CSPAN - Washington Journal 03/31/2025

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March 31, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:50

Washington Journal 03/31/2025

Participants

Main

alex gangitano

politico 09:01

pedro echevarria

cspan 39:13

Appearances

brian lamb

cspan 01:00

donald j trump

admin 00:40

elon musk

01:04

glenn youngkin

01:36

james lankford

00:44

kiron skinner

fox 01:06

pete hegseth

admin 00:53

peter navarro

admin 00:54

Clips

bill gertz

00:07

dana bash

cnn 00:09

kathleen keating

00:12

laura ingraham

fox 00:20

martin caidin

00:06

patty murray

sen/d 00:04

shannon bream

fox 00:19

tim walz

d 00:15

Callers

jimmy in texas

callers 00:32

robert in st louis

callers 00:11

sean-2 in california

callers 00:08

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy.
		Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live.
		And then Aris Foley, congressional reporter for The Hill, previews the week ahead in Congress, including the latest on Republicans' budget reconciliation efforts.
		Also, Alex Gangitano, White House reporter for The Hill, will preview the week ahead at the White House.
		And Charles Blahouse, with George Mason University's Mercatus Center, will discuss the future of Social Security and potential changes to the program by the Trump administration.
		Washington Journal starts now.
		Join the conversation.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is the Washington Journal.
		For the last day of March, from the onset of his administration, President Trump set out to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within branches of the federal government.
		That effort taking hold outside of it, too.
		Recently, the Federal Communications Commission announced an investigation of Disney and ABC over hiring practices connected to diversity.
		And the University of Michigan, which led the way on DEI-related issues, recently announced the closing of its DEI office due to an executive order from President Trump.
		To start the program today, what's your view of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs?
		Here's how you can call and let us know your thoughts this morning if you support these type of programs and you want to tell us why.
		202748-8000 is the number of the call.
		If you oppose these type of programs and you want to tell us why, 202748-8001.
		And if you're not sure, 202748-8002 is the number you can call and tell us why.
		If you want to text us your thoughts on this issue, 202748-8003 is how you do that.
		You can always post on our Facebook page at facebook.com slash C-SPAN.
		And you can always post on X as well at C-SPANWJ.
		A recent story from USA Today takes a look at the specific definition of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and has this to offer, saying under the headline, what is the meaning of DEI?
		Saying DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
		Beyond that, there's little agreement on what it means.
		On one hand, DEI is a broad-brushed term that refers to the policies and measures that organizations use to prevent discrimination, comply with civil rights laws, and create environments more welcoming to people from marginalized backgrounds.
		Supporters of these diversity programs say they help companies hire and retain top talent and boost innovation and profits.
		Critics see diversity initiatives differently.
		They say DEI focuses on race and gender at the expense of individual merit, and they have challenged these initiatives in courtrooms and on social media as illegal discrimination or so-called reverse discrimination against white people.
		That's from USA Today.
		When it takes a look at specifics recently in the news, when it comes to DEI, particularly when it comes to the Trump administration, this from CNBC that was reported just before the weekend, the Federal Communications Commission has alerted the Walt Disney Company and its ABC unit that it will begin an investigation into diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at the media giant.
		The FCC, the agency that regulates the media and telecommunications industry, said in a letter dated Friday that it wants to, quote, ensure Disney and ABC have not been violated FCC equal employment opportunity regulations by promoting individuous forms of DEI discrimination.
		Quote, we are reviewing the Federal Communications Commission letter.
		We look forward to engaging with this commission to answer its questions.
		That was a spokesperson from Disney with that.
		When it comes to the University of Michigan, this announcement also before the weekend as well, saying that it was closing, announcing that it was closing its Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, a major retreat for a school that has long championed its progressive values.
		The university president sent to Ono for staffers in a statement posted to the university's website: The Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and the Office for Health, Equity, and Inclusion will close.
		The school said in a statement saying that student-facing services in the programs will shift to other offices.
		The statement went on to say the DEI 2.0 strategic plan and the umbrella strategies for schools, colleges, and units will be discontinued along with DEI 2.0 unit plans, related programming, and progress reporting and training and funding programs as well.
		There's more there at the Detroit Free Press, other universities following suit too.
		But when it comes to these programs overall, where do you find yourself as far as what you think about them?
		If you want to call and let us know, saying if you support them, the number of call is 202-748-8000.
		If you oppose them, 202-748-8001.
		Perhaps you are not sure.
		You want to let us know 202-748-8002 is the number to call as well.
		You can text us to it, 202-748-8003.
		Some people posting on Facebook this morning before the start of the program.
		This is Sabra Hayden from Facebook saying diversity, equity, and inclusion does not mean the only reason you were hired is because of your race, gender, or religion.
		It means that you cannot be excluded because of them.
		It is needed.
		This country has a long history of excluding different groups or paying people less because they are different.
		That's from our Facebook page, also from Michael Morrison saying, I wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. would think of them, given his historical speech about being judged on the content of the character, not the color of the skin.
		It seems like a lot of 35-year-olds and younger Americans were asleep during that class or at school.
		Our public education system is really failing, and they're both driven by an alternate belief of his dream.
		Again, Facebook is available at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
		Cindy in Florida, a supporter of these types of programs.
		Thanks for calling.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'd like to say thank you.
		I am a supporter.
		I grew up with a mother that raised four kids.
kiron skinner ▲ ● ▼		And because of the programs that were available during the 70s, both myself, sister, and brother actually got our college education based on the affirmative action and the programs that they gave to minorities.
unidentified		And not only was it for minorities, it was actually for poor people.
kiron skinner ▲ ● ▼		Also, as a single parent, it actually lifted my daughter up out of poverty also because actually she had an opportunity to go to Head Start.
kiron skinner ▲ ● ▼		Some of the programs that actually helped educate and lift almost all of us out of the 70s and out of poverty during that time really helped.
unidentified		It was diversity, it was equity, it was inclusion, and it really helped us.
unidentified		I want to say before you take me off that my mother got a seventh grade education, born in Florida, and I could not understand why didn't she finish high school.
kiron skinner ▲ ● ▼		As I studied my education now, I realized my mother's education that they didn't have high schools for black people in Florida.
kiron skinner ▲ ● ▼		Beyond seventh grade, there were only three or four high schools.
unidentified		They couldn't get a high education.
		These programs have lifted us up and out of poverty.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		You made that point, Cindy.
		We'll hear from Doug in Denver, Colorado, also a supporter of these programs.
		Doug, go ahead.
		You're next.
unidentified		Yeah, I'd like to speak to the intent of diversity, equity, inclusion only.
		And I think it's the very intent is the point of inclusion.
		They are programs designed to empower those of a particular inclusive nature and character and not to the exclusion of others.
		And I think we can lie in programs of diversity, equity, inclusion right next to each other.
		And if the intent is to be realized, it's not to disparage or disinclude anyone else.
		It's rather to really focus at a certain level of intensity on those folks that require something to move forward.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's the intent.
		But as far as the execution, what do you think of the programs themselves?
		How effective do you think they are?
unidentified		It's like every product and program on the market.
unidentified		Evaluate them by their success, by their operating to their intent, and use ones that do and don't use ones that don't.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Doug there in Denver, Colorado.
		Again, we want to get your thoughts as well.
		202 when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion, 202748-8000.
		If you say you support these type of programs, if you oppose them, it's 202-748-8001.
		And if you're not sure, 202-748-8002.
		You can also text us at 202-748-8003 and post on our social media sites.
		It was on his recent overseas trip that the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseff, among making comments about other issues, was asked about the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at the Department of Defense.
		He gave this assessment last week.
		And just a quick follow-up.
bill gertz ▲ ● ▼		On the counter diversity, equity, inclusion, what's your assessment now three months in and trying to undo a lot of those programs?
pete hegseth ▲ ● ▼		My assessment is the DOD will be merit-based and colorblind.
		You will be judged based on how good you are at your job.
		Full stop.
		That's it.
		And so getting rid of diversity, equity, inclusion, DEI, getting rid of different standards was fundamental to getting back to basics.
		And that's what I, when I get a chance to talk to commanders here, that's what I emphasize.
		We're getting back to basics.
		Standards at every level need to be adhered to.
		And that's at a baseline.
		And when you talk to soldiers, you talk to Marines, they get it.
		They get it.
		They've seen the standard slide under the previous administration.
		They watched, you know, in many different ways how it eroded or quotas were being met or different aspects had to be, boxes had to be checked.
		Not anymore.
		The only box that gets checked in this Defense Department is lethality and your ability to do your job.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That was the Defense Secretary from last week.
		Let's hear from someone on our opposed line.
		This is from North Carolina.
		This is Brad.
		Brad, go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, I believe that everybody should be treated equally.
		And unless everybody's treated equally, there's always going to be a reservation, if you will, as to how somebody exceeded in the position.
		And candidly, the DEI, if you will, reverse discrimination, if you wish, has eroded, I think, the confidence in the education system and the output.
		The students who are less qualified are being admitted, and Asian students perhaps are being excluded from universities like Berkeley and Harvard or limited as to their ability to enter these institutions.
		That's reverse discrimination.
		That's racism.
		Everybody should move forward on a merit-based system.
		Not all people are qualified.
		Now, I very much agree with elements of the first speaker who indicated that economic situations should be considered, but they should be considered regardless of race or religion, is my point of view.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Brad, there in North Carolina recently, NBC News took a poll taking on questions of DEI programs, specifically when it comes to in the workplace.
		Here are the poll results, almost equal as far as responses are concerned.
		It says under the category we should continue DEI programs because diverse perspectives reflect our country, create innovative ideas and solutions, encourage unity, and make our workplaces fair and inclusive.
		48% responding to that category.
		When it comes to the category of we should eliminate DEI programs because they create divisions and inefficiencies in the workplace by putting too much emphasis on race and other social factors over merit, skills, and experience.
		That NBC News poll, 49% registering that opinion as well.
		When it comes to another category under this topic, partisan views, when it takes a look at DEI programs in the workplace, so to speak, and they divide this by political party, saying that Democrats, 85% of those saying that when it comes to those programs in the workplace, that should continue, 13% saying it should be eliminated.
		Republicans, 12% of those saying it should continue, 85% saying it should be eliminated.
		And the independents, as they define themselves, 59% of those saying those programs should continue, 39% saying they should be eliminated.
		Let's hear from Angela in Washington, D.C., a supporter of these types of programs, DEI programs.
		Angela, hello.
unidentified		Hi, Pedro.
		Yeah, I fully support this because, I mean, the United States is such a diverse country.
		The best candidates can't all be one race or one ethnicity.
		You know, you can't avoid hiring people with disabilities.
		I mean, this goes to the equal employment laws.
		And I'll just like to quote Nancy Pelosi when she said, our diversity is our strength.
		I mean, I think that sums it up so well.
		And I don't know why other people always seem to think that when they say diversity, they're talking about black people and that black people are not qualified.
		That's scientific racism.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you hear about the University of Michigan and other universities pulling back on these type of programs or closing these type of programs, what goes to your mind?
unidentified		Well, I feel like these universities should not kowtow to what President Trump is trying to do because he seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of American history and American society.
		These universities have lawyers.
		They should have their lawyers' advice and then go from there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Angela there in Washington, D.C., a supporter of this.
		Let's talk to Jean in Arizona, who opposes it.
		Jean, hello, you're next up.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you.
		My reason why I oppose the DEI is not so much that you would be fair and equal to all people, but the fact that the ideology behind the programs, the DEI itself, is very flawed and very biased against white people.
		If you read their materials, like I've read some of their books that they've written, and the whole program is centered around if you are born white, you are automatically racist.
		It doesn't matter.
		There's nothing you can do about it except receive feedback on your racism for the rest of your life.
		And now that's the claim they make.
		So in their books and things that you read.
		And they go on about how every little thing you do is a microaggression when people don't even, you know, they can't read someone's heart.
		They don't know if someone's being racist, but they still claim it's racist if you maybe don't smile at someone just because of their skin color.
		So it's really an awful, awful ideology.
		And that's why I dislike it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If you remove these type of programs, how do you ensure that everyone has a chance in the hiring?
unidentified		Well, you could, you could, the chance in the hiring, I totally agree with.
		You would have to, I don't, you have to do something else, but you can't keep the program the way that it is now.
		If you're familiar with what it's about, if you've read anything about it, you will see how flawed it is.
		They just make assumptions.
		I mean, I couldn't believe when I read the books where it was saying that, like, if you are born white, this lady that writes the book, she says, there's nothing you can do.
		And she's one of the facilitators.
		She works.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If I may ask, you said read the books.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Which author are you talking about?
unidentified		Well, if it's okay if I mention if it's that one called white fragility, it's just a horrible, the ideology in there is just horrible.
		And I try, I read it with open mind.
		I said, let me see what this is really about.
		And when I read it, and I said, we're going to, she goes around the country and holds these seminars and actually teaches this.
		He's about white people crying and leaving.
		And they're told don't cry because in the past, when a white person cried, an African-American person got in trouble.
		Well, that might be so, but I mean, that's nothing to do with the woman today who's crying because she's being accused of being racist when she was trying to be helpful.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Jean there in Arizona giving her thoughts on the programs.
		You can continue to do so as well.
		Again, pick the line that Beck supports your position.
		Nolan in Kentucky are in our line for those who support these programs.
		Good morning, Nolan.
		You're next up.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
unidentified		How are you today?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I'm fine.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Good, good.
		I support the programs, and I tell you what, there's a lot of confusion out there about the programs.
		The programs, to me, are similar to when the automobile was invented.
		We didn't have speed limits on none of our streets.
		You put speed limits out so that the streets and the road services we drive on will be safer.
		So you do that.
		DEI does not directly, it's not a racial thing.
		It affects race.
		It affects gender.
		So which means that DEI also is the reason why you have females hired in positions that they normally weren't in.
		It affects disabilities, people that have disabilities, they were able to get jobs.
		It affects veterans, veterans that are being hired on jobs.
		So it affects a cross-section of our entire society.
		That's the reason why DE programs are out there.
		I think there's a lot of confusion about the misconception.
		But see, they communicate it about, they communicate race because when you say the word race, everybody's ears perk up.
		And it's not specifically about race.
		It includes everybody.
		It includes the females, the males, the people that are in the military, ex-veterans.
		It includes a lot of disability, includes everything.
		That's what DEI programs are.
		Even there's books written, I realize they are, but they are the false, have false information in them.
		That's the reason why I support the program, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Nolan there in Kentucky giving us his thoughts.
		This is from USA Today as well.
		This was published last week, but the story reads that the president ordered federal officials to scour monuments, memorials, and statues to remove the language he says may, quote, inappropriately disparage Americans as part of his efforts to fight DEI and foster what he argues is necessary national patriotism.
		Mr. Trump and other conservatives have railed against what they see as inappropriate focus by national parks and other historical sites on America's history of enslavement, land theft, and discrimination.
		Mr. Trump argues such focus perpetuates, quote, a false reconstruction of American history and that the site should instead be promoting American exceptionalism.
		Critics arguing efforts like Mr. Trump's newly issued executive order are tantamount to whitewashing the sometimes tragic history of the United States and that all Americans deserve to know the full story.
		Mr. Trump's orders mirror similar efforts in Florida, Texas, and other states to alter how American history is taught.
		USA Today with that story, if you want to read about that recent executive order, one of several when it comes to DEI programs as they're known at, you can talk about that.
		But where are you sure level of support for the program?
		Again, if you support it, 202-748-8000.
		If you oppose it, 202-748-8001.
		And we've set aside a line for those who are not sure, perhaps, 202-748-8000.
		That's where Daniel is in Kentucky on our not sure line.
		Hi, Daniel.
		You're next up.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
		First, thanks very much for allowing me to call in.
		I call in on the unsure line as I myself, as a biracial man, have, I won't say had the advantage of diversity, equity, inclusion.
		There was a gentleman that called from Kentucky before me that made a great point that I wanted to make.
		We get lost on just the topic of race, but to me, and I feel like the number one demographic that's that's kind of that has been rewarded from the diversity, equity, inclusion is women.
		And really, if you look at the, at some stats, white women.
		But diversity, equity, inclusion, I feel like right now, it's a divisive topic that's going to divide America.
