| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Democracy. | |
| Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | ||
| Then-Virginia Republican Congressman John McGuire explores President Trump's plans for reciprocal tariffs, the administration's latest Doge efforts, and congressional news of the day. | ||
| And Kirk Bado, editor of National Journal's Hotline Newsletter, discusses the results of the Wisconsin state Supreme Court race and special elections in Florida. | ||
| Also, JFK historian Jefferson Morley examines recently released documents related to the Kennedy assassination and Americans' continued interest. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| It's the Washington Journal for April 2nd, the day President Trump is billing as Liberation Day, in which later this afternoon he'll announce the administration's plans for reciprocal tariffs on goods from other countries. | ||
| You can see that event at 4 o'clock on C-SPAN, our free video app, C-SPANNOW and C-SPAN.org. | ||
| Today also brings the results of three elections: two House elections in Florida, where Republicans won, and one in Wisconsin in that highly visible and highly financed Supreme Court race in which the Democratic candidate won. | ||
| All three races could show signs of what could occur in next year's midterm elections. | ||
| To start the program, you can comment on the Trump administration's plans for tariffs or these special election results. | ||
| Here's how you can do so this morning: 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you want to text us, you can do that at 202-748-8003. | ||
| You can also make comments about the tariff announcements today and these special elections on our social media sites at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| The Washington Post has a write-up of taking a look at what we may hear later on this afternoon when the president makes that announcement concerning tariffs. | ||
| Jeff Stein and David Lynch reporting this warning saying that aides have drafted a proposal to impose tariffs on about 20% on most imports to the United States, according to three people familiar with the matter. | ||
| As the president pushes for the most aggressive overhaul of the global economic system in decades, if implemented, the plan is likely to send shockwaves to the stock market and global economy. | ||
| Assuming that permanent tariffs took effect in the current quarter and triggered robust retaliation by U.S. trading partners, the economy would almost immediately tumble into a recession that would last for about a year. | ||
| This story from the Post adding that White House advisors cautioned that several options are on the table, no final decision has been made. | ||
| And it was on Monday evening that the president repeatedly suggested the tariffs would be quote reciprocal. | ||
| There's more there. | ||
| And again, you can find out more later on this afternoon. | ||
| A Rose Garden event set to take place at 4 o'clock. | ||
| And if you want to watch it on this network, C-SPAN, you can surely do that. | ||
| Or you can take advantage of our C-SPAN Now app, our free app, and you can also watch it at c-span.org. | ||
| Again, that announcement at 4 o'clock this afternoon. | ||
| Taking a look at those special elections, there were two elections in Florida concerning the House of Representatives. | ||
| This is the Associated Press for a reporting audit saying that it was Republican Randy Fine who won his special election in the 6th district to replace Representative Mike Waltz, who stepped down to serve as President Trump's national security advisor. | ||
| But his Democratic challenger, Josh Wheel, lost by 14 points less than five months after Waltz won the district by 33 points. | ||
| Jimmy Petronas, the state's executive chief financial officer, fended off a challenge from Democrat Gray Vallamont to win the Northwest Florida seat vacated by Matt Gates. | ||
| He also underperformed in Gates' last margin of victory. | ||
| This Associated Press story is saying the pair of wins gave the Republicans a 220 to 213 margin in the House of Representatives at a time where concerns about a thin GOP majority are. | ||
| That's the Associated Press. | ||
| And then taking a look at the events concerning the Wisconsin election and that Supreme Court race, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this morning, Liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford scored an unexpectedly easy victory in the high-stakes race for a crucial seat in the state Supreme Court in that most expensive judicial race in history. | ||
| She received 55% of the vote to conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimmel, 45% with 82% of the vote in. | ||
| According to unofficial results, the decision desk called the race less than an hour after the polls closed at 3 p.m. | ||
| So that's the rundown of those special elections. | ||
| Again, comment on that, comment on the tariff plans to be announced later on this afternoon. | ||
| You can call the lines or you can also post on our social media sites as well. | ||
| It was at the White House yesterday with the press secretary Caroline Levitt talked about the president's plans for today and talking about the overall approach to tariffs. | ||
| This is Caroline Levitt from yesterday. | ||
| The ultimate change for these companies in these countries, Mark, will happen when they decide to do business in the United States of America. | ||
| And as I just laid out, they will face no tariffs at all if these companies choose to invest here in the United States and to move their production in their manufacturing here to the United States as well. | ||
| As for tomorrow, the president will be addressing the decades of unfair trade practices that have ripped our country off and American workers off. | ||
|
unidentified
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It has hollowed out our middle class. | |
| It has destroyed our heartland. | ||
| And the president is focused on reshifting our global economy to ensure that America is once again the manufacturing superpower of the world. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So if they do something today or later in the week that's a pledge for future activity, would that be good enough potentially to alter the policy? | |
| Again, the president has been looking at the very unfair trade practices of the past. | ||
| Certainly, the president is always up to take a phone call, always up for a good negotiation, but he is very much focused on fixing the wrongs of the past and ensuring that American workers have a fair shake. | ||
| Again, that was from yesterday, and we'll show you some more reaction on Capitol Hill as well. | ||
| Let's start with Pete Massachusetts Democrats line talking about special elections or the tariff plans for today. | ||
| Pete, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Victory in what's called the big statement. | |
| You know, the one Pete, I apologize. | ||
| I'm going to have to pause you there. | ||
| Only I'm going to put you on hold, and then I want you to try to see if you can improve the connection. | ||
| You're going in and out. | ||
| So let's try Rob. | ||
| Rob in New York, Independent line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| I was just a little disgusted that none of the government's work got done because the idiot from New Jersey stood up there with his friends for 20-some hours. | ||
| You know, there's so much going on right now that needs work. | ||
| And these Democrats, all they're doing is getting in the way of progress. | ||
| So tariff announcements today and those special elections. | ||
| What do you think about either of those? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's great that we're having these tariffs because I'm sick of our country being screwed by other countries. | |
| And as far as those other races go, the two in Florida, I'm really glad the Republicans held those seats because the Democrats are just obstructionists. | ||
| They have no plan. | ||
| They have no anything. | ||
| And they certainly don't have any ethics if they're willing to just, you know, throw our government to the curb like they've done. | ||
| You know, this is just pitiful, Pedro. | ||
| And look what they've done with the 20 million illegal aliens that are here. | ||
| And they're still fighting to keep them here. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's Rob there in New York. | ||
| He talked about tariffs. | ||
| USA Today takes a look at tracking the trade war, several graphics when it comes to the topic of tariffs. | ||
| And one of the sections there, tariffs currently imposed against the United States. | ||
| It breaks down just some of the countries. | ||
| It's not an exhaustive list, but when it comes to Canada, 25% tariffs on $155 billion worth of U.S. products, including meat, dairy beverages, spices, steel, and aluminum. | ||
| In China, a 15% tariff imposed against the United States on coal, liquefied natural gas, chicken, wheat, corn, and cotton, a 10% tariff imposed on crude oil, agro-machinery vehicles, soybeans, meat, and dairy. | ||
| In the European Union, a 25% tariff on products, including agricultural products, tobacco, textiles, steel, and aluminum products. | ||
| And then when it comes to Mexico, saying that there's no formal retaliatory tariffs listed for the country of Mexico, again, USA Today takes a look at those topics and breaks down some of those tariffs. | ||
| Florida is next, Democrats line. | ||
| This is Sandy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi. | ||
| I wanted to comment on District 6. | ||
| Randy Fine won in Florida. | ||
| He was replacing Wallace in his area. | ||
| Now, Randy Fine didn't even live in his district. | ||
| He just left the Senate of Florida and they couldn't stand him there. | ||
| So get ready for another Marjorie Taylor Green type that's going to be in the House. | ||
| And basically, he's very unprofessional. | ||
| He was a gambling executive. | ||
| He just got elected, I believe, in 2022. | ||
| He's going to do everything that Trump wants him to do. | ||
| In his professional career, he called one of the school board members a whore here in Florida during a session. | ||
| These are the type of people that don't even respect anything about Florida. | ||
| So it's going to be an interesting ride for the people of District 6. | ||
| They went from a decent guy to like a horrible guy. | ||
| Okay, that's Sandy there in Florida. | ||
| Let's hear from Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate, talking about the tariff plans for the administration to be announced later today. | ||
| President Trump says, quote, I couldn't care less if prices go up to American families. | ||
| America, you hear that? | ||
| Donald Trump says he couldn't care less if you pay more. | ||
| And it's not just a little. | ||
| The estimates go as high as $6,500 more for the average American family. | ||
| To the family that's sitting down Friday night and trying to figure out, do they have enough money to go on that vacation or to visit grandma or maybe to buy a car? | ||
| Take away $6,500 and those dreams are out the window. | ||
| And Trump couldn't care less? | ||
| Give me a break. | ||
| Give me a break. | ||
| And so many jobs will be lost. | ||
| In New York alone, we estimate that over 200,000 jobs could be lost. | ||
| We have the Canadian border. | ||
| In a city called Plattsburgh, on the northern border in Clinton County, 20% of the companies are Canadian-owned or Canadian-affiliated. | ||
| Plattsburgh will just go into deep recession if this happens. | ||
| So we're not going to let, we're going to do everything we can to fight. | ||
| And oh, the most galling thing of all, why is he doing this? | ||
| As Tim outlined, it's not fentanyl. | ||
| You know, they always make up an excuse because they have no justification for what they're really doing. | ||
| In this case, they say fentanyl, but the amount of fentanyl that comes over the Canadian border is minuscule. | ||
| They're doing it so they raise revenue so they can give tax cuts to the billionaires like everything else. | ||
| The whole government is geared, whether it's Social Security or Medicaid or Medicare or housing or agriculture. | ||
| The whole government is geared to create the dollars that can give tax breaks to the billionaires. | ||
| Chuck Schumer from yesterday, when it comes to products and tariffs that are affected when they enter the United States, steel and aluminum worldwide at 25%. | ||
| Goods from other countries importing oil from, goods from countries importing oil from Venezuela, again, worldwide, 25%. | ||
| All products from Canada or Mexico, 25%. | ||
| All products from China, 20%. | ||
| When it comes to automotive products, worldwide, 25%. | ||
| Potash, a type of mineral that's used for plant growth and other things, 25% each from Canada and Mexico. | ||
| And then overall in the category of energy, that's 10%. | ||
| Again, these are products also listed outside the initial trade agreement with the United States and Canada. | ||
| Let's hear from Frank in Poughkeepsie, New York, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| His tariffs are going to destroy this country. | ||
| I mean, these mega people, they agree in with everything he's doing. | ||
| So allow him to destroy the country. | ||
| And I guess what they say, Moses tried to tell them a flood was coming, and they didn't listen. | ||
| Well, when you say they're going to destroy the country, what convinces you that the tariffs are going to be bad for the country? | ||
| What specifically? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, man, the attacks on Canada, the attacks on the European nations, China. | |
| I mean, obviously, the man doesn't know what he's doing. | ||
| But, you know, the MAGA folks put them in there, and I guess they want what they want. | ||
| Like I said, like I was saying before, Moses tried to tell people this place was going to flood, and they laughed at him. | ||
| They all drowned. | ||
| So I guess sometimes ignorance needs to be drowned. | ||
| Okay, Alexis is next in Detroit, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yeah, first I want to say I have never voted for Trump, would never vote for Trump or any of his MAGA people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So to counteract what the previous caller just said, I am not make America great at all. | |
| However, the old saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day. | ||
| And that's how I feel about these tariffs. | ||
| I hate to agree with what Trump's doing. | ||
| It really bothers me, but I do agree with it. | ||
| And my question is to the liberal, progressive, Democrat, whatever. | ||
| Why weren't you doing this? | ||
| So-called for the working class of America. | ||
| Why didn't Biden bring this up? | ||
| Why didn't Obama bring this stuff up? | ||
| Somebody should have shifted Reagan's policies a long time ago, and Trump's doing it, and I hope it works. | ||
| Because my whole thing is, wait a minute, please don't interrupt. | ||
| My whole thing is with what, you know, and I don't trust anything Trump says. | ||
| He's a pathological compulsory. | ||
| Well, why do you agree with them on tariffs then? | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is why. | |
| Because of the unfairness. | ||
| The dairy thing with Canada, wait a minute, what? | ||
| Canada can export their dairy to us and the rest of the world, but we can't export our dairy to them. | ||
| That's ridiculous, and it's unfair. | ||
| And it's like people have said we as the American workers have gotten short shrift from, again, I hate to use the MAGA term, but the globalists. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, all these so-called liberal people, all they care about is Wall Street. | |
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Alexis there in Detroit. | ||
| A caller from England this morning. | ||
| This is Paul, who identifies as a Republican. | ||
| But Paul, your thoughts on either the tariff announcement or the special elections here in the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello there. | |
| We all expected Donald Trump to win this election last night. | ||
| So that's expected. | ||
| But I think he might just lead to an office. | ||
| Republicans might just win the next election. | ||
| You never know. | ||
| So this might start more sensational things to come, I think, I reckon. | ||
| In my view, anyway. | ||
| Do you mean the special elections are an indicator of what might happen in future elections? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Supreme Supreme Court or something on that election. | |
| Oh, the Wisconsin election. | ||
| The Wisconsin. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Jim in Missouri. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
| Calling on our line for Democrats. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Howdy. | |
| Let me repeat the point that you all seem to be ignoring. | ||
| Tariffs raise prices on American consumers. | ||
| They are paid not by China, Canada, or whatever. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They are paid by the importers that pass on the cost to us. | |
| It is not a net gain. | ||
| It does not bring wealth to Americans. | ||
| It's a tax on everybody in America. | ||
| Trump seems to miss that point. | ||
| Sorry, we can't bring everything back. | ||
| Champagne is made in a specific region of France. | ||
| You cannot make champagne in America. | ||
| You cannot grow coffee in America or cocoa or bananas. | ||
| You cannot bring everything back. | ||
| The wonder of our economy is globalization. | ||
| Thanks, Pedro. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Jim and there in Missouri, the money section of USA Today, taking a look at the topic of tariffs. | ||
| This is from their front page of the money section saying that the U.S. imported more goods in January than in any other month since the government started tracking the data as people raced to stock up. | ||
| Ahead of the president's announced tariffs, the import surge was driven by sharp increases from the United States' three largest trading partners, China, Canada, and Mexico. | ||
| According to a USA Today analysis of recent trade data by the U.S. Census, together those nations provide nearly half of the foreign goods consumed in the U.S., and they are the key targets of tariffs that took effect last month. | ||
| More tariffs, including a 25% tariffs on autos and auto parts, scheduled to begin today. | ||
| Again, that's just part of the general announcement when it comes to that tariff plan liberation day, as the president dubbed it. | ||
| You can comment on that. | ||
| Some of you commenting on these special elections there as well. | ||
| 202748-8,000 or 8,001 for Republicans. | ||
| 202-748-8,000 for Democrats. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8,002. | ||
| From Texas, Republican line, this is Willie. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for making that, for putting off that clip from Chuck Schumer. | ||
| Chuck Schumer, because he said exactly right when he was talking about all of the money, all of the revenue in his words that he said that's going to come from these tariffs. | ||
| Love it. | ||
| Thank you, Chuck, because the fact is that we are tired, tired of getting snookered by these other countries. | ||
| And it's amazing that I don't care, Democrat, Republican, president, whatever. | ||
| It's about time somebody actually looked at this and said, this is not right. | ||
| We decide, we Determine ourselves to be independent in that, and that we shouldn't let other countries just take advantage of our good nature. | ||
| So, Chuck Schumer keeps saying that because people understand what revenue means. | ||
| That means more money in their pocket and more freedom to do what they want. | ||
| If you are okay with this approach, then and you hear about the possibility of short-term economic harm coming from it, what's your level of concern of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
My level of concern is wait it out, okay, just like he did in his first term, President Trump did in his first term, and when the economy was roaring, okay, and jobs were plentiful, okay? | |
| So, wait for it, wait it out. | ||
| Yes, maybe in the beginning, you know, it's going to take some adjustment, but I guarantee that that revenue, as Chuck Schumer said, is going to come through like gangbusters. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Willie in Texas there. | ||
| Some of you posting on our Facebook page this morning. | ||
| This is Gail Sissel about the election, specifically the Florida election, the House election there, saying the Florida election was a referendum against Trump. | ||
| These two guys should have won by much larger margins than they did. | ||
| Mike Vernon about the Wisconsin election. | ||
| George Soros's candidate won. | ||
| Criminals will go unpunished. | ||
| Laws will be ignored, he adds. | ||
| Pab Steri with the word reciprocal in all caps, then adding it doesn't get more fair than that. | ||
| And then Jeff McChrystal adding in, given the chance, tariffs will bring back in line. | ||
| And then Brian Hutchinson also from Facebook saying economists warn that these tariffs are a bad idea because they will increase inflation. | ||
| They will not bring jobs back to the country and it will only create tensions between us and other countries. | ||
| The president's doing a really good job at turning the USA into an isolationist country. | ||
| Again, if you want to post on our Facebook page, it's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| You may want to post on X. You can do that at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| You can call the lines as well and text us at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Illinois is next. | ||
| This is from our Republican line. | ||
| This is Ron. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, how are you doing? | |
| First of all, could you do a favor and pull up the map of the counties in red that Trump won and the counties in blue that Harris won? | ||
