CSPAN - Washington Journal 04/03/2025

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April 3, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:58

Washington Journal 04/03/2025

Participants

Main

john larson

rep/d 21:13

mimi geerges

cspan 29:42

Appearances

brian lamb

cspan 00:47

donald j trump

admin 04:39

hakeem jeffries

rep/d 01:11

jim marrs

00:55

linda mcmahon

01:41

tim kaine

sen/d 01:47

tommy tuberville

sen/r 02:37

Clips

barack obama

d 00:05

bill clinton

d 00:02

elon musk

00:11

george h w bush

r 00:02

george w bush

r 00:04

jimmy carter

d 00:03

mark takano

rep/d 00:01

melanie stansbury

rep/d 00:11

patty murray

sen/d 00:04

rep jim guest

00:04

ronald reagan

r 00:01

ted malloch

00:05

Callers

matt baker in cali

callers 00:22

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Washington Journal will take your calls and comments live.
		Then a look at President Trump's tariffs and how they could impact consumers with Axio senior economics reporter Courtney Brown.
		And Heritage Foundation senior fellow Mike Gonzalez discusses President Trump's efforts to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and the administration's scrutiny of our federally funded universities, museums, and public media.
		Also, we'll talk with Connecticut Democratic Congressman John Larson, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, about the new tariffs and the future of Social Security.
		Washington Journal is next.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		April 2nd, 2025 will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Thursday, April 3rd.
		That was President Trump yesterday afternoon in the Rose Garden announcing new tariffs.
		The plan includes a baseline of 10% on all imported goods, as well as additional reciprocal tariffs at varying levels on about 60 countries.
		This first half hour, we'll play more portions of the president's announcement and get your thoughts and reaction.
		Here's how to reach us.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		You can text us at 202-748-8003.
		Include your first name in your city-state.
		And you can post your comments on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
		Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
		We're glad you're with us.
		We'll start with the national papers.
		Here are the front pages.
		The Wall Street Journal, Trump Slaps Broad Tariffs on Imports.
		The New York Times, Trump rolls out vast arsenal of global tariffs, says it will restore fairness as he takes aim at adversaries and allies.
		Here's the Washington Post: Trump orders 10% tariff on all imports.
		And the Washington Times, Trump imposes 10% tariffs as baseline.
		And a few more.
		Here's some digital headlines.
		Here's Breitbart.
		Exclusive from JD Vance praises Trump's Liberation Day tariffs.
		Quote, first time in decades we have an American president saying no more to U.S. being world's piggy bank.
		And the front page of the Huffington Post online says, Don hits detonate, trade war explodes, worse than worst case scenario, rare Senate rebuke.
		And here's another portion of the president making the announcement about reciprocal tariffs from the Rose Garden yesterday.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.
		American steel workers, auto workers, farmers, and skilled craftsmen, we have a lot of them here with us today.
		They really suffered gravely.
		They watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream.
		We had an American dream that you don't hear so much about.
		You did four years ago, and you are now, but you don't too often, and for many years and decades even, you didn't hear too much about.
		Our country and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years, but it is not going to happen anymore.
		It's not going to happen.
		In a few moments, I will sign a historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world, reciprocal.
		That means they do it to us and we do it to them.
		Very simple.
		Can't get any simpler than that.
		This is one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history.
		It's our declaration of economic independence.
		For years, hardworking American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense.
		But now it's our turn to prosper and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt, and it'll all happen very quickly.
		With today's action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again, greater than ever before.
		Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country, and you see it happening already.
		We will supercharge our domestic industrial base.
		We will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers.
		And ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.
		This will be indeed the golden age of America.
		It's coming back.
		We're going to come back very strongly.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was the president.
		Yesterday we're taking your calls.
		We'll start with James in Fort Washington, Maryland.
		Democrat, good morning, James.
unidentified		Good morning.
		How are you?
		Good.
		I look at this as being the beginning of President Trump's economic pregnancy.
		And I think this country is going to be in the first trimester of a financial meltdown.
		And also, this might be the beginning of financial sickness for quite a few people.
		You don't just go out and take a mallet, economic mallet to people and don't think that there are some consequences to it.
		And especially if your policies necessitate you having to give substance to a bunch of people and say that, well, it's going to get better later.
		But you start off by taking and giving substances to a lot of people in order to make your plan seem to work.
		I'm doing pretty good myself, but I also think about a lot of the people who are affected by this policy.
		There are so many people out here who are living paycheck to paycheck, and I feel for them, and especially a lot of the people who lost jobs that need the income in order to survive.
		So that's my spill for Democrats.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Ron in San Clemente, California, Republican.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi, and thanks for taking the call.
		I do have one housekeeping issue that's been on my mind for a long time, if you don't mind, before I mentioned about the tariffs.
		And that is that if it wasn't for Barack Obama being elected, black people wouldn't be speaking English.
		They'd be speaking ubonics.
		And it's hilarious.
		But anyway, that was just another restaurant.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You know what, Ron?
		We're going to move on.
		Jerry in Erie, Pennsylvania, Democrat.
		Good morning, Jerry.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		You know, the guy just was just before me talking about what the black people would be speaking or whatever.
		I'm just glad that we were able to, the people, a lot of the people wanted us to read and write.
		But what I'm talking about, the terrorist is, if it ain't broke, why fix it?
		If it ain't broke, why fix it?
		And America is our, he's always talking about make America great again.
		America was always great to me.
		You know, I always may, I worked all my life.
		I'm retired now.
		And what is he talking about?
		Make America great again.
		That's all I wanted to say.
		And Jerry, how are you doing financially?
		Financially, I'm retired.
		And sometimes I go to maybe a food bank or something like that.
		And I'm okay.
		America is great.
		And I hate when he turns his head sideways.
		He likes to break everything.
		To make himself look great, he's not great at all.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Bob in Franklin, Indiana.
		Republican.
		Good morning, Bob.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Yes.
		First of all, surprisingly or unsurprisingly, the only country that's exempted from these tariffs is Russia.
		That's news today.
		Secondly, you know, I want to remind the Republicans that in history, when McKinley put tariffs on the country, the Republicans lost 93 seats.
		And in his second term, he changed his tune on tariffs.
		Again, in the 1930s, the Republicans lost power in Congress and the presidency for 40 years because of tariffs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And so why do you think that is?
unidentified		I'm sorry?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think that is?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why would they lose seats and lose power?
unidentified		Because tariffs is a tax paid by the receiver.
		They're paid here in the United States.
		And there's no way, you know, companies have a hard time making a 10% profit.
		They can't eat these profits.
		They're going to pass them on to the consumer.
		And the other thing, too, the only thing it favors is the wealthy and business, because guess what?
		You don't just pay a tax, but if I have one competitor that's in another country and his goods go up 25% and I'm the only one producing that product, guess what?
		I can get more for my product here in America.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Bob, you mentioned Russia.
		So I want to show you this article from Axios.
		It says Trump's tariffs list is missing one big country, Russia.
		It says that Press Secretary Caroline Levitt told Axios Wednesday that Russia was left off because U.S. sanctions already, quote, preclude any meaningful trade.
		However, the U.S. still trades more with Russia than with countries like Mauritius or Brunei that did make Trump's tariff list.
		It says Levitt noted that Cuba, Belarus, and North Korea were also not included because existing tariffs and sanctions on them are already so high.
		What do you think of that argument, Bob?
unidentified		Russia.
		You know, Russia supply, I'm in the business of recycling catalytic converters.
		You know, Russia supplies like 40% of the world's palladium.
		That hasn't been sanctioned.
		That's a big part.
		Russia doesn't just produce gas.
		It produces precious metals like crazy.
		That's one of their biggest productions that they export.
		We don't have sanctions on that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's talk to.
		Oh, sorry.
		Let's talk to Edward in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Democrat.
unidentified		Hi, Edward.
		Good morning, Mamie.
		How are you?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		Listen to the last caller.
		Out of all people that he put in sanction on, he did not touch Russia whatsoever.
		He have never, all his product that he makes come from China.
		Trump is a sellout.
		He never cared about America.
		He don't even pay his taxes.
		So when Trump opened his mouth, he lying to you.
		Remember this.
		Put in Trump is in together.
		That's why he never bring Putin name up because Trump gets a Russian spot to me.
		Have a great day of America.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And looking at X, the White House did post the chart that the president was holding up yesterday in the Rose Garden, and it shows on one side each of the countries, and it shows the reciprocal tariffs, 10% being the baseline, kind of the bottom.
		It says in one, you can't really read it, but if you want to look at it, you can.
		You can zoom in on it.
		It says that tariffs charged to the U.S., including unfair trade practices, and then what the U.S. reciprocal tariffs will be.
		So if you want to look at that, here's some more reaction on X. Congressman Bill Foster says Trump is forcing us into a needless trade war with no clear objective or strategy.
		History has proven time and again, including during Trump's first administration, that these tariffs will raise costs for American consumers and businesses.
		And Congressman William Timmons says President Trump's tariffs are a necessary move to protect American workers and rebuild our economy.
		We're finally breaking free from decades of unfair trade deals that gutted our industries.
		These tariffs will bring jobs back to our districts and strengthen manufacturing.
		And Representative Joe Nagus, who says the Trump tariffs will raise prices for American families and push our closest allies away.
		But this administration, quote, couldn't care less.
		Meanwhile, House Democrats are laser focused on cutting costs and supporting working families.
		And Brian Babbin, Representative, says Trump's tariffs aren't starting a trade war, they're ending one.
		For decades, other countries ripped off American workers with unfair tariffs and barriers.
		Now we're finally fighting back, America first.
		And here's Frank in Grossbeck, Texas, Republican.
unidentified		Yeah, I think Trump's doing an excellent thing.
		Matter of fact, I think he's going too easy on some of these countries.
		They're charging us 100%, been doing it for 30, 40 years, and he's only hitting them with a 50% tariff or 10% tariff.
		I think he needs to hit them more because they've been hitting us for the last 30, 40 years.
		And weak presidents, and that includes Republicans, Republicans, young George Bush, Obama, the daddy Bush, all of Clinton, the whole bunch.
		They've been too good.
		Obama talked about, he knew how unfair trades we were in.
jim marrs ▲ ● ▼		And he talked about it quite a bit, you know, about doing something about it, but he never did follow through for it.
unidentified		You finally got all the Democrats want to do, just like that man called in a while ago, is talk about race and hate.
		That's all we want to talk about.
		Race and hate and burning cars and doing bad times.
		And they want to keep doing the same dumb things.
rep jim guest ▲ ● ▼		It's got us $36 trillion in debt.
unidentified		And you keep going, you're going to lose the solvency of this country, and then you're going to really see problems.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Frank.
		And this is Aaron in South Hill, Virginia.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Obama talks.
unidentified		Hello, I'm Aaron from South Hill, Virginia.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go ahead, Aaron.
unidentified		Our country is really in a turmoil.
		You know, I don't know if people ever remember about powdered eggs and government cheese and all that.
		The way Trump is leading us right now, people got to get ready to take the hit because the rich is going to do what they're going to do.
		And the middle class and the poor people in America is getting ready to suffer something that was like back in the 60s when people stood online for food, for government cheese, powdered eggs, no-filled bread.
		A lot of people don't understand that.
		They don't know nothing about that.
		They may not be.
		I'm 69 years old.
		And as a child, I remember coming through hard times.
		So people need to prepare for what's going on.
		Now, if you listen to Trump, when he speaks, he'll say Russia and Ukraine.
		Why would you put an enemy ahead of a, not that Crane is an ally, but they're not an enemy of ours.
		Canada and New Mexico, they've been allies and they allies us and they've been great for trade and everything else.
		Trump is affecting all of that.
		So why would you go against our allies?
		We're going to need them if we was ever to be attacked.
		They always said America would never be destroyed from outside.
		It'd be destroyed from within.
		And our president is giving an open door to Russia, to China, to take over America in a real calm way without a bullet being fired or anything.
		Our country is in despair right now.
		And it's only the poor that's going to suffer.
		The middle class is going to suffer.
		The rich is just going to continue.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Aaron.
		Let's talk to Ron in Maryland Independent Line.
		Go ahead, Ron.
unidentified		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		So, you know, I was looking at that chart last night.
		If you notice, the majority of your BRIC nations, I think, were taxed at about 10%.
		So it's not just Russia, but it's also the countries that, of course, Russia supports or whatnot.
		So just take a look at that again.
		But yeah, this is just bad timing.
		When you add on the inflation to the tariffs, to those who are losing their jobs, and it's not just government workers, but as everyone knows, that definitely creates a domino effect.
		This is not good for the majority of the country.
		And I want to just go to, you had a caller on.
		His name was Ron.
		Same name as me, but we have nothing in common.
		Let's unpack that because what he was saying as far as with blacks really, I think, points or paints a really good picture of the state of this country and why it doesn't look good.
		The evilness of a certain group of white males, and we're seeing it right now, who want control, 100% control of everything.
		And they're angry.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So we're getting off the subject, so I'm going to stop you there and go to Clifford in Norfolk, Virginia.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning, Clifford.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I think about when Trump was in office the first time around and he signed that trade agreement.
		And I remember him saying that's the greatest trade deal ever that America ever agreed to.
		Whatever happened with that trade agreement that he did the first time in office, and now he wants to come back and say that that's the worst thing that ever could have happened.
		So he was part of what was happening when he was in office the first time.
