| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | |
| And then a look at divisions in the Democratic Party and countering the actions of Republicans and the Trump administration with Hawaii Democratic Congressman Ed Case, a member of the Appropriations Committee, and Wisconsin Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany, a member of the Judiciary and Freedom Caucus. | ||
| We'll talk about Republican efforts in Congress to advance the Trump agenda. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| This is The Washington Journal for March 27th. | ||
| The House is in at 9 today, so a two-hour program. | ||
| President Trump and other administration officials spent yesterday pushing back against criticisms from Democrats and some Republicans over information sent over the Signal app. | ||
| President Trump called reporting on it a quote witch hunt while Defense Secretary Wall in Hawaii emphasized that no war plans were texted. | ||
| We'll show you some of the responses from the Trump administration and other officials. | ||
| And for the first half hour, you can comment on the administration's defense of the signal incident. | ||
| Here's how you can let us know by the phones this morning. | ||
| 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents 202748-8002. | ||
| You can text your thoughts at 202-748-8003. | ||
| And you can also post on our social media sites. | ||
| That's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and at C-SPANWJ on X. | ||
| This is the Hill this morning, talking about the responses yesterday from Trump administration officials and others due to the Signal app incident, saying that the White House Wednesday scrambled to contain the controversy of a signal chat among national security officials that became public, opting for a signature-defiant approach, but one that even left some Republicans scratching their heads. | ||
| Goes on to say that officials seized on a headline description of quote attack plans rather than quote war plans, suggesting that slight difference in wording showed the controversy was overblown. | ||
| They also argued no specific names, locations, or sources of intelligence were revealed, although specific military aircraft, weapons, and timings of the strike were laid out. | ||
| It says the publication of the messages and the subsequent response raised difficult questions for the administration and its handling of the entire episode. | ||
| One of the people speaking out directly on this was President Trump in the Oval Office after signing executive orders. | ||
| He was asked about the incident concerning the Signal app. | ||
| Here's his response from yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So what's your response to Republican lawmakers who have said today that your administration should take more accountability and not downplay what's happened with the signal that we've seen in these messages today? | |
| Well, I don't know about downplaying. | ||
| The press upplays it. | ||
| I think it's all a witch hunt. | ||
| That's all. | ||
| I think it's a witch hunt. | ||
| I wasn't involved with it. | ||
| I wasn't there. | ||
| But I can tell you the result is unbelievable because the Houthis are looking to do something. | ||
| They want to know how do we stop, how do we stop, can we have peace? | ||
| The Houthis want peace because they're getting the hell knocked out of them. | ||
| It's been very, very strong. | ||
| The Houthis are dying for peace. | ||
| They don't want this. | ||
| And they're bad. | ||
| Look, they were knocking chips out of the ocean. | ||
| You know, we had in the Suez Canal, they only have about 20% of the ships going through. | ||
| They have to go through a different way, which takes weeks of travel. | ||
| And that really affects commerce. | ||
| But the Houthis have been hit hard and they want to negotiate peace. | ||
| But I don't think they quite. | ||
|
unidentified
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I don't believe it was nothing classified. | |
| It was shared. | ||
| Say it. | ||
|
unidentified
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Do you still believe nothing classified was shared? | |
| Well, that's what I've heard. | ||
|
unidentified
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I don't know. | |
| I'm not sure. | ||
| You'll have to ask the various people involved. | ||
| I really don't know. | ||
| That's the president from yesterday. | ||
| We'll show you more responses from the Defense Secretary and others during this first half hour. | ||
| But if you want to comment on the Trump administration's response to the signal app incident, again, the numbers 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and 202-748-8002 for independents. | ||
| If you want to text us your thoughts, you can do that at 202-748-8003. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal takes a look at some of the text string that was sent out and adding some context, an annotated analysis is what they're calling it. | ||
| One of the contexts they give is the one that says 1215 ET F-18s launched first strike package. | ||
| 1345 trigger-based F-18 first strike window starts. | ||
| Goes on to say that means what the U.S. military wants to hit is where it is supposed to be and the strikes meet civilian casualties mitigation measures. | ||
| The U.S. military likely determined that with drones, this could mean that the U.S. plan is in waves or that the fighter jets are in place to immediately respond should the Houthis try to launch missiles or some counter response. | ||
| This also goes on to say 1410, more F-18s launched. | ||
| That's the second strike package. | ||
| And then at 4.15, strike drones on target. | ||
| And I'll cap saying this is when the first bombs will definitely drop pending earlier, quote, trigger-based targets. | ||
| The annotated version saying this indicates the drones, which are armed, could be participating in that strike. | ||
| And then 1536, F-18 second strike starts. | ||
| Also, first C-based Tomahawks launch, more to follow per timeline. | ||
| We are currently clean on OPSEC is the text. | ||
| The context and annotation saying that this is supposed to indicate that neither the Houthis nor the media learned about this attack beforehand, except for the Atlantic, as it turns out. | ||
| More there from that context given, the annotated analysis of those text messages that were sent yesterday. | ||
| You can give your thoughts on the response from the administration from what you're hearing from yesterday. | ||
| Nicole in Florida, Republican line, you're up first. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| So basically, what I got to say about all this that's going on is welcome to America. | ||
| Welcome to America. | ||
| You know, for the last 10 years, and I think every American can relate to receiving something in the mail about a security breach. | ||
| Signing up for free Equifax, credit monitoring. | ||
| Look at ATT with the 103 million people security breach where all their information was given on the dark web, how they had to pay the FCC $13 million. | ||
| So as a Republican, for what you said, what did you think about the administration's response to this? | ||
|
unidentified
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Bottom line, bottom line, pay your fines, pay your fines, and move on. | |
| Okay, Roy, Roy in Florida, Democrats line, you're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, it's obviously my thing is this. | |
| This has been going on for too long. | ||
| This is like Iraq. | ||
| We're becoming Iraq, the country we invaded, because they lie all the time through their teeth. | ||
| And I'm getting darn sick of it. | ||
| I'm getting sick of walking into Washington restaurants, and everybody hates Trump. | ||
| I'm sick of looking at him sitting on that chair signing away our country every day with that nerd smiling and that Caroline Levitt lying. | ||
| And it just goes on and on and on. | ||
| Well, specifically, what does it mean to the response to the Signal app incident? | ||
| Specifically to that? | ||
|
unidentified
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What's that, sir? | |
| What does it mean specifically to the response the administration's giving on from what went out on signal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, well, what went on on Signal should have never been on an open chat line. | |
| How can they not say that there's nothing wrong with that? | ||
| How? | ||
| How in the world? | ||
| There's lives. | ||
| There's American lives that are over there that are going to get injured or killed because of their asinine response to it. | ||
| Okay, Roy there in Florida, Harry Johnson from Facebook this morning saying great response. | ||
| The reporter held on to what he perceived to be top secret stuff for days so he can plan the release of the info with the national security hearings. | ||
| Clearly, he had ulterior motives, and so he feigned, quote, shock to sensationalize the story. | ||
| The guy will milk it all week, and the Atlantic will go back to reporting on Tesla meltdowns by Monday. | ||
| Belinda Spite from Facebook also saying, never in my 63 years have I heard a U.S. president say, I have no idea you have to ask someone else about a misstep, large or small, in his administration. | ||
| Again, this all tying back to the release of that information on that Signa app. | ||
| The defense secretary in Hawaii being asked about it again while on his trip across the seas. | ||
| Here's his response from yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Now, as I said to this group a couple of times on this trip, now as we move to the Indo-Pacific to do our job, which is what we're here to do, nobody's texting war plans. | |
| Well, I noticed this morning, out came something that doesn't look like war plans. | ||
| And as a matter of fact, they even changed the title to attack plans because they know it's not war plans. | ||
| There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information. | ||
| You know who sees war plans? | ||
| I see them every single day. | ||
| I looked at them this morning. | ||
| I looked at attack plans this morning. | ||
| You know who does attack plans and war plans? | ||
| Men like that admiral right there, Paparo for the Indo-Pacific, or Eric Carrilla, our general in CENTCOM. | ||
| They do attack plans and war plans. | ||
| And thank God we have those leaders who do it and do it well, and our enemies know it. | ||
| My job, as it's said at top of that, everybody's seen it now, team update is to provide updates in real time. | ||
| General updates in real time, keep everybody informed. | ||
| That's what I did. | ||
| That's my job. | ||
| The warfighters will take the fight to the enemy, and I love what they do. | ||
| And with President Trump's leadership, our enemies are on notice. | ||
| We will have peace through strength, and we'll keep putting our troops first. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal's defense national security reporter Alex Ward adds this on his X feed when it comes to the idea of semantics on what was released saying, quote, speaking to military folks all morning. | ||
| Here's the difference per them on, quote. | ||
| war plan versus, quote, attack plan. | ||
| A war plan is the full scope of operation, i.e. the invasion of Iraq or campaign versus ISIS. | ||
| A quote, a tag plan is the acute outline of what will be used to attack targets. | ||
| Some former military officials said attack plans are more sensitive than war plans because they involve tons of specifics and classified details. | ||
| War plans, while important and certainly sensitive, tend to be higher level and far less operational. | ||
| Hope that helps. | ||
| Again, Alex Ward, the National Security reporter for the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| You can give your response to the administration's response to this incident. | ||
| Don, Independent Line in Minnesota, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, this is what happens when you have somebody as Defense Secretary whose incompetence is only exceeded by his arrogance. | |
| Just imagine if there had been the Biden administration as it happened with Tom Cotton and Jim Jordan, they'd be screaming bloody murder. | ||
| This had to be classified at the time, not classified afterwards. | ||
| But I mean, before it was launched and that memo went out, it had to be classified. | ||
| And I don't understand this. | ||
| We got people that Like Kelseph that has weighed in over his head. | ||
| He shouldn't, there's no qualification for him to be defense secretary and some of these other people. | ||
| And I think we're in for trouble if we're going to have people like this. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| From Maryland Democrats line, this is Shay. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can you hear me? | |
| You're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| I think it's, I agree with the last caller. | ||
| We are in a world of trouble. | ||
| You elect a clown. | ||
| You expect the circus. | ||
| But I would like to say, what is the end game for the Republican Party? | ||
| Because eventually the American people are going to wake up. | ||
| And it's only for so much people are going to take. | ||
| The fact that you have a drunk, as in the defense secretary, that has no idea what he's doing. | ||
| You have a Russian asset, as in Tulsi Gabbard, who is highly unqualified for the job. | ||
| It is basically, we have an administration cabinet full of Fox News hosts, propagandists, bigots, racists. | ||
| And, you know, America's going to get what they're going to get. | ||
| You elect a criminal, expect criminal activity. | ||
| Okay, we'll hear from Percy, Lake Worth, Florida, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, yeah, I just want to ask everybody who's listening, screaming their heads off. | |
| And just anybody listening to this news, do you even know what the Signal app is? | ||
| Do you know what it does? | ||
| Because it's a communication app that's encrypted. | ||
| Nobody, if you're not in the Signal chat, you can't see what this is not texting back and forth like normal. | ||
| This is a decrypted app that they're using that even criminals use it to be anonymous. | ||
| So there's no issue here. | ||
| This is just completely blown out of proportion. | ||
| You guys need to calm the heck down. | ||
| Everything's fine. | ||
| This is an encrypted app. | ||
| Look it up. | ||
| Signal, it's a very anonymous encrypted app. | ||
| You can't just go look at it. | ||
| Does that mean it's invulnerable, though, do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, of course it's not invulnerable. | |
| Everything's vulnerable in a way, but it's not like I'm sending it through a text on live, you know, where the NSA or anybody could see it. | ||