| I don't think your Democratic voters watch have ever seen how this election, how Trump won the vote this year. | ||
| These tariffs, you know, these tariffs that are that he's, reciprocal tariffs he's putting on, originally Europe needed the tariffs after World War II to help rebuild their economies, rebuild their countries, because they were all destroyed. | ||
| We were okay with it then. | ||
| Well, World War II is over. | ||
| The tariffs haven't stopped. | ||
| Why is it okay for Canada to protect their dairy farmers by doing 100% tariff on our goods? | ||
| But we're not okay. | ||
| It's not okay for America to protect its people with the same reciprocal tariffs. | ||
| I think that this is what Trump ran on. | ||
| Put that map on the TV for your Democratic callers because they're ignorant to the fact of how much this country wants this change. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's Ron there in Illinois. | ||
| This is from the Wall Street Journal this morning. | ||
| This is about the tariff side of what's occurring today. | ||
| But they add that China is seeking to coordinate its response to U.F. tariffs with Japan and South Korea. | ||
| According to Chinese state media reporting on Monday, Japanese and Korean officials said there was no decision to coordinate action with Beijing, but that the countries discussed trade issues during three-way talks over the weekend, the first such dialogue in five years. | ||
| A social media account run by China State Broadcaster said in the post on Monday that the three countries will strengthen dialogue on supply chain cooperation and export controls. | ||
| This U.S., the Wall Street Journal story saying that the three are major trader partners in the U.S. running high trade surpluses. | ||
| Japan and South Korea are among the top auto exporters and steel suppliers to the United States. | ||
| From Sharon, who joins us from Maryland, Democrats line, hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning, Pedro. | |
| How are you doing this morning? | ||
| And God bless America every day. | ||
| I was calling about these tariffs and the closing down of the federal government buildings. | ||
| And Donald Trump, people need to just use their mind and their brain. | ||
| You need to impeach Donald Trump because he's going to tear this country down. | ||
| We got children. | ||
| You know, this in the midst of this, that Donald Trump had this payback syndrome going on with him. | ||
| He's not in his right mind. | ||
| He don't need to be in office. | ||
| And the senators need to get him out of office before he tears this country down because Putin is very happy about this. | ||
| China is happy. | ||
| All these countries is looking at our country. | ||
| It's feeling good because they know Donald Trump is the man that's going to take this country down. | ||
| And men in the military, they need to speak up and let Donald Trump know you can't do this to our country. | ||
| It's not right. | ||
| It's not fair. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Sharon there, Maryland. | ||
| Let's hear from North Carolina, a Republican line, Aaliyah. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| So this is, and I just tuned in, so I may have missed some things, but this is my thing with the tariffs. | ||
| I feel like, okay, America was on board with boycotting companies like Target and different companies. | ||
| But he is basically saying like, not boycotting, but we're boycotting buying from other countries. | ||
| And then no one wants to jump on board. | ||
| Like, we are the United States. | ||
| We can keep our money here, buy items here in the United States. | ||
| Let's not buy items from them right now until we get to a decision. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Aaliyah, there in North Carolina, Politico takes a look at those two House elections that we told you about previously and adds this as part of their analysis saying in the two deep red House districts in Florida, Republicans had lower than expected margins as they clinched the safe seats vacated by, quote, America First Royalty, only after sending in national and state reinforcements, including the president himself, to drum up support. | ||
| And in Wisconsin, they suffered a crushing defeat in a record-breakingly expensive Supreme Court case after Elon Musk's money and personality dominated the contest. | ||
| Liberal Judge Susan Crawford secured nine-point victory against Mr. Trump's endorsed candidate, Brad Schimmel. | ||
| Quote, I'm honestly shocked. | ||
| I thought we had it in the bag, said Pam Van Handel, chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin's Outagami County. | ||
| I thought Mr. Musk was going to be an asset for us. | ||
| People love Trump, but maybe they don't love everybody he supports. | ||
| Maybe I have blinders on. | ||
| It also quotes the mayor of Wanpoon, Wisconsin, Ron Rowan Bishop, saying, and he's also the former chairman of the Republican Party in Fond du Lac, admitting that the race, quote, froze up a bunch of warning signs for that midterm election. | ||
| Again, that's Politico's take on the events of yesterday when it comes to those special elections that took place and also the Wisconsin Supreme Court case. | ||
| You can comment on those elections if you wish and the results there. | ||
| Several of you commenting on tariffs this morning, too, either. | ||
| 202748-8,000 for Republicans, 202-748-8,000 for Democrats, and Independents, 202748-8,000 to Ethan is from Virginia. | ||
| Independent line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, yes. | |
| With regard to tariffs, in the short term, the costs of tariffs are passed on to the American consumer. | ||
| And in the long term, in my view, while tariffs can help incubate and foster investment into domestic industry, generally what happens is that they serve in a protectionist manner, which means that our domestic manufacturers produce an inferior product, which makes us less globally competitive in the long term. | ||
| This auto parts tariff and assembled auto tariff will effectively eliminate or reduce competition from overseas markets, forcing Americans to buy American cars, which is a great thing. | ||
| But it can't come at the expense of the quality and competitiveness of the vehicle. | ||
| And I fear that it will. | ||
| And after a number of years, what that means is that we will have less success exporting autos and others. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Ethan there in Virginia, 4 o'clock is the time when that announcement takes place at the White House. | ||
| If you want to watch it, you can tune to our this channel, C-SPAN, if you want to see it there or you have a couple other options. | ||
| Our free video app is C-SPAN Now. | ||
| You can watch the president's announcements on tariffs on that, as well as our website at c-span.org. | ||
| Jane is in Brooklyn, New York. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning, Pedro. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| Fine, thank you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm calling you and the American people to think a little bit harder about what we want for our future. | |
| I just want to recommend Corey Booker for his amazing long speech. | ||
| That's an amazing thing to have happen. | ||
| I also want to tell people, how can you trust someone like Elon Musk? | ||
| How? | ||
| I mean, he brings his child to the Oval Office and disrespects the president. | ||
| Even though I wouldn't vote for him, I would never do that or have my kid do something like that. | ||
| We're in weird times, and I think that it's time to fight back against, sadly, our government and protect our democracy. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Jane there in Brooklyn, New York, talking about, amongst other things, the Wisconsin special election, at least referring to it when it comes to Elon Musk, who played a large part in trying to get the Republican candidate, the Supreme Court candidate, to win. | ||
| But you can comment on that as well. | ||
| She also briefly mentoring a record that was broken in the Senate by a Democratic senator from New Jersey, Corey Booker. | ||
| 25 hours plus when it comes to his floor speech that started earlier this week, the Associated Press reporting that in that feat of determination, the Democratic senator held the Senate floor with that marathon speech, lasted all night into Tuesday night. | ||
| He took the Senate floor Monday evening saying he would remain there as long as he was, quote, physically able. | ||
| It wasn't until 25 hours and five minutes later that the 55-year-old senator, a former football tight end, finished speaking, limped off the floor. | ||
| It set the record for the longest continuous floor speech in the chamber's history. | ||
| Booker was assisted by fellow Democrats who gave him a break from speaking, asking him questions on the Senate floor. | ||
| This also adds, by standing on the floor more than a night in a day and refusing to leave, he had broken a record set 68 years ago by then Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, segregationist and Southern Democrat to filibuster the advance of the Civil Rights Act in 1957. | ||
| Senator Booker was asked about that record he broke and particularly the man who held the record previously, Strom Thurmond. | ||
| Here are some of those comments from yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was very aware of Strom Thurmond's record since I've gotten to the Senate. | |
| I always felt that it was a strange shadow to hang over this institution, that the longest speech of all the issues that have come up, all the noble causes that people have done, or the things that took the dress top. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just found it strange that he had the record. | |
| And as a guy who grew up with legends of the civil rights movement myself, of my parents and other friends, it just seemed wrong to me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It always seemed wrong. | |
| I had this hope that Chris Murphy would do it, actually. | ||
| So I definitely had it on my mind. | ||
| But as Chris and I joked, I'm nine years older than when he and I did it for 15 hours, and my back was sore and my legs were hurting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I just didn't know if I could. | |
| So I didn't want to set expectations. | ||
| The mission was really to elevate the voices of Americans, to tell some of their really painful stories, very emotional stories, and to let go and let God do the rest. | ||
| We'll hear from Gregory in New Jersey, Independent Line. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| Gregory in New Jersey, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, hello. | |
| My comment is on a couple of things. | ||
| First of all, Trump wants to pass his budget, but he wants to dump on the American people the taxes, the raise the budget, and we're going to pay for the taxes, all the people. | ||
| And the second thing I want to comment on is the elections. | ||
| He's only talking about the rich getting richer. | ||
| America Great means that we're going to get the bill and we're going to have to pay for it. | ||
| And he doesn't give a damn about nobody. | ||
| They don't want to pay taxes to rich people. | ||
| They want us to all get the bill and skim for ourselves. | ||
| Okay, Carla, let me stop you there only because your volume dropped drastically. | ||
| So, but got your thought in again, 202-748-8,000, one for Republicans, 202-748-8,000 for Democrats. | ||
| And Independents, 202, 748-8,000, two of the numbers to call if you want to comment on these events of the last day. | ||
| Some of you taking to social media and other means to give us your thoughts too, texting us. | ||
| This is Margaret in Illinois saying, I support the tariffs. | ||
| We need the cash flow, but it's too late. | ||
| China has surpassed us, and the American people are onto the game. | ||
| We're going down. | ||
| Again, that's Margaret from Illinois. | ||
| William Wall saying the victories in Florida are great news, and it's very sad Republicans didn't get out to vote in Wisconsin. | ||
| I hope they don't regret it, he adds. | ||
| Cindy Castro talking overall in the sense that there's too much money in politics and the entire system is flawed. | ||
| And then Scott Nobles from Facebook saying, not surprised about Florida closer than I thought they would be. | ||
| Maybe there is hope for the future if that continues. | ||
| And this is from Catherine and just adding that these elections are nothing like the presidential election. | ||
| Not sure why people are comparing them. | ||
| Again, the variety of ways you can reach out to us that way. | ||
| People commenting on yesterday leading up to the announcement today when it comes to tariff, including Speaker Mike Johnson, asked about economic concerns that some have expressed by the application of these tariffs overall to the economy. | ||
| Here's Speaker Johnson from yesterday. | ||
| You have to trust the president's instincts on the economy, okay? | ||
| Why? | ||
| This isn't blind faith. | ||
| Remember what he accomplished in the first administration. | ||
| Before COVID, we had the greatest economy in the history of the world, not the U.S., the whole world. | ||
| Every demographic was doing better because we cut taxes, we cut regulations, and we made a better economic environment for everybody to succeed. | ||
| And he is going about that same plan to bring that about, and tariffs is a component of that. | ||
| And we'll see how it all develops. | ||
| I mean, the reciprocal tariff policy is one that makes a lot of common sense. | ||
| I mean, you look at the trade disparity between many nations, and much of this began after World War II. | ||
| And the rationale apparently was: well, we need to rebuild Europe, and America emerges as the great superpower. | ||
| So we should have this imbalance. | ||
| It's fair. | ||
| It's, you know, this is what we need. | ||
| Well, that carried on for generations. | ||
| And we're well beyond World War II now. | ||
| And this is a different world. | ||
| It's a much more integrated, complex economy. | ||
| And the president's absolutely right when he says that we have to think about America's interests first, because if we don't, we're not going to maintain our status as the great superpower. | ||
| And when he says, let's have free trade and fair trade, I think the reciprocal tariff policy makes sense. | ||
| If somebody has a 100-plus percent tariff on imports of U.S. goods and we have virtually nothing, why don't we settle that balance? | ||
| If we raise and match their tariff policy, I think ultimately what happens is you get back down to a free trade agreement. | ||
| That these countries that have engaged in this disparity, this raw deal for Americans for so long, it'll get their attention and they'll, I think, reduce their tariffs on us. | ||
| Then you get back to a free and fair trade situation. | ||
| So, look, we'll see what happens. | ||
| I think it's going to go forward, and it may be rocky in the beginning, but I think that this will make sense for Americans and it will help all Americans. | ||
| The Guardian yesterday publishing what the European Union might look like, or at least the plan they have in light of the President's announcement today, saying that the EU has a quote strong plan to retaliate against tariffs imposed by the President, but would prefer to negotiate, according to the head of the European Commission. | ||
| Mr. Trump, who has upended eight decades of certainties about the transatlantic relationship since taking office, has threatened tariffs on goods from around the world Wednesday. | ||
| His administration in March put tariffs importing steel and aluminum and said higher tariffs on cars would come into effect Thursday. | ||
| The head of the European Commission, speaking to the European Parliament Tuesday, saying that the next sectors facing tariffs will be semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and timber. | ||
| She said many Europeans felt, quote, utterly disheartened by the U.S. announcements. | ||
| Europe has not started this confrontation. | ||
| We do not necessarily want to retaliate, but if it is necessary, we have a strong plan to retaliate and we will use it. | ||
| That's from the Guardian. | ||
| One more call on this topic. | ||
| This is from Joseph in Michigan. | ||
| Democrats' line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Only thing I have to say is we have the art of the deal. | ||
| How'd that work out? | ||
| And down in Florida, the election down there in Florida, gerrymandering. | ||
| That's why we have to get rid of gerrymandering. | ||
| Have a great day. | ||
| Why do you automatically associate it with gerrymandering? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because Florida is very gerrymandered up. | |
| Their state's very gerrymandered up in Florida. | ||
| Okay, Joseph in Michigan, calling on our line for Democrats, finishing off the topics when it comes to the elections and the tariffs. | ||
| Good news is you can still make those comments on topics and other matters of politics as well in open forum. | ||
| And here's how you can participate in open forum if you want to, again, comment on those things or other things relating to politics. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002 is how you get into the Open Forum queue and make your thoughts known. | ||
| You can also text us at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Facebook is still available if you want facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X on X, it's at CSPAN WJ. | ||
| If you're calling, by the way, a couple of things. | ||
| If you've called in the last 30 days, we'll ask you to hold off for today and also pick the line that best represents you. | ||
| One of the things that happened yesterday when it comes to on the House floor took a look at proxy voting, particularly for parents or newborn parents when it comes to the House of Representatives. | ||
| This is from Axio saying the House voted Tuesday to defy House Speaker Mike Johnson and force a vote allowing members who are new parents to vote by proxy for three months. | ||
| This adding that it was a brutal loss for Johnson, who poured considerable political capital into trying to snuff out Representative Ana Paulina Luna's efforts. | ||
| She launched what's called a discharge petition, which can force a vote on any measure without the support of leadership of 218 House members signed on. | ||
| She did get the signatures, including a dozen Republicans, and the vote will have to happen by the end of the week. | ||
| But in a rare move, Mr. Johnson tied a provision killing the vote to unrelated Republican legislation prohibiting non-citizens from voting in federal elections. | ||
| That group of Republicans that voted for it or voted for the measure and against the House Speaker, including Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Mike Lawler, a Republican of New York, Jeff Van Drew, Republican of New Jersey, who had signed on to the petition, also Will Kiley of California, Nick Colotta of New York, Max Miller of Ohio, Greg Stuby of Florida, Ryan McKenzie of Pennsylvania, as well. | ||
| One of the people commented about that yesterday on the House floor was Representative Anna Paulina Luna, and also Brittany Peterson, who spoke about the rule change. | ||
| As many of you might know, for over two years now, I've been championing the cause to allow new female members of Congress the right to vote. | ||
| Some of the American people might be surprised that if you are a female member and you have a child that you can't vote, which means that you can't execute your constitutional authority. | ||
| For almost two years now in this cause, I've met with leadership and I've exhausted all tools in my legislative toolkit to be able to bring this to the floor. | ||
| As I was met with much opposition, I finally used the last tool that I had at my disposal, which was something known as a discharge petition, where I collected 218 signatures and expanded the ability to vote while recovering from childbirth, not just to mothers, but also to young fathers in our governing body. | ||
| Now, leadership, because of the fact that they don't like that I was successful at this, is now trying to change the rules. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I can tell you, after being a mom here and being only the 13th member to have ever given birth while serving in Congress, voting member, I can tell you we have a long ways to go to make this place accessible for young families like mine. | |
| When I was pregnant, I couldn't fly towards the end of my due date because it was unsafe for Sam and you're unable to board a plane. | ||
| And I was unable to actually have my vote represented here and my constituents represented. | ||
| After giving birth, I was faced with an impossible decision. | ||
| Sam was four weeks old. | ||
| And for all of the parents here, we know that when we have newborns, it's when they're the most vulnerable in their life. | ||
| It's when they need 24-7 care, when taking them even to a grocery store is scary because you're worried about exposure to germs and them getting sick, let alone taking them to an airport on a plane and coming across the country to make sure that you're able to vote and represent your constituents. | ||
| Again, that took place on the House floor. | ||
| There was even more reaction that we'll show you in a bit from the House Speaker Mike Johnson, who not only took the vote yesterday as a loss, but also let Congress, or at least the House side, adjourned for the rest of the week as well. | ||
| We'll get some of that reaction. | ||
| But before that, to participate in this open forum, having some technical issue with our original phone line. | ||
| So here are backup phone lines, the phone lines you can call if you want to participate in open forum. | ||
| It's 202-737-0002. | ||
| For Republicans, 202-737-0001. | ||
| For Democrats and Independents, 202-628-0205. | ||
| Let me give you those numbers one more time. | ||
| For Republicans, it's 202-737-0002. | ||
| Democrats, 202-737-0001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-628-0205. | ||