		Now, only thing I see what Trump is doing is trying to destroy our government.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And the previous caller talked about BRICS countries.
		Taking a look here, Brazil at 10%.
		Russia, of course, is not on the list.
		India here is at 26%.
		China at 34%.
		South Africa is right here at 30%.
		So those are the new reciprocal tariffs that the President announced yesterday.
		And here is Jay in West Palm Beach, Florida, Independent.
unidentified		Hi, thank you for taking my call.
		I was just disturbed when this morning when one guy called about, talked about Obama, you immediately cut him off.
		But then people are talking bad about Trump every day, and you let them go on and on.
		I just think.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, Jay.
		That wasn't what happened.
		This was not a criticism of Obama.
		This was an inappropriate remark about African Americans.
		Did you have something about tariffs?
unidentified		I just want to show you accountability.
unidentified		Can you give us that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Barbara in Wilbram, Massachusetts, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Barbara.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm calling to talk about how I think that the idea of reciprocal tariffs seems illogical based on what I read this morning.
		Representatives from the Brazilian government and the Spanish government have come out and said that it doesn't make sense that in terms of Brazil, the U.S. has a trade surplus with Brazil.
		So they don't understand why they're getting additional tariffs.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We'll look that up.
		Thanks, Barbara, for bringing that up.
		And let's take a look at the President from yesterday talking about the 25% tariffs on all foreign-made cars coming into the United States.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Let me offer just a few examples of the vicious attacks our workers have faced for so many years.
		The United States charges other countries only a 2.4 tariff on motorcycles.
		Meanwhile, Thailand and others are charging much higher prices, like 60%.
		India charges 70%.
		Vietnam charges 75%, and others are even higher than that.
		Likewise, until today, the United States has for decades charged a 2.5 tariff.
		Think of that, 2.5% on foreign-made automobiles.
		The European Union charges us more than 10% tariffs, and they have 20% VATs, much, much higher.
		India charges 70%, and perhaps worst of all are the non-monetary restrictions imposed by South Korea, Japan, and very many other nations as a result of these colossal trade barriers.
		81% of the cars in South Korea are made in South Korea.
		94% of the cars in Japan are made in Japan.
		Toyota sells 1 million foreign-made automobiles into the United States, and General Motors sells almost none.
		Ford sells very little.
		None of our companies are allowed to go into other countries.
		And I say that, friend and foe.
		And in many cases, the friend is worse than the foe in terms of trade.
		But such horrendous imbalances have devastated our industrial base and put our national security at risk.
		I don't blame these other countries at all for this calamity.
		I blame former presidents and past leaders who weren't doing their job.
		They let it happen, and they let it happen to an extent that nobody can even believe.
		That's why, effective at midnight, we will impose a 25% tariff on all foreign-made automobiles.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is the Detroit Free Press is announcing or has this article.
		It says, Ford launches new ad campaign as tariffs kick in, offering steep discounts on its vehicles.
		It says that as part of the campaign, Ford will offer employee pricing on most of its vehicles through June 2nd.
		And Ford is extending its program that offers a free home charger installation on the purchase of an EV until June 30th.
		Ford said it has high inventory and is in a strong competitive position to bring in new customers ahead of the tariff impact.
		Here's Patricia in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
		Republican, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		People are in such opposition of Trump's persona that they cannot see beyond demand.
		They cannot see what he's doing is great for our country.
		I buy online on Timu, which is a Chinese website.
		If you see the prices on that website, they are so cheap that even if they impose a 100% tariff on those goods, they still be cheaper than buying them at a store in the U.S.
		It is crazy.
		People are just suffering from Trump derangement syndrome.
		They need to stop looking at Trump as the person, forget that he's the president, maybe look at him as being Obama as president and doing all these things, and people would think that it would be great.
		But just because it's Trump, people are against him.
		And that's my thought.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Matt in New York, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Matt.
unidentified		Okay, I'm the terrorist.
unidentified		Sorry, I'm just coming down from the stairs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You okay, Matt?
		Maybe you can call us back when you're ready.
		Phil in Westbury, New York, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		How are you?
		You know, there's a lot of things that the U.S. citizens don't realize when it comes to tariffs.
		I called them before and I talked about what Canada's been doing with our dairy products for years, right?
		And nobody has no idea about that.
		And what they're talking about with Canada and Mexico, one of your callers called in and said, Trump said the USMCA was the greatest deal he ever made.
		Okay, prior to that, the Teamsters at a Teamsters convention, I think it was in 2011, I intended, right?
		They wanted NAFTA reformed.
		The AFLCO wanted NAFTA reformed.
		And Trump did that.
		What happened after that was that other countries and our own corporations here, John Deere, wanted to move a plant to Mexico so they can get the benefit of subsidies for their vehicles, but get the cheap labor at the same time.
		So, other countries and some of our own companies are using it as a pass-through to get over on us.
		Okay, and what's going on now is by jobs coming back here in manufacturing, it's going to take a long time, right?
		I think they just said some companies moving back to North Carolina that builds furniture.
		I'm sure those people in North Carolina are going to be very happy getting some of those jobs back.
		And on top of it, one of your other callers called in about BRICS, okay?
		No disrespect, but you forgot them in Indonesia and a few other countries that joined Iran, even though we don't trade with them, right?
		But here's the deal: BRICS has a goal.
		They want the de-dollarization, and they got a long-term plan, okay?
		And they want us to destroy ourselves financially so they can become the dominant currency.
		They want to create their own curves, right?
		So they can get around sanctions and human rights violations.
		And back to Canada, just for one thing.
		I was outside the UN protesting when Trudeau was taking freezing people's bank accounts that were supporting the truckers that worked by themselves in their trucks for not getting a vaccine.
		Trudeau stormed them with horses and ran his own people over.
		Nobody was concerned about Canada then, right, when they violated their individual rights.
		Okay, so there's a lot of things going on that the U.S. citizens don't know.
		Does that take for any questions?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Phil, yeah, I do want to show a clip of Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, Democrat, announcing his resolution to challenge specifically the tariffs on Canada.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here he is.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		And here we are.
		It's an unusual procedure.
		There are not many things where even one senator can file a motion that will be guaranteed a floor vote.
		But the crafters of this legislation, the International Emergencies Act, believed that while a president might need to declare an emergency, that should not go unchallenged if members of Congress felt like, hold on a second, let's get this right.
		No one is denying that there's a fentanyl challenge in the United States, a huge challenge.
		We've all seen it in all of our states, in all of our states.
		And that is why this is not an action to undo the Mexico tariffs or undo the China tariffs.
		You might argue about whether the emergency is one where tariffs is the right answer, but clearly the fentanyl trade is being heavily driven through Mexico or precursor chemicals from China.
		But Canadian tariffs are not the answer to the solution because the fentanyl problem is not primarily a Canadian problem.
		There's an article that's out in the Globe and Mail today that digs into the disparities.
		21,000 pounds of fentanyl seized from Mexico coming across the border last year.
		And there's a claim that there's 43 pounds seized from Canada.
		But the article that's just come out from the Globe and Mail suggests it's actually a good bit less even than 43 pounds.
		Is there work that we should and need to do together on fentanyl?
		Of course, Chuck led us to pass the HALT fentanyl bill in the Senate just two weeks ago, and there's more we can do.
		But this is not about fentanyl.
		It's about tariffs.
		It's about a national sales tax on American families.
		Trump's economic advisor, Peter Navarro, said that the total of these tariffs will be $6 trillion of taxes paid by American consumers, more than $600 billion a year.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's Senator Tim Kaine, and this is a reaction by Senator Maisie Hirono on X, Democrat, who says, Liberation Day, what a joke.
		The only thing Trump's tariffs will liberate is the hard-earned money from your wallet.
		From supply chain disruptions to the costs of everyday goods, it's working Americans who will literally pay the price of Trump's national sales tax.
		And Representative Steve Scalese, Republican, the United States, and American workers will no longer be ripped off by other countries with unfair trade practices.
		Thank you, President Trump, for putting America's workers and innovators first with reciprocal tariffs that level the playing field and make trade fair.
		And this is Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat with President Trump's tariffs.
		American families will see higher prices on groceries, cars, gas, and American jobs will suffer.
		Instead of lowering the cost of living, President Trump is raising it.
		And here is Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.
		President Trump is sending a clear message with Liberation Day.
		America will not be exploited by unfair trade practices anymore.
		These tariffs restore fair and reciprocal trade and level the playing field for American workers and innovators.
		The president understands that.
		And we will stop at this point on this and go to a break, but we'll continue the conversation about the president's tariffs announcement and what it could mean for consumers with Axios Economics Reporter Courtney Brown.
		Later in the program, Heritage Foundation senior fellow Mike Gonzalez discusses the Trump administration's ongoing efforts to dismantle DEI programs within the federal government.
		We'll be right back.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are continuing our conversation about tariffs with Courtney Brown.
		She's senior economics reporter for Axios.
		Ms. Courtney, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Thank you for having me this morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So about the tariffs that were announced yesterday, was there anything surprising to you?
unidentified		I think we had all been bracing for a 20% top-line number, and we got half of that, 10%.
		So I think the initial announcement, maybe you exhaled a little bit, you're like, woo.
		And then you look at the details and you look at the reciprocal tariffs and you see how high they are.
		And then you realize, oh, this really is President Trump doing the maximalist approach here.
		I'll take China, for instance.
		With the tariffs that he already imposed and the reciprocal rate, tariffs on China are upwards of 50%.
		Tariffs on Chinese imports are upwards of 50%.
		I spoke to a former trade official who is now at a think tank, and he calculated what happens if you incorporate all of the tariffs that have been put on China since President Trump's first term.
		The average tariff rate on Chinese imports is upwards of 70%.
		So these are huge tariffs, especially if you put them in the context of previous announcements that President Trump has made.
		They're massive.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So how do Trump's, how do tariffs actually work?
		In other words, if there's a good coming into the United States, who pays?
		Who do they pay?
		Where does that money go?
unidentified		How does that work?
		So the biggest thing that surprised me about this process is that it's self-reported.
		So the company importing the good has to self-report that they owe XYZ tariff and that they're going to pay XYZ tariff.
		And, you know, President Trump likes to say that tariffs are paid for by foreign countries.
		That's not true.
		It's the importer.
		What happens from there on out is obviously different on a case-by-case basis.
		But because these tariffs that we're seeing today are so large, there are a lot of economists that expect a large share of them, if not all, to be passed through to the U.S. consumer.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And if we were to look very closely at the chart here, and I'm getting this off of X.
		So the one side, it says tariffs charged to the USA, including currency regulation and trade barriers.
		Do you have an understanding of how that number was calculated and what's the data that went into that?
unidentified		I never thought math would be such a hot topic.
		And the hot topic on X on social media among economists this morning is how the White House is calculating these rates.
		It is, as you say, a calculation that the White House says they've kind of added up the tariffs that are charged on U.S. goods and then somehow calculated all of the other like non-tariff barriers, currency manipulation and things of the like.
		But this is heavily based on trade deficits and the value of exports.
		And I think it is as simple as that.
		The White House sees trade deficits as a bad thing.
		And if there is a trade deficit with the country, the White House sees that as a problem that needs to be solved.
		That's a little bit tricky, right?
		Because a trade deficit is not necessarily a country's fault.
		The fact that we send them less than they send us, that's not their fault.
		I mean, we play a role in that too.
		So it's a little bit interesting to see.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But are we sending less to them because of trade barriers?
		Because it's unfair?
		How does that work?
unidentified		I think that is definitely a factor here that the White House is trying to address.
unidentified		The White House sees a number of nations that are punishing, if you will, U.S. exporters by putting certain things in place that may not be a tariff, but are other mechanisms that make it more difficult for their markets to be opened to U.S. exporters.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you'd like to join our conversation with Courtney Brown of Axios, you can do so.
		We're talking about tariffs.
		The numbers are Republicans 202, 748, 8001.
		Democrats 2027488000.
		And Independents 202748-8002.
		You wrote an article, Courtney, for Axios with the headline Trump's Day of Clarity, but without the clarity.
		And it says Trade Policy Uncertainty Index.
		And you can see here visually it goes way up just recently.
		Can you explain what that means and how you got this graph?
unidentified		I love this chart.
		It's a little terrifying.
		It's not the kind of chart you usually want to see given the sharp point upwards at the end there.
		But basically, we talk about uncertainty all the time.
		It's kind of an amorphous idea.
		There are a group of economists at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere actually that have tried to quantify what uncertainty means.
		And what those economists did was kind of look at the number of news articles that mentioned trade uncertainty over time, going back to the 1960s or 80s, I believe I can't quite remember.
		And when that line is going up, it's basically an indication that there are more news stories talking about trade policy uncertainty.
		And they see that as a reflection of the uncertainty that's being felt throughout the economy.
		So obviously it is higher than at any point on the timeline that they're looking at, including COVID.
		So more uncertainty now, according to this measure, than at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And the announcement was after the markets closed yesterday.
		As of right now, the markets have not opened yet.
		Do we know any reaction as far as business owners, this markets, anything like that, reaction to the tariff announcement?
unidentified		Something that was interesting yesterday was there was an earnings call underway.
		Restoration hardware, which sells furniture and consumer goods, there was an earnings call underway as the announcement, as Trump was making the announcement.
		And the CEO dropped a few curse words on the earnings call as you heard the tariffs coming out, which I thought was indicative of maybe how retailer CEOs, maybe they're not using such colorful language, but indicative of how they're feeling.
