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March 29, 2025 10:01-13:01 - CSPAN

02:59:53

Washington This Week

Participants

Main

mimi geerges

cspan 30:37

Appearances

brian lamb

cspan 00:44

donald j trump

admin 00:53

jd vance

admin 00:53

justice sonia sotomayor

scotus 01:37

patty murray

sen/d 01:30

robert f kennedy-jr

admin 01:46

Clips

bret baier

fox 00:14

elon musk

00:09

tulsi gabbard

00:20

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington and across the country.
		Coming up Sunday morning, Republican pollster BJ Martino and Democratic pollster Nancy Zedunkowitz talk about the Trump presidency, Democratic opposition, and political news of the day.
		Then Martha Miller of George Mason University Law School's National Security Institute on the leaked Signal group chat with senior intelligence officials on U.S. military action in Yemen.
		Join the conversation live at 7 Eastern Sunday morning on C-SPAN.
		C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-SPAN.org.
		Former Wyoming Senator Alan K. Simpson recently died at the age of 93.
		Today, the Simpson family is hosting a public celebration of his life at the University of Wyoming.
		Mr. Simpson served three terms as a U.S. Senator from 1979 to 1997.
		He became Republican whip in 1985 and held that leadership position for 10 years.
		Watch his memorial service live starting at 1 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
		C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-SPAN.org.
		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.
		Today, 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, today at 7 p.m. Eastern on American History TV on C-SPAN 2.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's Saturday, March 29th.
unidentified		We're taking your calls for our first hour on your top news story of the week.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It could be about senior officials discussing military attacks on the Houthis over the Signal app and accidentally adding a journalist.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Or the president announcing new tariffs, the stock market, consumer confidence, and other economic news.
unidentified		Or the legal fight over deportation flights.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Whatever you think is the top story of the week, we want to hear why.
		Here's how to reach us.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independence 202-748-8002.
		You can text us at 202-748-8003.
		Include your first name in your city-state.
		And we're on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
		Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
		Before we take your calls, we'll take a look at what Vice President Vance said.
		He was in Greenland with reporters yesterday and talked about that signal chat and the media coverage of it.
unidentified		We take it very seriously.
		We all accept that a journalist should not have been invited into the chat, and members of the administration, including my dear friend Mike, have taken responsibility for it.
		But I find the American media's obsession with this issue very, very interesting because I happen to remember about four years ago when American military leadership made a catastrophic error that got 13 innocent Americans killed in Afghanistan and had about $80 billion of military equipment turned over to one of the worst terrorist organizations in the world.
		And for years, the American media ran cover, ran cover for a Biden administration that refused to fire any generals or even launch an internal investigation that was meaningful and substantive about what happened.
		And now the same American media that covered for the Biden administration after the untimely death and the unnecessary death of 13 brave Americans is really, really interested in forcing the President of the United States to fire someone because of a signal chat, because of a signal chat.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		That is not honest behavior from the American media.
		And if you think you're going to force the President of the United States to fire anybody, you've got another thing coming.
		President Trump has said on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, and I'm the vice president saying it here on Friday, we are standing behind our entire national security team.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And on economic news, CBS News is reporting consumer confidence slumps to 12-year low as Americans fret over their financial prospects.
		The article says that Americans are increasingly anxious about their financial prospects.
		A closely watched gauge of consumer confidence slumps to a 12-year low amid growing concerns about tariffs and inflation.
		The conference board said on Tuesday that its consumer confidence index fell 7.2 points in March to 92.9.
		It's the fourth straight monthly decline at its lowest level since January of 2021.
		And we'll go to the calls now to see what your top news story of the week is.
		This is Paul in Houston, Texas.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Hello.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		You know what's mind-boggling to me?
		That the American people can be fed anything and they'll leave it, hook, line, and sink.
		I've never seen so many lies and untruths get spreaded and everybody, well, not everybody, but most of the people.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So what are you talking about specifically, Paul?
unidentified		I'm actually talking about what Trump and Eli Musk is doing to this country and feeding to the American people.
unidentified		You know, making them think that what they are doing is going to benefit them when it actually ain't going to benefit nobody but Donald Trump and Eli Musk and all them cronies that's around him.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, Paul, let's take a look at what Elon Musk said on Fox News about Doge and what he's calling his achievements so far.
elon musk ▲ ● ▼		Our goal is to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars.
unidentified		So, from a nominal deficit of $2 trillion to try to cut the deficit in half to $1 trillion, or looked at it in total federal spending to drop the federal spending from $7 trillion to $6 trillion.
unidentified		We want to reduce the spending by eliminating waste and fraud, reduce the spending by 15%, which seems really quite achievable.
elon musk ▲ ● ▼		The government is not efficient, and there's a lot of waste and fraud.
unidentified		So, we feel confident that a 15% reduction can be done without affecting any of the critical government services.
unidentified		I'm going to talk to all the guys about making it better.
bret baier ▲ ● ▼		And talk to all the guys here about the specifics, but for you, what's the most astonishing thing you've found out in this process?
unidentified		The sheer amount of waste and fraud in the government.
		It is astonishing.
		It's mind-blowing.
		Just we routinely encounter wastes of a billion dollars or more, casually.
		You know, for example, like the sim the simple survey that was literally a 10-question survey that you could do with SurveyMonkey cost you about $10,000 was the government was being charged almost $1 billion for that.
		For just the survey?
		A billion dollars for a simple online survey.
		Do you like the national park?
		And then there appeared to be no feedback loop for what would be done with that survey.
		So the survey would just go into nothing.
		It was like a good thing.
bret baier ▲ ● ▼		You technically are a special government employee, and you're supposed to be 130 days.
bret baier ▲ ● ▼		Are you going to continue past that?
unidentified		Or do you think that's what you're going to do?
		Well, I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that timeframe.
		So we're in that timeframe, 130 days.
		And the process is a report at some point, 100 days?
		Not really a report.
		We are cutting the waste and fraud in real time.
		So every day that passes.
		Our goal is to reduce the waste and fraud by $4 billion a day, every day, seven days a week.
		And so far we are succeeding.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was Elon Musk on Fox News.
		And just a quick update on that earthquake in Myanmar and Thailand.
		Here's CNN, Myanmar earthquake death toll source past 1,000 as scale of disaster starts to emerge.
		And here is Jaronda in Nashville, Tennessee, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		My name's Yolanda.
unidentified		I don't know if it was misunderstood or not, but it's Yolanda.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Oh, say it again.
unidentified		Yolanda.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yolanda, Yolanda.
unidentified		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sorry about that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Hey, you're good.
		No worries.
		I've been called a lot worse, so I'm not going to cry about that.
		But anyways, thank you.
		Good morning.
		I appreciate you having me on the show.
		I think what I really wanted to comment on about was the whole signal messaging and just so much that has been blown out of proportion with PHSS and some gold blow or gold bloom, whatever his name was, the editor.
		But I guess I just think about, I've sent so many worse messages than group text messages, and I don't see the big deal, I guess.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Yolanda, do you have you, I mean, we do send mistaken texts and we add people to group chats that shouldn't be there.
		That's true.
		But I guess the question also that has arisen is why they're discussing this kind of sensitive information over a commercial signaling messaging app.
		What do you think of that?
unidentified		No, that's I mean, I think that's a very valid point.
		You know, I know if this was maybe the other side, very much clean's emails, we can all remember back to that fiasco.
		I think things happen, you know, and maybe this was a misstep on our end, but I would like them to be able to do better.
		But again, you know, it could have been worse, I suppose.
		That's kind of my thoughts on it, but I guess I'm.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Appreciate you calling in and mentioning Hillary Clinton.
		The former Secretary of State did write an op-ed for the New York Times.
		And here's a portion of what she wrote in that op-ed.
		She said, it's not the hypocrisy that bothers me, it's the stupidity.
		We're all shocked, shocked that President Trump and his team doesn't actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws.
		But we know that already.
		What's much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat.
		That's dangerous and it's just dumb.
		Wonder what you think about that as well as your top news story, Laura, Oregon, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, how are you?
		Good.
		I mean, when does it stop?
		I mean, Trump just got up and he just said that every five minutes is something different.
		He just says that he, oh, Ukraine, if they don't give up, a very bad thing is going to happen to you.
		A very bad thing.
		I mean, when does it stop?
		We don't get a break.
		Every five minutes is something else.
		Right after that, Elon Musk came on again.
		Same thing.
		It's just sad.
		I mean, he needs to be impeached.
		You know, him, Elon, and the rest of them.
		It's just, I mean, it's speechless.
		Thank you.
		Here's Barney, a Democrat in Zephyrillas, Florida.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Barney.
unidentified		Yes.
		I got two things I need to bring up.
		I don't understand.
		Since Donald Trump was convicted of sexual assault, shouldn't he be a registered sex offender and not supposed to be around kids?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Paul in Nampa, Idaho.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Republican, good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		One thing on the top of my mind has been since they started Doge, it hasn't been clear whether or not any Democrats were asked to be on the Doge list of clearinghouse people, for lack of a better word.
		I don't know if it's an oversight or what, but we're having a difficult time.
		This is a spiritual disease that we're fighting this hate between Democrats and Republicans.
		And I think it would have gone a long way if they would have at least invited one Democrat to be on the Doge list of people working on what they're working on as far as waste fraud and mistrust.
		There has to be some kind of start for us to want to continue to be together as a country.
		It's flowing faster and faster apart, and it needs to be starting to be stitched back together again, one stitch at a time.
		And I just felt that that was maybe an oversight or what, whatever it was.
		Maybe there's still time to ask a Democrat to be on there.
		I am Republican.
		I'm not a rhino, as they might call me because I said that.
		But if there's no movement, there's no movement.
		Nothing can be done as far as bringing ourselves back together again and being unified.
		There's certain things that we just find intolerable with each other, and there's going to have to be some common ground found.
		If there's not, we're in big trouble.
		It's not the money in the waste that could be recouped, but we had a type of an environment with the last administration that was just awful as far as being conservative with their money.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Paul, regarding Doge and who's on it, The Hill does have a breakdown of all the members of that team.
		It says meet the Doge team.
		And then if you scroll down, you'll see some of the people that are on that team and their backgrounds.
		Here is Robert in Wedgefield, South Carolina, Independent.
unidentified		Yes, right now I have to be an independent to ask this question.
		Why aren't they going after the journalists who actually leak all the information instead of going after the White House staff?
		It makes more sense that he was the one that committed a crime by leaking the information.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Robert, he so I think what happened was that he was added to that chat.
		This, we're talking about Jeffrey Goldberg, Atlantic Magazine editor-in-chief.
		So, he was added to that chat and he had access to all that information.
		He then, apparently, as it goes, when he realized that this was for real, he thought at first maybe this was a joke or a spam or something like that.
		He removed himself from the chat.
		But then, once it came out, the information came out, everybody said Pete Hegset said, and DNI Tulsi Gabbard said, there was no classified information.
		So, he then released the information without specifics.
		Yeah, so go ahead.
		What were you going to say?
unidentified		Right, right.
		Well, like I said, all the Democrat congresspeople were going after them and saying that it was classified information.
		Right.
		And like I said, if it was.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It was either classified or it should have been classified.
		I think that was the distinction.
		Because Secretary Hegseth could declassify the information or classify it as he sees necessary.
		He has that right.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Right, right.
		But like I say, it seems like the only person, in my opinion, that committed a crime was the journalist by releasing it to the public.
		Now, he should have, what I feel he should have done was he should have contacted the person that put him in that chat and went through that line of not revealing that he was even on the chat, but make sure that he was off the chat and not able to have this information in his possession.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's just like, you know, yeah, so Robert, if you go to the Atlantic, you can see kind of like the timeline of what happened with the information, when he was added to the chat, when he took himself off the chat, and then when he tried to reach out to some of the people and Understand why and what happened.
		But that's all in the Atlantic articles.
		There's two articles right now.
		Tony, New York City, Democrat.
		Good morning, Tony.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Yeah.
		You know, I was raised a Democrat.
		I've been a Democrat all my life.
		However, I've never hated Republicans.
		Now, my question is: was P. Hescliffe drinking when he laid out these attack plans?
		What is he doing there?
		This guy never led a combat unit into combat.
		He doesn't know what it is to have a bullet fly by his head.
		I had three bullets put into me.
		I'm more of a patriot than you ever be.
		The man is trying to destroy our country.
		Why is he still in office?
		He drew this whole plan up.
		Now, Democrats and Republicans, if we want this country, if we want to be able to have this dialogue between us forever, we need to get rid of these idiots that are in the cabinet today.
		And this RFK, how many people can't see that this man is a clown?
		I just don't, I don't understand it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, Tony, let's, yeah.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, were you going to say something?
unidentified		No, I was going to ask you if you have any answers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's take a look at what RFK Jr. posted on X.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		He announced that the agency, his agency, HHS, will be reshaped.
unidentified		Here's what he said.
robert f kennedy-jr ▲ ● ▼		As part of President Trump's Doge Workforce Reduction Initiative, we're going to streamline HHS to make our agency more efficient and more effective.
		We're going to imbue the agency with a clear sense of mission to radically improve the health of Americans and to improve agency morale.
		We're going to eliminate an entire alphabet soup of departments and agencies while preserving their core functions by merging them into a new organization called the Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA.
		We have two goals.
		The first is obvious to save the taxpayer money by making our department more efficient.
		And the second is to radically improve our quality of service.
		I want to promise you now that we're going to do more with less.
		No American is going to be left behind.
		Our key services delivered through Medicare and Medicaid, the FDA and CDC, and other agencies will enter a new era of responsiveness and a new era of effectiveness.
		We're going to consolidate all of these departments and make them accountable to you, the American taxpayer, and the American patient.
		These goals will honor the aspirations of the vast majority of existing HHS employees who actually yearn to make America healthy.
		28 great divisions will become 15.
		The entire federal workforce is downsizing now, so this will be a painful period for HHS as we downsize from 82,000 full-time employees to around 62,000.
		We're keenly focused on paring away excess administrators while increasing the number of scientists and frontline health providers so that we can do a better job for the American people.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And that was on Thursday.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		As a reaction to that, Democratic Senator Patty Murray at a press conference discussed why she is criticizing those planned layoffs at HHS.
patty murray ▲ ● ▼		Looking for new ways to make government more efficient and responsive is important.
		But Trump and RFK Jr. are doing anything but that.