		It's going to put us versus them.
		And as the gentleman from Kentucky before me earlier had said about when you hear the word race, the ears perk up.
		But a lot of people forget the equity line when if you had five people in different sizes, one in a wheelchair, one walk, a kid, an adult, and you gave them all the same bicycle, we're not thinking about the equity part of it.
		It's, you know, having the motorized wheelchair for the person in the wheelchair, having the bike with the pedals that are correct for the person that's real tall, real short.
		And I think we're just at a part now in America where everything is divisive.
		And the last thing I'll say to wrap it up is I think the biggest way and the biggest stance that we can do nationally is look at the Division I athletic programs and the men and the ladies that play in the sports that are from diverse backgrounds say, you know what?
		If they're going to come down on our campuses with the DEI and take away all the DEI, we're just going to take our athletes.
		We're just going to take our abilities to HBCUs and other schools that are still allowing diversity, equity, inclusion.
		Thank you for the time and I appreciate C-SPAN.
		You all have a great day.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Daniel there in Kentucky, this is Kitty from our Facebook page saying that DEI was established because unqualified white males were hired before qualified women, people of color, LGBTQ, leaving a lack of diversity in businesses.
		It's a lie that all DEI hires are unqualified and cheating white males out of jobs.
		Lois Pirro saying these are Marxist tools and discriminatory in and of themselves.
		A society must be merit-based to be competitive and productive.
		The best surgeons, the best bridge builders, the best pilots.
		That's just common sense and safety sense.
		Again, Facebook is facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
		You can post on X at C-SPANWJ.
		Text us too if you want.
		202-748-8003.
		West Virginia, this is where Carl is opposing these type of programs.
		Carl, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		There's a reason why we had the civil rights laws back in the 60s.
		It wasn't for the black people.
		I want blacks to understand that.
		It was for the whites to understand, to let us in, and include us in some of the things that they were doing-jobs, schools, everything.
		I think that the country read the whole thing wrong.
		It wasn't for the whites to include us in some of the things that they were doing.
		Number two, the government jobs that a lot of African Americans have, that creates a middle class for us because these people were not listening to the laws that were created during the 60s to include us.
		So now, basically, we have nowhere to go.
		They eliminate the EEOC.
		There's no way to run for us black people now.
		Thank you, Trump.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, I think I'm confused.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're saying you're opposed to these programs.
unidentified		Why?
unidentified		Excuse me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You said you're called in on the line to say you oppose these programs.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why is that?
unidentified		I oppose these programs.
		Yeah, I oppose DEI because they're actually eliminating.
		Furthermore, the Chief Justice, when he got up there, the Supreme Court, I want you people to Google this.
		They asked him, Why are you coming to the Supreme Court?
		He said to eliminate all the civil rights laws that were created during the 60s.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I think we'll go to Catherine.
		Catherine in Illinois, a supporter of DEI programs.
		Catherine, hi there.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I really support DEI in many, many ways.
		I do a lot of volunteer at nursing homes, and there's a lot of work that has been done to help elderly people live a high-quality life.
		You know, things like handicapped parking spots, things like even for pregnant women, there's parking spots for pregnant women to give them, you know, help to get into a store or whatever the case is.
		So if we take DEI away, it's going to take away all these wonderful programs that people have invested in to help the whole of America, not just white, middle-class, beautiful people.
		So I am very much supportive of the DEI program.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you hear, some of them have called in and said, when you hear that whatever the position is, or if it's, say, in the case of hiring, merit should be the top category.
		And because of that, we necessarily don't need these types of programs.
		What do you think of that argument?
unidentified		Oh, I mean, if you take, You know, if you have people who are elderly, well, good mental abilities, good physical abilities, a company will hire a younger person versus that older person.
		Older people need to be looked at as equal to younger people.
		That's the point that I'm getting at.
		So they won't have an equal job.
		Now, I'm not after a job.
		I happen to volunteer.
		So people take me because I am physically and mentally okay.
		But you take away DEI.
		A lot of these beautiful programs that we've instituted over the years, I think, are going to go away.
		People will look at older people and say, oh, they're just old.
		They'll die.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		You can't do that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Catherine, there in Illinois.
		Let's go to George, George in Pennsylvania, on our not sure line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes.
		I wanted to talk about the caller previously when he mentioned about the Civil Rights Act and the EEO, and those laws are really put in place to advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
		And also, you know, he made a point, but I don't agree with what he said, is that African Americans think that the Civil Rights Act was just written for them.
		No, it was written for people of all color, just not African Americans.
		I myself, when I work for the federal government, I had to remind one of my supervisors who was African-American that I was also a person of color and that I was covered under the Civil Rights Act because I was discriminated by the African American women who said that I should have,
		what I was doing, I had no business being in the federal government, even though I was a disabled vet, and that I should have been owning a 7-Eleven store because I'm of Asian descent.
		And that was a racist comment that she made.
		But I think now DEI has been taken to a level where we're seeing a lot of reverse discrimination, even against white Americans and Asians, to the point where basically, you know, it is being abused.
		And that's why I don't, I'm kind of leaning toward, and it has had a counter-negative effect on our workforce, civilian workforce in the federal government.
		And I would say that there's a lot of unqualified people who are being hired, being hired in these federal government positions.
		And, you know, half the time, they don't even work.
		So that's what I had to say.
		And I was kind of leaning to oppose it because it has had a negative counter effect because I myself face discrimination, reverse discrimination on the DEI.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's George there.
		In Pennsylvania, again, we'll carry on with your calls.
		202748-8000.
		If you support diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, DEI programs, as they're called, if you support that, 202748-8001, if you oppose them, and it's 202748-8002, if you are not sure, like the last caller expressing some of those sentiments, texting us is available to you at 202-748-8003.
		This is a story from Fox News saying it was the Department of Health and Human Services canceling hundreds of national institutes of health research grants worth over $350 million funding projects related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and gender ideology, according to an official.
		The cuts include slashing projects studying, quote, multi-level and multi-dimensional structural racism, gender-affirming hormone therapy in mice, and microaggressions, among others.
		In total, there were more than 500 research grants related to DEI and progressive gender ideology that the administration terminated.
		Quote: HHS is taking action to terminate that research, funding that is not aligned with NANIH and HHS priorities.
		The terminated research grants are simply wasteful in studying things that do not pertain to America's health to any significant degree, including DEI and gender ideology.
		As we begin to make America healthy again, it's important to prioritize research that directly affects all Americans.
		Again, when it comes to the programs overall, if you support or oppose it, you're not sure.
		Call us on the lines and let us know.
		Rod in Ohio on our oppose line.
		Hi there.
		You're next up.
unidentified		Morning, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
unidentified		Yes, I oppose any form of DEI.
		It definitely should be merit-based.
		I mean, think about it.
		For all the people that, especially don't work in a manufacturing environment like I do, this country needs to get better, not slide toward mediocrity.
		And when you bring people in based solely on one characteristic or another, anything other than merit, then you're only going to drag the whole thing down.
		I know that from personal experience.
		You get people in, you have a well-oiled machine running, great teamwork.
		And you start bringing in people for whatever reason.
		Sometimes it's a lack of workers.
		They have to bring in whatever they can scrape up.
		But if you're professional enough, you can overcome it, do your job, but it's very hard.
		Humans are humans.
sean-2 in california ▲ ● ▼		And you can only go so far watching somebody being led by the hand, treated like a baby because they're not qualified to be there anyway.
unidentified		And people get bad attitudes.
		And then all of a sudden, you have a good worker that's conscientious and cares about what they're doing, but somebody comes in, like, hell with it.
		They bring that person in, and they're being paid what I'm being paid or close to it.
		And why don't I do that?
		You know, so that's the biggest problem.
		I mean, hell, I lost a promotion to a woman, but she was more qualified than me.
		I had no qualms about that.
		The way I look at it, I don't care whether you're black, white, green, polka-dotted, whether you're able-bodied, not able-bodied.
		If you can come in and do the job according to the specifications of that job, then the job is yours, no problem.
		Okay.
		All about a little bit, but that's the way I feel about it.
		So, gotcha.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
		That's Rod there in Ohio.
		Felicia in Georgia, support line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I'm for support of DEI programs.
		You know, I get really upset when I hear people when they say they're against DEI, which means that you're against race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, age, culture, class, veteran status, and religion.
		That is included in diversity.
		That is part of the United States of America.
		And so when you say you want to eliminate those programs, that means that you want to eliminate others, the American people who made this country what it is.
		So we need to stop far into this where it's okay for Trump to hire his family members who don't have the skills and the sex, but they said they're merit hires.
		They're not merit hires.
		They're family hires, the people that they want in office.
		So we need to question who we have in charge of this country.
		Who wants to eliminate people, period, of other cultures?
		Thank you.
		Have a good day.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On our opposed line, we'll hear from Jim in North Dakota.
unidentified		Hi, Pedro.
unidentified		Can you hear me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I can.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		How you doing today?
		First of all, the question, I want to just talk about the question, the word itself, diversity.
		Diversity became a bumper sticker about 30 years ago, a literal bumper sticker.
		It's a celebrate diversity.
		Politicians like Bill Clinton were the first ones to ever give speeches about it.
		There's no other sides of the coin.
		It was always wonderful and beautiful.
		And, of course, we never had this debate even when I was a very young man because our country was never really diverse except for some European ethnicities that assimilated into the Anglo-Saxon core culture and African Americans.
		Our country was over 90% white well over through up into the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
		So this is a relatively new thing.
		Now, diversity, is it a strength or is it a source of strife?
		Well, I've been on many diverse workforces from Philadelphia to Fargo, many diverse places, and there's always racial conflict.
		There's always conflict.
		And we've developed a whole management class of people.
		That's what DE is.
		We have diversity officers in hospitals and in colleges.
		And what's their purpose, Pedro?
		Their purpose is to manage what is supposed to be a source of strength, but is a volatile thing, which is as volatile as nitroglycerin.
		And that's why we have this in place, because if racial diversity, Pedro, was a natural, beautiful, wonderful thing, we would practice it spontaneously.
		We would all just run into each other's arms.
		Why do we still have self-segregation?
		And why do the people that preach it the most, the white...
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So the programs themselves, why specifically are you opposing the programs themselves?
unidentified		Well, to tell you the truth, the programs have been necessary because of the conflict.
		Sensitivity training, these people that are there as officers, they're there to manage a source of strife.
		If it was a source of strength, it would not be necessary.
		But why do the whitest of our politicians and the most wealthiest of our politicians, why do they live in such white environments and put their kids in all white schools?
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Moses.
		Moses in Ohio, our support line.
		You're next up.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yeah, thank you, Pedro, for taking my call.
		Can you hear me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I can.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Okay.
		I'm 83 years old, Pedro.
		I've lived for a long time outside this country.
		The reason why I'm calling in is to explain to the callers diversity, affirmative action.
		These are ideals.
		They are attempts to write a racial injustice that started with the farming of this country.
		So when I hear somebody, one more thing, Pedro.
		When I hear somebody say merit-based, I cringe because merit is not the issue here.
		OK, well, Colin, you brought up the country has never been a merit based society.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, I was going to say, then if that's the case, how do these programs help in that idea of diversity then specifically?
unidentified		No, that's why I'm saying merit is a code word for saying, hey, African Americans, nothing's going to change.
		We're going to use merit now to stop you from succeeding.
		Sure.
		Merit is also an ideal, isn't it, Pedro?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, as far as the programs specifically themselves, why do you support them?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think they accomplish?
unidentified		They were attempts, Pedro, to write Injustice that started with the founding of the country.
		When I hear my white friends say, Moses, I don't see any color.
		I have to stop them.
		Of course, I'm black.
		Let's talk about it openly.
		Stop hiding behind code words.
glenn youngkin ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Moses there in Ohio.
		Let's hear from Minnesota governor and former VP candidate Tim Walz.
		He and others have been doing town halls across the United States talking about various issues.
		One of the issues that came up at an event in Texas, I believe, was the topic of DEI.
		Here is Tim Walz on that topic.
tim walz ▲ ● ▼		I think, and I'm going to own this: when we see people back off and we see corporations back off to the threats, instead of leaning into and knowing we're doing this, because it's not only morally the right thing to do, it's economically the right thing to do.
unidentified		And our culture proves that our strength is our diversity.
		We've been talking about this for years as a country of immigrants.
		And we let them define the issue on immigration.
		We let them define the issue on DNI, DEI, and we let them define what woke is.
		We got ourselves in this mess because we weren't bold enough to stand up and say, you damn right we're proud of these policies.
		We're going to put them in and we're going to execute them.
		And so they're going to use fear.
		They're going to do whatever they can.
		What I would say is we need to make sure we're highly organized.
		Let's provide the data.
		Let's show them where things are at.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, do you support these type of programs?
		Do you oppose them?
		Or maybe you're not sure.
		If you support them, call us and tell us why.
		202-748-8000.
		If you oppose them, it's 202-748-8001.
		And if you are not sure about them, 202-748-8002, the number of the call.
		Texting and posting on social media available to you as well on the economy and business section of the Washington Post today.
		This is the headline they used to promote DEI.
		Now they work to wipe it out.
		These are efforts by the Trump administration on this, saying it was this month that the Justice Department and the EEOC issued guidance on how, quote, DEI-related discrimination complaints should be filed.
		Days earlier, the EEOC asked 20 large law firms for its details on their diversity programs, including intern lists going back nearly a decade.
		The firms of Latham and Watkins, Kirkland and Ellis, and Scadden all received letters.
		It goes on to say in this story, meanwhile, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, established nearly five decades ago to ensure the nation's largest contractors took, quote, affirmative action to end discrimination at their companies is being refashioned to crack down on DEI according to an agency-wide email sent by the new director, Catherine Eischbach, when Mr. Trump in January rescinded a 1965 executive order by President Lyndon Johnson requiring federal contractors to practice affirmative action.
		It stripped that office of its authority to perform race and gender-based audits of the company's hiring and pay practices.
		The administration also wants to slash 90% of the agency's workforce of 500, according to documents gained by the Washington Post.
		Again, that's in the Washington Post if you want to read it online about that effort.
		Let's hear from Kurt in Florida on our opposed line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hello.
		I have been listening to everyone, and I appreciate and respect their points of view.
		I have, I'm rather diverse myself.
		This story kind of rang a bell because I grew up in Ann Arbor and I was a Marine and I'm now disabled.
		So I understand how people might feel.
		I joined the Marine Corps because my grades weren't good enough to go to the University of Michigan, which I dreamed of.
		I did four years in the Marines.
		I had a gunnery sergeant who was black from Panama and a first sergeant that was from Hell's Kitchen in New York, who was Puerto Rican.
		I would have stormed the gates of hell for these guys.
		And they were completely there in that position because they were really good at what they did and they knew how to lead.
		I then got out of the Marines and went to university in California and I got a degree in engineering, which I became a mechanic, joined mechanical engineer groups from St. Louis and then moved to Florida.
		And when I came down here, I continued with that job.
		Three years ago, I became disabled.
		The company I worked for, when I got better, put me in a position because I was good at what I did.
		We have a wonderful company I work for.
		We have people from all walks of life.
		Our Miami office is mainly Cuban.
		In Jacksonville, Florida, we have people, black folks, and most of them are from Haiti or from Africa where they learned over there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So, Kurt, I apologize only for batteries of time and for everything you've said.
		Then you're calling on our line specifically when it comes to opposing these programs.
		Why is that specifically?
unidentified		I do oppose them because I think that the way things are, they're pretty fair if you are good at what you do.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		My whole point is that all these people of I'm a handicapped person, but I still have a good job because I'm good at what I do.
unidentified		Now, the point of having handicapped signs up, that's a completely different issue.
		I think that we've went far enough in this country to where we can all just count on each other to do a good job and to love each other.
		And we have nothing but a brotherhood where I work, and we're very diverse.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		And I don't see how we need to have laws or programs in place that cost money.
		We should be doing this on our own.
		Okay.
