CSPAN - Washington Journal 03/24/2025

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March 24, 2025 07:00-10:08 - CSPAN

03:07:43

Washington Journal 03/24/2025

Participants

Main

reese gorman

18:02

tammy thueringer

cspan 37:35

Appearances

andy kim

01:09

brian lamb

cspan 00:40

dana bash

cnn 00:34

dr rebecca grant

fox 00:52

harriet hageman

00:31

john curtis

sen/r 01:23

jonathan karl

abc 00:34

shelby talcott

03:01

steve witkoff

01:22

tom homan

01:58

Clips

kristen welker

nbc 00:28

linda mcmahon

00:14

patty murray

sen/d 00:04

wayne madsen

00:17

Callers

dennis in new york

callers 00:21

jt in indiana

callers 00:03

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Buckeye Broadband supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy.
		Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live.
		And then Notice politics reporter Reese Gorman previews the week ahead in Congress.
		And Shelby Talcott, semaphore White House correspondent, discusses White House news of the day.
		Also, Nina Olson with the Center for Taxpayer Rights on the impact of Doge on the functions of the IRS and the privacy of taxpayer data.
		Washington Journal starts now.
		Join the conversation.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		This is Washington Journal for Monday, March 24th.
		New polling on efforts to reduce the size and spending of the federal government show roughly half of Americans think the recent actions by Doge, Department of Government Efficiency, have gone too far.
		But a smaller percentage say the efforts have been about right or haven't gone far enough.
		To start today's program, we want to know your thoughts on Doge's efforts to reduce budgets and staff of federal agencies.
		Here are the lines.
		Democrats 202-748-8,000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		If you're a federal worker, you can call in at 202-748-8003.
		You can text your comments to that same number, 202-748-8003.
		Be sure to include your name and city.
		You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ.
		Good morning, and thank you for being with us.
		We'll get to your calls and comments in just a few minutes, but first want to give you more information on those recent polls from YouGov.
		It says that nearly half of Americans, 48%, believe the Trump administration's efforts to reduce the budgets and staff of federal agencies have gone too far.
		25% think the efforts have been about right, and 17% think they have not gone far enough.
		Also, looking at that same topic was Fox News.
		They did a national survey just a few days ago and found a 51% majority opposes, substantially shrinking the number of government employees.
		Some 56% disapprove of the job the Trump administration is doing, identifying and reducing wasteful spending.
		And another 65% worry that not enough thought and planning has gone into the cuts.
		A sizable minority of Republicans, 39%, share the concern of a large number of Democrats, 88%, and Independents, 71%, about how the reductions are being implemented.
		40% approve of the job Elon Musk is doing working with Doge, while 58% disapprove.
		Fully looking up the number, it's 93% of Democrats disapproving, along with 70% of Independents and 20% of Republicans.
		It was yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press that Utah Senator Republican John Curtis was asked about Elon Musk's involvement in Doge and the efforts there.
		Here is his response.
john curtis ▲ ● ▼		I think it's this false narrative that somehow somebody can't get involved that's not an elected official or just because they're a billionaire, they're a bad person.
		President Trump can consult anybody he wants to.
		Elon Musk is not making any cuts.
		He's only suggesting the cuts, and then President Trump is making the cuts.
kristen welker ▲ ● ▼		Let me ask you, because Elon Musk ruffled some feathers when he referred to Social Security, something that he's also eyeing as a part of his Doge efforts, as a Ponzi scheme.
unidentified		Senator, do you see Social Security as a Ponzi scheme?
john curtis ▲ ● ▼		Well, I would use those words, but we're not being honest either with people.
		And that's why you'll actually see me in a couple of months introduce a change to Social Security.
		We're not being honest when we look people in the eye and say we're not going to touch it.
		If we don't touch it, it touches itself.
		You know that, right?
		That's not being honest with the American people.
		And I think that's one of the things that makes them not trust us when we say something that they just know is not true.
unidentified		And you're absolutely right.
kristen welker ▲ ● ▼		I mean, there's broad agreement that entitlements are not solvent in the long run.
unidentified		But the question is what to do about it.
kristen welker ▲ ● ▼		And about one in eight of your constituents actually receive Social Security benefits.
unidentified		Roughly the same number are on Medicare.
kristen welker ▲ ● ▼		And I think the question is and the concern is, are these folks going to lose coverage?
kristen welker ▲ ● ▼		So can you sitting here today guarantee your constituents they won't lose coverage?
unidentified		They won't be subject to deep cuts to their social security.
john curtis ▲ ● ▼		Let me look them all in the eye, symbol of you right now.
		We don't need to impact the people that are in Social Security.
		But if we don't have a conversation about my kids, our 20-year-olds, our 30-year-olds, that's where the problem is.
		And so we can't be afraid of this conversation simply because people think we're going to take it away from them.
		We all need to say, look, those in retirement and those near retirement, we're not going to touch it.
		You're safe.
		But let's have that conversation because my kids don't think they're going to get it.
		So why can't we have a conversation with them about moving some of the variables around?
		And the sooner we do it, the less dramatic it has to be.
		If we don't do it, we have worse decisions thrust upon us.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		For this first hour, we are asking your thoughts on Doge's efforts to reduce budgets and staff of federal agencies.
		From that YouGov poll shows that 50% of Americans strongly or somewhat oppose the recent layoff of federal workers by Department of Government Efficiency.
		Only 38% support the layoffs.
		The rate of opposition to the federal layoffs is much larger.
		It's 76% compared to 20% who support among the 29% of Americans who say they personally know someone who's recently been affected by cuts to the government agency and program.
		Few Americans are in favor of eliminating or reducing all but one of the eight federal agencies and the departments included in this week's poll.
		That includes the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
		The one exception is Doge, which 43% of Americans favor eliminating, 34% or reducing 9%.
		The members, voters and Americans have been talking about Doge at town halls across the country.
		In the past few weeks, it was on Saturday that Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey, a Democrat, was asked about Doge.
		Here is that clip.
unidentified		Last week, Doge invaded the U.S. Institute of Peace.
		Barely reported in the press here.
		The U.S. Institute of Peace, with the aid of D.C. police, they ransacked the offices, replaced the president of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which is not even a federal institution.
		My question is, who is Doge?
		Who?
		Who?
		And what can you do?
		If anything, what can you do on our behalf to find out?
		Where is the transparency?
		Yeah, no, no, it's true.
		I mean, as I said, I used to work at the State Department directly across the street from USIP.
		And, you know, I have a number of people who work there who've been texting me, telling me about this.
		We're now pushing forward on litigation efforts to be able to stop this, but absolutely illegal actions that were taken.
		In the same way that I was there on the day that they shut down the Ronald Reagan building and prevented USAID workers from going in there, again, those are the doors I walked through 21 years ago.
andy kim ▲ ● ▼		And then now I was stopped by a guard who said that he was instructed to not allow any workers to be able to get to their desk.
unidentified		And I asked, instructed by who?
		You know, who is giving these orders?
		You know, who is it that's engaged in this?
		And we're tracking down.
		You know, we see that Doge is part of the executive office of the president.
		They are under the White House jurisdiction.
andy kim ▲ ● ▼		And that, you know, that is something that, again, Congress did not give powers to the White House to be able to take those actions over entities, departments, agencies, and institutes that Congress set up by law and federal statute.
unidentified		So that's exactly the lawlessness that is out there.
		Yeah, exactly.
		And then what do they do?
		They fire the inspector generals right out of the gate, right?
		Why do you do that?
		Because you don't want to have that transparency.
		You don't want to have that accountability.
andy kim ▲ ● ▼		So what we're bulling on is we're going, you know, I'm going through, we're trying to interview all these people at these different agencies and departments, including institutes like USIP, be able to document that that's going through the litigation side, but also trying to see what investigations we have to be able to engage.
unidentified		For instance, I'm on a committee that has oversight over D.C.
andy kim ▲ ● ▼		And so if D.C. police are engaged in that type of activity, those are things where we need to have that sense of understanding and transparency in terms of what's happening.
unidentified		But you deserve to know who is actually doing this work on a day-to-day level beyond Elon Musk.
andy kim ▲ ● ▼		And the fact that we don't know, while they're trying to claim that this is a BN about, you know, against fraud and waste and abuse, while they are simultaneously hiding themselves from the American people, they do that because they know what they're doing is wrong.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		For the first hour of today's program, we are asking your thoughts on Doge efforts to reduce budgets and staff of federal agencies.
		Here are the lines.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		If you're a federal worker, you can also call in.
		We have a line for you.
		It's 202-748-8003.
		We will start with Henry in North Carolina, line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Henry.
unidentified		Good morning, man.
		I do think Doge is messing up the country a little too fast.
		And I think it's under Donald Trump's orders.
		So what the Democrats have to do is fight as hard as they can in the courts and get together, pick a new leader for president when the time comes.
		And also, what the Democrats got to embrace, and this sounds a little weird, but all the Republicans embrace it.
		They got to start arming themselves in a correct and righteous and legal manner.
		Of course, when the Republicans see that, they'll set up a notice that the Democrats are arming themselves, not violently with assault weapons or nothing, but something to protect themselves if the time ever comes where Donald Trump calls for a civil war.
		And that is in the back of his mind.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Henry in North Carolina.
		Let's hear from Beth in Shalamar, Florida, line for Republicans.
		Hi, Beth.
unidentified		Hi.
		Called in last month to talk about fraud, waste, and abuse in Doge and what they're doing.
		I am a former government worker who is spending the tax dollar as a contract negotiator for the DOD.
		And what is being done by Doge is not an audit.
		If you're looking to save money for the government, you're going to go in and do a financial audit.
		That's not what they're doing.
		They're basically doing a hack.
		But what I was pointing out last month, I was trying to give you a concrete example of fraud that I had to deal with.
		You cut me off before I finished, but what I wanted to say, when you're dealing with fraud, it's going to end up in the court.
		So if Elon Musk is finding all this fraud, why aren't we hearing about the court cases being filed instead of Pam Bondi doing all this crazy stuff that she's doing, filing injunctions against lawyers and other crazy things?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Beth, you worked for the DOD.
		It worked with that department.
		Did you see any waste fraud, anything that you would have cut?
unidentified		There's plenty of waste, fraud, and abuse, yeah.
		But the majority of the fraud is not caused by the government.
		It is people committing fraud against the government.
		And you had two people on, I don't remember now how many weeks ago it was.
		One of the ladies that you had on had been in front of one of those Doge committees in D.C.
		And what she was talking about was not the government committing fraud, but people committing fraud against the government.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Give me an example then.
unidentified		Well, the example I gave was a contractor.
		I had a small business contractor trying to do business with the government and saying that they could make something that had always been a sole source with a large business contractor.
		I was buying airplane parts.
		So take your pick of the large businesses that I may have been doing business with.
		And they had sole source rights to their drawings and their parts that they had made for that plane.
		And when the small business came in, they said, well, we can make this part two.
		And so I had to get them approved through engineering.
		They had to send in drawings and specs to be approved.
		And when they did, we realized that they were sending in a copy of the large businesses' drawings because there was a specific part of that drawing that somebody had written in script instead of block lettering, which is normally on a blueprint.
		And it was a note that one of the engineers had made in the large business.
		So that drawing had been stolen from the large business.
		That was taken to court.
		And if they're finding waste, then, or I'm sorry, if they're finding fraud, it's going to end up in court.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Beth in Florida talking about her experience.
		Let's hear from Mike in Appleton, Wisconsin, line for Democrats.
		Hi, Mike.
unidentified		Hi, how are you today?
		Doing well, Mike.
		The Doge effort is nothing except a diversion.
		And the Republican Party, and it's really not the Republican Party anymore, is really a takeover by the oligarchs and the Democrats.
		And what the Democrats have to do, because they're getting lost right down to their name, Democrats, they need to change their name to the Common Sense Party.
		And Sanders and Cortez have highlighted that in terms of what they're doing.
		People are responding to common sense.
		And Democrats have a lot of baggage.
		They need to leave it behind, change the name to common sense, and challenge every single item that Trump and his minions are presenting that are absolutely ridiculous.
		But in the end, the destruction of the democracy is what we will lose.
		And that is, there's too much at stake here to let the Democratic Party and its baggage keep us from that democracy.
		We must break new ground, move to the higher ground, and challenge everything these people are suggesting because most of it, and at the end of the day, as we're finding out in the Doge efforts, it's like dumb oligarchs get even is what it really stands for.
		And it's just nonsense.
		And the American people really don't want anything to do with it.
		But the positioning of the Democratic Party is just wrong.
		Anyway, that.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Mike in Wisconsin.
		Roberta in California, line for Republicans.
		Hi, Roberta.
unidentified		Good morning.
dr rebecca grant ▲ ● ▼		I just want to make a little review about the genesis of the civil service.
dr rebecca grant ▲ ● ▼		That the federal employees used to be good old boy friends of whoever was just elected.
unidentified		And so when sub-officers elected, they start giving jobs away to people just for the money, whether they're qualified or not.
		The present system has been very deliberate and make sure everyone is expert in the area they're working in, which, by the way, is predominantly to look after our safety.
		Is our water safe?
		Are our banks sound?
		You know, everything.
		There's so many things that people do not even realize are for their own good and their safety.
		And I hear a lot of complaints about education, and education is funded by their local school district.
		It's got nothing to do with federal employees.
		But any organization, I don't care if it's a little church or a little business, there's people always taking home paperclips.
		There's always a paperclip, a swiper, and this can happen anywhere.
		And that's why you have inspector generals and supervision by the Congress to see that our tax dollars are spent wisely.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Roberta in California.
		And Roberta mentioned the Department of Education.
		That's one of the agencies that has been, that Doge has been looking at the YouGov survey looking at what Americans think about expanding, reducing, or eliminating it.
		If you look at the poll, it shows that 39% think that the Department of Education should be expanded.
		27 percent think it should be kept the same.
		17 percent say it should be eliminated.
		And 13 percent say it should be reduced.
		It was yesterday on CNN's State of the Union that Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education, was talking about the proposed cuts to the department.
		Here is that clip.
dana bash ▲ ● ▼		Just on the idea of Congress, you mentioned this, that the president wants to move the student loan program to the small business administration, which you were in charge of in the last Trump term, and then move others to HHS.
dana bash ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think President Trump has the legal authority to do that when these programs are inside your department through a law of Congress?
unidentified		Well, certainly President Trump has said he will move things in accordance with the law and cooperation with Congress.
		He certainly knows that if there are statutes or laws that are governing where they need to be, we'll have to abide by the law.
		So that means you're not going to move them because the votes aren't there.
		No, that means we will work with Congress.
		We'll partner with Congress.
		We'll find out where the laws that govern these are.
		How do the laws are?
		Do you have to change the law?
		Not necessarily.
		We are going to look to see how we are governed.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		And if we have to change the law, if we need to work with Congress, if Congress doesn't agree, then we'll find out.
unidentified		Yeah, we'll find out.
		Well, and I want to work with Congress.
		The votes aren't there.
dana bash ▲ ● ▼		So it sounds like I think what people should know in listening to is none of what we're talking about is going to happen imminently.
unidentified		I've been on the job, I think this is my third week coming up.
unidentified		But during my confirmation processes, I talked to senators on both sides who did have concerns.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		And I said, look, I want to work in partnership with you because our goal is to make sure that we are providing the best education for students in our country.
unidentified		We cannot be last in the world in education.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We are hearing your thoughts on Doja's efforts to reduce budgets and staff of federal agencies.
		Some comments coming in on social media.
		These from Facebook.
		Kerry Barron says, I'm glad he's cutting all of them.
		And no, I'm not kidding and have not been affected.
		Good job, Trump.
		David Henry says, cut the EPA.
		That's a wasted program that is not benefiting our country.
		James Dempsey says, we are all affected.
		A smaller government is a better government.
		And this from David Ornauer.
		He says, I have worked in the Federal Service for more than half a century, 10 plus in Air Force uniform over time.
		I have heard, told, and been ridiculed as one who rides the taxpayer gravy train.
		Not true.
		I work for an NAF agency and works some of the time, and I can't be fired.
		Walk a mile in my shoes and tell me that.
		I have strived to be anything but those stereotypes.
		Back to your calls.
		We'll hear from Mark in New York Line for Independence.
		Hi, Mark.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Thank you for C-SPAN.
		I just wanted to say that we all agree that waste, fraud, and abuse has to be cut from the government.
		But that's not what Trump is doing.
		He's just getting rid of agencies he doesn't like.
		He didn't like U.S.AID.
		He doesn't like the Department of Education.
		It's just an excuse.
		And the other thing is, they say they're going to cut $2 trillion from our federal government.
		But they're going to give $4.5 trillion tax cuts to the wealthy.
		Come on, people.
		You're being conned.
		This is a whole Saying just to get rid of the government that the right-wingers don't like and let the billionaires be in control.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That's Mark in New Jersey.
		Wilmer in Pennsylvania, line for Democrats.
		Hi, Wilmer.