		It does not take a genius to understand that pushing out 20,000 workers at a preeminent health agency, choking off funding for cancer research, and eliminating funding that prevents infectious diseases like measles will not make Americans healthier.
		It will just mean fewer health services for our communities, more opportunities for disease to spread, and longer waits for life-saving treatments and cures.
		These cuts will not reduce the deficit in any way, not at all.
		Instead, they threaten to incur massive costs down the road when we are caught flat-footed by the next health care crisis.
		Consider how much bipartisan spending Congress had to push out the door.
		Why?
		Because Trump failed to get the COVID pandemic under control when it first hit.
		It costs something to prevent pandemics, and it costs a whole lot more when we fail to stop them.
		An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
		But Trump and RFK Jr. are picking neither.
		They are picking chaos, plague, and pandemonium.
		That may as well be their official policy because that is what is coming down the tracks if they don't change course.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was on Thursday, and this is from the Washington Post.
		Yesterday, RFK Jr. forces out Peter Marks, FDA's top vaccine scientist.
		In his resignation letter, Marks rebuked Kennedy for seeking, quote, subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies about vaccines.
		That's at the Washington Post, and this is Stephen in La Crosse, Washington, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you doing?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		I've heard a lot of good conversations today.
		I liked the gentleman from Idaho, Peter, how he says, we all got to get along.
		I am a Christian.
		I was raised a Democrat, so that's what I thought I knew.
		And then I started to, you know, my pastor started going, Stephen, you are a conservative the way you talk.
		Because I always, I was brainwashed by my parents because in my heart, I used to think Democrats were the way to go, but now they are so into free will.
		And free will is sin.
		And when I say that, there's boys and girls.
		That's that.
		There's the right way and the wrong way.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Stephen, focusing on the top news story for this week, what do you think that would have been for you?
unidentified		Okay, for me, I think it's wonderful that United States of America, we are defending the straight and taking out the Houthis because for four years, no one, I shouldn't say four years, but during that time frame, everyone was getting shot at, fired out, and we didn't do nothing, and prices went up everywhere because of that.
		And this is the fact.
		We are the beacon, the light of the world.
		And when we are weak, the whole world is chaos.
		It's like at recess when there's no teacher's aid and all these kids get bullied by the bullies.
		China and Russia, they don't mess around.
		They talk nice, but they will grab your throat and choke you out.
		And you have to sometimes be a bigger bully to deal with a bully.
		Now, that's not always the right answer, but that's how this is in this world.
		Now, when you look at everybody gives Robert Kennedy Jr. not a fair shake because, you know, in Europe, there's like limited, I don't have all these facts because I'm not a computer, but I'm pretty knowledgeable.
		They have way less additives and dyes and chemicals in their food, and they're healthy.
		And we have there's too much free reign for, you know, the big food and all those people because like red dye is not cool.
		I go on and on and on.
		And we seem kind of.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We got your top news story.
		David is in Randallstown, Maryland, Independent.
		Good morning, David.
unidentified		Hi, how are you doing?
		Good.
		Oh, yeah.
		I was trying to talk in between the things.
		Yeah, that Kennedy guy is against vaccines and everything, and he shouldn't be in the thing.
		Matter of fact, Trump shouldn't be in there either because he tried to overthrow the government in January 6th.
		And he should be in prison or they should have a law where he gets capital punishment for trying to overthrow the government.
		Trump, he shouldn't have been in there at all.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and this is Randy in Millington, Michigan, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		I'd like to start by thanking you and all the other men and women it takes to bring us this program.
		You're doing a great service for the nation.
		My top story would be watching the slow dismantling of our government by Elon and that doggy group of his.
		And I don't think it's out after waste, fraud, and abuse like they claim, because if he was, he'd be looking into all these states that get back twice as much money from the federal government than they ever send in in federal taxes.
		There's billions of dollars of waste there.
		It seems like he's not, then you've got the felon in chief going after the journalists and after lawyers.
		You know, it's a scary time right now to watch this go on as a slow, just one slow-motion thing after another.
		And, you know, I have no problem working with anybody that wants to make this country helpful to all the people in the country.
		But to get along with people that are out to destroy it, that's not helpful for anything.
		And I think that's all we've got going right now with Doggy and the felon up at the top.
		So thank you very much, Mimi, for letting me speak.
		Have a great day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Randy and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was at the Georgetown Law Center speaking to students, and she talked about the importance of an independent judiciary.
justice sonia sotomayor ▲ ● ▼		Here's a portion: What is the right thing that law should be aspiring to accomplish?
		And we as a society have to be committed to that.
		Right now, I understand there's a lot of questions about what that means and what are our common norms.
		But once we lose our common norms, we've lost the rule of law completely.
		So it's going back to figuring out what those are.
unidentified		I'm going to quote Rosie.
justice sonia sotomayor ▲ ● ▼		And this was her response to me when I asked her what courts should do to protect it.
justice sonia sotomayor ▲ ● ▼		Said, quote, they need to remain fearlessly independent, protective of rights, and ensure that the state is respectful of both.
unidentified		I couldn't think of a better answer than that one.
justice sonia sotomayor ▲ ● ▼		That is really at the end what judges should do, but it's in the end of what every citizen should do, which is ensure that the courts are fearlessly independent, that we understand that our obligation is to protect the rights given to us under the Constitution.
		These are not just made-up rights.
		The Constitution is the structure of the norms that bind us as a society in America.
		But we also have to demand that all others respect both of these principles.
		That's what our function is, Bill.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was Justice Sotomayor yesterday afternoon at Georgetown.
		Let's talk to Philip, Al Ferretta, Georgia, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My name is Philip Holden.
		Now, I've got to be careful what I say, but I hope, I pray that the fighting between the Republicans and the Democrats will come to an end, and we can look to the future.
		Our President and Ilon Musk have such a great task before them.
		I see the history of the world that started with the Second World War, with Chamberlain coming back with a piece of paper saying peace in our time.
		I see this also relating to the war between Ukraine and Russia.
		And you can then put into that history of Germany and Czechoslovakia.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Philip, you started by saying you have to be careful what you're saying.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why did you say that?
unidentified		Well, I said that because I'm trying to think of my words at the same time.
		And I don't mean to in a bad way.
		I just mean that I want to be careful.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I understand.
		So, your top news story of the week would be the American support for the war in Ukraine.
		How would you characterize the top news story?
unidentified		The top news story this week is all about this with this thing that was sent out by mistake in a memorandum.
		And it's so insignificant.
		It will be forgotten in a week.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The thing that was sent out was: are you saying the chat over signal?
unidentified		Yes, the chat over signal.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I see.
unidentified		Okay.
		Let's get over that.
		Let's move on to other things.
		Let's move on to other things.
		We need to reduce the deficit.
		We have so many things to do about this beloved country of ours.
		I am just an insignificant immigrant of many years from England.
		And I love America.
		It's given so much to me, and it will give so much to others.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Philip.
		And here's Tony in Waterbury, Connecticut.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Boy, what a show this morning, huh?
		You know, I'm a Democrat.
		I'm a third-generation Democrat out of Waterbury, and anybody that knows this area knows that Waterbury is very Democratic.
		And I still support the Democratic Party, but I think we need to be rebuilt.
		We got our clocks rung at this election, and I think we need to take another approach.
		A couple of things that I'd like to say is Elon Musk, didn't he take down those, get those astronauts down from up at that research thing up in the sky?
		He brought that down, didn't he?
		The only thing I have some friends that are Republicans, they keep asking me, because we watch your show.
		Why doesn't C-SPAN show the Doge database?
		I mean, I've heard that all week long.
		You guys don't show that Doge.
		Let me shut these people up and tell them exactly what's in there.
		I know you have real-time access to it.
		You guys could show the Doge database.
		And I'm asking all us C-SPAN listeners, all of us, we're fanatics with you guys.
		Show the C-SPAN, C-SPAN, show the Doge database.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's right here, Tony.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So is this what you're talking about, Doge.gov?
unidentified		Yeah, and the other thing, Mimi, is, you know, I was told that Biden, under their administration, they use the same darn app.
unidentified		People have used that app, and my understanding that it is recommended by whoever sets up the rules.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so Tony, about that, that is true, but it has never been approved for any sensitive information.
unidentified		Well, that's sensitive.
		Isn't that a debatable term?
		Isn't that something that the person said?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Did you think when you saw the information on the Atlantic article that was released, did you think that it should be classified or should it be something that is shared publicly?
		I mean, the fact that American warplanes were going and hitting targets and drones were going to hit targets in Yemen, and this was out two hours before the planned attack.
		So the timing and the targets.
		Do you think that should have been made public?
		Or should it have been classified is what I'm saying.
unidentified		But doesn't the information disappear off of that app shortly thereafter?
		The other thing is the mistake that Goldberg was accidentally added to that.
		Isn't that the mistake that?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Tony, here's what Democrats are saying.
		Yes, so number one, somebody was added that shouldn't have been added and nobody raised a flag.
		So that was a mistake.
		And number two, that this is a commercially available app called Signal that this kind of information should never have been discussed over that.
		It should have been in a skiff.
		So that's kind of the argument being made that our adversaries could have hacked it, could have had access to it.
		One of the people was in Moscow at the time that could have been taken by the Russians and put those American service members at greater risk.
unidentified		So you've been using it.
		I know under the Biden administration, they used it all the time.
		They used it all the time.
		It was something, if you go back, I watched, I don't watch the left side, I don't watch the right side.
		I like that news nation.
		They have both sides.
		And they said that was recommended.
		That's a recommended thing by the government rules, whoever set these rules up.
		And that's done by the government itself.
		Nothing that Hegset or any of the other people came up with.
		They didn't invent it and start saying, oh, I should use this app.
		This is a great app.
		No, that's something that the government.
		And I want to say to all our listeners, all our C-SPAN fanatics, every time you call, say, where's the Doge database?
		Show us the Doge database, please.
		I'm tired.
		I was tired.
		You know what got me, Mimi, really, is that I'm a strong supporter of Biden.
		I wanted to vote for Biden.
		My right for Biden was taken away.
		And then I find out that I was lied to for, what, two, three years?
		Because I have family that have dementia and stuff.
		And I've seen that, but I was told he's the greatest.
		I've seen Scarborough.
		No, he's the sharpest he's ever been.
		And then he falls down on the debate.
		It took the debate for people to come out and say that when they knew it for three years, that doesn't make any sense to me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Tony.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So getting back to our topic, which is the top news story of the week, here is Intelligence Committee Democrat and Air Force veteran Chrissy Houlihan earlier this week talking to National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard about the information that was on that signal chat.
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 approval, 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?
tulsi gabbard ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for your question, Congresswoman.
tulsi gabbard ▲ ● ▼		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?
tulsi gabbard ▲ ● ▼		The National Security Council is investigating this inadvertent leak.
tulsi gabbard ▲ ● ▼		And again, I point to Secretary Hegseth as having the classification.
unidentified		I would argue that Secretary Hegseth, 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.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is what Snopes, so what Tony was talking about about the use of signal.
		Here's Snopes.
		It says, yes, the Biden administration authorized use of Signal, but not for sensitive military intelligence.
		And it says the Biden administration may have allowed some use of Signal based on public guidance from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, that's CISA.
		It explicitly did not allow use of Signal to communicate, quote, non-public Department of Defense information, which would have included the conversations Trump administration officials had in their group chat.
		And let's talk to Warren in Windsor Mill, Maryland, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
		Warren, you're on.
unidentified		Oh, yes.
		Good morning.
		Thanks for giving me a platform.
		My issue this morning is with the ways the Trump administration is basically just flaunting laws.
		I mean, going after judges, picking up people in the streets without due process.
		I do have a problem with that, and I think that should be a concern to everybody, whether you're a Democrat or Republican.
		I think the reason why we have to follow laws is because, I mean, it's not because your own person is in power.
		It's because there's going to come a day when your own person is not going to be in power.
		Republicans may think it's okay to just for Trump to violate laws and close down agencies for which he has no power to do.
		So he has to go through Congress.
		That's the appropriate way.
		The Doge also has to go through Congress.
		That's the appropriate way.
		That's the people's representatives.
		That's how you go through and have good policies and make good laws.
		But it seems as if there's an era of lawlessness where they feel like they can do anything, write illegal executive orders, pick people off the streets.
		And that is a problem.
		You know, people may not want to accept that, but it is a problem.
		It's a big problem.
		And something has to be done about that.
		I hope the courts are going to check them and reassert laws and make sure people who are supposed to follow the law follow the laws.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And, Warren, about those deportation flights, here's the latest on that from Politico.
		It says Trump asked the Supreme Court to allow Alien Enemies Act deportations.
		It says that the DOJ says a lower court judge unconstitutionally intruded on the president's national security powers.
		And you can read that in Politico if you're interested.
		And this is Mary Gross Point, Michigan, Republican.
		Good morning, Mary.
unidentified		Hi, thanks for taking my call.
		My main point with this signal thing is why, with all our intelligence, why, unless I missed it, who actually added the journalist's name?
		It wasn't Waltz.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was.
unidentified		He just took.
unidentified		Go ahead.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was the National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz.
unidentified		No, he took, no, see, there you go with parsing words.
		He took responsibility.
		He did not do the one that added.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Mary, what I can tell you is what Jeffrey Goldberg actually said, and he can see who adds him.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And he said it was Mike Waltz.
unidentified		But Mike Waltz denied it.
		He said that he's responsible, but he did not add it.
		But yet, this is my problem with the media.
		Most of the media is not really journalists.
		They are opinionated people who choose to add their own adjectives to go into the way they want it to go, which is usually left.
		And then these people, like my friends that are Democrats, they spew off these sentences that aren't quite true.
		I try to suggest them that at least watch C-SPAN so that you can at least watch the actual video of Trump talking or whoever talking so that you don't have to add all those adjectives and create a whole different agenda.
		And it's sad.
		It's sad.
		My niece, who's in her 50s, she tells me, don't even bring it up.
		I don't want to know what's going on with politics because I don't care.
		It doesn't affect me.
		Well, I'm sorry.
		It does affect you.
		It affects every single citizen of the United States.
		And people who are, things have gotten so jumbled up that people retreat, like my niece.
		And she's a very intelligent person.
		She's actually a journalist, but she's not working, but she is actually, she has a degree in journalism.
		It's sad.
		It's sad.
		And I say, let's just keep to the facts.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mary.
		Got that.
		Charlie, New York, New York, Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, America.