		We don't need the government to tell us this.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Kurt in Florida there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Stephen in Indianapolis, support line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, Pedro.
		My life experience was with four different organizations.
		The first, my first experience with the organization was the Marine Corps.
		I spent nearly 10 years in the Marine Corps prior to being discharged, medical, on a medical discharge, and that was in the early 70s.
		I then went to work for an organization, which was a state organization, and I became a supervisor for that organization.
		And affirmative action, that's what we was calling it then, affirmative action.
		Affirmative action improved the organization I worked for.
		When I went into that place, they had nothing, no one other than, and it was a maintenance organization.
		No, the people who were working in there was all white.
		None of them had high school education.
		The place could not even pass state inspection.
		So myself, another Army guy who was a major in the Army, I was with the Marine Corps.
		We completely changed that place around.
		We went with hiring new people.
		We hired white, we had blacks, and we hired women.
		Those people were mechanic, trained mechanics.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so for your experience, what does that teach you then about the need for a DEI program since you're calling in on our support line?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, as I was saying, like I said, I work for, I have four different experiences with no, you told me that, yeah, but why do you support the program specifically?
unidentified		Because the program helped that organization, every organization that I have worked with.
		And when we hired people, even though we knew about affirmative action, at no time did we ever have a quota.
		We went solely on merit.
		And we brought in black, we brought in white, and we brought in women.
		I had one young lady who worked for me.
		She went to school for an automotive mechanic school.
		She came, I couldn't get a job, so she went to work for this company rebuilding diesel engines and diesel fuel pump.
		I brought her into my organization, and she became one of my top mechanics.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Stephen there, get it.
		Stephen got to leave it there.
		We'll go on to Mark in Connecticut.
		Mark in Connecticut on our opposed line.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, how are you doing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
unidentified		Yeah, I have okay.
		I oppose it because, you know, the whole philosophy behind this whole DEI stuff is it's all about perpetuating racism.
		You know, one of the guys many other people might have seen that made the rounds a couple years ago, Ibram X. Kendi, and he's popularized this whole thing.
		And he wrote a book called How to Be an Anti-Racist.
		And in that book, he said the remedy for past discrimination is present discrimination.
		The remedy for present discrimination is future discrimination.
		So this whole DEI movement is about perpetuating racism.
		It's total garbage.
		It turns Martin Luther King's dream on its head.
		He said that we should judge people by the content of our character, not the color of our skin.
		And this just does the opposite.
		So I totally oppose it.
		And I just think that we need to move on from this.
		Yeah, there's evil people in the world.
		And there are people that look at people based on the color of their skin to judge them.
		And that's wrong.
		And we shouldn't do it back to people who we think is doing it to us.
		You know, I'm a black man.
		And I look at everybody.
		You know, I believe, you know, all nations are one blood, like the Bible says.
		You know, so there's only one race, the human race.
		But if we can't fight racism by being racist ourselves, it doesn't make sense at all.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mark, there in Connecticut, we will hear from Monty in Monte in Baltimore, Maryland's support line.
		Hi.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Thank you so much for taking my call.
		You know, as a listener that's in his early 30s, it's really sad to hear all these people who explain that they've experienced diversity, but then say DEI isn't necessary.
		It's very necessary because of the statistics speaking to the fact that regardless of the merit, people are being hired based on their race.
		It's called implicit bias.
		Some people have implicit biases.
		So if they hear a name that sounds black, they're more likely to pass on that applicant.
		They've done the studies where they've just changed the names on resumes, and suddenly that person is more qualified and is getting double the interviews.
		So sometimes people aren't doing it directly on purpose.
		They're doing it subconsciously.
		And that's why these programs are necessary because it makes them look at people who are disabled, who are women, who are minorities, and give them a chance.
		The chance means that now you have to prove it.
		So it definitely is still merit-based.
		You know, we can see in the Trump administration a bunch of unqualified people doing jobs very poorly, and they're being hired based on their race, not on their merit.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Monte in Baltimore, Maryland, giving us his perspective.
		It was earlier this month that Virginia Republican Governor Glenn Young gave his perspective on Fox News, especially when the announcement came that the University of Virginia had decided to close down or dissolve its DEI office.
		Here's some of those thoughts from the governor from earlier this month.
glenn youngkin ▲ ● ▼		DEI is done at the University of Virginia.
		And today, a group of very, very brave and well-minded trustees voted unanimously to dissolve the office of DEI at the University of Virginia.
		This is a huge step to restoring the values of Mr. Jefferson, who founded the university, who understood that we are all created equal.
		And that's exactly what this is about: ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity.
		What also comes with this resolution today is the elimination of any program that violates the Constitution, the Civil Rights Act, or, of course, President Trump's executive order that laid all of this out and prohibits moving these programs someplace else where they would be hidden or using third-party contractors to execute against these illegal discriminatory programs.
		This is a big day for the University of Virginia, and it also, I think, makes a huge statement for the rest of universities across the nation.
laura ingraham ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so in hiring, in admissions, in post-secondary education, you have a medical school, law school, I'm a proud graduate of, across the board.
glenn youngkin ▲ ● ▼		Across the board.
glenn youngkin ▲ ● ▼		Hiring, promotions, admissions, scholarships, all will be merit-based and not be conducted with illegal discrimination.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to John in Virginia on our opposed line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John, hello.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I'm calling because I guess I just listened to the governor of Virginia, and I agree with everything he says.
		And I like what he said about Thomas Jefferson and us all being created equal.
		My point would be that our Supreme Court, if you're allegiant to America, our Supreme Court has determined that in Fair Admissions versus Harvard, that our equal protection law in the Constitution will be the basis for how we will proceed in life.
		One man is going to be treated just like another woman, and we're all going to be hired or fired or whatever based upon our character and our merit, not race or gender or color of our skin.
		I think the Supreme Court decision basically said your life lessons, your skills, what you've overcome as an individual are all a basis for a merit decision.
		Let's see, we should keep race, color, and gender out of our decisions because I think basically demographics don't determine character or virtue or skills.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Christine, up next in New York support line.
glenn youngkin ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, how are you?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
unidentified		I just want to reaffirm that diversity, equity, and inclusion does not, quote unquote, lower the bar for those who are unqualified.
		It lowers the barriers for those who are more than capable but under-resourced.
		There's nothing wrong with leveraging DEI programs to advance people's educations and careers, not because they're undeserving of that support, right?
		But rather that they do have undeniable talent and untapped potential.
		And by being given access to information, to guidance, experiences that can unleash their genius and empowerment, it's only going to better not just their lives, but it's going to contribute to the success of whatever organizations they're a part of.
		I think the truth about how DEI initiatives benefit the non-participants slash recipients of these endeavors, because I think that's what you're getting at.
		I want to say that with diversity, when you intentionally ensure that an organization hires and promotes people, right, as well as markets to those people, creates products for those people with these different various intersections of identity, whether it's race, gender, sexual orientation, whether it is religion, neurodivergence, education level, leadership style, all of these different ways that we can name and classify diversity.
		That's what drives innovation.
		It's what's going to expand our scope of impact, and it's also going to increase profitability because you don't need to search far and wide to find that organizations that commit to DEI have better outcomes.
		When it comes to equity, we are, what we're trying to do there is we're strategically devising these systems and structures within an organization, right, that's going to identify, nurture, and promote the top talent that exist there and account for what another caller already talked about, which is implicit bias or cultural nuances or historical marginalization, right, that only is going to stand to improve every outcome for every stakeholder.
		And then lastly, when it comes to inclusion, this is basically about proactively creating organizational cultures where your employees are not only going to feel seen and heard and valued and supported, but they're also going to feel like they can show up as their whole and authentic selves.
		And that allows them to not have to use up unnecessary brain power, right, trying to fit into something or to trying to compartmentalize certain parts of themselves.
		And that's going to maximize productivity and performance and retention.
		Gotcha.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha, Christina.
unidentified		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Let's hear from Peter.
		Peter in North Carolina on our opposed line.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, I'll take less time than most callers, but so I ask you please not to cut me off.
		I'm imploring liberals, Democrats, and people of color to read a little bit about an early founder or member of the NAACP who is heavily into integration in his military career and in his Senate career.
		He made some same party as Dr. King.
		is Barry Goldwater, who's considered a racist today because he voted against the Civil Rights Act of 64 simply because he saw the roots of affirmative action.
		And the other thing people should read about is that...
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, then when it comes to DEI programs specifically, why do you oppose them?
unidentified		Because anytime you bring race into the question, it is inherently divisive.
		That's why considering race is inherently divisive.
		And it's gone badly throughout most of history in this country, but it should be stopped.
		And I wanted to tell people that they should read about the Civil Rights Act of 57 and 60.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Right, right, right.
		We got that.
		But one more question.
		When you say it's divisive, specifically how?
unidentified		Because you're dividing people based on their ethnicity or race.
unidentified		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Vicki, up next in Kansas.
		Support line.
		Hi.
unidentified		Yeah, how are you doing?
		I have a camera-like a view of the ladies from New York.
		However, I want to say that diversity started way back when the Pilgrims first came here.
		They didn't know what to eat.
		They didn't know how to live.
		Diversity came in when the Native Americans taught them how to eat and how to live.
		So there was a difference that helped one group survive and the other one continue to survive because they know what to do.
		Equity, well, just look at Charles Drew, who invented how to use transfusions to help save lives.
		He died because white people who used his invention, he wasn't allowed to use that because he wasn't admitted to a white hospital.
		So he didn't get credit.
		He didn't get equity for what he did.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we're running colours on time.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But Tol said, then why do you support these type of programs in the current day?
unidentified		Because they already exist.
unidentified		It's just that one group don't want to give credit to everybody else for their inventions or knowledge and abilities.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		One more call, Annette and Houston on our not shoreline.
		Annette, go ahead.
		Annette in Houston.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, please.
unidentified		Yes.
		I would be all for DEI if President Trump would eliminate race altogether in the Constitution.
		And he can start in his executive order.
		If he wants to be colorblind, why are all of our documents have what is your race?
		What is your expensity?
		He wants to be colorblind.
		So let's remove race.
		Race was created by man.
		There was no such thing as race, but man created race.
		So President Trump, if he wants to be colorblind, let's erase that off of all the documents and he can start with his executive order doing that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha, gotcha.
		Annette and Houston, finishing off this hour of calls.
		Thanks to those who participated this morning.
		You can continue on and make your thoughts on our Facebook page at facebook.com slash C-SPAN.
		You can always comment on Twitter too at C-SPANWJ.
		A couple of guests joining us throughout the course of the morning.
		Coming up next, the Senate's starting its effort to pass a legislative bill that includes President Trump's priorities.
		The Hills heiress Foley will join us to talk about that and more from Congress this week ahead.
		And then later on in the program, we'll hear from former Social Security trustee Charles Blahaus discussing Doge's efforts on Social Security and the current fiscal condition of the program.
		That and more coming up when Washington Journal continues.
unidentified		This 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 Ortberg, 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 this week on the C-SPAN networks and on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app.
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		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We're taking a look at the week ahead in Congress with Eris Foley with The Hill.
		She's a congressional reporter here joining us to talk about a lot of things when it comes to Congress, but efforts when it comes to the budget.
		What's the main goal?
		What does Congress have to do when it comes to budget matters?
unidentified		Right, well, Republicans, I think the main goal, at least for budget reconciliation, there's hope in the Senate that maybe they could see a bicameral resolution right after these weeks of negotiations.
		Finally see some text this week.
		Before then, that's a hope, but before then, there's, of course, interest in seeing what the Senate parliamentarian, the Senate's in-house referee determines when it comes to ruling how, whether Republicans can use a current policy baseline for reconciliation, which would kind of allow them to say extending Trump's tax cuts with the current policy and therefore wouldn't add to the deficit, despite what the Congressional Budget Office is saying.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So the Senate starts the process first.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What will we see specifically from them this week when it comes to those actions?
unidentified		Right, well, both of them are, both chambers are negotiating, but right, the Senate is, there's been hope, right, reporting that Republicans are hopeful that they could be able to adopt a budget resolution and in both chambers, potentially before the April recess.
		That's very optimistic, though, right?
		It's very ambitious.
		Right, And to kind of kick off that process so that both parties, well, the Republican Party, but both chambers can get started on advancing Trump's tax priorities.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We've asked this question before a lot, but when you say reconciliation bill, exactly explain to the audience what it is.
unidentified		Right.
		No, it's this really complicated process.
		It's not often used in Congress, but it allows the majority party to be able to pass major legislation within certain rules, right?
		Typically spending, tax changes without any buy-in from the minority party.
		They don't have to worry about a filibuster on the Senate side.
		They can get to pass something with a simple majority, and that's very important, right?
		We saw Democrats use that in the last Congress, too.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So if I understand it, Craig, when it comes to the blueprint bill that was some tentative of numbers announced last week, spending cuts at about $3 billion increases in spending when it comes to defense, commerce, and environmental and public works, and Homeland Security and Judiciary.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to those broad numbers as we see them coming from the Senate, how does it compare to what the House is considering numbers-wise?
unidentified		Right.
		Well, the Senate's bills, the numbers are coming in a little bit lower, but the idea is that it would provide the Senate more flexibility, right?
		They don't want to write in too high of a number, right?
		A hard set number that they have to reach versus on the House side, you have conservatives that are dialing up pressure, right?
		They say they've seen this game before.
		Leadership promises significant cuts, and then they end up with some compromise deal that comes out of these conversations that do not, in their view, do enough to curb government spending.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And also then, so when the Senate finishes their numbers, the House finishes their numbers, then they have to come meet in the middle.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How does that process work?
unidentified		Right.
		So there's still a lot of uncertainty as to what a compromise budget resolution could look like, but there's been reporting that there could be maybe a different set of instructions, right?
		Different targets for the House to reach versus the Senate.
		Senate can have more flexibility.
		The House can also get what it wants, but it's still up in the air because we haven't seen text yet.
		So there's a lot of moving parts right now.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And we'll see that play out this week.
		You can ask questions about the process of our guests.
		And if you want to ask her questions, Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		If you want to ask via text, you can do that at 202-748-8003.
		Eris Folio, you've mentioned it many times, but tax cuts.
		Is that going to be a must-have requirement for any legislation that goes through?
unidentified		Right, no, definitely, definitely.
		That's going to be something major that Republicans, no matter what faction you belong to, moderate, hardline, right, mainstream, you are, you, of course, would want to extend the tax cuts.
		I think the conversation right now is depending on what this resolution looks like, are they going to be able to gain permanency?
		Are these tax cuts going to be permanent?
		And that's a really big motivator on the Senate side as they're picking up these negotiations.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Because come the end of 2025, as I understand it, the current set of taxes, a certain amount of tax cuts expire.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So they're trying to preserve those legislatively in what happens here.
unidentified		Right.
		So it puts a lot of pressure on them right now.
		It's definitely, they're facing a ticking clock.
		And then they also are trying to tack on the debt ceiling on top of all of this too.
		And as we know, recent projections have shown that there is a wider range that they could have to worry about between maybe summer, sometime in early autumn of when we might see the X date.
		But there's also a potential that the X date could come sooner depending on what the tax revenue season looks like.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for the segue because I wanted to ask you about that X date and debt ceilings.
		Remind, let's start with the debt ceiling.
		What is it and why does Congress have to consider it?
unidentified		Right.
		So it basically caps how much the Treasury can kind of take out to kind of like it just caps our borrowing, right?
		Like it caps how much the Treasury would have to take out.