		Obviously, the markets are in early trading, selling off right now.
		The dollar is weaker, which is not usually what you might expect with an announcement of this kind.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why would that be?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why would the dollar become weaker?
unidentified		I think there are concerns about, and there have been concerns about growth and what this announcement might do as far as interest rates.
		Obviously, this for other nations, obviously our currency weakening means another currency is strengthening, right?
		So I think other countries don't necessarily want to see their currency strengthening right now.
		It makes the hit of the tariff even harder, if you will.
		So it's a little bit of a confusing move that, by the way, has been underway for several weeks, I believe.
		So yeah, definitely a surprise in the financial markets this morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to callers, and we'll start with Lewis in Stonyford, California.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning, Lewis.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		I'd just like to say first of all that I appreciate you taking my call.
		And, you know, missing it in my opinion.
		But speaking on tariffs, I just see tariffs right now as being very like the fog of war, so to speak.
		A lot of people have their ideas or opinions about how tariffs are going to affect the consumer, the American consumer, and the world abroad and so forth.
		And all I see is a lot of opinions.
		And basically, the majority are for, because again, they are suffering from the fog of war.
		They predict, oh, it's just doom and gloom.
		But let's say in retrospect to Trump's first presidential term back in 2017 and 2016, the point here that I'm trying to say is that I'm wanting to say that maybe like, you know, we need to just possibly, you know, let things go as they are going to go.
		I mean, he was elected.
		I mean, that is the hard fact.
		And, you know, he's only going to last in there four years.
		And, you know, and let's just put our hope in this presidency and see what he can do for us.
		And let's just, you know, him being more of the economist, you know, economical aspect person that's, you know, leading the country right now.
		I mean, he is, you know, more geared into knowing what he's planning on doing.
		So I was trying to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, what you're trying to say is let's give it some time and see if it works.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is that right, Lewis?
unidentified		Basically, because we have to break a few eggs to make anomaly, right?
		So, I mean, it's going to look a little, you know, crazy and stuff like this, but I mean, he really is putting us on an equal footing in the rest of the world.
		And it's like he said, we're not over here trying to be exorbitant and be this hard tax master and just rule everybody who's going to pay these exorbitant amounts of tariffs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Lewis.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's get a response.
unidentified		This is exactly the message that the White House is trying to send right now.
		In fact, President Trump himself has acknowledged an adjustment period, potential pain, and trying to send this message that the other side will be better for the country in the long term.
		Your caller is right.
		We don't know what's going to happen.
		There is a lot of doom and gloom.
		There is a lot of fear.
		And I think that's natural.
		We are in uncharted territory.
		We do not know how the global economy will respond if, in fact, these tariffs do go forward.
		And, you know, to your caller's point, economists have been really wrong lately, really wrong.
		They have predicted recessions that haven't come to pass.
		They have really had a doomy outlook, a doom and gloomy outlook, and the U.S. economy has proved them wrong every time.
		I think what's different here is that we are just coming off of a huge inflation shock.
		And companies have gotten much more used to passing that cost along to the consumer than they did in Trump's first term.
		In Trump's first term, the Fed was trying to generate inflation.
		We didn't have enough inflation at this point.
		They're in a very different situation now.
		And I think the risk is that there are higher prices and there is weakening demand.
		And that's a nasty combination.
		That is the stagflationary scenario that no policymaker wants to deal with.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So when will we know if this has worked, if it's achieved the objectives that the president has laid out?
unidentified		Many, many years.
		So, one thing the caller mentioned is that the president is in office for four years.
		And I think I spoke to a small manufacturer based in South Florida.
		His company makes the, you know, the labels you might see on a FedEx uniform, the corporate labels, the patches.
		And one thing that he said to me that I thought was fascinating was: you cannot run a business on, you know, basically four years or eight years of very different trade policy than the next four to eight years.
		For instance, he said, what if he picks up all of his manufacturing facilities that he has in Mexico and elsewhere and brings them all on shore?
		Doesn't take a week.
		It takes a long time to do that kind of stuff.
		And then the next president comes in and rips up everything that Trump does.
		His words, I would get crushed.
		He would get crushed if free trade opens back up.
		And I think that's a really, really frightening possibility for business owners right now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Jim in Winter Park, Florida, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Jim.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Ms. Brown, I'm confused sometimes when it comes to when we hear, you just said it, free trade.
		And we look at this chart, and if that chart is untrue, I want you to tell us that it's untrue.
		But if it's true, why would we be paying tariffs to China, to Vietnam, to stop at 50%?
		That kills our sales going into their countries.
		And then we have to pay for them to bring stuff over here, which is being made by people that are, you know, Uyghurs in China.
		They're being used like slave labor.
		They're used like people in Vietnam are being used like slave labor.
		And then we end up paying cheaper prices for stuff that here in the country we wouldn't buy because everybody would say, well, it's being processed by slave people.
		We have to come to an agreement that we are either going to be a country that tries to get solvent, because the reason why we've gotten to where we are, $36 trillion in debt, is because we spend so much money around the world trying to help everybody.
		And I saw Mike Johnson yesterday or the day before yesterday talk about the fact that we have started doing tariffs after the Second World War to help reconstruction in Europe.
		And it's 70 years, over 70 years, since we started that.
		And I have been to Europe.
		Europe is a beautiful country.
		Europe doesn't need reconstruction anymore.
		So why do we pay tariffs where we can't sell our products into Europe, but Europe can sell their products into our country at a lower rate of tariffs?
		It doesn't make any sense.
		If you're going to have free trade, it should be reciprocal to free trade.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We got that point.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's get a response.
unidentified		It's so interesting because I was watching the press conference yesterday, the Rose Garden event.
		And what we watched was really the culmination of decades and decades of the way that Trump has felt about trade.
		Even before he was a politician, a president, he had these grapes about how you would never see American cars in Europe.
		And why is that?
		There are so many European cars here.
		Why don't we see American cars in Europe?
		And I think this is really, you know, with the help of the advisors around him, Peter Navarro and Ambassador Greer and Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary.
		I think this is really the idea they have to make things a level playing field.
		I think the big question is what is the trade-off?
		And I think the trade-off might be economic pain until we get to whatever the administration considers the other side.
		There's one other point I want to make, which is just kind of the word on Wall Street and the word among economists this morning, which is just we have a few days until these go into effect.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I was going to ask you, when do they go into effect?
unidentified		Right.
		So the baseline 10% goes into effect on April 5th.
		The reciprocal rates here go into effect on April 9th.
		And in the world of Wall Street, that is an eternity away.
		And I think there is some hopium, some optimism that there will be some negotiations between now and then.
		And do these tariffs, in fact, actually move forward?
		I think there was such disbelief last night at how high some of these reciprocal rates were.
		One economist just flat out did not believe that these were actually going to go into effect.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		There's a belief that this is just a negotiating tactic, that this is almost like a threat to get concessions from these countries.
unidentified		I want to be clear, though, because senior White House officials told reporters, including myself, yesterday, that this is not a negotiation.
		There is kind of this good cop, bad cop dynamic among President Trump's advisors because you hear that kind of rhetoric, but then you hear the Treasury Secretary being a little bit more lenient on this front, saying maybe there will be negotiations.
		But you heard Trump himself say yesterday: the kings, the queens, the prime ministers that are calling up to get these, that are going to call up and get these rates lower, well, they should have been low.
		Your rates should have been lower.
		You should have not had these trade barriers that the White House is saying that these countries have.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So he did say that there would be no exceptions for industries or products, but there will be flexibilities.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What does that mean?
unidentified		What does that mean?
		I don't know.
		No one knows.
		What is the flexibility?
		Does that mean that there will be carve-outs?
		Does that mean that maybe if a company pledges to, I mean, I'm making this up, if a company pledges to build a plant here, maybe they're not subject to such high tariffs.
		We don't know.
		These are the types of questions that traders are asking, economists are asking, business owners are asking right now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to Robert in Vernon Rockville, Connecticut, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just have one question, and I'd like the lady, maybe she can answer it, about boycotts.
		Couldn't the American people boycott certain products that would drive the price down?
		That's my question.
		I'll take it offline.
		Possibly.
		I mean, I know there is a boycott, kind of a grassroots boycott of American products underway in Canada.
		There was an event last week on Friday.
		There were a bunch of mayors and local officials in Washington from around the U.S., from Canada, from Mexico.
		And I had this thought, you know, there must have been some awkwardness because there is a widespread boycott of U.S. liquor in Canada and parts of Canada right now.
		And there were mayors from places that are being hit hard by that.
		I mean, it is amazing how hard of a hit a boycott of that kind can have.
		We've had the CEOs of publicly traded firms that own a lot of these liquor brands come out and say that this is painful for their business.
		This is one of the non-tariff responses that I'm wondering if you see more of across the country.
		Whether it happens here, that's anyone's guess.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Jersey Girl posted this on X.
		She says it shows such amazing savvy that we put tariffs on islands with no inhabitants, but somehow, for some reason, omitted Russia.
		What do you make of that omission?
unidentified		Yep.
		Some of our reporters were writing and thinking about this last night.
		I don't know what to make of it.
		I don't understand, and this goes to the larger question of their methodology here of the reciprocal rates.
		I don't understand why certain countries got hit so hard, why certain countries did not.
		I know it's based on trade imbalances, but I think that there might be other geopolitical questions that were considered here that we don't know about.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is Bruce in LaGrange, Illinois, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning to you.
		Have a wonderful day.
		I was just wondering, and I understand this young lady is a senior economics reporter for Axios, and I just wondered what qualifications and education she had.
		And also, along the line of Russia not being affected by the tariffs, I just wondered if the treatment that China has gotten in the past, which has seemed to be preferential, if it had anything to do with the money that flowed from China into the Biden family.
		And I'd just like to know the answer to that, because I think that probably there's a connection between all the money that Hunter reaped in China and the way we treat China trade-wise.
		So if you could please answer that, I'd appreciate it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Bruce.
unidentified		First one's definitely the easiest question I'll take all day.
		So I am the senior economics reporter at Axios.
		I've been at Axios almost since the company started.
		Our founders are Mike Allen and Jim Van Hai.
		They started Politico.
		Axios is their next venture, and we've been very successful, and it's a wonderful newsroom to work in.
		Before I was at Axios, I was at CNBC.
		I worked on the show that is on right now, Squawkbox, as a producer.
		I went to Columbia University.
		I went to New York University.
		I've been writing and thinking and talking about the topics that we're discussing today for, gosh, years.
		And, you know, I think the question, you didn't ask this, but the question about what qualifies me to talk about tariffs, especially in this moment, is, you know, I know as much as everyone else as far as what the administration is thinking, what the administration is considering when imposing these tariffs.
		But after that, Harvard-level economists don't know what the fallout is going to be.
		It is unprecedented.
		But as far as the economic topics themselves, I would consider myself pretty qualified to talk about that.
		But the fallout is really anyone's guess, and I think that's what's so terrifying for companies.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You asked about China, that China was getting preferential treatment from the Biden administration.
unidentified		I think that the Biden administration, as far as tariffs are concerned, they were not as tough as Trump.
		But remember, they kept all of Trump's tariffs on.
		Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, I traveled with her to China, I think one of her last China trips before Trump became president.
		She was very concerned about the China shock and preventing something like that from happening again.
		And the China shock is obviously when we started to do free trade with China and they opened up their markets and the U.S. manufacturing sector got pummeled, absolutely pummeled.
		And they wanted to do what they could, whether or not they were successful.
		They wanted to do what they could to prevent that from happening again.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Judy in Highland Park, Illinois, Democrat, you're next.
unidentified		Hi, Ms. Brown.
		I wanted to ask you about one specific issue, and that is the Canadian export of potash.
		They are the number one in the world, and they export to 75 different countries, and here they are, our neighbor.
		The problem is that without potash, you don't have fertilizer.
		And if you don't have fertilizer, then all of the small farmers or any farmer really won't have the kind of material they need to grow our food.
		And I'm a big supporter of small farmers.
		And I wanted to know what you think about that kind of tariff on such an essential product and what the impact will be for these small farmers.
		Will they have to go bankrupt?
		And then we have something called doom economics.
		And I would like you to maybe explain that because I've heard about it recently and I had thought about it.
		I thought all these farmers are going to go bankrupt and then these large corporate farms will buy them up.
		Thank you so much.
		So there is an across the board rate of 25% on imports from Canada and Mexico that was put into place because of the administration's concerns about fentanyl coming over the border and immigration.
		Potash, however, got a lower rate, if I'm not mistaken.
		I think it's 10%.
		But your question about agricultural, the agricultural sector and farmers is a good one.
		I think the administration is aware of the potential effects of how these actions might affect farmers.
		You can look back to President Trump's first term.
		There was a lot of support for farmers.
