have the executive authority to deport foreign terrorists from our American soil.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		That is an egregious abuse of the bench.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		This judge does not have that authority.
unidentified		It is the opinion of this White House and of this administration, and that's why we're fighting this in court.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		And it's very, very clear that this is an activist judge trying to use the president's authority.
		Under the Alien Enemies Act, the President has this power, and that's why this deportation campaign has continued.
		And this judge, Judge Boesberg, is a Democrat activist.
unidentified		He was appointed by Barack Obama.
		His wife has donated more than $10,000 to Democrats, and he has consistently shown his disdain for this president and his policies, and it's unacceptable.
		You're right where I wanted to go about the idea that these people are all foreign terrorists, but Judge Bozberg was originally appointed by Georgia W. Bush and then elevated by Barack Obama.
		I just feel like I should clear that up.
		Well, let me just say something to that effect, Garrett.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		67% of all of the injunctions in this century have come against which president?
unidentified		Donald J. Trump.
unidentified		Let me say that again.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		60% of the injunctions by partisan activists in the judicial branch have come against President Donald Trump, and 92% of those have been from Democrat-appointed judges.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		This is a clear concerted effort by leftists who don't like this president and are trying to impose or slow down his agenda.
unidentified		So, given that, do you think it's a good use of Congress's time and the president's political capital to try to impeach and remove a federal judge, which would take 67 votes, you're unlikely to get in the Senate?
		Well, look, the President has made it clear that he believes this judge in this case should be impeached, and he has also made it clear that he has great respect for the Chief Justice John Roberts, and it's incumbent upon the Supreme Court to rein in these activist judges.
		These partisan activists are undermining the judicial branch by doing so.
		We have co-equal branches of government for a reason, and the president feels very strongly about that.
		Jackie.
		What options does the president have to, you know, he says he's going to follow court orders.
		He wouldn't defy a court order, but he's raised these concerns about these judges acting in such a partisan way.
		What option does he have to ensure that his agenda continues to move forward while this is ongoing and that the judges appear to be trying to just block and delay impede?
		Well, you're right.
		They are trying to block, delay, and impede.
		This is lawfare.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		The president is no stranger to it.
unidentified		He faced it in his campaign, and this is a continuation of the law affair that President Trump faced as a candidate, and he's now unfortunately facing as a president.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Clearly, these partisan activists in the judicial branch didn't get the memo on November 5th when the American people overwhelmingly re-elected this president to continue with mass deportations.
		So White House Counsel and the Department of Justice are working on this.
		They're appealing these cases, and we will continue to use the full weight of the White House Counsel's Office and the President's team of lawyers to fight this in court because we know we will win even if we have to go all the way to the Supreme Court.
unidentified		Andy McCarthy said in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, he certainly agrees with what the president is trying to do with the Alien Enemies Act, but he's not sure that the law is completely on his side.
		He cites some previous Supreme Court rulings dealing with enemy combatants in wartime, says that even they have a right to challenge their detention in court.
		He raised concern also that while TDA has been designated as a terrorist organization, these individuals hadn't been prosecuted for terrorism.
		So my question is, will the president ask Congress potentially to declare war on these cartels for the invasion that he's talked about so that he's on stronger legal footing?
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Well, we absolutely disagree with the legal opinion of the individual that you mentioned.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		We would not have moved forward with this if we didn't believe the president.
unidentified		This was within the president's executive authority to continue with this mass deportation effort under the authority provided to him under the Alien Enemies Act.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		And when you read the act, as I did last time at the podium, a predatory incursion is absolutely what has happened with Trende Aragua.
unidentified		They have been sent here by the hostile Maduro regime in Venezuela, and the president immediately upon taking office designated TDA as a foreign terrorist organization.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		And under this act, it is within the president's authority to deport these terrorists.
unidentified		And anybody trying to defend these terrorists who have now been sent off of American soil should talk to the families of the individuals who these heinous monsters have killed and have raped.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		If you talk to those families, they are so heartened by the president's decision to take tough action and to use his executive authority, something that no other president has been willing to do, because President Trump does what he says he's going to do and he is deporting these foreign terrorists from American soil to secure our homeland and he's within his rights to do that.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Jennifer Tesla.
unidentified		Very quickly on Tesla, there's a website that's trying to dox Tesla owners across the country and saying they're only going to take down personal information when people show that they've sold their cars.
unidentified		What's the administration going to do about that?