		But the idea is that the debt ceiling reestablished in January and they have a little bit of a window for the Treasury to be able to use these extraordinary measures to kind of provide some wiggle room underneath its cap.
		But they only have, I think, only a few months, depending on what projections you're looking at.
		But of course, these things can change depending on what how much spending kind of clocks in in the coming months, what tax revenue looks like.
		But yeah.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And we're in the middle of tax season right now, or at least leading up to it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's going to be a big determining factor as well, I imagine.
unidentified		Right, right.
		Yeah, no, tax season is definitely going to be, especially in light of also some of the recent changes that we're seeing at the IRS, some of the reports that are coming out about what type of impact some of these Doge changes, what they might look like at the IRS.
		There's been reporting from the Washington Post on this too about how that could have an impact on what the receipts are looking like on the tax side this season.
		So a lot of, yeah.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned it, but I just want to read what the federal, what the CBO said, the Congressional Budgets Office saying the budget office estimates that if the debt limit remains unchanged, the government's ability to borrow using extraordinary measures will probably exhaust in August or September of this year.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The projected exhaustion date is uncertain because the timing and the amount of revenue collections and outlays in the intervening months could differ from the CBO's projections.
unidentified		Right, yeah, it depends.
		I mean, there's a lot of, there's just a very wide range.
		It's something that projections right now are a little, right, a little vague.
		There's like a multi-month range, whether you're looking at the CBO, you're looking at the recent projections from the Bipartisan Policy Center.
		It's one of those things that the closer you get to the X faith, the more precise the projections become.
		But that's also kind of scary, right?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to the budget itself, if I'm a Republican, say on the House or Senate side, am I automatically going along with everything that leadership will try to sell as far as not only the cuts are involved, but spending decisions as well?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is that automatically a buy-in for all the Republicans?
unidentified		Right, no.
		And I think we also saw that too, right?
		Even when it comes to them trying to pass appropriation bills in the last Congress.
		This Congress, it might be different though, of course.
		You have a Republican Senate, you have a Republican White House.
		And I think there's just a really huge appetite amongst Republicans to actually finish, you know, a lot of this work that they have set out.
		And they want to make big changes.
		They want to extend these tax cuts.
		They want to see, right, like they want to see change on the fiscal side.
		They want to see spending cuts.
		So.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		202-748-8,000 for Democrats.
		If you have questions about this process, the week ahead in Congress, 202-748-8,000, 1 for Republicans and Independents, 202748-8000.
		Two text us your questions or comments as well at 202-748-8003.
		I imagine since the Senate and the House both Republican hands, Democrats now have to kind of figure out how they move forward or what their strategy is when it comes to efforts relating into what a final budget looks like.
		How much wiggle room or flex do they have?
unidentified		Right, on being able to.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Exactly, at least making some influence.
unidentified		You said on the Democratic side.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On the Democratic side and the House and the Senate.
unidentified		I mean, Democrats can make this as painful as possible, right?
		Like they can slow down a Votorama.
		They could force very painful votes.
		We saw in the last Votorama, they were able to force votes on Medicaid cuts, on Doge cuts.
		And we know that not all Republicans are on board with some of these changes that we've seen coming from maybe more of the right flank in the conference.
		So they could make this a very politically painful Congress.
		They, I mean, process, they could, again, raise pressure on a lot of more conflicting areas for Republicans in those types of politically tough areas.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You said Votorama.
		I don't know if our audience may know that term or not, but describe it for us.
		And particularly, do we see perhaps this week in the Senate on that side of Votorama, so to speak?
unidentified		It really depends, right?
		Like it's, it's everything is a wild card right now.
		I mean, but you could, you know, I think that's the hope.
		Again, this is the hope.
		There's a lot of optimism whether or not it's going to happen is, you know.
		But again, it's very ambitious.
		But if you do see a Votorama this week, it would be just a series of votes, a very like late night marathon voting session.
		You have senators, right, who are going to be very tired, very sleepy, and they're going to have a series of votes on probably a lot of amendments from Democrats that, again, are forcing consideration on tough issues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from a caller.
		This is caller.
		Caller, go ahead.
		You're on with our guests.
		Good morning.
unidentified		There would be a down payment of $120.41 today.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Oh, sorry.
		Wrong number.
		You could call in, call us, keep calling on the lines if you have questions for our guests.
		We'll talk about other issues besides budget.
		When it comes to what happened with the Signal Chat last week, what's the sense of Congress of what are the next steps, so to speak, when we hear about the Signal Chat and the reaction from the White House, the reaction from the various people involved?
		What's the Congress's sense of where things should go forward?
unidentified		Right, well, of course, if you're a Democrat, you would probably say the next step is some of these officials need to be fired, right?
		But a lot of Republicans have been pretty much echoing what Trump has been saying, right?
		This is a mistake.
		You know, people shouldn't be fired.
		People, you know, you can add the wrong person to a chat all the time.
		But there are some Republicans who are concerned about the contents of these messages, right?
		Like, is this confidential?
		Are these types of details about a planned attack considered confidential?
		And some Republicans would say so.
		And there's been some GOP appetite, some have signaled even this weekend, and further investigation into how this happened.
		And also, should officials be using these types of apps to have these kinds of conversations?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Bob joins us from Mississippi, Independent Line.
		Bob, you're on with our guests.
		Good morning.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Thank you so much.
unidentified		Many projections about the fiscal condition of our country, but there are two things that are certain.
jimmy in texas ▲ ● ▼		Congress has no stomach for passing a balanced budget, and we're at $336 trillion in debt.
jimmy in texas ▲ ● ▼		What is the ladies' opinion on Congress's ability or their move to pass a balanced budget and to start reducing this horrible debt that we've gotten ourselves into?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Bob there in Mississippi.
unidentified		Right.
		I think a balanced budget might be a bit of a lift right now, right?
		And I think some Republicans have also acknowledged that, but they see kind of, you know, at least the spending cut side, there is a reason why so many Republicans, particularly fiscal conservatives, are demanding significant cuts to federal spending to ride alongside tax cuts and to write alongside debt ceiling.
		There's also this hope, too, that as they start to pick up fiscal year 2026 funding work after the president unveils his budget potentially in April, that they'd be able to find a way to incorporate some of these Doge cuts that we've seen in the administration that are kind of aimed at shrinking the federal workforce and reshaping government.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It's a constant refrain from Republicans saying, well, the Doge cuts will be able to help everything else balance out in the end.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is that fair to say?
unidentified		That's definitely been like the idea from some Republicans, but I think it's going to be really interesting to see how these cuts are incorporated into funding talks this year.
		There are, of course, some Republicans that have concerns about the extent to which the government, the Trump administration, has gone to kind of, again, reshape government.
		And so there could be some pressure points in negotiations as you're getting conservatives who are already saying that there needs to be more efforts to codify these Doge cuts, which is why we're even hearing conversations about getting a rescissions package, potentially.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're going to have to explain that to a rescissions package, please.
unidentified		Right, right.
		Like under current budget law, the idea is that Republicans want the White House to send a package of proposed rescissions to Congress to consider.
		But what that would look like, it's still unclear if the Trump administration is even going to go forward with something like that.
		And also just how it would fare again in the Republican-led Congress, because despite them leading Congress, they have still somewhat of a slim majority.
		And there is some concern from Republicans about the extent to which, again, these Doge cuts have gone in their states or in terms of targeting certain agencies that maybe they don't think need to be completely dismantled, maybe just need major reforms.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Are Republicans on budget and appropriations committee looking at these Doge cuts efforts differently than, say, the rest of Congress on the other committees?
unidentified		I think that, well, I think there's some expectation that there would be some type of incorporation from Dogecuts, Dogecuts, into these funding bills, because these are the actual funding bills.
		If there are efforts to dismantle the education department on the administrative side, then you would imagine, or some Republicans would imagine, that that would be reflected in the funding legislation.
		But we've also talked to appropriators who say that they do not expect these to be completely adopted across the board, these Doge cuts to be completely codified, and that they don't see this Congress being a complete rubber stamp for all of these changes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Here's Irving Irvin.
		Irvin is in Tennessee, Democrats lying.
		Irving, hello, go ahead.
unidentified		Hello.
		I'm just calling you about the thing where Trump and MLT call them for some information.
		I don't know why.
		Do you really have to do that?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're going to have to elaborate a little caller.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean by that?
unidentified		Do you have to call in and get some code or something for them to send you a check?
unidentified		A check for Social Security.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
		Social Security being in the conversation over the last couple of months, whereas Congress is and claims that Social Security is going to be cut or modified by the Democratic side largely.
		Where does Social Security fall into the discussion going forward?
unidentified		I think Republicans have pointed to Trump's past comments that Social Security benefits, right?
		That they're not expecting cuts to this program.
		But then Democrats have also pointed out that efforts by Doge to, again, look at ways to trim that workforce could have an impact on the benefit side, potentially, or the services, just in terms of recipients that are relying on these benefits.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We have a viewer who asked, this is Rob in West Virginia, saying Republican tax cuts have added more to the debt than anything else, more than spending.
		Don't blame the debt on Democrats.
		And then adding that Elon Musk will remove a few drops out of the bucket of the national debt.
		Then the president will follow up with another tax cut, mostly for the rich.
unidentified		Yeah, that's definitely what Democrats feel like.
		Yeah, I mean, if you're looking at scoring from the Congressional Budget Office, they would say that extending the Trump tax cuts would add trillions to the deficits in the next decade alone.
		But Republicans are also using kind of different maths.
		They say that a lot of these tax cuts would generate economic growth, right?
		And that there's such a thing as good tax cuts and that that's where the party wants to focus its efforts on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's again, we have a few more minutes with our guests, 202-748-8,000 for Democrats.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		And texting us available too at 202-748-8003.
		We get this question a lot, Aris Foley.
		I don't know how much of a serious discussion on Capitol Hill, but this is from a viewer saying if they think term limits would solve most of the problems in Congress.
unidentified		I mean, there's support for those types of proposals on both sides of the aisle.
unidentified		Differences of opinion.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I want to play this soft from James Lankford because he talked a little bit about the signal thing that we had talked about last week and revisit that topic.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Here's James Lankford on the Sunday shows talking about what should be moving forward when it comes to signal.
unidentified		You said it's appropriate for the Inspector General to look at it.
laura ingraham ▲ ● ▼		Are you calling on the Inspector General to do so?
laura ingraham ▲ ● ▼		Because we don't believe that's happened yet.
james lankford ▲ ● ▼		I do believe that Roger Wicker has actually called on that, that Jack Reed and Roger Wicker together have gone back and said, hey, we need to have the Inspector General take a look at this to be able to examine that.
unidentified		I do.
glenn youngkin ▲ ● ▼		I think it's entirely appropriate.
unidentified		Again, there's two questions.
james lankford ▲ ● ▼		One is, how did a reporter get in this conversation?
		And the second one is: how do members of the administration talk to each other when they're on the road on things that are clearly timely?
		The launch of an American strike on the Houthis is a timely issue.
unidentified		They can't all go to their desk, sit in a skiff to be able to have that dialogue.
glenn youngkin ▲ ● ▼		Where and how do they have that dialogue?
unidentified		What's the most secure way to do it?
unidentified		The National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said it was a mistake to use Signal.
laura ingraham ▲ ● ▼		He has taken responsibility.
dana bash ▲ ● ▼		The Defense Secretary, Pete Hegset, has not, even though he's the one who shared the specific information about the timing and aircraft being used in this strike.
unidentified		Should he take responsibility as well, Senator?
glenn youngkin ▲ ● ▼		I think he just joined into an encrypted app.
james lankford ▲ ● ▼		I don't see it as much of an issue because, again, they all believe that this was a closed circle of conversation.
james lankford ▲ ● ▼		He's trying to give each other a heads up of what's about to happen, as we had given a heads up to our foreign partners overseas as well to let them know what was about to happen as well.
unidentified		So, this is normal communication on it.
james lankford ▲ ● ▼		What's not normal is having a reporter in the middle of it.
unidentified		You have no doubts about Secretary Hexet's leadership.
james lankford ▲ ● ▼		No, I don't see this as an issue of leadership, nor I've heard some people calling for his resignation.
glenn youngkin ▲ ● ▼		I think that's way overkill.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		There's one senator's opinion when it comes to that matter.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's the sense of the Senate or the House as far as Republicans wanting to move forward or perhaps letting this just go by the wayside?
unidentified		Right, no, but there's definitely some clearly appetite on the GOP side for further investigation.
		I think that a nice amount of Republicans do have questions about how this happened, but it's still unclear how far they'd plan to push for this.
		But at the recent comments from Lankford and also other Republicans that are expressing concerns about the contents of these messages and again, like how a reporter was added to these chats and whether or not you would deem it, they would deem it to be confidential, which they would, you know, has kind of shown that there is some interest, right?
		There's some discomfort, comfort in the party about these messages.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Speaking of investigation, there's a hearing this week by the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan leading that up.
		The topic is judicial interference.
		Can you set that up for our viewers of what to watch out for?
unidentified		Right.
		I think this is part of a broader effort by Republicans to kind of highlight what they say are abuses in the court system, right, in light of these recent rulings from judges that have kind of been unfavorable to the Trump administration.
		It's an understatement and blocking efforts by Doge, right, to, again, reshape the federal government and also just efforts to use a wartime law for deportations.
		So this is kind of part of this broader effort to kind of bring attention to what they would say are examples of the courts kind of overstepping.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Chris.
		Chris in Texas, Republican line.
		Hi, you're on with our guest.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, thanks.
		I'm sorry.
		I'm going to go back to the budget.
		You know, first, I think Doge, the main thing they're trying to do is trying to reduce the deficit or trying to get all the fraud out of the government.
		But the thing is, is that U.S. economy is what, about $29 trillion, taxes in 2024, maybe 2023 bought in $5.5 trillion, and we're spending about $6.57 trillion each year.
		I mean, you know, I guess it doesn't matter who's in Congress.
		You know, you get all the political jargon out there instead of, hey, we got to cut this down.
		I mean, it's both parties.
		And then also, the other thing I'll say real quick is just, I just want to remind the guests and you and the Washington Journal that it was Harry Reid that brought up this Senate where the Senate could pass something, you know, with the vice president time instead of having 60 votes.
		Like it should have never been changed.
		And maybe we wouldn't have some of the problems that we have.
		So, you know, that's just the way I see it.
		I'll test it to your guest and see what she has to say about that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Prison, Texas, Eris Foley.
unidentified		Right.
		Yeah.
		No, there are, of course, Mixed opinions about Doge and how far the government is going to enact these kind of cuts.
		Questions of legality, again, understatement, courts are coming out against this.
		But yeah, there's just, of course, like a growing Democratic backlash to these efforts.
		And again, there's some concern from some Republicans about the extent to which the Trump administration is going again to enact these types of cuts.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Louisiana, this is Ramona, Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hi there.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I was calling to find out the big tax cut that they're doing that's going to fix the expire and of President Crease.
		What is the good tax cut?
		Yeah, I think that, sorry, there's mixed opinions from Republicans about what that would be.
		Some Republicans want to see changes on the child tax credit side, changes when it comes to some of the business tax cuts.
		I think the idea is that Republicans feel that good tax cuts are good policy that could in some ways generate economic growth.
		Some Republicans would say the tax cuts pay for themselves, the previous tax cuts that they passed.
		But again, there's also scoring from budget analysts like the CBO and other prominent budget watchdogs that would say exactly the opposite and that these add, some of the changes that we've seen on the Republican side since 2017 have added trillions to the nation's deficits.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Eris Woolly, before we let you go, at the end of last week, there was an exchange between the president and members of Congress over something called a DC budget fix.
		You wrote about it, and you can find the folks, you can find the story online at thehill.com if you want to see it.
		But set this up for us.
		What are they talking about?
unidentified		Right.
		Well, in the government funding legislation that passed earlier this month, stop that bill, it keeps the government funded through September, but at mostly 2024 funding levels.