		I know there was a lot of pain that they felt from the drop-off in soybean purchases from China and other nations.
		So I think that if there is in fact a hard hit to farmers, and I think many economists think there will be, I wonder if we can look and see if there will be some sort of aid for the farm sector again.
		There was a really interesting briefing put out by the lobbying group that represents a lot of the footwear industry in the U.S.
		And they basically went back to the 19th century and looked at every single high tariff event.
		And one of the commonalities through those events was the agriculture sector taking a hit every single time.
		Now, what happened then doesn't necessarily mean it will happen now, but I mean, history is hard to ignore.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Courtney, finally, what are you going to be watching?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is there a particular metric or indicator that you're going to be looking at specifically?
unidentified		You know, before it was tariff week, it was jobs week.
		And, you know, they set the jobs report well ahead in advance.
		So we get a jobs report tomorrow.
		And, you know, policy in Trump 2.0 is moving so quickly.
		You can't fault the administration for not doing these things that they said they will on the trade front because they are and they're moving very fast.
		So the data we get on Friday as far as payrolls are concerned, it's going to be a little bit dated.
		It obviously won't take into consideration any business fallout from these tariffs that have yet to be implemented.
		But I think we need to keep a close watch on the so-called hard data, things like the jobs report, things like the consumer price index, and then another inflation gauge that the Fed watches most closely.
		We've seen a lot of scary things in the soft data, the surveys of manufacturers saying that demand is plummeting, prices are soaring.
		We need to see if those anecdotes are feeding through to a more national aggregate indicator.
		And so I think while these hard data indicators are a little dated, they're important to see how the pain that we're talking about in these anecdotes is or is not filtering through.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Courtney Brown, Senior Economics Reporter for Axios.
		Her articles are at axios.com.
		Thanks so much for coming in today.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		After the break, an update on Trump administration efforts to roll back DEI programs with Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Mike Gonzalez.
		And later, Connecticut Democrat John Larson, a top member of the Ways and Means Committee, weighs in on the president's tariffs announcement yesterday.
		We'll be right back.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We're joined now by Mike Gonzalez, Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
		We're talking about the Trump administration's efforts on DEI programs.
		Mike, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Amy, it's a pleasure to be on with you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, in the first few weeks of office, President Trump has really focused on educational and cultural institutions.
		We'll talk cultural first.
		So, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, the zoo.
		Why do you think there's such a focus on those institutions?
unidentified		In his first day in office, the first thing he did, that first executive order that he issued, had a DEI component, an anti-DEI component.
		And then the second one did as well.
		The second day, he had another executive order on DEI.
		The President has been very focused on battling DEI, and for very good reasons.
		I should say right off the top that there's nothing wrong, and in fact, I embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion.
		If these words meant what they're supposed to mean, they have been changed in the woke vernacular into almost the opposite.
		Equity sounds the same as equality, but it's the opposite of equality.
		It says the government and the private sector must treat Americans differently because of their race.
		Inclusion means that you cannot wear a Jesus t-shirt to a museum or a mall, etc.
		So there are very good reasons why we should battle DEI, and the President has focused on that from the very start.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So you don't have a problem with equity meaning men and women having equal chance at a job as far as the disabled having access.
unidentified		No, no, no, no.
		I mean, no, of course not.
		It's inclusion meaning language codes that I'm against.
		It's when kids wear a hat that is pro-life to the Smithsonian and the guards at the Smithsonian say, no, that is not an inclusive hat.
		You have to leave.
		has happened.
		That is an example.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's policy at the Smithsonian?
unidentified		No, no, I think they apologized afterward, but it's an example of how, I think, I'm not sure, I think, but I'm not saying that's policy, but that's an example of how inclusion is used and has been used in universities, places of work, et cetera, and in the federal government to mean that if you use certain words that are deemed non-inclusive, you're going to be canceled, banned, or you can't use them, et cetera.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So let's talk about the cultural institutions.
		Tell me about what the issues are with the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, the National Zoo.
		What needs to change there, in your opinion?
unidentified		Well, the Smithsonian is, as you know, the largest complex.
		It's over 20 museums, research centers.
		I think if you count them all, it's like over 40, the National Zoo.
		It's under Secretary Lonnie Bunch.
		It has become very, very woke.
		It had a portal, which now, when you go to it, it sent you somewhere else, but had a portal called Talking About Race.
		And it had these eight foundational principles, which included things like whiteness as an ideology, a system, it discussed systems of oppression, these eight principles, these eight principal subjects.
		It discussed systems of white supremacy, things that, you know, this idea of whiteness as an ideology was started by a Marxist called Noel Ignatiev.
		These are very culturally Marxist principles.
		So I'm afraid that under Lonnie Bunch and under the curators who prepare the exhibits at the Smithsonian, they used this national treasure as an instrument to what they themselves call decolonizing America.
		That is very troublesome, and I can give you other examples.
		You know, how Secretary Bunch said that one of the missions of the Smithsonian was to legitimize the 1619 project.
		I don't know if you recall the 1619 project by the New York Times, riddled with inaccuracies, you know, libeled the United States, said our starting point was not the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but when I think 19 Angolans arrived in Jamestown aboard a Portuguese ship in 1619, that was supposed to be the start of our country, excuse me.
		So historians have pointed out all the inaccuracies of this.
		Well, Ronnie Bunch said we want the Smithsonian to be associated with the 1619 project and we want to legitimize it.
		That's just one example, Mimi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So first you said woke.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you could just define what you believe woke means.
unidentified		It's not what I believe, it's the definition of woke, and I'll give it to you.
		It's a term taken from African-American slang.
		It's supposed to mean being awake and being very, very alive to how marginalized people, so-called, have been oppressed in this country, how everything should be looked at through the lens of oppressors versus the oppressed.
		All of the human experience has to be looked at through this lens.
		That's, again, I hate to say it, but it's the truth.
		Again, from the front, the first page of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx in 1848.
		That is what woke means: being awake to these so-called injustices that are perpetrated on a daily basis in the United States.
		I was born in this country.
		I have been a foreign correspondent for many years.
		I always used to be a glove-trotting correspondent.
		That was described as such in a recent article.
		I have lived at least a year in seven countries.
		I traveled with the Mujahideen.
		This is by no means an oppressive society.
		There is no systemic racism.
		There are racists, ugly racists that exist in the United States, just like they exist in France and Peru, where I was recently, or China.
		But the idea of systemic racism implies that we need a systemic overhaul.
		That is what woke means.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's just remind people if they'd like to ask a question, make a comment for our guest, Mike Gonzalez of Heritage Foundation.
		You can do so.
		Our lines are Republicans: 202748-8001.
		Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
		And Independents can call us on 202-748-8002.
		You mentioned Lonnie Bunch, the head of the Smithsonian.
		I'll just show here what he has said.
		He says, We remain steadfast in our mission to bring history, science, education, research, and the arts to all Americans.
		We will continue to showcase world-class exhibits, collections, and objects rooted in expertise and accuracy.
		We will continue to employ our internal review processes, which keep us accountable to the public.
		When we err, we adjust, pivot, and learn as needed.
		As always, our work will be shaped by the best scholarship, free of partisanship, to help the American public better understand our nation's history, challenges, and triumphs.
unidentified		Well, he will be pivoting soon because President Trump just this week issued an executive order ordering his vice president, JD Vance, who is on the board of the board of directors at the Smithsonian, to make sure that the Smithsonian has no exhibit that portrays America as something that it is not, that smears our history, which is bad things happened in our history,
		awful things, tragic things, slavery, Jim Crow.
		Everybody should be aware of that.
		Nobody's talking about not discussing that.
		But America has also a glorious history.
		Hundreds of millions, no, tens of millions of immigrants have come here since the 1840s for a reason.
		This is a great beacon of hope.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		For sure, but how should that part of history, the slavery, the Jim Crow that you just said, how should that be?
unidentified		It should be discussed openly.
		This is what happened.
		This is what happened, how it happened.
		You know, we had centuries of slavery.
		Just like every other country, slavery is mentioned in the Bible.
		We had a senator, Tim Kaine of Virginia, saying that we invented slavery.
		No, we did not.
		But we practiced slavery, and as did Brazil, my native island of Cuba, everywhere in the Caribbean, every country in the world has practiced it.
		But we have to be open with that.
		We have to be open with Jim Crow.
		We have to be open with the lynchings.
		We have to describe these things as they happened.
		They're part of our history.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Mike, I just want to show you this headline from the AP that says, Critics see Trump's attacks on the black Smithsonian, this is the Museum of African American History, as an effort to sanitize racism in U.S. history.
unidentified		Yeah, and I don't think that's what he's trying to do.
		I think what he's trying to do is just take back the ground, claw back the ground that has been lost to the cultural left over the last decade, if not decades, in which statues have been toppled, in which our founding fathers have been described not by the great things they did, but by their failings, that our history has been smeared.
		And I think there's an effort that Trump is, by the way, a symptom.
		The country began to go in that direction in 2021.
		I traveled to like 30 cities in 2021, an equal number of cities in 2022.
		People across the country were in an uprising against this woke ideology that began to be implemented in 2020.
		And they elected Trump for that reason.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You ready to talk to callers?
unidentified		Yes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's start with Miyoshi in Beverly Hills, California, Independent.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi.
		Thank you so very much for taking my call.
		A couple days ago, CNN, I'm sorry, C-SPAN posted saying fashion.
		What do you think about DI?
		And I didn't get a chance to call in, but there was a lot of comments that it's reverse racism.
		But I wanted to point out who pointed that phrase and where we first heard it.
		It was the southern slave owners.
		They did not want free blacks to have 40 acres in a mule, but at the same time, they took $300 for each slave that was set free.
		It's been over 150 years since slavery supposedly ended.
		There's all of this discussion about let the best person be hired for the job.
		So my question is: when is that going to occur?
		Because historically, you guys have been an epic failure.
		It appears to be that it's purely selfishness.
		There is no sharing.
		It appears to be as long as a certain group retains its entitlement and its privilege, everybody else just takes a back seat.
		And then one more quick question.
		For the president to be the like the czar of what should be equitable and use and blackmail to force universities and museums to roll back their DEI initiatives or whatever.
		Why doesn't he set the example by hiring in his own cabinet qualified experienced people?
		Because that is not what we see.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Well, Miyoshi, thank you very much.
		In fact, I'm going to use what you just said as a talking point.
		I did not know that the provenance of reverse racism, it is an awful phrase, I never use it.
		Racism is racism.
		There is no reverse racism.
		Racism against anybody, against anyone, should be abhorrent to us and it's illegal.
		As to the second question, how do we ensure that we have a level playing field?
		Well, you enforce the laws that we have.
		We have very strong civil rights laws.
		You have to enforce them.
		We have to pursue people who violate them.
		As to the question that you said, why should the president be the czar of what is equitable or not, he shouldn't be.
		The men and women who wrote the 14th Amendment or who wrote Title VI or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, they're the ones who described what is equitable or not, and they were very clear in saying that race cannot be used in any decision that determines whether somebody is hired or promoted, et cetera.
		And anyone who does that, either in a place of employment or in a place of education, is violating the Civil Rights Act, and that anybody who uses race in the law is violating the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause.
		So, no, the president is just executing what the Congress has already passed.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		President Trump on Truth Social from February 7th posted that he would be ushering in, quote, our vision for a golden age in arts and culture.
		What do you want to see as how would you define that golden age?
		What do you think we're going to be seeing in the arts and culture in this country?
unidentified		Well, I don't know.
		I haven't read as much into that.
		I can tell you what past golden ages have been.
		The Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s was a golden age in which you had an explosion of writing, you had an explosion of jazz, you had an explosion of art that happened, that it took place that was centered in Harlem.
		In many cases, people who were the children of former slaves who had had this creative outburst, that was a golden age.
		We had a golden age of Hollywood.
		We had great Westerns, especially the first Westerns that we had that were informed by people who had been real cowboys in the West.
		Tom Mix became somebody who worked in Hollywood.
		So I think that I see that, for example, the Tom Ford films as a golden age.
		We've had many golden ages, but the 1920s come to mind the rising consumerism, the rise of the American art form.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And I'll just show the truth post that I was mentioning from President Trump.
		It says, at my direction, we're going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. great again.
		I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the chairman, who do not share our vision for a golden age in arts and culture.
		We will soon announce a new board with an amazing chairman, Donald J. Trump.
		I wonder, Mike, if you think that going forward, all presidents of the United States should chair the Kennedy Center.
unidentified		I really have no thoughts on the matter.
		I mean, I want to see what's going to happen.
		I like good art.
		I like the opera.
		I haven't been to the Kennedy Center that much lately.
		I don't like the building, by the way.
		I call it the Kim Jong-un Palace of Peace.
		You know, it looks like something that belongs in North Korea to me.
		But I like going there.
		I like the performances.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to Nelson in Hollywood, Florida, Republican line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Nelson.
unidentified		Good morning, Mr. Gonzalez.
		My family is also from Cuba.