| Again, not the normal numbers that we use, but those are the numbers that we are going to use as you call in to participate in open forum if you wish. | ||
| And as you're calling, and like I said, Speaker Johnson, after that announcement yesterday, at least that vote concerning the proxy voting, went before reporters talking about the vote and also other related issues. | ||
| Here's the speaker from yesterday. | ||
| Well, it's a very disappointing result on the floor there. | ||
| A handful of Republicans joined with all the Democrats to take down a rule. | ||
| That's rarely done. | ||
| It's very unfortunate in this case. | ||
| 96% of House Republicans voted against proxy voting because they believe it's unconstitutional and they agree that it would open a Pandora's box. | ||
| And so that's what we just saw. | ||
| Let me just make this clear. | ||
| That rule being brought down means that we can't have any further action on the floor this week. | ||
| That means we will not be voting on the SAVE Act for election integrity. | ||
| We will not be voting on the rogue judges who are attacking President Trump's agenda. | ||
| We will not be taking down these terrible Biden policies with the CRA votes. | ||
| All that was just wiped off the table. | ||
| It's very unfortunate. | ||
| We'll regroup and come back and we'll have to do this again. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, were you asking for too much? | |
| Again, the House Speaker from yesterday talking about the vote on proxy voting and how it impacted the rest of the votes this week. | ||
| Indeed, the House to be out of session for the remainder of the week. | ||
| You can see more of that in the papers this morning talking about that. | ||
| 2027-0002 for Republicans. | ||
| 202-737-0001 for Democrats. | ||
| And Independents, 202-628-0205. | ||
| Again, having a little issues with the original phone lines that we use. | ||
| So these are alternate numbers that, again, you can call and give your thoughts on the various topics related to politics, whether it be the special elections or Corey Booker or the proxy vote. | ||
| So go ahead and call those numbers. | ||
| We will take those calls momentarily. | ||
| A person texting us when it comes to tariffs this morning, this is from Rob in Huntington, West Virginia, saying that why would members of the auto industry move manufacturing facilities to the U.S. over tariffs? | ||
| It would cost huge amounts of money and take years to do that. | ||
| And the next administration could simply remove tariffs with the stroke of a pen, going on to say that because of high U.S. pay rates, many Americans won't be able to afford to live in the United States at all if the manufacturing is done here. | ||
| Again, that's Rob from West Virginia texting us if you want. | ||
| From Carl Turdley, again, Facebook is where he's posting saying tariffs are returning ethics to corporations doing business in America. | ||
| It's unethical to destroy Americans' livelihoods for corporate profits. | ||
| Effective today. | ||
| American, once again, goes check slavery. | ||
| That's the viewers' thoughts. | ||
| Let's hear from Deborah in Houston concerning this on this open forum. | ||
| Deborah, hello. | ||
| Deborah from Houston, hello. | ||
| Okay, we'll keep trying and getting these phones situated. | ||
| USA Today, by the way, taking a look at products that are and tariffs and products that those charts that we were showing you earlier. | ||
| This is the category that says what products leaving the U.S. are effective. | ||
| Again, this is a not comprehensive list. | ||
| When it comes to agricultural products, 15% on wheat, chicken, and corn, 10% on soybeans and agricultural machinery. | ||
| On Canada, 25% on meat and dairy products. | ||
| In the EU, 25% on sweet corn, rice, and peanut butter. | ||
| When it comes to agricultural products, again, products leaving the United States that aren't affected by tariffs, oil and gas. | ||
| China, 15% on coal and liquefied natural gas, 10% on crude oil. | ||
| Automotive products from China, 10% on large displacement cars and pickup trucks. | ||
| And then in Canada, 25% on electric vehicles, motorcycles, and tires, and then beverages. | ||
| Canada and the EU both, 25% on many alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. | ||
| Again, USA today provides this data, and those are products leaving the United States, not effective. | ||
| Facebook, someone commenting on tariffs, this is John Thompson, saying, I just don't see how this forces manufacturing back to the states for certain products. | ||
| Take coffee, for example. | ||
| It's not like we will suddenly be able to grow coffee, beans at a necessary scale, nor should we be devoting that sort of resources to it in the first place, adding that it will just simply be more expensive. | ||
| Again, you can make those comments on our Facebook, on X. You can also text us. | ||
| And again, the phone lines, which we've been showing you, we'll show you one more time the phone lines, the new phone lines that we're using for this open forum only because of the issues that we're having. | ||
| 202737-0002. | ||
| Republicans, Democrats, 202737-0001. | ||
| Independents, 202-628-0205. | ||
| Let's try Deborah from Houston now. | ||
| Deborah, good morning. | ||
| Deborah, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you there? | |
| Yes, I am. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Yeah, speak on the tariffs. | ||
| I just don't understand why people on the Republican side don't understand how damaging tariffs are. | ||
| It's clear as day how the cost will come with the American people. | ||
| They have to be the ones that have to pay for this tariff increase that's being imposed. | ||
| So I just don't understand it. | ||
| We have never had tariffs before because they never worked. | ||
| However, Trump did do one tariff, I think, with China on his first administration, but that's nothing to compare to what he's doing now with these other countries that he's imposing tariffs on. | ||
| And that's basically all I have to say. | ||
| Deborah, when it comes to your understanding of tariffs, what has been your process of learning more about what the administration wants to do over the last couple of months since the Trump administration has come in? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think to understand your question, I'm sorry. | |
| My impression are what I'm thinking that it's only been imposed like this is because he wants to pass the tax cuts for the rich. | ||
| That is the bottom line. | ||
| Those people put him in office. | ||
| They paid for him to be in office. | ||
| Now he has to do what he needs to do to pay them back by imposing those tariffs. | ||
| I'm sorry, posing those tax cuts for the wealthy. | ||
| So that's my take. | ||
| Deborah in Houston, thank you. | ||
| Let's hear from Guy in Oklahoma. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Good morning, Pedro. | ||
| Hey, remember back in Trump's first term when he put the most massive tariffs in place in history? | ||
| Well, it netted $400 billion of revenue. | ||
| Now, one sector was hurt, the soybean sector. | ||
| And so, you know, $20 billion was subsidized for those farmers, but still, that was a $380 billion net profit to the country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And as far as the tariffs go, we've got to have a level playing field. | |
| These countries have been taking advantage of us, like many people said, for decades and decades. | ||
| It's going to take a while for them to respond. | ||
| And going back to his first term again, we have the best economy in history. | ||
| It'll take us a year or so to get there, I believe. | ||
| And this is a long-term plan. | ||
| He's made it very clear in his statements that we have to have a long-term plan instead of a one-to-two-year outlook like we've been having forever. | ||
| You referenced the first time around. | ||
| You think it's going to happen again? | ||
| Why do you think lightning will strike twice in this case? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mathematics, plain and simple math. | |
| And as far as rich people not paying their fair share of taxes, people don't know this. | ||
| Elon Musk wrote the biggest check ever, $30 billion. | ||
| Well, hold on. | ||
| Go back to your plain and simple math. | ||
| Elaborate on that. | ||
| What do you mean by that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Basic economics. | |
| A fair and level playing field. | ||
| You know, they're taking advantage of 100%, 200%. | ||
| They won't let our products in. | ||
| He's trying to bring a level playing field back to this country. | ||
| Guy in Oklahoma giving his assessment on tariffs. | ||
| Lonnie in North Carolina. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| Lonnie in North Carolina. | ||
| We'll try Lonnie one more time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hold on, Lonnie. | ||
| Let me put you on code real quick. | ||
| Guys, I think I might have punched the button and made an accident. | ||
| I apologize for that. | ||
| But up until then, let's try Randy, Randy in Michigan. | ||
| Randy in Michigan, hi. | ||
| You're calling in on open forum on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And Pedro, can you hear me? | |
| Yep, you're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, Pedro. | |
| You know, one thing that Trump has did, the only thing that he's did that I can see that's did any good for our country is on Thursday. | ||
| Last Thursday, he combined alcohol, tobacco, and firearms with the DEA. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And he must see the same things that Michigan and Colorado are seeing. | |
| 2,000 all drugs got in accidents in Michigan. | ||
| 9,000 alcohol has gotten accidents in Michigan in one year. | ||
| And that's our average. | ||
| That's every year. | ||
| We've did this for two years. | ||
| 18,000 drunks got in accidents. | ||
| 4,000 all drugs. | ||
| So that's the problem that we have to take care of. | ||
| That's the only thing Trump's did that I can agree with. | ||
| Lonnie, there in North Carolina, one of the things that happened yesterday on the Senate floor, we referenced it. | ||
| You heard Senator Corey Booker talk about the marathon speech 25 plus hours on the Senate floor talking and criticizing the Trump administration. | ||
| It was in the last moments of that speech where the senator referenced the John Lewis, the Georgia representative, and made comments about Representative Lewis's work in politics, drawing it to why the senator was on the floor. | ||
| Here are those comments from yesterday. | ||
| I beg folks to take his example of his early days where he made himself determined to show his love for his country at a time the country didn't love him, to love this country so much, to be such a patriot that he endured beatings savagely on the Edmund Pettus Bridge at lunch counters on freedom rides. | ||
| He said he had to do something. | ||
| He would not normalize a moment like this. | ||
| He would not just go along with business unusual. | ||
| He wouldn't know how to solve it. | ||
| But there's one thing that he would do that I hope we all can do that I think I did a little bit of tonight. | ||
| He said for us to go out and cause some good trouble, necessary trouble, to redeem the soul of our nation. | ||
| I want you to redeem the dream. | ||
| Let's be bold in America, not to mean and degrade Americans, not divide us against each other. | ||
| Let's be bolder in America with a vision that inspires with hope that starts with the people of the United States of America. | ||
| That's how this country started. | ||
| We the people. | ||
| Let's get back to the ideals that others are threatening. | ||
| Let's get back to our founding documents that those imperfect geniuses had some very special words. | ||
| At the end of the Declaration of Independence was one of the greatest in all of humanity, Declarations of Interdependence. | ||
| When our founders said we must mutually pledge, pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. | ||
| We need that now from all Americans. | ||
| This is a moral moment. | ||
| It's not left or right. | ||
| It's right or wrong. | ||
| It's getting good trouble. | ||
| My friend, Madam President, I yield the floor. | ||
| That's Senator Booker from yesterday. | ||
| Those are the final moments of that speech. | ||
| Still available on C-SPAN if you're interested in watching the whole thing. | ||
| All 25-plus hours of it, but that's a portion that you can still find on our website, our free app, and as always, by watching C-SPAN as well. | ||
| We'll continue on with this open forum again. | ||
| The phone lines are different only because of issues we're having. | ||
| I think we're getting through that, and the phone lines we'll give you as we go along. | ||
| And then we'll just keep going until about 8.30 until our first guest of the morning, who's sitting down with us and taking your calls question-wise. | ||
| So if you want to participate and continue on Open Forum, you're more than welcome to do so this morning. | ||
| Again, those numbers, 202-737-0002 for Republicans, 202-737-0010001 for Democrats. | ||
| And Independents 202-628-0205 if you want to participate in Open Forum. | ||
| Joining us for a brief bit to talk about issues of Capitol Hill is Representative John McGuire, Representative Virginia. | ||
| He serves the 5th District, also a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committees. | ||
| Representative McGuire, good morning. | ||
| Thanks for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, Pedro. | |
| Thanks for having me this morning. | ||
| Tariffs, the topic of the day. | ||
| What's your take on what the administration might propose and what ultimately results from that plan? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, today's the big day. | ||
| And, you know, you've heard President Trump talk about President McKinley and how he used tariffs to make America very wealthy. | ||
| You know, many countries for too long have been taking advantage of our country. | ||
| And these tariffs are going to make, I think it's going to level the playing field and make business fair. | ||
| And I'll give you an example. | ||
| You probably just heard the news that Israel has announced that they're going to eliminate all tariffs on American goods and services. | ||
| And I was talking with folks that are in the steel industry and I said, how are things going? | ||
| And they said, we're getting the biggest contracts we've ever had and business is booming. | ||
| And you know, if you remember NAFTA, I think it was 70,000, 80,000 businesses closed down or moved overseas. | ||
| We lost businesses, we lost tons of jobs, and small rural America was devastated. | ||
| And it's time to bring those goods and services, to bring that manufacturing back to America so that we can have a better future for our country. | ||
| Some of the cities that you represent there in the 5th District, Danville, Lynchbull, Charlottesville, could they be affected either way, good or poorly, by the implementation of these tariffs? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, I think you meant Danville, Lynchburg, Charlottesville, and many other. | |
| We have 24 county cities and towns. | ||
| Those are some of the bigger ones. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, that's right. | |
| That's right. | ||
| No, that's right. | ||
| And here's the thing. | ||
| I guess the phrase they say is tariffs are short-term pain, long-term gain. | ||
| And I guess we just have to show some patience and some grace. | ||
| But I think that we have to get through this to get to a better booming economy for all Americans. | ||
| We all want, regardless of your race, religion, or creed, I don't care if you're a Democrat, Republican, or an Independent, we're all Americans. | ||
| And I think we all want the same thing. | ||
| We might disagree on how to get there, but we all want to live, work, and raise our families in peace. | ||
| And these decisions that we're making are going to get us healthy and get us there. | ||
| You know, if the government was a business, we would be out of business. | ||
| You cannot spend more money every day than you bring in every day, or you would be out on the street. | ||
| And if you ran your business like that, you would be out of business. | ||
| And we've been running our country for far too long with unfair trade. | ||
| You know, if folks are attacking us 33, 70 percent, they're taking advantage of us. | ||
| And President Trump is a strong leader, and he loves our country. | ||
| He loves the American people. | ||
| And his decisions, I believe, and I can see it already, are going to help all Americans as we go along. | ||
| Well, Representative, you're joining us from Capitol Hill. | ||
| We really appreciate you joining us this morning, considering the House effectively has done business for the week. | ||
| This goes back to that discharge petition effort on proxy voting. | ||
| What did you think about the measure overall? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, with regard to proxy voting, as Speaker Mike Johnson says, it's unconstitutional. | |
| I'm not for it. | ||
| Now, you know, I'm a veteran. | ||
| There are many ways to serve your country. | ||
| I served as a Navy SEAL. | ||
| And when we signed a contract to serve our country, I was gone 11 months in 95. | ||
| When I came home, my daughter barely recognized who I was. | ||
| It's a part of service is sacrifice. | ||
| And you don't need to be in Congress. | ||
| But if you want to serve in Congress, that's part of the job. | ||
| And you knew that when you ran for office. | ||
| And to make these carve-out exceptions, it just opens the door to more and more and more and more. | ||
| And it destroys the communication and negotiation to do the business of our country. | ||
| I suppose that people have made the comparisons to you or others about some companies give some people time off, men and women off to help raise children right after birth. | ||
| Why not apply that to those who work in Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's a good argument. | |
| But this is, like I said, this is a unique way to serve our country. | ||
| And this is a serious, need to take this job seriously. | ||
| And for example, you never know, but we are in such a small majority right now. | ||
| We need every vote. | ||
| Now, there have been times when we had 15, 16 lead majority in Congress. | ||
| And maybe that would be an exception. | ||
| But we have to think about the future. | ||
| And again, I think that you don't have to be in Congress, but that is part of being in Congress. | ||
| And that's a decision that you make. | ||
| Representative, can you elaborate on why there's no more business in the House because of this vote this week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I told a reporter, I've been here three months. | |
| I've got it all figured out. | ||
| I have no more questions. | ||
| But the way I understand it is you have to set up a rules before you vote. | ||
| And because that was part of a rules vote yesterday, they had to go reset. | ||
| And it takes time to reset the votes. | ||
| And so we had today, which is Wednesday, and tomorrow would be flyout day. | ||
| So to give themselves more time to get it organized, we're just going to come back on Monday, which we were going to come back on Monday anyway. | ||
| You have a military background. | ||
| Elaborate on that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| So I served our country as a Navy SEAL. | ||
| Most of my experience is counter-drug missions in South Central America. | ||
| I served as a sniper instructor up in Indiana, Camp Atterbury. | ||
| And like I said, there are many ways to serve. | ||
| It's great to have served our country, the Navy SEALs. | ||
| I ask that only because of what we heard last week concerning the sharing of information on the signal chat. | ||
| There's stories this morning that possibly some information was shared from the Defense Department via personal Gmail accounts. | ||
| As a military person, considering the trade and information that's being going back and forth, are you concerned about those things? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we always get better and we've got to be very serious with our OPSEC. | |
| But I would say this, is that terrorists were killed and Americans are safer. | ||
| It was a very successful mission. | ||
| And President Trump said he has faith in his people and I have faith in President Trump. | ||
| And so we get better and we keep moving. | ||
| I want to ask you a little bit about the special elections, particularly in Florida. | ||
| Republicans winning, coming to Congress, but there's stories this morning that go along with that about the margins in which they won lesser than previous Republicans. | ||
| Does that concern you going forward, particularly to midterms? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, these special elections always have smaller turnout. | |
| You know, obviously the bigger turnout would be a presidential election. | ||
| But think about it. | ||
| Did you see how much money the Democrats poured into these races? | ||
| I mean, it was like 10 to 1. | ||
| I mean, it was pretty amazing. | ||
| So despite that, we still won. | ||
| And so I don't think that you can make any decision based on that. | ||
| Even with the new members, you still got the small margins. | ||
| What do you think that means going forward, particularly when work on the budget has to proceed and other things? | ||
| And particularly maybe Republicans who don't say go along with fiscal efforts on work on the budget and the like. | ||
| What do you think that means as far as getting things done? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, we've got to be a team. | |
| We've got to lock arms. | ||
| We've got a short window. | ||
| You know, President Trump said you're going to get six hours sleep in the first hundred days. | ||
| You probably noticed that the news cycle changes every 15 minutes with this president. | ||