		And the legislation omitted, Republicans and Democrats say this was a mistake, language that was meant to allow D.C. to continue operating at its adopted local budget.
		And as a result, D.C. officials say that they could see maybe potentially a billion dollars in cuts to their local budget.
		So there's been a lot of pressure from D.C. officials, from Democrats, and some Republicans to move forward on this legislation.
		And you've seen Trump kind of weigh in and urge immediate passage of this, right?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's his interest?
unidentified		Right.
		I mean, I think part of the post that he said, the truth post, truth social, sorry, I was just thinking Twitter.
		The truth social post that came out last week, it was interesting.
		I think part of it was talking about not giving Mayor Bowser an excuse, right?
		He's also pointing to his executive orders that he's had this kind of aim to make DC beautiful and talking about crime in D.C.
		So I think that's also like a very interesting dynamic to maybe look at in the months ahead, this kind of dynamic between Bowser and Trump.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I may be wrong, but as of last week, the House hadn't picked up the legislation yet.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And I don't know if they were, will it become part of the agenda this week or moving forward as far as passage on the House side?
unidentified		I think there's been definitely some reporting indicating that it looks like it might get a four vote now.
		But it was interesting talking.
		I talked to actually House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris on Thursday, and he was saying that he had been urging leadership to not take up the bill until after they're able to finish the budget resolution.
		So a day after Trump comes out and says, hey, hold up.
		Senator already passed this.
		Get it through the House.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What are you watching for this week, and what should our viewers watch for in Congress this week specifically?
unidentified		Yeah, I think people are definitely waiting to see what the Senate parliamentarian is going to say if she does have anything to say this week on Republicans using this current policy baseline.
unidentified		And I think that's going to have a major impact, of course, on how reconciliation, what that process looks like in the coming months ahead.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You can see the work of our guest at thehill.com.
		Eris Foley covers Congress for the publication.
		Thanks for your time this morning.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		In a little, about a half hour from now, we will talk about Social Security with former Social Security trustee Charles Blauhaus.
		He'll talk about the program's fiscal state, also efforts at Doge at the administration.
		But first, it's open forum.
		And if you want to participate, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202-748-8002.
		We will take those calls when Washington Journal continues.
unidentified		Since March of 1979, C-SPAN has been your unfiltered window into American democracy, bringing you direct, no-spin coverage of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House.
		Is this Mr. Brian Lamb?
		Yes, it is.
		Would you hold one moment, please, for the president?
		It exists because of C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb's vision and the cable industry's support, not government funding.
		But this public service isn't guaranteed.
		All this month, in honor of Founders Day, your support is more important than ever.
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		Donate now at c-span.org/slash donate or scan the code on your screen.
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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.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Again, this is open forum, and here's how you can participate.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		The Washington Post and others reporting on interviews that the president has done over the last couple of days and exploring the possibility or at least quote methods existing for him to seek a third term in office.
		It highlights the fact that it was in a phone interview with NBC News that Kristen Welker, that Mr. Trump suggested that multiple plans have been begun to circulate for him to run for a third term.
		He pointed to unspecific polling as an indicator of his popularity and claimed he had, quote, the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 years.
		He followed up on this topic on Air Force One.
		And here's some of that from yesterday.
unidentified		You said you were not joking about a third term, about possibly wanting a third term.
unidentified		Does that mean you're not planning to leave office on June?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I'm not looking at that, but I'll tell you, I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which is, in a way, it's a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election was totally rigged.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		So it's actually sort of a fourth term in a certain way.
unidentified		I just don't want the credit for the second because Biden was so bad.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		He did such a bad job.
unidentified		And I think that's one of the reasons that I'm popular if you want to know the truth.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I think I'm popular because we've done a great job.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I think we've had the best almost 100 days of any president.
unidentified		And most people are saying that.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And it's an honor.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		We're bringing back our country.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We're respected as a country again.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And we're strongly respected.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		And people are amazed.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I was with some very important people today, and they said that they've never seen a turnaround of a country as fast as this.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Even look at our border.
unidentified		We have nobody coming in.
		And you can come into our country, but you have to come in legally.
		But we have nobody coming in to our country.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		It's almost shut down.
unidentified		They've never seen anything like this.
		The Constitution limits a president to two terms.
		Is it your understanding that they have to be?
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		I don't even want to talk about it.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I'm just telling you, I have had more people say, please run again.
unidentified		They said, we have a long way to go before we even think about that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's the president from yesterday.
		You can comment on that on other topics during this open forum.
		One of the things that many on Washington keeping an eye on this week when it comes to the topic of tariffs, this is being reported by the Wall Street Journal saying the Trump administration is scrambling to determine the specifics of its new tariff agenda ahead of its self-imposed deadline of Wednesday, weighing multiple options as the president has promised to remake the American economy with a swath of new levies.
		One key point of debate is whether to impose individualized tariff rates for U.S. trading partners, as President Trump has previewed in recent weeks, or revert to his campaign pledge for an across-the-board tariff that would affect virtually every nation doing business with the U.S., say, people familiar with the conversations.
		Again, it's open forum.
		If you want to participate, Bill in North Carolina, Democrats line, go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, I'd like to talk about the budget cut.
		It's something that I like to old Republicans, you know, I guess they have everything that they're forgetting it.
		And that is that they've both been taking back overseas where the food and stuff that they use and no claims.
		I could not believe it when I saw that.
		The fruit and stuff that they're using on Oclaz, $827,000 a sack of.
		We'll have it to the boats.
		We'll have to do the trains or whatever to get them out of there.
		I'm for getting the people out of the border over there.
		If it's not legal, you should get out for that.
		But why we're going to spend so much money to have a budget cut?
		If they're going to spend $800 and $27,000, I sack up to you through to take no people back over there where they belong.
		Okay.
		Or whatever.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Bill in North Carolina, this is Michael in New York, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, please.
unidentified		My thoughts are on Citizen United in keeping Elon out of our politics.
		It's crazy.
		How much money he's got to blow.
		It's nuts.
		And then I want to talk about the felon Trump never spending any time locked up while people that are here legally are being locked up for First Amendment rights.
		That slippery slope, man.
		It's not a good thing.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You started off by comparing Citizens United to Elon Musk.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's the connection?
unidentified		Keeping money out of politics, dude.
unidentified		You kidding me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Elaborate on that.
unidentified		Elaborate on being able to put as much money as you want into politics, and it's just, it's free speech.
		Money is free speech.
		And Elon Musk has the right to buy our elections.
		It's crazy, dude.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Michael there in New York.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about George Soros also getting into elections as well, has been reported, say, in Wisconsin and other places?
unidentified		Is he giving away millions of dollars to people in lotteries?
unidentified		He's not doing that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I just ask only because is the problem money in politics from those who are wealthy, or is it who's giving the money specifically?
unidentified		It's all money in politics.
		I don't care who's giving the money, but you don't see George Soros on the stage giving away millions of dollars to people because of their thoughts or their expressions of how they're going to vote.
		I'm sorry.
		I really wanted to talk about people getting locked up for First Amendment rights.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, quickly then, go ahead.
unidentified		Quickly?
		Yeah.
		Trump never spent any time locked up.
		He's a felon.
		While other people who are here legally, students, are being locked up for things that they've written in their school journals or whatever.
		Okay.
		It's crazy.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Michael there in Syracuse, New York, he mentions Elon Musk, who traveled to Wisconsin yesterday to, for his part, give away money, as the caller had mentioned, but also draw attention to that Wisconsin Supreme Court election that's taking place there.
		It was during that rally that Elon Musk made comments about what he thought was the importance of the election.
		Here are his comments from yesterday.
elon musk ▲ ● ▼		Most people aren't aware.
		Like I said, most people aren't aware that there is this important election.
		Most people don't even know that there's an election at all.
		And or if they do, they aren't sure exactly when and where it is, and they aren't sure yet of, or that they don't realize just how important it is.
		They think it's, well, it's just, you know, some kind of judicial thing that's not that important.
		But actually, what they're doing, what's happening on Tuesday is a vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.
		That is why it is so significant.
		And whichever party controls the House, you know, to a significant degree controls the country, which then steers the course of Western civilization.
		So it's like, I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it's going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		So it's a super big deal.
elon musk ▲ ● ▼		And the fact that I'm here in person, like, I'm not voning it in.
elon musk ▲ ● ▼		I'm here in person.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Again, you can see those complete comments from that rally on our website at cspan.org or also our free video app at c-span now.
		The Washington Times follows up with another special election to look at in the days ahead, saying that the 2025 special election cycle for Congress Tuesday in Florida, where Republicans are well positioned to defend seats in a pair of deep red districts and beef up their slim house majority.
		It comes at a critical time for House Republicans as they labor to push President Trump's agenda through Congress and will benefit from every extra GOP vote they will get.
		Democrats hope they can pull off a miracle win or at least notch a moral victory that suggests Mr. Trump's post-election glow is dimming and underscoring the high stakes in the special elections.
		The president on Saturday re-upped his endorsement of the GOP contenders, State Senator Randy Fine and State Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Petronas.
		This is from Jay, Clearwater, Florida, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yes.
		Hello.
		Good morning.
		I'm just wanting to mention about the way that Trump or the president sees himself around the world.
		He's calls that he has a lot of respect.
		But looking at the world news, I think that the world has a very different look, not only at the president, but at the Americans at us.
		It's like they used to receive us with open arms.
		Nowadays, not like that.
		I wonder how this is going to affect everybody with all the things that are happening.
		Thank you for taking my call and thank you to CISPAN for allowing people to express what they are thinking about.
		Not only how the U.S. sees the rest of the world, but how the world sees us and how Trump or the president always needs to have somebody thanking him before he even mentioned their name.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you say the world sees us, what would you, if you've watched news across the world, what example would you give as far as how the world sees us?
unidentified		Okay, we used to be a kind of place that people used to look at us for hope.
		I think that the one thing that the world knew was for our word.
		You know, it's like the United States was a trusted place.
		They have a stable government.
		They care about the world.
		Now, I think that the change that the United States is taking is actually taking us away from the way that the people look at us with respect, which is, I believe, what the president wants us, for the world to look at with respect.
		But I think that we are losing that respect from the people around the world.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's hear from Philip, Independent Line.
		He's in California.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning, Pedro.
		Good morning, America.
		My question or statement is just, does anyone consider how Trump is not going to leave office coming up with whatever happens in four years?
		I mean, have we all really accepted that?
		Do we hear what he's saying?
		Do we really consider it?
		And are we really ready for that big change in how we do things?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Are you basing that off the comments he made recently on the topic of a third term, or are there other things you're looking at?
unidentified		Absolutely, Pedro.
		This man, our president, we hear what he's saying, and we see the playbook.
		He will not say that he's not going to do it.
		We see, I feel like he learned his lessons for the last January 6th.
		There's not going to be a way, a vote, that will convince him that he lost.
		If he's not convinced that he's lost and all these people he's always talking about, you know, I heard this.
		He's always saying, everyone's telling me this.
		Everyone's telling me I'm great.
		I don't know who these people are, but they're going to tell him to run.
		And so I just want to make sure everyone's considering that and just ready.
		And thank you, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gary in Kentucky, Republican line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hi there.
unidentified		Yeah, Pedro, where'd you get that sport coat at?
		I like to wear that to the racetrack this week.
		But anyway, I like to say a rebuttal about the colour that said that Soros doesn't give money.
		Yeah, he does.
		He goes to fund, he gives a lot of money to fund a lot of stuff on the left.
		So I don't know what they think.
		They think Trump's getting all the money, but nope, not so.
		Soros has got his hand in the left.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It's Gary there in Kentucky calling in on this open forum.
		Dee's up next.
		D's in Tennessee, Democrats line.
unidentified		1946, New York City, New York.
unidentified		Hello, Dee.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, my question is: Elon Musk, the richest man from the poorest country.
		Why is he not helping Africa?
		The richest man from the poorest country, but he's not helping Africa.
		Also, Donald Trump is 78 and he wants to run twice.
		He's already too old.
		He needs to stop it.
		He's hurting the country.
		And Elon Musk, the richest man from the poorest country, ain't doing nothing for his home country.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Dee in Tennessee.
		The New York Times takes a look at three religious liberty cases coming up to be before the Supreme Court in several weeks and the importance they see in it.
		This is Adam Liptak saying that in the space of a month this spring, the court will hear three important religion cases.
		The first one to be argued today asks whether a Catholic charity in Wisconsin should receive a tax exemption in April.
		The court will consider whether a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma is constitutional and whether parents with religious objections to the curriculum in Maryland schools may withdraw their children from classes.
		Take it together.
		The three cases will test the limits of the court's assertive vision for religious liberty, which has been one of its distinctive commitments for more than a decade.
		Again, we're there in the New York Times if you want to read about those upcoming cases, including that one today.
		In New Hampshire, Independent Line, we'll hear from Cindy.
		Hello.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Well, I was only making an observation about Elon Musk and what happened, you know, in Wisconsin with the rally thing.
		Didn't it look like he was trying to make himself look like George Patton with the big American flag behind him and then talking about the end of Western civilization?
		I mean, I think the guy and like the lady before who called and said that he comes from the poorest country, well, South Africa isn't really all that poor, but they had the apartheid and all that.
		And then he went around and I don't know.
		Is it like, is it just me?
		But I think that he was, and then he took his hat off and signed it and threw it in the crowd.
		It was kind of strange, but that's all I had to say because the observation reminded me of the George C. Scott movie with Patton coming out and doing his famous speech.
		Maybe he should do that speech.
		Yeah, so that's all I really had to say because he's driving me nuts.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Paul in New York, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hi.
		I think it's interesting that the two biggest heroes of the right wing who were presidents seem to be Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan.
		And they both seem to have something in common.
		We know about how big a liar Donald Trump is.
		He's current.
		But regarding Ronald Reagan, I'll never forget when he visited the Soviet Union and he spoke at the University of Moscow in front of the faculty and the students and with a straight face stood there and told everybody for the record that there were no homeless people in America.
		Now, living in America, I think we all know that there are.
		Now, the second thing that those two presidents have in common is they have more than a little bit of fascistic things about them.
		When Donald Trump recently ran, previous members of his own administration, the first one, said they believed him to be a fascist.
		Now, when Ronald Reagan ran for reelection in 1984, he received two very interesting endorsements that were made public.
		One was from Don Wilkinson, who was at that time the head of the KKK in the United States, who said he was supporting Reagan because Reagan's racial policies look like they were written by a Klansman.
		The second endorsement he received shortly after that was from the American Nazi Party.
		And I think we all need to think about that.
		Those two seem to be the favorite of the conservatives among American presidents.
		And they even wanted Reagan's head put up on Mount Rushmore after he left office.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sonia's next.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Flora in Florida, Republican line.
unidentified		Go ahead.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sonia in Florida.
unidentified		Oh, yes.
		Good morning.
		I'm sorry.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It's okay.