| It's encrypted. | ||
| You would have to be able to find the encrypted key in order to read it or be in the group. | ||
| And the reason why this is being blown up is because there was a journalist who snuck their way into the chat and then blew it up. | ||
| That's what's going on right now, guys. | ||
| Wake up. | ||
| You guys need to wake up. | ||
| Okay, let's go to Mark. | ||
| Mark is in Ohio, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yeah, it seems like this journalist, Goldblum, he's after recognition. | ||
| He wants to be in the spotlight. | ||
| How about when Lloyd Austin, the defense minister, no one could even find him? | ||
| Do the Democrats raise anything about him? | ||
| How does that relate to how the administration's responding to this? | ||
| That's the question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the administration has no problem. | |
| I mean, the attack plan was a success. | ||
| It wasn't like the Afghanistan. | ||
| You know, compare that to the Afghanistan withdrawal. | ||
| You know, it just doesn't make sense. | ||
| There's got to be accountability and common sense. | ||
| And the Democrats have neither one of those. | ||
| Mark in Ohio, the German publication der Spiegel with the website on their website, spiegel.de. | ||
| This is the headline. | ||
| Hegseth Waltz Gabbard, private data and passwords of senior U.S. security officials found online. | ||
| They report that private contact details of the most important security advisors to U.S. President Donald Trump can be found on the internet. | ||
| Dur Spiegel reporters were able to find mobile phone numbers, email addresses, and even some passwords belonging to the top officials. | ||
| To do so, the reporters use commercial people search engines along with hacked customer data that's been published on the web. | ||
| Those affected by the leaks include National Security Advisor Mike Walls, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hedseth. | ||
| Most of these numbers and email addresses are apparently still in use, with some of them linked to profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn. | ||
| They were used to create Dropbox accounts and profiles and apps that track running data. | ||
| There are also WhatsApp profiles for the respective phone numbers and even signal accounts in some cases. | ||
| Dur Spiegel is the publication where you can read more of that story if you wish. | ||
| Let's hear from James. | ||
| James is in Virginia. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| As a veteran, air traffic controller, 22 years watching what's happening to our country and the response by the president is a sad state of affairs. | ||
| You're listening to some of the folks calling in, the gentleman from Florida saying that, you know, we need to wake up. | ||
| The problem at Pedro is that as Americans, okay, if you did not serve, chances are you do not take the time to understand how important the security of this nation is. | ||
| Everything that came out in that chat, you may as well have sent that to China, to Russia, all over the world, and just told everybody about what we're about to do. | ||
| It is important that people understand that you cannot take the security of this nation and make it into a game of Republicans against Democrats, blacks against whites. | ||
| It is crazy. | ||
| Our nation is in peril. | ||
| And I said when we did not do something as far as holding President Trump accountable in his first administration, when he took those secrets, that something was going to happen later. | ||
| And my fruition came true. | ||
| Here it is today. | ||
| We are studying, looking at a situation where the highest people in those positions are looking in the camera and telling us that there was nothing that went wrong. | ||
| So had something gone wrong, then what would the excuse be? | ||
| And all the folks that have people that are serving over there, military men and women serving in these areas, know for sure that if something happened, what are they going to say? | ||
| They're going to say, an indebted nation thanks your person for their service. | ||
| And that's not good enough. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So that's James in Virginia. | ||
| Let's go to Al in Georgia, Republican line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Listen, this journalist, what he's involved in, Russia, Russia, Russia scam. | |
| And how did he get in there to hear this? | ||
| Is what I want to know. | ||
| Was it a leak? | ||
| But what do you think about the administration's response to all this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they admitted it was wrong, and they said it wouldn't happen again. | |
| But they didn't say that about the success of the missions that Biden should have took care of in the past. | ||
| But, you know, it's all about trying to destroy Trump because of what he's doing. | ||
| And I just wonder how he got in there to hear it. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Some have called for the Defense Secretary, perhaps even the National Security Advisor, to be removed from their positions. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you think that should take place? | |
| Say that again. | ||
| I couldn't hear you. | ||
| Some have called for the Defense Secretary or the National Security Advisor to be removed from their positions. | ||
| Do you think that should take place? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, if somebody's been killed like 13 years in Afghanistan and say, This is just they'll lose it every way they turn around, all these extremists, and they're going to do anything they can to destroy us. | |
| But you're going to have more Republicans. | ||
| Okay, I will leave you there only because your signal's breaking up. | ||
| But thanks for the call. | ||
| This is the follow-up legally reported by Politico. | ||
| This is the headline, the lawsuit over SignalGate was just assigned to one of President Trump's least favorite judges saying that U.S. District Judge James Boesberg, the object of President Trump's fury for blocking his effort to summarily deport Venezuelan nationals using wartime powers, just got a second crack at the administration's handling of national security, SignalGate. | ||
| He on Wednesday morning was assigned to preside over a lawsuit alleging that Trump cabinet secretaries and national security aides violated federal record-keeping laws when they used a signal chat group to discuss a planned military strike in Yemen and inadvertently included an Atlantic journalist in the group. | ||
| The twist of legal fate arrived as the scandal exploded further with the Atlantic's release of that text exchange. | ||
| It says a spokesman for the judge confirmed the case was assigned to him. | ||
| Though the court's typical random assignment process, there are 20 judges on the federal district court bench in Washington. | ||
| Politico has that story. | ||
| I want to see the legal aspects stemming from this going forward. | ||
| In California, independent line on the Trump administration's response to the chat group leak. | ||
| This is Jimbo. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mr. Atchiberi. | |
| I was just thinking about how far away we've gone from affordable goods and services that got this man elected in the first place. | ||
| But the one thing I wanted to make is that when the single most important qualification to get your job is blind obedience to the commander-in-chief as opposed to expertise, this is the kind of clown car that you get. | ||
| I think of just literally the hundreds of dedicated professionals who have served this country who would be in better place to serve all of us as opposed to these individuals that we have in here right now. | ||
| Well, specifically, what did you think of the response from the administration? | ||
| I thought that had this happened, a previous caller mentioned that had this happened during the previous administration, that heads would be rolling and that people would be fired. | ||
| I think that that is the appropriate statement. | ||
| But despite my dislike for Joe Biden, I do not believe it would have happened under his administration because, again, there was a following of a process that has been in check since World War post-World War II and definitely post-Watergate that placed people in positions of authority based on past practices of being able to handle this kind of authority. | ||
| Clearly, these people are way out of their league. | ||
| Again, when a simpleton from Bakersfield understands that you don't do any of this kind of information transfer without a skiff, unless you want to provide useful information to those who mean us harm, then, again, you're in really, really bad shape. | ||
| Okay, let's hear from Richard in Kentucky, Republican line. | ||
| Hi, you're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a nothing story. | |
| It'll be over today, Pedro. | ||
| You need to look for another job. | ||
| This is a bunch of hooey. | ||
| The president of the United States has things well under control. | ||
| I trust everybody that he has picked to look out for this country because of some goofball from the Atlantic wants to make a name for himself. | ||
| All he had to do was keep it quiet, call Pete Hegseth or whoever, but instead he wants to make a big deal about it. | ||
| Nobody died, but under Joe Biden, they did. | ||
| Well, specifically, tell me why this is a nothing story. | ||
| Oh, yeah, he's gone. | ||
| Let's go to Alberta, Alberta in West Virginia Democrats line on the administration's response to the signal app release. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Yes, I'm just going to make a few statements. | ||
| I want to say little Ponzi scheme stand up, which would be Doge. | ||
| And you know who the rest are, is the Trump administration and his tia cabinet pet and his classroom pet Elon. | ||
| But it is the most incompetent administration ever. | ||
| Well, let's stick to the question at hand as far as the response from the administration on the Signal app. | ||
| What do you think about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it may be encrypted, but even we know that this is a public app, okay? | |
| And therefore, this accessibility, anybody with a low grade can technically get in that system and infiltrate it, just like the whoever else. | ||
| We also know who is on that app, when they are on that app. | ||
| They know exactly when that person leaves that app. | ||
| They also know exactly who anybody can infiltrate it otherwise. | ||
| You know, they're leaving us wide open. | ||
| Seriously, they are not giving us it. | ||
| They're really ready to make us bleed. | ||
| And the other countries, again, we are nothing but a fiasco. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I want to know why we haven't fired him yet. | ||
| That's Alberta there in West Virginia. | ||
| Here's an exchange from the Intelligence Committee hearing that took place yesterday. | ||
| It features Democrat and Air Force veteran Chrissy Houlihan. | ||
| She was questioning the National Intelligence Director, the DNI, the Director of National Intelligence, Telsi Gabbard, on the information that was on the signal chat. | ||
| Here's the exchange from yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because you are the DNI. | |
| You do have an obligation and a responsibility. | ||
| I'm going to speak to you specifically about the fact that you have spent much of your 40 days talking about the importance of making sure that we don't reveal classified information, making sure that we don't leak information. | ||
| You're a former battalion commander in the Army. | ||
| I don't think that you would have necessarily appreciated the kind of leaking of information that I believe absolutely did happen in this signal channel and is worthy of a further investigation. | ||
| In fact, this committee established something called 50 USC 3235A, and this committee on a bipartisan, apartisan basis requires you, the DNI, to swiftly notify Congress and the intelligence committee if you're aware of any sort of significant unauthorized disclosure or compromise of classified information, which I would argue this has all of the markings of being that. | ||
| And so if you as the DNI see such a thing anywhere within your organization's purview, you have the obligation to begin an investigation to report back to us on that. | ||
| Would this seem to qualify to you as something worthy of that investigation? | ||
| Thank you for your question, Congresswoman. | ||
| In this situation, Secretary Hegseth has the classification and declassification over DOD information. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This chat did not have the auspice of being a DOD chat. | |
| There's no such thing as labeling it as DOD. | ||
| This was a chat amongst a great variety of people, and you, according to our law that we passed here bipartisanly, have an obligation when you think there has been a tangible, significant leak of information to instigate an investigation. | ||
| Do you not think it's important to do such a thing? | ||
| The National Security Council is investigating this inadvertent leak. | ||
| And again, I point to Secretary Hegseth as having the classification. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would argue that Secretary Henseth, if he had the dignity that he needs to have, should be walking his resignation in because I believe that his probably is heading toward being relieved of his duty based on what I think are significant and illegal leaks, most likely. | |
| This is Randy, Independent Line. | ||
| He's in Illinois. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning, Pedro. | |
| Could you hear me? | ||
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Yep, we can. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Pedro, I'd like to just say one thing. | |
| When something this big about another country, isn't there such thing as the war room anymore that the president and everybody is rushed into? | ||
| There's like eight or ten people, and they all discuss who's going to get bombed, when and everything, and what kind of equipment and everything like that. | ||
| And everything's secret in that room. | ||
| What happened to the war room, Pedro? | ||
| That's what I'd like to say. | ||
| And how does it relate to the response from the administration? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, see, nothing would have got leaked because everything would have been done after the president sits at the head of that desk and gives the order, okay, bomb it. | |
| And then, but then when they walk out of the war room and everything's over and the country is bombed, okay, it gets to the press then. | ||
| But nothing comes out of that room. | ||
| Randy there in Illinois. | ||