		I'm calling in this morning just to speak on Robbie Killing.
		I am 77 years old.
		And I listened to him saying, want to get rid of vaccine.
		The measles.
		Okay, take vitamin A. Ollie Wall.
		He was against COVID.
		Trump was against COVID.
		He told you to take bleach.
		They got rid of all the most important people that we had to watch out for our viruses, who watch out for our food and everything.
		And now I finally came to the decision that this is Trump's concept of the medical field.
		Remember, he said he had concepts.
		So these are his concepts just to get rid of everything.
		Talking about save money while people are dying.
		You know, measles outbreak.
		Hey, I grew up, and I remember a couple of kids that had polio, but we wiped it away through vaccinations.
		And so many other diseases have been wiped away.
		And now they want to bring it all back where you're listening to a person that has no medical degree, and you're going to believe him.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Charlie.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is David Wilmington, North Carolina, Republican.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I'm going to make three points.
		I wish I had time for six.
		Now, just ask for a roughly same amount of time as you give other callers.
		It's going to be high density.
		We've had, you know, first point, there have been years of violations and abuses by Democrats against Republicans.
		I'm talking about like James Coleman, the FBI under Obama going after Trump in the first election, the Russian collusion thing, willful violations, coordinated violations using the FBI, and even the IRS.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, David, is this your top news story of this week?
unidentified		No, I'm.
unidentified		Oh, you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so let's just do the top news story of this week.
unidentified		Don't hang up on me, please.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I didn't.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Who told you I was hanging up on you?
unidentified		Oh, it sounded like you were pushing back.
		So, the second one, and then if Republicans have one incident like January 6th or this signal thing, it becomes a major story for years.
		Okay, second one: vaccinations.
		There's a fundamental difference between conventional legacy protein vaccines and mRNA injections.
		Fundamental difference.
		And to say anti-vax, or you have to differentiate between protein versus mRNA.
		It reminds me of the fundamental difference between legal and illegal immigration, but you'll almost never hear the term illegal spoken by Democrats.
		They just wipe away that fundamental difference for political points.
		But with vaccines, you have to differentiate.
		You can't say vaccine.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, are you relating this, David, to the measles outbreak?
unidentified		Didn't?
		Well, the measles outbreak, okay, that's a whole nother topic.
		I don't want to spend my time on it.
		But the main problem, and this is always top of the story here, is the national debt.
		And here's the perspective: Washington, D.C. was never meant to be involved in every area of our lives from daycare to lunches, everything else.
		It has grown astronomically over time because congressmen like to pass out money to get elected, basically, and they don't have the backbone to cut spending.
		So it was just never meant to be this big.
		So I've talked about this before in previous calls.
		We have an addiction to government spending.
		And anytime you break an addiction, there's pain.
		It's going to hurt.
		And you can't just blame whoever's in office at the moment for the years and years and years of addiction that we've built up.
		So there have to be cutbacks in spending.
		And otherwise, one senator said that the biggest risk to national security is the national debt.
		And that's true because the DOD is from discretionary spending.
		It's going to dwindle and dwindle and dwindle.
		And there will be riots when major programs are cut back.
		But it's necessary.
		We have to cut back on spending in a big way, and people need to understand that.
		We can.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		Scott in Port St. Lucie, Florida, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, C-SPAN.
		Are you kidding me?
		What's your top news story of the week?
		Are you kidding me?
		You guys aren't even covering it?
		You've got to be kidding me.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You want to tell me, or is that what you called to say?
unidentified		Yes.
		Don't hang up on me now.
		The executive order releasing the FBI files on Crossfire Hurricane.
		Are you kidding me?
		Are you trying to avoid the conversation by finding out if people are hearing about it by asking questions?
		Hey, what's your top news story of the week?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for the feedback, Scott.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Steve, Virginia, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Well, I guess my top story of the week is the daily violation of the rule of law and the Constitution.
unidentified		If they were following protocol on the military's top secret plans, we wouldn't even be talking about this story about the leak because it wouldn't have happened.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		To remind us what the protocol would be, Steve, do you have background in that, that you would know that?
unidentified		When you have a military operation that hasn't even started yet, and that information is out in the public sphere, that's a violation.
		That's a violation of the way the military does things.
		I'm sure Dwight D. Eisenhower didn't talk about D-Day to inadvertently to somebody on the press.
		It was kept secret.
		And they can talk about it on any platform they want after the mission is over with.
		But to put that stuff out there on something, obviously that site got violated or we wouldn't even be known about it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So let's take a look at what President Trump said in response on Wednesday about that signal chat.
unidentified		What's your response to Republican lawmakers who have said today that your administration should keep more accountability and not downplay what's happened with signal that we've seen in these messages today?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		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, can we have peace?
		The Houthis want peace because they're getting their 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 ships 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 classified.
unidentified		I don't think nothing classified that was shared.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Say it.
unidentified		Do you still believe nothing classified was shared?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's what I've heard.
unidentified		I don't know.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I'm not sure.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		You'll have to ask the various people involved.
unidentified		I really don't know.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is James in Inglewood, Ohio, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, James.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my phone call.
		I would like to comment on the last speaker before I make my other point.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sure, go ahead.
unidentified		The messaging that went out, the breach was an issue.
		The bigger issue is the success, the success of what happened and what's happening.
		Talk about the success.
		Learn from your mistakes.
		Own them and move on.
		Now I want to talk about what I think was the greatest thing this week was the Brett Baer show with Elon Musk and seven men that have volunteered their time to do what is right for this nation.
		Everyone wants to say that people are scavenging our system and pillaging for tax breaks.
		These seven men alongside of one of the greatest inventors and Visionaries of our time, Elon Musk.
		These eight people are such patriots.
		And to put Elon Musk businesses through what's going on is criminal.
		That is the story.
		That should be the focus of our nation.
		And if we don't stop tearing our own country down, the rest of the world will find it very easy to take part in that.
		I thank you for the phone call.
		Have a great day.
		Down.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		James.
		And our previous caller asked about Crossfire Hurricane.
		The White House put out this on March 25th.
		Immediate declassification of materials related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.
		It says, except as provided below, I have determined that all of the materials referenced in the presidential memorandum of January 19th, 2021, are no longer classified.
		I have further determined that the material proposed for redaction by the FBI in a cover letter remains classified.
		My decision to declassify the materials described above does not extend to materials that must be protected from disclosure pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and does not require the disclosure of certain personally identified, identifiable information or any other materials that must be protected.
		And here is Burlington, North Carolina, Independent Line.
		William, you're next.
unidentified		Good morning, Amy.
		Thank you.
		A couple of things just before I my top story is has to be the fact that this president thinks it's okay to take the sovereignty of nations away from them by his imperialistic nature.
		Going after Greenland or going after Canada or going after Panama, he really honestly believes because he wants it, it's okay to get it.
		And the fact that he keeps threatening our allies and our friends is going to alienate us to a point where when something bad does happen, we're going to be all alone.
		If I may, some of these callers that keep talking about Elon Musk inventing, he didn't invent, he bought.
		He didn't create.
		He invested.
		He's a smart investor.
		He's not this super brainiac child.
		If he was so smart, they wouldn't have to hire back people they keep firing.
		So this whole Doge thing, it's a great concept, but it has to be done with accuracy and precision, not just the way he's doing it.
		I mean, I know everyone talks about sledgehammers and chains, so I'm not going to use all the talking points.
		But I do think that the top story has to be the fact that this president is threatening allies.
		He's threatening NATO allies.
		And people just stand back and go, the other thing I'm worried about is he doesn't seem to know what's going on in his White House.
		Every time he talks to the press, he's like, I wasn't aware of that.
		I didn't know that.
		How do you not know what's going on around you if you're the president?
		Donald Trump would never have said that in his first term.
		So there's got to be some concern there, too.
		It's obviously just a game plan they're following.
		You know what it's called, Project 2025.
		All right, let's read it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We've got that.
		And that's the time that we've got.
		Up next, a conversation about media coverage of the Trump administration so far with Matt Goertz of Media Matters and Tim Graham of the Media Research Center.
		And later, Aisa Conchola Banez from the Student Borrower Protection Center discusses the Trump administration plans to move federal student loans to the Small Business Administration.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		American History TV, exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
		This weekend, Calvin University art history professor Henry Ludekaisen talks about political cartoonists with a particular focus on Pat Oliphant and his depiction of presidents.
		Watch American History TV 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.
		On Lectures in History, Santa Clara University art history professor Andrea Popas on the mid-19th century American landscape painting movement known as the Hudson River School.
		On the presidency, Port 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 every weekend and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/slash history.
		Book TV, every Sunday on C-SPAN 2, features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		At 2:30 p.m. Eastern, we'll feature this year's Savannah Book Festival.
		You'll hear from authors discussing scientist Marie Curie, the role of big tech in politics, FBI sting operations, and more.
		And at 8 p.m. Eastern, biology professor Neil Schubin shares his book, Ends of the Earth, which highlights the scientific discoveries made by exploring the North and South Poles.
		Then at 10 p.m. Eastern, on Afterwards, writer Paul Bluestein makes the case for why he believes the dollar will remain the world's dominant currency in his book, King Dollar.
		He's interviewed by author and council on foreign relations senior fellow Zhangjuan Zhouiliu.
		Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Sunday.
		On C-SPAN's QA, author and writer George Will, whose nationally syndicated column has been running since 1974, discusses his life and career in the opinion business.
		Mr. Will talks about the impact of his work on U.S. politics over the past 50 years, conservatism in the age of Donald Trump, his love of baseball, and other topics.
		How opinion gets formed is mysterious.
		It's slow.
		It's kind of a kind of ongoing osmosis by which opinion is formed.
		And I like it that way.
		Who wants to live in a country that is blown about by gusts of opinion emitted by journalists?
		Author and writer George Will, Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA.
		You can listen to Q&A wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We have a roundtable discussion of media coverage of the Trump administration.
		We're joined by Matt Gertz, Senior Fellow at Media Matters, and Tim Graham, Media Research Center, Newsbusters Executive Editor and Media Analysis Director.
		Welcome, gentlemen, to you both.
unidentified		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for watching.
		Matt, I'll start with you.
		Talk about your mission at Media Matters and how you're funded.
unidentified		Sure.
		Media Matters is a progressive nonprofit media watchdog group.
		We focus on monitoring, analyzing, and reporting on the media in all its forms, from traditional media outlets like the New York Times and CNN to right-wing outlets like Fox News to the sort of burgundy field of podcasts and streamers and all the rest of it.
		We work hard to try to give our audience an understanding of that incredibly complex set of institutions and explain how conservative misinformation impacts their output and thus all of our lives.
		My personal work focuses specifically largely on right-wing media, particularly President Donald Trump's sort of unprecedented interactions with Fox News and other similar outlets.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And what about you, Tim?
unidentified		Well, the Media Research Center was founded in 1987 to study specifically the television news for starters.
		Also, obviously the national news magazines and newspapers.
		News magazine is not as much of a thing now.
		But we are monitoring, recording ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, watching all of those.
		It's just gotten more and more complicated, CNN, MSNBC, streaming channels.
		You can't really keep up with all of it.
		But the whole point of it is to try to look at liberal bias in the news media and how stories get distorted or they're presented in a very one-sided fashion.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So let's start with the Atlantic story that dominated this week's news cycle, which was about the Signal chat and the journalists being added to that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How did you initially react to that news, Tim Graham?
unidentified		Well, it was obviously a major error because Jeffrey Goldberg hates Donald Trump.
		Jeffrey Goldberg's magazine endorsed Trump's opponent in the last three cycles.
		It was obviously not only an error to somehow conduct a conversation about a military action on Signal.
		I think that's a mistake.
		But clearly, when you admit this guy to the chat, you're admitting an enemy or an adversary.
		So that was clearly a mistake.
		Now, almost any journalist who finds himself in this discussion is not going to go, hey, I think I should back out now.
		It's a story.
		It's been a great story for Jeffrey Goldberg.
		But again, the Atlantic magazine, it's like the Biden people, oops, Peter Doocy's in the call.
		I mean, it's a mistake.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So the president, though, called it a hoax, called the whole story a hoax.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you make of that?
unidentified		It's not a hoax.
		I mean, I think it's a story that reflects negatively on the Trump administration.
		So, I mean, I think that this, it should be acknowledged that it's an error.
		I think the funny part of all of this is that it does overshadow the idea that there was actually a successful military operation here against the Houthis.
		Unlike the Biden administration's complete disaster in Afghanistan, the news media, that was probably the toughest the news media was on the Biden administration, was in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
		But nobody resigned.
		There was no pressure, really, for anyone to resign.
		Now they're trying to say how many people do they want to resign from the Trump administration in month two.
		And that's the kind of thing the media does.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's ask Matt Gertz about your reaction to the Atlantic story.
unidentified		Yeah, I think I was stunned and shocked that such a thing could happen.
		Both the part of the story in which the National Security Advisor was somehow pulled into a high-level chat with the top or somehow pulled in a reporter to a chat with the top advisors to the president on national security.
		But then, you know, I think when the actual texts came out and we saw the incredible detail that Pete Hegset, the defense secretary, was using, that was, I think, pretty startling.
		And, you know, I've been impressed with a lot of the follow-up reporting that we've seen from various outlets on that story, checking in with fighter pilots who say that that sort of information being shared publicly or being shared over a channel like that puts their lives in danger to sort of deeper dives into the legality of sending information like that.
		On the other hand, I think what we've seen from a lot of the most popular right-wing outlets and personalities is claims that as President Trump said, that the story is a hoax, there's nothing really there, that no one did anything wrong except the part where Goldberg was allowed to hear it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Respond to what Tim Graham said about that this has overshadowed the whole debacle in Afghanistan, that that didn't go well, and that nobody resigned as a result of that.
unidentified		Well, I think what Tim said was that it overshadowed the successful military action, which I don't know.
		I actually went back and looked at some of the coverage from the weekend that that military action was taken.
		It was widely covered.
		It was in all of the major broadcast networks.
		It was on CNN.