| He's a worker. | ||
| He doesn't sleep. | ||
| He loves our country. | ||
| He loves all American people. | ||
| And he knows that we've gone way off course. | ||
| I mean, especially look at what Doge is finding. | ||
| I mean, I think 1.3 million illegal aliens have full Social Security benefits. | ||
| And apparently they're about to make an arrest of a guy who stole 400,000 Social Security numbers. | ||
| I mean, the behavior and what we're identifying is egregious. | ||
| And I hope the American people are outraged at the people that committed the fraud rather than the people that are finding the fraud. | ||
| You serve on the Doge caucus there, the bipartisan caucus. | ||
| Particularly, and spell out what that caucus is, what's the job of the caucus? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first of all, remember, you know, there's a lot of misinformation in politics. | |
| You know, Doge is not firing anyone. | ||
| They're identifying waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| And then they report it to the different agencies. | ||
| And then the agencies make the decisions of how they're going to reshape, fire, hire their agencies. | ||
| But yeah, it is a bipartisan thing. | ||
| I think all Americans want their taxpayer dollars spent responsibly. | ||
| You know, people are having trouble paying their rent, paying their car payment, things like that. | ||
| And when they see us giving millions of dollars for crazy comic books in foreign countries and things like that, they can't understand that. | ||
| And I can't understand that either. | ||
| So you look at even Bill Clinton and Obama wanted government efficiency. | ||
| All of them talked about it. | ||
| We're actually getting it. | ||
| And it's a little bit painful. | ||
| I understand that if you're getting free money from the government and we take it away, you're going to be upset. | ||
| But we've got to do what's best for our country and for the American people. | ||
| You mentioned that Doge recommends the cuts. | ||
| Congress ultimately has to put them in legislation. | ||
| Overall, how willing would you be to widespread go along with every cut that suggestion that's made? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you have to see it. | |
| I mean, it's hard to just be here this morning on camera and say that. | ||
| You have to look at it and scrutinize it and make the best decision for the American people. | ||
| But I got to tell you, it's pretty easy when I see that they're spending millions of dollars on transgender surgeries on animals. | ||
| I mean, anybody would say that's ridiculous. | ||
| Fair enough, but what frame, what questions you would have to ask to go along with the cut or not? | ||
| Let's just frame it that way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, is it, well, gosh, I guess is it critical? | |
| Is it essential? | ||
| And do we have the money? | ||
| I mean, if you have $10, you can't spend $1,000. | ||
| That's just basic math. | ||
| I mean, like I said, if you ran your house like that, you'd be on the street. | ||
| If you ran your business like that, you would be out of business. | ||
| And we're committing suicide by bankruptcy in our country by spending too much. | ||
| You first term in the House, you took over for Representative Bob Goode. | ||
| Is there a legislative priority for you, a specific one? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, yes. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Well, in my district, it's very rural. | ||
| And right now, farmers and loggers are not allowed to have 90,000-pound vehicles on the highways. | ||
| So you imagine you're a mom or a dad taking your children to school, and you've got these giant 90,000-pound trucks on the back roads. | ||
| So the first piece of legislation I put in is to get these heavy trucks off the back roads and onto the highways with the other heavy trucks so it's better for getting your goods and services to market and it's safer for the community. | ||
| And so that's my first bill. | ||
| This is Representative John McGuire joining us amongst the cities he serves: Dansville, Lynchburg, and Charlottesville in the 5th District of Virginia. | ||
| Also a member of the Oversight Government Reform Committees. | ||
| Representative McGuire, thank you for sticking with us this morning, being on the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right, God bless you, Pedro. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| We will continue on with Open Forum again. | ||
| We've told you about it, but the new lines, if you want to call in, we'll put them on the screen for you so that you can choose the best line that best represents you. | ||
| And then you can also call in 202-737-0002. | ||
| For Republicans, 202-737-0001. | ||
| For Democrats, Independents, 202-628-0205. | ||
| If you want to participate in this open forum. | ||
| Again, for those of you calling in, thank you for waiting and holding on while we're talking to the representative. | ||
| Let's hear from Tom in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You may have a Tom from Seattle. | |
| Okay, sorry about that. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No problem. | |
| First of all, for a member of the DOGE committee to not realize that they're estimating the IRS is going to collect something like $500 billion less in taxes because of cuts to the IRS, those dwarf the minor savings that Elon's getting out of slashing some very important agencies like the Consumer Protection Bureau and USAID. | ||
| But on a more positive note, I'd like to just give all praise and honor to Senator Corey Booker for his outstanding soliloquy and colloquy with his colleagues yesterday is very impressive. | ||
| On tariffs, real quickly, we're not a manufacturing nation. | ||
| We probably have 10 to 15 percent of our jobs are in manufacturing. | ||
| So if you hurt 85 to 90 percent of your people to supplant or try to beef up manufacturing, it just doesn't make sense on so many levels. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not many Americans can compete with Vietnam that maybe pays $2 an hour, 10-hour shifts, you know, to make tennis shoes. | |
| So, there's many, many products that we just don't want to make in modern day sweatshops. | ||
| So, what we may gain on the manufacturing front, we're losing in tourism and goodwill across the entire world. | ||
| Watching South Korea and Japan talk about an alliance with China, it's just bizarre. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay, Tom in Seattle there. | ||
| Let's hear from John in New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, John in New York. | ||
| Hello, Independent Line. | ||
| Let's try one more time for John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pedro, how are you? | |
| Fine, thank you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good. | |
| I really like the other callers' talk on our allies and stuff because if we don't stick together with our allies, we're going to be hung out to dry. | ||
| They're already making alliances with all the other countries are going to China. | ||
| Also, please, people, the Republicans and Donald Trump are lying to your faces. | ||
| Number one, they don't give any examples of how we're getting ripped off. | ||
| They just say we're getting ripped off. | ||
| Please take heed. | ||
| You know, show me and show me some examples. | ||
| Get me on board. | ||
| Just don't say we're getting ripped off and expect me to regurgitate that, that we're getting ripped off. | ||
| Number one, we're the richest country in the world. | ||
| Number two, you know, they say like Trump had the best economy in the world on his first term. | ||
| Well, how do you have the best economy in the world on your first term and be the richest country in the world and get ripped off at the same time? | ||
| Come on, people. | ||
| Listen, we're ripping off Ukraine for like all of their medical rights. | ||
| And we wouldn't even give them a security agreement. | ||
| My God, come on. | ||
| Let's wake up here. | ||
| When they're lying to you, they're lying to you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| John there in New York, the New York Times reporting that when it comes to the health agencies of the United States, layoffs are now beginning at those agencies in the thousands, according to the headline from the New York Times, saying that the notices began arriving at 5 a.m., according to workers, affecting offices responsible for everything from global health to food safety. | ||
| Senior officials based in the Washington area and Atlanta were assigned to the Indian Health Service and asked to choose among locations, including Alaska, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. | ||
| A tactic to force people out, employees said. | ||
| The layoffs and reassignments touch every aspect of the federal Department of Health and Human Services and are part of what the administration has said is a vast restructuring of the agency. | ||
| Entire units focused on reproductive health and preventing gun injuries were wiped out. | ||
| So was a vaccine research program aimed at preventing the next pandemic. | ||
| On Tuesday afternoon, when the story is based, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, chairman of the Senate Health Committee, summoned the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to testify the agency reorganization at a hearing that's set to take place on April 10th. | ||
| Lonnie is in North Carolina. | ||
| Republican line, you're on on this open forum. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir, Pedro. | |
| I just been trying to get to talk to you for quite a while. | ||
| I'm 85 years old, full nine years in the military, and I have never seen such stuff going on in my whole life. | ||
| This dose fella, Elon Musk, I think he's doing a great job digging out the crooks and all of the people that like all of the condominium condoms and all this stuff, but it's been all that money out there. | ||
| And I am 85 years old, and my income right now is about $2,500. | ||
| I got two cars. | ||
| I live good. | ||
| And I see a lot of other people could do the exact same way, except they just walk the road, won't work, jobs, and won't take the jobs. | ||
| And our economy would be a whole lot better if these people would go ahead and work, and we wouldn't have to worry about all those people coming across the border taking these jobs. | ||
| And the education we should do, the education, have the children learn a trade when they're in high school, and a lot of them wouldn't have to go to college. | ||
| They could make money without that. | ||
| I didn't go to college, but I pulled a private military. | ||
| And I make really good living. | ||
| I live off for $2,500, me and my wife. | ||
| And we've been together for 64 years. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's hear from Henry in Alabama, Democrats line. | ||
| Henry, good morning. | ||
| You are next up on this open forum. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I would like for him to outline the procedure. | ||
| Should my company order a vehicle from China once it comes into the state? | ||
| What is the procedure and how the funds are dispersed? | ||
| Why are you interested in that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why? | |
| I want to see how the terrorist works. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Henry in Alabama there. | ||
| Let's hear from John in New York, calling us on our independent line. | ||
| John in New York. | ||
| Hello, you're next up. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning, Pedro. | |
| Good luck with your new telephone system. | ||
| But Mike, I have a, I don't want to, I hope it doesn't sound like I'm trying to criticize or anything that you guys do. | ||
| You guys do a fantastic job. | ||
| But this thing with Wisconsin, you focus so heavily on the Musk contributions to the campaign of, I don't even know who the Republican guy was, but I followed the news, and you never mentioned the contributions that were coming into the Democratic candidate that won, the woman. | ||
| And you had Soros' money going in. | ||
| You had J.B. Prisker's money going in. | ||
| These are billionaires. | ||
| And there was another prominent billionaire that I found, heard about. | ||
| You never mentioned that. | ||
| And the media, the media coverage that you have, everything about the tariffs, it's all negative. | ||
| It's all opposing Donald Trump. | ||
| But, you know, there has to be somebody in the United States. | ||
| There has to be some media outlet in the United States that can explain how we could benefit from all this. | ||
| And I think you've got to, what I'd like to hear from C-SPAN is, you're a Washington journalist, it's very important to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, not half the truth. | ||
| And that's so, let me start with some of the things you brought up. | ||
| What do you see as a positive then coming from these tariffs? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, basically, it's going to create independence in the United States. | |
| We went through the COVID issue where we didn't even have masks made in the United States. | ||
| We didn't have pharmaceutical stuff made in the United States. | ||
| We rely on other countries. | ||
| And it also brings in a ton of new jobs to our auto industry. | ||
| And, you know, what's wrong with having it just to start something in the United States that maybe spark more jobs, more independence in the United States? | ||
| Not that we're not going to be totally independent. | ||
| We can't possibly be independent and totally independent in this world. | ||
| But you know what? | ||
| We can start building more factories in our country. | ||
| We could offer more advantages to our own farmers and dairy people and everything else in the United States. | ||
| It's not going to make it perfect, but it may improve it a little bit. | ||
| It may uplift us. | ||
| And it's a positive thing. | ||
| So I'm just saying, let's give it a chance and just don't. | ||
| The media, everything's anti-Trump, anti-Republican, everything else. | ||
| But you've got to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. | ||
| For the benefit of your audience. | ||
| Okay, but just I'll stop you there only because we bring this audience diverse perspectives on a lot of different fronts. | ||
| Some you'll agree with, some you won't. | ||
| Earlier this week, we did talk about some of those funding issues that you mentioned going into the Wisconsin Supreme Court case. | ||
| But point taken, thanks for calling. | ||
| Thanks for participating and being part of it this morning. | ||
| Indianapolis is next. | ||
| Steve, Republican Line on this open forum. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, you got it all wrong. | |
| Anyhow, I totally agree with that, Philip called in. | ||
| Amen, amen, amen. | ||
| And people have got to tell the whole truth in this country. | ||
| Nobody is revealing it and keeping our people and our voters so stupid. | ||
| You've got to go more in depth in this stuff. | ||
| It's just like these tariffs. | ||
| I mean, why are we doing this? | ||
| I mean, over the last four years, you just had like 20 million new people come into this country. | ||
| Are we going to just keep those people on welfare and the ones that work in this country? | ||
| Going to continue to pay for them? | ||
| Or are we going to try to bring jobs back into this country, manufacturing jobs, not service industry jobs, to help these people, everybody get a job? | ||
| You can't put 20 million poor people in on poor people in America and try to take their jobs and diminish their wages. | ||
| Those people in America that are poor, they're going to go back on what might be above poverty line. | ||
| They'll go back on the dole. | ||
| So all these people that come in, I think 30% of all Medicaid recipients are, I'll call them immigrants then. | ||
| And so if 30% of all of them are immigrants, then that means that every dang one of them that come in must be on Medicaid and taking up all these social issues or social handouts. | ||
| And you're going to see that diminished. | ||
| We cannot keep this up as a status as a country. | ||
| Everybody knew it back when abortion became an issue, became illegal. | ||
| You can't kill off your people. | ||
| You're going to die and suffer as an economy and as a country. | ||
| It's just idiotic that people would not discuss and talk about these things like that. | ||
| Just like Schumer. | ||
| He lied this morning. | ||
| He was on your show. | ||
| He lied like a dog when he said what Trump said about he didn't care if people bought cars. | ||
| What he said, he didn't care if they bought cars from overseas. | ||
| They wanted it to be good if they bought them from air manufacturers here in America. | ||
| Can somebody ever finish a statement or force these people to finish the statement they're talking about instead of just cutting it off and making it a deceptive lie? | ||
| I mean, I don't have any confidence or respect for any of you media. | ||
| You're just terrible, awful. | ||
| You have no respect whatsoever out here in society anymore until you straighten your act up and start telling the whole dang truth and educating people on what's going on. | ||
| One of the reasons that we educate people is callers just like you who call this program. | ||
| And I think this program sets itself apart from all the others when it comes to the space in the morning, particularly when we allow people to call in and make comments just like you do and just like others do. | ||
| But again, point taken. | ||
| Thanks for calling in. | ||
| That's Steve from Indianapolis. | ||
| He mentioned the Supreme Court. | ||
| If you pay attention to the court and the arguments that they do, one of the issues they do take to the caller's point previous was the issue of abortion, saying the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Medina versus Planned Parenthood, South Atlantic. | ||
| It's a case about whether South Carolina can limit Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood. | ||
| That coverage of the Supreme Court will be at 10 o'clock this morning, right after this program, shortly after this program. | ||
| And you can follow along on C-SPAN, the app, and our mobile app, C-SPANNow, and c-span.org as well. | ||
| The other caller previous to that did talk about funding, a little mention of it earlier this week. | ||
| But when it comes to that Wisconsin Supreme Court case, WPR out of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Public Radio, highlights some of the bigger donors to not only the Republican, but the Democrat in this case, Elon Musk topping that list, adding that he's by far the biggest spender in the race. | ||
| The Tesla founder, who now holds a prominent position in the White House, Doesche, he first emerged as a political power player in the 2024 cycle. | ||
| This leading up to the election, saying that the Wisconsin court race was seen as an early test of his proudness outside of Washington. | ||
| He endorsed Schimmel in January, donated $3 million to the Republican Party of Wisconsin to date. | ||
| Highlights George Soros, WPR saying long, a boogeyman of the political right. | ||
| Mr. Soros, a non-generian financier, has been a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, among other left-leaning candidates and causes throughout the nation. | ||
| In this cycle, he's donated $2 million to the state party through his Democracy PAC and not among the outside groups that contributed to Crawford. | ||
| J.B. Pritzker, who the caller also mentioned, saying this election cycle wasn't the first time the Illinois governor has gotten involved in politics with his neighbor to the north, the billionaire from Chicago, where his family's name is splashed across building a support in liberal causes before and was the keynote speaker in last summer's Wisconsin state Democratic Convention. | ||
| And then Richard and Elizabeth Ulian, I may be saying that wrong, saying that they're shipping magnates. | ||
| They may be better known for their Pleasant Prairie-based shipping supply and packing company, Lean, and they are among the biggest conservative donors in the country. | ||
| While they run a Wisconsin company, the company is from Lake Bluff, Illinois. | ||
| They maintain a low profile where they were the fourth most significant political donors in the 2024 election cycle. | ||
| There's a lot of information there from that piece from the Washington, sorry, Wisconsin Public Radio. | ||
| Susan Crawford, by the way, the victor in last night's Supreme Court case, Whit Before Cameras, talking, giving her victory speech. | ||
| Here's some of that from yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This campaign has been an incredible, life-altering experience in so many ways. | |
| And I'm so grateful to have earned the trust and support of voters across this great state. | ||
| And I'm here tonight because I've spent my life fighting to do what's right. | ||
| That's why I got into this race. | ||
| to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of all Wisconsinites. | ||
| Growing up in Chippewa Falls, I was blessed with a loving family. | ||
| Yeah, Chippewa! | ||
| It was a great community where people watched out for each other. | ||
| And my experiences growing up in small town Wisconsin shaped me into the person that I am today. | ||
| Someone who values hard work, common sense, honesty, and who can tell right from wrong. | ||
| Someone who watches out for people. | ||
| But I forgot to tell you, as a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the richest man in the world. | ||
| For justice in Wisconsin. | ||
| And we won. | ||
| Let's hear from Elizabeth in Maryland, Democrats line on this open forum. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I just want to say that the victory was talked to is the greatest thing that has happened since Trump got elected. | ||
| She beat Trump. | ||
| She beat Elon Musk. | ||
| Elon Musk poured millions into that campaign to defeat her. | ||
| She won against Elon Musk. | ||