| Let's hear from Jerry in Virginia, Democrats line. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| I believe they were handling it appropriately, but I would like to know something about yours and all the other press and all of the Democrats handling of a story that broke about three days ago that says that Joe Biden routinely had classified information forwarded to his personal email address from Hunter, | ||
| all his foreign business associates, and quite frankly, anyone in the world could read them. | ||
| And as a Democrat, why do you think this is being handled perfectly? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think they're handling appropriately. | |
| They say there was no really big deals, and there wasn't really any war plans discussed. | ||
| What do you think about other Democratic criticism of how that was handled in your party? | ||
| Cola, let me ask you point blank. | ||
| Are you a Democrat? | ||
| Okay, let's move on. | ||
| Let's go to Earl. | ||
| Earl in Idaho, Independent Line, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I'd just like to mention to all of you out there, I mean all of you, loose lips think ships. | ||
| So that's all I got to say, and I'd like to have everyone have a fine day. | ||
| Okay, that's Earl finishing off this half hour of calls. | ||
| Thank you for all who participated. | ||
| The House is in at nine o'clock. | ||
| During the course of the morning, we'll have a chance. | ||
| You'll get a chance to hear from one member of Congress and two members of Congress. | ||
| First, and joining us next, Hawaii Democrat Ed Case. | ||
| He'll discuss not only the events of the last couple of days, but Democratic Party division strategy to counter Republicans and the Trump administration. | ||
| And then later on in the program, we'll talk with Wisconsin Republican Tom Tiffany about Republican efforts to advance the Trump administration agenda. | ||
| Those conversations coming up on Washington Journal. | ||
| UCLA law professor Stuart Banner's book, The Most Powerful Court in the World, is a history of the United States Supreme Court from the founding era to the present. | ||
| In his introduction, Stuart Banner writes that today critics on the left accuse the justices of deciding cases on political rather 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
|
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 Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | |
| BookNotes Plus is available on the free C-SPAN Now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. | ||
| Saturdays, watch American History TV's 10-week series, First 100 Days. | ||
| We explore the early months of presidential administrations with historians and authors and through the C-SPAN archives. | ||
| We learn about accomplishments and setbacks and how events impacted presidential terms and the nation up to present day. | ||
| This Saturday, the first 100 days of Ronald Reagan's presidency in 1981, the former California governor won the White House by defeating President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election. | ||
| He came to Washington with an agenda of cutting taxes and reducing the size and role of the federal government. | ||
| In March of 1981, President Reagan survived an assassination attempt in Washington, D.C. Watch our American History TV series, First 100 Days, Saturday at 7 p.m. Eastern on American History TV on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Our first guest of the morning is Representative Egg Case, a Democrat who serves the state of Hawaii, also a member of the Appropriations Committee. | ||
| Joining us from Capitol Hill, Representative, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and Aloha. | |
| One of the things that you do on that appropriations committee on the subcommittee side of the Defense Subcommittee, with that in mind, how does that shade what you've heard over the last couple of days concerning the signal app? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Clearly, it's of great concern. | |
| Let's just start with some really basic stuff. | ||
| This was clearly classified information. | ||
| You don't put war plans, detailed war plans up anywhere other than in a very protected environment before, during, or after an actual exercise. | ||
| The timing was terrible because it was before, and the enemy could certainly take advantage of that. | ||
| But you don't even do it afterwards. | ||
| It's classified. | ||
| It's supposed to be in a SCIF. | ||
| It's not supposed to be in an open chat room, even a signal chat room that does not protect that information from very, very accomplished adversaries who know how to get after that information. | ||
| And that's why we compartmentalize that. | ||
| That's why it's this way. | ||
| So the basics of what happened were this was classified information and it was inappropriately handled. | ||
| And the response from the Trump administration and other Republicans who have looked at this matter and made comments over the last couple of days, how would you gauge that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they're just trying to gloss it over. | |
| I think they know it was a colossal mistake. | ||
| I think they know that it reflects on one of the fundamental criticisms of this administration's defense and intelligence appointments, which are a lack of knowledge of the subject matter, lack of credibility, the lack of competence. | ||
| So I think they understand that this is more than just an isolated instance. | ||
| It's an actual questioning of the credibility and the competence up to and including the president and his judgments on his appointments. | ||
| And so their response, and I think it's the wrong response under the situation, is to kind of gloss it over and deny it and pretend that there's every reason why this is not a problem. | ||
| And really, what they should really do, and I think they've started to do this a little bit, is to say, look, this is just an outright mistake and we need to review it and there needs to be accountability for it. | ||
| That would be the best way to handle a situation like this. | ||
| Would you go as far as suggest firings of certain personnel? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, I think that's a little premature for my taste. | |
| You know, my instincts in this kind of a situation are to be very careful. | ||
| I think obviously the information that I know of today is compelling for some consequence on the job side up to and including resignation. | ||
| But we don't know yet what we don't know. | ||
| This is an area where there certainly should be a full investigation, full oversight by Congress. | ||
| This is Congress's job to oversee a president, a Defense Department, an intelligence community that has made a mistake or apparently to understand the extent of the problem. | ||
| Why did this happen? | ||
| How much more was going on on Signal over the last couple of months? | ||
| What other classified information is out there and is at risk? | ||
| And who was responsible for that? | ||
| I mean, the military culture is about accountability, and that's what it should be about. | ||
| But what I would want to do is to get all of those facts in place and then make a very informed decision. | ||
| And I think that's important for two reasons. | ||
| First of all, I think it's the right way to handle accountability up to and including resignation and firing, which is a pretty extreme remedy. | ||
| Number two, I think it gives everybody far more credibility in calling for it at the end of the day if you've got a really solid factual base that nobody can really deny. | ||
| You can't get around it. | ||
| You can't deny it. | ||
| The facts are those. | ||
| What is the accountability going to be? | ||
| Numbers on the screen. | ||
| If you want to call and ask our guest questions, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8000-1 for Republicans. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Text us, too, at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Representative, this morning, several stories taking a look at the effort to pass some type of reconciliation bill by April the 7th. | ||
| As an appropriator, what does that mean to you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first of all, I think appropriations are about values at the end of the day. | |
| I mean, we can talk arcane budgets and deficits and debt, all of which are really critical. | ||
| But at the end of the day, what you do with your taxes, what you do with your spending is about your basic value structure. | ||
| And from my perspective, the value structure that is inherent in the reconciliation bills that are moving thus far in Congress don't reflect my values, nor I think my constituents for sure, nor most of the country, which I think wants to relatively have an equal distribution of both the obligations and benefits of democracy. | ||
| And so if you have a reconciliation bill that is really only designed to sustain and extend tax cuts for those in our society who have benefited the most from society on the tax side at the expense of those who have benefited the least from our society over in the spending societies, then I think that's a fundamentally flawed process to start with. | ||
| And so if you want to take it from an appropriations perspective, certainly I would want at the end of the day for the appropriations to be a much fairer distribution of the spending capacity of the Appropriations Committee and of Congress throughout our society. | ||
| Politico has this to say about the process, saying that the way forward will involve the House and the Senate approving a budget resolution that defers to each chamber's respective committees on how much money the panels will need to trim from programs under their purviews. | ||
| This adding that the Senate budget chair Lindsey Graham said there hoped the chambers could vote on a new blueprint as soon as next week reflecting the emerging strategy. | ||
| How does that fit a strategy compared to regular processes including the appropriations process? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well clearly reconciliation when you want to talk about spending reconciliation bills is about usurping the appropriations, the regular appropriations process. | |
| And so clearly as an appropriator I don't believe that that's the right way to go because I think the Appropriations Committee is the proper place to try to allocate the spending of our country across a number of different factors in a fair way. | ||
| And the reason that we have the Appropriations Committee is to do that in an organized central way where we're balancing a lot of interests. | ||
| When you send it out to multiple committees with multiple jurisdictions, you lose control over that central process and it ends up as a pretty chaotic mess. | ||
| And I think that's where we're heading on this particular reconciliation. | ||
| And that's before we get to the actual instructions that have been put out there to date, many of them very, very concerning to me, especially the ones that would trim Medicaid for this country. | ||
| And one quarter of my constituents rely on Medicaid for their basic health care, and that's similar to the rest of the country. | ||
| So I've got a problem with this entire process on the politics of it, on the regular order side of it, from an appropriations perspective, and then from a substance situation. | ||
| I just don't think that this is a fair and values-based approach to our budgeting in this country. | ||
| As a Democrat, as an appropriator, how do you flex your muscle, so to speak, at this point and make your thoughts known on this process? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think the Appropriations Committee has always been rightly very jealous of its jurisdiction because I think that this is how we should handle appropriations and federal spending in our country. | |
| But let's face a real reality here, and that is that in the big picture, in the really big picture of this presidency and this administration, the biggest piece that is lacking right now is an effective check-in balance from Congress, an effective check-in balance. | ||
| Congress's job is to act as an oversight agency over the president, over the federal administration, and to act where necessary as a check-in balance. | ||
| And if Congress fails in that job, then things break loose like what we're seeing right now with overreach, with massive court lawsuits where courts are saying that the administration cannot do what the administration wants to do. | ||
| And so I say that because at the end of the day, although I understand that many of my Republican colleagues who are in the majority on both the Appropriations Committee and throughout Congress, of course, are concerned about this process, are concerned about the usurpation, especially in the Appropriations Committee, Republicans of our jurisdiction. | ||
| Thus far they have chosen not to say no to this president. | ||
| And what I'm waiting for at the end of the day is for some of my Republican colleagues, if not all of them in Congress, to act as an effective check-in balance on this administration. | ||
| That doesn't mean that they don't have to try to advance the policy of the collective Republican Party, but it does mean that they have to fulfill their constitutional duty. | ||
| And until they do that, we're going to continue along the lines that we have right now. | ||
| This is Representative Ed Cage joining us, Democrat from Hawaii. | ||
| He serves on the Appropriations Committee. | ||
| Pamela is up first from Maryland. | ||
| Independent Line, you're on with our guest. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thanks for taking my call. | |
| Quick question. | ||
| I understand that this was an egregious error, and it's absolutely horrible that classified information was shared inadvertently to Jeffrey Goldberg. | ||
| And I very much admire his work and The Atlantic. | ||
| But what do you think of the fact? | ||
| Like, is it an ethical matter by virtue of the fact that they put out to the public the exact wording of the classified text messages? | ||
| You know, I can't get into the mindset of the editor of The Atlantic in terms of why he did do that. | ||
| I would note that he was very cautious in the beginning, and he obviously knew that he was in possession of information that was very, very sensitive. | ||
| And so his disclosure at the beginning was that what that was that there was a signal chat group, group chat going on among the highest levels of our defense and intelligence community that was inappropriate to conduct there. | ||
| But as you recall, he redacted the sensitive information from that so that he took this in stages. | ||