		Mike Waltz actually went on ABC's This Week to talk about it.
		The New York Times had eight different articles about it.
		So it got covered in the moment, but it comes back up because we see this sort of startling breach of security.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's take a look at some of the headlines and the way the news outlets have been covering this signal story.
		And here is, we'll put it on the screen.
		So the Huffington Post says, war plans leak reveals the shocking incompetence of the Trump administration.
		MSNBC Chiron says Trump team deflects and lies as leaked plan is published.
		Fox News, we've all texted the wrong person before.
		And News Mac says, Signal chat had sensitive info, but not classified.
		What do you make, Tim Graham, of the shocking differences of those headlines and lower thirds?
unidentified		I think this is what we're used to, is that the liberal media has one take, the conservative media has another take.
		Any news consumer is going to look at this and say, which facts, well, first, which facts are facts, and then how do we interpret those facts?
		And that's part of this.
		And part of it's just spin.
		You can't confuse war plans with me, oops, I texted my mom by mistake.
		But on the other hand, it's like, yes, let's watch MSNBC and have Gen Saki attack Trump when Gen Saki was there for the Afghanistan fiasco.
		I just think that it's everybody who reads the news knows what spin they're getting.
		I think that what's obvious is the original success of the initiative against the Houthis, which of course, it came with this classic trope where they said, according to Houthi health officials, 57 civilians are dead.
		They'll always take Iran-backed proxies for their objective sources.
		That amount of reporting, it's got to be, what, overwhelmed by five or 10 or 20 times the amount of attention that this scandal has gotten.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you saying that since the attack against the Houthis was a success, that no harm, no foul in the way that the planning was handled?
unidentified		Is that what I'm saying?
		What I'm saying is that from the perspective of how much information or spin you're receiving, it's easy to forget the original reporting on how it went because it's almost forgotten.
		Can I just ask, I mean, we're still bombing the Houthis, though, right?
		Like 13, 14 days later, we haven't stopped.
		So the initial success, the tactical success of that mission has not led to the strategic outcome of ships being able to go through those straits.
		I think the problem here is simply.
		I believe that the news media is organized in a way.
		We have found overwhelmingly at the Media Research Center that Trump's coverage on the network of evening programs is 90% negative or worse.
		So when they get a story in which Trump can be portrayed as incompetent, bumbling, whatever, they are going to love that story and do it very heavily.
		And that's where the original military actions are going to be forgotten because the objective is to always have the coverage on Trump be negative.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Matt Goertz, you said that you focus specifically on the relationship between Fox News and President Trump.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What have you found in reviewing that?
unidentified		Sure.
		I mean, I think one interesting aspect of this story is the number of people who were on that text chain who used to work at Fox News.
		Pete Hegseth got promoted from co-host of Fox News' weekend morning program to Secretary of Defense.
		Tulsi Gabbard used to be a Fox News contributor.
		Mike Waltz used to be a Fox News contributor as well.
		They're part of a group of 20, now 21 actually, after last night, former Fox News employees who have high-ranking positions in Donald Trump's administration.
		And that's because Donald Trump really likes Fox News.
		He watches a lot of the network's programming, and he hires people based on their TV hits and how they say nice things about him and mean things about his enemies.
		That causes problems, though, right?
		Because it's one thing to have people going from communications positions, reporting positions to communications positions in an administration.
		That happens all the time everywhere.
		But these are policy roles.
		These are cabinet positions.
		There are four former Fox employees who are in the cabinet.
		And that's a lot.
		That's a lot of influence for people whose top bona fide was being able to serve up red meat to Republican viewers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you'd like to join our conversation about the role and the media coverage of the Trump administration, you can do so.
		Our lines are Democrats 202748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents 202748-8002.
		And Tim Graham, how do you see the difference between how the administration behaves with the media now compared to Mr. Trump's first term?
unidentified		Well, I think some of it's quite similar.
		I think there's a much more dramatic difference between the way the Trump administration deals with the press and the Biden administration dealt with the press.
		And so they all say, well, Trump is so terrible toward the press, but he grants tremendous access.
		And the Biden people most definitively did not.
		And one of the things that's fascinating, this is how you know the news media are a bunch of liberal Democrats.
		They didn't mind being shut out.
		They didn't mind having any press conferences.
		They didn't mind any of that because they voted for Biden.
		And so by the same token, if Trump grants broad access and does a whole pile of interviews and does a lot of events, it doesn't seem to matter.
		He's still somehow anti-press because he criticizes the press.
		So if the question is press access, Trump's way better than Biden.
		Criticizes the press.
		I mean, Tim, let's be real here.
		He went to the headquarters of the FBI and said that the coverage that these outlets were putting out should be illegal, that they were breaking the law because they were too critical of him.
		That goes quite a bit beyond mere criticism.
		That's the sort of thing that both parties, people in both parties have provided to the media for years and years and years.
		But the idea of putting legal consequences on reporters for doing their jobs is, I think, a pretty massive affront to freedom of the press and the First Amendment.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to put up what the Associated Press executive editor Julie Pace wrote in an op-ed about the Trump administration barring the Associated Press because they didn't, I guess they didn't change the name to Gulf of America from Gulf of Mexico.
		Here's what she said.
		The White House claims this is simply a matter of changing which news organizations have access to the president.
		But it's nothing less than a brazen attempt to punish the AP for using words the president doesn't like.
		It's also meant to show other media outlets what will happen if they don't fall in line.
		No president of either party has been shy about letting us know when he didn't like our coverage.
		They have the right to criticize us.
		But no president, including Mr. Trump, during his first term, has ever tried to blacklist us because he didn't like what we wrote.
		And that's an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
		Tim Graham, your response to that.
unidentified		Well, I was a White House correspondent for two years under George W. Bush.
		I was never in the press pool.
		I was never granted access to the Oval Office.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Who did you work for at the time?
unidentified		World Magazine.
		It's a Christian Newsweekly.
		And so the question becomes, if the Associated Press isn't allowed to be in a press pool event, is that somehow tyranny?
		I don't think so.
		I think it's a choice.
		The problem you have is the Associated Press wants to portray to everybody that somehow they are the mainstream.
		And when Trump says you can't come in here, they're like, you're attacking the press.
		No, he's attacking the liberal press.
		Julie Pace, who wrote this article, what did she do in the last administration?
		She wrote a suck-up book about the first lady, Jill Biden.
		The idea that the AP, where Julie Pace and Darlene Superville can write a book-length puff piece about Jill Biden and then try to present themselves as, we are not anti-Trump.
		We are not a bunch of Democrats.
		The Trump administration has a right to set the agenda and the press rules the way they want to.
		He is the president of the United States.
		What we have here is an arrogant liberal media elite that insists that they have a pride of place that you can never violate and that somehow they represent the First Amendment.
		Well, the rest of us who voted for Donald Trump also represent the First Amendment.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think, Matt Gertz?
unidentified		Well, look, I think there are always going to be these sorts of back and forths about access.
		The politicians will always want to have more control over the system.
		Reporters will always want there to be less control and for them to have more access.
		You know, I think the kind of troubling part of this is that it's all stemming from Donald Trump suddenly deciding that we should call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and the AP refusing to do so.
		And then this sort of retribution against the outlet that provides news coverage to outlets across the country that can't afford to send their own reporters to the White House.
		And that huge audience doesn't get represented.
		I respect your work for World Magazine, but that is, I assume, a significantly smaller outlet.
		We need the budget to travel abroad with the president.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So when you say that the AP is providing biased news coverage, can you give an example?
unidentified		Well, I just did, but I mean, it's on a network.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, no, about their news coverage.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What's biased?
unidentified		I like to start with the idea that AP had a fact-check project.
		Well, the AP Fact Check Project with Trump, Was there anybody else in Washington to fact-check?
		And the AP fact.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The vice president, you mean?
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, the AP, it's like PolitiFact.
		It's like we're an independent fact-checking organization, and 90% of our fact-checks are on the Republicans.
		I mean, it's like that.
		I think it's not hard to look at the AP and say the headlines are biased, the reports are biased, they're larded with editorialization.
		And that ancient image of the Associated Press that you might have had from the 60s or whatever that they're fair and objective, they are not.
		It's not hard to look at.
		You could look at AP news right now, and you'd find most of the stories are biased.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, as a matter of fact, I can pull up the AP.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Myanmar earthquake death toll jumps to more than 1,000 as more bodies recovered.
unidentified		Well, no politics in that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Trump says the U.S. will help in Asia quake.
		A former official says the system is now in shambles.
		Ariel View, Elon Musk sells X to his own XAI for $33 billion, an all-stock deal.
		So I guess we can discuss that.
unidentified		That's the politics tag, you know.
		But, you know, the whole point of this is they have an undisturbed, undeserved prestige.
		It's the same way that we're looking at the public broadcasting service and national public radio having a prestige they don't deserve, that somehow they're for the public when really they're for half of the public.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We definitely want to talk about national public radio, NPR, and PBS.
		And first, we're going to go to some calls.
		This is David in Ohio Independent Line.
		Good morning, David.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I'm speaking, I am an independent.
		I cut my political teeth on Vietnam.
		I'm 71 years old.
		So I began to do research.
		I was a hawk on Vietnam.
		And then as I did research, I became aware of the colonial history of Vietnam.
		And so there's two sides to every story.
		So I think it's very important to look at both sides.
		But for me, when I look at both sides, I generally side on the side of the poor and the working people.
		You look all through history.
		It's all been an exploitation of the masses by a few rich people.
		But when I studied the Vietnam history, it did not turn me against America.
		I think America is the shining city on the hill when we follow the Bill of Rights, when we follow our Constitution.
		Those are great documents.
		See, what we're battling is human nature.
		The greed of human nature is what we're fighting.
		And that's not.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So David, when you relate this back to the media and media coverage of the Trump administration, what do you want to know specifically?
unidentified		Okay, what I want to know is, okay, there are two things that I wanted to bring up historically.
		First of all, I remember that the church hearings took place right after Watergate, and it was in the mid-70s.
		They found that U.S. intelligence agencies had infiltrated news media.
		In other words, they were planting stories.
		So we weren't getting the full truth as much as we like to think we are.
		I think that's un-American to me.
		I think in my America, you let all the sides come through, and then the people can decide what's true.
		Also, they did a study right after the Gulf War, right after Iraq, the Iraq invasion, rather, and they found that Fox News listeners were more likely to get current events questions wrong because, for example, they thought that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 911.
		They thought he had weapons of mass destruction.
		And so there's misinformation on conservative news channels.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, David, let's have Tim Graham respond to that.
unidentified		Well, again, it kind of depends.
		Obviously, yes.
		Was Saddam Hussein behind 9-11?
		No.
		But, you know, the term misinformation is interesting because what they're going to try to say is it's only a conservative problem.
		The liberal media never say anything that's wrong.
		The caller talks about the CIA working with the news media.
		I'm sorry, that happens all the time.
		It's clearly happened against Donald Trump, right?
		And so, for example, we have the Hunter Biden laptop and they suddenly find a whole bunch of people who've been in the intelligence agencies who say the Hunter Biden laptop has all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation, except it was authentic.
		It was not a Russian plot.
		But the liberal news media with the election on the line all ran around saying it was a Russian plot, which was misinformation.
		But apparently, if you're the mainstream media, you can put over misinformation in the final weeks of an election, and then they come back in 2022 and go, oh, I'm sorry.
		We've now determined the Hunter Biden laptop was authentic.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Oops.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Your response to that, Matt Gertz.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, I think the backstory of the Hunter Biden laptop is interesting.
		You know, I think there was a lot of reason for news outlets to be a little bit hesitant to dive into that one.
		It was first.
		Because they're Democrats.
		Because the laptop contents were being held by Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, who was offering it out to news outlets that he thought would basically air its contents without confirming any of their authenticity or following up on anything.
		It originally went to the Wall Street Journal news section, which was looking into it, but not fast enough, I guess, for Rudy Giuliani.
		So he took it to Fox's news side.
		Fox turned it down.
		Fox said they couldn't verify enough of it to run with the story.
		Fox News.
		The New York Post had the story.
		And then the New York Post.
		Yes.
		And then finally, they gave it to the New York Post, and the New York Post did a bunch of articles.
		And then Rudy Giuliani refused to give the contents of the laptop to anybody else in the media.
		So what Tim wants here is for everyone to just kind of run with the New York Post's reporting, which I think would have been good for the Trump campaign, but it's not necessarily good.
		What I would like is that the New York Post would not get shut down on Twitter for 17 days because they had a story that the liberals on Twitter at the time didn't want anybody to have.
		Facebook also squashed that story.
		What you wanted was somebody that would actually be curious about what was going on with the Biden family, and everybody said, we don't want to do that story.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Tim, so let's take a look at, since we're talking about the laptop, this is an exchange with Representative Michael Flood talking to NPR's chief executive about mistakes made about that Hunter Biden laptop story.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here it is.
unidentified		Now you are here managing NPR, which is in part federally funded, can we expect that you will bring the same lack of reverence for truth to your management of NPR?
		Thank you, Congressman.
		First of all, I do want to say that NPR acknowledges that we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner.
		Our current editorial leadership.
		Wuhan.
		We recognize that we were reporting at the time, but we acknowledge that the new CIA evidence is worthy of coverage and have covered it.
		What have you done to clean up the bias before?
		I wasn't there for that.
		What are you doing to clean up and make sure that we have absolutely thank you, Congressman?
		As I mentioned, I came in in May.
		Mr. Berliner published his story two weeks into my tenure regarding stories that had happened prior.
		I wish that I had had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Berliner.
		I would have loved to have had him engage and come back to us with some suggestions as to what we could do editorially in order to address what he perceived as bias.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And that was Michael Cloud, a Republican of Texas.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Mr. Gertz, your response to that, and do you think that that was a sufficient explanation from NPR?
unidentified		I think that NPR is in a tough spot.
		I mean, they're trying to secure the funding that will keep local stations afloat.
		And, you know, because they work for the public, they need to go to Congress and ask for that money.
		Congress is not necessarily inclined to do that right now for a variety of reasons.
		And so, you know.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you think the public should be supporting media outlets like NPR, like PBS?
unidentified		I mean, you know, I'm not here to do PR for NPR or PBSA.
		I think, you know, my daughter really enjoys Eleanor Wonders Why, the PBS Kids Show.
		My wife really likes the Kent Burns documentaries.
		I spend most of my time watching and listening to things that are intended to make me crazy, so I don't have a lot of insight there.