		My wife came here as a refugee in 1970.
		And everything you are saying about the United States is pretty much on target.
		And what you're saying about DEI is also correct.
		The DEI movement is established basically to try to make Americans feel guilty about those parts of American history that we're not proud of.
		But we should be proud of America overall.
		So I would like to thank you for coming on the air and expressing a little bit of the truth for a change rather than having someone come on and continue to bash the United States of America.
		I went to college under the GI Bill.
		I'm a combat wounded Vietnam veteran starting in 1970.
		And while I was in college, there was a lot of negative talk about white people, especially white men in this country.
		It seemed like they were being blamed for just about every problem that existed at that time.
		And that has continued to this day, much to the chagrin of myself and much to the chagrin of anybody who loves this country.
		And I'd like to hear any further comments that you may have.
		All right, Nelson.
		Well, thanks a lot, Nelson.
		And it may sound like a cliche, but from the bottom of my heart, thank you for your service, for keeping my family free.
		I really appreciate it, and I appreciate your comments.
		Look, and by the way, I think C-SPAN does a very good job.
		Maybe does a very fair job.
		And I think, see, I'm a big critic of NPR.
		I just testified an NFPBS, I just testified last week at a hearing about why I think this should be defunded.
		C-SPAN has done a stellar job since the beginning to try to keep as much as it shows that you can have a television network that can try to be objective.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And not take government funding.
unidentified		Yeah, okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's important.
unidentified		It's very important.
unidentified		Yeah, right, created by cable, right?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Funded by the cable and by your donations.
		Russell in Yamasee, South Carolina, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yes, I would love to start my comments by mentioning that even the Supreme Court nominations committee recognizes that what you have experienced in your history has a lot to do with what educational needs that you may require in order to be competitive in our current society.
		My father was subjected to vagrancy laws in Brunswick, Georgia, which actually made him drop out of school in third grade so he can work to feed his brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles.
		And my point is, you have to look at history.
		If you look at the, there was a gentleman from South Africa named Tom Forster.
		And the only reason he's relevant is because Tom Forster is from South Africa.
		And he mentioned that Christian nationalism, Nazism, and Christian nationalism and Nazism in Germany and fascism in the West are all the same thing.
		Now, Elon Musk grew up under that system.
		And what they're actually, the attack on the black African American Museum in Washington is what you're actually talking about because the gentleman you mentioned, he managed that program.
		He's not over the entire Smithsonian.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're talking about Lonnie Bunch.
		Yes, originally that is true.
		No, he is over.
unidentified		He built that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		He's leading the Smithsonian now.
		But yes, initially, he was responsible for the African American Museum.
		Yes.
		So let's get a response.
		Yeah.
		Well, anything?
unidentified		Okay.
		Go ahead.
		I mean, I do agree with the caller that your personal history has a huge impact on your outcomes.
		And I think we need to look at that for all American individuals as much as we can.
		We need to make sure that we have as many children as possible raised in a traditional family that shows the social sciences are rife with data that show that that is actually the channel to success of better outcomes.
		And that is completely, all sides agree with us, whether it is the Heritage Foundation or Brookings.
		As to the Smithsonian, you know, I'm an even bigger critic of the Latino Museum.
		The Smithsonian's Latino Museum, which hasn't been built yet, but was approved mistakenly by Congress in the monstrosity that was the omnibus bill of December 2020, which was $1.4 trillion, and they snuck that in, should be dissolved, should never be built.
		Why?
		Because what it's going to do is try to instill grievances among the people that are called by the census Hispanic Americans, which is a very large group.
		If you want to gather people like that, it's about 20% of the population.
		So I'm an even bigger critic of the National Museum of the American Hispanic, called colloquially the Latino Museum.
		This is a wonderful opportunity with this new executive order to make sure it never gets built, it gets defunded, and we rescind its creation.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Clyde in Arvern, New York, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		The Heritage Foundation, you know, they're students of Atwater.
		And Atwater had, you know, devised, which I don't know if a lot of people don't know who Atwater is.
		But he was a monster back in the political ages.
		And this guy, he's a student of it.
		You know, he's using words like DEI, CRT, all it.
		He doesn't even know what woke means.
		And they use these words like that because they're trigger words.
		They're racial trigger words.
		They're dog whistles.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Clyde, how would you define woke?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I asked him how he defines, I asked our guest, how would you define it?
unidentified		Every black person knows what woke means.
		Woke means to be aware.
		Nothing more, nothing less.
		And that means, keep your head on, again, in our colloquial, it means keep your head on a swivel.
		Watch everything and watch everybody.
		And they co-opted that colloquial terms, and they're using it as a weapon.
		And that's what this guy's doing.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And you mentioned, you meant, Clyde, you mentioned CRT, critical race theory.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How would you define that?
unidentified		That's how this guy, James, first started with this thing, especially right after the George Floyd, what you want to call it.
		CRT is not even being taught in public schools, junior highs, or nothing like that.
		It's a theoretical course that's being taught in like in law school and stuff like that.
		And they took this guy, James, he co-opted that phrase.
		And he even said himself, he's going to use this thing In order to bring like a excuse me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's okay, Clyde.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's go ahead and get our guest to respond.
unidentified		You know, Clyde, I've been at the Heritage Foundation for 16 years.
		I don't think I've ever heard anybody at the Heritage Foundation mention the name Lee Adwater.
		I don't think he ever worked at the Heritage Foundation.
		Seriously, I don't know what you're talking about.
		Definitely, when you said this guy is a student, if you meant me by this guy, I don't think I've ever read a single word that Lee Adwater wrote.
		As to your definition of woke, yes, Clyde, as I said, it was taken from African-American usage, but it was not by this guy.
		It was the left that then adopted it and used it in exactly the way I described it.
		And I challenge you or anybody else to give me a better definition of what the left means by woke.
		I didn't give you my definition of woke.
		I gave you the left's definition of woke.
		So as to the last point, that critical race theory is relegated to law schools and it's not taught in K through 12 or colleges, that is just completely untrue.
		That hasn't been the case in at least 20 years.
		Yeah, about the end of the last century, people were saying, well, you know, CRT has been around for 11 years or 10 years and yet is being kept inside the cloistered walls of the university.
		Yeah, then it jumped.
		It jumped big time and it was used extensively by Richard Carranza first about 10 or 15 years ago, the superintendent of New York Public Schools, the largest public school system in the world.
		You can teach what exactly, Mike?
		It's a revolutionary term, and it does exactly, it's the first cousin of DEI.
		It's a grandchild of critical theory, which is say we're going to define everything in society, even as Richard Delgado, one of his exponents, said, even the ordinary things that happen in society as racist.
		The individual himself is not, it doesn't matter whether the individual is racist.
		It's everything we do in society, the Boy Scouts, the way we dress, everything is racist, systemically racist, and we need to overthrow this system.
		And it is used, it is a lens that is being used in schools K through 12, in universities, very much so.
		And I can demonstrate this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Mark, a Republican in Fort Washington, Maryland.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		I'm listening to your comments, and I agree with you that a lot of the adapted definitions to woke and DEI have been used as weapons, and that's not the way they should be used.
		However, there is a history, and you did mention it earlier, and it did involve systemic racism, and it did involve exclusion.
		The country has gotten better, the opportunities are better, and everybody can move on.
		So I do agree with you on that.
		But I think there is an effort to sort of erase a little bit of that.
		I don't agree.
		I think the both stories should be told.
		But I think that there is an effort to sort of change the narrative a bit of, you know, but presenting all the information is not going to do a whole lot of good if it isn't done, isn't done in an open form.
		So let's get a response as well.
		You know, I wholeheartedly agree with the first half of what Mark said.
		We did have systemic racism.
		When a black person could not sit in the front of the bus in Alabama, that was systemic racism.
		When somebody who owned the lunch counter in Tennessee could not serve a black couple even if he wanted to, that was systemic racism.
		That was the system.
		We did away with that.
		Thank God.
		That was a huge and necessary step that we took in the United States to make sure the South complied with our laws.
		So, yeah, no, I agree with that, Mark, and I think that that should be taught, and it is being taught.
		And it's part and parcel of our history.
		I don't think that there's, at least as far as I'm concerned, and people that I know who do this work, is any attempt at hiding that.
		I think it's well known.
		It should be well known.
		It should be taught.
		And that was systemic.
		What we have now is not systemic.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Mike, I want to ask you.
unidentified		It's systemic in the sense that colleges and universities use race, which is now the Supreme Court has said that it cannot do anymore, to decide whom to admit.
unidentified		That is systemic.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about colleges and universities because there has been several that the Trump administration has put billions of dollars in federal grant money for research on hold.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I wonder what you make of that.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, look, they're studying whether they're investigating whether they have violated rules against anti-Semitism, for example, whether UCLA had a Jewish exclusion zone, excuse me.
		You know, students who this is during the protests?
		Yeah.
		You know, Jewish students at Columbia University did not feel safe, were chased, not just at Columbia, but in many other colleges and campuses.
		You know, if you were a university and you allowed these things to happen, yeah, you should be investigated.
		And in these contracts and grants that you receive from us, the taxpayer, yeah, that should be looked at.
		I have nothing against it.
		I'm a strong supporter of that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Bethany in Fort Myers, Florida, Independent.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Bethany.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have a concern about history being deleted from a lot of our governmental websites, like the Navajo Code Talkers, Tuskegee Airmen.
		These are groups that during that time, they were oppressed.
		You know, the Native Americans were taught not to speak their language.
		The Tuskegee Airmen couldn't even share the same bathroom with a white person.
		And yet we're erasing that.
		And erasing history leads to problems.
		You know, I'm proud of Germany because they teach that when the Nazis were around, they did a bad thing.
		And so they don't repeat it.
		And it is important to teach the good and the bad that we've done so we don't repeat our history.
		Yeah, once again, I agree with Bethany.
		I don't think this is being, I don't think the Navajo code talkers are being erased from government websites.
		I haven't read this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		They were initially, and then they were.
unidentified		Oh, but yeah, that's actually, yes, thank you for that was somebody clearly doing sabotage, saying, oh, I have to take the DEI down, I have to take all these racist trainings down.
		I'm going to take down the Navajo code talk.
		Oh, I'm pretty sure that it was somebody taking this to an extent that was never intended.
		I am 100% sure about that.
		I think the Navajo code talkers should be celebrated.
		But things are taken down.
		For example, I was a member of the 1776 Commission.
		That was taken down immediately from the White House website within a minute of Biden being sworn in and put in the National Archives.
		I don't know if you're referring to that, but this issue with the Navajo Code Talkers, that was clearly a mistake.
		In fact, as I said, I don't think it was a mistake.
		I think it was done on purpose by somebody who wanted to sabotage the issue.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So there is, here's NBC Pentagon restores histories of Navajo code talkers, other Native veterans after public outcry.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The Marine Corps initially recruited 29 Navajo men to develop code based on the unwritten Navajo.
unidentified		Very successful, too.
unidentified		They were heroes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So that's on NBC News if you want to read a little bit more.
unidentified		No, I agree with what you just said.
		Yeah, the mistake was made.
		It was corrected immediately.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Zachary in Tampa, Florida, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Zachary.
unidentified		Good morning, everyone.
		DEI, what's the explanation of DEI?
		What's that mean?
		What's the definition for everyone?
		For me, DEI means being aware of the fact that it used to be by law you couldn't own a business as a black man in the United States.
		The United States used to have no supervisors who are black.
		You can get hired as a black man in the United States or a black woman.
		My mom, very intelligent woman, was unable to go to college as a black woman.
		She's still alive today.
		Okay, how is that possible?
		Now, these struggles that we went through in this country should not be erased.
		I agree with some of the other callers.
		I agree with Bethany.
		Your history is important.
		It's important to the fact that my grandfather, who was pulling trash for $5 a week, couldn't get a business license.
		But the people around him now are running waste management companies, making billions.
		Okay, how is that possible?
		The struggles that we went through, I'm a Marine.
		There was a time with Camp Lejeune when Marines were relegated to one part of the base.
		They were hung by trees by racist Marines, racist white people in the community.
		Why is that erased?
		Woke.
		Wake up to the truth.
		Wake up and see the truth in your face.
		Understand that this is not okay.
		It is not okay.
		And it's happening again.
		They're erasing our history in front of us.
		They're erasing us.
		My grandfather, he had two bronze stars in World War I, lost an eye, but he could own a business.
		How is that possible?
		So that's what we're talking about.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Zachary, your comment?
unidentified		These are tragic stories that should not be erased.
		You know, American children should learn these tragic stories.
		I'm obviously very sad that this happened in your family and in so many families.
		DEI did nothing to solve that.
		In fact, every study done on DEI showed that it actually divided society.
		It was not even successful as it was meant to do.
		For some people, it was a griff.
		Okay, it was a griff trying to make money out of a sudden craze.
		But it didn't work.
		It was divisive.
		It made people.
		There was a study, there was a New York Times story on the University of Michigan how what it did is make people angry with each other.
		It was not doing what it was sold as doing.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Los Angeles, California, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		David, you're next.
unidentified		Yeah, I just wanted to comment, kind of respond to Mr. Gonzalez's statement that systemic racism doesn't exist in its current form in society.