| The next stage he took was after the president and the secretary and the intelligence community said that this information was not classified and there was no risk to national security. | ||
| And I think he rightly at that point concluded that it was important then to disclose that information to basically prove the incredulity credulity of the statements by the administration. | ||
| And I think that was also appropriate because then that put an end to that argument. | ||
| And we can eventually get to the real nub of the question, which is why was sensitive classified information put on a signal group chat outside of all existing protocols for the handling of our national intelligence information by the most senior members of our government. | ||
| So this is not just about Secretary Hagseth. | ||
| This is also about why did you have two of the top officials of our intelligence community on that group chat, and they didn't call that this was a problem either. | ||
| So this accountability is, I think, should be a little bit more widespread than just focusing on a couple of people. | ||
| Roy joins us from Georgia. | ||
| Republican Lying, you're on with our guests. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| I just have three questions. | ||
| My question is this. | ||
| One, is Hoover in the government for the last three years when Biden was incoherent? | ||
| Who ran the government? | ||
| And then another thing I want to know, where was the outcry when we discovered that Biden was hiding classified information in his garage? | ||
| And as far as appropriation, why is it that the federal government is paying Medicare Advantage premium? | ||
| They're paying at least $1,200 for Medicare premium. | ||
| We should really look at that and look at something like Medicare supplement, not Medicare Advantage, because every month the federal government is paying a premium on Medicare Advantage. | ||
| That really needs to be looked at. | ||
| Well, first of all, Roy, thank you for the, I would just simply outright agree with you on the latter one. | ||
| I think anybody that understands Medicare today and understands where Medicare is going and understands that Medicare is heading down a very insolvent path like Social Security, like our federal budget overall, can appreciate what you just said and appreciate that although these are some of the most difficult questions we have in government today, we have to actually get over denial and anger about where they are heading and get to some acceptance and some resolution in a bipartisan fashion. | ||
| So I agree with your general direction on Medicare. | ||
| In terms of President Biden, you know, look, I have listened to the responses to the criticism of the Trump administration. | ||
| I have constituents myself who are very strong Trump supporters. | ||
| I listen to what they say to me. | ||
| And their responses fall into a couple of categories. | ||
| One is a substantive disagreement, which I welcome. | ||
| We should have debates about these very difficult policy questions. | ||
| But another one is simply to say, well, Biden did it or Obama did it or some other Democratic or sometimes Republican president did it, to explain away the consequences of what are going on today. | ||
| And I think that's inappropriate. | ||
| We have to deal with what we have in front of us today in this particular administration, in this particular Congress. | ||
| So I don't think it's an acceptable response to the, in this case, what I think are a violation of clear protocols on intelligence information to claim that somebody else did it and therefore it's okay. | ||
| But if you want to get into the substance, clearly President Biden was thoroughly investigated for the documents that were in his house. | ||
| Clearly he faced some consequences for that. | ||
| And so I think that was the proper way to do it. | ||
| Okay, this is a problem. | ||
| We have to investigate it independently and we have to have some accountability for it. | ||
| I don't think President Biden was incoherent, by the way, for the last three years of his time in office. | ||
| I think I was one of the earliest Democrats to call for him not running for reelection. | ||
| So I felt that he should not have run for another term. | ||
| So I agree with that, but I don't agree with your premise there. | ||
| Peter is in Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| I am tired of all this spin from both Democrats and Republicans where neither side can do anything wrong and that all they do is condemn the other side when they mess up. | ||
| I would love to see Musk get Democrats to look at actual inefficiency. | ||
| I don't think that there's a single Democrat out there who supports government inefficiency. | ||
| I don't think there's a single Republican who supports violations of our national security. | ||
| But rather than try to hide behind it, let's just admit we both make mistakes and let's work together to solve our problems. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| First of all, I will admit that we both make mistakes and I will completely endorse your view that we should work together to solve our problems. | ||
| I am a member, in fact, the vice chair of a very unique group within the U.S. House of Representatives called the Problem Solvers Caucus, which we started some years ago because we shared the frustrations that you just gave a very good voice to. | ||
| And our caucus is designed to, and does, in fact, work on getting out of the spin zone and getting into a room together to try to solve problems. | ||
| It's a problem solvers caucus. | ||
| Check us out. | ||
| We have worked very successfully on some very, very knotty issues, such as the debt ceiling, such as the federal budget, such as immigration. | ||
| We are currently working on the same issues to include national defense. | ||
| This is a caucus that is, by rule, has to have an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, and we function under rules that require us to maintain confidentiality, to have those honest discussions. | ||
| And so we are trying to keep the light open, so to speak, while all around us is swirling in the spin zone. | ||
| And so I agree with you on that. | ||
| And so I don't want you to leave you with the impression that your sentiment, which I think is shared by most Americans. | ||
| Most Americans are disgusted with the political debate. | ||
| Most Americans do not believe either party has all the answers or is moving towards reasonable common sense solutions. | ||
| And I share that. | ||
| I share that view. | ||
| And so I want to leave you with the impression that what you say is a sentiment that is shared widely, but we're trapped in a zone here that is very difficult to escape in a highly toxic environment. | ||
| And it takes some courage, in all honesty, for people to break out of that zone to start talking in the way that you and most Americans want us to talk. | ||
| Congressman Politico just reported on a recent Quinnipiac poll, taking a look at a lot of things. | ||
| But one of the things they did highlight is that from the poll, 40% of Democrats approving the job performance of the congressional Democrats compared to 49% who disapproved. | ||
| That's a dramatic change from this time last year when 75% of Democrats approved compared to just 21% of who disapproved. | ||
| What do those numbers mean to you as a Democrat? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think both parties have very deep divisions right now. | |
| The Republican Party's divisions are obscured by a desire to walk in lockstep with the president for now, but that doesn't reflect what's actually going on inside the Republican Party, which is really kind of a mirror image of what's going on inside the Democratic Party, which are competing visions for how to proceed, how to articulate what the American people want. | ||
| And so I think both parties are not held in good favor. | ||
| And I think you'll see those poll numbers just kind of flip back and forth depending on what's going on in the world and the country at any one time. | ||
| But if you dig underneath those polls, it's fundamental dissatisfaction with the performance of both parties. | ||
| And Congress, of course, as an institution is held in pretty low esteem, which I feel very personally about since I'm a member of Congress. | ||
| And so I think we all have to get back to talking about the issues that the American people are concerned about, which frankly we haven't been doing. | ||
| We haven't been talking about what's actually happening in the family budget. | ||
| We haven't been talking about what's actually been happening at the kitchen table, in school, with our health care. | ||
| These are concerns that everyday Americans care about. | ||
| I think for the Democrats, we certainly have not been talking about some of the things that Americans care about, such as immigration. | ||
| And to the earlier caller, I would say that I'm not one of those that says everything that my Republican colleagues or that my president do is wrong. | ||
| I think he's made good solid moves on immigration. | ||
| I think that the discussion of the legitimate discussion of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government is a legitimate discussion. | ||
| If it's, though, used to mask a fundamental destruction of the federal government, that's a different story. | ||
| But I welcome that discussion. | ||
| And so, you know, fundamentally, we all have a problem of credibility with the American people today. | ||
| If Doge cuts are incorporated or codified into legislative text, is that something you can support? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it depends on what it is. | |
| I would love to have a reasoned, inclusive, deliberate discussion of the size and cost and core functions of the federal government. | ||
| I think that debate is overdue. | ||
| In fact, I think that debate is absolutely necessary, especially when you consider the crisis that nobody wants to talk about, which is the crisis of our federal debt and our federal deficit, which is just tanking. | ||
| And so obviously, if you're going to have an honest discussion of that issue, you have to talk about both revenues and expenses. | ||
| This is no different than a family budget. | ||
| If you've got a family budget that's tanking, you've got to go on the income side and the expense side. | ||
| How do you deal with your income? | ||
| Where is it coming from? | ||
| How do you deal with your expenses? | ||
| What do you have to do? | ||
| What is just like to do versus have to do? | ||
| These are discussions that we have to have now. | ||
| And so if this administration, if my Republican or Democratic colleagues want to have an honest discussion about this, and by the way, I and other members of Congress, including Republicans, have legislation proposed to get us into this honest discussion, then I welcome that. | ||
| I just don't trust the Doge process because I don't think that its real motivation is waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| I think its real motivation is to destroy large parts of the federal government. | ||
| It's one thing to improve the federal government. | ||
| It's another thing to destroy it. | ||
| So that's perhaps the cause for the reaction of some people who would take a more reasonable and practical and problem-solving approach, such as me, because we doubt the basic motives of the exercise. | ||
| Representative A. Case joining us for this conversation, Democrats Line. | ||
| This is from North Carolina. | ||
| James, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I got a question for the Congressman. | ||
| You know, every year you put $20 billion into the budget for the oil companies, which they don't need. | ||
| You give $50 billion to Elon Musk for his SpaceX and all this other stuff, right? | ||
| So I don't know what it is. | ||
| By the time you add up all this stuff, you probably put a couple hundred billion dollars from all these special people. | ||
| How come no Democrat has ever insisted that we match that with money for the Social Security Trust Fund? | ||
| Instead, we get vague promises about, oh, no, we've got a commission looking into that. | ||
| We're going to look into that. | ||
| We're going to shore up the Social Security Trust Fund. | ||
| We're going to do all this stuff. | ||
| But it never happens. | ||
| So what if you just insist that, for the Democratic side, you match all this and put that same amount of money into the Social Security Trust Fund that we can somehow afford to give to Elon Musk and the oil companies? | ||
| That's a good question. | ||
| Well, thank you very much. | ||
| Well, first of all, I acknowledge that both sides of your equation are legitimate issues. | ||
| I don't agree as a matter of policy with incentivizing the fossil fuel industry. | ||
| I don't think that that's proper public policy given the direction that we should go and I think must go in this country towards alternative energy as opposed to incentivizing fossil fuel. | ||
| We want to be incentivizing a transfer from fossil fuel. | ||
| And I also do not agree with special tax credits and other use of your tax dollars to help those in our country who, like Mr. Musk, who least need it. | ||
| Now, I don't have at all any kind of a problem with the judicious use of federal tax dollars to incentivize industries to develop. | ||
| So that's not the issue. | ||
| The issue is the capture of our federal government by interests for their benefit, for their own benefit, that don't have really the needs that are required for our country. | ||
| Now, on the Social Security Trust Fund, and I don't think that just because we're doing it over here on this side, we should also have a corresponding result over here to Social Security. | ||
| But I agree with you very, very much that, and I've already said it, that our Social Security system is in trouble. | ||
| It is on a path to insolvency. | ||
| It is on a path to an automatic reduction of benefits if corrective action is not taken by early in the 2030s. | ||
| And that's not me talking. | ||
| That's the Social Security trustees themselves. | ||
| And so like others in Congress, I would like to have an honest discussion about how we improve, sustain, and save Social Security, not just for this generation, which is not really the problem, but for the next generations. | ||
| And that conversation is very difficult because anytime anybody like me says, let's talk Turkey about Social Security and how to fix it, which requires some very tough problems, then everybody comes down on you like a pile of everything saying, well, there's not really a problem. | ||
| It's a denial response as opposed to let's get to resolution as fast as possible. | ||
| So you're right on both counts, but I don't conflate them. | ||
| Let's hear from Glenn. | ||
| He's in Pennsylvania, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How you doing? | |
