| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Other than legal grounds. | ||
| This book shows, he continues, that the Supreme Court critics have always leveled criticism at decisions they did not like. | ||
| These attacks have usually come from the left because the court has usually been a conservative institution. | ||
| Unquote. | ||
| Author Banner has a law degree from Stanford and clerk for Sandra Dale, Connor in 1991. | ||
|
unidentified
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Author Stuart Banner with his book, The Most Powerful Court in the World, A History of the Supreme Court of the United States, on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | |
| BookNotes Plus is available on the free C-SPAN Now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
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| Senate Republican leader John Thune briefed the media about the Trump administration's legislative agenda, including budget reconciliation, tax policy, social security, and the group chat messages on U.S. strikes in Yemen. | ||
| Well, good afternoon everybody. | ||
| Last week's vote, I should say it's the week before last week's vote, not to shut the government down has seemed to create something of a civil war among the Democrats. | ||
| And as they're sort of hashing that out, figuring out their path forward, we're going to continue to stay focused on our agenda. | ||
| And this week is getting the president's people into place, continuing to process nominations so that the president has his team ready and ready to go to work. | ||
| We'll continue working that. | ||
| We're going to be working on unwinding a lot of the Biden administration's burdensome regulations through the Congressional Review Act process. | ||
| And obviously, we're going to stay very focused on budget reconciliation, which is part of the president and our presence and our agenda as we head forward. | ||
| And we had a good conversation about that at our lunch just now. | ||
| And we're going to continue to be talking about this with our members and having the end goal in mind. | ||
| And that end goal is coming up with a budget reconciliation bill in the end that extends the existing tax policy, which if isn't done, will lead to a $4.5 trillion tax increase at the end of this year. | ||
| Unlocking and restoring America's energy dominance, rebuilding our military, and making sure that our border is secure. | ||
| Those are the issues that we believe need to be addressed in the budget reconciliation bill, and that's consistent with the president's agenda and with what the American people voted for in November. | ||
| So that's the work at hand right now. | ||
| And obviously, as we move forward, we'll be talking closely, working closely with our counterparts in the House of Representatives and with the President and his team in putting this together. | ||
| But it draws a stark contrast with what the Democrats want to see. | ||
| And that clearly is a $4.5 trillion tax increase at the end of the year, a lot more government spending, and obviously an open border, which is what we've had for the last four years. | ||
| So we think that the work we're doing is going to draw a clear contrast between us and the Democrats and what the American people, we believe, voted for in November. | ||
| So, question. | ||
| With this text chain, there was some indication that these officials didn't think much of the Europeans of this. | ||
| Doesn't that problem with this antipathy for the Europeans underscore issues for this administration dealing with our allies? | ||
| Well, I mean, I think obviously we're getting to the bottom of what that whole text chain entailed. | ||
| And I think, obviously, people are asking questions and they deserve answers. | ||
| But I think that the United States right now is the recognized world leader. | ||
| And I think the president's moves on the world stage, including the initiative against the Houthis in Yemen, demonstrates that this is a new administration. | ||
| There's a new sheriff in town. | ||
| And at some point, I think the Europeans and all the other countries around the world, whether they like it or not, realize that. | ||
| And I think they have to understand that if they want to have the U.S.'s support, they've got to do their fair share as well. | ||
| And I think that's the message the President has delivered to our European allies. | ||
| And some of them don't like it. | ||
| They've been riding on the U.S. for way too long, and it's time for them to step up and do more. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Doesn't that publicly, though, harm our relationship with them? | |
| Well, any text change that are exchanged privately, I think you have to put that into context for what it is. | ||
| I think you have to look at what the President says and what the people around him are saying on these issues of foreign policy and national security and not text messages that were obviously probably inappropriate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You have a goal of maybe more than a trillion dollars in cuts. | |
| You want to extend the Trump tax cuts. | ||
| Democrats have said that you can't do that without impacting the title programs. | ||
| Can you guarantee at this stage of the negotiations that no one's Social Security benefits will be impacted at the end of this? | ||
| Well, Social Security is not eligible for consideration under reconciliation, so that doesn't get touched. | ||
| And the President has said, made certain statements with respect to Medicare and Medicaid. | ||
| And so as we look at this process, we're going to be looking at where can we find savings that are associated with waste, fraud, and abuse in some of these government programs, notwithstanding what the program is. | ||
| And I think every American expects us to root out. | ||
| If there are programs that people are qualifying for or using or abusing in a fraudulent way, that ought to be, you know, we ought to be taking care of that. | ||
| And I think both Republicans and Democrats and anybody else in this country would agree with that sentiment. | ||