| Trump and Elon Musk are trying to destroy this country. | ||
| That is the first victory of a liberal against Trump. | ||
| And we're going to have more wins like that. | ||
| And we're going to defeat Trump. | ||
| And we're going to defeat Elon Musk. | ||
| They are both trying to destroy America. | ||
| I don't like Trump. | ||
| I didn't vote for him. | ||
| Elon Musk terrifies me trying to get rid of Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, everything I depend on as a senior. | ||
| And with the victory, what's caused a great victory for all of us, all Americans. | ||
| And we're going to go on and we're going to win. | ||
| We're going to beat Trump and we're going to beat Elon Musk. | ||
| That's all I want to say. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Goodbye. | ||
| On our independent line, next up is Scott and joining us from New York. | ||
| Scott, New York, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Pedro, a long time listener, long time caller, once a month caller. | |
| Start with, all these people are lying because half these people that call on your show aren't waiting 30 days to call in. | ||
| And most of them are the Republican call lines. | ||
| So I think your Republican call line, they're not enough Republicans calling in. | ||
| But that's not why I called. | ||
| I'm calling to give all of my red state brothers and sisters out there a wake-up call. | ||
| Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi. | ||
| As of right now, I don't think we have anybody given any aid to the people over at the earthquake. | ||
| Before now, we were the first people on the scene of any bad natural disaster, any natural disaster. | ||
| We are number one there. | ||
| Well, guess what? | ||
| We eliminated USAID. | ||
| We're cutting down FEMA. | ||
| We're going after all these places. | ||
| All you people are so happy cutting FEMA and all this stuff. | ||
| This is a wake-up call. | ||
| We can't provide to anybody else. | ||
| Wait till the hurricanes start hitting this year. | ||
| What do you think is going to happen when you call up and FEMA ain't answering her phone? | ||
| We're in a world of hurt. | ||
| God bless this country. | ||
| The humans, not the Republicans, not the Democrats, but the humans. | ||
| That's what this world is all about. | ||
| God bless us. | ||
| We'll talk to you 30 days. | ||
| You people, quit calling in every day and give us the spiel what you think. | ||
| Give it 30 days because you're a lion. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay, Pat, that's Scott there in New York. | ||
| Next up is resident of New Jersey, Republican line. | ||
| This is Pat in New Jersey. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Pedro. | |
| I thought it was funny, this man calling about saying Republicans wait. | ||
| Last month, in the month of March, the same man from Wilson, North Carolina called three times in the month of March. | ||
| I'm calling about the tariffs and the impact it has on Americans, American prices. | ||
| And I would just like to point to an old example, Hershey, Pennsylvania. | ||
| The Hershey Chocolate Company was built in Pennsylvania in the 1940s. | ||
| In the 2000s, they moved about 3,000 of their jobs to Mexico to be closer because, you know, you can't grow cocoa in the U.S. You have to import it. | ||
| The Hershey Company did it for decades. | ||
| It still operates in Pennsylvania, but tell that to the people who lost their jobs because Hershey went after cheap labor. | ||
| And they also went into China, paid like half a billion dollars for a Chinese chocolate company. | ||
| So these might be small examples, but they impact Americans and American jobs. | ||
| Americans who can't earn a living can't buy anything. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Last call in this open forum. | ||
| This is Greg, who joins us from Colorado on our Live for Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yes, Pergro. | ||
| Good to talk to you. | ||
| And you guys do a fantastic job. | ||
| I just wanted to bring up a few points about Donald Trump. | ||
| Convicted felon, sex offender, liar, cheater. | ||
| And he's our president. | ||
| We are the laughingstock of the world. | ||
| He is succeeding in making enemies of every one of our neighbors and friends that we've had throughout time. | ||
| That took over 200 years to get to this point. | ||
| Okay, Greg there in Colorado. | ||
| Finishing off this open forum, thanks to all of you who participated this morning. | ||
| A couple of guests will be joining us throughout the course of the morning later on in the program. | ||
| You're going to hear from one of the witnesses that participated yesterday in a House hearing on newly released information on the Kennedy assassination. | ||
| JFK historian Jefferson Morley will join us later. | ||
| But next up, National Journal's Kurt Beto will join us to talk about the results of those special elections in Florida and in Wisconsin, what it means looking forward when we go to the midterms and other related topics. | ||
| He'll join us next when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Several special elections yesterday. | ||
| And here to break it down for us, Kirk Beto of National Journal. | ||
| He's the editor of their hotline joining us this morning via Zoom. | ||
| Kirk Beto, thanks for your time. | ||
| Really appreciate it. | ||
| Hey, Pedro, thanks for having me today. | ||
| A lot to talk about this morning. | ||
| Definitely. | ||
| Before we go into the specific races, are there emerging themes overall from these races that you see seeing bear itself out? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| I don't think it'd be crazy to say that yesterday was Democrats' best day since Trump took office between their overperformance in the two special elections down in Florida that we're going to get into, their big win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and Corey Booker giving Democrats a real shot in the arm with his record-breaking 25-hour plus-lawn speech on the floor. | ||
| Democrats are showing some fight right now. | ||
| And in terms of the elections, their overperformance in Florida and the big win in Wisconsin is continuing a trend that we've seen in every special election since Trump took office, and that is Democratic overperformance. | ||
| They're outperforming the baseline of these special election races by about 10 points each time out. | ||
| Yesterday, continuing that trend as well. | ||
| It was a really encouraging sign for Democrats to have them thinking that like it's 2018 again. | ||
| So you mentioned the Florida races, so let's start with that. | ||
| Two special elections for two seats for Matt Gates and Mike Waltz. | ||
| Let's start with Randy Fine. | ||
| Talk about the specific race and then what's the impact? | ||
| What do you get from the results of the race? | ||
| Yeah, so this is a district over in the Daytona Beach area, a little bit east of Orlando. | ||
| It's a district that Trump carried by about 30 points or so last time around. | ||
| And Mike Walls carried by about a similar margin. | ||
| This is the one that got the most attention because of the unique nature of both candidates here. | ||
| Randy Fine is a controversial state legislator who's very much in the image of Trump and very much thumbing his nose at the establishment. | ||
| He got reprimanded in court for flipping off a judge. | ||
| He's filed some controversial legislation. | ||
| He's run afoul of DeSantis as well down there. | ||
| And he's not a great fundraiser. | ||
| He was outraised pretty handily by Josh Wheel, the Democrat there. | ||
| He's a teacher. | ||
| Wheel said yesterday that he raised about $14 million for his campaign. | ||
| And there were trouble signs with this race for the last few weeks. | ||
| And in fact, it trickled all the way up to Washington where Richard Hudson, the chair of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, said that he really needs Randy Fine really needs to get his act together. | ||
| They were really worried, maybe not so much about losing the race because this is such a heavy Republican district, but having a really embarrassing showing out there. | ||
| Hakeem Jeffries similarly said, you know, I've donated to Josh Wheel, but no outside money from Democratic groups came down here. | ||
| And when the dust settled last night, Randy Fine won pretty comfortably, but not by the same margins that Trump won. | ||
| He won by about 14 points or so. | ||
| So half as well as Trump and Walls have done in that seat. | ||
| And that's, again, a really encouraging sign for Democrats. | ||
| Now, if you remember in 2017, during Trump's first term, there were a slew of special elections that were like this as well for Democrats overperforming, not necessarily winning. | ||
| Things like Georgia 6. | ||
| There was a race in South Carolina, special election in South Carolina as well, where the Democrats did not win, but they cut significantly into the margins here. | ||
| That's kind of what we're seeing throughout all these special elections now, that as the Democratic coalition gets older, gets wider, gets more highly educated, they're more likely to turn out in lower turnout special elections like this and the midterms as well. | ||
| Now it's going to be up to Hakeem Jeffries and the rest of the Democrats to parlay this momentum into wins in 2026. | ||
| So that was the one Florida race, the other featuring Jimmy Petronas. | ||
| Yeah, this one was a little bit more under the radar because Jimmy Petronas was a little bit more of a traditional candidate. | ||
| The Democrat in that race, Gabe Alamont, did not raise as much money as Josh Wheel did in Florida 6. | ||
| Florida 1 is over in the panhandle. | ||
| That's the Matt Gates seat. | ||
| But actually, this did not get as much attention, but it was closer when the dust finally settled than Florida 6. | ||
| Trump won that seat by about 37 points last year, and Petronas won it by about 15 or so. | ||
| So again, Democrats had a larger overperformance in this under-the-radar race than the one that was getting a lot of headlines here. | ||
| So again, that's a very encouraging sign for Democrats that they didn't have to spend any money in any of these races right now. | ||
| And still, they're outperforming their baseline here. | ||
| And that's thanks to the changing nature of both party bases here, where Democrats are more likely to turn out in these low-propensity special elections. | ||
| But again, it's a very encouraging sign for Democrats and one that Republicans, I think, should start taking note of. | ||
| Several Democrats have called in this morning and particularly talking about that Wisconsin Supreme Court race, calling it a good night for them. | ||
| Give your assessment of that. | ||
| That's certainly my take as well. | ||
| Susan Crawford, the Dane County judge, the liberal candidate there, won by about 10 points. | ||
| And this is unlike the Florida races that did not receive a whole lot of national money. | ||
| There were over $100 million spent on advertisements alone in this race. | ||
| Now, Wisconsin Supreme Court races are nominally nonpartisan, but not so much the case anymore. | ||
| They might be that on paper, but the way things are campaigning right now, it's a very partisan race. | ||
| The conservative candidate there, Brad Schimmel, had the support of Elon Musk, who spent through his affiliated PACs about $25 million to get him over the line. | ||
| He held a rally up in Green Bay over the weekend, and he was raising the stakes so much where he was saying that it's the end of American democracy, the end of Western civilization if the conservative candidate loses this race. | ||
| But when the dust finally settled, Susan Crawford wins by 10 points. | ||
| It was a very nationalized race. | ||
| Democrats weren't hiding from that as well. | ||
| If you look at their ads, they were really leaning into Elon Musk's involvement here. | ||
| Ben, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, was also nationalizing the race. | ||
| Ken Martin, who's the DNC chair, was also talking about the high stakes of the race in terms of sticking up to Trump and Elon Musk. | ||
| So this was much more of a testing ground of what the 2026 messaging could be for both parties here. | ||
| And if I'm Republicans, I'm worried about this. | ||
| Kirk Beto is joining us for this conversation about these special elections. | ||
| And if you want to ask him questions, again, different numbers, so you'll want to take note of them. | ||
| Republicans 202-737-0002. | ||
| Democrats 202-737-0001. | ||
| And Independents 202-628-0205. | ||
| So if you have questions about the special elections and the results, you can call in. | ||
| You can also text your thoughts this morning or questions at 2027. | ||
| I believe it's 202-748-8003. | ||
| Kurt Beto, you've referenced this already. | ||
| So how does either side frame this going forward? | ||
| So what's interesting is Republicans are talking about how Democrats lit money on fire in the special elections in Florida. | ||
| The NRCC released a statement last night criticizing the Democrats for spending and donating all this money to Josh Wheel only to lose by 14 points here. | ||
| What we got to remember is no major outside Democratic group spent money here. | ||
| This is not like the Georgia 6 special election from 2017. | ||
| That was the most expensive House race at the time, where outside groups were campaigning for John Ossoff and Karen Handel down there, which ultimately the Republican Karen Handel won. | ||
| I believe over $55 million in outside money was spent there. | ||
| This is not the case there. | ||
| So Republicans, you know, and they're right about this. | ||
| At the end of the day, they are going to get two more members in Congress, bringing up their majority to 220 to 213. | ||
| It's much needed reinforcements for Speaker Mike Johnson. | ||
| And as soon as those guys get sworn in, he gets a little bit more breathing room, which is going to help him a lot. | ||
| Democrats are spinning this a completely different way. | ||
| The House Majority PAT, the Democratic-aligned super PAC, put out a statement last night talking about that if Democrats continue this same overperformance, if they performed in the same way that they did in the special elections in the midterms, then they could flip about 40 seats. | ||
| Now, no one is thinking right now that there's going to be a 40-sweet sing, a 40-seat swing in Congress like there was in 2018. | ||
| But Democrats only need to net three seats right now to flip the House. | ||
| They feel like the wind is at their back right now. | ||
| They feel like they have the momentum, and they feel that they have a blueprint now between the Florida special elections and the successful anti-Trump, anti-Musk playbook in Wisconsin to really step into 2026 with a lot of confidence. | ||
| And what would elements of that blueprint be, do you think? | ||
| I think really leaning into the threats to Social Security, to Medicaid, to Medicare, leaning into making Elon Musk kind of the main character of this election, unlike Trump, which is really interesting. | ||
| I don't know what Musk's role in the midterms are going to be right now. | ||
| A lot of people were worried that his involvement in this Wisconsin Supreme Court race was going to be the blueprint for how he might invest in primaries next spring and eventually the general election as well. | ||
| Musk is a relatively newcomer to politics. | ||
| I mean, he spent a quarter billion dollars trying to get Trump across the line, spent $25 million on this race here. | ||
| I wonder if after his defeat here in Wisconsin, if he doesn't maybe reevaluate his involvement in electoral politics, maybe not so much what he's doing at the White House, but what he's doing, where he's spending his money in terms of what campaigns and candidates he supports. | ||
| And that's kind of the biggest unknown right now. | ||
| But in terms of the strategy for Democrats, I really do think it's hammering home some of the bigger controversies here that actually touch American voters. | ||
| Unlike Signalgate, for example, which is a little bit more of a beltway phenomenon, they want to talk about cutting entitlements, stop Trump trying to curb government services and to make them feel that that is going to be on the ballot this year or next year. | ||
| Again, our guest is Kirk Beto of the Hotline at National Journal. | ||
| If you want to ask him questions about these elections and the results, 202748, I'm sorry, 2027370002 for Republicans, 202737, 0001 for Democrats, Independents, 202628-0205. | ||
| Kirk Beto, you mentioned it, but I want to roll it into the conversation as well. | ||
| The impact from Senator Corey Booker, this 25-hour marathon, breaking records. | ||
| Ultimately, what does that do for Democrats? | ||
| I think it gives, first off, it does slow down and disrupts the normal business of the Senate, like Senator Booker said when he started the speech. | ||
| What I think it does, it shows their voters that they have a very visible, a tangible show of a fight. | ||
| Now, is this going to gum up all the works of the Trump administration? | ||
| No. | ||
| Is it going to stop the Doge agents from going into government agencies and certain kinds of things? | ||
| No. | ||
| But it is a very visible reminder that they can still fight. | ||
| If you remember where we were at two weeks ago here with a lot of folks in the Democratic Party calling for Chuck Schumer to step down after agreeing to the House budget plan, this is Corey Booker here putting himself through this incredibly physical and mentally demanding challenge to show people that Democrats still have a little pet in their step and can some way disrupt the normal business of government. | ||
| Millions of people watched that speech on social media. | ||
| I believe there was a TikTok feed of Corey Booker's speech that had hundreds of millions of views. | ||
| It's a real energizing moment for the Democratic base at a moment where they were been pretty lowly for the last few weeks here, and they've already started fundraising off this as well. | ||
| Again, it might not completely shut down the works of the Trump administration, but it's a very visible, tangible shot in the arm for the Democratic base that was really searching for some sort of energy. | ||
| Let's hear from Annie in Florida on our line for Democrats. | ||
| You're on with our guest, Kirk Beto of National Journal. | ||
| Annie, good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| What an inspirationing, inspirational speech from Corey Booker. | ||
| That's amazing. | ||
| That was an amazing speech. | ||
| My question is about the governor of Florida. | ||
| How's it looking for Dems in Florida? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Who's going to run? | |
| Who do you think is going to run against Byron Donalds? | ||
| Go ahead, Curry. | ||
| That's a great question right now. | ||
| One, the Florida Democratic Party is asking itself a lot right now as well. | ||
| The problem is the Florida Democratic bench is not as deep as it used to be. | ||
| I mean, I think Nikki Freed is who's the chairman of the state Democratic Party right now, is doing some outreach to candidates right now. | ||
| You could see someone like Val Demings jump into that race, even though she hasn't really given a whole lot of consideration to it. | ||
| There's Stephanie Murphy as well, the former representative, but she's not been a name I've seen floated around. | ||
| Right now, a lot of the action is on whether or not Casey DeSantis gets in on the Republican side and challenges Byron Donalds. | ||
| But for now, Byron Donalds seems to be on a glide path to the nomination. | ||
| And unless Democrats can find another candidate, I find a candidate, I really don't see much of a path stopping him, even in a year that should favor Democrats as a blowback to Trump in 2026. | ||
| Where the current governor, how much endorsement or how much support has he given to Donalds to date? | ||
| He has been very diplomatic and very political with how he's talking about Byron Donalds, because like we said, First Lady, Casey DeSantis is heavily considering a run as well. | ||
| She hasn't ruled it out yet. | ||
| I think she's still looking at her options. | ||
| And I think if I'm Ron DeSantis, I'm a little miffed that Trump tried to jump in here and anoint a successor to him, carpetbagging in here from New York when Ron DeSantis might have wanted to try and get his wife into the position instead. | ||
| So we're waiting for that to play out. | ||
| That's the big drama that I'm watching right now down in the Florida gubernatorial race. | ||
| You said that Democrats have to gain three in the House to gain control. | ||
| How many seats are up for play? | ||
| In the House, you know, every cycle, all 435 House seats are up. | ||
| But what we've seen is just a real narrowing battlefield over the last few cycles. | ||
| In fact, we said earlier that the land of 40-seat swings is probably not going to happen anymore. | ||
| When I was testing with strategists in both parties last night, a 40-seat wave this year is the equivalent to a 10-seat gain either way for both parties. | ||
| I would say that there's probably about 30 or so seats that are going to be really competitive and decide the majority next year, especially the 16 seats of crossover members. | ||
| Now, these are members of one party whose district voted for another party for president. | ||
| There's 16 of them. | ||
| 13 are held by Democrats and three are held by Republicans. | ||
| So that's three Republicans in Harris districts and 13 Democrats in Trump districts. | ||
| Now, on paper, that's not a very encouraging sign for Democrats right now. | ||
| There's not as many PME seats and not as many layups as you would see in previous cycles. | ||
| You know, as much as we're talking about this Democratic overperformance here, they're still going to have to fight tooth and nail to get those three seats. | ||
| And the way I've seen it, heard it described multiple times is that it's going to be a real knife fight for the majority here, even with the wind that Democrats bats. | ||