| I like the means this representative that's in an old Democrat Hawaii, he's so used to just getting re-elected because it's an old demon. | ||
| I don't think he would get re-elected in a swing state. | ||
| But my question is, means you're so fair as to say all these, that the cabinet should be fired. | ||
| How many generals did he say should be fired two days after the Afghan withdrawal? | ||
| And when Joe Biden, when Hearst said Joe Biden was crazy and couldn't go to trial, did this representative say then we got to get this nutcase out of here? | ||
| And he's saying it all Democrat talking points. | ||
| He already said tax cuts for rich. | ||
| You know what you got to bring up? | ||
| You forgot the Republicans want to slag Social Security. | ||
| Remember that talking point. | ||
| You've got to get that in there. | ||
| Okay, Glenn, thank you. | ||
| You got your point across. | ||
| We'll let our guests respond. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, well, you've got a lot of issues there. | |
| And first of all, I guess I'm happy with the district that I have for being elected and re-elected. | ||
| And obviously, my allegiance and obligations flow to my constituents. | ||
| And I will rest by their judgments. | ||
| I try to say what I believe, and I try to solve problems. | ||
| And thus far, that's been okay with them. | ||
| I didn't call, by the way, for the firing of any cabinet members in my comments earlier. | ||
| It may be appropriate at some point, but I'm trying to take a little bit more of a cautious and deliberate approach to that, which I think you would probably agree with. | ||
| I'm going to cut to the Social Security side of it because to me, again, I would say that if anybody wants to work on saving Social Security over time, which is one of the key social programs of our federal government on which literally hundreds of millions depend for their basic livelihood, then we ought to have that honest conversation now. | ||
| And the way to do that is not, in my mind, to slash the Social Security workforce by thousands and thousands of workers. | ||
| This has a real result out there. | ||
| If we're so keen on saving Social Security, then why do we have a quasi-federal government effort that is reducing the Social Security workforce? | ||
| I have constituents now who are having trouble getting answers on their basic benefits that they've worked all their life for. | ||
| So I'm not going to apologize for questioning and criticizing the reduction in the Social Security Administration, which critically needs people to deliver Social Security benefits to their country. | ||
| And that is, in fact, part of making Social Security better. | ||
| So don't talk to me about making Social Security better if you're actually crippling its ability to deliver the benefits to Americans. | ||
| Representative Case, before we let you go, two quick questions. | ||
| If I'm correct, you were one of 10 Democrats who voted for the censure resolution against Al Green. | ||
| There's a current effort on Capitol Hole now from some Republicans to enforce a censure resolution against Jasmine Crockett for a comment she made about the Texas governor. | ||
| Do you think there are parallels there? | ||
| Do you think that's going to go forward? | ||
| And if it does, where's your mind at as far as that's concerned? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, my vote on my colleague Representative Green, of course, was a very difficult vote, but I felt that what was at stake there was the actual functioning of Congress. | |
| It is not just a matter of decorum and a matter of proper etiquette and all that kind of stuff. | ||
| No, this is about whether Congress can function. | ||
| And in a time like this in our country, where the stresses and strains on our basic foundations of government are very, very severe, we have to have a functioning democracy, and that has to equate to a functioning Congress. | ||
| And that's why I voted to censure Rep Green. | ||
| Now, Rep Crockett or anybody else, I mean, frankly, there's all kinds of censure stuff floating around nowadays. | ||
| And I try to take a deliberate approach. | ||
| Let's stop, let's look, let's listen, let's analyze what happened, why it's important. | ||
| Is it an appropriate view avenue for censure or some other action? | ||
| I think the distinction, though, with Rep Crockett and Rep Green is that in Rep Crockett's case, first of all, she's not on the floor of the U.S. House. | ||
| So it's not as if the U.S. House is not functioning because she's there or not there. | ||
| She's obviously not on the floor of the U.S. House. | ||
| It's not an official congressional debate, number one. | ||
| And number two, it gets to free speech as opposed to actual actions that disrupt the functioning of Congress. | ||
| And I've been very, very reluctant to have a congressional reprimands or censure in a situation where a member is exercising free speech, especially outside of the Capitol. | ||
| I think that's a dangerous precedent for us to set. | ||
| And real quick, before I let you go, recent legislation from you concerning the coral reef in Hawaii. | ||
| What's it about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, our world's oceans are in deep trouble across the globe. | |
| This is not a national issue. | ||
| This is an international issue. | ||
| This is a consequence of many things. | ||
| But the functional reality is that if you take a look at our environment and natural resources concerns, the oceans are often overlooked. | ||
| And one of the key problems there is the degradation of our coral reefs. | ||
| And so this bill gets at trying to preserve our coral reefs. | ||
| Representative Ed Case, Democrat from Hawaii, a member of the Appropriations Committee. | ||
| Thanks for your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks so much, Mahalo. | |
| Coming up, we're going to let you call in in Open Forum. | ||
| And during that, we'll also have a chance to talk with Representative Tom Tiffany, Wisconsin Republican. | ||
| But if you want to participate in Open Forum, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Go ahead and start calling. | ||
| We'll take those calls when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
C-SPAN's student camp competition challenged middle and high school students nationwide to create documentaries with messages to the new president. | |
| Our panel of judges evaluated over 1,700 thought-provoking student films on their use of multiple perspectives. | ||
| C-SPAN awarded $100,000 in total cash prizes, and our grand prize of $5,000 goes to Dermot Foley, a 10th grader from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. | ||
| Congratulations to all our winners. | ||
| The top 21 winning entries will air on C-SPAN starting April 1st. | ||
| You can also watch all the award-winning documentaries anytime at studentcam.org. | ||
| C-SPAN, bringing you democracy, unfiltered. | ||
| 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 Hinkley Jr. on March 30th. | ||
| At 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures in History, Santa Clara University art history professor Andrea Pappas on the mid-19th century American landscape painting movement known as the Hudson River School. | ||
| And at 9.30 p.m. Eastern on the presidency, Court of Oakland retired CEO Walter Abernathy recounted the storied history of the USS Potomac. | ||
| Franklin Roosevelt used the yacht throughout his presidency, including to arrange a clandestine meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. | ||
| After FDR's death, the Potomac had a colorful history and is now a National Historic Landmark docked in Oakland, California. | ||
| Exploring the American story, watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Again, this is the part of the program we call Open Forum. | ||
| And if you want to participate and talk about matters of politics, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| And Independence, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We will keep going until 9 o'clock when the House of Representatives is set to come on in. | ||
| Bill in Maryland, Independent Line starts us off. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| You had listening to Representative Case. | ||
| He said he's on the Appropriations Committee. | ||
| Sounded like he was concerned with the realities the budget facing with Social Security and everything. | ||
| He's a Democrat. | ||
| He's talking about how, you know, laying off members of the Social Security system, Social Security Administration is going to affect the, I mean, and the affect the Social Security outcome. | ||
| The reality is we're bankrupt. | ||
| And Democrats throughout the years and Republicans, I'm an Independent, have ignored this issue. | ||
| I've been following politics since I was a teenager. | ||
| I just turned 62. | ||
| For the last 20 years or more, they're saying if we don't address this issue, it's going to be too late. | ||
| We are at the end of the line. | ||
| And the Democrats are still pointing the fingers at the Republicans. | ||
| Every time they talk about cutting this or cutting that, they're like, grandma's going to be pushed over the cliff. | ||
| And there is no effort at all on the Democrats' part to address the fundamental issue that we're bankrupt. | ||
| We're passing this debt on to future generations. | ||
| It's immoral. | ||
| And the real question I had for the congressman is, he talked about values. | ||
| How can you allow the budget to blow it, the debt, the balloon, and say you have morals and values that you're concerned about? | ||
| We are paying a trillion. | ||
| Okay, let's go to Mark. | ||
| Mark in New York, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Good morning, Pedro. | ||
| A few thoughts on my mind. | ||
| I think it's very strange that out of all the reporters and journalists in America, that one of President Trump's and the administration's enemies, progressives, wind up with this information. | ||
| I think it's really important that the administration has to use, find out how he got it and go after the person who actually leaked the information. | ||
| You know, that's my thought this morning. | ||
| And yes, they made a mistake. | ||
| And whoever, he should be punished for making a mistake in such an important issue. | ||
| But the story's not over. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| It has to be taken to the end. | ||
| Mark there in New York. | ||
| Again, two calls in on Open Forum. | ||
| You can add yours to the Mexic 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| Independence, 202748-8002. | ||
| Texas, if you want, 202748-8003. | ||
| If you're calling in, go ahead and continue to call. | ||
| If you're on hold, stay hold for just a few minutes. | ||
| We will take a few minutes to talk with Representative Tom Tiffany, Republican from Capitol Hill. | ||
| He serves the state of Wisconsin, serves on the Judiciary and Natural Resource Committee. | ||
| Representative Tiffany, good morning. | ||
| Thanks for calling for being on the program today. | ||
| Yeah, good morning, Pedro. | ||
| When it comes to the signal app, you've heard a lot from the administration yesterday as far as if it was classified, if it was not, where they were plans, were they not. | ||
| What's your sense on all of that the day after? | ||
| So I think they should seek accountability. | ||
| I mean, in particular, Michael Waltz should answer for how this happened. | ||
| And knowing the president's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, she's going to get to the bottom of this and figure out what happened. | ||
| And I think the important thing is from what I've heard, the latest information, the Director of National Intelligence said none of our intelligence was compromised in regards to this. | ||
| And they also had a successful outcome with the attack on the WHO thieves. | ||
| When you talk about Mr. Walter, the National Security Advisor, accountability is one thing. | ||
| Would you go as far as resignation at this point? | ||
| No, I mean, somebody makes a mistake. | ||
| I mean, I think I was a small business owner for 20 years. | ||
| That's not the first thing you do unless it's a catastrophic mistake. | ||
| This has not been a catastrophic mistake, but there should be accountability and make sure it doesn't happen again. | ||
| Well, I know you don't serve on the direct committees, but as far as the fact that it happened in the first place, does it suggest as far as issues or concerns with the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth? | ||
| Yeah, I'm not concerned about Secretary Hagseth. | ||
| I think he's going to take care of his job here. | ||
| I think it's also important to remember here, how did the Houthis get armed in such a way that they're able to threaten trade through the Gulf like that? | ||
| And it's because of sanctions being taken off from Iran by the previous administration, and they've had the money to be able to buy that weaponry. | ||
| Iran is, just as they've armed Hamas, Hezbollah, they've also done it with the Houthis. | ||
| And I think the administration has a good plan going forward, deal with this issue, move on. | ||
| Representative Tiffany, you serve on the Judiciary Subcommittee when it comes to immigration and citizenship. | ||
| The president yesterday signing an executive order requiring proof of citizenship in voting. | ||
| What do you think of that move? | ||
| Yes, I think that's a common sense measure. | ||
| And I think, I mean, this is one of those that's an 80% issue where most Americans go, yeah, you should have to be a citizen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You should prove yourself a citizen in order to be able to vote. | |
| What does it compromise or do you think it will keep some people from voting? | ||
| It may keep some people who are here illegally from voting, which is exactly what should happen. | ||
| So, no, prove your citizenship and you'll be able to vote. | ||
| When it comes to issues with immigration overall, we heard from the administration in its initial days about efforts to deport and how many people were rounded up. | ||
| I don't know if we hear as much of that today, but what's your sense when it comes to deportations from the Trump administration? | ||
| Where are we at now, two months into the administration? | ||
| There's no doubt that these activist judges have slowed things down a little bit as far as the deportations. | ||
| I mean, we had a mass importation program over the last four years, over 10 million people. | ||
| We can do a mass deportation program. | ||
| And it is the height of absurdity that you have a circuit court judge that says to a plane load of violent criminals being returned to their home country, saying to the administration, you've got to turn that plane around and bring them back to America. | ||