unidentified		Yes, I'd like to ask right there that all of this has been made possible whenever the two senior Supreme Court justices weren't cited right there, as they were basically reduced as far as their efforts to be impartial by favoritism
		from.
		from billionaire associates.
		And their rulings after that were favorable only to President Trump.
		And it made possible all the rulings that proceeded from thence.
		And why there hasn't been any, why they could not be recused from making rulings of which their partiality was already in question.
		That is the premise of the situation for this entire situation.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Wilmer in Pennsylvania.
		John, Gainesville, Georgia, line for Republicans.
		Hi, John.
unidentified		Thank you.
		I've been very pleased with the progress being made by Doge, which was, I think, installed as part of the U.S. Digital Service or right under it.
		I don't understand very well the legalities, but I understand President Obama established the USDS digital service for things like Obamacare.
		I don't know if it was before him, but I guess coming right under it, it makes sense that Elon Musk presents himself as tech support.
		And these are all business practices.
		You know, as a businessman, Trump hired Elon, and they're in partnership.
		They call them the tech bros, like Jeff Bezos, I guess, turning the Washington Post into the post-Washington, or, you know, things upside down, so be it for Jeff Bezos to do that.
		And for Elon to sacrifice, and Trump has sacrificed plenty personally and financially, I mean, big losses for themselves.
		And they're businessmen.
		I always hope.
		I'm from Colombia originally.
		I became a citizen in 06 under Bush.
		And it's been quite a spectacle to watch a war being conducted very civilly, not a civil war.
		It's just a war against waste, fraud, and abuse.
		But the colors are right.
		It's way more than that.
		It's the institutions.
		It's the administrative state, the bureaucracy, not the democracy, like we've been sold all these years.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		John, of the cuts that of Doge and the Trump administration have made so far, which do you see as being the most beneficial?
unidentified		It's like the Constitution.
		You know, we talk about the Constitution, what's good for our Constitution as our body, the body politic, what is good for the U.S. Constitution.
		These cuts are healing the nation, are going to heal, you know, the government being in a good place for we the people.
		We're supposed to be the people being represented.
		I'm just saying specifically, I approve all the cuts.
		I mean, I'm just saying sometimes they don't go far enough.
		I mean, I understand people are getting feelings hurt because it's business as usual.
		We've been brainwashed into thinking this is normal.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was John in Georgia.
		Ray in California, line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Ray.
unidentified		Oh, good morning.
		Good morning.
		I am not in favor of the entire Doge operation.
		If there was really a need to or a desire to identify waste, fraud, and abuse, then they should have kept the inspectors general who understand the purpose of each department, what they're trying to do.
		They understand the systems.
		So they would be able to recognize waste, fraud, and abuse.
		Also, Doge folks seem to be just picking on really small things like USAID, less than 1% of the budget.
		All of the federal employees altogether, 4% of the budget.
		On the other hand, the military is, it's been proposed that they get an additional $6 billion.
		They've never passed an audit, never.
		And so I don't think that the idea of identifying waste, fraud, and abuse is actually what the real intention.
		Also, Musk has not been vetted.
		He hasn't been vetted.
		I don't know if the people that he has with him have had any background checks.
		And so that really concerns me.
		And then Mr. Musk does not, he's not a government person.
		He doesn't understand government accounting or government systems.
		Government and private enterprise are not the same.
		Business is made to produce a profit.
		Government is to provide services to the population.
		And so I just completely disagree with what they're doing.
		And I would like to find out what are they really up to.
		That's all I have to say.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Ray in California.
		Stacey in Virginia, line for independence.
		Good morning, Stacey.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning, America.
		Thanks for having me on.
		I really do appreciate that.
		I have a few points I want to make.
		First, Doge claiming to want to cut fraud and abuse.
		If that were true, they will cut off the corporate welfare queens.
		And I'm talking about the gas industry, the military complex that we've built.
		We pay farmers billions and millions of dollars not to grow food.
		There's plenty of ways.
		We even pay to honor our military millions of dollars.
		If you really wanted to cut fraud and abuse, you would start with the government, these corporate welfare queens.
		As far as the education is concerned, they want to turn it over to the states.
		Well, half of the red states are, let's face it, they're welfare states.
		Let's be brutally honest.
		They're welfare states.
		And they rank the lowest in education.
		So are they trying to dumb down America so that we cannot grow in the future?
		Because all they're doing right now is crippling our future.
		That's all they're doing.
		And another point I wanted to bring up were the illegal immigrants and the outsourcing.
		Remember, those were all Republican ideas.
		All you got to do is go back to C-SPAN and Google search outsourcing.
		You'll see Republicans on the floor saying how great outsourcing jobs is to China.
		We've got to do that.
		It'll build more jobs.
		Remember when Bush and Cheney said, oh, those poor people are coming over here to do the jobs that Americans won't do.
		Right now, all we're fighting are previous Republican policies that have brought us into where we are today.
		And if they want to cut off the so-called fraud source, grandma, who has earned, and let's be clear about that, Social Security, Elon, we've paid into it.
		Unlike Trump and all these other millionaires and billionaires, you don't even pay taxes.
		I want my money, and we will get our money.
		And don't you think that you can cut us off and think that it's going to be okay?
		But I want to let every American know that if they're treating white people that way and people who voted for Trump that way, people of color have nothing coming.
		They have nothing coming.
		And what we're living in now is we're beyond a constitutional crisis, my dear.
		We've got the legislative branch, we've got the judicial branch with their hands tied.
		You understand where there's no checks and balances anymore.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And Stacey, this headline this morning in the Hill Senate GOP not planning to rubber stamp Doge cuts in 2026 funding.
		The article says that Senate Republicans aren't planning to be a rubber stamp for President Trump's sweeping operation to shrink the federal government as lawmakers look to fiscal 2026 funding.
		Conservatives in both chambers have been ramping up calls for government to codify cuts pursued by Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, particularly as the administration's efforts encounter roadblocks in court.
		But Senate Republicans aren't pushing for a blanket adoption of the administration's measures and a chambers government funding bill for fiscal 2026.
		It says, when asked about the idea last week, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, told the Hill that it could be possible that after careful consideration, we would codify, we would decide to codify some of them.
		However, she added that the effort wouldn't be applied across the board.
		With passage of government funding legislation for fiscal 2025 behind them, lawmakers are beginning to set their sights on the September 30th deadline to prevent a shutdown and fund the government for fiscal 2026.
		Just about 25 minutes left in this first hour of today's Washington Journal.
		Let's hear from Steve in Anderson, Indiana, on the line for Republicans.
		Hi, Steve.
unidentified		Hi.
		Our big problem was, was when COVID hit, before COVID had hit in 2019, Trump had only raised the deficit up like $2 trillion from what it was.
		And it was all a scam with the Democrats, Schumer, Pelosi, and all of them, putting all these bills in, all this money in there, $11 trillion they spent on their slush fund,
		a 3,000-page bill shoved in on a weekend, $11 trillion worth of money just thrown out the window.
		Nobody's held accountable for any of it.
		They turned the ship around over in the canal to block all the to raise our prices on everything.
		It was a China and Democrat hoax.
		They all worked together.
		We haven't had a president in office for the last until Trump come in.
		We didn't have a president.
		Who was our president?
		Nobody knew.
		They let anybody come in the back door of the White House unaccountable for.
		Nobody had to sign in and out.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Steve, you're talking about what you're talking.
		It sounds like you're talking about what led up to the cuts.
		What are your thoughts on the cuts that are being made?
		Right, right.
		Talk to me about the cuts.
		What do you think of what's happening right now?
		What do you approve of?
unidentified		In other words, this is the reason we're in the shape we're in.
		This is why we have to get in here and get these cuts start.
		The Democrats is the ones that raised all this money up.
		They're the ones that got us this extra $11, $12 trillion in debt.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Steve in Indiana.
		Robert in Worcester, Massachusetts, line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Robert.
unidentified		Yes.
		Most people don't know who Doge is.
		But the person who is Doge, his name is Vladimir Putin.
		Donald Trump is Vladimir's puppet.
		Vladimir has something on him, and Vladimir shows him when he was in Helsinki and they went in the rooms.
		We don't even have a transcript about that.
		So that's where it all got planned.
		One person that I do know that got Donald Trump 100% right, Nary Trump, and the other one is Michael Corman.
		Listen to him, read their book.
		Now, here's what Donald Trump's plan is for.
		Netanyahu allowed that attack to happen on his country because his own people did not like him.
		So he allowed that attack to happen so he can go after the Palestinians.
		Now, Donald Trump is going to allow the same thing happening here in the United States so he can go after us.
		You college kids, Black Lagland, young people like all these young kids in Columbia University.
		Now, here's Donald Trump's plan.
		He wants to take over South America.
		He wants to take over North America.
		And he wants to take over all of America, all the way up to Greenland.
		Jamin wants to go take over Mexico for South America.
		He wants that land.
		Putin wants Ukraine.
		He wants Poland.
		This is Donald Trump's plan.
		North Korea is going to go in South Korea.
		And China is going to go in Taiwan before the next midterm election.
		Donald Trump is going to make sure that we do not have a midterm election.
		This is his goal.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That's Robert in Massachusetts.
		Let's hear from John in North Carolina, line for independence.
		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Hey, thanks for taking the call.
unidentified		I wonder where all these Democrats get their information.
wayne madsen ▲ ● ▼		I don't understand that these polls, you know, I'm 81 years old and I live in a small place in North Carolina up over the mountains, but I've never heard of nobody being called in and asked any opinions.
unidentified		And you get a poll, I mean, they must be taking miles from up New York and California and Chicago.
		They ain't not around here.
		But anyway, I'm surprised.
		I think what he's doing is right.
		And he don't waive in bringing available people in and letting them in here.
		And Biden, how many Democrats ain't saying anything about when he was paying $500 a night for staying in a hotel in New York?
		I mean, I've never stayed in a place like that, never will.
		How much that's house?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		John, you're calling on the independent line, is that correct?
unidentified		Yes.
		And I am an independent, but I'm not going to vote for no Democrat that thinks that everything's free.
		I mean, everything ain't free.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was John in North Carolina.
		Let's talk with Jane in Bloomingburg, New York, line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Jane.
unidentified		Hi, thank you for taking my call.
unidentified		I just want to say that Trump and Doge are getting rid of anyone in any agency that will not say yes to all of his policies and agenda that what can you hear me?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go ahead, Jane.
unidentified		Oh, okay.
		He is getting rid of all the checks and all the people that stops him in his first administration.
		And the American people should watch out and wake up because, you know, someday June, there may not be any fair elections at all.
		And I am a Republican, and I would never vote for Trump.
		And yeah, I don't agree with everything Biden did.
		However, I want a representative government that's not dictatorial, you know, dictatorship.
		That's all I have to say, and thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Jane in New York.
		This headline from NBC News: Lawmakers fear Doge cuts will drive away next generation of federal workers.
		The article says that President Trump and Elon Musk's sweeping layoffs, federal layoffs, aren't just wreaking havoc on tens of thousands of employees across the country.
		Lawmakers of both parties are warning that cuts will harm the government's ability to recruit young people out of college as well as highly skilled candidates from the private sector, causing a ripple effect that could be felt for years or even decades.
		The article talks about some of the members of Congress who have those feelings.
		And it also, they also spoke with some college students.
		It says one student at Georgetown University was hoping that her current internship at a federal agency would help her secure a full-time job there before she graduates in May.
		She found her work in the sciences rewarding and her coworkers brilliant and inspiring.
		But in just two short months, the Doge cuts and federal hiring freezes have upended her career plan.
		The student who requested anonymity because she wasn't authorized to speak to the media told NBC News that she's now putting her dreams of working in government on hold and making a pivot to the private sector.
		Just under 20 minutes left in this first hour asking your thoughts on Doge's efforts to reduce the budget, federal budget, and staff at agencies.
		Let's hear next from John in Brooklyn, New York, who is a federal worker.
		Hi, John.
unidentified		Hey, how you doing?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Doing well, John.
unidentified		All right.
		I basically just believe that we all need to work together.
		We need to stop this administration from taking us into a kingship or whatever it is he's trying to do.
		We basically all need to work together and whatnot, save our democracy, save the system, and help each other.
		I mean, you know, people go from birth to death, birth to death.
		There's a cycle that goes on, and we need to be taking care of one another and looking out for one another.
		And pretty much, I thought that's what our taxes were the purpose of.
		We also need to find a way to help to pay the debt down.
		And there is a way that we can all get in there and help pay this debt down as well.
		All right, so we need to stop listening to some of these extremists and some of these greedy people.
		We need to start working together, care about one another, and be in sequence.
		We're out of sequence right now.
		We're not in sequence with the will of our creator.
		We're totally and completely out of sequence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		John, you're John.
		You're on the line for federal workers.
		Have you been affected by the Doge cuts?
unidentified		No.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that you will be?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Has there been any talk in your department or your agency?
unidentified		I have co-workers that have been affected, yes.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		How do they feel about everything that's happening?
unidentified		They think it's crazy.
		You know, it's kind of hard to say how do people feel about something when you're snatching the floor from underneath their feet to help them have stability.
		Obviously, it's how they feel is they're hurt, you know, and it's hurting them and their families and their economic existence.
		And that's something that we shouldn't be doing and shouldn't allow to happen.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		John, I won't ask you which agency or department you work for, but how big is it?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that the cuts are needed or could be cut?
unidentified		What I can say to you is this: there are cuts that are needed, but a lot of those cuts come from purchases because there are things that are being purchased that we don't need.
		And in many cases, I have seen equipment that was purchased and not even used.
		Okay, but people have paid, the government has paid big money to these contractors for this equipment.
		Doesn't make any sense.
		Totally and completely nuts.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		John, what happens to that equipment when it's not used?
unidentified		It sits and sits and sits until one day somebody comes along and retrieves it or whatever they have decided to do to get it out.
		You know, I've seen five individual tab tables that give directions and whatnot that set forever, that weren't being used.
		They had to sit for like two and a half years or more before they were finally taken off the property.
		Crazy.
		Totally and completely crazy.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was John in New York, a federal worker, talking about his views on what's happening.
		Let's talk with Ron in Lancaster, New York, line for Democrats.
		Hi, Ron.
unidentified		Hello, how are you?
		Yeah, I was just going to comment because I heard a lot of erroneous, I think historically erroneous comments.
		I mean, I'll just be real brief.
		You know, we had the war for independence in 1776, 1812, the Civil War, World War I, II, Korea, Vietnam, the tumultuous period of the 60s with the assassinations, but you had civil rights.
		But then you had Nixon that took us off of the gold standard, and you had Carter.
		After that, 204 years, our deficit was $650 billion with a B. Reagan, the two bushes, and Trump took us up to $29 trillion.
		But guess what you did not get for that?
		No infrastructure, no education, no middle-class tax relief.
		You didn't get out of any wars.
		You went into false type of situations and wars like Iraq that cost us a fortune.
		When Trump was president the first time, he did nothing that he promised.
		No wall of substance.
		It wasn't made out of two-foot-thick concrete.
		It wasn't paid for by the Mexicans.
		We got no health care.
		He never even had a plan.
		The tax care, the tax relief that he gave was to the top 1%.
		89% of it went there.
		They were worth in excess of $75 trillion, the top 1%.
		That's 3 million people.
		Today they're worth in excess of $120 trillion.
		Okay?
		You want to correct this problem.
		You need to claw back the tax cuts that were given, and you need to put a special 4% tax on the wealthiest people just for six, seven years.
		That will wipe the deficit out completely.
		Okay?
		And guess what?
		They'll be worth $150 trillion still because they make a hell of a lot more than 4% on their money.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Ron in New York.
		And it was last week that several members of Congress were holding town halls in their districts.
		They were back home for district work period.
		They are back this week.
		But one of the town halls that was held was by Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hegman.
		Here is voters asking her.
		Here's a voter asking her about Doge spending cuts.
unidentified		All he is doing is going in and looking at every single agency and how the money is being spent.
		Now, I have a question for you.
		I have a question for you.
harriet hageman ▲ ● ▼		that you are entitled to know how your money is being spent say ID has been doing over the last 40 years the Veterans Administration has been spending its money on the Department of Defense the Department of Defense is pushing one trillion dollars in annual budget
harriet hageman ▲ ● ▼		They have not passed an audit in eight years.
unidentified		In eight years.
		That is unacceptable.
		And there is not.
		And also, Doge will be going through their budget.
		And what we did with that money is we specified how it is to be spent.
		That's why we're talking about raises specifically for the enlisted men and women, as an example.
		But that is your job.
		Man, Musk's job.
		That is our job.
		That's what we did.
		That's what we did.