| Let's hear from Homer, who joins us from Massachusetts on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Homer, hello. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're on with our guests. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I just want to point out that he said that there was no money put into the Wisconsin race, really, but there was George Soros and J.B. Pritzker, which we already heard a caller say. | |
| And I'm also worried or wondering, you know, these guys complain about judges when they're Eileen Cannon or the Supreme Court judges and want to get them impeached. | ||
| But they don't ever want to do that when it's the other side. | ||
| You know, it's so bad when the Republicans are in the majority. | ||
| But now in Wisconsin, it's a three-to-one majority again, and they're going to gerrymander their stuff so that they can get more Democrat seats. | ||
| And it's just ridiculous. | ||
| It's not like we're getting an actual vote or an actual representation of the people in most states, but both sides do it. | ||
| And, you know, they only give one side of the story. | ||
| We need a Paul Harvey to give the other side of the story. | ||
| And now we'll know the rest of the story because we only hear one side every day on this show. | ||
| You guys read from the New York Times and all these papers. | ||
| Where's the New York Post? | ||
| Every day it's the same paper. | ||
| Can't you guys? | ||
| Caller, we're talking about both sides today when it comes to Republicans and Democrats, especially when it's concerned but Kirkbedo, if anything from that call you wanted to elaborate on. | ||
| I might have misspoke. | ||
| Of course, there was outside spending in Wisconsin Supreme Court race. | ||
| There was no outside spending in the Florida special elections. | ||
| Wisconsin saw over $100 million in ads coming in from, most notably, Elon Musk, $25 million through his various organizations. | ||
| But to the caller's point, yes, there were a lot of Democrat spending as well out there. | ||
| George Soros invested it in this race as well. | ||
| There are other Democratic groups as well. | ||
| I believe the DNC might have even bought billboards as well. | ||
| This was the most expensive judicial race in United States history, breaking a record from the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court race. | ||
| And to his last point about kind of those trusts in the courts, I think that is kind of the bigger issue here. | ||
| And one of the storylines that I was watching going into last night is that these races are supposed to nominally be nonpartisan, but you all know who is backing who, which party is backing which candidate. | ||
| There's millions of dollars pouring into these races. | ||
| And this comes at a time when trust in the court system is at an all-time low, according to a poll from Gallup in December. | ||
| And I'm worried about the reaction to this race right now. | ||
| Elon Musk said that it would be the end of Western civilization if the liberal candidate won this race. | ||
| Last night during his concession speech, Brad Schimmel had to quiet down some folks in his audience who were yelling about fraud and that Susan Crawford was a cheater. | ||
| He tried to reassure them that, look, we need to accept the results of this race here. | ||
| It's fair and square. | ||
| So I am worried about the long tail consequences of this polarizing the judiciary and making an election for a Supreme Court judge a marquee race. | ||
| A viewer off of X, Kurt Beto, asks, wasn't Susan Crawford expected to win in Blue Wisconsin? | ||
| And does Mr. Beto think that districts may be redrawn to try to get Democrats two more seats in the House, excuse me, now that they will have favor in the state Supreme Court? | ||
| Susan Crawford was the favorite going into last night, according to the polls. | ||
| What's interesting is the size of her win here. | ||
| It's 10 plus points here. | ||
| That's a pretty good drubbing here. | ||
| The turnout was what we were watching for as well. | ||
| It looks to be slightly below midterm level of what we would see in Wisconsin. | ||
| So again, a lower turnout election does tend to benefit Democrats and the candidate that Democrats tend to support. | ||
| So I think it's notable the margin there. | ||
| Now, to the question about redistricting, this was a big issue in the 2023 version of this race as well. | ||
| But the liberal judge who won that election excused herself from hearing a gerrymandering case when that came up on the docket after the election. | ||
| Susan Crawford has played very coy with her answers about whether or not that she would weigh in on a redistricting case right now. | ||
| So I'm very curious to see what she does do. | ||
| She's said that she doesn't want to pre-judge cases. | ||
| I wouldn't be surprised if she recused herself, but I also wouldn't be surprised if she wanted to stay and hear this case because Wisconsin historically is one of the most gerrymandered states that we have. | ||
| It's up there with Illinois and North Carolina, Pennsylvania, before they changed the lines a few years back. | ||
| And if they are able to change the lines, up to two seats are probably going to be in play now for Democrats. | ||
| And again, reiterating how narrow the margins are in the House, a two-seat swing either way is going to be massive implications for control of the House. | ||
| So our House reporter James A. Downs over at Hotline is going to be following those cases very closely in our newsletter. | ||
| So we'll try to update folks as much as we can as that court case moves through the docket. | ||
| Kirk Beto from Hotline joining us for this discussion. | ||
| We're going to hear from Kurt in Maryland, our line for independence. | ||
| Thank you for calling. | ||
| You're on with the guests. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Good morning, Mr. Beto. | ||
| I'm calling in regards to the Social Security war room that was discussed yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'd just like to know what Mr. Beto believes that that will entail in the future. | |
| Pedro, if you film it, what was the Social Security war room? | ||
| Yeah, could you elaborate on that caller, please? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yes. | |
| Yesterday, Senator Warren and Schumer had mentioned that they had established the Social Security War Room to combat the Elon Musk and the Doge Social Security. | ||
| Well, how they feel that it's being dismantled by Doge and Elon Musk. | ||
| Right, So the Social Security war room here, that, to me, emphasizes how important the Democrats believe that the threats to Social Security, Medicaid, other entitlement programs are from this administration. | ||
| It's again, kind of a show of that we are taking those problems here. | ||
| So we are on it. | ||
| We have Elizabeth Warren, one of our more popular regulators in reeling in Trump and Elon Musk on the case here. | ||
| To me, it just, again, emphasizes that they are taking this problem very seriously. | ||
| And it's a preview of what message that they're going to emphasize throughout the next few months here on the path to 2026. | ||
| That regardless of whatever noise that Trump is making about trying to annex Greenland or what is he doing with the latest executive orders about the Kennedy Center, that what voters are going to care about the most, and again, this is very reminiscent of their 2018 strategy, is hammering Trump on cuts to health care, Social Security, and other entitlements. | ||
| Kirk Beto, what do you think it means for Republicans on this Liberation Day, so to speak, that the president has deemed to announce the plan on tariffs? | ||
| Yeah, I mean, we're almost halfway. | ||
| We're almost done with the interview here. | ||
| We haven't even talked about Liberation Day here. | ||
| I think it puts Republicans in a really tough spot. | ||
| I think Republicans, much like when they vote no but hope for yes here, they're hoping that there's some sort of last-minute negotiation here. | ||
| That's why there's been a lot of questions about when Trump signs these tariffs into place later this afternoon. | ||
| When will they take effect? | ||
| Is there any more room for negotiation right now? | ||
| I think what you're seeing with a lot of Senate Republicans in particular is a lot of anxiety over, especially a lot of anxiety over these tariffs from Canadian imports, on imports from Mexico as well. | ||
| It's going to put Republicans in a real tight bind here. | ||
| And I bet that if Republicans are going to have any more town halls after the during the Easter recess here coming up here, they're going to hear an earful about the rising cost of goods, everything from beer to wine from Europe to textiles as well. | ||
| They're going to be hearing an earful from them, voters. | ||
| Don in Pennsylvania, Democrats line. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
| You're on with our guests. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I would be interested in hearing his thoughts on Representative Stefanik out of New York, what her chances are since Donald Trump pulled her nomination as UN ambassador. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just interested in what your guests would have to think about that, right? | |
| Don, thanks for the question. | ||
| Mr. Beto. | ||
| This was really surprising to us. | ||
| We had heard grumblings for a while that the reason that they were delaying her confirmation hearing is because they were worried about the margins in the House. | ||
| And it kind of finally came to a head during that fever of slow-simmering panic amongst Republicans over these two special elections in Florida that if at least Stephaniek's seat was open in upstate New York, where Trump won by about 21 points, I believe, in 2024, that that could be in play as well and further cut into Mike Johnson's very, very, very narrow majority. | ||
| The Stefanik getting Trump pulling Stefanic's nomination means that she'll be on the ballot again come November 2026. | ||
| It'll be much more difficult for the Democrat up there who have had the nomination for the potential special election to defeat her. | ||
| She's a member of leadership. | ||
| She's a great fundraiser. | ||
| She knows that district. | ||
| She really is going to be a tough out. | ||
| She, I think, is going to be safe in that seat for as long as she wants it. | ||
| But now that she's been stymied about joining the administration, she's going to have, she's rejoining Republican House leadership and some sort of newly created position to be determined here. | ||
| We don't know exactly what that title is going to be, what that responsibility is. | ||
| I wouldn't be surprised if she looked for other opportunities, whether that's another administrative post, whether that's something outside of Congress. | ||
| But I think her future is really up in the air right now. | ||
| This is from Terry in Minnesota, Republican line, calling us for our discussion with Kirk Beto. | ||
| Terry, good morning. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Say, Kirk, I'd like to remind you the really big thing that came out of the Wisconsin election last night was that they passed a strict voter ID law, which will make your cause or your comment about, oh, the judge will do gerrymandering to help win those two huge seats. | ||
| But you don't mention that the two Florida seats were huge wins. | ||
| I tell you, Kirk, you reek of desperation like all liberals do right now. | ||
| Oh, they're so scared to desperate the Republicans. | ||
| They're running roughshod over you and your party. | ||
| Caller, our guest is invited to give information as far as his post as an editor and reporter. | ||
| Well, thank you for the call, Mr. Beto. | ||
| Anything you want to add to that? | ||
| I'll try to take another shower after this. | ||
| But what I think is the most important part of that is, yes, we didn't really talk about the big win on a voter ID law that voters passed in Wisconsin, which Elon Musk tweeted out last night before he even acknowledged the Supreme Court laws, was this was the most important thing was passing that voter ID law. | ||
| There have been a few other places where voter ID laws have come up. | ||
| You know, President Trump has signed an executive order requiring that on voter ID on in elections across the country. | ||
| Now, the executive branch doesn't necessarily have the power to regulate elections in the states. | ||
| It's up to the states to do that, like this ballot initiative. | ||
| Democrats have sued the Trump administration of the executive order, so we're watching that play out. | ||
| But it is this interesting kind of split screen here where Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate, wins big at the Supreme Court level. | ||
| But those same voters then are supporting a form of voter ID law, which for, you know, if you were to ask Democrats for their thoughts on that four or five, six years ago, they probably would have been a little bit more squeamish about it and maybe even against it. | ||
| And I think it talks about the shifting attitudes voters have, not just on election integrity, but immigration as well, because you see some more liberal areas allow non-citizens to vote in local city elections or even some county elections as well. | ||
| And it's been kind of a shift in Democrats over the last four years or so to take a little bit Democratic voters on a harder stance on immigration and enforcing immigration laws. | ||
| And I think the passage of a voter ID law is just a bigger part of that narrative. | ||
| Let's say hi to Richard in Georgia, Democrats lying. | ||
| Richard, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro and Mr. Beto. | |
| First, I want to make a comment that last year I told a Washington Journal that the dictator is in office now along with the dictator Supreme Court. | ||
| And now my question is, I saw a news clip on another channel last, this past weekend about the billions of dollars that the taxes are being taken out on the workers, migrant workers, into the social security system. | ||
| To me, it seemed like that would make the social security system more solvent. | ||
| And when are the, you think the Republican legislators, congresspeople in Washington are going to wake up and see what the Doge is doing, the damage to this country, | ||
| with all of these federal employees being put out of work, especially at the VA, which I am a veteran, and I depend on the VA for help with my medical issues and also my Social Security. | ||
| Thank you, Richard. | ||
| Well, Richard, first off, thank you for your service here. | ||
| And I think Republicans are really starting to feel that right now. | ||
| We mentioned a little bit earlier about the town hall troubles that they've been experiencing since about February or so it started, where they're hearing from angry and frustrated constituents about these cuts to the federal government with the laid-off federal workers, the potential cuts to those entitlements that you're talking about as well. | ||
| And I think that as long as this continues, they're going to keep hearing it. | ||
| It got so bad that Richard Hudson, the NRCC chief, told his members to stop holding in-person town halls and have virtual town halls. | ||
| As long as this continues, I think this is still going to be a massive issue that Republicans are going to keep feeling pressure on. | ||
| In fact, you see Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, the two Republican senators from Alaska, really start raising the alarm on some of these Doge cuts to some of the environmental organizations that help monitor the terrain in Alaska. | ||
| And I think if you really want to watch where this is playing out most acutely and where it could be a preview of things to come in the midterms, watch the Virginia governor's race, where a huge swath of the Virginia workforce are federal employees, especially folks living up in northern Virginia. | ||
| And that's become a real dividing line between the presumptive Democratic nominee. | ||
| We haven't had the primary yet, but former rep Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat there, has made criticizing and combating those cuts to the federal workforce a key part of her campaign. | ||
| And then the lieutenant governor, the Republican lieutenant governor, Winston Earl Sears, had some comments this past weekend where she talked about how these cuts to the federal workforce aren't that big of a deal. | ||
| The state has unemployment services. | ||
| And Democrats have seized on those remarks. | ||
| And I bet if you're in the Virginia media market, you're going to be hearing a lot of those remarks in the next few months in advertisements coming here pretty soon. | ||
| So if you want to see how Republicans could respond to the Doge cuts, watch that Virginia governor's race. | ||
| Because if Abigail Spanberger starts running circles around the Republican there, then I think Republicans in Congress are really going to start changing their tune pretty quickly. | ||
| Let's get one more call. | ||
| And this is from Nelson in our Republican line. | ||
| He's from Florida. | ||
| Nelson, you're on your last call. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Can you hear me okay, gentlemen? | ||
| Yep, you're on. | ||
| We got you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Mr. Bado, I'm also a combat wounded Vietnam veteran. | ||
| I'm in my 70s and I'm on Social Security. | ||
| And I support President Trump and his policies. | ||
| I think they're necessary. | ||
| As far as the tariffs are concerned, I'd like to point out that the United States fiscal policies for about the first 175 years was mostly tariffs. | ||
| And that's how the United States functioned was through tariffs. | ||
| I believe that the use of tariffs can go a long way at beginning to help bring down the national debt, assuming that it's done correctly and assuming that Congress in the future doesn't start and continue to spend more than we're bringing in. | ||
| And I'd like to hear your comments regarding that, sir. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Again, thank you for your service. | ||
| And I think the threat of tariffs, as I understand them, and from reading up on some of the history of it as well, the threat of tariffs is much more effective. | ||
| And I think this is the Republican thinking as well, than the actual use of the tariffs right now. | ||
| For the first hundred and some odd years of the country, we were a little bit more isolated. | ||
| We were a little bit more dependent on what was grown here, what was manufactured here in the United States. | ||
| In the post-war world, in the post-World War II world, we've become an interconnected global economy, you know, for better or worse. | ||
| And we depend on so, even just look at what's in your cars. | ||
| There's so many different parts in a vehicle now that come from so many different countries. | ||
| You know, there's a widget from Japan, there's steel from China. | ||
| There's so many different things that go into even just a car from so many different countries that a tariff on one of those is going to raise the price astronomically. | ||
| And I think that you hit on a point here that we, the trade imbalance that Trump talks about a lot, is concerning and it does need to be addressed. | ||
| But I think Republicans and Democrats alike on the Hill and a lot of economists as well are worried that this sort of mercurial approach to tariffs that Trump is approaching, this kind of podge podge, using it as a strong-arm real estate negotiating tactic and then following through with it is not necessarily the way to do that. | ||
| You know, we're going to learn a lot more about the fallout from those later this afternoon once Trump starts signing those executive orders, levying those tariffs. | ||
| You can find the work of our guest and his colleagues at nationaljournal.com/slash hotline, Kurt Beto, the editor of the hotline. | ||
| Mr. Beto, thanks for your time this morning. | ||
| Really appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you all for having me. | ||
| Have a good one. | ||
| In a little while, the House held a hearing on the recently released information on the Kennedy assassination. | ||
| And about 20 minutes from now, you'll meet one of those witnesses who testified on that new material, Jefferson Morley, a JFK historian. | ||
| He'll join us to take your questions about it. | ||
| But first, open forum. | ||
| And if you want to participate, you can call us on the lines 202737-0002 for Republicans, 202737-0001 for Democrats, and Independents 202-628-0205. | ||
| Those open forum calls will take when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Again, on this open forum, if you want to participate, the lines will be different. | ||
| Please note that. | ||
| Pick line that best represents you. | ||
| And also, if you've called in the last 30 days, if you hold off from doing that today, we really would appreciate it. | ||
| Democrats Lying, this is from Michigan. | ||
| Carry on this open forum. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thank you for the judge that was won in the election last night. | |
| And that's nice for me. | ||
| Democrats stay the course. | ||
| They're going to be running to the, everybody's going to be running to the polls in a year and change what's going on. | ||
| But C-SPAN, sorry about everybody insulting you all morning because they think Fox News is real. | ||
| Fox News is an entertainment station. | ||
| They're not a news station. | ||
| They lost their license when they lost the lawsuit for $668 million. | ||
| Let me go back to what you said about Democrats staying the course. | ||
| What does that mean to you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Republicans keep saying, we got no leader. | |
| We're a mess. | ||
| We're fine. | ||
| We'll get a leader within a year or two. | ||
| They just want a leader so they can tear him down. | ||
| But the insurrectionist-in-chief told the guys at the eclipse to fight like hell or you won't have a country no more. | ||
| And we're still fighting about whether that was a problem. | ||