unidentified		I just find it interesting that while I am not 100% crazy about everything that President President does or says,
		I just cannot get over this backlash of what Elon Musk and his team is trying to do to save this country money.
		I just truly cannot.
		And the backlash that he and his Tesla stores and people, innocent people who are driving his cars, who may or may not, whatever their own political background may be, people find the need to go and try to destroy their cars.
		Our country is just, I just wonder about the whole thought process that people have, people who are very smart people.
		I just can't even have a conversation with them about why they are not understanding just basic math when they are finding problems.
		All right.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sonia, there in Florida.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Fred in Pennsylvania, Democrats line.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		I'm worried about what might happen if Donald Trump got a large majority in the House and the Senate.
		He could say that the national debt is a national emergency, declare martial law, take over the petroleum industry, because during the campaign he kept saying all this liquid gold under our feet.
		Well, it wasn't from taxation of the oil, but if he took over the oil industry and any other company or corporation that had a lot of money coming into it and say it's now the part of the United States government, we own it to use it to pay down the debt.
		Is that possible?
		Could that possibly happen?
		And I think that's something everybody should think about.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fred in Pennsylvania.
		Let's hear from Bill.
		Bill in Florida, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, Pedro.
		I just want to say to the people, here we got a person that is gutting out the government in the corruption.
		And these people working for the government, some of them knew what's going on.
		And number one, Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts.
		She's so proud of herself where the poor people can buy lobster in a can, and I can't afford it.
		Wake up.
		We have to do something.
		And number three, the unions, the federal unions, are stronger than our military.
		Thank you very much.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we'll continue on with this open forum.
		And if you want to participate, it's 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can continue to call.
		And if you are calling in, continue to do so.
		If you are holding on the line, please continue to do so.
		For a few minutes, we'll take a look at what happens this week at the White House.
		Alex Gantitano from The Hill joins us, a White House reporter for that publication.
		Thanks for joining us.
		Hope I said your name right.
alex gangitano ▲ ● ▼		Yes, all good.
alex gangitano ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One of the quick questions for anybody looking at the White House this week is what eventually ends up when it comes to tariff policy?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What is the White House sifting through before as they face this week?
alex gangitano ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		And that's a big question of how much they actually go through with a lot of the tariffs that the president has threatened, how many countries are hit.
		I mean, yesterday he was telling reporters that all countries will be hit.
		We also have him, you know, walking back and suggesting that maybe only really active trading partners will be those that are hit.
		So everybody's kind of waiting to see, including the U.S. economy, of what happens on Wednesday.
		But those will be those reciprocal tariffs that the president has talked about.
		Again, that's maybe for all countries, as he's mentioned, but basically the reciprocal tariffs are tariffing the countries that have tariffs on us, making that an equal amount.
		The president has talked about how he thinks it's unfair that there isn't an equal back on them if they're hitting us with these tariffs.
		There's also the expiration of the exemptions on Canada and Mexico.
		A lot of those had a USMCA, which is a trade deal that the president negotiated in his first term.
		A lot of what was included under that trade deal got to be exempt with that first round from that first round of tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
		That then expires.
		And then we'll also just have to wait and see what else the White House comes out with.
		This whole trade plan has been a lot of just we're all waiting to see what the president decides that day.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is the White House, have they expressed some type of end game when it comes to trade issues or what they ultimately want from all of these decisions that have to be made?
alex gangitano ▲ ● ▼		You know, if you talk to, if you hear from the president about what he says he wants, he wants fairness for the United States.
		He wants things to be made in America.
		He's saying, you know, things like, I don't care if cars become more expensive for an amount of time for Americans because then cars will be made in the U.S.
		That creates jobs.
		That creates manufacturing here in the U.S.
		So his whole idea is that it's unfair that Americans, American companies are paying tariffs when other countries aren't dealing with that.
		Now, when it comes to the U.S., sorry, when it comes to what the White House officials are saying, it's a lot of that this idea of a Liberation Day is coming on Wednesday.
		There was even talk of that being a federal holiday on April 2nd because of how excited they are that they think this is a chance for America to get back as the leaders on the global stage in terms of our manufacturing.
		We can do things in kind of an isolationist way that we can build here, buy here, work here, and not have to rely on anything from other countries.
		But I will say there's a lot of excitement around here, a lot of talk of how to make Wednesday an even bigger day because they've really been hyping this up, let's say, for a month or so.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Alex Gargitano, one of the things that we've talked about during the course of the morning are these special elections at Wisconsin and Florida.
		How closely is the White House?
		How closely are they monitoring these elections?
alex gangitano ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, definitely in Florida.
		This is very closely watched here at the White House because that election to replace now National Security Advisor Mike Walls is a lot closer than they had hoped.
		And I think they are looking at this as is this a preview into what the midterm elections will look like and the fact that the president took a lot of members of Congress into his cabinet, had them either go through the nomination process or like a walls, took them into the White House team.
		And is that going to come back to bite him?
		Now, I don't think anybody's thinking that Democrat, that a Democrat will actually win in that district, but just how close it is, I think, is a little troubling to them.
		And they'll have to pick up their spending and their messaging and see how much the president's policies on things like the U.S. economy, which we know that voters care about the most, how much money is in their pockets, how things like that will impact some of these down ballot embraces.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We saw Elon Musk in Wisconsin yesterday.
		Did he do that of his own accord or did the president ask him to do this?
		Is there any sense of who made the call there?
alex gangitano ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, good question.
		I mean, Elon Musk definitely wearing this the cheese head hat in Wisconsin, making a big splash there.
		I'm sure it was a conversation with the White House.
		A lot of what Musk does, the White House is aware of it just because of how he is a top advisor to the president, but also has become kind of this boogeyman of the administration that when they want to, when critics that maybe lost their job with the federal or are upset with the government overhaul and how that could impact them, they blame Elon Musk.
		So I think there's a lot of conversation that coordinating with the White House, but I'm sure they were happy to see him willing to spend his own money to support Republicans in those states.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The Senate starts work on its portion of the reconciliation bill this week.
		Talk about the White House, what they're watching for from the Senate and the House when it comes to ultimately coming up with the reconciliation bill.
		How much input is the White House giving?
alex gangitano ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, they're watching this very closely because as we know, the president wants something, at least some sort of sign that they're moving ahead on his agenda by the Easter recess.
		And so I think they'll be putting a lot of pressure on Senate Republicans to keep moving forward and to figure out how to get something done.
		I mean, he's been very involved with the legislative processes that we've seen over the last two months between him tweeting or posting on True Social about how Republicans who don't agree with his agenda should be primaried.
		So I think we could see some of that if there are some deflections and we hear about some tension within the caucus.
		And I'm sure Senator Jon Thune is getting some phone calls from the president this week, but he's very engaged in these kind of talks because he wants his agenda to get through as quickly as possible here at the White House.
		They're moving so quickly on a lot of big agenda items for him.
		And I think he wants to see Republicans in Congress step up too.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We saw the administration's response to the signal chat story from last week.
		There's reporting from the Wall Street Journal, at least for one, saying that Michael Walls is on shaky ground.
		Has the White House moved on from this?
		Is there a possibility that there could be some staffing changes because of this story?
alex gangitano ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think what the White House is waiting to see is how much we've moved on from this.
		They want to see if it's still a talking point in the media, if it's still something Americans are concerned about, maybe some polling data that comes out as Americans react to this kind of information.
		And they're kind of waiting to see if they can move on with this without somebody having to take the fall for it.
		So there has been chatter that if somebody were to take a fall the fall, would it be National Security Advisor Mike Walls?
		Well, the president has expressed confidence in Walls, confidence in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
		There's still a lot of looming questions over if somebody will have to lose their job over this.
		But again, I think the White House is just hopeful that other things that come up this week, maybe Liberation Day, April 2nd, with the tariff plans can kind of trump this, so to speak, and people can move on from this narrative and then they can move on from this.
		But if people don't, I mean, it was the biggest story of the week.
		I think it will be continued to be a huge story just of how unbelievable it was.
		I think there'll be more pressure on them to do something.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One aspect of the story that you focused on and a story from last week was how the Vice President JD Vance looked throughout the text chain and particularly his isolationist views.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Can you elaborate?
alex gangitano ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I thought it was really interesting if you look at specifically what Vice President Vance was saying in that group chat.
		It was so much of what the MAGA agenda is, which is this isolationist mindset of we should not be entangling in foreign affairs.
		Why are we bailing out countries like Europe?
		Why do we have to drop bombs in Yemen and strike another country when it actually impacts other countries more than it impacts the U.S.?
		And he came across as kind of the more true believer, so to speak, in that signal chat versus Defense Secretary Hegseth who was saying we're going ahead with the strike.
		So I talked to people throughout the week last week before that story came out about how Vance emerged in that group chat as the person that was kind of the torchbearer of the MAGA thought process.
		Well, President Trump himself wasn't in that chat.
		And a lot have told me, you know, Vance does obviously have political aspirations for the future.
		Would he be the next candidate for the Republican president, but also the person that is kind of this MAGA world Republican president?
		And he's showing in private, or so they thought it was private, in that group chat, that he really does believe in this concept of we should avoid foreign entanglement.
		So it was, of course, a lot was revealed in that group chat, but it was interesting just how, you know, Vance was asking questions.
		He was concerned about timing.
		He was concerned about messaging while others were ready to forge ahead.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And before we let you go real quick, there were some stories that came out from these statements that the president made about an idea for a third term.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How seriously is the White House taking this?
alex gangitano ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think they're looking at what legal loopholes there are.
		I mean, I think they seriously would love to see a third term just because of the loyalists around the president here at the White House.
		They all want to, they think that, you know, this is what America needs is how much Trump we can actually give them.
		And so they're trying to figure out some sort of legal loopholes.
		But as the president also alluded to, does that turn into a vice president vance and he gets to control a lot of the work?
		Or what does that look like?
		But I do think they are taking this seriously because they, of course, think that they've had the best two months of any administration in American history.
		And so they're really, as they say time and time again, so they are really confident that Americans want to see another Trump term.
		But it's interesting we're only two months in and there has been a lot of discussion and the president engages in that discussion about his desire for a third term.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		All right, you can find our guest work at thehill.com.
		Alex Gangtano reports for the White House for the Hill.
		Thank you for your time today.
alex gangitano ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Back to your calls on this open forum.
		This is Del Vern in New Hampshire.
		Democrats line.
		Thank you for waiting.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hi there.
		I'd just like to say that Donald Trump is a fool.
		A third term with him, that'll be the end of democracy altogether.
		And Elon Musk does nothing but ruin all people who have to work for the government.
		I mean, he's firing these people.
		I certainly wouldn't want to work for the government nowadays.
		That is for sure.
		It's just ridiculous.
		That's all I've got to say.
		This is a useless administration.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Laura, up next in Maryland, independent line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, how are you doing?
		I just want to say that as a former Democrat, one that has awakened to the realities of what's going on in our country and in our world, that, you know, I was a federal employee and I witnessed firsthand how many people actually didn't work in the government.
		They worked for the government, but they weren't doing any work.
		They were getting their cars detailed.
		They were going out and getting their hair done, long lunches, paying their bills, polishing their nails.
		It was so atrocious to me that I would say if the government was in the business of making money, they'd be out of business because they are the most inefficient, ineffective organization I've ever seen.
		And I am thankful that Donald Trump is our president.
		I think that's doing a wonderful job.
		And as far as the end of democracy, well, let's not forget the primary where people went and voted for Joe Biden, but they pull him out and they stick Camilla in.
		That's a violation of our democracy.
		But apparently people don't seem to understand that.
		They think that's okay, and it's not.
		And that's one of the reasons I left the Democratic Party, because I'm tired of being lied to.
		I'm tired of being tripped.
		And I'm just sick and tired of it.
		The COVID lie, now that's all been exposed.
		I mean, how many more lies are you going to accept from this Democratic Party?
		That's all I have to say.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Laura, there in Maryland, two hearings to tell you about.
		Watch out for today.
		At 10 o'clock this morning, right after this show ends, a hearing on the bird flu's impact on the price of eggs, a discussion on that topic and potential solutions to this and future animal health crises.
		It's from the American Enterprise Institute.
		You can see that live at 10 o'clock this morning, again, right after this program on this network.
		You can also follow along on our app, C-SPANNOW and online at c-span.org.
		And then later on this afternoon, about 2.30, NASA's SpaceX crew, the astronauts, will discuss their science mission, the recent return to Earth of the prolonged stay at the International Space Station, and other topics.
		This will be from the Johnson Space Center.
		2:30 this afternoon on C-SPAN 3 is where you can see it, as well as our app and the .org.
		David is joining us from Illinois.
		Democrats line.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Yeah, I'd just like to say that what everybody really should say, Donald Trump is a moron.
		If you think, if you see him speak, the only time he's coherent or it makes any sense is when he's reading off of a script.
		When he goes to his own thoughts, it's ridiculous.
		And I think one of the worst things I have ever seen him do was the way that Zelensky was treated on television.
		I mean, that was very embarrassing for the United States.
		And it just proves that the United States, how dumb the United States has become to elect someone like Trump in the first place.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Austin.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		He's in California, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi there.
		Hey, yeah, I just wanted to say, you know, it's obvious now he wants a third term.
		This is what, you know, this is what we knew all along that we, you know, that he wants to be a king and they want a king.
		You know, we've known that from the start.
		And yeah, I think they wanted a strong man like Saddam Hussein or something.
		And that's where, that's where we're going.
		And yeah, so there you go.
		We're going back to having a king.
		He'll just be president forever.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do you think fellow Republicans like yourself will follow along with that idea?
unidentified		Oh, yeah, since the beginning.
		Yeah.
		They want a king.
		I don't want that.
		I've never wanted that.
		That's what they've just smelled of a king since the beginning.
		And that's what he's doing.
		They're good with that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Independent line from Florida.
		This is Joe.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hi, Guy.
		How are you doing?
		You know, I've been a Democrat all my life.
		I'm just amazed at how some of my fellow Democrats are knocking Trump.
martin caidin ▲ ● ▼		All he's trying to do is clean up what Joe Joe Biden didn't do for four years.
unidentified		What do they expect?
unidentified		Thank you for my call.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Kenneth is from Maryland, Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Kenneth, you're next up.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yeah, hi.
		As a Christian in a Christian nation, I wonder if people are aware of Elon Musk's religion.
		I asked, I looked into it, and his religion is atheism.
		We have the atheists calling the shops for our country.
		And I was just amazed to hear that, and I'm surprised that the Christian right and especially the Republican right Christians haven't addressed that.
		And that's all I have to say.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Kenneth and Marilyn there.
		One of the people commenting on the tariff announcement that's expected for this week was Peter Navarro, the White House's chief person, a senior counselor when it comes to trade.
		He was on Fox News, gave his assessment on how tariffs that are going to be announced fits into the larger economic plans for the White House.
		Here's that exchange from yesterday.
shannon bream ▲ ● ▼		When you say a tax cut, how exactly is that going to work?
shannon bream ▲ ● ▼		If you're talking about credits for people who are buying new cars, those kinds of things, millions of Americans are not looking to buy new cars, but they are worried about the thousands that are estimated to turn up in their everyday costs for things because the tariff cost has to be passed on by these importers somewhere.
peter navarro ▲ ● ▼		Well, all right, let's work through the economics of this.
		First of all, we're going to raise about $100 billion with the auto tariffs alone.