| I mean, that's a judge that has clearly exceeded his authority. | ||
| When it comes then to the president, the administration using the Alien Enemies Act as a means to make that happen, was that an appropriate move, and why do you think that? | ||
| Yeah, I mean, if you go all the way back to the founding, I mean, James Madison said in the Constitution that the executive has sole authority to repel an invasion, and that was upheld in 1948 by the United States Supreme Court. | ||
| I don't know what a lowly circuit court judge doesn't understand about something that's contained in the Constitution, upheld in a Supreme Court decision decades ago. | ||
| Then are there other means, say, if it's not going to be from the act itself, could the administration go ahead and remove, say, Venezuelans from other means and continue on on that route? | ||
| And why not that route? | ||
| Yeah, I'm sure they're researching how to go about that. | ||
| But if I'm the administration, I'm contesting this all the way to the Supreme Court. | ||
| This goes to the fundamental issue of the separation of powers. | ||
| The judiciary in this case is overstepping their authority. | ||
| You have a circuit court judge who is acting as a king. | ||
| As far as the judge himself, some calls for impeachment, the president including, where do you stand on that? | ||
| Well, I think next week we're going to take a different approach on the House floor where we're going to take up the Rogue Rulings Act where we're going to try to limit what these rulings can affect. | ||
| It only will be germane to that particular case. | ||
| I'm hoping we're going to hit somewhat of a middle ground here that may be acceptable over in the Senate to be able to get past cloture, to be able to send a message to the courts that, you know, we don't want to use impeachment on judges. | ||
| You know, Justice Roberts expressed concern about that. | ||
| You know, we don't want to go there, but there has to be some accountability for these rogue judges. | ||
| And could you elaborate on what a middle ground would look like? | ||
| There's headlines even yesterday, Speaker Johnson himself saying about the congressional authority over federal courts. | ||
| Well, I think everything should be on the table, but let's start with saying to these judges that your decision is going to be only germane to what was filed in this case, that you don't get this blanket authority to have a restraining order or an injunction that is nationwide. | ||
| If that goes forward, and even Speaker Johnson saying they have some authority, does it become a separation of powers issues, do you think? | ||
| It perhaps could. | ||
| How so? | ||
| So we have the ability in Congress to be able to set the conditions for the judiciary. | ||
| The problem we have at this point is that the judiciary with judges like Bossberg, they're exceeding their authority. | ||
| They're trampling on the Article II reservations for the executive branch. | ||
| And I suppose then, going back to your original point, legislatively, that's how you want to work it out, work through this, a hearing set for next week. | ||
| How long do you think before we see some text or efforts to further flesh out what you'd like to see? | ||
| I think this is going to be ongoing. | ||
| We in the Judiciary Committee take this very seriously. | ||
| There have been issues with Congressman Republicans in some cases when it comes to the issue of town halls. | ||
| Where do you stand on that? | ||
| Oh, we should be doing town halls. | ||
| I mean, I'm not going to speak for my colleagues. | ||
| There's a lot of different ways, a myriad of ways in which we communicate with our constituents. | ||
| I mean, I think about, in my case, we do teletown halls. | ||
| We have a newsletter that has nearly 50,000 subscribers. | ||
| There's a whole, of course, there's social media. | ||
| We have all these different ways that we communicate with people, and town halls are just one of them. | ||
| I did seven in-person town halls just two months ago, and I'll continue to do them. | ||
| Will you do them in person? | ||
| Oh, yeah, we did seven in person two months ago, and I'll continue to do in-person town halls. | ||
| Oh, the only reason I ask is that you've probably seen at your local television station there in Wisconsin, one of them with some constituents outside your office saying we want a town hall with Tom Tiffany, some holding signs. | ||
| You've probably seen that story. | ||
| What's your response to that? | ||
| Well, first of all, they were all allowed to come up to my office on the second floor and express their concerns. | ||
| So we took their input. | ||
| But the second thing is they need to subscribe to the Tiffany Telegram. | ||
| Then they would know when we have these town halls. | ||
| They could have showed up two months ago when we had seven of them across the district. | ||
| For those who went up to your office or those you've heard otherwise, what's the main concern they're expressing, say, when it comes to Elon Musk efforts and Doge efforts? | ||
| Is that the main concern or what other things are they talking to you about? | ||
| Yeah, that's the big thing. | ||
| That's the talking point on the left at this point. | ||
| That for some reason, they don't like that Doge is getting to the waste fraud and abuse that is just rampant in the federal government. | ||
| And would you see, I know that you're on judiciary, but there is an effort to codify those in legislation. | ||
| Do you think that's going to be, do you think that's going to happen ultimately? | ||
| Codify what? | ||
| Clarify a question. | ||
| As far as making Doge cuts from suggestions from Elon Musk, putting them in legislative text, letting Congress vote on those cuts. | ||
| Yeah, we should certainly review all of the actions that Doge is taking because, I mean, ultimately, it's up to us with the power of the purse to decide whether we're going to fund this stuff. | ||
| We should see what they are doing, but it's up to us in Congress with the appropriations process to remove some of that spending that is inappropriate. | ||
| This is Representative Tom Tiffany. | ||
| He serves the state of Wisconsin. | ||
| He is a member of the Judiciary Committee, the Natural Resources Committee, as well, and also a member of the Freedom Caucus. | ||
| Representative Tiffany, thanks for your time. | ||
| Good to join you this morning, Pedro. | ||
| Again, we will continue on with open forum. | ||
| And if you want to participate, we will go on till 9 o'clock: 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you want to post on social media, you can do that at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| You can also do that on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Oscar in North Carolina, Republican line, back on this open forum. | ||
| Oscar, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Am I on the air, Pedro? | |
| You are. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I'm an 88-year-old military retiree. | ||
| I spent 25 years of service from 55 to 80. | ||
| And so I know a lot about the Army. | ||
| Now, all this stuff about this nefarious phone call the other day that shouldn't have been heard by anybody. | ||
| Now, this guy Goldberg that reported on it, when he heard that classified stuff, supposedly, he shouldn't have ran straight to the tap radar and tapped out a sensational story on it. | ||
| He should have called the Pentagon and said, I think I've got something here I shouldn't have. | ||
| That would have been the American thing to do. | ||
| And as far as Pete Hedge goes, I would have given anything to had him for a commander in Vietnam. | ||
| I spent a year in Vietnam in the 60s. | ||
| It was not pleasant, but he would have been the type of man that I would follow anywhere because he's young enough to get out there with you, lead you. | ||
| Okay, let's go to Jack. | ||
| Jack in Independent Line in Florida. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning, Pedro. | ||
| Good morning, C-SPAN. | ||
| These people that you just had on this morning, they want, oh, we can work together. | ||
| Trump has never worked with anybody. | ||
| He'll take you to court in a New York minute if he had to. | ||
| Anyway, that's all he knows is confusion and chaos. | ||
| And it's very, very sad. | ||
| I feel very down because of what's happening to the people of the United States. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| He'll take you to court. | ||
| That's what he likes to do. | ||
| That's Jack. | ||
| Just to point you to the Atlantic story, to the caller's first point about reaching out to various officials. | ||
| It was in that follow-up story where the Atlantic published that yesterday we asked officials across the Trump administration if they objected to us publishing the full text in emails to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, and the White House. | ||
| We wrote in part, quote, in light of statements today from multiple administration officials, including before the Senate Intelligence Committee, that the information the signal chain was about about the Houthi strike was not classified and that it does not contain war plans. | ||
| And that's in quotes, the Atlantic is considering publishing the entire of the single chain. | ||
| We sent out the first request for comment and feedback to national security officials shortly after noon and followed up in the evening after most failed to answer. | ||
| Again, that was in that follow-up story that The Atlantic published that you've heard about and seen this week. | ||
| You can comment on that and other issues of politics when it comes to open forum. | ||
| Let's go to Jacob here in D.C., Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, hi. | |
| Yeah, I actually wanted to stay on the signal chat and just kind of make the point that, you know, I'm a Democrat, but I'm able to see that the people in this chat, including Walt, who I guess was like a Cheney guy and has been in the military circles for quite some time. | ||
| These are not unqualified people who felt comfortable using the Signal chat. | ||
| So I think that the issue is less like personalized and polarized as these people making a mistake is that the fact that this seems like the standard order of business that they'd use signal in this way. | ||
| And obviously, it was a journalist that got added, and we don't want that. | ||
| But I think that the conversation should be more a question of why this is the normal practice as opposed to, you know, these people making a mistake. | ||
| And there should obviously be a secure way for them to chat in this way. | ||
| So you have the guy in the problem solvers talk on earlier, and I think that they should take a look at that because the Pentagon is no shortage of money. | ||
| I mean, I mean, they really shouldn't be using Signal in this way, but I don't think that it's a partisan issue or that these people were necessarily foolish. | ||
| I think that there's a systems issue here. | ||
| William in Maryland, Republican line. | ||
| William in Maryland, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, well, I recognize the importance, you know, and I'm all for the security of classified material. | |
| There's so many lies being pushed around. | ||
| I sometimes wonder what's true and what isn't. | ||
| And I remember, you know, when Hillary Clinton was the head of the State Department and she had unsecured servers in her bathroom. | ||
| I don't recall hearing Chuck Schumer or anybody else setting their hair on fire over that. | ||
| Kinnish joins us from South Carolina. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Democrats line, you're next. | |
| Yes, I'm calling. | ||
| Well, I'm a veteran for lying. | ||
| And the things that I see that's going on, this country is so divided and so separated to us and seen. | ||
| I mean, we all have children in the military throughout this world is fighting to protect us. | ||
| When are we going to start fighting to protect them? | ||
| Because as a veteran, I've been to war, I've come home, and the only fighting that I've had to do is for my benefits, for my disabilities. | ||
| But the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, each one of them are always faith. | ||
| They support the troops. | ||
| You know, and just staying with the videos, everyone in their hearts know that that was wrong. | ||
| And all this White FYF and all this Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, I mean, that was 40 years ago almost. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bringing that up. | |
| Kinish in South Carolina joining us. | ||
| One of the things to look out for on the networks today, C-SPAN 3 specifically, is a hearing taking a look. | ||
| It's with the NTSB taking a look at that DC air collision that you heard about in the news in the past months. | ||
| This morning, it's the National Transportation Safety Board chair, Jennifer Homity. | ||
| She'll answer questions on the preliminary report into the deadly helicopter plane collision that took place in January near Washington, D.C. | ||
| This will be before the Senate Transportation Subcommittee. | ||
| That hearing live at 10 o'clock this morning. | ||
| You can see that on C-SPAN 3, our free video app at C-SPAN now. | ||
| And you can also follow along at the website at c-span.org. | ||
| Let's hear from Art, Arts in California, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I'm calling about my concerns here in California, the state of criminal justice, the Constitution, protections and privileges, and particularly the Bill of Rights, and concern my local jurisdiction. | ||
| I'm witnessing firsthand criminal justice in 2025. | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
| I don't know, but I can. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So there's a hearing in my local jurisdiction, but it's more or less going to be a kangaroo court. | ||
| I'm a victim, a sole victim of a career criminal who's constantly being released and reoffending. | ||
| And he's got a record, and it continues prior to me and continues after. | ||
| He's allowed to victimize people before and after. | ||
| And this hearing today is, I'm asking for justice, and I expect none. | ||
| This is what it is now. | ||
| The Constitution doesn't exist in this state, more or less. | ||
| It's a very different state than the other 49, most of the other 49. | ||
| That's why we had an election. | ||
| And I'm concerned about that. | ||
| I guess this is not a back and forth question and answer. | ||
| I don't know how much time I have, and you have a guest in the moment. | ||
| Well, this is open forum. | ||
| We'll let what you said stand. | ||
| Let's hear from Jennifer. | ||