		That was our step.
		That's what we did.
		So, next question, right over here.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Just about 10 minutes left in this first hour of this morning's Washington Journal asking your thoughts on Doge's efforts to cut the federal budget and agencies.
		There are some posts coming in on social media.
		This from Facebook.
		Kim says, LOL, people are cheering Trump and Musk, yet they haven't saved anything.
		The budget has remained the same.
		All they have done was move money around from one department to another.
		If they were saving all this money, why does Trump need the debt ceiling raised by $4 trillion?
		And where is the money coming from for our F-47 or the dome?
		Where did the money come from?
		For the crappy show at the Super Bowl or NASCAR or the $70 million to seven miles of wall.
		And this from John Michael Davis says, hasn't trickled down to me yet, but I know it's coming.
		Things that should be cut are subsidies to the oil industry, handouts to Tesla and all associated companies that are connected.
		And how about some cuts to unlimited travel to golf clubs?
		Let's hear from John in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, line for independence.
		Hi, John.
unidentified		Good morning, Tammy.
		I agree with the cuts.
		The federal government needs to be cut.
		It's way, way, way overboarded with waste fraud abuse.
		I personally know a couple of people that receive some benefits that maybe probably don't deserve to have them, but that's just my opinion.
		But, you know, maybe he doesn't need to use an axe or a scalpel.
		Maybe he needs to use something in between, like a hatchet to kind of go at it.
		I figured, like I said, 25%, I think probably right off the top, could be cut.
		As far as Social Security goes, I'll be drawing and receiving that beginning in October, November of this year.
		I'm eligible.
		And like previous callers, one of them said, you know, she earned that benefit, and which is true, she did.
		We all earned it.
		We've all paid into the system.
		However, the system was invented back when life expectancy was probably about 65 years old, which means the majority of people never saw any of it, or very little of it, because they didn't live that long.
		Nowadays, the amount of money that I personally put in out of my paycheck since I retired has, I most likely will exceed that twofold, if not more, by the time I'm done drawing my Social Security.
		So there has to be some type of adjustments made to the system.
		And if people just keep saying that, you know, well, they just want to cut my Social Security, well, something's going to happen because people aren't having children as much as they did, and they're not working as much, and there's not as many people paying in.
		That's just simply a fact over the years with all the manufacturing jobs that we've lost.
		Hopefully they don't come back.
		But it's back to the federal agencies.
		You know what?
		I just think, like I said, across the board, a 25% cut is just fine and dandy with me.
		That's kind of what I voted for.
		And one last thing on the judges that are trying to interject themselves into what the president is doing.
		That was something that under the Biden administration, at the end of it, he just rammed through a whole bunch of judges.
		Chuck Schumer did when he was in charge of the Senate, and they're just going to totally fight everything that the president does, which he has the legal right to do.
		And I just disagree with that totally.
		So thanks a lot for taking my call.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was John in Wisconsin.
		Lisa and Maryland, line for Republicans.
		Hi, Lisa.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I am in agreement with all of these cuts that are happening.
		I've been working for over 40 years, mostly in large private companies, not the federal government, but have been through several employee cuts.
		And when I hear, and you typically listen to Fox News, but I will switch over to CNN sometimes.
		And I heard one of the reporters say, you know, people are getting cut from the federal government.
		They're still dressing up like they're going to work because they're afraid to tell their families.
		And 40 years ago, the same thing happened, but it wasn't a highlight because it wasn't a federal job.
		It was local.
		But I was cut from a job because back then it was last in, first out, which I didn't think was fair, but we, you know, we made it work.
		We were sent places to help us find new jobs, and I was able to do that.
		So It's just happening in the spotlight bigger than what it did back in back in the day.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Lisa, you're in an area.
		It looks like I looked it up on a map.
		It looks like you're north of Baltimore, calling from Kingsville.
		Is there a large federal workforce presence in your area?
		Do you know anyone who has been affected?
unidentified		In our city, Baltimore City, there is.
unidentified		And I have not heard of anybody talking about being affected at all.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Lisa in Maryland.
		Bonnie in Alexandria, Minnesota, line for Democrats.
		Hi, Bonnie.
unidentified		Morning.
		I don't believe this Doge is the purpose is to save money.
		There's a news clip up there of Peter Thiel the day that spent $15 million to get JD Vance his Senate seat.
		Anyways, there's a clip where Peter Thiel is saying that they want to see the whole government deleted and in the end install indicators.
		And if you can ever find that clip, please show that to the people.
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Bonnie in Minnesota.
		Joe in Warrington, North Carolina, is a retired federal worker.
		Hi, Joe.
unidentified		Hello.
		How did Doge, Elon Musk, how did he get in to the government?
		It took me a long time to get my security clearance.
		Good evening.
		Good morning.
		I mean, I want to know how did those people, Elon Musk, come from wherever those little crummies get in there.
		It took me a long time to get my security clearance.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Joe, how long have you been retired for?
unidentified		Oh, good God, man.
		I'm 76.
		And I want to know how did they get here in the United States and go into the federal building without a security clearance.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Joe in North Carolina.
		Chris in Maryland, line for Republicans.
		Hi, Chris.
unidentified		Hi, how are you doing?
		Thanks for taking my call.
		So I'm a, you know, I'm a federal worker.
		I'm also a Republican.
		I voted for Trump.
		And but, you know, I'm a little bit torn.
		Ideologically, I've been sort of happy with some of a lot of the stuff that he has been doing and what he campaigned on.
		But when Doge talks about cuts, I think what my understanding was when I was voting and just sort of, you know, I'm all for cutting spending that, you know, maybe not be needed, right?
		I mean, there's no, I don't think anybody has a problem when they find when they hear something that this crazy thing they bought, or like the guy said a couple callers back, when there's something we're buying and just sitting around or whatever.
		But I do have an issue with the way that they're cutting federal workers because, you know, I just think that one, if you're in the Maryland, Virginia, D.C. area, the ripple effects of laying off thousands of workers economically, whether, I get it, the American people don't, federal workers are an easy target, I think, unfairly so, to be honest.
		I've been over in the government over 20 years.
		But I think, you know, people should realize there's a lot of income that is spent by federal workers to support those local economies, and they're going to feel it too.
		And nationally, you know, my plea to the American people would be to understand the way in which they're cutting federal workers in some of these agencies isn't going through and interviewing and figuring out who the best people are and just keeping them.
		It's this, you know, of course, governmentized, you know, rubric of just sort of like who's been around the longest and all that type of stuff.
		And they call it a riff or an option in force.
		And it, so my issue is like, you know, are we really, is the is the effort to is the effort to really save money through spending or is the effort just to whack high-performing people and cause turmoil to the economy and then their lives.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Chris, has your issue that I have?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Has your agency or department been hit by the cuts?
unidentified		It's still sort of a lot of it, my understanding from a lot of agencies is it's a lot of that's still pending.
		But yeah, I do, we have laid some people off, people that I know are friends of mine and are good workers, smart people, hardworking people, experienced people, younger people in their career.
		I mean, not one year in, but not 30 years in, sort of in between.
		And, you know, it's hard for them.
		I mean, these are real people.
		I know that the American people could say, oh, well, this has happened to me and work.
		But I mean, these are, you know, we're people.
		We're easy targets, but, you know, we're people.
		And if it's a, I think nobody would disagree if there was an employee that wasn't doing a good job.
		And, you know, they should be let go.
		That happens in the private industry all the time.
		But a lot of these, like I say, it's a sledgehammer approach of just saying, we'll just get rid of 600 employees here or 3,000 employees there.
		It's like these people are just people that are Americans that pay their bills.
		That, you know, I've been in the government for 20 years.
		I've seen some, but very few people that are just, you know, why are they here?
		Like, what do they do?
		I mean, most people entered the government to serve their country and they thought the government was, you know, stable, you know, had stability.
		So job security is a factor, was attractive.
		These people come out of college or come out of private industry, they're very hardworking, smart people.
		I just think, you know, whopping off wide sectors of people with not much thought into who you're cutting is a problem.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		I mean, that was Chris in Maryland, a federal worker talking about his experience.
		That does it for our first hour of Washington Journal.
		Next, notice politics reporter Reese Gorman will join us to discuss what to expect with Congress back in town this week.
		And later, with Tax Season in full swing, Nina Olson from the Center for Taxpayer Rights will discuss Doge's impact on the IRS and the privacy of tax information.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		This week on the C-SPAN Networks, the House and Senate are in session.
		The House will consider legislation to tighten foreign gift reporting requirements for colleges and universities.
		The Senate will continue voting on President Trump's nominations, including Dr. Jay Batticharia to be director of the NIH and Dr. Martin McCary to head the FDA.
		On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court hears consolidated oral argument in the case of Louisiana versus Calais and Robinson versus Calais on whether Louisiana's congressional maps are an illegal racial gerrymander.
		The directors of five intelligence agencies will also appear before two committee hearings for the annual worldwide threat assessment.
		First on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee and then on Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee.
		Also Wednesday, Catherine Marr, CEO and president of National Public Radio, and Paula Kerger, CEO and president of the Public Broadcasting Service, testify before the Doge Subcommittee on concerns about alleged bias in news coverage by their federally funded organizations.
		And on Thursday, a Senate Aviation Subcommittee will go over the National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary report on the mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport in late January.
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		Washington Journal continues.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now is Rhys Gorman, politics reporter for Notice.
		We're going to talk about the week ahead in Congress.
		Rhys, thank you so much for joining us.
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me on.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congress is back.
		They have been out on recess.
		The House has been out this week.
		One of the things that they are taking up on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune are going to start talking about reconciliation, coming to an agreement on the budget.
		Remind us where things currently stand, how far apart they are, and the challenges of coming to an agreement.
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Right now, they're really far apart.
		And so basically the Senate has passed their kind of two-bill strategy.
		The first bill really on their plan, which Lindsey Graham kind of spearheaded, is just kind of border energy funding, kind of the more, the promises that Trump made on the campaign trail, kind of funding those, giving those initiatives forward.
		And then they're going to deal with, they want to deal with tax later on down the road.
		They want to push tax to a later date because, I mean, objectively, even Mike Johnson would say this, well, it is easier just to get this funding through, this border funding, this energy policies.
		It's easier to get that through.
		But in Johnson's head, the House has passed a one-bill strategy, which includes the same thing the Senate bill does, plus tax, you know, no tax on tips, extensions of the TCJA, and all that stuff that kind of is more, not necessarily controversial, but harder to kind of get through.
		And Johnson's idea is that they're going to use this border funding and energy policies as kind of sweeteners to get Republicans on board because they need near unanimous in the House, can only lose a couple votes in the Senate.
		So it is very, very tight margins right now.
		So Johnson's thinking is we're going to need some of this, these more kind of red meat issues, border energy funding to kind of get Republicans on board with the tax bill.
		But they're far apart right now.
		They haven't really, the Senate has not moved on either one.
		Both the House and the Senate have passed their bills.
		The Senate has not moved on the House bill yet.
		They've moved on their bill.
		The House has not moved on the Senate bill yet.
		They moved their bill.
		So now they kind of got to come together, figure out a compromise.
		And I mean, there's some senators that have said they won't vote for a reconciliation package unless the TCJA is permanently made permanent.
		Johnson obviously has said that he wants to do that.
		Jason Smith said, obviously, they want to do that.
		But, I mean, that costs a lot of money.
		And there's Republicans in the House that think that they can't do that because of the price tag on it and because of the amount of cuts that some of these conservatives are kind of demanding in order for them to get their vote.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Something else that they will be debating is increasing the debt limit.
		Speaker Johnson wants that to be part of the reconciliation package.
		Where do Senate Republicans stand?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think the debt limit, especially, I mean, Mike Johnson has said that that's what he wants.
		Obviously, conservatives have said that's what they want, but that's going to be very tough to get done.
		I mean, it's already tough enough.
		I mean, there's some Republicans that have never voted for a debt limit increase.
		And obviously, this is a partisan bill.
		So usually you need Republicans.
		I mean, we saw what happened last Congress with Kevin McCarthy.
		He needed Democrats to get this debt limit across the finish line.
		And reconciliation is a purely partisan bill.
		I mean, it'd be extremely unlikely if any Democrat vote for this bill.
		And so they're really kind of thinking about doing this just on their own and just raising the debt limit within reconciliation.
		But again, that's going to be tough because that has a price tag attached to it.
		Then there will be some Republicans, especially in the House, that said, we're going to need to see some cuts to this before we can vote for it.
		So that just adds on.
		And it's just very, very difficult right now.
		It's a lot of give and take where it's like, yes, would it be nice to raise the debt limit in reconciliation?
		Obviously, because it's kind of got to get it over with.
		But at the same time, that just throws in a whole other kind of slew of problems that they're going to have to deal with.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		A lot to work out.
		They're starting this week today.
		What's the timeline?
		When could we expect to see a final bill or passage?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, so reconciliation, they want to have kind of a bill done around by the time they go on Easter recess, which is about a two-week recess, and then they want to have a bill done by Memorial Day.
		And that's a very, very ambitious timeline, but that's kind of what they're looking for.
		That's kind of what they're going for.
		That's what they've been saying that they want to do.
		And it's an ambitious timeline, especially just given how slow things have been moving already and how tenuous this process has been and how much kind of negotiations and arm twisting is going to happen.
		So it's going to be really tough, but we'll see.
		The timeline is, obviously, they want to have a bill ready to go by Easter, have it agreed to.
		They go on their two-week recess.
		They come back and they deal with it then.
		That's kind of the thought process right there.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		It is the Senate Democrats have had a tough time after Leader Schumer supported the short-term CR.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		What's the latest on working with his party, not just in the Senate, but also the Democrats in the House?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so I mean, Chuck Schumer had met with Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader last week, where Jeffries came out and kind of expressed that he does support Schumer.
		That's after the Friday press conference where he refused to answer those questions, where he said next question multiple times.
		And that kind of is what threw some of these, through the Democratic Party into chaos was this kind of refusal to support Chuck Schumer by minority leader Jeffries.
		And also there have been some House members that said they think it's time for Schumer to step down, to move aside.
		There's been no senator has directly called for Schumer to step down yet.
		There's been some that kind of like toe the line, have given kind of vague answers.
		But what we're looking at here is, I mean, Schumer is not going to step down.
		He made that very clear on the Sunday shows yesterday that he thinks that he is the best man for the job.
		So it'd be, he's not going to step down, but he's going to have to really kind of ease the concerns of some of his members in the caucus as well as some House members as well who are kind of like calling for him to step down.
		We're going to, that's kind of what we're going to see right now going forward.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Rhys Gorman with Notice is our guest for the next 20, 25 minutes or so.
		If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in Now the Lines, Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		C-SPAN has been airing Democratic and Republican town halls from across the country for the past week or so.
		The parties have had a sharp tone.
		They've taken a lot of heat, both parties have, from voters and constituents.
		Is there a sense that those events are resonating with members of Congress?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		A little bit.
		Republicans are mostly just blaming this on kind of left groups like Indivisible, so on and so forth.
		That's kind of who they're blaming on.
		Now, you have seen some soften their stances at these town halls when they're pressed with questions.
		They've really tried to cater to some of these folks to kind of take the tone down a little bit.
		But the people, I mean, and Richard Hudson, the chairman of the NRCC, came out and said a couple weeks back that he does not believe that his members of his conference, of the Republican conference, should be holding in-person town halls because of these protests that are going on.
		So I do believe that these are not necessarily having an entirely desired effect on Republicans.
		They seem to just be blaming this on far-left activist groups in their words.
		And Democrats, I mean, they do seem to be trying to explain to the people who show up and protest that, hey, I'm on your side.
		Like, I know that you don't like Elon Musk.
		I also don't like Elon Musk.
		That's kind of what they're trying to get at.
		And they're also really, really getting hit on the funding bill.
		A lot of Democrats had to take questions about Chuck Schumer, about the party.
		We saw Glenn Ivey in Maryland at his town hall.
		We saw other Democrats across the state that really got peppered with a bunch of questions and came out and basically did that's when they took a turn on Chuck Schumer.