		What we're going to do is in the new tax bill that has to pass, it absolutely has to pass, we're going to provide tax benefits, tax credits to the people who buy American cars.
		This is a genius thing that President Trump promised on the campaign trail.
		So that's going to happen.
		In addition, the other tariffs are going to raise about $600 billion a year, about $6 trillion over a 10-year period.
		And we're going to have tax cuts.
		It's the biggest tax cut in American history for the middle class, for the blue-collar deplorables.
		And that is going to, if you look at this, basically holistically, as they say, consumers and Americans are going to be better off, including all the jobs they get.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Alvin in Ohio, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hello.
		Good morning, young man.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
unidentified		I'm a Vietnam veteran, disabled veteran at that.
		Three times I have voted for Donald J. Trump, and I would vote for him again.
		Donald Trump and Elon Musk are for the betterment of the United States, the betterment.
		And people who I've heard in past shows talk about Donald Trump being a draft dodger.
		How about Joe Biden?
		He was deferred.
		How about Joe Biden's deferment being a draft dodger?
		I am all 100% for Donald Day, John Day, oh, pardon me, Donald T. Trump in this administration.
		As American, they're doing what is better for the United States.
		And I'm just appalled these people saying Trump's a fool, a moron.
		That's fools saying that.
		Go ahead.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we'll hear from Jim.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jim in Virginia, Independent Line.
unidentified		Kyle, good morning.
		I did want to make a comment on the Constitution and Trump's two terms.
		FDR ran four times for president.
		He was elected president.
		There are lots of folks that are still alive that remember that.
		The Constitution was changed, and it can be changed again.
		That can only be done through the Congress, but it is possible that that would happen.
		We had prohibition, I think, for 18 years in this country.
		I think it was the 18th Amendment.
		And then 15 years later, it was overturned.
		The Constitution can be changed, but that will be determined in the next midterm.
		I think that's the only point I wanted to make.
		People are clutching their pearls over this.
		It could only be done through Congress.
		So thank you for giving me that time.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One more call.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Beth from Wisconsin, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yes, I think that the problem in our country right now is even deeper than the Democrats versus the Republican divide.
		I think that the executive orders issued by presidents for the last few administrations have increased terribly.
		And they're doing things that aren't executive functions.
		They're changing laws.
		When President Biden opened up the borders and invited everyone to come in, he didn't think about where those people are going to sleep tonight.
kathleen keating ▲ ● ▼		And when President Trump came in and totally reversed that, just preyed on people that have been working hard forever, he has hurt a lot of people.
unidentified		And I think this needs to be reined in.
		I don't know what can be done.
		Maybe if the Senate and the House would sit down and do their work, why have they been kicking the immigration issue down the road for over 40 years?
		Sit down and negotiate.
		Use a three-spreadsheet system.
		Let the Democrats say on one spreadsheet what they want, the Republicans on spreadsheet number two, push the items off of their spreadsheets onto number three that they agree on.
		Negotiate, debate, bargain on the rest of the items.
		Push the things they can agree on to the third spreadsheet.
		Draw out the rest of the items and enact the law.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Beth there in Wisconsin finishing off this round of open forum.
		Thanks for participating.
		One more segment to go.
		We'll take a look at the future of Social Security with former Social Security trustee Charles Blauhaus to give his assessment not only on the program, but efforts by Doge and the Trump administration on that program.
		That conversation coming up.
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pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Charles Blauhaus joining us with George Mason University's Mercatus Center.
		He's a senior research strategist.
		However, before, in his public life, former public trustee of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds from 2010 to 2015.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Describe what that, the trustee job, what does it involve?
unidentified		Well, the short summary is that the trustees are responsible for issuing an annual report, which does a number of things, but one of the most important is to report to lawmakers on the financial condition of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
		So that's the short summary.
		I think it's always important to step back and remind ourselves why that matters.
		These aren't just dry accounting abstract exercises.
		Basically, it's a report to Congress on the size of the changes that have to be made in order to continue to have the type of Social Security system in the future that we have had to date.
		So it's very important from the standpoint of can we continue to have this type of program.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Some of the data points for the latest report read as such.
		You've probably seen these, I'm sure, but the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, able to pay 100% of the total scheduled benefits until 2033.
		That's unchanged.
		The Disability Insurance Trust Fund projected to pay 100% of the total scheduled benefits through 2098.
		If you combine those, the resulting projected fund would be able to pay 100% of the total scheduled benefits until 2035.
		Those are the dry numbers, as you say, but put some context to what do those mean to you in the current day.
unidentified		Well, I think that more important than the dates is what is the size of the shortfall that we have to fix.
		And unfortunately, it has already grown to a very substantial size.
		It's very late in the game from the standpoint of how realistic is it to make the changes necessary to keep the program solvent.
		One bit of data that I often put out to make that point is right now about 21% of all scheduled benefits going forward are completely unfunded.
		They have no financing behind them.
		Now, it's actually worse than that because that's 21% of all scheduled benefits, including benefits for people who are already on the rolls.
		Now, historically, we haven't done that to people.
		We haven't gone to people who have been collecting for 30 years and said, all right, we're going to cut your benefits 21%.
		So the more relevant question is, what is the amount of savings we have to get as a percentage of future benefit claims?
		That's about 25%.
		Now, again, it's worse than that because ask yourself, what's the likelihood of lawmakers enacting legislation that would cut benefits across the board 25% effective tomorrow for everybody, rich or poor?
		That's not going to happen, right?
		So any changes that are made legislatively, they're going to be more gradual.
		They're going to be a lot less than 25% at first, which means if they're going to average 25%, they have to be a lot more than that down the line.
		So we're talking 40, 50% of the benefits of people who are likely to be affected.
		So it's a very big problem, and we're going to have to make changes probably in system revenues and the growth of benefits and eligibility ages if we're going to be able to solve it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		To what degree do you think Congress has the appetite to balance the books to that measure?
unidentified		Well, they haven't shown that appetite.
		And that's very concerning.
		It's very concerning.
		Had we done this 20 years ago, it could have been done pretty painlessly.
		All we had to do then was to make a slight incremental, somewhat technical change in the rate of indexation of the growth of benefits, and then it would have been fixed.
		But we didn't do that.
		And now we're in a situation where just to maintain the current level of benefits in real terms, you have to have additional tax revenues in this system.
		And again, the size of the shortfall is so large that it would require legislators on undoubtedly a bipartisan basis to embrace changes that are larger than they've ever legislated before.
		So not only do we need to improve upon the current level of sort of Partisan polarization, but we actually have to do better than we've ever done before.
		So Social Security's fate is very uncertain at this time.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		As far as a timeline is concerned, you talked about the current conditions, but what's the date that these things have to really kick in in order to be effective?
unidentified		Right, well, at the risk of sounding very alarmist.
		Yeah, it's urgent and difficult if we do it now.
		If I were speaking, and actually I do speak to people on the Hill and they ask me point blank, can we wait another presidential term to deal with this?
		I would say no.
		If you look at the data in the 2030s and the illustration that I just gave you about what is the amount of savings you have to find as a percentage of future benefit claims, if you wait till the 2030s to deal with this, you literally cannot keep the system solvent, even if you completely eliminated all new benefit claims.
		The system would still go insolvent.
		So by then it's far too late.
		So the window of opportunity to maintain this type of system, now we could abandon it and have a completely different type of system, one that would be, I think, a lot less secure, a lot less reliable, just have a fundamentally different design.
		But if we want to have this type of system, we're running out of time to fix it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our guest with us, and if you want to ask him questions about Social Security and aspects, they are 202-748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans, 2028-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		202-748-8003 is the number for Social Security recipients.
		If you want to ask questions, you can use that number also to text us your questions or comments if you wish.
		One of the first efforts of the Trump administration and particularly Doge was Social Security.
		What does that mean to you?
unidentified		Wow.
		I've thought a lot about what I would say to Doge if Elon Musk were sitting here or the other higher-ups at Doge.
		And I would say the following: I would say you actually are quite right to look at Social Security from the standpoint of overall government efficiency, right?
		Because costs in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are all growing faster than a sustainable rate.
		So something has to be done to slow down the growth of those costs.
		Well, if you are going to slow down the growth of those costs without hurting the people on the programs, you have to become more efficient, right?
		So that makes all the sense in the world.
		And I credit them for including Social Security in their purview.
		Now, that said, I don't think the answer lies in the direction of administrative bloat or improper payments or payments to dead people or any of the things that have been talked about.
		I mean, again, consider what I was telling you before.
		About 25% of all future benefit claims are unfunded.
		The total administrative costs of this program are well less than 1%, right?
		So you could eliminate anyone and everything associated with administering benefits, which I wouldn't recommend doing.
		Even if you did, you'd still have over 96% of the financing problem to deal with.
		So the answers don't really lie in that direction.
		The answers basically lie in the direction of looking at where the program spends money, how it spends money.
		Can we spend it, better target the system's resources on the people who are intended to benefit from it?
		And the answer to that, I think it's going to require some pretty significant reforms.
		But those reforms will need to be legislated.
		They aren't something that Doge can make happen simply by executive authority.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Show you some headlines.
		This is one of the recent ones.
		Social Security Administration could cut up to 50% of its workforce.
		That's the headline, but what's the impact?
unidentified		Well, that's a concern.
		It's a great concern.
		Social Security, it's different from a lot of departments, right?
		It's not really a policymaking department.
		It's not like the Department of Treasury or it's more of a customer service department.
		Their job is to get the payments out, to do it accurately, to do it efficiently, to not have people waiting, have people be able to have a response from someone at the administration.
		That's their job.
		Now, as it happens, the incoming commissioner, and right now there's just a commissioner designate.
		We don't have a new commissioner confirmed.
		They're already going to have the problem of making the system more efficient because you've got baby boomers still coming onto the rolls.
		You have big backlogs in the disability determinations system.
		You have the constant, the constant problem facing every incoming commissioner, which is how to update the Social Security Administration's information systems.
		All those things have to be done to make the system more efficient even before you start letting staff go.
		So if you are losing a lot of staff, if you are consolidating regions, if you are losing a lot of the regional commissioners who have been historically a repository of institutional knowledge, you're making the job of the incoming commissioner a lot harder, right out of the gate.
		I try to avoid editorializing, but I think it was very imprudent to be pursuing these sorts of changes even before there was a new commissioner on board.
		And if the new commissioner comes in and says, all right, we've got too many staff or whatever, we can do this with fewer, so be it.
		But to make those sorts of sweeping changes right out of the gate before we really see what's what, I think that was somewhat reckless.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One of the other news bits that came out last week, the administration, the Social Security Administration saying they would delay a planned cut to phone service for certain people looking for information, though you still have to come in in person to do some other things.
		When you factor that in, if that happens, what happens to the recipient?
		What happens to the person who gets these?
unidentified		Well, exactly.
		Something has to give here, right?
		The agency, they're already dealing with some attrition in their workforce.
		Their workforce has tended to be older than the typical federal department.
		So they were losing people to retirement as it was.
		And you've got this increase in benefit claims, and you've got the backlogs at disability.
		Something has to give, right?
		And I don't know how it's going to give.
		Either you have delays in people getting answers or people getting benefits, or you have less ability to catch improper payments and actual fraud and things like that.
		But something has to give.
		And so, again, I think that until we know how Social Security administration can be made more efficient, losing these numbers of staff, it does risk causing interruptions in customer service.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Charles Blauhaus, our guest from George Mason, also the former public trustee of Social Security and the Medicare Trust Funds.
		Dan is up first.
		He's from New York, a recipient of Social Security.
		You're on with our guest.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Your guest is spot on, I think.
		And as he most notably said that this problem has been going on for decades and we failed to come to bat on it, I think you need a multi-focused approach, you know, increasing the retirement age, removing the cap on Social Security entirely, and perhaps maybe even taking out,
		let's say, a certain minor percentage of all other departmental budgets to help fund Social Security.
		As I understand it, your contributions to Social Security go to the General Treasury for paying the bills of the government.
		We didn't have a lockbox effort.
		I worked for the New York State government, and their contributions were put into their fund, and it's doing very, very well.
		And we didn't do that for Social Security.
		I think we would have avoided all this if we had taken the contributions from all the Social Security workers over the decades and put it into one fund that could not be touched by government.
		But unfortunately, that's not going to help us now.
		But I do agree that we need a multi-focused approach, and it's going to be painful.
		I would even take a slight reduction, let's say, in my Social Security benefits, let's say for certain individuals who have an adjusTedros income above an adequate amount, that could be negotiated.
		But there's going to be a little bit of pain here involved.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Dan, thank you.
unidentified		Well, I'd return the compliment back to the caller.
		I think he's spot on in saying that we have to do a little of everything.
		If you look at the magnitude of the shortfall and you say, I'm going to try to deal with this with tax revenues alone or eligibility age changes alone or benefit growth rate changes alone, the size of the changes you have to make is so large that, I mean, it's tough enough as it is, but trying to do the whole job with one of those levers, it's just not going to be possible.
		And he listed eligibility age changes.
		He listed the need for new revenues.
		He listed possibly lifting the cap.
		My guess is that if we were, hopefully, to get any sort of bipartisan solution, we would need all those mechanisms.
		And he even expressed a willingness, you know, on behalf of himself and other people who might be less in need to deal with some lessening of the rate of growth on the high income end.
		I think we're going to need something like that, too.
		The one thing I would say, though, on the other side of it is I don't think the problem is that lawmakers spent and wasted the trust fund.
		Unfortunately, the problem is that it exists because we're promising a lot more in benefits than workers' tax contributions could finance.
		The Social Security Administration has been credited, yes, the caller is right, that economically the past surplus tax has effectively financed government consumption.
		But the Social Security Trust Fund was given Treasury securities representing those surpluses, and those have earned interest, and the program is drawing on that now in order to pay full benefits.
		So the program actually is being paid back with interest everything that workers put into the system.
		So unfortunately, the problem is just that the amount that workers are being taxed and the amount that the system is promising to pay beneficiaries is just very far apart.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Republican line, we'll hear from Jeff in Oregon.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hi, this is Jeff.
		Hey, thank you for taking my call.
		I had a question in regards to one, there was a study done several years ago in regards to Medicare by the IG, indicating the fact there's about a $300 billion fraud going into the IG.
		And so how do we explain that?
		And also on the Social Security side, what are we doing with raising or lifting the cap on Social Security and just getting rid of the cap entirely?
		Would that make Social Security solvent?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jeff in Oregon, thanks.
unidentified		Two questions.
		The first question of payment fraud.
		He referenced Medicare.
		The way I like to talk about improper payments and fraud, it's very different from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
		Social Security, this has been looked at a lot of different ways, and the improper payment rate in Social Security is just very, very low.
		I mean, to the extent that there's ever, you know, that there really is any significant fraud in Social Security, it tends to be on the disability side rather than the retirement side.
		And even there, it's quite small.
		Medicaid is the opposite.
		Medicaid, there's a real big improper payment rate.
		There's misclassification of participants so as to trigger higher reimbursement rates from the federal government.
		You have more of an issue with people claiming enrolling in Medicaid who aren't eligible.
		It's a bigger issue with Medicaid.
		Medicare, it's somewhere in the middle.
		Obviously, improper payments in Medicare, something the Inspector General always looks at.
		You know, it's a concern.
		It's something that needs to be policed.
		You also have to remember, though, Medicare is a massive program.
		So when you categorize and sum improper payments over a long period of time, the numbers start to look really, really large, but are still quite small percentage of the overall expenditures of the program.
		As for lifting the cap, the short answer is my guess is that any bipartisan solution that includes a revenue increase would probably involve a change in the cap.
		Unfortunately, it doesn't get you all that far.
		Even if you completely eliminate the cap on taxable wages and tax every penny of earnings in America, you don't eliminate more than one-third of the long-term shortfalls.