| Jennifer in Pennsylvania, Republican line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Thanks for taking the time to do this call. | ||
| I just want to say that I think that what happened with the texting in terms of this particular coute action that the Republicans have taken, I think it should be taken very seriously. | ||
| We have our troops and soldiers at risk when things like this are leaked. | ||
| I think that someone should get to the bottom of it. | ||
| It shouldn't be a Democrat or Republican issue. | ||
| It should just be an American issue where we protect our soldiers. | ||
| That information should be highly taken highly seriously. | ||
| And that's one comment I want to make. | ||
| The other comment I want to make is that in terms of the ICE, you know, anyone that's in the country illegally, we have laws that basically deal with that. | ||
| I think those laws should be followed to the letter. | ||
| We don't want, when we travel abroad, we don't want someone just snatching Americans off the street and treating them, mistreating them. | ||
| So I think America should think about that when they're, we want immigration, but we want it done by the letter of the law. | ||
| At least I know I would like to see that because I don't want someone, my family going somewhere and then they get snatched off the street and treated a certain way. | ||
| So Americans feel like this is fine, but I think that it's a slippery slope. | ||
| And I just want America to go by the law, the letter of the law when we're dealing with this. | ||
| Thank you so much for giving me a chance to make this comment. | ||
| Jennifer in Pennsylvania, calling in this from Tough, this reported by WGBH out of Boston yesterday, a Tufts University international graduate student is in federal custody in Louisiana after being detained by immigration and customs enforcement officials. | ||
| Rumesa Osterk, a Turkish national and a PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. | ||
| Quote, Rumesa was headed to meet with friends to break her Ramadan fast on the evening of March 25th when she was detained near her home in Somerville, Massachusetts by the Department of Homeland Security, said her attorney. | ||
| No charges have been filed against her to that date, and we are aware of. | ||
| We hope that she will be released immediately. | ||
| And it's in a statement, a senior DHS spokesperson told GBH News that she was detained over security concerns and that, quote, a visa is a privilege. | ||
| Again, WGBH out of Boston there reporting that. | ||
| Let's hear from Gary, Gary in Indiana, Independent Line. | ||
| Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, TC Span, all of America. | |
| And I just want to, here's something I want to throw out there. | ||
| Every so often, people call in and they say, we are not a democracy. | ||
| We are a republic. | ||
| And that's all we are. | ||
| No, that's not true. | ||
| All we are is a commonwealth, and that encompasses both democracy and republicanism. | ||
| And if we're not a democracy, then what's all this by the people, of the people, and for the people? | ||
| So that entails, guess what? | ||
| Democracy, hello. | ||
| And so, yeah, we are both in a sense. | ||
| But I don't like the idea that people want to take that away from us or anything. | ||
| I'll tell you what, you're not going to take it away from me because it's going to be over my dead ass if it happens. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Let's go to Kem in New York, Democrats line. | ||
| Hello, you're next up. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, hi. | |
| I'd like to ask the gentleman about Steve Bannon's concept of flood the zone. | ||
| Example. | ||
| This whole thing with Goldberg, the editor from The Atlantic, being on the USI phone call is embarrassing, but it's dominating the news cycle while at the same time, Trump signed an executive order about election integrity that could remove millions of people from the voter rolls. | ||
| But we're distracted and only talking about the signal. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Kim there in New York. | ||
| The reporting on immigration matters, Axios, this morning, saying that Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam on Wednesday visited El Salvador Seacott mega prison, where Venezuelans, the Trump administration, alleges our gang members were deported to from the United States. | ||
| The administration's decision to defy a court order and deport the 238 Venezuelans and subsequent legal battle marks test to limit the limits of the president's hardline immigration enforcement powers. | ||
| Her visit, the secretary, suggests the administration won't back down on its policy to accelerate mass deportations with little to no due process of Venezuelan immigrants suspected of being gang members under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. | ||
| More there at Axios' website if you want to see that. | ||
| Again, this is open forum. | ||
| The House coming in at 9 o'clock. | ||
| We'll keep going till then. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats. | ||
| 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you want to text the program, that's 202-748-8003 and our social media sites available to you as well. | ||
| One of the things the President discussed in the Oval Office, besides signing that executive order, taking a look at election issues, was the imposition of a 25% tariffs on foreign cars and light trucks coming into the United States. | ||
| This is the Washington Times saying the decision is an attempt to spur production in U.S.-based factories that employ American workers. | ||
| The president said the tariffs would take effect on April 2nd and stay in place for the rest of his term. | ||
| Here's the president from yesterday in the office, Oval Office, elaborating on this decision. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Beginning of Liberation Day in America. | |
| We're going to take back just some of the money that has been taken from us by people sitting behind this desk or another desk that's not quite as nice, but they have their choice of seven, as you know. | ||
| And we're going to charge countries for doing business in our country and taking our jobs, taking our wealth, taking a lot of things that they've been taking over the years. | ||
| They've taken so much out of our country, friend and foe, and frankly, friend has been oftentimes much worse than foe. | ||
| And this is very modest. | ||
| And what we're going to be doing is a 25% tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States. | ||
| If they're made in the United States, there's absolutely no tariff. | ||
| We start off with a 2.5% base, which is what we were at. | ||
| And we go to 25%. | ||
| More there from the Oval Office, and you can see it on our app at C-SPANNOW, our website at c-span.org. | ||
| Republican line from Maryland. | ||
| We'll hear from Chris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Morning, you're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I completely trust President Trump. | |
| The worst problem I see in this country and has been for years is the Trump derangement syndrome of the left. | ||
| Every time Trump does something, the left comes out, and on Washington Journal, I hear the vitriol of the left every day. | ||
| And the Trump derangement syndrome continues on Washington Journal every day. | ||
| I completely trust President Trump to do the things that we need to do in this country. | ||
| Cleaning out the swamp is not a pretty thing, but President Trump has taken it on, and that's why we elected him. | ||
| Okay, Chris there in Maryland. | ||
| Let's go to Diana. | ||
| Diana in Arizona, Democrats line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, this is Diana. | |
| What I'm seeing right now is the cruelty. | ||
| I would like to know why Musk is doing the things he's doing. | ||
| He says he's going after the money. | ||
| Some of these agencies he's going into, they have no money. | ||
| He's going into veterans cancer medicine. | ||
| I saw a thing last night about the measles in Texas where they stopped the treatments and stuff. | ||
| What is with Musk and this cruelty? | ||
| And Republicans can't see it. | ||
| People are out marching all over the United States. | ||
| They're taking away our post office, our Social Security. | ||
| They're going on and on and on. | ||
| All these agencies, why is Musk in there? | ||
| And why isn't he in Congress explaining himself? | ||
| And these Republicans, they just lie for Trump. | ||
| And Trump is the biggest liar we've ever had. | ||
| I just don't get it. | ||
| And I'm scared. | ||
| I'm really scared for our country. | ||
| There's too many agencies being torn apart. | ||
| How's that going to leave the United States? | ||
| Diana? | ||
| Diana in Arizona, giving us her thoughts this morning, calling in. | ||
| Thank you, Diana, for the call. | ||
| The follow-up caller brought up Social Security, the Washington Post reporting this morning that the Social Security Administration Wednesday abruptly backed off planned cuts to phone services for disabled and some elderly Americans applying for benefits amid an uproar from the advocates. | ||
| The originally proposed changes scheduled to take effect Monday but now delayed to April 14th would have directed all people filing claims to first verify their identity online or in person, removing a phone option in place for years. | ||
| Advocates said the shift would make it impossible for many disabled or elderly people with limited mobility or computer skills to apply. | ||
| Now those applying for Medicare, disability benefits, and supplemental income can't help can continue to file claims and authenticate their identity by phone according to our news release. | ||
| However, others filing for retirement or survivor benefits or requesting direct deposit for their checks will still be bound by rules announced by the agency earlier this month. | ||
| Those transactions require online or in-person identity verification, except in rare situations, such as when someone is terminally ill. | ||
| More there from the Washington Post if you want to read about that change concerning the Social Security Administration. | ||
| Let's go to Virginia, Republican line. | ||
| Ma, I believe, is the name. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was talking about judicial activism. | ||
| The judges who make this grossly unfair judgment, a district judge, letting terrorists come back to the United States. | ||
| And suppose if that happens and that criminal commits a murder or a rape, who is responsible? | ||
| The judge has inhibited the ability of the executive to take action. | ||
| So judge should be held responsible personally so that the victims are compensated from the judges' personal funds. | ||
| Only then these judges will stop supporting Hamas Rifis or Benazuran criminal gang members. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mike is next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mike's in California, Independent Line. | |
| Hey, thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Hey, I feel like Trump's cabinet is like amateur hours. | ||
| They're unqualified people in key positions. | ||
| And Trump never takes accountability for any of the problems that he's created. | ||
| I think he should take half the blame for the problem that we had with the withdrawal in Afghanistan. | ||
| He's the one that set up the agreement with the Taliban and, you know, that was impossible to live with. | ||
| And I think his cabinet, the way they lie and don't take any guilt, is following his lead. | ||
| I think that any money that's saved from does or any other way should go to the national debt and not to the rich. | ||
| Thanks, Pedro. | ||
| Mike in California. | ||
| Let's hear from Sharon in Ohio, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm just a common U.S. citizen who would like to remind Congress that you are there to represent both parties. | |
| And it really shouldn't matter what party we are. | ||
| You need to do what's best for us as a common United States citizens. | ||
| And the blame of going back and forth and then bringing up the past, who did what, that doesn't really matter now. | ||
| We're all here to go forward. | ||
| And we need to do what's best for the American citizens and put your differences aside and put your fussing and fighting aside and do what's best for us. | ||
| And we need to get Elon Musk out of our business. | ||
| And if they wanted to cut all this debt, why didn't they do it in the years before? | ||
| They've had every opportunity to do so, but they have chosen not to do so. | ||
| We don't need somebody else to come in and do it. | ||
| They just need to do their job. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| From Chicago, this is Richard joining us from Illinois, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, I'd like to say it's time for Congress to require cigarette manufacturers to indicate the chemicals they put add to the cigarettes if they do. | |
| Some brands don't. | ||
| Natural American Spirit, but the chemical additives are listed on food and beverage items, and they should be available to cigarette smokers. | ||
| And I'd also like to say to Congress, cigarette smokers are being extorted financially in certain jurisdictions. | ||
| Chicago, particularly New York City, they're $18, $19, $20 a pack, and they're being taxed by Cook County, the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois, and it comes out to almost $8 a pack. | ||
| Plus, they tax the sales tax onto the excise tax, which is double taxation. | ||
| And that practice needs to be outlawed by Congress. | ||
| And also what a state or a county or a city should be limited to less than what the federal, no more than what the federal government taxes a pack of cigarettes, which is $1.01 a pack. | ||
| That's my comment. | ||
| Richard, there in Illinois. | ||
| Let's go to Mike. | ||
| Mike in Florida, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Morning, Pedro. | ||
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, man. | |
| You're doing well. | ||
| You're doing good. | ||
| Yeah, I was listening to the callers, great callers yesterday, some good callers. | ||
| And one of the men was speaking about how he just doesn't believe any of it's real. | ||
| It's just the ineptitude that we're witnessing, the way it's being reported to us. | ||
| And I considered the fact that those people that we're talking about that were on that phone call or that text message, whatever it was, if they would have, you know, and meanwhile, you got the people on site doing the actual killing, whatever it is, risking their lives, pushing the buttons, whatever they're doing. | ||
| Those guys are the guys that needed to know what was happening. | ||
| These people didn't have to know anything until tomorrow. | ||