		So we're really looking, and they are having an effect, but the Republicans especially, who these people are mostly trying to affect, right?
		I mean, Democrats for the most part are on their side with a lot of what they're saying.
		Republicans are not necessarily heeding these calls and more so just brush them off as protests and from antagonist groups, not necessarily their constituents all the time.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We have some callers waiting to talk with you.
		We'll start with Steve and New Jersey Line for Independence.
		Good morning, Steve.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		How are you?
		You know, a lot of the rallies, if you will, stem from Elon Musk trying to cut the deficit.
		And I remember just recently hearing a report, I think it was Lawrence O'Donnell saying, oh, Elon Musk talks about America going bankrupt.
		America can never go bankrupt.
		And I was shocked that he thought that.
		So I'm wondering whether you think that.
		I mean, I think we owe more than $100,000 per person in the country.
		I mean, can America go bankrupt, number one?
		And number two, if it can, why isn't everyone pressing the panic button and saying, we have to stop America from going bankrupt?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I'm no great economist, but America, it would be really bad if America did go bankrupt.
		There is trillions of dollars in debt, so it's not necessarily like it's in a great financial place anyways.
		But right now, I mean, bankrupt, I mean, America does have, we have a lot of production, we make a lot, we sell a lot, we have trade, and we are a very, we're a country that a lot of members and politicians argue that we are very fiscally sound comparatively to the rest of the world.
		But yeah, I mean, to your point, I mean, if America does go bankrupt, that would be very bad.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		President Trump has made calls to impeach federal judges.
		What is the interest among congressional Republicans?
		I believe there's a bills that have been introduced in the House.
		Is it something Senate Republicans would take up?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there have been bills introduced in the House.
		Now, this is something, I mean, would the Senate take it up?
		Now, if these bills were passed, the Senate would have to take it up.
		They would have to hear the impeachment just based on the nature of impeachment.
		If impeachment does pass out of the House, the Senate is required to at least hear the articles.
		Sometimes you could table them, whatever, but they do have to at least hear them.
		But something Republican leadership really wants to avoid putting a bill on the floor to impeach judges, mostly because they know it's not going anywhere.
		It's going to take up floor time.
		They're going to have their members take these very controversial votes, especially some of the more vulnerable members, where, I mean, even there's been some Republicans that have said, I don't see what these judges have done legally wrong.
		Like, they have not broken a law.
		They're making these decisions, make these cases that don't necessarily agree with what Republicans want or Trump agenda, but they don't necessarily believe that they broke the law.
		So Republican leadership is going to be putting a bill on from Darrell Issa that would hinder and kind of tie the hands of judges to kind of do some of these injunctions.
		But they really want to avoid a lot of these impeachment resolutions from coming to the floor.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Phil in Ohio, Line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Phil.
unidentified		Hey, how are you doing today?
		Thanks for having me on.
		Are you there?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go ahead, Phil.
unidentified		Okay.
		I just want to say that I think Elon Musk, a lot of people aren't sure about him, but Elon Musk has enough money where he doesn't need anything from anybody.
		If you can't see that he's trying to save the country from going bankrupt, then there's seriously something wrong.
		And a lot of the Democrats are just upset because, you know, they don't like, they don't want anything that Donald Trump does.
		They're going to knock it no matter what.
		And one would wonder why, if they're the Democrat of, if they're a good party, why wouldn't they be happy about the country heading in the right direction?
		It seems like they're embarrassed about their party because everything they touch, they make a mess with.
		It's chaos.
		It's drama.
		Nobody wants to be around all that stuff.
		We're trying to.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Your response?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Any response to Phil?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I didn't hear a question.
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		So something else happening in the House this week, the House Oversight Subcommittee, they're going to take up.
		They're going to have a hearing on how FEMA responded to Hurricane Helene last year.
		What exactly are they looking to examine?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		So I reported on that last week, that basically they're looking at, there's been a lot of kind of bipartisan criticism of FEMA of how quickly the response took place, how the response did.
		They believe that there was definitely could have been better, that there were a lot of people in North Carolina that were without power, without water, without the ability to leave their homes for a long time.
		And so they really want to approach and talk to these people about why that was, kind of dig in and provide oversight, which is the name of the committee, onto how FEMA could be better.
		They're going to have a number of kind of some local emergency managers.
		They're going to have some national people that kind of work for FEMA.
		And they're going to have country music legend Eric Church who also be there, who is from North Carolina, who has really spearheaded a lot of these recovery efforts from hosting a music festival with all the beneficiaries being North Carolina, et cetera.
		So they really want to provide some of this oversight to see where FEMA could do better, where they lack.
		This is also something that, I mean, President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have also been very critical of FEMA.
		Trump signed the executive order making this committee, this task force, to look about how FEMA could be better.
		He also signed an executive order that gives more stuff that usually would fall to FEMA.
		He gave the states the power to do it.
		In his words, he believes that the states, or in the executive order, rather, the states know what their state needs better than what the federal government.
		They could probably do it faster.
		They could do it better.
		So he signed that executive order.
		So there has been a lot of criticism and scrutiny on FEMA and their response, especially to North Carolina, given how long the citizens in part of the state were stranded following the hurricane.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And as they examine this, the situation and how it played out, could it affect future funding and operations at FEMA?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		I think definitely, especially given just no government agency's funding is necessarily fully safe right now is what we're seeing.
		So there definitely could be some government funding, maybe some legislation to change some things about FEMA.
		But definitely, I think government funding is something that everyone's going to have to look at every agency, not just FEMA, solely because of the state of things right now about how with Doge and all the agencies, some of them getting disfunded.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk with Anthony in Baltimore line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Anthony.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		I just wonder, does he know who the last president was to balance the budget?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		I do not.
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Did not know that.
unidentified		Oh, well, that was Bill Clinton.
unidentified		Do you know the last Republican president to balance the budget?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		I do not.
unidentified		Dwight D. Eisenhower.
		And the president that's in office now, in his last term, he raised national debt almost $8 trillion.
		Something like that.
		The Republicans are always against raising the national debt when Democrats are in office, but never when Republicans are in.
		Thank you very much.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Responding to what the caller was talking about, the back and forth over funding and how much goes out, increases tax.
		What do the current members of Congress feel about possibly raising the debt ceiling?
		Is there interest in actually doing that?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		There's interest is a not necessarily interest, more of a necessity that they realize that they have to do this, not necessarily that they want to do this.
		Trump at one point called for the elimination of the debt ceiling just to get rid of it.
		There are some members of Congress, to the caller's point, Trump did raise the national debt by significant numbers and whenever they did have full control of Congress and control of Washington.
		But now look at there are some members who, yes, there's going to be a lot of spending, but there are a handful of members who will vote against a lot of spending and not afraid to buck the party.
		Thomas Massey, who we've seen, there's some members who say they are against a lot of these bills and then end up voting for it whenever Trump calls them and talks to them.
		But there are some fiscally conservative members who, at the end of the day, will vote against some of the things that raise the national debt, but there are few and in between.
		The main one who's the most consistent one is Thomas Massey, who consistently votes against bills he does not view as fiscally conservative enough.
		And while the other members seem to express concern that a bill is not fiscally conservative enough, then as Trump calls them, tells them to vote for it, they tend to fall in line and just do whatever he tells them to do.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		You said that the hope is that a bill could be passed by May when we are looking at a reconciliation funding bill.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Do we know the X date for government funding when government funding could run out?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Yes, so government.
		Yes, so they passed a CR that will last for the rest of the full fiscal year.
		So it would end in kind of last day of September, I believe, going to October 1st at midnight was when the government will shut down if they do not take care of this.
		When will they take care of it?
		I don't really know.
		It seems to be they always tend to wait to the last minute here historically.
		And so they're going, they say they're going to start working on top light, start getting appropriation bills done so they can get it before.
		They also said that December, we saw what happened with this wait to the last minute again.
		So there's not a lot of optimism that they will get this done prior to a week, a couple weeks before the actual government funding deadline in September.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Greg in Washington, D.C., line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Greg.
unidentified		Hi.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I want to talk about the need for Democratic leaders to go beyond just statements and hearings.
		We're watching core democratic norms erode, and many of the rights we took for granted are under direct threat.
		At a certain point, a lot of Democrats and progressives feel speeches and press conferences aren't enough.
		We feel it's time for our leaders to meet this moment with the same moral face that defined past movements, like the civil rights movement, where elected officials didn't just legislate.
		They marched, they got arrested, they stood shoulder to shoulder with people, actual people.
		Civil disobedience isn't radical when democracy itself is on the line.
		It's necessary.
		And we feel we need to see the Democratic leaders physically standing in the way of injustice, whether that means protesting voter suppression or standing at abortion clinics to protect access or walking out of chambers where illegitimate proceedings are taking place.
		If they're not willing to put themselves on the line like so many everyday Americans already are, and then they are not truly our leaders and they are not truly leading.
		And we need leaders right now, not just managers.
		So I'm wondering if there is any movement or if you've heard anything about Democratic leaders actually choosing to partake in civil disobedience rather than just talking about their outrage.
		Thank you.
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there's definitely Democratic members of both parties, both chambers rather, that agree with your statement there, that they want their leaders to do more.
		And that's why you've seen a lot of outrage against Chuck Schumer because they believe that he caved to Trump, that he caved at the Republicans.
		And his name was that he did what he thinks that he believes that he did what was best for the country by avoiding a shutdown.
		He said that the shutdown would have been bad for the country, bad for America, bad for Democrats, because they would have had to message on it and try to defend themselves.
		And so he says he believes he did what's best for the country.
		There's some members, particularly of the House, who are more vocal about what Schumer did that say that Schumer should have shut down.
		He shouldn't be afraid of shutting down, that he think that they believe that standing up to Trump is better than just not shutting down.
		And so basically they are calling for Schumer and some of the leaders.
		And we saw the Democratic leaders in the House, Pete Aguilar, Hakeem Jeffries, and Catherine Clark, say that on Friday a couple Fridays ago during their press conference when they said that Schumer should not pass this bill.
		He should make Republicans actually compromise on their bill instead of him compromising.
		So there are calls for what you were saying to be more forceful in their pushback against Trump, their pushback against Elon Musk, rather than doing what the stats quote would just make sure the government doesn't shut down.
		There are calls to do that.
		Will necessarily those calls be heeded?
		That's to be seen.
		They were not heated two weeks ago when he did decide to put the CR on the floor and vote for it.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		A question coming in on X for you from Pep says to your guest, are there any special elections coming up soon that may change the number of Congress members in the majority?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Yes, there are quite a few.
		There's two in Florida, one to replace Matt Gates, one to replace Mike Waltz of Florida.
		Matt Gates was originally appointed to be AG.
		He then resigned.
		And then when the ethics report came out, he probably would not have been confirmed as AG anyways.
		So he stepped back from that prior to the ethics report being released.
		Then Mike Waltz, who is Trump's national security advisor, resigned on January 21st, Inauguration Day.
		His seat has not yet been filled.
		And then you will also have Elise Stephaniek's seat.
		Whenever she is officially confirmed, she is still a member of the House.
		She has not been confirmed.
		Her confirmation hearing is coming up.
		So she will, whenever that happens, she will then, there will be a special election to New York to replace her, fill her seat, and she will then go and someone will take her seat.
		All three of these seats that I've mentioned are safe red seats.
		So they will increase the Republican majority, which would make Mike Johnson's life significantly easier right now.
		There are also, there will likely be two Democratic special elections as well for the two members who have passed away recently, Sylvester Turner from Houston and Rawul Grahalva in Arizona.
		They will also need a special election.
		They tragically passed away both in office.
		Sylvester Turner died during the state of the Union, or the day of the State of the Union, later early that morning afterwards.
		I think Robert Grahalva lost a battle to cancer, I believe, two weeks ago.
		And so both of them will, there will be special elections to replace them as well.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We have one last call for you, John in Indiana, line for independence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, John.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Why did Chuck Schumer vote for that spending bill?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		He voted for the spending bill because he believed in his mind that it was not, that a shutdown would have been bad for Democrats, would have been bad for the country.
		He believes that Democrats would have lost the shutdown battle because Republicans did put up the votes for it.
		It would have been messaged to show that Democrats would be defending why they voted for a shutdown.
		And also, he did it to avoid a shutdown.
		He believed that a shutdown would have been worse than funding the government.
		He believed that Elon Musk and Russ Bought would have had this free reign to furlough a lot of these federal employees and never bring them back.
		And it would have been basically no oversight over the executive for a while because in his head, he believed that a lot of the executive would just have ran wild in a shutdown.
		And it would have been hard to come out of it and then undo what he believes the damage they would have been done to the federal employees.
		So that is why he decided to endorse and vote for the shutdown, but for the government funding bill rather, on that Friday.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		You talked about a little bit of what Congress is going to be working on this week.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		What else are you going to be watching?
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, 100%.
		I think the main thing I'm going to be watching for sure is reconciliation.
		That is, all of Trump's agenda is, not all of it, but the vast majority of it is lumped into this package.
		And I mean, Republicans have a trifecta and they can't agree on how to pass his agenda.
		So it's going to be very, I mean, you would think, I mean, but this happens all the time.
		We saw in Trump's first term that there's a lot of debate.
		He think whether it was repealing and replacing Obamacare or doing whatever.
		And now you're seeing the same thing here on reconciliation here.
		It's going to be tough.
		They're going to have to come to some sort of an agreement.
		They're going to have to figure it out.
		And even once they come to an agreement, that's just a start.
		They still need to pass the legislation.
		They need to, because, and what's going to be really tough is, which I've also reported in the past, is that Johnson and House leadership made different promises to different groups.
		I mean, the moderates, they don't want to see these major cuts to Medicaid.
		They basically give them a little wink and a nod being like, hey, like, you know, like, the Senate's going to take this out.
		The Senate's not going to let all these cuts to Medicaid happen.
		Where the conservatives were told that, hey, this bill is going to pay for itself.
		It's going to be cut.
		There's going to be cuts.
		There's going to be enough cuts to kind of break even here.
		And so you've got two sides here, one who's saying, we're not going to vote for anything with these extensive guts to Medicaid or what have you.
		And then you have others, like, we won't vote for it unless it has that stuff.
		So there's going to still be a lot of arm twisting there in what takes place.
		So that's really what I'm looking at is how they come to this agreement and what the agreement will look like.
		Will there be an agreement?
		I mean, we're talking about it yesterday meeting, but will there actually be an agreement?
		We have no idea.
		And so a lot of that, that's really the main thing I'm focusing on right now because I do believe that that's one of the most interesting things of the week and definitely of the year so far.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Our guest, Rhys Gorman, politics reporter for Notice.
		You can find his work online at notice.org.
		Rhys, thank you so much for being with us today.
reese gorman ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me on.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Still ahead on Washington Journal.
		Nina Olson from the Center for Taxpayer Rights will join us to discuss Doge's impact on the IRS and the privacy of tax information.
		But first, it's open form.
		You can start calling in now.
		Here are the lines.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		back.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Stephen M. Gillen was scholar in residence at the History Channel for more than 20 years.