		What I thought was interesting, though, there was a separate set of questioning that I found insightful, where the Republican member of Congress was basically going down the line and saying, do you think we have all of this debt?
		Do you think that we should be spending money on you or on Social Security?
		And they were kind of hemming and hawing because it's a trap question, because of course, they want the money, but also they don't want to say people should not have Social Security.
		Now, personally, I think if it's a choice, I will take Social Security over the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
		On the other hand, the same day that hearing happened, Senator John Thune, the Senate majority leader, came out and said that Republicans want to make sure that the big tax bill that's coming down the line has full and total repeal of the estate tax, which would cost $370 billion with a B over 10 years.
		Corporation for Public Broadcasting is about $500 million a year.
		So, you know, if the choice is between making sure that people who have estates of over $14 million don't get taxed or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, I'll take NPR and take a look at the.
		But these two ladies came onto this hearing and they denied that we're nonpartisan.
		We're unbiased, which is ludicrous.
		So let's give you a really good example.
		The day after this hearing, the PBS News Hour had on Media Matters.
		Angelo Carrasoni, the leader of Media Matters.
		Has the Media Research Center ever had an interview on the PBS News Hour in the 36 through 7 years?
		No, it's never happened.
		We have really good research, though.
		The problem, it shows you that their idea of fair and balanced coverage is more time for the left.
		This is the way PBS and NPR do things.
		And yes, what NPR did in 2020 was they denounced the Hunter Biden laptop story as a pure distraction and didn't back off.
		This is the first time I've heard NPR back off when money's on the line five years late.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And I'll just remind viewers that that entire hearing is on our website.
		If you'd like to watch the whole thing, I think it's about an hour and a half long.
		You can watch that at c-span.org.
		Ernie is an Exeter, Rhode Island Democrat.
		Hi, Ernie.
unidentified		Hi.
		Thank you for taking the call today.
		Let's clarify some facts.
		Trump announced the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which puts Biden in a bind already.
		So let's not overlook that fact.
		The second fact is that Trump said that Ukraine started the war.
		So maybe Mr. Graham wants to talk about Afghanistan.
		No, that Ukraine started the war in Ukraine.
		Well, yeah, that's not true.
		Let's try and separate them, okay?
		I'm talking about the lie about Afghanistan and now the lie about Ukraine, that Ukraine started the war.
		Now, lastly, who was it that said they wanted to bar PBS and NPR?
		They wanted to take them off the air.
		Now, you tell me, as a journalist, the President of the United States is saying NPR and PBS should be banned.
		And you're okay with that?
		That's not sitting in that news.
		What we're advocating is that PBS and NPR should not be getting taxpayer funds.
		It seems to me that if you go to people on the left, like Oliver Darcy, who used to work at CNN, they advocated for Fox News to be removed from all cable systems.
		All right?
		That's not a position our group's ever taken to say that some station should be taken off the air.
		Defunding public broadcast is merely saying we don't want conservatives and Republicans across America to send tax dollars to Washington for them to be slimed as voting for a Nazi.
		That's all we're asking.
		Ernie, did you have anything?
		Yeah.
		You're sitting on the same stage taking advantage of that.
		So how can you be so hypocritical?
		Taking advantage of what, Ernie?
		Your media outlet.
		Here he is talking about defending Trump, right?
		And yet Trump wants to take this station off the air.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This station, C-SPAN?
unidentified		Are you?
		PPR?
		PBS?
		He doesn't want any taxpayer funded for that, right?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We are not taxpayer funded at all at C-SPAN.
unidentified		NPR and PBS?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, but this is not NPR or PBS.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is C-SPAN.
unidentified		I haven't been on NPR either in 30-some years.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Ann in Rockport, Massachusetts, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Anne.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		And this program is just, I can't believe it.
		It's just so well needed.
		I want to come through the phone and I want to hug Mr. Graham.
		I was coming into the room as you were speaking about Donald Trump.
		Every time he's on the news, it's negative.
		I want to pull my hair out.
		And when he was elected, I said to my husband, I said, uh-oh, here we go.
		The same thing that happened the first four years he was in office.
		Regardless, any time his name comes up for the news, it's always negative coverage.
		And we had a lot of news happening this past week.
		And a couple of things I never saw in the news that were really instrumental.
		And one of them was on the Northeast here, we had a MS-13 gangster criminal that was taken down.
		And C-SPAN was going to, they did show it once, and I said to my husband, because he missed it.
		You've got to see this.
		Well, they never showed it a second time.
		And then Noam was in Mexico, and she was supposed to be on C-SPAN all day yesterday, which I kept on trying to catch.
		And they kept on moving it, and finally it wasn't even on.
		So I find that the news media, thank you, thank you.
		I can't watch it here in Massachusetts.
		You can't imagine if you watch 4, 5, 7, it's all liberal jargon.
		You can't find anything in Massachusetts that ever says anything positive that has gone on with either President Trump.
		They don't show him in the office every day.
		He'll come into the office or Caroline Levitt.
		They don't show any of that.
		You have to see it on C-SPAN.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's get a response to Anne Matt about everything on the media being negative about President Trump.
unidentified		Well, I think President Trump's done a pretty bad job.
		So I think a lot of negative coverage is warranted.
		I mean, this is someone who was elected, you know, basically on the idea that he would bring prices down and stop illegal immigration.
		And, you know, prices, you know, inflation is at the same level.
		We've got new tariffs coming that are going to raise prices on all number of things.
		And then on immigration, he's done a good job of closing down the border, but now is, you know, sending people without due process to a Central American prison that is notorious for brutality.
		So, you know, I think by his own lights, that that looks pretty bad.
		You know, you add together things like giving full pardons to everyone involved in the January 6th insurrection, including people who violently assaulted police officers, carrying through to the attacks on different law firms and news outlets and the courts.
		I think you paint a pretty negative seeming picture.
		The news also has just a negativity bias in general.
		I think that held true during the Biden administration as well.
		I think we saw that even though the economy was doing relatively well, all things considered, most of the coverage always kind of went to the worst aspects of it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And I'll just show the Associated Press headline about what Ann was talking about.
		Alleged leader of MS-13 street gang on the East Coast is arrested in Virginia.
		That's at the AP.
unidentified		I don't think that was a network story.
		I can go back and look, but I bet you that was not a network story.
		You know, here's how negative the media is toward Donald Trump.
		We did a study in the days after he was shot, and the coverage was still 90% negative.
		After he was shot.
		That's how negative it is.
		And I understand.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's very negative.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Like remind us how it was.
unidentified		Well, for example, people trying to suggest that Trump's rhetoric caused him to get shot.
		I mean, can you think of a nicer thing to say to somebody after they've been shot?
		Well, you caused it, so suck it up, Trump.
		I mean, the idea here is it's negative all the time.
		To try to suggest that coverage of the Biden presidency was just as negative as Trump, everybody knows that's not true.
		We found in the first 100 days of the Biden administration, network coverage on ABC, CBS, and NBC was 59% positive.
		It was not 90% negative.
		These studies are interesting, but at Media Matters, we've never tried to do the positive-negative thing on Fox News, on anything else, because we kind of assume that if you take a bunch of liberals in a room and have them look at media coverage, they're going to think that it's too conservative.
		Just like if you put a bunch of conservatives in the room and have them look at media coverage, they're going to think it's too literal.
		It's too liberal.
		That's just kind of the way people react to things.
		You have a study out right now where you're judging how liberal or conservative podcasts are.
		So I don't know what you're trying to say.
		I think whether it's liberal or conservative is a little different than whether it's positive or negative.
		No, it's pretty much the same thing.
		It's whether the journalist is liberal or the journalist is conservative.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Tim, can you specify a little bit?
		Because positive-negative is subjective.
		So how do you guys, when you do your analysis, how do you understand that instead of this just being a it makes the president look bad because maybe the administration did something that was not appropriate, that that would be negative coverage as opposed to taking something that the administration did that maybe was positive and then giving it a negative spin.
unidentified		I understand that people can say, well, you're a conservative, so your interpretation of positive and negative is based on your own emotions or something.
		Does anybody going to say that the news coverage they watched this week had any positivity in it?
		Now, the way we judge it, we do not include statements by the politicians, Democrat or Republican.
		It's really about what the reporters say and the sources that they choose, sometimes the members of the public that they choose.
		I think everybody knows coverage of Trump is very negative.
		It's not rocket science, but we do it just to try to underline.
		It's so much more dramatically negative than anything the Democrats receive.
		Do you think it's illegal?
		No, I don't think it's illegal.
		It's bad that the political issue is.
		I think it's of the United States saying that the coverage is illegal.
		Do you think it's too bad?
		Do you think it's the FBI?
		Do you think it's bad that the liberal journalists are okay with them raiding the president's house?
		A raid on the president's house.
		The liberal journalists were fine with that.
		They didn't suggest that was illegal.
		We've just had a warning.
		We've just been through a year in which the legal system, including the so-called nonpartisan Biden Justice Department, tried to put Trump in jail.
		Everybody in the liberal media was fine with that.
		That's not illegal to try to put the president in jail or the presidential candidate in jail.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we're going to talk to Greg in Glen Allen, Virginia, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Greg.
unidentified		Yeah, hi.
		Well, I'm going to state the obvious here.
		The media is not reporting the news.
		When I go flip back and forth between CNN and Fox News and MSNBC, I can't get a news report.
		All I get, the line between opinion and news, seem like it's almost completely gone.
		And that's part of the problem.
		That's one of the reasons why people think Trump's not getting, if they just report the news, which is really hard to get, then a lot of these problems about negative versus positive would go away, but we're just not getting objective news reporting.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of all the opinion in the news broadcasts?
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, I think if you're watching cable news, you are getting a lot of opinion.
		I think there's no doubt about that.
		I think the reason for that is probably that that's what the audience wants, though.
		I mean, that is the reality.
		These are outlets that make their money off of advertisements, which are based on how many people are going to tune in and watch.
		And more people want to see opinion than want to see those news accounts.
		I wish it were a different way.
		It'd be nice if pure news could succeed and thrive in that way, but that just doesn't seem to be what people actually want.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Janet in Warren, Ohio, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Janet.
unidentified		Hey there.
		I have to say my head is spinning after all of this.
		I have never heard so much whining and victimhood.
		And I'm going to direct this one at you, Mr. Graham, on everything that you think is wrong with the media.
		And you think that you're not biased in your approach and the things that you are saying about the left, the things that Fox News every single day disparages not just the left, but anybody who does not agree with their perspective and their way of looking at things.
		Frankly, I think we've gone from woke, this conversation about woke, to broke.
		And the media is absolutely, the gentleman before me that spoke is not focused exclusively on just the facts, on just the truth.
		If the truth does come out, unfortunately, Mr. Graham, I've got to direct this at you.
		Folks like you will say, you know, there's a problem with how it's being reported.
		Well, if the truth is the truth, why do you have a problem with the truth?
		My question for you, Mr. Graham, is, do you think you are biased or not?
		And for Mr. Goertz, I mean, I appreciate the civility that you bring every perspective to everything that Mr. Graham says.
		But if he's going to throw out a few punches and a few one-liners and attacks on one side, well, maybe you need to kind of bump up your response back to it.
		Maybe not be as polite.
		Maybe just throw it right back in his face, because quite frankly, that's really what we have reduced this conversation to.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Janet, let's get Tim Graham to respond.
unidentified		Sounds like she wants a biased opinionated program where people yell at each other.
		Oops.
		We've never said we are not biased.
		I think we've been quite clear.
		We are conservatives, and we are here to advocate on behalf of conservatives and to say that if the news media still believed in the idea of being fair and accurate and unbiased, they're not living up to that promise.
		That's what we're up to.
		We've never tried to say we're not conservative.
		So that's just that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Julie in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Republican line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Julie.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Just a little perspective on my part.
		Recently retired, recently widowed, I have a lot of time to watch TV, and it's winter.
		So I'm not outside.
		And I watch a lot of news.
		I watch a lot of C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2 and 3.
		I actually like watching when they have the meetings with the representatives and the TV going against the people that come up before them.
		I'm grasping for words, sorry.
		But anyway, so, and I watch, I like Fox because they have what I think.
		But I turn to CNN and MSNBC.
		Then I turn on the evening news.
		And everything that I've watched on C-SPAN 3 during the hearings, they have picked out the very worst of everything that goes against Republicans.
		It just makes you sick to see that all they could say in the first 15 minutes is something negative.
		And that's how I see the world.
		I do not talk to my friends about politics.
		I like them for who they are.
		I don't care what they think about politics.
		But I think the world is just a sad, sad place because of this.
		And I wish for better.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Julie.
unidentified		I do watch Fox.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And so, Matt Gertz, your response to the networks picking the worst, the most negative parts of whatever news is going on.
unidentified		I mean, I don't really know what she's been watching, so I don't think I really have much to add there.
		I would say this.
		You know, on Wednesday there were hearings, right?
		And the networks had the hearings where the Democrats were yelling at the Trump people on the signal thing.
		We also had on Wednesday the hearing about PBS and NPR, and ABC and CBS and NBC skipped that hearing because it was just they didn't want to talk about liberal bias anywhere.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And you can watch that on C-SPAN.
		Here's Kathy, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Okay, I just totally disagree with that.
		It's a liberal media out there.
		But I also wanted to say, or just comment on, you initially started off by praising Trump for giving press conferences all the time or being in front of the media.
		He loves to be in front of the camera.
		But I don't think it necessarily makes it better because all he does is lie.
		He doesn't answer the questions.
		When you really listen, the journalists will ask a question and he'll just go off on what he wants to talk about.
		And so he basically lies to everybody.
		And I don't think that's necessarily a good thing.
		And I don't know what you think about that, but that doesn't make it better just for him to go out and lie and spread every, you know.
		And then I think also there are more negative stories because I have to agree that everything that he's done, it's just one thing after the other, after the other, it's just negative.
		And he's a bully, and he's just, that's why it's going to, he may seem it's more negative, but just the actions that he's taken.
		And that's all I have to say.
		Thank you.
		I was just trying to make the point that Donald Trump has granted dramatically more media access than Joe Biden did.
		And he gets zero credit for that.
		And he's facing reporters who voted for his opponent three or four or five or six times.
		And so, you know, Biden wouldn't grant access to reporters who voted for him.
		Biden wouldn't grant access to reporters who like him a lot and who would give him positive stories.
		And part of the reason I'm guessing is that Team Biden was afraid to put Joe Biden out there because he lost the ability to actually effectively respond.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of that, Matt Goertz, as far as giving President Trump credit for at least having a lot of news conferences?
unidentified		He does have a lot of news conferences.
		He takes a lot of questions.
		I think there's no doubt about that.
		I think he started stocking those events with more sycophantic members of the sort of pro-Trump media.