| They could have been in, you know, they have nothing to do with what is going on, risking any lives, having any decisions. | ||
| They're sitting there watching so that they can have a little stand around, pat each other on their backs, and talk about how tough they are. | ||
| It's just so, so apparent that they have nothing to do with it. | ||
| And meanwhile, here we're just yelling about their ineptitude. | ||
| Let's keep them out of the, keep them out of the decision-making. | ||
| They're not even in the decision-making process. | ||
| It's just pathetic. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Mike in Florida, he was on a Republican line a lot back and forth on Capitol Hill. | ||
| When it comes to the Signal app story that has been in the news for the last couple of days, one of those aspects took place on Capitol Hill, the Hill reporting about it on their publication, TheHill.com, saying Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene told a Sky News reporter on Wednesday to, quote, go back to your country as she tried to ask about recent controversy behind a signal chat with military plans among Trump administration's national security officials that included a journalist. | ||
| This highlights the fact that C-SPAN cameras captured the interaction between the lawmaker and the reporter who tried to continue her line of questioning. | ||
| Here's a portion of that exchange from yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| Anybody else? | ||
| What country are you? | ||
| Wait, what country are you from? | ||
| Okay, we don't give a crap about your opinion and your reporting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why don't you go back to your country? | |
| We have a major migrant problem. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, You should care about your own borders. | |
| No, let me tell you something. | ||
| Do you care about people from your country? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What about all the women that are raped by migrants? | |
| Do you come to the bottom? | ||
| No, by migrants. | ||
| No, do you care? | ||
| Okay, you're done. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| I don't remember this fighting for your conduct. | ||
| I don't care about your fight news. | ||
| Do you have a relevant question? | ||
| Yeah, this is an American journalist. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Again, that took place yesterday. | ||
| You can see the whole thing online via the website or the app, including everything else that's been going on in the intelligence committee hearings, too, with a lot of discussion when it comes to that signal app. | ||
| All of that available on our app and on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| When it comes to matters of economics and borrowing, Jacob Bogage from the Washington Post this morning saying that the borrowing limit could soon hit as soon as May, saying the federal government could hit that borrowing limit if tax revenue shoals fall short of expectations or as late as September if debt stays on its current course. | ||
| Congress's nonpartisan bookkeeper reported potentially requiring Republicans to dramatically accelerate their timeline on legislation that would prevent a catastrophic default. | ||
| The government technically eclipsed the debt ceiling in January, but the Treasury Department has been taking what are known as quote extraordinary measures to delay certain payments to stretch out the government's available cash. | ||
| As things stand now, and with big inflows of funds expected about April 15th and June 15th, when tax payments are due, the government's quote X date, or the day when the extraordinary measures won't be enough to prevent more borrowing, could come in August or September, according to the Congressional Budget Office. | ||
| Stephen is in Illinois. | ||
| Democrats lying on this open forum. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Yeah, I noticed earlier when that guy said about the activist judges and how the Republicans are really good with the semantics like activists, what does it really mean for them? | ||
| It's just anyone who rules against them. | ||
| And the other part of this goes to Trump just ignoring constitutionality whenever he does something because he doesn't know about the separation of powers. | ||
| So then he has these tantrums and the DOJ is just supposed to fall in behind him. | ||
| And it's gotten to the point where this isn't going to be a constitutional crisis. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| California is where Bob lives and Bob joins us on our line for independence. | ||
| Bob from California, you're next up. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, well, to tie into just the previous call, the first thing is that Donald Trump ran for president again because he did not want to go to jail. | |
| Okay, and however he got elected, and there may be a lot of questions about it. | ||
| He is the president just the way Joe Biden became the president with all kinds of people saying that he hadn't won that election. | ||
| But this time around, Trump said very clearly he was going to go after everybody that caused him grief. | ||
| And he's proceeding to do that. | ||
| The unfortunate thing is that he's taking it out on the United States of America. | ||
| He's taking it out on people who are disabled and elderly like myself. | ||
| He's taking it out on young kids who should be in school and getting school programs and plenty of them. | ||
| It's just an all-out attack on our society. | ||
| And it really should be obvious to anybody that's studied history because this has happened over and over again in history. | ||
| It goes back to the kings of Mesopotamia, that you find somebody who gets very destructive and terrorists at a society that's functioning fairly well. | ||
| So We have to understand that here's a person that was convicted of 34 felonies, and he's going around trying to pick up people who committed crimes and deport them. | ||
| I mean, you know, the whole concept of his attitude now about wreaking revenge on the entire system, there's nothing he's going to accept that he disagrees with. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's Bob there in California. | ||
| This is from West Virginia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We'll hear from Lloyd, Republican line. | |
| I'd just like to say on the leak on the classified, I mean, it sounds like just a mistake. | ||
| And since the Democrats never made no mistakes and the country was going so good when they were running it, I'd like to know why they lost the election. | ||
| And besides, this man that put it out there, he's nothing but a Trump hater anyway. | ||
| So what do you expect him to do? | ||
| So the Democrats, all therefore is a party. | ||
| Biden even said that. | ||
| At least the Republicans. | ||
| They're for the country. | ||
| And so that's the way I feel about it. | ||
| And I thank God the American people woke up and put the right people in there and run it now. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Lloyd from West Virginia calling in on our line for Republicans. | ||
| About 10 minutes till the House of Representatives come in. | ||
| You can still continue calling and getting on as much can before that. | ||
| Again, the numbers, 202-748-8,000 for Democrats. | ||
| It's 202-748-8001 for Republicans and Independents. | ||
| 202-748-8000 to the Supreme Court ruling, handing out handing down a decision on so-called ghost guns yesterday. | ||
| This is from the Washington Times saying the court on Wednesday gave the federal government the green light to regulate firearms kits, also known as ghost guns, as weapons, meaning they must have serial numbers and buyers must undergo background checks. | ||
| The 7-2 ruling turned not on large constitutional issues, but the wording of the law and whether the Gun Control Act's rules for weapons applied not just to actual guns, but to also kits. | ||
| Justice Gorsuch, Neil Gorsuch, writing the key opinion, said at least some of the kits in question are so easy to complete with little skill using common tools and taking just a few minutes time that they are equivalent to finished firearms for the purposes of the law. | ||
| He pointed to the quote, buy, build, shoot a kit that has all the parts to produce a Glock-style semi-automatic pistol. | ||
| It can be completed in about 20 minutes using common tools. | ||
| More from the Washington Times if you want to see their story and they're right up there. | ||
| Let's hear from Jackie. | ||
| Jackie in New Jersey, Democrats line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm actually pleased with the ruling that came out of the Supreme Court yesterday and also the DC Court of Appeals, which upheld the TRO for the Venezuelan men that were sent to the terrorist prison in El Salvador. | ||
| I think that people calling in here and watching C-STAN need to read the case regarding that issue. | ||
| It's a complete national embarrassment, and that's putting it lightly. | ||
| A lot of the men that were sent there were denied habeas filings to refute the fact that they were members of the gang, had no criminal records in this country or their country, and were here legally coming through a legal entry point claiming asylum. | ||
| The fact that we live in a country that would send men without due process to a terrorist prison is beyond a national embarrassment. | ||
| And I think people calling in saying, oh, they're criminals, that they're victims of brainwashing. | ||
| They're not criminals. | ||
| They have no criminal records. | ||
| Many of them were fleeing the Venezuelan government. | ||
| So I'm very pleased with the courts and the attacks that these judges are rogue. | ||
| The court that made the decision to uphold the TRO was based on a three-court panel. | ||
| One of the judges is, her name is Henderson. | ||
| She typically ruled in Trump's favor, and she ruled to uphold the TRO. | ||
| So we shouldn't be attacking our legal system. | ||
| We should be looking at these judges as heroes under these circumstances. | ||
| Jackie, New Jersey, there. | ||
| Let's hear from Clint in South Carolina, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I was just wanting to say that I have tried multiple times to get through to Lindsey Graham and Harvey Peeler and Governor McMaster requesting a town hall, and nobody wants to do anything, and they want to call everybody lefty loonies. | |
| I actually voted to put Lindsey Graham into office in 2008, and he doesn't understand that once you start following somebody else instead of doing the things that you're supposed to do for the people, they need to learn to grow a backbone. | ||
| But one more thing: if people would do their research on Donald Trump, Donald Trump's family came from Germany. | ||
| His uncle was part of the Nazi party. | ||
| When they came over to the United States, they joined the KKK. | ||
| There's plenty of pictures, plenty of articles about it. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| We'll go to Patricia, New Jersey, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yeah, hi. | ||
| I'm calling to make a comment on what the callers are calling in and saying different things about the Trump administration. | ||
| The Trump administration, okay, has done a magnificent job in just a few weeks that they're in. | ||
| Okay, and the callers have no idea, okay, of what's going on around them. | ||
| We have got our democracy back, okay, which when the Biden administration was so in the office, so to speak, okay, they did nothing, they did absolutely nothing for this country. | ||
| And all of a sudden, the Democratic callers are calling in and complaining about everything around them. | ||
| Okay, they have no cause to complain about what's happening in this country with this presidential administration. | ||
| Okay, we are pleased with Donald Trump being the president of the United States, okay, and his cabinet. | ||
| They have done magnificent work, and they will continue to do that. | ||
| And I would like to know if the callers are listening right now on the Democratic side, okay, that remember when Biden and Harris and Obama took the lead on everything, we lost our democracy. | ||
| We had nothing, okay? | ||
| Okay, that's Patricia there in New Jersey. | ||
| We'll hear from Mitchell in New Jersey. | ||
| Democrats line, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| I want to talk about Doge and the budget. | ||
| You know, I continually hear the Republicans saying we have a spending problem, and we do. | ||
| And I hear the Democrats saying we have a revenue problem, and we do. | ||
| And the question is not that we don't have these problems and not that we don't have to face them, it's about how we're going to deal with them. | ||
| One of the what aboutisms I'm hearing lately is, well, Bill Clinton cut 400,000 federal workers from the government, which he did. | ||
| But it was the way that it was done. | ||
| It was done over eight years. | ||
| It was done working with the departments. | ||
| I think Al Gore was tasked with this job. | ||
| And he had the different department heads and getting their suggestions. | ||
| They were at the table. | ||
| He also had the unions in on this discussion. | ||
| They were at the table and they were able to do this over a period of time. | ||
| But we also have to look at revenue. | ||
| We're all going to have to pay more taxes. | ||
| Yes, billionaires absolutely should pay more, but all of us are going to have to pay more if we're going to get serious about how we're going to construct a solution to deal with our debt. | ||
| When I was younger. | ||
| Okay, I got you, Mitchell. | ||
| I got you. | ||
| And I just wanted to show the folks at home that it wasn't too long ago on this program that Elaine Camerick, who is with Brookings Institution, but was in charge of that effort in the Clinton administration to see and make cuts, was on this program talking about that effort and the efforts of Doge. | ||
| That took place on February 25th. | ||
| You can still find it on our website if you want to hear her talk about her experiences versus what she's seeing today. | ||
| House just about to come in. | ||
| Ben in Connecticut Independent Line, jump on in. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I've been listening on and off to this program, and it always surprises me how the Democrats accuse the Republicans and the Republicans accuse the Democrats. | ||
| And so it's very entertaining. | ||
| But to those people who are complaining about the situation we have today and the president we have today, all of you who voted for him, you're getting what you voted for, okay? | ||
| So don't complain. | ||
| And number two, for these recent occurrence in the security. |