		He has written 12 books on subjects including a history of the United States, the Kerner Commission, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the life of John F. Kennedy, Jr.
		His latest book is titled Presidents at War: How World War II Shaped a Generation of Presidents from Eisenhower and JFK through Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush.
		Steve Gillen closes his book saying, Ironically, the threats facing America in the third decade of the 21st century are very real and in many ways similar to the challenges the nation confronted in the 1930s.
unidentified		Author Stephen Gillen with his book Presidents at War: How World War II Shaped a Generation of Presidents from Eisenhower and JFK through Reagan and Bush on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts.
		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?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it is.
unidentified		Would you hold one moment, please, for the president?
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patty murray ▲ ● ▼		To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN.
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		And thank you.
		Washington Journal continues.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are in open form for the next 40 minutes or so.
		We'll get to your calls in just a few minutes.
		I want to give you a couple programming notes.
		At 9 o'clock this morning, Washington, D.C., Archbishop Robert McElroy and others will discuss the position of the Catholic Church on refugees and migration at a conference hosted by the Jesuit Refugee Services.
		You can watch that live at 9 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2.
		You can also find it on our app, C-SPANNOW, or online at c-span.org.
		Also, at 10 o'clock this morning, the Supreme Court will hear a consolidated oral argument on whether Louisiana's redrawing of congressional maps amounted to racial gerrymandering and violated the Voting Rights Act.
		That will be at 10 a.m. Eastern right here on C-SPAN.
		Also, 3 p.m. this afternoon, former Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and others will testify on improving the department's work with community providers.
		That will be from the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization.
		Again, that is at 3 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3.
		You'll also be able to find it on C-SPAN Now, our app or online at c-span.org.
		We will go to your calls.
		We'll start with Ann and Georgia, line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Anne.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My question is to everyone: why do federal employees think that they should never lose their job?
		They don't have to work by merit, it doesn't seem to me.
		Remember whenever all the ones who were caught watching porn, I'm a nurse, and there was a large hospital in Atlanta that closed, that everyone in the hospital lost their job.
		And it closed because of the emergency room getting all the immigrant care, the illegal immigrant care, and not being paid for it.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Ann, are you still there?
unidentified		Yes, I am.
		I finished my comment.
		I was waiting to see if you had a comment.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Erin in Silver Spring, Maryland, line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Erin.
unidentified		Hello, good morning.
		I hope that Democrats give Senators Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema an apology, or they owe them an apology.
		They were the ones that stood up to preserve the Senate filibuster.
		And I think it's very clear that the filibuster is an essential tool to protect rights when your preferred political party is in the minority.
		For people complaining so much about Chuck Schumer and some Democrats voting to vote in favor of the CR and overcoming a Senate filibuster, this would be but for the actions of Senators Sinema and Manchin, you would have undisputed control with that bare minimum majority.
		It can always be turned back around against you.
		So I hope that Democrats, in particular progressives who are insisting upon eliminating the filibuster, have learned their lesson and that the filibuster is an essential tool for protecting rights when you are in the minority because it will always be turned around against you.
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Erin in Maryland.
		Wanda in Chico, California, line for Republicans.
		Hi, Wanda.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Yes.
		I would like to know, I mean, I would like to inform the people who were asking about Elon Musk having a security clearance, and the answer is yes, he has a security clearance, and he's had one for years.
		And also, Bill Clinton didn't balance the budget.
		It was balanced by Newt Gingrich, and Bill Clinton was forced to agree.
		He did not want to agree, but he was forced.
		And also, since you know that since the information about Elon Musk is on the web all over the place, how come nobody knows it?
		And how come he don't correct people and inform them that he has a security clearance?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Avery in Atlanta, line for independence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Avery.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, I have a simple question.
		If society does not have enough money to support its disabled population, the way the business people keep telling us, should we not stop having children?
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Ms. Avery in Atlanta.
		This headline in this morning's Washington Post, Usha Vance to visit Greenland amid Trump's annexation threats.
		Second Lady Usha Vance and one of her sons will travel to Greenland on Thursday with a United States delegation.
		It says the second lady will visit historical sites, learn about Greenlandic heritage, and attend the national dog sled race.
		The announcement read, the U.S. delegation is expected to return from the island, which is part of Denmark, on Saturday.
		It says that Ms. Vance and the delegation are excited to witness this monumental race and celebrate Greenlandic culture and unity.
		Said in a statement, Trump's national security advisor, Michael Waltz, will also travel to Greenland with the delegation, according to two Danish news outlets.
		The White House did not immediately respond to requests to confirm that Walls was part of the trip.
		Spokespeople for the Danish and Greenlandic governments did not respond to a request for comment on Usha Vance's visit.
		Let's hear from Edna in Illinois, line for Democrats.
		Hi, Edna.
unidentified		Good morning, everybody.
		If there was ever a time that America needs to use the 25th Amendment in the Constitution, it is now.
		We have an old man in the White House with dementia.
		He is not governing.
		He hasn't governed not one day since he's been in that White House.
		He's turned everything over to a little South African who is determined to destroy our government.
		Don't stand back and look and watch.
		Stop these people.
		Use that 25th Amendment.
		JD, you could be a hero to the country, to the world, if you would take some action.
		And I know you are a young man, so you can see what is happening.
		This man is destroying our country.
		Please, America, please step up, step up, speak up, whatever you have to do.
		Thank you so much for taking my call.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That's Edna in Illinois.
		Tina in Huntington, Pennsylvania, line for independence.
		Hi, Tina.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		There is a couple points that I'd like to make.
		Number one, I don't think that Donald Trump is destroying anything.
		I think he is bringing our money back home where it needs to be.
		But more importantly, we need to remember Eden.
		He is the last American hostage being held by Hamas.
		And yet we have young people on the streets and in the campuses with their faces covered sympathizing.
		We need to bring Eden home.
		We need to stop all this internal Trump derangement syndrome.
		Let's get together as a country.
		We're Americans.
		It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, man, woman, non-binary.
		It doesn't matter.
		We're American.
		And if we don't get behind our commander-in-chief, we're going to get left behind.
		So people need to remember that.
		And this is a country that was founded on love, founded on the love of the Lord above.
		We have a constitution to file.
		District judges have no say in what the commander does.
		People just need to pray on it, leave it at the cross, and trust the process.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Tina.
		Sam in Michigan, line for Democrats.
		Hi, Sam.
unidentified		Sam, are you there?
		Ronald Reagan and Star Wars Initiative, $30 billion.
		And now they're trying to sell us some kind of iron dome.
		And I'm sure it's going to be more than $30 billion.
		And I would like to mention the military.
		How do you get people to join the military when it's so easy to use collateral damage as an excuse for you experimenting on these soldiers?
		They're not going to join.
		You're not taking care of them.
		You see guys on TV begging for money, warriors that were hurt by the government, and it's just ridiculous.
		Anybody that joins would be very foolish.
		I'm sure everybody can come up with bones first.
		Thank you very much.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Sam in Michigan.
		This headline embroiders.
		U.S. Envoy Witkoff, optimistic about Ukraine peace talks, says Putin wants peace.
		The article says that special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff expressed optimism on Sunday ahead of high-stakes talks in Saudi Arabia over the war in Ukraine and said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to end the three-year-old conflict.
		It was yesterday on Fox News Sunday that Witkoff spoke about Ukraine, the situation, and Ukraine.
		Here is that clip.
steve witkoff ▲ ● ▼		Well, look, he's been at war for several years.
		It's in large part been about those five regions.
		And it's in his speeches.
		There's a view within the country of Russia that these are Russian territories, that there are referendums within these territories that justify these actions.
		This is not me taking sides.
		I'm just identifying what the issues are.
		I've never seen a conflict that can be resolved without level setting the facts.
		And we're level setting the facts.
		Now, I've been asked my opinion about what President Putin's motives are on a larger scale.
		And I simply have said that I just don't see that he wants to take all of Europe.
		This is a much different situation than it was in World War II.
		In World War II, there was no NATO.
		So I just, you have countries that are armed there.
		To me, it just, I take him at his word in this sense.
		And I think the Europeans are beginning to come to that belief, too.
		But it sort of doesn't matter.
		That's an academic issue.
		The real issue here, the agenda set forth by President Trump, he is my boss, and I adhere to that fact.
		The agenda is stop the killing.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Just about 30 minutes left in this open form.
		Let's hear from Ray in Wisconsin, line for Republicans.
		Hi, Ray.
unidentified		Hi.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Ray, I'm on.
unidentified		Just have a comment about the last lady that said Donald Trump is a bad person.
unidentified		But my question is, where is former President Joe Biden?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Why do you want to know where President Biden is if he's no longer president?
unidentified		Is he an earthquake?
unidentified		Well, the question is, I mean, all the former presidents and everything, they've been on TV, they've done interviews and stuff like that, but Joe Biden is no longer to be found.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		What do you want to hear from him right now, Ray?
unidentified		Well, I'm just just curious because everybody is bashing Donald Trump about doing everything.
		And what Joe Biden did, sorry, President Joe Biden did, was divide the country.
		He said he wanted to unify the country, but he did not unify the country.
		He divided the country with all the DEI and everything else.
		He divided the country.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		So, Ray, I'm sorry, I'm not making the connection to President, former President Biden doing an interview and what's happening right now.
unidentified		Well, all right.
		Question.
		Does President Joe Biden have dementia?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Jennifer in Maryland, Line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Jennifer.
unidentified		Hi.
		I'm calling to comment on the lady who called and say Trump has dementia.
		Actually, that's what a lot of the people that I know, they think that's what he has.
		And I think absolutely he has.
		Because what he's doing is not creating a country.
		This man has been convicted on 37 counts, and yet he was never found guilty by the Supreme Court.
		What is Supreme Court?
		They should have a head.
		They should have their thinking cup on.
		If they think about this country, they should not have let Trump get away.
		He should be in prison because what he's going to do for this country is going to be damaged.
		Messing up with Social Security.
		I work very hard.
		I worked for 45 years and I'm almost retired.
		I don't want my Social Security to be touched.
		So whoever's saying about, oh, drum, Drum, because we have a lot of people that I talk to and say, I'm a die-hard Republican.
		That's why I vote Republican, even though I knew that he's not that good.
		What kind of rubbish is that?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That's Jennifer in Maryland.
		Judy in Michigan, line for Republicans.
		Hi, Judy.
unidentified		Hi.
		The last Republican caller got what I was going to say.
		As far as why wasn't the 25th Amendment used on Joe, if there's somebody's going to be crazy that should have gone there.
		And I can't even think of so many things that I've been listening to you guys for so long and I get so pissed.
		Oh, yeah.
		Why is it that the Democrats seem to totally forget about Hunter's laptop, about the facts that they weren't told?
		Oh, that's why, that's why.
		And the media censorship with Facebook.
		And they just all forget.
		And I don't understand why, you know, it's like, oh, everything that Trump does is bad, but they don't look at everything that Biden and all his cronies did.
		And that's about it.
		I just get really mad.
		So, you know, the guy from the last Republican definitely showed my thunder on that one as far as the 25th Amendment.
		Where's Joe?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Judy in Michigan.
		Cheryl in New City, New York, line for independent.
		Hi, Cheryl.
unidentified		Morning.
		Thank you so much for your time.
		I just stopped commenting on the news that I heard this morning about with Steve Witkoff stating that We should be really caving in on for Ukraine and making policy statements on behalf of Ukraine when it should be the Ukrainian president that's making his statements.
		And we're asking them to basically cave in, give up land, and no security and no NATO for them.
		And these are shifts and huge shifts in policy.
		And it's scary to me because I grew up in the 50s where Russia was really, really a threat to us.
		And those genes are still there.
		And I think we'd really be foolish to cave into Putin.
		And I see it as that.
		Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I see it as.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Cheryl in New York.
		This headline in today's Wall Street Journal, White House narrows April 2nd tariffs, says that the White House is narrowing its approach to tariffs, set to take effect on April 2nd, likely omitting a set of industry-specific tariffs while applying reciprocal levies on targeted set of nations that account for a bulk of foreign trade with the U.S.
		President Trump declared April 2nd Liberation Day for the U.S. when he will put in place reciprocal tariffs that seek to equalize U.S. tariffs with the duties charged by trading partners as well as tariffs on sectors like automobiles, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors.
		He repeatedly said he would enact that day.
		Those sector-specific tariffs, however, are now unlikely on April 2nd, said an administration official who said the White House still plans to unveil the reciprocal tariff action that day, although planning remains fluid.
		It says the fate of the sectoral tariffs as well as tariffs on Canada and Mexico that Trump said were justified by fentanyl trafficking remains uncertain.
		Back to your calls.
		Lillian in Maryland, line for Democrats.
		Hi, Lillian.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I would like to discuss about federal laws.
		They say that federal employees should be just fired outright.
		First of all, that's wrong.
		There are rules and there are regulations on how to downsize a federal government.
		So all that crap that Donald Trump is doing is illegal.
		Second, to the lady in Pennsylvania, the law, the judicial system does have say-so over the president.
		You need to go back and study your civics.
		And that's what I have to say.
		One more point.
		Please have people support Ukraine.
		Donald Trump is wrong.
		Ukraine needs to be in on with Putin when they discuss whatever they want to do to resolve the peace.
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Lillian in Maryland.
		Jeff in Fairplay, Missouri, line for Republicans.
		Hi, Jeff.
unidentified		Good morning, America.
		I think we need to start with the Geneva Convention and realize that the one world order was started clear back in 1942.
		China, the World Banking Order, and the WHO has full intention of implementing a one-world government.
		Donald J. Trump has stood up against it, brought back sovereignty, brought back the golden rule of treat others like you want to be treated.
		We are not going to support the Ukraine and the United Europe when all they're trying to do is bring the United States into the one-world government.
		Donald Trump ain't going to have it.
		We are a sovereign country.
		We are to defend our neighbors and our hemisphere.
		Those people are the same imperial government that is just running the same game.
		And Donald is not going to play.
		They use Putin as a ghost monster that's going to take over the world.
		It's not.
		It's the New World Order, China, World Banking Order.
		If everybody can't see that by now, that's why Donald took Putin out of Europe, took him to Saudi Arabia to discuss the peace treaties.
		The whole idea that Europe is our unalienated partners is wrong.
		They're taking advantage.
		They're trying to take over the world with the one world government.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Got your point, Jeff.
		We'll go to Nick in Sun City West, Arizona, line for independence.
		Hi, Nick.
unidentified		Hi.
		You know, I was listening to your speaker, and I could have sworn he said where part of the land belonged to Russia and they just want it back.
		Well, you know, I live in Arizona, and I know a good portion of Arizona belonged to Mexico.
		A good portion of California belonged to Mexico.
		A good portion of Texas belonged to Mexico.
		Is that speaker ready to give that land back to Mexico?
		Or will we fight for it?
		Now, you know, everybody knows Russia attacked Ukraine.
		If Russia stops shooting, Ukraine will stop shooting.
		That's all I have to say.
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Nick in Arizona.
		About 20 minutes left in open form.
		We'll get back to your calls and comments in just a few moments.
		But first, joining us from the White House is Shelby Telcott.
		She's a White House correspondent for Semaphore.
		Hi, Shelby.
		Thanks for being with us.
shelby talcott ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Always a busy week at the White House.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		What are you watching this week when it comes to Doge efforts and other domestic policy developments?
shelby talcott ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think I'm going to be watching closely how the Department of Education continues to unwind.
		Last week, obviously, there was some big news where the Donald Trump's administration cut effectively half of the Education Department and then announced that federal student loans are going to be shifting over to the Small Business Administration and Special Education is going to be shifting over to HHS under Secretary Kennedy.
		And so that's a really big deal.
		And those secretaries have said that they are ready for that, but that is a big haul to shift that over.
		So that's one of the core functions that I'm going to be looking for when it comes to Doge.
		And, you know, Doge is still going through all of these agencies and making cuts.
		And so I anticipate that there's going to be more news coming out of that front, whether it is from the Department of Defense or from the Postal Service.
		They are in all of these agencies.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		The White House is talking about the Ukraine-Russia peace talks this week.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		What do we know about the meetings that are happening and what could be happening down the line?
shelby talcott ▲ ● ▼		One of the core things that the administration is focusing on in Saudi this week when it comes to discussions between Ukraine and Russia is security in the Black Sea.