		But again, this is one of those sort of access questions that we get into in every administration.
		Reporters want more.
		The presidents want to sort of limit their downsides.
		But yeah, Trump loves to be in front of cameras.
		He loves to be the center of attention.
		And I think there's no doubt about that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is Pat in Ritman, Ohio, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Pat.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Thank you, C-SPAN.
		I really like your program.
		Matt, this is what I want to say.
		You started out right at the beginning of the show about Hunter Biden's computer, and you started out in the middle that he gave it to Rudy Giuliani.
		That is true after he turned it over to the FBI.
		That's my problem, okay?
		And it happens on both sides.
		I'm extremely conservative, but I've always voted for the person that I thought would be best for the country.
		I'm 73 years old.
		But you right there, either you don't understand, you know, you're ignorant of what happened, or you on purpose, you know, made people think that don't know better, You know, that, oh, he gave it to Rudy Giuliani because this guy must be very conservative or Republican.
		And that's not how it happened.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, go ahead.
unidentified		So I don't think that was my intention at all.
		My point was simply about who had the laptop and was giving it to different reporters.
		It's true that it was given to the FBI first, but I don't think that's really that relevant on how it would be reported out.
		The FBI sat on it.
		And then when they were all running around saying there was Russian disinformation, it's like the FBI could say, oh, wait a minute, we have it.
		That's a critique of the FBI.
		That's not a critique.
		It's a critique of the story.
		Why did the FBI hold it that whole time?
		The Biden Justice Department bottled up everything.
		We didn't even know they were investigating Hunter Biden for years.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Gene in Dublin, Virginia, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Gene.
unidentified		Morning, sir.
		I hope you're all doing well.
		I just got, I'm going to be a little esoteric and profish here, but there's something that I've had a kind of a pet project.
		When I was doing my graduate work, we all talked about the concept of constructivism, which I'm sure you guys both know what I'm talking about.
		And I'll kind of come to the conclusion we are now living in what I call the constructionist nightmare.
		That I hear the leaders on both sides put out a narrative, put out something on the news.
		It doesn't even have to be true, but each side will turn around and come up with their own narrative to fit whatever this narrative does, fit whatever they've been put out.
		And by the way, just so we know, full disclosure, somewhere in a box in my office, I have a Sigma Delta Chi Award, Daily Intelligence through Dollstown, Pennsylvania.
		I'm just one of those people that realized that print was collapsing and went back and got an engineering degree and then graduate school.
		But what I'm hearing here, they say it's all the constructionist nightmare where it doesn't have to be true.
		I can hear it in the people that are calling in every morning here.
		I hear it on both sides here.
		It's just like, I think to myself as a journalist, this isn't journalism.
		This is not what I did when I was back in the 80s.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Gene.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think, Tim?
unidentified		Well, I think that I would certainly try to say to people that sometimes when you watch the nightly news, it seems more like the nightly narrative.
		They've framed the information so conveniently.
		Sometimes to me, it just looks like a negative commercial against the Republicans.
		So I get that.
		I think truth is a very elusive concept.
		We all want to stick to the truth.
		We all want to strict to the facts.
		All these news media people will say they're fact-based.
		But as we've already discussed, there's a lot of basis in opinion in the news media.
		And we can disagree on what the facts are or which facts are relevant.
		There's a role in the media to check facts.
		There's a reason for fact-checking organizations.
		But the problem we've had is they're so slanted in their target selection that, you know, we have.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So your issue then is what they are choosing to fact-check.
		Right.
		Not that they are not fact-checking.
unidentified		Sometimes, and sometimes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sometimes they're not being accurate in their fact-checking.
unidentified		Sometimes the fact-checks are accurate, and sometimes they'll say, PolitiFact will do this thing where they'll, well, they'll say it's mostly false.
		And then, like in the fifth paragraph, well, Ted Cruz was right, but here's how it's mostly false.
		So, I mean, the truth of meter that PolitiFact has, very political in the way that they use it.
		I think the funny thing about that is that is like identical to an argument that I've heard people make about fact-checking of Bernie Sanders.
		So, you know, depending on your perspective, the fact-checking can read very differently.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Josie, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Democrat.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I would like to say that I do support PBS and NPR.
		I think they have done wonderful things.
		PBS with Sesame Street was helping children learn to read and interact.
		There are many, many, many good things coming from both of those entities.
		And yes, taxpayer dollars should be used.
		We go back to the times of FDR when the arts were supported.
		As for I'm the daughter of a newspaper man, I understand journalism.
		I understand reporting.
		I think that we have to, what we have to look at is that somewhere in the 1980s, we began to look at celebrity journalism, where we made the reporters or the deliverer of the news a celebrity.
		And I don't believe that Huntley Brinkley were celebrities or John Cameron Swayze was a celebrity.
		They were on.
		They did facts, great facts.
		When you put it in print, you're subjected to libel.
		And it's harder to put it in print unless you're writing a subjective column, an opinion column.
		So this argument back and forth, I would say that when we talk about the media, we have to talk about cable and we have to talk about celebrity.
		And Mr. Trump enjoyed being a celebrity on The Apprentice.
		He enjoyed having that attention.
		And he still does.
		And so therefore, he puts himself out there to be fact-checked, to have things corrected that he says.
		So I don't see that as negative.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think, Tim Grimm?
unidentified		Well, you know, this hearing on Wednesday was funny because the Republicans are all asking questions about journalism, and the Democrats are all making jokes about kiddie shows.
		Now, if PBS had, if the news hour sounded like it was hosted by Jesse Waters, I don't think the Democrats would say, but the children's shows, but we love the children's shows.
		They would object to the journalism.
		That's what the whole fight is about.
		It's not about Sesame Street.
		It's not about Daniel Tiger's neighborhood.
		It's not about Tony the Tiger.
		It's about the journalism.
		And the fact of the matter is, yes, NewsHour is biased.
		The fact that Washington Week was basically kind of bought by the Atlantic magazine, so Jeffrey Goldberg gets to have a weekly show where last night was a bonanza for five liberals to denounce Trump for a half an hour.
		And we have to pay for that.
		That's what we're objecting to.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Tony in Riverton, New Jersey, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yeah, I was just wondering two things.
		Just one statement saying I can't believe that we're still talking about Hunter Biden's laptop, for one thing.
		For another thing, I'm wondering when this administration can start standing on their own and not being comparing themselves to the previous Biden administration.
		Well, that's constant in politics, isn't it?
		I think Obama blamed Bush for everything for about four years.
		But Biden's, you know, the Hunter-Biden laptop is relevant because the Biden family had a corrupt influence peddling business, and the news media never wanted to talk about it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I just want to put on the screen some information about public media funding.
		It says, so fiscal 2025, Congress appropriated $535 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
		It's less than 0.01% of the federal budget, which comes out to about $1.50 per year per American.
		Direct to federal funding amounts to 16% of PBS's budget and 1% of NPR's.
unidentified		I politely object to that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, please.
unidentified		NPR always says they get 1% from the federal budget.
		What happens is the CPB sends money out to NPR affiliates, and the NPR affiliates send it back to NPR in the form of grants for programming.
		So 1% is not accurate.
		Then they'll try to say like on the hill, well, maybe it's five.
		Well, this is what we don't know.
		The fact of the matter is PBS and NPR are not great at really sharing how much of the money is federal.
		And it's not just money from CPB.
		These people are getting money from the Education Department, the National Endowment for the Humanities.
		I found in one case, the WNYC in New York was getting a HUD grant.
		So there's federal money all over the public broadcasting system.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, and that's Tim Graham.
		He is a media analysis director at the Media Research Center.
		You can find his work at newsbusters.org.
		And Matt Gertz is Senior Fellow at Media Matters.
		And you can find out more about them at mediamatters.org.
		Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us.
unidentified		Thank you, Mimi.
unidentified		It's been fun.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Up next, Aisa Canchola Banez from the Student Borrower Protection Center discusses the Trump administration plans to move federal student loans to the Small Business Administration.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Stay with us.
unidentified		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.
		Today, 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, today at 7 p.m. Eastern on American History TV on C-SPAN 2.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		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 BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available on the free C-SPAN Now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts.
		Next week, on the C-SPAN networks, the House and Senate are in session.
		The House will vote on legislation to end nationwide injunctions in response to federal judges blocking President Trump's policies.
		They'll also vote on a bill requiring in-person proof of citizenship to register to vote.
		The Senate will vote on legislation from Democrats to end the national emergency declared by President Trump on February 1st to impose tariffs on Canadian goods.
		On Tuesday, retired Lieutenant General John Kaine, nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
		Also on Tuesday, authors, historians, and scholars testify before the House Oversight Task Force on the declassification of federal secrets subcommittee about records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
		On Wednesday, the President and CEO of Boeing, Kelly Orberg, testifies before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, examining steps Boeing has taken to address production deficiencies and safety issues identified after a door plug blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight.
		Boeing has been subjected to additional safety audits and enhanced FAA oversight since the incident.
		Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case of Medina versus Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, in which South Carolina Health and Human Services removed Planned Parenthood as a qualified health provider from its Medicaid enrollment.
		Watch live next week on the C-SPAN networks and on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app.
		Also, head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime.
		C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are going to be talking about the future of federal student loans, and our guest is Aisa Conchola-Banez.
		She's policy director at Student Borrower Protection Center.
		Aisa, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Thank you so much for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you tell us a little bit about your organization, the mission, and how it's funded?
unidentified		Yes, of course.
		So the Student Borrower Protection Center is a national nonprofit organization.
		We work with the mission of alleviating the burden of student loan debt for over 40 million Americans across the country.
		We engage in advocacy, policymaking, litigation strategy aimed at reining in industry abuses, protecting borrowers, and ultimately advancing racial and economic justice.
		We are funded primarily through grants from our philanthropic supporters and we engage in, or we issue reports and research, provide policy recommendations to policymakers at the national, state, and local levels.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Last week, the Trump administration did announce that it planned to move $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio from the Department of Education over to the Small Business Administration.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I guess there's a lot to talk about there, but your initial reaction to that and how your organization sees that move.
unidentified		Yes, thank you.
		So I think my initial reaction is first and foremost to reiterate that any action or any effort to remove or shift the student loan program out of the Department of Education would require congressional action.
		The Higher Education Act is explicitly clear when it established the Office of Federal Student Aid, which is the office that administers the federal student aid programs, which includes the student loan program, and established it within the Department of Education.
		It also made it very clear that the Secretary of Education is the official responsible for overseeing the administration of these programs within federal student aid.
		So I think my initial reaction to that kind of announcement last week was, you know, that any action to do such a thing could not possibly happen automatically in the way that the president had said, and nor could it happen by executive action.
		And I think our organization sees this as really a startling announcement, both startling, reckless, And with major questions around how the small business administration would be able to absorb the $1.6 trillion student loan program and student loan portfolio, literally on the same day that the president made this announcement, the SBA was announcing that they were laying off 43% of their staff.
		So major questions on just the capacity of the small business administration to be able to administer a program with such massive layoffs impacting their workforce as well.
		And then also just the lack of experience and background in overseeing programs as complex and as large as the student loan program.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk about that, Aisa, a little bit because the SBA does oversee small business loans.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, but you're saying that the student loan, the federal student loans, are much more complex.
unidentified		Can you explain why that is?
		Absolutely.
		So you're right.
		They do administer small business loans, but loans to small businesses are an incredibly niche financial product.
		And they are very different than student loans.
		The student loan program was created by Congress with the goal of expanding access to higher education.
		And it also established a very, very complex student loan safety net, which includes a vast array of rights and protections that are afforded to student loan borrowers should they require or should they hit hard financial times.
		Rights and benefits that allow a borrower to tie their monthly payment to their income, an array of income-driven repayment options that are available to borrowers that give them the right to an affordable monthly payment.
		Pathways to forgiveness and student loan debt discharge should a borrower enter into a public service field known as public service loan forgiveness.
		Or loan discharge if a student or borrower went to a school in which they were defrauded or cheated.
		Or if a borrower was to become completely and totally disabled, there are pathways for relief that are a key part of the student loan safety net that make the student loan system incredibly more complex.
		And I would also underscore that yes, the SBA does administer small business loans, but the portfolio of the student loan program is nearly three times the size of what the small business administration is used to overseeing currently.
		So I would argue it's significantly different and would require significantly more resources and capacity.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And if you've got a question for our guest, Aisa Conchola Banez of the Student Borrower Protection Center, you can give us a call.
		Our lines are Democrats 202748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		We also have a line set aside for current federal student loan borrowers.
		So if you are holding a federal student loan right now, please do give us a call.
		Our line for that is 202-748-8003.
		That's the same line you can use to text us as well.
		Can you just explain real quick, Aisa Banez, what the difference is between a federal student loan and a private student loan?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		So federal student loans are loans that are issued and administered by the Department of Education.
		If you are a student or a parent who filled out the FAFSA and worked with the Department of Education to request or submit financial background information on your family or your student, it is very likely that your loan is through the Department of Education and therefore is a federal student loan.
		Federal student loans, as I had mentioned, come with a host of consumer protections, benefits, and other types of protections that are unique to the federal student loan system.
		Private student loans, on the other hand, are loans that are directly issued by private banks or private loan companies.
		A lot of those loans, unfortunately, do not have the same levels of consumer protections, of rights that are afforded to borrowers, such as the ability to tie your monthly payment to your income,
		the ability to get access to forbearances and deferments should a borrower hit hard financial times or be laid off, or access to discharge should the student become disabled or unable to work or have been subject to any type of predatory action.
		The differences, I think, are very, very clear in that federal student loans come with many more protections.