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		I haven't seen that website, but we certainly think it's despicable, the violence that has taken place against Tesla, the company, its employees, and also just Americans who have chosen to drive an electric vehicle.
unidentified		Many of them are Democrats, by the way.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Democrats were big supporters of Tesla and of electric vehicles until Elon Musk decided to vote for Donald Trump.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		So we would like Democrats to also come out and condemn this heinous violence that we have seen.
unidentified		And I believe the Attorney General has said she's investigating these incidents as acts of domestic terrorism.
		Jennifer.
		Ukraine, can you say, is the White House going to pause foreign military aid or intelligence sharing with Ukraine, as Russia says it's pushing for?
		And then I have a follow-up on the Federal Trade Commission.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		When it comes to Ukraine, I do have a statement for you from the National Security Advisor and also the Secretary of State.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		First, I'd like to reiterate what the President said earlier following his call with President Zelensky this morning.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		He said he just completed a very good telephone call with President Zelensky.
unidentified		It lasted approximately one hour.
		Much of the discussion was based on the call made yesterday with President Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs.
		We are very much on track, and I will ask Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz to give an accurate description of the points discussed.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		That statement will be put out shortly, while I have that statement for you right here.
unidentified		Bear with me as I read it.
		Today, President Trump and Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky had a fantastic phone conversation.
		President Zelensky thanked President Trump for a productive start for the work of the Ukrainian and American teams in Jeddah on March 11th.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		The meeting of the senior officials from both nations significantly helped in moving toward ending the war.
		President Zelensky thanked President Trump for the support of the United States, especially the javelin missiles that President Trump was first to provide in his efforts towards peace.
		The leaders agreed Ukraine and America will continue working together to bring about a real end to the war and that lasting peace under President Trump's leadership can be achieved.
unidentified		President Trump fully briefed President Zelensky on his conversation with Putin and the key issues discussed.
unidentified		They reviewed the situation in Kursk and agreed to share information closely between their defense staffs as the battlefield situation evolved.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		President Zelensky asked for additional air defense systems to protect his civilians, particularly Patriot missile systems, and President Trump agreed to work with him to find what was available, particularly in Europe.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		The two leaders also agreed on a partial ceasefire against energy.
unidentified		Technical teams will meet in Saudi Arabia in the coming days to discuss broadening the ceasefire to the Black Sea on the way to a full ceasefire.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		They agreed this could be the first step toward the full end of the war and ensuring security.
unidentified		President Zelensky was grateful for the president's leadership in this effort and reiterated his willingness to adopt a full ceasefire.
		President Trump also discussed Ukraine's electrical supply and nuclear power plants.
		He said that the United States could be very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		American ownership of those plants would be the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
unidentified		President Zelensky also thanked President Trump for continuing to push humanitarian concerns, including the exchange of prisoners of war.
		He noted they had just had a successful exchange and thanked the president for his leadership on that.
		President Trump also asked President Zelensky about the children who had gone missing from Ukraine during the war, including the ones that had been abducted.
		And President Trump promised to work closely with both parties to help make sure those children were returned home.
		They agreed all parties must continue the effort to make a ceasefire work.
		The presidents noted the positive work of their advisors and representatives, especially Secretary Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Special Envoy Kellogg, and others.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		The presidents instructed their teams to move ahead with the technical issues related to implementing and broadening the partial ceasefire.
		The presidents instructed their advisors and representatives to carry out this work as quickly as possible.
		The presidents emphasized that in further meetings, the teams can agree on all necessary aspects of advancing toward lasting peace and security.
		That is a lengthy statement that was just given to me, so thanks for bearing with me.
unidentified		Our office will, of course, provide this after.
		And as you know, as I just pointed out in the statement, the president's team of negotiators and national security experts will be heading to Saudi again later this week to continue working on ironing out the details.
		But I would just like to emphasize we have never been this close to peace, and it's only because of President Trump that we are here.
		I think a couple of years ago, as you all reported on the war, it was incomprehensible to have a partial ceasefire in this conflict.
		And today, that is true because of the leadership.
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