		And so that is going to be ongoing today.
		It has some talks happened yesterday.
		And so effectively, this is sort of like a game of telephone is how I would describe it.
		The White House is talking separately with Ukraine and separately with Russia and then hoping to come to an agreement.
		But I do think that this is going to take a long time.
		You know, an advisor for the Ukrainian president recently said over the weekend that sometimes these agreements can take months.
		And so there's, you know, no real decision-making happening or no indication that a deal is going to happen this week.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Other talks that are happening.
		A senior Israeli delegation is expected to visit the White House early this week to talk about Iran.
		What can you tell us about those meetings?
shelby talcott ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, these meetings are going to focus on, you know, the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal.
		And this has been a really big focus for the Trump administration over the past few weeks.
		Obviously, it's a really big focus for Israel.
		And we don't know much beyond that.
		We don't know exactly who is coming.
		We don't know exactly who is going to be in those discussions for the U.S.
		But certainly this is a focus for the Trump administration this week and over the past few weeks.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And also a meeting happening today is the governor of Louisiana will be there.
		Why is the governor, why is the governor there?
		What are you expecting to hear?
shelby talcott ▲ ● ▼		I think that there's going to be some discussions about what Louisiana has been doing, especially with when it comes to some of the climate stuff that's been going on there.
		But we don't know too much.
		And there's also a Greek celebration coming out of the administration today.
		But I think the real focus behind the scenes for the Trump administration this week is going to be those abroad talks.
		So I anticipate that there's going to be a lot of behind the scenes meetings going on.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And Shelby, as I mentioned, it's always a busy week there at the White House.
		And you just talked about some of the other events happening, a Greek celebration.
		What else is happening this week?
		What else do we know is on President Trump's schedule that you're going to be watching?
shelby talcott ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's, of course, the fight over deportations, the Alien Enemies Act that the Trump administration implemented just the other week.
		That is going to continue to be a focus.
		There's a hearing later today on that very subject.
		Over the weekend on Sunday, the administration also announced just last night that Venezuela had agreed to resume flights for some of these undocumented migrants.
		And so the issue of immigration is going to be key this week.
		And that's something that the Trump administration has been very open about fighting back against when it comes to trying to implement that Alien Enemies Act.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Shelby Telcott is a White House correspondent for Semaphore.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Shelby, thank you so much for your time.
unidentified		Thanks.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We'll go back to your calls.
		Let's talk with Katrina from Georgia, Line for Democrats.
		Hi, Katrina.
unidentified		Hi, thank you for taking my call this morning.
		I just want to comment on a couple of your callers that called in concerning a couple of things.
		So the gentleman who was asking where is Joe Biden, Joe Biden has class, and he knows that it's one president one time.
		So he's doing what majority of past presidents have done and that is stay back in the shadow regardless of what his views are and his thoughts are.
		And then as far as Trump, the lady called and said this country was built on love.
		Well, I would like her to explain that to my ancestors that was in slavery and their lives was taken and lies that we will never know because of this love of this country.
		And also, as far as Elon Musk and Trump, they are destroying this country.
		They are taking down all the pillars of this country.
		And people are sitting by Adelaide and watching it happen.
		They want to say that they're discovering fraud.
		I have not seen or have the Congress or anyone has presented to the people actual evidence of fraud.
		And when I say actual evidence, not word of mouth, because we can't take the word of this president or Elon Musk because they continue to, and they want to say falsehood.
		No, they continue to lie.
		They continue to lie to the people, okay?
		And if they do have true evidence and if they're saving the country so much money, where is that money going to?
		And they want to scream that Social Security and Medicaid is going, well, then if you're saving so much money, put the money over there.
		And if you want to cut Social Security and Medicaid, well, I paid in Social Security since I was 15 years old.
		I am 48 years old now.
		If you're going to cut it, then send me all my money with interest because we should not be paying it to something if we're not going to benefit from it.
		And if you are the one who's supposed to manage it, it should be managed.
		That is our money.
		It's nothing about government, this and that.
		We pay into these systems, so we should reap the benefits when we get to a certain age.
		We shouldn't have to fight, cry, or battle for money that we pay into the system.
		And on top of that, I am just discussing how they're letting these federal employees go and they're not giving their due process.
		And on top of that, that is going to trickle down to the local government because now they're going to have to get unemployment, which is going to make the unemployment numbers go up and which is going to lead to poverty.
		So people don't understand this circle that this man is doing and running around us.
		And the ones that's backing him, you probably don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw out.
		And you're still sitting up here backing this man who's a millionaire and billionaires.
		And they are getting all the benefits of this country.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Got your point, Katrina.
		We'll go to Lauren in Alexandria, Minnesota, lying for Republicans.
		Hi, Lauren.
unidentified		Yeah, good lord.
		That lady that called in and said that we have an old man in the White House.
		Doesn't she remember that when Biden was in, we had an old man that was senile, and Trump was not senile.
		So, all right, thanks.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Lauren in Minnesota.
		Patrick, Staten Island, New York, lying for Democrats.
		Hi, Patrick.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I just wanted to say that, you know, like, I listen to you to the podcast all the time, right?
		And the second is about it, you don't fast track.
		That's one thing I don't like, right?
		But anyway, you know, every morning I look at the news, I feel like I'm in a twilight zone.
		You know, I feel like, remember back in the day, they had Jim Jones, people turned to Kool-Aid, and everybody died.
		The opposite is time.
		People drank Kool-Aid, but they walk around brain debt.
		Like, how can you not see that Trump them is no good for this country?
		You're trying to turn this country into a third world country, and it's a shame.
		Nobody wants to come in no more.
		This country is garbage now.
		That's all I have to say.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Patrick in Staten Island.
		This headline in the New York Post: Holman insists all migrants deported to apocalyptic El Salvador prisons were gang members.
		It says that borders are.
		Tom Holman on Sunday said the Trump administration is confident that all of the migrants deported to El Salvador's apocalyptic prisons are Venezuelan gangbangers.
		President Trump invoked the 18th Century Alien Enemies Act to fly the alleged members of the notorious Tre de Argoto gang to prisons in El Salvador.
		Those efforts have since been paused by the courts over concerns about due process.
		Many of the migrants on those flights did not have a documented criminal history in the U.S. According to court filings from an integrated immigration and custom enforcement official.
		It was yesterday that Tom Holman talked about those deportations.
		Here's a clip.
jonathan karl ▲ ● ▼		How do you determine, or how do your people in the field determine that somebody is a gang member?
tom homan ▲ ● ▼		Doug, there's various methods.
		I've noticed in the media, a lot of them don't have criminal histories.
		Well, a lot of gang members don't have criminal histories.
		Just like a lot of terrorists in this world, they're not in any terrorist database, right?
		We only know information within databases based on, for instance, most terrorists we arrest that are identified by the U.S. government are later identified through a Title III investigation or through an undercover operation.
		They're not in any terrorist green and bass and screening database.
		We know that.
		A lot of gang members, I started as a cop in 1984.
		Many gang members don't have a criminal history.
		We have a count on social media.
		We have a counter surveillance techniques.
		We had to count on sworn statements from other gang members.
		We had to count on wiretaps and Title IIIs.
		Everything involved with criminal investigations come into play.
		So just because someone hasn't been arrested and charged with a crime yet doesn't mean they're a member of a gang.
jonathan karl ▲ ● ▼		But how do you, I mean, what we've heard from lawyers representing some of these people is that they deny that they're members of this gang or either, you know, Trend de Aragua or MS-13.
		Do they get a chance to prove that before you take them out of the country and put them into a notorious prison in a country that they're not even from?
		I mean, do they have any due process at all?
unidentified		Look, due process.
tom homan ▲ ● ▼		Where was Lake and Ronnie's due process?
		Where were all these young women that were killed and raped by members of TDA?
		Where was their due process?
jonathan karl ▲ ● ▼		Well, the people that did that should be prosecuted.
tom homan ▲ ● ▼		She was living on Subway.
		Where's her due process?
		The bottom line is that plane was full of people designated as terrorists.
		Number one.
		Number two, every Venezuelan migrant on that flight was a TDA member based on numerous criminal investigations, on intelligence reports and a lot of work by ICE officers.
		Matter of fact, two days after that flight took off, I even had a discussion with the actor director ICE, and he reiterated that every person, every Venezuelan on that plane was a known member of the TDA.
		So a lot of officers, a lot of criminal investigators, special agents who've done this for decades, looked at the intelligence information, the criminal investigation information, all the various social media and surveillance and government records and public records, and they are confident that they're all members of the TDA.
		I'm not surprised that a member of the family sent a non-member of the TDA.
		But they were given due process according to the laws on the books.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Just about eight minutes left in open form.
		Let's hear from Mike in Washington, D.C., Line for Independence.
		Hi, Mike.
unidentified		First of all, thank you for taking my phone call.
		And let me just say this.
		When people ask about Joe Biden, they have every right to ask about him because Joe Biden is a former president and he's a public figure.
		Just like when Trump was out of the White House, people kept whining and crying about Trump when he was out of the White House at the time.
		But let me just say this, though.
		I'm going to give C-SPAN credit.
		C-SPAN is one of the few radio stations that let people talk to the guests or elected officials that come on this show.
		Because I noticed that conservative radio do not do that.
		Anytime they got a guest or politician come on the show, they do the talk and don't let the guests do.
		But C-SPAN does.
		The best talk radio is the best public form and to really get your opinion out.
		So I want to thank C-SPAN for that.
		But I have never seen a party like the Republican Party that has won the battle but lost the war.
		They won the White House.
		They won the Senate.
		They won the House.
		But the moment that they went too far to the right, now they're starting to lose the respect of the people and the public.
		By letting this billionaire go in there, this doge and cutting people's job, I know a lot of conservatives do not like the government, but a job is a job.
		When you take away people's livelihood, people will fight back.
		And I do believe, because of the midterm elections that's coming up, that the Democrats, excuse me, that the Republicans is going to have a rural awakening.
		I do believe that they're going to get their bust whipped in the midterm election.
		And you got a lot of independents like myself still do not trust Democrats because they went crazy, you know, too far to the left.
		It's a shame that there's no third independent party out there that don't go too far to the left or too far to the right.
		That's what people are craving for.
		Robert F. Kennedy had the right idea.
		There are only two people in this world that was capable of pulling off a third party.
		Bernie Sanders is one.
		Donald Trump is the other.
		When Darcy G. Elstein asked Bernie Sanders to join the Green Party the first time when he ran, and if Bernie Sanders would have done that, the Green Party would have been the third most powerful party out there because he has a huge following like Trump does.
		But when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decides to throw a party, he's another one that could have pulled it off.
		Because again, you got people that don't like neither one of these parties right now.
		So this is a good opportunity for a third party to get off the ground if they don't go too far to the left or the right.
		But the midterm elections is really what the polls is really about.
		It's not a matter what the polls said, it's a matter of what the voters said.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		I think the leader deserved you're calling on an independent line.
		It sounds like you're pretty down the line.
		Who did you vote for last year in November?
unidentified		The last time as an independent, I originally was going to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
		But when he dropped out, I voted for Trump because the Democrats went too far to the left and went too far with this LBGQ thing.
		And a lot of independents, especially a lot of heterosexuals, had a problem with that.
		And so because of that, and because of the Democrats went too far to the left, that's the reason why I voted for Trump.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That's Mike in Washington, D.C. Dennis in New York, line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Dennis.
unidentified		Oh, hello.
		Good morning.
		Hey, thumbs up to C-SPAN.
dennis in new york ▲ ● ▼		I love your open house forum and also, you know, your live Senate hearings and Republican hearings.
unidentified		You really see who's saying what and what's really going on.
		My question is: Globalization is not good.
		It's destroying Europe.
dennis in new york ▲ ● ▼		It's destroying the U.S. You can't have it.
unidentified		My big concern is under the last administration, there's 340,000 children missing.
unidentified		And I haven't heard anything about who's doing what to locate and find these children.
dennis in new york ▲ ● ▼		So if anybody out there is listening in the Senate or even the President, it'd be nice to let us American people know where these children are and what's happening to them.
unidentified		Thank you for your time.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Dennis in New York.
		This from today's New York Times.
		Carney, Canada's leader for 10 days, calls a snap election after Trump's threats.
		It says Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada called on Sunday for a federal election to take place on April 28th.
		Mr. Carney, 60, a political novice with a long career in central banking and finance, was elected leader of Canada's Liberal Party on March 9th and was sworn in as Prime Minister on March 14th.
		He replaced Justin Trudeau, who had led the Liberals for 13 years and the country for nearly a decade, but had grown deeply unpopular.
		Mr. Carney has been widely expected to call for a quick election.
		He had not had a seat in Canada's parliament and the Liberals would not command a majority, meaning that their government was likely to fall in a vote of no confidence as early as Monday had he not called the election.
		The article looking at saying, explaining how Canada's elections work, it says Canada has a first-past-the-post electoral system, which means that candidates who get the most votes in their district win regardless of whether they secure a majority.
		Voters elect local members of the House of Commons, not individual party leaders, as they would in a presidential system.
		Parties select their leaders who can then become prime minister.
		The country is divided into 343 electoral districts known in Canada as writings.
		Each one corresponds to a seat in the House of Commons.
		To form a majority government, a party needs to win 172 seats.
		If the party with the most seats has fewer than 172, it can still form a minority government, but would need the support of another party to pass legislation.
		Almost, we have one call left in today's open forum.
		It's Louise, Pennsylvania, Line 4 Independence.
		Hi, Louise.
unidentified		Hi, good morning to you.
		I've been listening and listening and listening.
		One thing that I would like to say is that Donald Trump promised a lot of things when he was running for president.
dr rebecca grant ▲ ● ▼		Among the first that was most important to me as a senior citizen was he would not touch Social Security.
unidentified		Well, I think that is probably just to add on to the lie list that his Pinocchio nose is growing and growing and growing and growing.
dr rebecca grant ▲ ● ▼		Anyone who brings an outsider into the United States government and lets him run rampant through all the departments within the government, getting rid of people, he has no idea what job they do, and he doesn't care.
unidentified		He's just working with numbers.
unidentified		That's what he's good at, working with numbers.
dr rebecca grant ▲ ● ▼		And the president has allowed him to run rampant and devastating people's lives for no good reason because most of them are going to have to come back to work anyway.
unidentified		But I thank you for listening to me.
		And for me, Doge Sands stands for destroying our government every day.
		Thank you very much.
		Bye.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Louise in Pennsylvania.
		Our last call for today's open forum.
		Next on Washington Journal, Nina Olson from the Center for Taxpayer Rights joins us to discuss Doge's impact on the IRS and the privacy of tax information.
		We'll be right back.
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		There's something for every C-SPAN fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations.
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		C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
		This week, on the C-SPAN networks, the House and Senate are in session.
		The House will consider legislation to tighten foreign gift reporting requirements for colleges and universities.
		The Senate will continue voting on President Trump's nominations, including Dr. Jay Batticheria to be director of the NIH and Dr. Martin McCary to head the FDA.
		On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court hears consolidated oral argument in the case of Louisiana versus Calais and Robinson versus Calais on whether Louisiana's congressional maps are an illegal racial gerrymander.
		The directors of five intelligence agencies will also appear before two committee hearings for the annual worldwide threat assessment.
		First, on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and then on Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee.
		Also Wednesday, Catherine Maher, CEO and President of National Public Radio, and Paula Kerger, CEO and President of the Public Broadcasting Service, testify before the Doge Subcommittee on concerns about alleged bias in news coverage by their federally funded organizations.
		And on Thursday, a Senate Aviation Subcommittee will go over the National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary report on the mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport in late January.
		Live this week on the C-SPAN networks and on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app.
		Also, head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime.
		C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
		Washington Journal continues.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now to discuss Doge's impact on the IRS and taxpayer data privacy is Nina Olson, Executive Director, the Center for Taxpayer Rights.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Nina, thank you for being with us.