		Having been the victim of some systemic racism, I can assure you with 100% certainty that, sir, it not only exists, but it's pervasive throughout society.
		And I'll just start just by saying racial disparities in the criminal justice system, educational inequities, housing discrimination, employment discrimination, healthcare disparities.
		Just to give you a brief example, I worked for a mortgage company and I did loans.
		I literally submitted my own loan application and I checked the box black on the application.
		The loan was denied.
		My brooker, I decided, well, I'll just, since I'm biracial, I resubmitted the same loan application and checked the box white, and the loan was approved.
		And that just give you a brief example.
		And as far as woke, the definition of woke, being woke is just being conscious of social issues and inequalities in society.
		Suggesting that addressing some of those inequalities is bad for America is just, it's laughable.
		Sir, you being a minority should understand the relevance and importance of these kinds of treatments of minorities, black and brown people.
		And I'm really disappointed.
		In fact, I'm even saddened by the fact that you don't acknowledge systemic racism.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Well, this is just another example of saying disparities exist, and they do across all of our cultural indicators.
		And this is ipso facto a demonstration that systemic racism exists.
		No, the disparities that do exist exist for many different reasons.
		And we should, as a society, look after that and make sure that we do something about these disparities.
		There are some that we will not, that are the result of choice of cultural preferences.
		But as much as we can, and I tell you, I've got to go back once again, because this is a surefire way of fixing a lot of the disparities, is to make sure that we encourage a family unit.
		It's strong, we have pro-family policies.
		The social sciences, again, are rife with evidence that a child raised by a mom and a dad, by two parents, will have like a 93% rate of avoiding poverty, of avoiding dysfunction, of avoiding a prison, of having a successful life.
		So anything we can do to have pro-family policies, to have access to quality education, to have access to jobs, these are the background variables that actually I think are most responsible for the disparities that we do have and that we should be very aware of.
		As a society, we refuse to talk about these things.
		And I'm afraid that systemic racism has become this box, this explanation that people give as, well, systemic racism, therefore we have disparities, therefore we have systemic racism.
		As Yuri Berliner, the NPR veteran said, we should use journalism.
		We should investigate the veracity of this claim.
		It's just asserted without any attempt at explaining how it happens.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We've got a question for you on text from Sharon in Bel Air, Maryland.
		Why did the current administration deny knowing about Project 2025?
		It is clearly being enacted now.
unidentified		Project 2025, I authored one of the essays in Project 2025.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Which one?
unidentified		The one on defunding NPR and PBS.
		It's something we have done since 1980.
		We have had a mandate for leadership, which Reagan implemented, put a copy in the seat of every member of his cabinet in the first cabinet meeting.
		It's nothing new.
		Mrs. Harris spent $40 million, I believe, attacking Project 2025.
		How did that work out for her?
		It's not a, you know, as to how it's being used, yeah, I mean, we, I don't know.
		What we do is we produce policy suggestions that we then put out in public and we suggest them to the executive and to the legislature.
		We formulate these policy proposals.
		It's called Tuesday at the Heritage Foundation as it is at the Center for American Progress, Brookings, Cato, AEI, or anything tank in Washington.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's Mike Gonzalez, Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
		And you can find his work at heritage.org and his articles.
		Thanks so much for joining us today.
unidentified		Amy, thank you very much.
unidentified		That was very enjoyable.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Coming up next, Connecticut Democrat John Larson joins us.
		He's a top member of the Ways and Means Committee.
		He'll weigh in on the president's tariffs announcement yesterday and how Democrats are pushing back.
		We'll be right back.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		As a follow-on to Stuart Banner's History of the Supreme Court, this week's BookNotes Plus podcast features a 2002 interview with Dennis Hutchinson, a University of Chicago law professor emeritus.
		The subject matter, the forgotten memoir of John Knox, a law clerk to former Justice James McReynolds, a native of Kentucky.
		Knox's year was the term beginning October 1936.
		In history, it is very rare that a law clerk at the Supreme Court has published an insider's view of the court or of a justice.
		Professor Hutchinson gives the background on where he found the memoir, which hadn't been published before.
		Justice McReynolds, as you will hear, was, according to historians, arguably one of the most disagreeable justices ever to sit on the bench.
unidentified		An interview with University of Chicago law professor Dennis Hutchinson on the forgotten memoir of John Knox on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
		Mr. Speaker, on this historic day, the House of Representatives opens its proceedings for the first time to televised coverage.
		Since March of 1979, C-SPAN has been your unfiltered window into American democracy, bringing you direct, no-spin coverage of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House.
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		It exists because of C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb's vision and the cable industry's support, not government funding.
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		In honor of Founders Day, your support is more important than ever.
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patty murray ▲ ● ▼		To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN.
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		Donate now at c-span.org/slash donate or scan the code on your screen.
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		We explore the early months of presidential administrations with historians and authors and through the C-SPAN archives.
		We learn about accomplishments and setbacks and how events impacted presidential terms and the nation up to present day.
		This Saturday, the first 100 days of 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.
		After near collapse of the American economy, President Obama signed a nearly $800 billion economic stimulus plan and a bill on fair pay.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We're joined now by Representative John Larson.
		He's a Democrat of Connecticut, member of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, and the ranking member on the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security.
		Congressman, welcome.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Good to be with you, Mimi.
		Thank C-SPAN for all you do.
		Just listening to some of the advertisements coming up and being a former history teacher, just how vitally important, especially during these times, that history and the ability to get nonpartisan facts and messages is vitally important.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you for that, Congressman.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And want to hear your reaction to the announcements of President Trump's tariffs yesterday.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think, you know, everybody's been anticipating it.
		And, you know, it's not often that Democrats find themselves aligned with the Wall Street Journal.
		But in this case, Mr. Trump seems to be single-minded and single-focused on his concept of tariffs and what that will mean.
		And as everyone now knows from the news, is what he's imposing on countries.
		I think the New York Times said it best, he's started a trade war.
		And our job is to make sure what that impact is on the average consumer who will be directly hit by this, and then calling before Congress to make these individuals so that we have the hearing so that there's better clarity and understanding about what this impact will be.
		And clarity and understanding is something that seems to have eluded this administration.
		Albeit, Trump likes to say he's very clear about keeping campaign promises.
		And this was one of his campaign promises.
		But running the government is not about campaign promises.
		It's about its impact on the people and what it will mean for us from an economic perspective.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, President Trump says that the U.S. has been treated unfairly by other countries and that he's simply leveling the playing field.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you agree with that?
john larson ▲ ● ▼		A very populist point of view.
		If it were that simple, but as Mimi, as you're aware, trade is very complex and complicated in many respects.
		But at its core, and this is what makes Trump powerful, is he's when you say things in simple terms like made in America and providing more manufacturing and creating more jobs here, who disagrees with that?
		But when you look at the impact of his proposals and the fact that other nations also have people and understand what the impact is there, and I agree with the New York Times, what he's done is kick off a trade war instead of making sure that there's a way for us to guarantee and get what's in the best interest for all Americans, including consumers, but also our manufacturers and our developers, et cetera.
		And a cross-the-board swipe at tariffs doesn't seem to get us there.
		And that's why it's going to be critically important.
		I commend the senators that stood up the other day over the Canadian trade issue, but it's going to be critically important that we call the administration before us and the American people get to see firsthand what this impact will be.
		And that means calling forward the key economists.
		Rich Neal, our ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee, has already called.
		And Harkin and Democrats are united in this fact that we want to see these individuals come before Congress, including Mr. Musk himself, whether he's still in the administration or not.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, Congressman, I mean, beyond calling the hearings that you mentioned, Senator Tim Kaine, as you know, introduced a resolution yesterday to undo President Trump's tariffs on Canada.
		Will that get a hearing in Congress?
		In the House, will you propose a similar measure in the House?
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Yes, and Susan Del Benny has also proposed, and I'm a co-sponsor of that bill, the Prevent Tariff Abuse Act.
		So Congress is responding with legislation, but this is the key point.
		The question then becomes: will the House majority take that up?
		Will they provide for that?
		We on the committee are going to introduce, we mean the Democrats on the committee, are going to introduce legislation.
		And we hope, as Mr. Kaine does in the Senate, that we're going to find willing partners on the other side of the aisle.
		And I think based on the impact that this is going to have on farming alone and based on what we're hearing, we noticed, as you probably did, that Congress adjourned on Tuesday this week because Speaker Johnson didn't want them here to have to deal with this broad sweeping announcement that President Trump made late yesterday afternoon.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And if you'd like to join our conversation with Representative John Larson, you can start calling in now.
		He's a Democrat from Connecticut.
		The numbers are Republicans 202-748-8001, Democrats 202-748-8000.
		And Independents, 202748, 8002.
		Congressman, you are on the Subcommittee for Social Security.
		Elon Musk and Doge have made assertions about millions of dead people collecting Social Security benefits.
		He says that immigrants are being given social security cards and collecting Social Security benefits.
		What's your response to that?
john larson ▲ ● ▼		It's complete nonsense, and it shows you what the lack of detail and understanding of how the process works.
		Look, Mr. You know, Elon Musk is a very gifted and talented person.
		He's the wealthiest man in the world.
		But that does not exempt him from coming before Congress and testifying as to why do they need access to everyone's data and information on Social Security and also their goal, which is to privatize, and he's made no bones about that.
		He's said it publicly, he's said it on TV shows, and they're playing good cop, bad cop between Trump with his hands across his heart saying we're not going to touch Social Security.
		But meantime, they're closing regional offices, they're making phone conversations more difficult, they're making it tough, and they're dismantling their goal of privatization is to dismantle the Social Security Administration from within so that they get to say to the American people, well, this is chaotic.
		You're not able to get your phone calls returned.
		You have to drive an hour to get any kind of information when this should be a very friendly consumer office.
		Previous commissioner and former Governor O'Malley had to say before the caucus that he was able to drive things down in terms of time, and that's with an administrative budget that's under 1% for the largest insurance program that the nation has.
		It's clearly underfunded.
		Trump and Musk specifically disagree with the bureaucracy.
		Their goal is to privatize it.
		And you know what else, Mimi?
		When you look at Social Security, you know, and you look at the budget in general, you're given a task of cutting $2 trillion.
		And he openly says the three major budgets are Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and defense.
		However, only one of those has $2,700 billion in a trust fund.
		That's the people's money that's in that trust fund.
		And that's what they're eyeing with their scheme towards privatization.
		And because they believe, philosophically and otherwise, that bureaucracies don't work.
		It's the private sector that will make things more efficient and effective.
		Well, government is not simply about dollars and cents.
		It's about people.
		It's why the preamble starts off: we the people.
		And our goal is to make sure that the nation's number one anti-poverty program for the elderly and the number one anti-poverty program for children until the child tax credit becomes permanent remains intact because that's exactly what the American people need.
		And they're astonished when they find out that the last time Congress has enhanced the program was 1971.
		You think a few things have changed since 1971 and Richard Nixon was president?
		Certainly the American people know this, and it's long overdue.
		I'm proud that Democrats and led by Hakeem Jeffries and Rich Neal, et cetera, are focused on making sure that we not only protect Social Security, but we enhance a system that was last enhanced in 1970.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Congressman, what is your plan then to enhance Social Security, if not privatization?
		What is your plan?
		And do you think it can actually come to pass?
john larson ▲ ● ▼		I actually do think it will come to pass.
		The question is: can we get, and we saw some glimpse of hope in the Senate the other day on the trade bill, but can we get in the House of Representatives three people that will agree with us that there needs to be an across-the-board increase with regard to Social Security because it hasn't taken place since 1971.
		And there's 73 million Americans that are currently receiving Social Security and 10,000 baby boomers a day who become eligible.
		They also should be eligible for tax cut.
		Since 1983, people have been double taxed when they find themselves working after their retirement and yet being taxed on the Social Security that they've already paid for.
		That's flat out wrong.
		We're out to not only change that, but also to make it permanent.
		And that would mean tax relief for 23 million people.
		Now, so it's a President Trump says he wants this tax cut also.
		But here's the difference, Mimi.
		We pay for ours.
		And how do we pay for this enhancement of benefits, this limiting the waiting time for disability, making sure that no one can retire into poverty, having paid into a system all their lives where currently we have more than 5 million of our fellow Americans who get below poverty level checks from their government, though they paid in all their lives to a system that is a guarantee?
		What's preventing that is Congress taking action.
		And that's why we make sure that the new poverty level for Social Security payments, the minimum payment will be 125% above the poverty line so that nobody can retire into poverty in the United States of America.
		And that's the genius of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And I didn't catch how you plan to pay for that.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		We plan to pay for it.
		Again, I commend President Biden for saying, very simple.
		Everybody ought to pay their fair share.
		A lot of Americans don't understand or realize that there's a cap on Social Security.