		And that's one of the benefits from being able to access a loan through the Department of Education versus having to navigate a private student loan market where a borrower is kind of on their own to navigate the various terms that might be available to them through private banks or private loan entities.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So on your website, which is protectborrowers.org, you do have a section where you say that you have investigations and that you're working to balance the scales for the millions of Americans being ripped off by a student loan system fraught with corruption and abuse.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you explain a little bit more about what kind of corruption and abuse student borrowers are facing?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		So one of the areas in which our organization does an array of investigations is into the growing segment of shadow student loan debt that is growing very rapidly within the private student loan market.
		I think first and foremost, it's important to note that there is very little transparency into the private student loan market writ large.
		But what we do know, and based on kind of data that we could tell from complaints submitted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is that while the private student loan market makes up less than 10% of the overarching amount of student loan debt, they make up a very large, a predominant amount of complaints that are submitted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
		As a reminder, the CFPB has a complaint system where borrowers can submit complaints on issues that they are dealing with with their federal student loans, with their student loan servicer, or private student loans writ large.
		One of the growing kind of segments of that market is that there are new products that are being proliferated within the market.
		Products that have incredibly high interest rates, that have incredibly unclear payment terms, many of which borrowers will sign Sign on the dotted line, assuming that they will be able to benefit from flexible repayment terms or certain types of protections should they become unemployed.
		And then, once they actually need to get access to these protections, they will see kind of a bait and switch from their lender or from their servicer and then ultimately be left in the lurch as a result.
		We are seeing a growing array of products that are proliferating within the for-profit college industry, where colleges or for-profit colleges and online programs are offering income share agreements or other types of buy-in pay later products that ultimately have incredibly dubious terms, dangerous terms, and ultimately leave borrowers saddled with significantly more debt and ultimately lower quality degrees to show for it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we'll go to the phones shortly, but your organization was part of a lawsuit against the Trump administration over borrowers' abilities to change plans.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you explain what that's about and where does that lawsuit stand?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		So earlier this month, our organization filed a lawsuit on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers.
		And this was in response to the Trump administration's move to, as you'd say, as you'd said, block access to affordable repayment options.
		Taking a step back, you know, in the last administration, the Biden administration had established a new repayment option known as the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, otherwise known as the SAVE plan.
		This was one of an array of income-driven repayment options available to borrowers, again, kind of affording those borrowers the right to tie their monthly payments to their income.
		And it was ultimately challenged by challenged in court last year.
		Those challenges are still underway.
		And in response to a judgment recently or earlier this month by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, the administration ended up removing the application that borrowers have to apply for all income-driven repayment plans, including income-based repayment plans, which were not subject to the suit whatsoever.
		So what we saw is the administration really take a maximalist approach to interpreting this Eighth Circuit ruling that was only related to the SAVE plan and ultimately cut off access to all other income-driven repayment plans.
		As a result, millions of folks who are desperately needing access to more affordable payments have been blocked from being able to do so.
		Folks who were in a forbearance and who might have already or who were already enrolled in the SAVE plan have been stuck in that plan and unable to make progress towards the public service loan forgiveness program and other towards forgiveness under the public service loan forgiveness program.
		So what we saw is that this action by the department ultimately blocked borrowers from being able to access the rights that are afforded to them under federal law to access these affordable payments and ultimately pushed PSLF relief out of further out of reach for millions of borrowers.
		So we filed this suit and actually we were able to get some good news.
		Earlier this week in the first hearing as part of this lawsuit, the Department of Education through its Department of Justice lawyers shared that they were planning to, you know, that their plans to restore this online application, which is now available on federalstudentaid.gov.
		So that is one breadth of the state.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And it is up and operational at this point.
unidentified		It is up and operational.
		We do have concerns that borrowers might not have access to the full suite of plans that are still available to them.
		And then the one other piece that We remain concerned about, and we will continue to ensure that the department does this rapidly: is that the department also said that while they are going to be restoring this application, they're not going to be restarting processing of the applications.
		So, not only did the administration remove the application from its website, they essentially directed their student loan servicers.
		These are the contractors that are charged with helping borrowers manage their student loans.
		They ordered them to halt all application processing.
		And to just give you a scope of the demand for these plans, before the application was removed, there were over 1 million borrowers that had applications in a backlog waiting for their IDR application to be processed.
		So, by halting the processing of these applications, again, every day that these applications are on hold is a day that borrowers are having to wait and ultimately wait for their ability to have access to more affordable payments.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to callers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Norny is in St. Louis, Missouri, and you hold a federal student loan.
unidentified		Yes, hey, good morning, everyone.
		And I have my TV muted.
		Yeah, I do hold student loans, and the most I'm getting from, I don't know, the Department of Education is emails saying, like for the month of March, I didn't have a payment.
		Now, with Trump executive order, I haven't heard anything from anyone.
		So, my question is: will I hear from the Department of Education about next steps?
		Because I'm getting interest added, even though I'm in deferment.
		So, thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ayisa, go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, so I think it's important to remember that if you have a federal student loan, and you know, regardless of the, I assume the executive order that you were talking about is the executive order to, you know, abolish the Department of Education, which was also signed earlier this month and essentially directs the Secretary to take all actions in order to dismantle the Department of Education.
		You know, if you have a loan within the Department of Education, that is still within the purview of the Department of Education.
		We have been concerned that the department under this administration has not been providing updates to borrowers, considering all of the actions that this administration is taking, and especially in light of the president's most recent remarks about wanting to move student loans to the small business administration.
		I think it's important to remember your loan is still with the Department of Ed, that nothing has moved to the Small Business Administration, and doing so would require time and would require congressional action.
		And you're right.
		Many folks forget that student loan debt is one of the biggest forms of debt that consumers have across the country behind only mortgage debt in this country.
		And so, it is something that impacts everybody's financial lives and all aspects of their lives.
		And so, the need for information is incredibly dire.
		And we have been encouraging borrowers to do everything they can to protect themselves right now.
		You can do that by going onto your federalstudentaid.gov portal and downloading all of your student loan records, your student loan history, your payment history, and keeping those for your records.
		Also, going through and making sure to screenshot the trackers that the Department of Education recently established on the federal student aid individual borrower portals that can help you understand how much time you have left to, if you are, you know, if you are a borrower looking to apply for public service loan forgiveness, it can give you an idea of how much time you have towards that.
		It could also give you an idea of how much payments you've made towards cancellation under an income-driven repayment plan.
		And then also to contact your members of Congress and create or request casework assistance.
		Congressional offices have entire offices or entire teams dedicated to helping constituents that are dealing with issues with federal agencies.
		In your case, not getting information that you need on what's going to happen with your student loans.
		And constituents have the right to request casework assistance from their members of Congress, regardless of their party, to demand that they get you the information that you need.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, here's Carrie, a Republican in New Berlin, Wisconsin.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Carrie.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have a few things to say that our opinion, and then I have a couple things I'd like to get your guests' feedback on and her ideas.
		First of all, I just learned that today, this morning, a little while ago, that Trump is going to try to send student loans over to the Small Business Association.
		I thought originally it was going to go to Treasury, which seemed to make more sense to me at the time.
		But I guess the thought is: well, if he puts, you know, I'm going to put student loans together at the Small Business Association.
		And this has to go with, I guess, the fairness of student loan forgiveness.
		Because should we then start giving loan forgiveness to small businesses, which will go out of business, you know, if they don't pay off their loans.
		What about the homeowners?
		I mean, when we had that big homeowner crisis with all the foreclosures 15 years ago or whatever, homeowners who still have outstanding mortgages, a lot of them were given some forbearance and some got some of their principal reduced or whatever, but they never got out of the contract that they signed, which, you know, student loan is a legal contract.
		And so many, many homeowners lost their homes because they couldn't pay for it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Carrie, we will get an answer for you, but Ayusa, I want to add a text that we got from Brian in Nassau County since we're talking about loan forgiveness.
		He has a federal student loan and he says he's in the public service loan forgiveness program.
		Can you please speak to the future of PSLF?
		I am close to forgiveness, but am afraid it will not be around much longer.
unidentified		Yes, that is such a great question.
		You know, the public service loan forgiveness program, for the viewers, offers a pathway to relief for folks who enter into public service jobs and public service fields and serve their communities and serve in that space for 10 years.
		And at that point, they can get their remaining balances canceled.
		The public service loan forgiveness program is a bipartisan, was created in a bipartisan bill passed by Congress and has had long-standing bipartisan support.
		And, you know, eliminating the public service loan forgiveness cannot happen by executive action.
		You know, eliminating that program or making changes to the program would require congressional action.
		I think troublingly, we saw earlier this year or earlier this month, the Trump administration or President Trump sign an executive order calling for changes to the public service loan forgiveness program,
		specifically looking to eliminate eligibility for folks who are employed in fields that the administration deems as illegal with very, very broad terms and kind of outlines an array of areas of work that this administration disagrees with.
		And I think that that was a very troubling sign that this administration might be interested in looking to find ways to reform or eliminate access to the public service loan forgiveness in any way.
		It should also be noted that there have recently been discussions that congressional Republicans are interested in reforming the public service loan forgiveness program by making it by eliminating access to certain fields in order to access the forgiveness or capping the amount of relief that a borrower could see under the public service loan forgiveness program.
		We are starting to see these critiques of the program more and more within the Republican side.
		But what I would say is that the vast majority of members of Congress have a very strong support for this program.
		And I would think it is less likely to see major drastic changes to the program writ large.
		But what I'm most concerned about is a return to what the first Trump administration did in managing the public service loan forgiveness program.
		Under then Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration would have denied 99% of PSLF applications that had been submitted.
		That was one of the reasons why the Biden administration made such great efforts to reform the program and ensure that folks who are submitting these applications who had done their time and made and completed their service for 10 years were finally able to get the relief that they are entitled to under the law.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What our caller Carrie was saying, Aisa, was the fundamental unfairness of loan forgiveness.
		Whatever that may be, you took this loan, you need to pay it all back.
		What does your organization think of that argument?
unidentified		I think, well, so our organization would say that Congress has provided very clearly in the law, in the Higher Education Act, a pathway for loan forgiveness.
		Folks who enroll in income-driven repayment or any kind of income-driven repayment plan have the opportunity and have the guaranteed right to have the remainder of their debt canceled after 20 or 25 years of repayment.
		That is a right afforded to them under the law and within their loan terms.
		We talked about a contract.
		These are things that benefits and rights that borrowers are afforded when they take on these loans.
		Also, if a borrower enters into a public service field, they are and complete their 10 years of public service, they are entitled to that public service loan forgiveness if they are able to meet all of the other eligibility requirements.
		I think that the idea of fairness always comes up when we are talking about a benefit that can really benefit everyday people.
		We talked about the bailing out of during the financial crisis when folks lost everything in the mortgage crisis.
		Absolutely, our policymakers should have done more to protect homeowners and ensure that the banks weren't the only ones getting bailed out.
		I think right now we have an opportunity to do right by student-loaned borrowers who ultimately are doing everything they were told to do.
		They took on these loans to invest in themselves and ultimately invest in their communities and give back to their communities in order to access a higher education.
		Granted, a higher education that is required more and more in order to just be able to get a job in this economy and provide for your family.
		And so I think that these are fundamentally different things.
		And a reminder that forgiveness of loans is something that's embedded within the Higher Education Act and is a right that is available to borrowers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is Eric in Connecticut Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Eric.
unidentified		Hi.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I would just like to know if you're familiar with why we are considered third parties against our own Social Security number when it comes to defending ourselves against debt collection agency fraud.
		Thank you, and I'll take my call offline.
		Are you familiar with what he's talking about, Aisa?
		I am so sorry, sir.
		I am not.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No worries.
		We do have a text for you from Nelson in Pembroke Pines who says, student loans is the reason why colleges have increased their tuition and other costs.
		Can Ms. Banyas give her opinion on this?
		Is this, a fact, not the main problem with affordability?
		And what are the alternatives?
unidentified		I would argue that the main driver in the rising costs of a higher education and tuition has been very clearly tied to the levels in which states have disinvested from their institutions of higher education.
		When states have disinvested for year after year, many institutions have no choice but to increase their tuition.
		And so I would argue that getting states back at the table to invest in higher education as the public good that it is will ultimately help us lower the costs of higher education.
		And then I would also argue that there are many institutions and many states that continue to fund higher education at much lower levels than they did even prior to the recession.
		And so I would point that viewer to that information and that data as well.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Aisa Control Abanez, Policy Director at the Student Borrower Protection Center.
		You can find them online at protectborrowers.org.
		Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
unidentified		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Coming up after the break, more of your phone calls.
		It's open forum.
		You can start calling in now.
		The numbers are on your screen.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8000-1 for Republicans, and 202-748-8000-2 for Independents.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		It's Open Forum.
		Looking forward to taking your calls very soon.
		Here's some news for you.
		The Associated Press reporting this headline: Vance accuses Denmark of under-investing in Greenland as Trump presses for U.S. takeover of the island.
		While the Vice President was there yesterday, he spoke to reporters about why Greenland is important to the United States.
unidentified		This has to happen.
		And the reason it has to happen, I hate to say it, is because our friends in Denmark have not done their job in keeping this area safe.