unidentified		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		I know you've been on the show many times, but remind our audience about the Center for Taxpayer Rights, the mission, and who funds it.
unidentified		Right.
		So the Center for Taxpayer Rights was created when I left the IRS as the National Taxpayer Advocate in 2019, pretty much to continue the work that I'd been doing all along, looking at taxpayer rights, how they impacted taxpayers' compliance, not just in the United States, but around the world.
		We're funded by many different sources, different foundations, Rockefeller, Robert Wood Johnson's.
		We also get IRS funding for running a low-income taxpayer clinic, a movement that I've been involved in since 1992.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		You've talked about some of your background.
		You've worked in the area for many years, served almost two decades as the IRS national taxpayer advocate.
		What did that entail?
unidentified		So the taxpayer advocate is, the national taxpayer advocate is a position that Congress created to and lead an organization inside the IRS to help taxpayers solve their problems with the IRS and make legislative and administrative recommendations to mitigate those problems.
		And it's basically the safety net inside the IRS where taxpayers may be having an economic problem because of something the IRS is doing or not doing or about to do and that just can't be addressed quickly enough.
		And so you want to avoid that harm.
		The other thing is there may be an issue where the taxpayers tried many, many times to resolve the problem through normal channels of the IRS and just can't get that taken care of.
		And that's when you can also come to TAS when there's a taxpayer advocate service or TAS where there's a systemic problem.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's talk about the state of the IRS.
		There are reports that they're preparing to reduce their workforce by about 50% through layoffs and buyouts, reduction of 20% of its staff by May 15th, which is after tax day.
		But it's already they've laid off around 7,000 and set to close about more than 100 offices as well.
		Talk about what it means for taxpayer filing, maybe this season, but in seasons ahead as well.
unidentified		Well, I think it's both this season and future seasons.
		I think there's a myth that quote-unquote filing season ends after April 15th or May 15th.
		You know, first of all, 20% of the individual taxpayers file extensions until October 15th.
		So you've got a fifth of the taxpayers whose returns have not yet been processed.
		The second thing is that there are a whole bunch of returns that have been stopped by the IRS because there's all this talk about waste, fraud, and abuse.
		There's some questions about the return.
		And so those returns are frozen until the taxpayer can provide the IRS more information or resolve certain issues.
		They may be victims of identity theft.
		All of those employees are people that are sort of tied up in the filing season.
		And as they get through just the file, you know, the immediate filing season, they start working on these other things.
		So what it means just for this year is that taxpayers will not get through to the IRS on the phone to be able to resolve their problems.
		People will not be able to process their correspondence timely.
		And the other point, and I'm sure I'll come back to this over and over again, is a lot of what the IRS does is automated.
		There's a lot of talk about making them more automated, digital, digital, but they do a lot of stuff automated.
		And unless a taxpayer is able to get through to the IRS, when the IRS is saying, we think you owe us more money or we're going to take this collection action, unless you can get through, the automation kicks in, and the next thing you know, your account is being levied on your bank account and you can't get through to anybody to unwind that.
		And that's what we're looking forward to as there's more automation and fewer employees to address the legitimate issues that taxpayers are raising.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		If we focus on this tax season that we're in right now, maybe we get through the tax day, April 15th.
		Maybe we get through the summer to October when those extensions kick in.
		But are cuts, any future cuts that we could see, is it sustainable for the work of the IRS?
unidentified		Well, I mean, there are two components of that.
		One is, are they cutting taxpayer service, taxpayer-facing functions for assistance?
		And then the other thing is, and there seems to be a lot of focus on cutting what people call the enforcement side, and I look at as sort of the approaches to bringing people into compliance, making sure that people pay the correct amount.
		And there, you know, some of the most complicated cases require the most skilled employees.
		And what we're all concerned about is that, you know, the IRS has been trying to build up the skills to be able to make the system more fair to go out and audit those folks that are really the most sophisticated taxpayers, et cetera, that have ways of avoiding taxes that a wage earner doesn't have.
		And if you eliminate those employees and you cut those employees, then you're actually making the entire tax system more unfair.
		And that's what we really, and then you also have the downstream consequence that taxpayers will say, well, the IRS has been gutted, so why do I need to comply with the law?
		You know, I can do this, I can do that, and they'll never find me.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		The other thing we want to talk about is another Doge effort is they're seeking access to the integrated data retrieval system that holds personal taxpayer identification numbers and as well as bank information.
		Your organization is a lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the IRS because they were trying to access that information.
		What can you tell us about, I guess, the lawsuit, not specifically the lawsuit, but tell us about what's happening and what information has already been turned over?
unidentified		Well, I think we don't know.
		That's part of the problem.
		We're not in the discovery phase right now.
		What we do understand is that in another case, the Treasury Department has said that they're not having that kind of access related to the Bureau of Fiscal Service, and they interpret that agreement as applying also to the IRS.
		That is not to say that people don't want that kind of access, and that's what we're looking at is what will ultimately be resolved.
		Taxpayers need to understand that Congress has said that tax returns and tax return information is confidential unless it is expressly authorized in the Internal Revenue Code under Section 6103.
		And that's where all the battles are occurring.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Nina Olson, the executive director of Center for Taxpayer Rights, is our guest for the next 30, 35 minutes or so.
		If you have a question or comment for her, you can start calling.
		And now the lines, Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Nina, talking more about the access to information.
		Do we know what it is exactly they're looking for?
		And if they were to get it, what would they be trying to do with it?
unidentified		Well, we don't know exactly.
		They've been saying fraud, waste, and abuse, and there are a lot of human beings in the IRS who are experts in that subject and spend their lives looking at tax returns and tax return information in order to identify returns that are fraudulent, returns that are incorrect, and returns where taxpayers could benefit from some education.
		So there's a lot of activity in that area, so it's not quite sure what Doge is bringing in there.
		What we have heard, public statements saying it would be great to get all IRS data and share it with health and human services, share it with the state welfare agencies, create a mega database, and that's precisely the kind of exposure that Congress in 1976 clawed back from the executive branch in order to give taxpayers some assurance that when they gave some of their most personal information to the IRS,
		that that wouldn't be shared elsewhere in the government unless there was a compelling need that Congress decided was a compelling need.
		And kind of it's interesting, it's important to know the background.
		You know, like when we first had the internal revenue code that we have today, which was passed, you know, authorized by the 16th Amendment of the Constitution and came about in 1913, the executive, the president, could decide who could get tax return information.
		And the lists of taxpayers were published and newspapers could publish them.
		And, you know, there were times when Congress said, we want you to file in the court recorder's office, the local registrar's office, a little pink slip that had your name and your Social Security number and how much you owed and how much you made.
		And then they repealed that before that went into effect.
		You fast forward to the Nixon administration, and there were two things that happened.
		One was the concern that the executive, the president, was trying to get information about his enemies and have them be audited by the IRS.
		And the other side was he wanted to stop audits of his friends.
		But the second thing was the Agriculture Department wanted the tax returns of all the farmers of America.
		And that led Congress in 1976 to pass the current law, which is he grabbed it from the executive branch and said, no, no, we decide who gets taxpayer information.
		And it has to be in the internal revenue code.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		There have been other challenges when DOGE has gone in to access information.
		Various department judges have said that if anything has been downloaded, it needs to be deleted or destroyed.
		Is there a way of knowing that that's actually happening?
unidentified		Well, if you had inspector generals, they would be able to see that that was happening.
unidentified		You have to believe in the rule of law that the lawyers who value their ability to practice law in the states and the federal courts would not lie to the courts when they verify that that has actually happened.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We have callers waiting to talk with you.
		We will start with Colleen in Newton, Massachusetts, line for Republicans.
		Hi, Colleen.
unidentified		Hello.
		I have a question for Nina about filing a special form.
		I think it's a 701 form, that defers any tax payment for people who are giving large amounts, greater than $15,000 a year, to their children.
		Because I ran into some serious difficulties with the IRS because I didn't understand how to do that properly.
		Well, I think the form that you're referring to is basically the form where you report that you've made a taxable gift during your lifetime, which is over the annual exclusion amount.
		And right now that's $16,000 or whatever.
		But it's a form that you fill out.
		And even if you've made over the annual exclusion amount, you can elect to have the overage covered by your lifetime exclusion, where you can give several million dollars, you know, passing it on at the time of your death without having to pay estate tax.
		So you have to fill out that form correctly and there are due dates, and otherwise they will make penalties and they will say that the election has not occurred properly.
		So I think that's kind of where you are.
		If you don't have an attorney or a CPA that can help you with that, there may be some ability to get around the late filing if there's reasonable cause.
		But the other thing is that this is actually a really clear example where someone just makes a mistake because they don't understand a complex area of law, and you don't want to say that they're a criminal just because they've just made a mistake.
		And you want the law to understand and the employees to understand that it was an inadvertent mistake because of the complexity of the law.
		And there should be an ability to waive penalties at least where it's just due to the complexity and inadvertence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Mary Ann in Philadelphia, line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Mary Ann.
unidentified		Hi.
		I have a question again, too.
		Same thing on one of my, or my standard Pen40 form.
		I'm filing it this year.
		I received $600 on a 50-50 chance.
		I won.
		And they gave me a W-2G form to file with my income tax.
		I file the standard.
		I do not file anything else.
		Can I just add this $600 in as additional income?
		Yes, it's a W-2G, and you just report it where you would report your W-2 income.
		The IRS will have received that information and will know, will be looking for you to report that income.
		And if they don't see it on your return, then they will likely send you a notice sometime in August saying you have underreported your income and here's a little additional tax that you owe.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Callers have been asking questions about their taxes forms.
		It's one of those that, as you pointed out, people may not be able to get a hold of somebody at the IRS in the future to be asking these questions.
		We can't have you on all the time.
		So where can people go to find information or get help when they need it if the IRS isn't there to answer their calls?
unidentified		Well, the IRS is a huge website, and there's lots of information on there.
		It's not easy to navigate.
		You know, you can try some of the, you can put it into Google or some of your search engines and try the artificial intelligence.
		You know, the problem with that is you don't know whether it's accurate or not.
		I would say keep an eye out for your local radio stations because they will often have call-in programs where CPAs and enrolled agents experts will answer general questions.
		And there is a tax law line for the IRS with some automated responses.
		So there's a lot out there.
		It's just navigating it that's very challenging.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk with Rodney in Miami, Line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Rodney.
unidentified		Hey, morning.
		You know, I think you've got to understand why people don't like the IRS.
		And I think part of it started when you had Lois Lerner under Obama going after conservative groups and using IRS information.
		And then you had IRS information about Trump leaked.
		And then you had Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, you know, who investigated the Biden administration or Hunter Biden.
jt in indiana ▲ ● ▼		And they were told they could not investigate any further.
unidentified		The juice was not worth the squeeze.
		I had a personal experience with the IRS that caused me to sour on the IRS about 15 years ago.
		I had my own company and I ran it for 10 years.
		I had a CPA that used to advise me to do things that later on, in perspective, I thought, well, maybe I shouldn't have done this or done that.
		So I went back and hired a CPA firm to go back and audit like eight years.
		I had my own company, eight years of my tax returns, and they found out that I owed, based on their perspective, I owed a certain amount of money.
		I was dumb enough to contact the IRS and say, I've gone back and audited.
		I think I owe you money.
		If you'll give me a certain amount of time, I will pay you.
		Like, can you give me a month and a half?
		And I'll, because I had to go sell something to go pay the extra money.
		The IRS said, we will not wait.
		If you don't have it paid by this Friday, we're putting a lien on everything that you have.
		They proceeded to put a lien.
		It stayed on there seven years.
		They would not work with me.
		I felt like the biggest dummy in the world because I raised my hand and said I owed the federal government so much money and they would not give me a chance to pay it.
		So I want you to know the IRS, they have not operated in a respectable, cooperative manner.
		If they come after you, they're going to come after you.
		And if you want to know why people are upset with them, these are some of the examples.
		Well, you know, I think that you raise many good points here.
		And let me just say, you know, that in my own background, I mean, I've been working in tax administration for five decades.
		This year is my 50th year working in taxes.
		And I used to represent folks like you in discussions with the IRS and collection actions.
		And when I became the National Taxpayer Advocate, collection was a major focus of mine, and particularly the lien filing, because I felt that the IRS was just scattershot filing liens in an automatic way.
		And this goes back to my point about how so much is automated and will only get worse if we have fewer people.
		Now, the people that you need to have in the IRS are folks who are trained to listen to taxpayers such as yourselves.
		And just from a perspective, it makes no sense with someone like you who's saying, here's my asset, I need to sell it, and I will pay you in a month and a half, and the IRS can see that asset, that then they should hold off.
		They don't need to put a lien on immediately, particularly when you're coming forward.
		And I think you also demonstrate how one interaction can actually destroy trust in the IRS for 15 years and going forward.
		And that's my main point is that what we need to be advocating for is better trained human beings, you know, certainly using automation and digitalization and artificial intelligence to identify risks of fraud or risks of non-compliance.
		But there needs to be a trained human being who understands the challenges that taxpayers are experiencing and listening to them on the other side.
		And in this environment, you know, I fear for who's willing to work for the IRS at this point when it's being beaten up and so lamb-basted.
		And I do think that the IRS has made some progress in the last couple of years being able to bring on new employees and younger employees who have a fresh look at things.
		But you know, now, who knows what's going to happen.
		I'm sorry what you experienced.
		And that is actually the exact kind of case that the Taxpayer Advocate Service should have intervened in immediately, you know, to stop the lien and say, you can wait 45 days while this gentleman sells his assets and is able to pay this tax.
		And that's exactly the kind of economic harm that I was talking about in getting a case into the Taxpayer Advocate Service.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Nina, a question coming in from Text Message Rich in Kingsport, Tennessee asked, please ask the guest exactly what, quote, most personal information to which the IRS has access and exactly what are people afraid that Doge employees would do with it, do with this information that ordinary IRS employees wouldn't do.
unidentified		So that's a really good question.
		So just think about your tax return, what you're reporting on it, and what you get back from your filing your taxes.
		It has all of your wages, all of your employers.
		It has your address.
		It has your social security number, your name, your children, your children's social security numbers.
		It has your health information if you're claiming medical expenses, if you're claiming premium tax credit.
		It says whether or not you are eligible for the earned income credit, a benefit for the working poor and middle-class working individuals in this country.
		And with that information, an identity thief can basically become you.
		And so that's what's incredibly important there.
		And in the IRS, only certain employees have access to certain information depending on their job duties.
		I was a national taxpayer advocate for 18 years, and I never had access to any IRS data system that involved tax return or taxpayer information.
		When I needed to work a case, there were my employees who did have access because their jobs entailed working with taxpayers and helping them solve their problems.
		And they could provide me the information I needed, but I did not need, it was not in my job duties to have access to those systems.
		And part of the problem with that is that you could inadvertently access somebody else's returns, or you could actually access someone's returns and make them public as Craig Littlejohn did with President Trump's and some of the richest people in the United States, which was a violation of law and an abomination against taxpayer confidentiality.
		Now, we don't know what Doge is saying that they want to do.
		They are saying that they want to identify fraud, waste, and abuse, but they have not articulated what they're going to be able to do more than the IRS employees whose jobs it is to identify fraud, waste, and abuse.
		The IRS has major fraud detection filters, some of which are good, some of which are really problematic, you know, to identify errors on returns, questionable refund claims, identity theft and fraud, those sorts of things.
		Now, if Doge wants to come in and look at the effectiveness of those returns, it doesn't need to see actual taxpayer data.
		It can have anonymized data and run those systems to see how those systems work.
		And that is what researchers in the IRS do: they work first with anonymized data to identify some patterns, and then they give that data to the actual people who have authorization to look at the actual information taxpayers have filed to then explore what the issues are and update the programming.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Russell in Massachusetts, Line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Russell.