| Okay, I appreciate your time, sir. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| That's Carrie in Michigan. | ||
| We will hear from another Michigander. | ||
| This is Anthony in Detroit, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, Pedro. | |
| I'm so sickened by Trump and his bombing in Yemen. | ||
| And that's terrible. | ||
| I mean, Congress didn't declare war, and that's a total abuse of the War Powers Act for the president to do an emergency defense that would be defending the United States, not putting our ships out in the Middle East where they have no business being because we don't have a declared war. | ||
| It's totally illegal, and they're killing people. | ||
| And it's all for Israel's benefit because Yemen is blockading the Red Sea to stop Israel doing what they're doing in Gaza. | ||
| So it's so convoluted and illegal. | ||
| Anthony in Detroit, a Pennsylvanian. | ||
| This is from our Republican line. | ||
| And Jerry joins us. | ||
| Jerry in Pennsylvania, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, this is Jerry. | |
| The Democrats are lying about the Social Security and the pension. | ||
| They should stop lying and come to go after them and arrest them for lying to Pennsylvania. | ||
| How do you, when you say Democrats are lying about it, what do you mean specifically? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Trump comes on and says they're not cutting Social Security or the pension. | |
| And the Democrats from New York and Democrats are saying they're cutting Social Security down. | ||
| They shouldn't be cutting the, shouldn't be lying about it. | ||
| They should be arrested for lying to the public. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's Jerry in Pennsylvania calling us on this open forum. | ||
| You can make your thoughts known too. | ||
| Numbers right there. | ||
| I'm sorry, wrong way that way. | ||
| If you want to call and give your thoughts on Open Forum, 2027 37-0002 for Republicans, 202-737-0001 for Democrats, and Independents 202-628-0205. | ||
| We showed you and talked with Kurt Beto about the question as far as the future of New York Representative Elise Stefanik Politico, picking up on that as well from comments from Speaker Johnson yesterday saying Tuesday, quote, that he's still trying to figure out some creative role for Elise Stefanik to fit within leadership. | ||
| He made those comments during making other comments, but here's specifically when it comes to Elise Stefanik, here are his comments from yesterday. | ||
| We're trying to sort that out. | ||
| Elise is a dear friend, trusted colleague. | ||
| She's a super talent, and she brings, has always brought a lot to the table. | ||
| And she stepped down from her conference chair role and on her important committee assignments. | ||
| She was in line to have a gavel on some of those. | ||
| And the circumstances changed. | ||
| So recognizing her talent, I said I would love to invite her back immediately to the leadership table. | ||
| All the leadership posts are filled at the moment. | ||
| So we're trying to figure out some creative role for Elise to play because, you know, I think that that helps the whole body. | ||
| I think it helps our conference and it puts her in a position where she can be of her highest and best use. | ||
| Scott, as you know, every single day, a speaker, what I try to do is make sure all of our members are of their highest and best use. | ||
| We try to match skill sets with positions, and it's an imperfect thing, but we work through it. | ||
| And, you know, what happened with Elise is we're dealing with, and we're going to make her a very valuable and important member of this conference, as she always has been. | ||
| And I'm excited about that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am. | |
| I'm glad to have her remain with us. | ||
| From Maryland on our line for Democrats, we are joined by Anthony. | ||
| Anthony, good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning to you. | |
| You've had a great show this morning. | ||
| I've been listening ever since you started. | ||
| I'd like to hit three points. | ||
| The first one, of course, is the tariffs. | ||
| We really don't know how that's going to affect us as consumers for quite a while. | ||
| Initially, it will be painful, but it could be painful for a lot longer, so we just have to late and wait. | ||
| This is not about who is in favor or if there's fairness involved. | ||
| This is a way to run business, not necessarily government, but we'll have to wait to see how it turns out in 2026. | ||
| The second thing was the special election in Florida. | ||
| There was no way that the Republicans were going to lose Northwest Florida. | ||
| They should have long ago broke up those lines. | ||
| Pensacola and Escamia County could stand alone for its own district, but a Republican-controlled Tallahassee for the capital of the state will not take into consideration. | ||
| As far as what's going on in the House at this time, I think Speaker Johnson is just bargaining for time, trying to negotiate a way to hold business as usual with a Republican-led Congress. | ||
| We will see what happens Monday morning. | ||
| Thank you, Pedro. | ||
| On his Truth Social site, President Trump posted regarding the topic of tariffs. | ||
| He's called it Liberation Day. | ||
| He said that in the post, and it's all in caps. | ||
| It's Liberation Day in America. | ||
| This comes later on this afternoon, 4 o'clock, is when the president will make his tariff announcement from the White House Rose Garden. | ||
| See that on this network, C-SPAN, and our app is available to you too, C-SPAN now, as well as the website at c-span.org. | ||
| Jerry in North Carolina, Independent Line, you're next up on Open Forum. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I think Corey Booker should become the leader of the Democratic Party. | ||
| I always thought he should have had Chuck Schumann's job because Chuck Schumer was just a waste. | ||
| And that's what happened to the Democratic Party, I think. | ||
| Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden is gone, all these old Democrats that won't move out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And they just sit up there and they can't communicate. | |
| And Corey Booker is a very good communicator, and that's what they need. | ||
| What do you think he accomplished from the marathon yesterday? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He accomplished that he had the energy that it takes to be a leader and convince people and convey messages. | |
| And no one else came close to him in the Democratic Party. | ||
| The Democrats have not been good at looking in their party and getting the best people for the job. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They have kept these old people, Pelosi and all those guys, in for the longest. | |
| And these people are just generic Democrats. | ||
| So hopefully this is a new day. | ||
| The last thing that I want to say is I want to challenge C-SPAN to have a discussion on the genocide in Gaza. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A caller had just called, and he also challenged you, but y'all guys would not comment on it. | |
| And I don't know whether the CPAC has gotten C-SPAN and I don't know what C-SPAN now. | ||
| I love you and everything. | ||
| God bless you. | ||
| But I think C-SPAN is becoming influenced by something else. | ||
| That's absolutely not the case as far as our coverage of topics, including what's happening in Israel, Gaza. | ||
| Again, I would invite you to go to the website and check out this area segment. | ||
| So we've done the various perspectives that we've offered on that. | ||
| But Caller, thanks. | ||
| Let's here go to Sean. | ||
| Sean in Columbus, Ohio. | ||
| Republican line, you're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| How are we doing today, sir? | ||
| Fine, thank you. | ||
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I just want to say I think C-SPAN pretty much plays it down the middle. | |
| Some things it's kind of hard not to choose a side, but when it comes to the overall topics, I think you guys do a great job. | ||
| I think the biggest problem we have in politics today is we need term limits and we need an age limit. | ||
| I think 75 years old should be enough. | ||
| I don't see 80-year-olds running anything other than their billion-dollar company they run and now the government. | ||
| With the last two presidents being in their 80s, it just seems like we need fresh blood in Congress. | ||
| We need fresh blood in the Senate. | ||
| We just need to flush out and stop people from having 20 to 30 years of the same seat. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Sean and Columbus. | ||
| It was a hearing yesterday about that newly released information on the JFK assassination that was signed by executive order by President Trump earlier. | ||
| The information coming out, a hearing on that information. | ||
| We're going to have one of the guests joining us in a few minutes to talk about it. | ||
| But one of the people testifying at that hearing yesterday was Oliver Stone, director, co-screenwriter of the movie JFK, and also JFK revisited looking through the looking glass. | ||
| Here's Oliver Stone from yesterday. | ||
| I asked the committee to reopen what the Warren Commission failed miserably to complete. | ||
| I ask you in good faith, outside all political considerations, to reinvestigate the assassination of this President Kennedy from the scene of the crime to the courtroom, which means, which never happened, | ||
| but which means the chain of custody on the rifle, the bullets, the fingerprints, the autopsy that defies belief, and that if it were a murder, we'd have given to the poorest man dying in the gutter. | ||
| Let us reinvestigate the fingerprints of intelligence all over Lee Harvey Oswald from 1959 to 1960, his violent death in 1963. | ||
| And most importantly, this CIA, whose muddy footprints are all over this case, a true interrogation. | ||
| That hearing was yesterday. | ||
| Oliver Stone was one of the witnesses. | ||
| Another witness, Jefferson Morley, is going to join us in the next couple of minutes to talk about his perspective, not only on the released information, but what it means overall when it comes to looking in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. | ||
| Let's go to Danette. | ||
| Danette in Oregon, Democrats line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I really have, you know, so much I would like to say about this administration that I'll try and keep it brief. | ||
| Number one, when the guy was on talking about the elections in Florida and Wisconsin and how the Democrats just killed it, he said the first thing he said was, I don't think a lot of people are really interested in the cabinet and their crummy national security. | ||
| You know, people are interested in that. | ||
| Not only did he appoint a clown cabinet, which was obviously every single vote, and all the Republicans just sailed through anybody he wanted to nominate. | ||
| And now we are no longer safe. | ||
| These people I know in my company when I was a worker, I'm old now. | ||
| We kept our high-level meetings to ourselves. | ||
| I don't know who these people are or why they thought that was okay. | ||
| We haven't even heard anything they should be fired. | ||
| And the Republicans who voted them in when they were just horrible nomines also should be voted out during the midterm. | ||
| Okay, that's Danette in Oregon. | ||
| Let's hear from our Republican line. | ||
| This is Chris, who joins us from Pennsylvania. | ||
| Chris, good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning, Diego. | |
| I was just wondering if your newspapers have anything on while Mr. Booker was speaking yesterday. | ||
| His top aide was being arrested for concealing a weapon on Capitol grounds. | ||
| Okay, thank you. | ||
| The Washington Times picking up that very story, actually, that it was one of Senator Booker's staffers who was arrested. | ||
| The Capitol Police said Kevin Batts, 59, was taken into custody on illegal gun charges around 6:30 in the evening on Monday, shortly before the New Jersey Democrat launched his marathon floor speech deriding President Trump. | ||
| And it lasted more than 25 hours and set the record for the longest speech in Senate history. | ||
| For Mr. Booker, the arrest of his aide on gun charges was an unwelcome distraction from his high-profile speech in which the senator declared that under Mr. Trump, the quote, threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent. | ||
| We must do more to stand against them. | ||
| The Washington Times with that story. | ||
| One more call. | ||
| This will be the last call for this open forum. | ||
| I appreciate all of the calls this morning, especially given the situation with the phone line. | ||
| We will continue on with our guest again, Jefferson Morley, who has spent still taking a look at the issue of JFK, his assassination, and the issues surrounding that, especially in the release of that information, will join us next to talk about what he found from it and give his thoughts and take your calls too. | ||
| We'll take the segment with Jefferson Morley when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Saturdays, watch American History TV's 10-week series, First 100 Days. | |
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| We learn about accomplishments and setbacks and how events impacted presidential terms and the nation up to present day. | ||
| This Saturday, the first 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency. | ||
| In 2009, he became the first African-American president and set a record inaugural crowd of close to 2 million people. | ||
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| Democracy is always an unfinished creation. | ||
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| We are here in the sanctuary of democracy. | ||
| Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. | ||
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| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are still at our core a democracy. | |
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| If you were watching that hearing yesterday, taking a look at the newly released documents concerning the JFK assassination, you may have noticed Jefferson Morley as part of the panel. | ||
| He is the author of the JFK Facts Substack newsletter. | ||
| Joining us now in Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| Tell us a little bit about your history in looking into this. | ||
| Why are you so fascinated by it? | ||
| I came to the JFK story actually through reporting on the CIA, not through the literature of JFK's assassination. | ||
| When I first came to Washington in the 80s, when I first appeared on C-SPAN, I was covering the civil wars in Central America, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua. | ||
| And to understand those conflicts and the U.S. role in it, you had to understand the role of the CIA, which is difficult, especially for a guy like me, a young reporter. | ||
|
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I didn't have sources, didn't have a security clearance, never worked at the CIA. | |
| So I had to educate myself by just talking to a lot of people, reading a lot, reading a lot of original documentation, understanding how the CIA worked, and what was the history of the CIA in the Western Hemisphere. | ||
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That inevitably leads back to the conflict between the United States and Cuba. | |
| And if you go into the deep history of that, that takes you into the conflicts of the early 1960s, the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, and the assassination of President Kennedy. | ||
| So as I got interested in the CIA and interested in the Kennedy assassination later, that was always the lens which I viewed it. | ||
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And so I wrote three books about the CIA, about top men in the CIA. | |
| The first one was Our Man in Mexico, and that's the story of Winston Scott. | ||
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He was the head of the CIA station in Mexico City from 1956 to 1969. | |
| Very powerful man in the Mexican scheme of things. | ||
| And he was there in 1963 when Lee Harvey Oswald visits the embassies. | ||
| And so Wynn Scott figures centrally in the JFK assassination story. | ||
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And so what I wanted to do in that book was rather than give my theory of the assassination, because like Jeff, who cares about your theory? | |
| Nobody in the world should care about your theory. | ||
| But what Wynn Scott thought about the assassination, a CIA insider who had a front row seat and whose role in the whole thing was pretty shadowy for the next 20, 30 years, that was an interesting story. | ||
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And then my next book was The Ghost, which was a book about James Angleton. | |
| He too was involved in the JFK story. | ||
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He controlled the Oswald file. | |
| Again, I was doing a biography of Angleton from his beginning of his career to the end of his career at CIA and looked at what did the Kennedy assassination look like him. | ||
| And same with my third book, Scorpions Dance. | ||
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Richard Helms and Richard Nixon was the story in that book, the director of the CIA and the president. | |
| That was really about Watergate, but the JFK story is kind of in the background between these two Machiavellian men. | ||
| So my three books kind of give you a view of Kennedy's assassination in the eyes of the CIA. | ||
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And that's how I came to it. | |
| That's how I came to the story. | ||
| And that's how I understand it as a national security event of deep interest to senior CIA officials. | ||
| You wrote about the recent release of information that if you look at it and search for fact patterns, you find things related to the CIA, things you've talked about. | ||
| What did you mean by that? | ||
| Well, you know, it's a familiar experience for me when the government puts out tens of thousands of pages of documents and I get a call like 30 minutes later saying, Jeff, is there a smoking gun? | ||
| And I'm like, well, I'm reading my third of 2,300 documents, so I'm not quite ready to pronounce judgment. | ||
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But people want that. | |
| They want to know what's new, what's new. | ||
| We've got to step back a little bit. | ||
| If you want to understand what's coming and what we just learned last month, which is very important, let me say that. | ||
| People who say there's nothing in these files, it's simply not true. | ||
| They don't know where to look, is what I would say to people like that. | ||
| And we can talk about some of the specific things that emerge. | ||
| But it's more important to step back and look at what have we learned in the last five years, right? | ||
| Because JFK information has been coming into the record slowly. | ||
| And so it's not just what happened last week. | ||
| It's all the accumulation of evidence over the last five or ten years. | ||
| What does that tell us? | ||
| What it tells us is the official story that one guy shot the president for no reason and another guy came along and shot that guy because he felt like it. | ||
| We now know that's not what happened. | ||
| I mean, the evidence does not support that. | ||
| It doesn't support the notion that one man fired at the limousine three shots from behind. | ||
| The doctors didn't think that. | ||
| The people in the limousine didn't think that. | ||
| The police officers on the scene didn't think that. | ||
| The photographic evidence doesn't show that. | ||
| So the official story is not true. | ||
| So what did happen, that's a much more complicated thing. | ||
| And that's what I was trying to get at in the hearing is, yes, we are learning slowly more about, particularly about CIA operations around Oswald before and after the assassination. | ||
| That is the core of the issue here. | ||
| Of that core, what do you think is more important? | ||
| What's most important to focus on the CIA's role according to the documents? | ||
| So the story that Oswald, the man who supposedly killed the president, was a lone nut, okay, that's completely false. | ||
| Lee Harvey Oswald was very well known to a small group of operations officers at the top of the CIA a couple of weeks before Kennedy was killed. | ||
| And they knew everything about him. | ||
| And what I talked about in my testimony was in what we learned last month was we now have three senior CIA officials who have lied under oath about what they knew about the accused assassin. | ||
| And what I'm saying is, as somebody who's written a lot about the CIA, that sure looks like these guys are running an operation involving this character named Oswald, who they have been very interested in for four years. | ||
| And so before we only knew about two senior CIA officials who lied in that way. | ||
| Now we have three. | ||
| So I'm saying that's a pattern of misconduct. | ||
| That's a pattern of malfeasance. | ||
| It's not a theory. | ||
| You know, three officials lying under oath. | ||
| That's a serious deal in a presidential assassination. | ||
| So that's what I'm trying to get at. | ||
| Washington today, a lot of theater, a lot of politicization, people dragging Trump into it. | ||
| It's really unfortunate because this is a very serious topic. | ||
| It's not a partisan political issue. | ||
| And that's not to say that the stuff that's going on in government today isn't important. | ||
| It's very important. | ||
| But this should be insulated from that. | ||
| This is history. | ||
| I find wide agreement, wide political agreement. | ||
| The readers of my JFK facts on Substack, very diverse audience. | ||
| MAGA Red, Christian Nationalists, Libertarians, Conservatives, Leftists. | ||
| I mean, we have it all. | ||
| We have a wide spectrum of readers. | ||