		Currently, it's $173,000.
		So anything above that, you're not paying into Social Security.
		Should Elon Musk at $500 billion be paying into Social Security?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		And so what Biden proposed is to lift the cap on people making over $400,000.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		And by doing that, we not only extend the solvency of the program, but we're able to add these critical benefits for people that haven't seen an increase since 1971.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, here is Henrietta in Fort Pierce, Florida, line for Republicans.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Henrietta.
unidentified		Yes, hi.
		Good morning.
		I find it very rich from the Democratic side, Democratic congressman.
		And now he wants to give free, no tax on Social Security.
		Where's he been for 30 years?
		Isn't that cute?
		Dems for 30 years have raped the middle class.
		Where has he been trying to save it?
		You seem to care only when you're out of power.
		You don't seem to care when you're in power.
		You guys have been in power and had the reign for over 16 years, cutatively.
		Now, what did you do to get fair taxes and raise it on the 1%?
		I know he's not going to answer any of my questions.
		He's going to go on with what he wants to go on with.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We'll try to get you an answer, Henrietta.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		So let's answer the question directly.
		First and foremost, we believe that everybody ought to pay their fair share into Social Security.
		Let me agree with you.
		There hasn't been action since 1971, and there has been Democrats and Republicans that have been in the process.
		I've been in Congress 26 years.
		I've proposed this legislation for more than a decade and have been fighting for it.
		During the time I've been in Congress in the 26 years, we've only been in the majority eight.
		And of that, there was only four years where we were in control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency, like the Republicans currently are.
		I believe we should have taken it up, and we didn't.
		Our focus became health care.
		And that was a very difficult thing to pass, but nonetheless, it was.
		And it's aiding 23 million Americans who now get health care.
		I hope, because I know a number of our Republican colleagues also believe that Social Security is the nation's number one anti-poverty program for the elderly and for children, and understand that we have to make that investment.
		There's only two ways you can go there: you can either cut the benefits or raise the revenue.
		And as I said before, lifting the cap, meaning you shouldn't be exempt from paying into Social Security because you're wealthy, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
		But lifting the cap and paying the same thing that a person making 30, 50, 75, 100,000 is making, that to me seems like the right way to go.
		And how about we just even get a vote on this and let people, if the Republicans have a better idea, put it out on the table.
		And just so you know, one of the ideas that they've put out but haven't written yet or submitted it is to raise the age to 70.
		They say people are living longer, though, therefore, we should raise the age to 70.
		For every year you raise the age, that's a 7% cut in benefits.
		Imagine for 40% of America who are on Social Security currently, it's the only thing they have.
		And you want to have them wait longer and receive less.
		That to me doesn't make an awful lot of sense.
		And that's why the American people, we ought to be able to call.
		If you know, if Elon Musk has got a better idea, what's wrong with coming before the committee and explaining it?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Here's William in Houston, Texas, Democrat.
		Hi, William.
unidentified		Good morning, Congressman.
		Good morning, Cecilian, and good morning, America.
		Look, I'm going to keep this like a million factor, and they had a thing called the KISS theory.
		Keep it simple, simple, or keep it simple, stupid.
		Not calling anybody stupid, okay?
		It's a term used.
		But lifting the cap will solve all the problems.
		I agree 100%.
		This is what I want to clear up for anybody out there that's on Social Security, like myself.
		I don't depend on it because I couldn't live if I did.
		Okay.
		But right now, I just completed my taxes on my Social Security was less than $24,000 a year after working for years.
		Okay.
		The taxes I had to pay this year was over $1,500 on my Social Security.
		How is that?
		So I'm still waiting on my tax cut from the first Trump tax cut.
		Never got one.
		And anybody out there that's saying they got $4,000 or $400 rebate or tax cut on the Social Security, it's just not true.
		It's not happening.
		And lifting the cap would solve all things, but the problem is they don't want to solve it.
		They want to put it on Wall Street so it could be in the tank.
		And the people that's still making it, still going to continue to make it.
		So keep up the good work, Congressman.
		And sooner or later, people are going to realize that, like Chuck Khan said, even a blind man can tell when he's walking in the sun.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Have a good congressman.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Gentlemen, it's very good.
		We ought to get them on C-SPAM more often.
		All right, and here's very good analysis.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Denise in Holden, Maine, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Denise.
unidentified		Good morning.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Denise.
unidentified		I just wanted to take umbrage with what you said about illegals not getting Social Security numbers.
		That is a lie.
		And I happen to have fraud on my and my husband's Social Security accounts.
		Went down to the Social Security office in November where I had to change everything.
		And while I was sitting there, there were nine Venezuelan immigrants who had been brought over by Biden, planted in Bangalore, Maine.
		And they had gone through and gotten them all Social Security numbers.
		There were nine of them when I was in there.
		They did not speak any English.
		They didn't read any Spanish or English.
		And they had the Social Security Department was supposed to have somebody Spanish so that they could fill out their forms to tell us, the American people, that these immigrants aren't illegal immigrants, aren't getting Social Security numbers.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		You cannot get Social Security unless you are a citizen of the United States.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, Congressman, she was mentioning a Social Security number, which you can do.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Well, yes, if you're going to come over and go to work, and what most people don't realize as well is that many people legally who are here, who are working and are not citizens pay into Social Security, they don't receive Social Security checks.
		So they're actually helping the system out.
		But don't take my word for it.
		Have the Social Security administrators come in and talk about it.
		Have anyone who's looked at this program and examined it, and God bless you.
		I think it's great that you're observant and sat up in Maine and watched people come in and receive a Social Security number.
		But if they're going to work, then they're going to be paying into the Social Security system.
		They cannot receive the benefit because they are not a citizen and can't receive it until they are.
		That's the law.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is the Washington Post about that.
		It says in this article, in reality, having a Social Security card does not indicate anything about whether someone is receiving benefits, nor does it mean someone is registered to vote.
		Non-citizens' Social Security cards are clearly labeled as valid for work only and cannot be used to register to vote.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Well, the Washington Post said it a lot more clearer than I, but for many people, they just simply don't believe there.
		They follow and believe these myths that have been perpetrated.
		And as I said at the outset, that's why these programs are so important.
		And listen, I can understand people's skepticism and the lady in Maine seeing this, they become outraged.
		But these are not the actual facts.
		The Washington Post had it exactly right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Congressman, I want to play for you a very short clip of an interview from last week on Fox News where Elon Musk's Doge team was asked about their efforts to improve Social Security.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		One of the first things we learned is that they get phone calls every day of people trying to change direct deposit information.
		So when you want to change your bank account, you can call Social Security.
		We learned 40% of the phone calls that they get are from fraudsters.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		40%.
unidentified		That's right.
		Almost half.
		Yes, and they steal people's Social Security is what happens.
elon musk ▲ ● ▼		Call in, they say they claim to be a retiree.
elon musk ▲ ● ▼		Then they and they convince the Social Security person on the phone to change where the money's flowing.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		It actually goes to some forester.
unidentified		This is happening all day, every day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Congressman, your reaction to that.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Well, we just had former Commissioner O'Malley in front of us again talking about this issue.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		And again, it's simply not true.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And so, Congressman, there is some fraud in the Social Security.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		There's no question.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		There's fraud, there's fraud.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, what are the guardrails?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What are the systems set in place now that looks for that and addresses it?
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Inspector Generals, who the administration got rid of.
		What Doge is attempting to do is to make the bureaucracy, a bureaucracy that's already understaffed.
		What they're trying to do is weaken it more.
		And whether it's phone calls, whether it's closing regional offices, it's already difficult enough when you have an administrative cost of under 1%.
		I live in an insurance sector of the world, great companies, et cetera.
		Their administrative costs range from 16 to 28 percent.
		Social Security's administrative costs currently, because of cuts, is under 1%.
		The largest agency in the federal government, the largest insurance program being administered for under 1%.
		We need technological revamping, but we also need personnel.
		At the end of the day, it's still about people, not about dollars.
		And in order to keep the vision and frankly, what is the safety net for capitalism and entrepreneurialism alive?
		We have got to make sure that Social Security is staffed and that the people are served and get the benefits they have earned, meaning that they have paid into the system, easily verified by just looking at your pay stub that says FICA, which stands for federal insurance contribution.
unidentified		Who's yours?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Carl in Rockland, Maine.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
jim marrs ▲ ● ▼		Yes, what I'd like to say, I'd just like to tell Mr. John Larson, here's what's happened to my life.
jim marrs ▲ ● ▼		I'm a 72-disabled veteran that joined voluntarily to go into the service.
unidentified		And here's what's happened to my life.
jim marrs ▲ ● ▼		I get $1,273 to live on.
unidentified		I'm alone with my dog, disabled, and I get a $300 pension.
		I made $15,997 last year.
		In Maine, my house taxes are over $3,000.
		Since Donald Trump took office in Maine, my oil has went up 30 cents a gallon.
		He said gas prices went down.
		That went up 40 to 50 cents a gallon.
jim marrs ▲ ● ▼		And then when I went to the church to take two handicapped people there yesterday, they made an announcement after 21 years in the churches taking food from a grocery store that was running out of date.
unidentified		Now the food is dumped in the garbage and all those people lost their meals.
unidentified		Also, what's happened to me?
jim marrs ▲ ● ▼		I got a letter yesterday where I lived $6,000 to $7,000 below poverty level.
unidentified		Ryheap gave poor Mainers $500 worth of oil.
		It's winter in Maine five months a year, and that held me for about five weeks.
		So you try living on 59, then I can't sleep at night no more.
		I fought for my country, and then I get told that the money I paid in for 57 years is a Ponzi scheme.
		Now, I think that the 73 million I heard Democrats have said home because they didn't want to vote for Trump or they didn't want to vote for Pamela Harris.
jim marrs ▲ ● ▼		I think they should all get together and we should march on Washington.
unidentified		And we got to remember that Donald Trump or no politician would have their paycheck if we, the people, didn't pay it.
		And I'm getting tired of being lied to.
		And I'm proud of the four Republicans yesterday.
		And this thing about congressmen that go against Trump are getting pizza deliveries to their house.
		And when they didn't order a pizza, and when they opened the pizza.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Carl, let's get the congressman to respond.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me, first of all, Carl, thank you for your service to the country.
		And this nation owes our veterans such a debt of gratitude.
		And not only while they serve, but after they serve for the incredible sacrifice that you have made.
		And also being on disability, the disability payments, A, need to be increased.
		And the waiting time and period, people have died waiting to get Social Security disability.
		So we want to both enhance the program across the board, provide tax cuts within Social Security, but as you point out, pay for them and pay for them by having everybody pay their fair share.
		I mean, this isn't rocket science, and nobody's going to go broke because they paid their Social Security benefit.
		Yeah, it's great.
		You know, if you're a billionaire and you feel that you're entitled to circumvent the law and don't have to pay, but that's not the way the system was designed to work.
		Everybody has got to pay their fair share.
		And these individuals that are espousing these privatization plans need to come before the American people, aka the United States Congress, and the media and explain exactly what their goal is and what they intend to do.
		Thus far, we've only heard these grandiose schemes that have been unilaterally across the board disproved, and yet they won't even come before the committee to testify.
		That's why we've been very upset on the Ways and Means Committee that is responsible for taxation and also responsible for Social Security.
		We want answers from Elon Musk and Doge and why and what they're doing and how they pose to achieve these cuts that they're after.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Congressman, I know that our time with you is up, but I did want to ask you about your town hall and what you're hearing from your constituents about their assessment of Congress.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think their assessment of Congress is very low, and I think this is across the board.
		What worries me, Mimi, is that there's concern about government in general.
		And people are anxious to have people speak out and step up.
		Especially they feel frustrated because they don't see any action.
		As the gentleman from Maine was just describing the plight that he finds himself in and the seeming lack of response by government.
		So that's what I'm hearing at town halls, but also hearing when you tell them, yeah, it's long overdue.
		And we hold quite a few on Social Security, I might add, that this program be enhanced so that people have the basic means.
		And by the way, this is the best economic development plan for the country as well.
		I tell every member of Congress they all get a card that tells them how many Social Security recipients they have, how many receive pension, how many receive disability, how many spouses, dependents, how widows get Social Security benefits, but also how much money therefore comes into all 435 districts.
		And where do they spend that money?
		On average, it's 200 million per month per congressional district.
		And they spend that money, and you know this, Mimi, right back in the district they live in to buy groceries, to go to the pharmacy, to put gas in their automobiles, to pay for their rent or their mortgage, whatever the case may be, or as the gentleman from Maine was talking about, just to survive and eat.
		And imagine the wealthiest nation in the world not having responded in a conclusive manner across the board since 1971.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's Representative John Larson, a Connecticut Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thank you so much, sir, for joining us today.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mimi.