unidentified		Hi.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Russell.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
unidentified		I'm 77 years old, and I was getting notices back in November and December of 2024 that I was eligible to file a tax return for 2021 for the stimulus,
		the $1,400 stimulus that the Treasury Department sent out to everybody in their checks that were mailed in the mail.
		They were deposited into people's accounts in their Social Security accounts.
		And I went to HR Block in my city, and they filed a they went on the internet and I showed they show I showed them where the tax, if you didn't get that stimulus, you had until May of this year, 2025, to file a tax return and try and get that stimulus.
		So I called my bank, and I checked my account from January of 2021 until June of 2021, and there was no $1,400 deposit made into my account.
		So the HR Block filed the tax return for me.
		It was called the Recovery Rebate or whatever, something or other.
		It was on the internet.
		And they filed the return.
		It cost me $120 to file it.
		And I was supposed to get $1,200.
		And I owed $101 of tax for that year because about one of the gambling forms that I sent in along with my Social Security statement and my pension statement.
		And so I assumed that they would deduct the tax from the $1,400 stimulus.
		Well, I filed it the week, like within 10 days after January 1st.
		I got a notice in the mail about 10 days ago from the IRS saying that I owed $248 on that tax return.
		So I called up the IRS member.
		I stayed on my phone for 40 minutes.
		Someone finally answered the phone.
		It was almost 45 minutes.
		And I told her the situation.
		She went and checked on the records of my Social Security number and said that I got the stimulus.
		But I have the bank statements from that first six months of that year, 2021, and I can prove that I did not receive that $1,400 stimulus.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Russell, we'll get a response from Nina in your situation.
unidentified		So the letter that you've got is saying that you owe the IRS money.
		You might get a letter.
		You should write in and protest that saying you did not receive the stimulus.
		And if you want to, you could send in, you know, your copies of your bank statement for those months showing that there was no deposit.
		What you can do is you can get a trace on the payment.
		Now, this takes a long time.
		Bureau of Fiscal Services is actually the one that makes the payments and they can say what account that payment was paid into.
		And then you will ultimately get this.
		There are two things I would suggest that you do, and I forget where you're located.
		Pardon?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Massachusetts.
unidentified		Massachusetts.
		There are very good low-income taxpayer clinics in Massachusetts who can represent you in this so you don't have to sit on the phone for 40 minutes talking to the IRS.
		And there's one at Harvard Law School.
		You can go and just Google, put into your search engine, low-income taxpayer clinic, Massachusetts, and you will come up with a list of the clinics, and they represent you for free.
		And it sounds like you might be eligible for this, but they can also just give you advice as to how specifically to proceed.
		You can show them the letter that you got, and they can tell you where you are.
		The other thing that I can say is you can go to the taxpayer advocate service.
		They are really swamped with cases.
		And partly because of what's happening with the IRS, people aren't able to get their problems resolved because of all the turmoil at the IRS.
		And so, but I would say go to the low-income taxpayer clinics in Massachusetts.
		And if you can't get, if they can't help you because your income is too high, you can always go to the Taxpayer Advocate Service.
		But you should also write in and protest what they're doing and saying you disagree, you do not agree with that.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Nina, the Washington Post is reporting that the Trump administration is set to cut 20% of the staff at the Taxpayer Advocate Service where you served.
		You just said that they're already busy right now.
		Talk about the impact of taxpayers.
unidentified		I've published an article this morning in the tax press that shows that, you know, a year after I joined the taxpayer advocate service in 2002, there were 1,350 case advocates, people working cases for taxpayers.
		And the whole point about the taxpayer advocate service was when you get a case into TAS because you're experiencing this harm, there's one person assigned to your case.
		And you have an 800 number that goes directly to that person's phone on that person's desk.
		So in 2020, you know, at the time of the pandemic, there were 670 case advocates, 50% fewer case advocates than when I started at the Taxpayer Advocate Service.
		On the other hand, their caseload per case advocate had gone up 83%.
		So that's what you're seeing right now: way fewer case advocates, and each case advocate has an 83% larger caseload than when I came into the taxpayer advocate service.
		And so the idea that you would cut even more when the taxpayer advocate service is the safety net for the people who've called in with these examples, they are exactly those cases that the taxpayer advocate service is supposed to help with.
		And if the case advocates have this kind of overwhelming caseload, they can't give the attention that's needed to the kinds of issues that we're seeing where people really need help navigating the IRS and can't afford to go to a lawyer.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk with Alex in Bayer, Delaware, Lion for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Alex.
unidentified		Hi.
		I just wanted to say Biden wants to hire 80,000 IRS people to work.
		That's idiotic.
		You know how much money that costs?
		Can people add and subtract?
		You think you're going to get that money back for what you're paying these people?
		And another thing is, them people that's supposed to be overseeing stuff, the general, whatever they call, that he fired, they wasn't doing their job.
		If you find fraud and abuse and everything, how are they doing their job?
		You're saying that he's watching over everything and they got rid of him.
		Why do you think they got rid of him?
		I sort of missed the second half of the question, but the first part of the question about the employees being hired and how much would you ever make it back.
		In fact, on the enforcement side, there are clear numbers.
		It's anywhere between $6 to $12, depending on what the employee is doing, that you get back for every dollar that you're spending on an IRS, you know, enforcement/slash compliance person.
		On the taxpayer service side, it's very hard to do a measure of return on investment for taxpayer service, except every business in the world knows that if you're customer-facing, customer service is what helps you generate sales.
		So I think that that's not correct.
		There's also been recent work done by Congressional Budget Office and other places that have shown that when you eliminate these IRS employees that are working on these high-income and large corporate audits, you are really losing revenue coming in to the federal government.
		And I will say that I think that one of the problems, and I just referenced this, that it's hard to measure the return on investment for taxpayer service.
		That's one of the reasons why, in the Inflation Reduction Act, the legislation that was passed under President Biden to give more money to the IRS, a lot of it was put in the enforcement bucket because, you know, the law is being required to pay for itself.
		And you can't get a cost, a return on investment on taxpayer service under the budget rules, which is really silly, but that's just the way it is.
		One of the things that I've been really advocating is to move some of those positions out of enforcement into IT to make the system more modernized, continue its modernization efforts, and also into taxpayer service so someone like the previous caller doesn't have to sit on the phone for 40 minutes trying to get his problems solved.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Former IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel resigned his position the day that President Trump took office for his second term.
		President Trump has nominated former GOP Congressman Billy Long to replace him.
		Remind our audience the roles and responsibility of the IRS Commissioner and your thoughts on his nomination.
unidentified		Well, the commissioner is charged by law to administer the tax laws and he's also required, and I have to take some credit for this, to ensure that his employees and his officers are trained on and adhere to all of the taxpayer rights that are in the Internal Revenue Code,
		including the taxpayer bill of rights, which are 10 commitments, 10 rights that taxpayers have under the law.
		That is his job.
		And one of those rights is tax, you know, confidentiality of return information.
		So I, you know, you know, the nominee has not been given his confirmation hearing.
		So I will look forward to hearing what he has to say about all of the protections that are the strong protections in the Internal Revenue Code, you know, including the confidentiality of return information.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We have about five minutes left with Nina Olson, Executive Director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights.
		Remember, a reminder to our audience that at 10 a.m., we will be going to live coverage of the Supreme Court as they hear oral arguments on a Louisiana gerrybandering case.
		Tracy in North Carolina, Line for Democrats.
		Hi, Tracy.
unidentified		Hello.
		I'm calling because the IRS is really helpful when you need to call them on the telephone.
		So they need to be there.
		I recently sold the house in North Carolina, and I only stayed in the House for nine months.
		And I gave my tax preparer a CPA that's supposed to be knowledgeable about the tax law, but he did not put it on my tax return.
		So when I called the IRS, they told me that you have to stay in the House two years before you get the tax break.
		The IRS has sent me an audit paper for over $400,000.
		So I had to get my tax preparer to resend the tax papers.
		And I recently got a letter back six months ago stating that I didn't owe anything.
		But the IRS has to know that the people that put their taxes in and give it to a CPA, they are a lay person of the law.
		I had no idea that I gave him the $1099 form and he didn't put it on because he was thinking that I stayed in the house two years, even though I had spoken to him about that.
		So that's my comment.
		Yeah, so a couple things there.
		You started by saying, you know, people need to be able to talk to the IRS by phone.
		And that is something that I've said to everyone.
		You know, dealing with the IRS is not the same thing as buying something on Amazon.
		And by the way, try to get somebody on Amazon on the phone to talk about a problem, you know, or do their chats.
		It's not exactly customer friendly.
		You know, it's not like buying an airline ticket.
		These are taxes.
		And the IRS has awesome collection powers once it determines that there's a debt that you owe.
		And so taxpayers want to talk to someone on the phone.
		They don't like talking to the IRS, but they want to talk to someone so that they know that the IRS has heard them.
		If there is an adjustment being made, they want to hear somebody saying that that has been made, and they get a letter back that shows it as well.
		You know, now, you know, you had to file an amended return, and I think that goes to, I can't speak to, you know, your CPA's abilities, but, you know, you've done everything you could.
		You provided the information.
		There is a provision that allows the IRS, you know, there are automatic penalties, automatic penalties that go on if you haven't paid tax.
		But you can ask for those penalties to be waived because you relied on your preparer and you provided that preparer with all the information that the preparer needed to fill the return in right.
		And so therefore, you know, you could ask for those penalties to be waived.
		You'd still be liable for the tax.
		But it sounds like you got the right result.
		But you just raised several really important points.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Mary in Ohio on the Line for Independence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Mary.
unidentified		Hello, thank you.
		Just a quick question.
		When I pay my local property taxes here in Ohio, I can go online in my county and I can see, okay, they received my payment and everything's in order.
		I just need to put in my name or parcel number.
		Is there something like that for IRS?
		I know it's a dumb question, but when I have to pay them and I send them my check, I really never know.
		Did they receive it?
		Was it applied to my account?
		Is there an online account for taxpayers that we can go into and look and see from year to year?
		And my second quick question, if you have time, is why does Congress change the tax code so often?
		There are so many lawyers working for Congresspeople, and it seems like they purposely make it complicated.
		I'll listen.
		Off the air, thank you.
		So that's a great question.
		It's not a dumb question.
		And if you'd asked it five to seven years ago, the answer would have been no, there's no online account.
		But the IRS has been building an online account, and that's some of what it's been using for the Inflation Reduction Act money to make it more robust.
		You have to pass, you have to have an ID.me identity authentication, and then you can create an online account.
		So if you go onto the IRS website and you look for online account, you can go through the process of creating an ID.me account and then get your online account, which will show you what's going on with your returns and some of your history.
		And each year they've been planning to add more features to it so that you'd be really able to do so much more on the online account and also personalized information, like if you're in a small business and your business code is X, like you raise dogs or something, then if there was some guidance that came out relating to dog breeding, they would be able to send you information about that and that'd be in your account.
		Congress making the law complex.
		Well, you know, I used to say, you know, we've seen the special interests and the special interests are us.
		You know, we all want our particular situation to be recognized in the internal revenue code.
		And the more special provisions you have, the more complex it becomes and the more likely it is for someone to make a mistake.
		So it's a challenge.
		You know, it would be lovely to have comprehensive tax reform, but it requires some political will, and it's a long process to get there.
		We're going to have to have it because at some point the code becomes so complex that it's just impossible to navigate.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		The caller asking about online services, something you mentioned, efforts to modernize.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		What could we see out of Doge efforts, possibly because we are cutting down on a human staff?
unidentified		So, you know, I think that Doge could be helpful if they took a pause themselves instead of coming in and was sweeping and stopping everything and just learned from the existing IRS employees what they're trying to do, what initiatives they have underway, and actually talked about, you know, learned what activities the IRS is doing to identify returns that have risk factors in them.
		And then using the expertise of the Doge employees, bringing in, you know, learning from them what's being done in the private sector and other sectors that the IRS could benefit from.
		So, you know, there's an orderly process that can be done without destroying the organization and making the IRS employees feel like they are worthless.
		They are human beings who are trying to do the best they can with the resources that they have.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		I'll try to get in.
		One more call for you, James in Philadelphia, Line for Democrats.
		Hi, James.
unidentified		Hi.
		So I'm a retired IRS employee one year now.
		And so Nina Olson is well known as the advocate, well, at least she was at that time.
		And often, as an employee, you thought you had done everything right.
		And then you'd be contacted by the advocate service who had been contacted by the taxpayer.
		And it was sometimes seen as adversarial because, of course, as an employee, as a good employee, you thought you had done everything right.
		So the one case I want to talk about, and the IRS brings in money.
		So I was working for a section that worked with international taxpayers.
		And there was a case where we found a whistleblower came forward from a Swiss bank.
		Okay.
		Have you ever heard of the joke?
		Would you go to jail for a couple days if a couple years, I mean, if someone was going to give you over $100 million?
		And most people would say, well, yeah, I'd probably take that deal.
		Well, that's what happened with the Swiss Bank whistleblower.
		And because of that case, I know recently, this goes back 10 years, but recently, I guess because more whistleblowers have come forward with Swiss Bank people with money over there, that project alone has collected $16.5 billion.
		So Mr. Birkenfeld got $104 million, which I think was 20%.
		Can I just say one more thing about whistleblowers?
		So maybe because we were working on a project, that project, one day our group had been given boxes of letters from supposed whistleblowers, and we were asked to go through this material to find what was going on.
		And a lot of it was at spouses, neighbors living across the stream.
		My neighbors got a new boat.
		Our managers just shut it down right away.
		Why?
		Because one of the things you brought up is unauthorized people looking at material that you're not entitled to look at.
		So in other words, we didn't want to go on a phishing project just based on word of mouth and find, you know, and put people through the turmoil that a letter from the IRS puts people through.
		Chris, and I do.
		I appreciate all the cases that I worked on and that we worked on.
		We brought in a lot of money, and the IRS brings money to the government.
		It doesn't lose money.
		We bring the money to the government so it can continue to run.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		James, we'll have to end it there.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We'll get a response from Nina.
unidentified		Well, I mean, you just said it really well.
		The IRS is the accounts receivable function for the federal government.
		And the work that you're doing is some of the most, or that you are doing, is some of the most sophisticated work that is being done around the world.
		And it is very difficult.
		And your point about not doing phishing expeditions, you handled this excellently.
		You know, that shows the ethics that the IRS employees have.
		I will say that it is difficult sometimes when you get a case in the Taxpayer Advocate Service because we are supposed to be the voice of the taxpayer inside the IRS.
		And it means that you're reaching out to an IRS employee who believes that they've done everything right.
		And they may in the end, it may be that we see that they have done everything right.
		But our job is to actually raise the taxpayers' points and make our own, well, I'm saying our own, make their own independent assessment, you know, about whether the taxpayer is right or whether the IRS is right.
		And then if we believe the IRS is right, then we have to explain that to the taxpayer.
		And I will make one point.
		One of the things when I was the taxpayer, National Taxpayer Advocate, that I looked at, we would do customer satisfaction surveys of our taxpayers that brought cases into the taxpayer advocate service.
		And overall, first of all, 80% of the cases from year to year that came into TAS received the relief that the taxpayer was asking when they came in.
		So clearly in the vast majority of cases, we were able to bring about some kind of relief that the taxpayer was asking for.
		But the other thing was where we couldn't get relief, where we couldn't give the taxpayer what they were asking, we asked in our customer satisfaction surveys, do you feel better about the IRS as a whole as a result of your interaction with the Taxpayer Advocate Service?
		And in over a third of the cases, those taxpayers said yes, which I always thought was a remarkable result, that these are taxpayers who didn't get what they came in for, but because of the process of us reaching out to the IRS employee and finding out what was going on and then being able to explain to the taxpayer, it created greater faith in the IRS as a whole.
		And that's an important thing that you don't want to lose sight of that will be eroded as cuts occur in the IRS and particularly in the Taxpayer Advocate Service, the safety net for the IRS.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Our guest, Nina Olson, Executive Director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights.
		Nina, thank you so much for being with us today.
		That does it for today's Washington Journal.
		We'll be back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern and 4 a.m. Pacific with another program.

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