| I think that's very unusual in medium journalism. | ||
| Let me invite callers to call in. | ||
| 202737-0002 for Republicans, Democrats, 202737-0001. | ||
| Independents 202-6280-205. | ||
| If you want to ask our guests questions, you hinted at it. | ||
| What's your theory then? | ||
| JFK. | ||
| You know, I don't have a theory. | ||
| I never even, until yesterday, I never even assigned responsibility for the crime individually or institutionally. | ||
| I still don't assign responsibility institutionally. | ||
| I think what we've learned, especially with we learned about this false testimony of James Angleton, in combination with the false testimony of these other people, which has only been learned in recent years, you know, that's a pattern of misconduct. | ||
| That points to legal culpability. | ||
| When people lie that much about the same thing. | ||
| So what I'm saying is because these CIA officers knew so much about the accused assassin and failed to, let's say Oswald did it and failed to stop him, that's criminal negligence. | ||
| Or the other possibility, given all the secrecy around, is that they're running an operation involving him, in which case they're implicated in the president murder via covert action. | ||
| So to me, was the CIA criminally negligent or were they actually complicit in JFK's murder? | ||
| That's the question that is posed by the record we have today. | ||
| But the story that one guy alone shot the president for no reason, it just, the evidence doesn't support that. | ||
| And well, as Oswald, would you say Oswald was a mastermind of all this? | ||
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No. | |
| No. | ||
| Oswald was what he said he was. | ||
| He said, I didn't kill the president. | ||
| I'm a patsy. | ||
| Meaning, I'm the fall guy. | ||
| I'm taking the blame for a crime committed by other people. | ||
| And so, yeah, the evidence that has emerged in the last 20 years lends a lot of credence to the notion Oswald was what he said he was. | ||
| He was a patsy for other people who committed the crime. | ||
| Let's hear from John in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Democrats line for our guest, Jefferson Morley. | ||
| John in Pennsylvania, thanks for calling. | ||
| Go ahead, you're up. | ||
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Yeah, good morning, gentlemen. | |
| First of all, when I was a student in Philadelphia, I listened to a radio show featuring Sylvia Mager, who was one of the investigators of the JFK assassination. | ||
| And she quit. | ||
| She quit because she was told not to deviate from the lone assassin theory. | ||
| And so she said that's no way to do an investigation. | ||
| The other thing is the Dallas Morning News, which I have a copy of, the gun that was found in the book depository was identified by experts, by the way, as a German Mauser. | ||
| And that didn't fit the gun that Oswald had, so they changed the story to an Italian Karkenko. | ||
| And so that's another thing I wanted to bring up. | ||
| So that's two things that we can consider too. | ||
| Well, let our guests respond to that. | ||
| Yeah, Sylvia Marr was one of the best assassination researchers, and her book is called Accessories After the Fact, was really the first book that was skeptical of the Warren Commission that I found really convincing. | ||
| A lot of the conspiracy literature I never found very convincing, but Sylvia Maher's book was very good. | ||
| So to your first point, I didn't know that she had been warned off the case, but that doesn't surprise me. | ||
| It was a kind of a radical position to take, even though her approach was very fact-based and all that. | ||
| And the story you tell about the Mauser and the Manlinkar Carcano, that's a true story. | ||
| Republican line from California, this is Lee. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
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Hey, good morning. | |
| I wonder why it was never brought up from the grassy hill. | ||
| There was two hobos seen walking away down by the railroad tracks. | ||
| They were dressed like hobos, but they had $100 shoes on. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Yeah, you know, those hobos, we found the arrest records from the Dallas Police Department, and those hobos were, in fact, hobos. | ||
| They were homeless men. | ||
| So that story that the hobos were somehow involved in Kennedy's assassination, it's just not been borne out by the evidence. | ||
| The chair, Anna Paulina Luna, called this, referred to JFK's assassination still as a cold case. | ||
| Well, I mean, we have a homicide for which no one was ever brought to justice. | ||
| So in that sense, it's a cold case, right? | ||
| We never had a judicial verdict about Lee Harvey Oswald. | ||
| He was never convicted in a court of law. | ||
| And in fact, it's an important point to point out. | ||
| He should enjoy the presumption of innocence, right? | ||
| I mean, and he said he was innocent. | ||
| So, yes, the government has arrayed this big case at him, but the government has also lied repeatedly. | ||
| And that's what I talked about in the hearing yesterday. | ||
| I mean, if three senior CIA officials are lying about your case, doesn't that change, doesn't that call into question the judgment that has been passed on you? | ||
| I mean, I said in the hearing, let's say three police officers lie about their knowledge of a defendant in a homicide case. | ||
| Wouldn't we say that homicide, that defendant should get a new trial? | ||
| You know, isn't that government misconduct? | ||
| Doesn't that require a new trial and a presumption of innocence? | ||
| That's what I say about Oswald. | ||
| It's like there's so much government misconduct that any presumption that Oswald is guilty needs to be removed. | ||
| It's not there based on the facts. | ||
| Frank is in New York, and Frank is on our line for independence for Jefferson Morley. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
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Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Mr. Morley, I've long vacillated one way or another about this. | ||
| I could just have two points. | ||
| Sure. | ||
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And one question to ask you, sir, though. | |
| Is it true that about six months prior to this, Oswald purportedly shot at a general? | ||
| Yes. | ||
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That's my question. | |
| And, you know, I mean, did they make it seem that way? | ||
| And the other one is everything appears that if the photos are true of the president and the doctor's testimony, that he was shot from the front. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I saw an Englishman do a documentary where they showed a man in a manhole, which, you know, seems to be like a really spot that I would be in if I was doing the shooting and not the grassy knoll. | ||
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I just want your comments on that, sir. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Yeah, in reverse order. | ||
| The idea that Kennedy was shot from the manhole, people talk about it all the time. | ||
| It's very unfortunate because it sounds ridiculous. | ||
| And then people say, oh, look at the crazy stuff conspiracy theorists say. | ||
| There's no basis for that. | ||
| There's no basis for that, in fact. | ||
| Oswald, you know, someone took a shot at General Edwin Walker. | ||
| He was a right-wing general who had been fired by Kennedy for his white supremacist and John Birch society views. | ||
| He'd been proselytizing troops with his politics. | ||
| So Kennedy fired him. | ||
| And Walker was very ambitious. | ||
| He wanted to run for president. | ||
| He was kind of like a George Wallace type. | ||
| He was appealing to the same constituency as George Wallace. | ||
| And somebody took a shot at him in April 1963. | ||
| And Oswald's connected with that incident. | ||
| So, you know, did Oswald fire the shots? | ||
| What happened that night? | ||
| That's the subject of a lot of dispute. | ||
| I'm inclined to say Oswald might have, you know, taken that shot, but that's not proof that he shot the president. | ||
| There's a viewer off of X saying with the March 2025 files showing Engleton's oversight of Oswald and the CIA's Mexico City surveillance. | ||
| In your view, do these files paired with the Zapruder films now-known questionable chain of custody most strongly point to agency negligence? | ||
| I mean, I think that's the question is, you know, Engleton has this big file on Oswald sitting on his desk on November 15th when the president's getting to leave. | ||
| You know, and the first line of the FBI report that he receives on November 14th says Oswald was arrested. | ||
| So they know that he's like, you know, there's something problematic about him, and they do nothing. | ||
| So was that negligence? | ||
| Were they letting Oswald go there and participate in the assassination? | ||
| Or were they manipulating him to some end? | ||
| You know, I hear the negligence argument, but when I see three senior officials lying under oath, that's not negligence. | ||
| That's not a sign of negligence. | ||
| That's a sign of something else. | ||
| That's why I lean more towards complicity and culpability. | ||
| The Washington Post had an editorial after the release, and they start off by saying none of the more than 77,000 pages released last week undermine the consensus view that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he assassinated Kennedy. | ||
| And some of the covert actions that were revealed were not, let's say, enlightening, talking about the work of the CIA and so forth. | ||
| I mean, the editorial is comic, right? | ||
| They haven't read 77,000 pages of material. | ||
| They're posing. | ||
| They're pretending. | ||
| They're assuming they know the truth. | ||
| You know, and then when you go look at it, do the editors of the Washington Post say three senior CIA officials lying under oath about a presidential assassin? | ||
| Are they saying that's nothing? | ||
| That's not important? | ||
| I mean, they're entitled to that judgment at the cost of their own credibility. | ||
| I mean, most people would say, that's significant. | ||
| That's a significant part of the JFK story. | ||
| They wouldn't say, that's nothing. | ||
| So, you know, what gives? | ||
| What gives? | ||
| Why pretend that you have read 77,000 pages of material when you obviously haven't, and you've made no effort to understand them? | ||
| You know, that's what we're up against is it's not a fact-based mindset, right? | ||
| I come to this story with a fact-based mindset. | ||
| I was always very wary about pronouncing judgment on a big question. | ||
| Who's responsible for the president's death? | ||
| I reported on the story for 30 years. | ||
| I never passed judgment, individually or institutionally. | ||
| I've started changing that based on what I've seen in these records. | ||
| I can say with confidence, there's a pattern of misconduct there. | ||
| There's a pattern of malfeasance there that needs to be explained. | ||
| And that's where we're at right now. | ||
| Democrats line from New York. | ||
| This is Bob in Westchester. | ||
| Hi. | ||
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Hi. | |
| I'd be interested in Mr. Morley's remarks. | ||
| I had seen a lot of Interviews with Chepa Conte and his attorney and so forth, where organized crime claimed responsibility for the assassination. | ||
| Percy Kilgallen actually interviewed Jack Ruby and then she mysteriously died before she released anything. | ||
| Can you have any feelings on that? | ||
| We know the organized crime role in the assassination. | ||
| The organized crime role was to eliminate the chief witness, Lee Harvey Oswald. | ||
| And Jack Ruby, responsive to organized crime directives, did exactly that. | ||
| You know, I was on a show, I was on Piers Morgan with a guy named Michael Franzine, who had been a coppo. | ||
| He'd been in organized crime for many years, turned state witness, and now he's kind of an expert commentator on organized crime. | ||
| And he was on the show and he was asked, you know, what do you think happened? | ||
| And he said, well, I can only tell you one thing for sure. | ||
| With all the mob bosses, and he, you know, rattles them off, you know, he spent a lot of time with these guys. | ||
| He said it was common knowledge among them that organized crime had assisted by eliminating Lee Harvey Oswald. | ||
| So that part of the JFK story is really confirmed. | ||
| You know, Jack Ruby acted at the behest of organized crime. | ||
| Again, we don't know exactly how. | ||
| Nobody wrote a note and said, Jack, please go eliminate that guy. | ||
| You know, we're not going to find evidence of that because these are criminals, right? | ||
| They don't write stuff down. | ||
| But we do know that much about the organized crime aspect. | ||
| You talk about Traffic Conte and those guys talking. | ||
| You know, we've listened to those tapes as researchers. | ||
| And another thing criminals do is they brag and they boast and they, you know, they BS. | ||
| And so the idea that mob bosses were saying, oh, we took care of Kennedy, I don't think they ever said that. | ||
| And certainly mob bosses had no ability to influence Lee Harvey Oswald. | ||
| I have not much ability. | ||
| And certainly, you know, organized crime is not keeping JFK records secret today, right? | ||
| So I don't see, or I think we understand the role of organized crime in the events of 1963. | ||
| I don't think that's too much in dispute. | ||
| For the information that was released recently, is that it, or is there more? | ||
| There's a couple more things. | ||
| After the president's order came, the FBI went and searched their records and they found a bunch more JFK-related things. | ||
| And they sent those to the National Archives and those are going to be released. | ||
| And so at JFK Facts, we've started going through those and I'm going to tease this a little bit. | ||
| We have some new findings from the new FBI files. | ||
| We need to do some more research. | ||
| We're not like the editors of the Washington Post who can read 77,000 pages in a couple of hours and pronounce confidently on what's in the documents that they haven't read. | ||
| Unlike the editors of the Washington Post, we like to read the documents before we pass judgment on them. | ||
| So we're working on the FBI files now and I think we have a really good, interesting story about them. | ||
| So those things relate to what? | ||
| Generally, if you want to say. | ||
| FBI and CIA operations against the Fair Play for Cuba committee, which Lee Harvey Oswald was a member of. | ||
| At that time, CIA and FBI targeted leftists and liberal groups that opposed U.S. policy, and they targeted them for disruption and destruction. | ||
| And I think we've got a little piece of that story about what was going on when the CIA and FBI targeted the Fair Play for Cuba committee as this unknown character, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a member of that group. | ||
| Let's hear from Bob. | ||
| He's in California, Republican line. | ||
| Jefferson Morley joins us. | ||
| He is the author of the JFK Facts Substack newsletter. | ||
| Bob, hello. | ||
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Hello. | |
| How much investigation have you actually done into looking into Jack Ruby's background? | ||
| There's two things I really want to talk about. | ||
| One is it I've seen literature and also photographs that associates him with Prescott Bush and Richard Nixon as an investigator for the House Un-American Activities Committee back in 1948. | ||
| Yeah, I'm familiar with that story. | ||
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unidentified
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Okay. | |
| And there's a very clear picture of the three of them together. | ||
| I'm not aware of that picture, but if you could send it to me, I'd be glad to publish it. | ||
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Yeah, I'd like to find out how to. | |
| And I've got other information that is a novel information that nobody, I do have those pictures. | ||
| And then for quite some time, Ruby was working directly for the Bush family. | ||
| In fact, I'm not aware of any evidence to that effect, but I'll send some of that to you. | ||
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But another thing that has to do with motive is a speech that Kennedy made about a month before the assassination. | |
| Almost a month before the assassination. | ||
| He made a speech at, I'm trying to remember the name of it, but it was a center that was dedicated to in Pennsylvania that was dedicating itself to creating a lot of private land out west. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Caller, I got to leave there only because you put a lot out for the guests to consider. | ||
| Jack Ruby, let's just focus on that. | ||
| I mean, you know, Jack Ruby was an organized crime figure. | ||
| I interviewed a woman who was friends with Jack Ruby and worked in his nightclub. | ||
| And I asked her, you know, why did Jack, why did your friend Jack kill Oswald? | ||
| And she said, I don't think he had a choice. | ||
| And I said, really, what do you mean? | ||
| She said, well, you know, everybody works for somebody. | ||
| And Jack worked for people, you know. | ||
| And I said, who? | ||
| She said, I don't know. | ||
| I was just a 20-year-old kid at the time. | ||
| But I don't think Jack had a choice about killing. | ||
| And I said, well, did he ever say anything about President Kennedy? | ||
| Because the story was put out at the time, he was trying to save the widow Jackie from the pain of a criminal trial. | ||
| Jack Ruby was a pimp. | ||
| He was never married. | ||
| He was a brawler. | ||
| He beat the crap out of people. | ||
| The idea that he was concerned about Jackie Kennedy's sensibility always struck me as quite improbable. | ||
| And so I asked this woman who knew Ruby well, what did your friend Jack think about President Kennedy? | ||
| And she said, I never heard him say word one about President Kennedy, but I'll tell you one thing. | ||
| He hated Bobby Kennedy with a purple passion. | ||
| So that's the guy, you know, like, I think that tells you, you know, that was the world, that's who Ruby was. | ||
| Now, can I tell you who told Ruby to go kill Oswald? | ||
| No, organized crime doesn't work that way. | ||
| Don in Michigan, Don in Michigan Democrats line. | ||
| You're next up for Jefferson Morley. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
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Good morning, C-Say. | |
| Good morning to American people and to your guests. | ||
| I just want to make a statement and a comment. | ||
| I think this whole information assassination is just a shiny object to get us all off of the Trump administration's disastrous policy. | ||
| But no, that's it. | ||
| I think the CIA and the FBI had something to do with the assassination. | ||
| Did the military, was the military told to stand down when they went to D.C. to, I seen that on one of the movies that was betrayed or that. | ||
| Was that a true statement or was that just fiction? | ||
| No. | ||
| Thanks, Don. | ||
| Thanks, Don. | ||
| No, it's true. | ||
| We've looked at, JFK researchers have looked at film footage of all the trips that President Kennedy took in the fall of 1963 before he went to Dallas. | ||
| He went to about, had about 10 trips around the country. | ||
| The security on every one of those trips was much tighter than it was in Dallas, much tighter. | ||
| So that story that you're true, that somehow security was standing down, I mean, we can tell from the film footage of the motorcades that the security procedures in effect were definitely minimal in Dallas compared to all the other places Kennedy went that year. | ||
| And, you know, in terms of like CIA, FBI, military involvement, I say, you know, since the official story is not true, you know, that one guy killed the president for no reason, you know, what is more likely explanation? | ||
| The more likely explanation is what Jackie and Robert Kennedy came to believe, that President Kennedy was killed by enemies in his own government. | ||
| And that could encompass CIA or, you know, military intelligence. | ||
| That's what I think. | ||
| Let's try to get in. | ||
| Rosemary in Illinois, Independent Line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
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Morning, gentlemen. | |
| Good morning, Mr. Morley and Padre and the C-SPAN station. | ||
| I'm so grateful that you guys are putting this on this morning. | ||
| Most importantly, grateful to Mr. Trump for having the initiative to get these files out in the open, to tell the truth. | ||
| Now, what I found out during the meeting was there were three attempts on our president, one in Chicago, one in Tampa, and he finally got killed in Texas, okay? | ||
|
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And I say with all my heart and soul, not to be a smart Alex, the mob did kill Kennedy. | |
| That's all I'm going to say. | ||
| I'm not going to go into specifics. | ||
| When we finally find out that that was happened, it'll be the time when nobody could care less about this situation. | ||
| But go, C-SPAN, and thank you for this SpaceX that you let us see that the people land. | ||
| No other station did it but you. | ||
| Go, C-SPAN. | ||
| I share your enthusiasm for C-SPAN. | ||
| I disagree with you on the organized crime angle, but let's leave it at that. | ||
| Oliver Stone yesterday called on Congress to reopen the case. | ||
|
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Do you think that'll ever happen? | |
| No, I don't think that that's going to happen. | ||
| I mean, what we saw in the hearing yesterday, the divisive, the polarization, the inability to kind of reach a join a common conversation, that's going to make reopening the investigation very difficult. | ||
| And I think a better approach is to really complete what Trump called for and what the law calls for. |