		They just haven't done it.
		It's very simple.
		For all of our friends in the American media who attack the administration for pointing out the obvious, what is the alternative?
		To give up the North Atlantic?
		To give up the Arctic to China, to Russia, and to other regimes that don't have the best interests of the American people at heart?
		We have no other option.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		We need to take a significant position in Greenland to keep the people here safe, but to keep our own country safe too.
unidentified		We'll do one or two more.
		Trump said this week the U.S. would go as far as we have to go to acquire Greenland.
		And that's saying that question.
		Are there plans that have been drafted to use military force to take over Greenland?
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		Well, what the President has said is that we need to have more of a position in Greenland.
		We need it, again, for the safety of the American people.
		And what we think is going to happen is that the Greenlanders are going to choose, through self-determination, to become independent of Denmark.
		And then we're going to have conversations with the people of Greenland from there.
unidentified		So I think that talking about anything too far in the future is way too premature.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		We do not think that military force is ever going to be necessary.
unidentified		We think this makes sense.
unidentified		And because we think the people of Greenland are rational and good, we think we're going to be able to cut a deal, Donald Trump style, to ensure the security of this territory, but also the United States of America.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was yesterday in Greenland.
		This is the response from Greenland's parliament.
		It says in the Associated Press, the reaction of members of Greenland's parliament and residents has rendered that unlikely.
		And with anger erupting over the Trump administration's attempts to annex the vast Arctic island, Danish Prime Minister Frederickson pushed back on Vance's claim that Denmark isn't doing enough for defense in the Arctic, calling her country a good and strong ally.
		It said that soon after arriving, the Vice President briefly addressed U.S. troops stationed at the base as he and his wife sat down to lunch with them, saying that the Trump administration is very interested in Arctic security.
		And we'll go to your calls now.
		Here's Margaret, St. Augustine, Florida, Republican.
		Good morning, Margaret.
unidentified		Well, I didn't get to ask the woman the question, but maybe the callers could have an answer.
		And I'm not talking about the public service loan forgiveness.
		I'm talking about the generic idea of just, I don't know, just forgiveness of loans that people took out to get a college education.
		I do volunteer taxes for AARP, so I see the taxes that people like my grandson, who chose to work, pay, even on low income, they still pay 10%.
		So why would these 20 to 24-year-olds that are working as waiters or as construction workers or whatever, that their little bit of money go toward kids in college to give them loan forgiveness?
		Because we do know that the idea is that if you go to college, you'll earn more and pay more taxes.
		But we don't know that as a fact.
		A lot of people that are very rich never finished college, and a lot of people that go to college won't necessarily pay more.
		So it just seems strange to me that they would take one 22-year-old's taxes, as small as they might be, to give loan forgiveness for someone else.
		Especially so.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Margaret.
		And this is Robert, Overton, Texas, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		How are you today?
		I want to express my appreciation for Washington Journal C-SPAN.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		We appreciate you too, Robert.
		My subject would be free speech.
		I think Washington Journal C-SPAN, and I'm old enough to remember the phrase, express your opinion in the public square.
		You are the public square.
		I have a problem with our free speech now.
		I don't think it should be a suicide pact.
		If I'm walking down a sidewalk, not going anywhere in particular, and somebody runs up to scream in my ear their views on something.
		I feel as if I have been assaulted and I should defend myself with an elbow to the jaw of the offender, and then we go do see do.
		But if we have a public square, be it small towns, a square or Yankee Stadium or the gardens, fine and dandy.
		If I wish to listen to all of it, like I listen to everything on Washington Journal C-SPAN, great, but I should not be assaulted.
		Anyway, all right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is Ron in Laporte, Indiana.
unidentified		Democrat, good morning.
		Hello.
		I was taking a student loan out.
		This was years ago.
		I mean, back in the 60s.
		And then I took another one.
		It was a national defense loan, $500 apiece.
		So it came to about $1,000.
		And eventually I paid, I got a settlement, and I paid twice, almost twice what I owed.
		But I was hounded for like 30 years because of the, I don't know, the bureaucracy behind it or whatever, what the problem was.
		But they turned it over to private collection agencies, and they hounded me for years.
		And now that I'm trying to get on the PL, the forgiveness, are you a?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you work in the public sector?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		As far as the, do you, do you qualify for that program?
unidentified		Five years though, and I didn't quite my kids, or my wife's kids, got rid of they were cleaning up some of the house and they got rid of a bunch of papers, and I haven't been able to get back to the student, to the Education Department, and they haven't gotten in touch with me.
		I tried to get in touch with them a few times.
		They seem to have lost some of my information.
		Well, how did they get in touch with me in the first place after I don't know so many years?
		They've not.
		I've been here 20 years and they, you know they haven't reached me yet.
		I'd like to get in touch with them again.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, and maybe you're yeah, I was going to say maybe your representative in Congress can help.
unidentified		I'd like to say something about globalization.
		These people want to be against it and everything.
		It's the only thing that's going to save the planet.
		So, besides that, that's all I got to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's a Republican in Virginia Dominic, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning regarding the young lady you have talking about college loan forgiveness and public service.
		Many of these public service jobs, in my opinion I'm a retired engineer were created as make work to push this program, and the people that are getting paid on public service are also being paid by tax dollars.
		So what frustrates me is we're appropriating more tax dollars to pay people that went to college for student loans and paid exorbitant prices because of inflation, of professors, associate professors and staff that make an immense amount of money for very small amounts of work.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I'll take your comments off the air, all right, and this is George in Six Miles, South Carolina Independent LINE.
unidentified		Good morning, good morning um, I also want to talk about student loan forgiveness.
		I think that it's totally wrong because for the social it's a loan.
		You sign the contract you, you pay the money back, the contract's fulfilled.
		But if you don't pay the money back, who takes over that?
		Everybody else takes over that, not.
		You know.
		It doesn't make sense.
		So I'm totally against student loan forgiveness.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, and here's Rick in Broadsheadsville Pennsylvania, Democrat.
unidentified		Yeah, thank you for taking my call.
		I'm calling about the earlier guest you had on from Media Matters and you know I'm listening to the conversation and I had to correct him on something he said.
		The Trump White House press corps right now is actually picking and choosing who they allow in at press conferences.
		He even said that himself in so many words.
		But my main thing is everybody's complaining about the negative calls about Trump this and Trump that.
		Show me something positive.
		Would somebody please give me something positive that this guy has done?
		I mean, now he's going after the Smithsonian over anti-American ideology.
		You ever heard of free, you know, the First Amendment protesting, whatnot?
		You know, I'm looking forward to April 5th.
		People get out there and stand up for anti-fascism, which is what is going on in this country today.
		It's negative because of nothing good.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Brandon, Raleigh, North Carolina, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Thank you for the program that gentleman just referenced on the previous call.
		I thought it was quite interesting conversation between the two leaders.
		And I heard two different approaches to the conversation.
		One was quite professional.
		And I heard frightening words in the other conversation.
		To refer to a professional journalist on a call as an enemy is concerning.
		I don't think there's a lot of professional choice in those words.
		And I'd really like a nicer conversation between the public and the media.
		So thank you for that program.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Brandon.
		And here's Nate, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Democrat.
		Good morning, Nate.
unidentified		Good morning, and thank you for having me.
		My state's in an interesting situation where the wealthiest man in the world and current heavy advisor for Trump is coming to possibly commit a felony or already has in a campaign for Supreme Court judge.
		And I'd like to point out why he might be doing it.
		And the guy who he's supporting is, if someone actually is concerned about activist judges, someone you shouldn't vote for.
		But as a reference, I'd say dig up an old article from Pioneer Press titled Campaign Worker Paid $5 for Votes.
		It's actually back from 2007, June 1st, and basically it points out how an alderman was paying people to come and vote specifically the way he wanted.
		That's election bribery, which is a crime.
		This man was charged for it.
		Elon Musk is offering $100 to sign a petition and had been offering basically a raffle of a million dollars for people who would support who he wanted in the Supreme Court election here.
		So I hope that's a pretty clear reference.
		The specific guy he's supporting, I would point to as previously not only supporting the gerrymanders working to defend the gerrymandered maps that we're finally getting over in my state,
		and gerrymandering is just rigging elections by lines on a map, but also was very supportive of conservatives writing the law from the bench in order to let a Republican politician get off from breaking previous campaign finance law.
		If people want to look that up, Google John Doe, Scott Walker, and The Guardian, because it had a wonderful series of articles on the evidence from that particular situation.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Nate, I do want to bring people up to speed on what you're talking about, the Wisconsin elections.
		This is Axios with the headline, Wisconsin takes legal action against Elon Musk over election cash offering.
		It says that the Wisconsin Attorney General announced Friday the state is taking legal action against Elon Musk for the billionaire's offer in a since-deleted post to pay voters for casting ballots in the state's Supreme Court race.
		You can find out more about that at Axios and read the full article there.
		And this is James in Valdosta, Georgia, Independent Line.
		James, you're next.
unidentified		Hey, yes.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Good morning.
		I think both Republicans and Democrats are missing an opportunity here, especially when it comes to foreign policy in reference to Haiti.
		Obviously, the situation has deteriorated in the country pretty severe.
		And, you know, as we now have Gulf of America, you know, you would think that we would be focusing on territory that would be essentially in our backyard.
		And I would think Democrats would be pointing out that if we're going to make America great again, make all the Americas great again.
		And, you know, essentially we have forces, and we could actually add an opportunity now with the future.
		You know, if Elon Musk is so passionate about, you know, branding Tesla, they certainly have robots that we could certainly put on the ground there and test out the future of technology when it comes to warfare right here in our backyard.
		But instead of focusing on literally other continents, you would think we would focus on situations that could impact us more closer to home with drug smuggling, human trafficking, and all sorts of things that are happening right there in the, I guess, Gulf of America or Caribbean or however you want to phrase it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And James, here is the latest on Haiti from the Miami Herald with a headline, Haiti's capital is close to falling to armed gangs.
		Here's what you need to know.
		That's at the Miami Herald if you'd like to read that.
		And this is Joanne, New Jersey, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I'm sorry, I'm a little late to this conversation, but I know you're talking about pseudonym forgiveness.
		And I do have a comment, which is that from what I have heard, this has not applied to police officers.
		I know someone who's been a police officer who has pseudonyms for five years.
		And I'm like, on principle, you know, I think it's wrong.
		But the first people that should get pseudonyms forgiven should be the police officers who are risking their lives every day to defend us.
		And that's all I wanted to say.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I think, Joanne, you have to be employed for 10 years.
		But let me look that up for you.
		I'm not sure what the requirements are, but I believe our last guest said that it was 10 years.
		Here's Nina in Florida, Democrat.
		Good morning, Nina.
unidentified		Yes, I wanted to make a comment regarding the federal loan forgiveness.
		I currently have a federal loan, and also I also have a private loan.
		So I'm able to actually see both point of view.
		However, in the federal loan, I think a lot of people mentioned that, well, if you take out a loan, you should pay for it.
		Well, I am actually paying for it.
		I'm actually on the pay as you go where they actually are, my payments are based off of my income.
		So I'm actually paying my loan.
		The other point is that within the federal laws, I currently work for a nonprofit in healthcare.
		And I have applied for the public loan forgiveness.
		However, that won't take effect until 10 years.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So it is 10 years for everybody, Nina?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So like police officers?
unidentified		Correct.
		As long as you work in a nonprofit environment, it's 10 years.
		If you work for, for instance, if you're a teacher, that may be a different thing.
		I believe it's three or five years.
		I'm not quite sure on the teacher perspective.
		I can only talk about the nonprofit perspective.
		Go ahead.
		And within the nonprofits, so there are some things that the current administration is actually looking at to even further restrict the loan forgiveness.
		So for instance, I'm in the healthcare environment, and they will like to completely redo and eliminate, like reclassify nonprofit health care to make it for-profit.
		So therefore, you're limiting people that are currently in health care in a nonprofit environment to apply for loan forgiveness.
		So it's a complete, and that includes doctors, administrators, nurses.
		So it's really, really restricting for anyone that really wants to be in that field.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here's Trent, independent in Monroe, Louisiana.
		Oh, looks like we lost him.
		David in Riverside, California, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mamie, and good morning, America.
		I recently saw the movie Reagan, which I believe is the first movie that's not a documentary about Ronald Reagan, but it's a great movie.
		Following Ronald Reagan's life is like following the history of America from the side of the conservatives.
		In the movie, somebody asked Reagan, what's the biggest threat to America?
		He said, communism in the Soviet Union.
		And that's how Americans saw it in the 1950s through the 80s.
		And now we live in a time where people have forgotten that communism is such an evil thing.
		As Ronald Reagan called it, Soviet communist Russia was the focus of evil in the modern world.
		But we live in a day now where AOC and Bernie Sanders are traveling around America talking about the class struggle between rich versus poor.
		Bernie Sanders literally had his honeymoon with his current wife in the Soviet Union.
		Tim Walz, the last Democrat to run for vice president, has said one man's socialism is another man's neighborliness.
		And he honeymooned in Beijing, China.
		Apparently, for these communist types, nothing is more romantic than being in a communist country on your honeymoon.
		Plus, AOC has said that she considers capitalism as having nothing good about it.
		AOC and Kamala Harris are both ardent supporters of the communist fantasy known as the Green New Deal.
		We need to remember that America is the land of the free and the home of the brave.
		In Communist China, they tell you whom to marry, how many children you get to have, and where you should work.
		The current crop of top Democrats, AOC, Bernie Sanders, Tim Walz, and Kamala Harris are communists, all of them, or as they would call themselves socialists, or even capitalists, because communists never admit to being communist until they have taken power.
		So what is my point?
		It says, President Trump calls it, the enemy within.
		And if we have a communist president, which I don't think we have had yet, our freedom is going to be highly repressed and over time destroyed if there is not a strong opposition.
		So worry about China or radical Islamic terrorism, and they are a big problem.
		But the biggest enemy is amongst us in America right now.
		Thank you, Mamie.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Kathleen, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for having me.
		My call is regarding the student loan, public student loan forgiveness.
		I just want to point out that people are saying that it should not, you know, should not be available.
		I think it should be.
		And the reason why is I graduated back in the 90s and my interest rate was like 9%.
		So my payments were about $800 a month.
		I had paid that loan about three times over with the interest.
		So the loan was already paid.
		The actual principal amount was already paid.
		So people who are paying their student loans with the interest that's placed on these student loans, they're paying actually triple.
		of the amount of the loan over the life of the period of the loan.
		I just want to point one thing out.
		Billionaires do not have to worry about college education.

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