		So the vast majority of the problem still has to be fixed by other means, even if we were to completely eliminate the cap.
		And my guess is we probably wouldn't completely eliminate the cap, because that would be a massive tax increase, an increase of nearly 20% over how much the program is currently taking in.
		And it wouldn't fix more than a small fraction of the problem.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		President Trump has floated the idea of lifting the tax on Social Security benefits.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of that as a prospect?
unidentified		Yeah, that is, I think it's important to have some context here.
		Why do we tax these benefits, right?
		The reason they are taxed was to create a closer parity between Social Security benefits and other forms of income.
		And so back in 1983, 1993, we made changes to the taxation of benefits so that you weren't treated better if you were in one system than the other.
		Now, technically, up to 85% of your Social Security benefit is taxed if you're above a certain income threshold.
		Why 85%?
		There's a reason.
		Basically, when you, your employer pays payroll taxes on your behalf into the system, it's not subject to income taxes.
		When you pay payroll taxes into the system, you are paying income taxes on that.
		And then you also have the sort of the buildup of your benefit, which substantially exceeds the amount that you or your employer put in.
		So what the actuaries did back then is they did a calculation of what's the percentage of each type of individual's benefit that hasn't already been subjected to the income tax.
		And they came up with a range of numbers depending on your gender, your life expectancy, your marital status, your income level, all that stuff.
		The lowest number they came up with was 85% for certain males.
		So they said, okay, for pretty much everybody, at least 85% of their benefit hasn't already been subject to the income tax.
		So to achieve rough parity with how private pensions are taxed, we'll tax 85% of it.
		So getting back to your question about President Trump, yeah, you could eliminate that taxation, but that would mean giving a tax preference to income in the form of Social Security benefits relative to all other types of income, and it would also worsen the system's solvency predicament.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Tracy.
		Tracy's in New York.
		Democrats line for Charles Blauhaus.
		Good morning, Tracy.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for this subject matter.
		It's very important.
		I heard your guests mention the year 2035 as a possible year for Social Security ending.
		So if I was to take my delayed payment, that would be 2035.
		I would like to know, is it better for me to take my payments before 2035 and not take the delayed amount since it may end in 2035?
		Well, I would say a couple of things.
		One is obviously when you should take benefits is something that's very personal and specific to you, and I'm not in a position to advise you on that.
		I would say, generally speaking, if you're a woman and you have therefore a longer life expectancy than a man, it's usually in your interest to delay and take the delayed retirement credit because you're going to live longer, right?
		So rather than retire, claim too early and get a lower benefit for a lot of years, if you expect to live at least as long as the average American, you should delay the claim.
		Now, as to the question of 2035, I want to be precise as to our terms here.
		I would not imagine that the system is going to end in 2035, right?
		We might have to have a very different type of system.
		It's not going to disappear.
		So I think there is a risk that we would have to go to a new type of system where benefits were more changeable and variable and a little less secure than they currently are when we have this self-financing trust fund system that we currently have.
		And I worry about that.
		But you would be subject to exactly the same risk whether you took your benefits early or late.
		And so I think you just need to make the decision that makes most sense for you from the standpoint of your own health, your own perception of your life expectancy, which usually means delaying the claim if you're a woman.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If you saw the changes that you advocated for at the beginning, who would be most affected as far as would it be the young ones coming into the system who would see the most drastic change?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Would it be those who are like the woman just about to get her benefits, say, or those who already said you said that isn't likely for those who already are getting benefits, but who would be most affected?
unidentified		Well, this is, thank you for asking this question because this is really important.
		Okay.
		I think too seldom do people ask this.
		And sometimes people come up with answers, let's do this to Social Security, let's do that to Social Security without considering, okay, who is it going to affect and how.
		Very importantly, under the current system, how you are treated is related to when you were born.
		So depending on when you were born, you have had a better mix of tax burdens and benefit promises or a worse one.
		So as it happens, the people who are getting treated the worst under current law are young workers coming right into this, you know, just coming into the system now.
		Baby boomers, Gen Xers are taken more out of the system than they put in.
		It's really hard to get a solvency solution to work and be fair if certain generations are totally exempted from contributing to it.
		So this is one reason why I would not advocate doing most of this on the tax side.
		Because if you do most of it on the tax side, you're basically loading up the burden of change on the youngest generations that are already getting treated the worst, right?
		The wealthiest boomers, the wealthiest Gen Xers, are much more likely to be beneficiaries over the next couple of decades than they are taxpaying workers.
		So it's really important that we do a good portion of this on the cost containment side if we don't want the plight of younger workers to be even worse than it currently is.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is from Linda.
		Linda joins us from Ohio Independent Line.
		Good morning, Linda.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I had very similar questions to those that you've already answered.
		I thank you very much.
		Goodbye.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's hear from Fred.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fred is a Social Security recipient from Virginia.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		I have a two-part question for your guests.
		One, I believe that Social Security taxes, the tax on Social Security is put back into the fund, but I'm not sure about that.
		And I'm wondering what would happen if you started to claw back Social Security payments at, say, income of over $150,000 or some other percentage, maybe some other number, and clawed that back and put it back in the Social Security Fund.
		Can you tell me what might happen then?
		Yeah, two questions there.
		The first one, you're correct.
		Benefit taxation is credited to the trust funds.
		Now, it's actually a little funky because 85% of your benefit is subject to tax or up to 85%.
		50 points of that goes to the Social Security Trust funds.
		The other 35 actually goes to Medicare.
		That's a little quirky.
		That happened in the early 90s, and it happened because taxes on Social Security benefits were increased at that time.
		And at that time, Medicare needed the money more than Social Security did.
		That's no longer the case.
		I think Social Security probably wishes it had that money back, but it is split between the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
		As for clawing back, I think this is also a question that often comes up, which is that I think most people, whether you're on the left or the right, tend to agree that the burden of achieving solvency should be met mostly by people who are more comfortable, economically comfortable.
		Now, there's strong disagreements on exactly how to do it.
		Do we do it by taxing people more?
		Do we do it by paying lower benefits to people on the high-income side?
		How do we do it?
		Now, in the benefit category, you have different families of ideas.
		And one is to do this sort of thing, which is to sort of claw back benefits and basically subject people to a means test or an income test.
		If you have income above a certain amount, we're going to start paying you less.
		And there's another approach to doing it, which is, well, we're just going to take the benefit formula in current law, which is already, it's a progressive benefit formula already.
		It's kind of like a system of tax brackets, right?
		You have different percentages in the formula, and they're designed to treat you more generously on the low-income end than the high-income end.
		So you already have a formula in the law, and you could just make it more progressive.
		You could have the accrual rate be lower on the high-income end.
		Again, I don't want to editorialize too much, but I prefer that second approach to the first one.
		Reason being, the second approach does not penalize you for saving outside of Social Security.
		And that's one of the virtues of the program.
		It doesn't directly interfere.
		It doesn't penalize you if you're saving.
		Now, the program can act as a drag on national saving anyway because it's displacing retirement saving people might otherwise be doing.
		But if you overtly penalize people on top of that for their other retirement saving, then it's really going to have a drag on national savings rates.
		So I would favor the second approach without a direct means test.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That was Fred.
		This is Martha, Martha in Florida.
		Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, how are you doing today?
		Thank you for taking my call.
		My question is, wouldn't Social Security be better off if every single POTUS going back to the inception of Social Security, who has taken funds out for black ops, for balancing the budget, and other programs that we might not even know about.
		If these funds were put back, wouldn't Social Security be much more solvent than it is today?
		Well, unfortunately, the answer is no.
		Basically what happened in the past was there were surplus payroll taxes that were paid by workers.
		And those surplus taxes were all credited to the Social Security Trust Funds, and they were used to buy Treasury securities, basically.
		And that's what the Trust Fund currently holds.
		And the trust funds, those securities are in interest.
		Now, we can, you know, there's been a long-standing debate over what should have happened along the way.
		You know, should workers have had the opportunity to invest their own payroll taxes in personal accounts or mutual funds, or should the Social Security Trust Fund have been invested in the stock market?
		And those debates took place certainly over the decades.
		But it's not the case that Social Security is suffering today because the trust fund was sort of spent or borrowed or wasted or stolen or anything like that.
		All that money was credited to the trust funds.
		The trust funds have it now.
		It's about $2.7 trillion.
		It's actually using it right now.
		Since 2010, workers' payroll taxes have not been sufficient to fund Social Security benefits.
		The only reason benefit payments have continued to go out in full is precisely because Social Security is using that money that is being paid back from prior surpluses.
		So unfortunately, there's no, there's just an imbalance.
		The program promised a lot more benefits than workers' tax assessments could actually pay for, and that's the fundamental problem.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You've probably heard it, but Elon Musk called or at least referred to the Social Security program as a Ponzi scheme.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What goes through your mind when you hear it?
unidentified		Well, you know, he's not the first person to say that, right?
		And I think I don't like to use pejorative terms like that because Ponzi scheme implies an intent to defraud, right?
		Fairness, there's a kernel of truth there.
		When FDR first created this program, he wanted it to be a funded program.
		He wanted there to be sort of a, he wanted the first participants of Social Security to basically pre-fund their future benefits.
		And the early amendments to the program got rid of that.
		They basically said, all right, to the first generation of beneficiaries, we're not going to make you really pay for your benefits.
		We're going to pay for your benefits by taxing the generation that came after you.
		And basically, the finances of the program ever since have depended upon each subsequent generation's incoming taxes to pay for what is being paid out to the previous generation, right?
		And so people sometimes think of a Ponzi scheme, right?
		It is a pyramid in the sense that the first people got something they didn't pay for, and now we've got to find someone else to pay for that, and then they have to find someone else to pay for their.
		And that is how it's working.
		And, you know, and that decision to pay benefits to the first generation that they actually didn't fund has created a financial hole in the system that creates problems ever since.
		Now, the rest of us have to find a way to fill that hole.
		So there is a kernel of truth there.
		It doesn't mean the program is designed to defraud, but there is that sort of pyramidal structure.
		And if you don't have enough workers coming up through the system to fund the benefits that have been promised, then the thing doesn't work.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Frank is up next.
		And Frank is in Pennsylvania, Republican line.
		Hi there.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would like to ask our guest, what is the benefit of the income restrictions?
		I started my Social Security at 62.
robert in st louis ▲ ● ▼		And if I would have waited until my full retirement age, I would have left tens of thousands of dollars on the table.
unidentified		It would have taken me till the age of 88 to hit my break-even point.
		If I'd wait till 67, I would have to live to 88 to hit the break-even for the money left behind.
		I had a small business.
		I still do some work, but I am restricted on my income due to the penalty restrictions.
		To what benefit, if I'm able still to produce, which I could do, and Social Security would still be taxing my income, I would still be putting monies back into the system, even though I am receiving my reduced benefit by my choice.
		I feel that the penalties and that the income restrictions actually limit the Social Security that I could be putting back into the system.
		It's almost like they're eager to penalize you and restrict your income, which I think is, I think it's almost like they're shooting themselves in the foot.
		There are so many people out there that take the early retirement, adjust to the restriction limits, and right away they are no longer contributing into Social Security what they could have possibly done for a few more years.
		If you could answer my question, thank you very much.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Frank, thank you.
unidentified		Okay, there's a couple of concepts there that, and I may not accurately interpret which ones he was referring to, so I'm going to try to hit them all.
		So there is an actuarial adjustment.
		If you claim benefits at the full retirement age, you get your full benefit.
		If you claim early, you get a reduced annual benefit, and that is intended to adjust for the fact that you'll be collecting for more years.
		And if you delay your benefit claim and are collecting for a few years, there's an adjustment upward to basically compensate you for the fact that you'll be collecting for more years.
		The way that is calculated, that is calculated now, is designed to try to equalize your expected lifetime benefits if you live to an average life, unisex average life, right?
		And so that's the policy basis for the actuarial adjustments for early and delayed retirement claims.
		Now, he made an allusion to something I think, don't know for sure, but I think he may have been referring to basically the retirement earnings limit.
		Basically, there is sort of a penalty or a deferral basically in your benefit if you earn income above a certain amount after you hit the retirement age.
		And I think the caller expressed the view that that was bad policy.
		I happen to agree that's bad policy.
		I think the retirement earnings limit is obsolete.
		I think it penalizes people for working.
		I think that's not what we need.
		I mean, at one time, I think if you look at the original design of the program and the policy rationales underlying how designers thought of it at the time, but I think we're way, you know, it may have made sense, but I think we're way past that.
		Now we need to be making sure that we're not penalizing people for staying in the workforce.
		One final point.
		The actuarial adjustments for early and delayed retirement, they are designed to equalize your lifetime expected benefit, but that means they don't take into account the fact that if you keep working and keep paying payroll taxes, you're paying more payroll taxes for no expected change in your benefit.
		And there is some disturbing numbers about this, that once you hit your 60s, for every dollar you pay in payroll taxes, on average, you only get about two or three cents worth in benefits.
		That's a problem.
		And people aren't stupid.
		They have figured this out.
		There's academic literature that shows people tend to depart the workforce earlier once they start getting hit with this situation where effectively the marginal tax that Social Security applies to your earnings becomes stratospheric.
		So that's a problem.
		In my view, the actuarial adjustments for early and delayed retirement claims ought to reflect the fact that when people keep working, they keep paying payroll taxes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to the age of collecting Social Security, is there a sweet spot, a perfect age?
		I know it probably depends person by person.
		You talked about not waiting too long, but not going too early.
unidentified		Yeah, it really depends on the person.
		You know, all right, so right now, the earliest, and I think we need to adjust these, but the earliest you can claim benefits is 62, and the normal retirement age is 67.
		Now, just as a matter of policy, that's not going to work over time, right?
		When Social Security was first established, you couldn't claim benefits till 65, right?
		So, I mean, that was the generation that fought the Spanish-American War.
		They weren't living nearly as long as we are.
		For us to be, the most common age of claim today is 62.
		In the mid-21st century, we can't be claiming benefits at age 62 when Spanish-American war veterans were claiming at 65.
		The numbers just don't work out.
		So we probably need to adjust those.
		Now, but given where they currently are, it's one of the virtues of Social Security is it has this flexibility built in, that you can choose your eligibility age to be what is right for you personally.
		What is right for you personally, to put it crassly, is a function of how long you think you're going to live as much as anything else, right?
		If you're in poor health, you're worried about your longevity, you've been in a manual labor job, right?
		You don't feel like you're going to live till 95 or 100, yeah, you might want to claim that benefit early.
		But if you are a person who's in generally good health and you think you have a chance of living a long time, you should delay.
		The evidence shows that people tend to underestimate their own life expectancy.
		So I would say err on the side of delaying.
		And also, you're at more risk of poverty in your 90s than you are in your 60s, right?
		So you don't want to claim too early, spend down your savings, and then wind up poor in your 90s.
		That can be a problem.
		So to the extent you can delay it, I would.
		But again, what's right for each person is a function of how long they think they're likely to live.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And I suppose you would advise then when it comes to Social Security, having several streams of retirement income, not just Social Security.
unidentified		Totally, totally.
		And again, I think one of the problems we have is we're probably overly reliant on this system.
		And we need to bear in mind, there's a lot of blithe talk about, well, let's tax people more to keep the system solvent.
		But as a larger and larger percentage of our national income strategy is tied up in this program, which is a pay-as-you-go program, it's not adding to national savings, It reduces the amount of retirement saving people do elsewhere, right?
		If you're taxed more to pay for Social Security benefits and if you're expecting higher Social Security benefits, you have both less incentive and less ability to do retirement saving on the side.
		So we have to be careful about how much we raise taxes to fix Social Security.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Edward in California, Independent Line, apologies, we're running a little short on time, so jump right in.
unidentified		Yeah, okay.
unidentified		Some of this has been discussed, but in general, it seems based on a former administrator that was either on C-SPAN of Social Security or on other programs, that Social Security is basically a self-funding system where payroll taxes From people working go into the nest egg,

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