| I think at the end of the day, what is going to happen in reconciliation is we're going to have to figure out how to extend the tax policy. | ||
| And remember, this is extending existing tax policy. | ||
| There's some other things the President wants to do in the context of that, all of which we think will be additive to the economy. | ||
| When the economy is growing and expanding, creating better paying jobs, typically what happens is you get more government revenue, not less. | ||
| In fact, the rule of thumb generally is about for every one percentage increase in GDP, you get an additional $3 trillion in revenue over a 10-year period. | ||
| So growth is the driving, in my view at least, should be the driving motivation when it comes to tax policy. | ||
| And when it comes to deficit reduction, it's trying to get this country on a more sustainable fiscal path. | ||
| We are, you know, if you look at the trajectory right now, it's not sustainable. | ||
| I mean, these deficits, we can't continue this. | ||
| And so we've got to start making some of the hard decisions. | ||
| And I think you need to look at every area of the budget, but bear in mind, obviously, that programs like Social Security and Medicare are incredibly important. | ||
| But even in those areas, if there is waste, fraud, and abuse, then I think those are areas that we ought to be looking at. | ||
|
unidentified
|
One of the great concerns about the signal group chat is that there are mistakes that were made. | |
| So should there be a full Senate investigation into this? | ||
| Would you support the Senate investigation? | ||
| Well, I think that's happening already. | ||
| I think the hearing is still going on. | ||
| Senate Intelligence Committee today. | ||
| I mean, they're up here. | ||
| At least two of the relevant players in that conversation were in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee for a very long period of time in an open setting. | ||
| And my guess is you'll probably, I suspect the Armed Services Committee may want to have some folks testify and have some of those questions answered as well. | ||
| I think everybody has acknowledged, including the White House, that, yeah, mistake for me. | ||
| And what we want to do is make sure that something like that doesn't happen again. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Our budget reconciliation, Bill Hoele, who worked up for many years as a budget staffer, said if you just look at a handful of tax breaks that are important to your small businesses and farmers, bonus depreciation, small business pass-through, a death tax, extending those will cost $3.5 trillion. | |
| It doesn't even come close to what the president wants in lower corporate tax rates and ending tips, taxes on tips, and Social Security. | ||
| He says he just doesn't see how it fits, and he thinks you're going to need an extension, just a straight extension of the 2017 Jobs Cuts and Tax Act. | ||
| Do you disagree with that? | ||
| And if so, how do you see this getting paid for, fitting a square peg into a roundhole? | ||
| Well, I mean, again, you'll have to, and this, forgive me for being kind of playing inside Washington here, but what we are doing by extending existing tax policy is just that. | ||
| You're existing the law, extending the existing law as it has existed for the last eight years, since 2017. | ||
| And so we don't think that that ought to have to be offset or paid for, as you say. | ||
| If you're doing new things, if you're doing things that are creating new tax policy or new spending, then yes, you ought to be looking at offsetting that. | ||
| But a lot of the tax policy we're talking about here, including the programs that you mentioned, whether it's bonus depreciation or interest deductibility or the 199 aid deduction for pass-through businesses, that's an extension of existing tax policy. | ||
| And so you're simply extending what already exists. | ||
| And that doesn't change anything. | ||
| That's basically status quo going forward. | ||
| There are other things the president does want to do in terms of tax policy. | ||
| And as the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee, other committees of jurisdiction look at the broader conversation about reconciliation, obviously we're going to be looking at how we can pay for, offset, find savings and reductions in other areas of the budget as we look at potentially new tax policy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are we still talking about permanence? | |
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| Here's a look at some live coverage coming up today on the C-SPAN Networks. | ||
| First, on C-SPAN, the House is back in session at 10 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Members will be working on legislation to repeal Biden-era energy conservation standards for freezers and fridges. | ||
| Over on C-SPAN 2 at 8 a.m., British Prime Minister Kier Starmer will be fielding questions from the House of Commons as part of his weekly question session. | ||
| And then at 10 a.m., the Senate will be back to continue work on the Trump administration's cabinet nominees. | ||
| And over on C-SPAN 3 at 10, the heads of the FBI, CIA, and the Director of National Intelligence will testify before the House Select Intelligence Committee, where they're expected to field questions on the recent report of a leak of the Trump administration's plans to attack Yemen. | ||
| You can also watch live coverage on the C-SPAN Now app or online at c-span.org. | ||
| American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | ||
| This weekend, at 6 p.m. Eastern, Calvin University art history professor Henry Ludekaisen talks about political cartoonists with a particular focus on Pat Oliphant and his depiction of presidents. | ||
| Then at 7 p.m. Eastern, watch American History TV's series First 100 Days as we look at the start of presidential terms. | ||
| This week, we focus on the early months of President Ronald Reagan's first term in 1981, including the release of American hostages in Iran and the assassination attempt on the president by John Hinckley Jr. on March 30th. |