john larson ▲ ● ▼		Glad to be on.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And coming up, more of your phone calls in Open Forum.
		You can start calling in now.
		The numbers, Republicans, 202748-8001.
		It's 202-748-8000 for Democrats and 202748-8002 for Independents.
		We'll be right back.
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jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is worth dying for.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼		Democracy belongs to us all.
bill clinton ▲ ● ▼		We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼		Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		American democracy is bigger than any one person.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
unidentified		We are still at our core a democracy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are in an open forum.
		So if you'd like to give us a call, let us know what's on your mind, public policy-wise, politics.
		We've been talking a lot about tariffs today.
		The Associated Press says that the Senate rebukes Trump's tariffs as some Republicans vote to halt taxes on Canadian imports.
		Those included the vote.
		The resolution passed.
		It was 51 to 48, for Republicans and all Democrats in support.
		It would end Trump's emergency declaration on fentanyl trafficking that underpins tariffs on Canada.
		The article says that the Senate's legislation has practically no chance of passing the Republican-controlled House and being signed by Trump, but it showed the limits of Republican support.
		These are the Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Collins of Maine, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Rand Paul of Kentucky.
		They all voted in favor of the resolution.
		For your schedule, getting underway in less than five minutes, we've got the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
		They'll consider the nominations of both Scott Kapoor to be Director of the Office of Personnel Management and of Eric Uland to be Deputy Director of Management at the Office of Management and Budget.
		That's live on C-SPAN 3, also on our app, C-SPANNOW and C-SPAN.org, getting underway momentarily at 9:30 Eastern.
		Shayla, Weldon, North Carolina, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you doing?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		I just wanted to say thank you for taking my phone call.
		And overall, today was, you know, a good debate, but I think, you know, every race and culture should be recognized, studied, and open.
		You know, like you were saying earlier, people need to just use common sense.
		Racism do exist.
		People just hide it sometimes.
		And I think, you know, we need to be open about that.
		But as long as we all show respect to each other, that's all that matters because respect and love will go a long way.
		And in the school system, what they were talking about earlier, I think the children need to go back to Carpentry Gym and, you know, just take all the racism out.
		We do.
		Our history is important, but they need skills where they can use in everyday life.
		So that's all I hate to say about that.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Catherine in North Conway, New Hampshire, Independent.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi.
		I have two very short comments.
		My first comment concerns peace between Ukraine and Russia.
		Right, wrong, good, bad people, countries can rage forever.
		Time passes.
		There are no pharaohs in Egypt and Romans in the Middle East today.
		Today is today.
		I suggest Ukraine and Russia divide the worn-torn areas, and both of them should belong to NATO and obey NATO's rules.
		Also, this would separate Russia from China and Iran.
		My second comment is what we would use AI robots for.
		They could walk hamster wheel structures or go in circles like in the past animals did when grinding food.
		These AI robots walking would create electrical energy in machines like water falling in a dam or tides rising and falling.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But the robots would need to be powered.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How would you power the robots?
unidentified		Right.
		What would we start the AI robots walking?
		Just wind them up like people did to the old grandfather clocks.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Catherine.
		Here's Bob Tuckerman, Arkansas.
		Republican, good morning.
unidentified		Yes, I just wanted to make a comment about the gentleman that was talking, I think it was from Maine or someplace anyway, about Social Security.
ted malloch ▲ ● ▼		What about all the illegal aliens that the Democrats let come into the country?
unidentified		You know, don't you think that affects Social Security?
		You have a lot of Mexicans and people that come in.
		They work for cash.
		They don't pay into Social Security.
		They have families.
		They have 10 kids, right?
		Okay, they have 10 kids.
		They go to school.
		They draw from that.
		The husband probably works.
		He may pay in Social Security, but they're not going to pay any taxes.
		And the thing is, a lot of people work under the table.
		In other words, they work for cash.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Bob.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Tanya, East Orange, New Jersey, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi.
		I was calling.
		It's a whole lot, but basically, I'm just a little frustrated with how people are not really understanding.
		I hear everything that they're saying.
		I've been listening, and I can't understand why people aren't just going their tops over the situation.
		Our problem is not the illegals, because mind you, when they come here, they come here to work.
		If they have a Social Security, they're paying into it.
		And then people are saying they're getting it back.
		Well, if you pay into something, you should be entitled to get it back.
		If you're not paying into it, when they go to the hospitals, they're going to be seen.
		So that taxes the hospital.
		I think people need to focus on your bottom line instead of all the distractions that are out here.
		I appreciate you, and I thank you for receiving my call.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
		Here he accuses President Trump and congressional Republicans of hurting the economy.
		Here he is.
hakeem jeffries ▲ ● ▼		House Republicans, Senate Republicans, and Donald Trump haven't done a single thing to lower the cost of living in this country.
		Not a single bill, not a single executive order, not a single administrative action has been done by Donald Trump, House Republicans or Senate Republicans to lower the high cost of living in the United States of America.
		In fact, Republicans are crashing the American economy in real time and driving us to a recession.
		This is not Liberation Day.
		It's recession day in the United States of America.
		That's what the Trump tariffs are going to do.
		Crash the economy, which has been happening since January 20th of this year.
		And the American people are taking note of it in community after community after community.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and the Washington Post is reporting that China and the EU prepare countermeasures as Trump tariffs unite friends and foes.
		The article says that China is promising to retaliate against President Trump's, quote, typical bullying with unspecified countermeasures.
		While the European said it is working on its response as allies and adversaries alike reeled Thursday from what Trump billed as Liberation Day tariffs blitz.
		It says that stock markets in Asia and Europe fell Thursday after Trump imposed huge tariffs on all the region's leading economies, although some recovered losses during the trading day, while analysts warned that the measures risk strengthening China's hand.
		Here's a quote from the director of Southeast Asia program at the Lowy Institute, which is an Australian think tank.
		Quote, this decision, which is so unprincipled, so abrupt, so profound in its impact, calls into question what kind of partner the U.S. will be.
		She continues, it will play into China's narrative that the U.S. is an unreliable, distant partner that can come and go.
		And we are in open forum.
		Nikki is calling us from Rockaway Park, New York, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would like to compare today to 250 years ago when there were intolerable acts, there were stamp acts, and people took it out.
		They went and there was a Tea Party.
		And now I see the same thing happening today.
		I see Teslas.
		That's a T.
		And I see Trump, the Tea Party.
		May I read a little bit?
		You see, because the Constitution is dead when the legislative branch has given all power and authority over to the executive branch and when the judicial branch has abrogated their responsibility.
		So if I may just read, run a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design.
		You can read it for yourself.
		It's out there.
		The Declaration, today's Liberal, yesterday was Liberation Day.
		I would ask that any patriot who is against this tyranny to stand up like we did.
		He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
		He has forbidden the government.
		Read it for yourself.
		I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on this, but the most important document to me today is the Declaration of Independence.
		The Constitution is dead.
		It's a corpse.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Wait, we got it.
		And this is John in Santa Paula, California, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning, Mimi.
		I'd like to talk and say that I'm pretty amazed at President Trump, and I think he's got some really good ideas.
		I want to change the subject to Greenland.
		I think that Greenland, purchasing Greenland, is unbelievably important.
		And I believe that Canada should become part of America.
		Let me tell you why.
		Most people that listen to your show believe in global warming.
		And if there is global warming, there will be a mass migration northward into the colder regions as they warm up.
		So by annexing Greenland and Canada, it's a tremendous step into the future knowing that America will have a place to go when the global warming hits.
		So the Greenland and Canada, I think, is an amazing idea.
		And my second point, if I could talk about it, is the tariffs.
		And one guy earlier mentioned John Deere moving to Mexico.
		Okay, so you put a 10% tariff on all John Deere's production in Mexico, right?
		All the products they sell.
		And then the purpose of the tariffs is to bring John Deere back into America.
		So John Deere now has the option of coming back to America and paying a 21% corporate tax with allowable deductions or paying a 10% tariff on their entire output.
		It's so much cheaper now for John Deere to move back to America and to provide American jobs.
		And that's what everybody's missing.
		The purpose of tariffs are to bring American jobs back to America.
		When I was a kid, America produced more than it imported.
		We exported more than we imported.
		Then we opened it up to China and they took it over.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, John.
		We got your two points.
		And this is Mark in Silver Spring, Maryland.
		Democrat, good morning, Mark.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for the opportunity.
		I'd like to point out the abuse of language by this administration.
		And I'd like to present three quick examples.
		The administration shut down research on vaccines for H5N1 while supposedly promoting prevention.
		Vaccines are part of prevention.
		Ask any doctor.
		My second point of abuse of language is Vice President Vance becoming a culture monitor at the Smithsonian, supposedly being anti-DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusivity.
		Well, this country has practiced another DEI since its foundation called Diversity Excluded Inside.
		How many restaurants, apartment complexes, schools had that sign up before the Civil Rights Act?
		And now we see a four-star chairman of the Joint Chiefs, African American, replaced by a three-star white to head the Joint Chiefs.
		Yep, diversity excluded inside.
		Last, Congressman Nagler correctly confronted Mr. Trump for attacking Harvard's endowment.
		I'm not a fan of Harvard, but attacking the endowment is not a focus on anti-santism.
		It's a focus on attacking Harvard.
		If you only want 14 students with 1400s on their SAT, Mr. Trump, you can randomly select from this select group.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mark.
unidentified		And this is ABC News that says this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		McMahon, and that's the Secretary of Education, hijacks House Democrats presser after closed-door meeting outside the Department of Education.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's that moment yesterday outside the Department of Education where Education Secretary McMahon gave remarks.
unidentified		And they do not have a plan.
melanie stansbury ▲ ● ▼		So they are de facto restructuring this entity along a corporate model without a plan and without an effort to really protect our students.
unidentified		So we want to be clear about that.
		I want to say one other thing.
		The mood in the room, it was very collegial.
		We are extraordinarily grateful to the Secretary that she joined us.
		Thank you.
		She's here.
		Perhaps I should give her the podium.
		We're extraordinarily grateful that the Secretary gave us the space to have these conversations.
		But with all due respect, Madam, I think my biggest concern is that the states will not be able to protect the programs and services that you would like to devolve with them.
		Thank you.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, everyone.
		Thanks so much for coming.
		And I just want to express my gratitude to all of these folks who came today so that we could have an open discussion about what I believe is one of the most important things that we can have a discussion on or action on in our country, and that is the education of our young people.
		As Representative Tanako said as we were ending the meeting, which I thought was incredibly appropriate, and that is that this is not a partisan issue.
		This is about the children of America.
		And it's the next generation, the generation after that.
		And if we want to have our leaders, if we want to have that next group of engineers, doctors, and lawyers, and plumbers, and electrician, and HVAC operators, then we need to focus on how they can best have their education.
		And I believe, and I know the President does believe this as well, the best education is that that is closest to the child, where teachers and parents, local superintendents working together and local school boards to develop the curriculum for those students is the best way that it can happen.
		Funding from the United States government will continue through the programs that have already been established.
		And I will look forward to continuing to work with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.
		And I welcome the fact that these folks came today and expressed their concerns and shared in an open collegial format their concerns and how we can lead now to work more together.
		That's the way it ought to operate.
		And I'm very happy to have had them here.
		So I'm going to let them answer the questions.
		I just wanted to come out and have a look at that.
unidentified		While you're here, can you just listen?
mark takano ▲ ● ▼		When are you going to shut down this building?
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		Well, we've had our discussions already.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		So thank you all very, very much for coming.
unidentified		Thank you all.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was yesterday.
		And you can watch the full event on our website, c-span.org.
		This is Stephen, a Republican in Pompano Beach, Florida.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Listen, I feel nobody's giving him a chance to develop what he has planned for America.
		What did Biden do for America?
		Nothing.
		You know, prices went up.
		Our economy was in distress.
		And I feel that we have to give him a chance.
		He's only been in office, let's say, two months.
		And, you know, we've got to give Trump a chance to develop his agenda.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Stephen, how long, in your mind, do you think it should take for the country to turn around or to see some accomplishments?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What are you thinking?
unidentified		I think it will take what he has developed.
		I think it should take about one year, okay, and develop what he has to develop and then set it in place.
		Okay, so that's my thought.
		And we're not talking about black and white and everything else, you know, segregation.
		You know, I hear these people talking on your program about blacks and whites and this and that.
		You know, we're all equal.
		We're all equal, okay?
		And the Constitution says it.
		So I would say about a year that his program will take place, and we have to just give him a guess.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Maria in Westville, New Jersey on the Independent Line.
unidentified		Oh, good morning, Amy.
		I hope you can understand me with this cold.
		I have a couple of points I'd like to bring out.
		Perhaps you could have them addressed in a future program.
		The first one is: I believe it was yesterday, there was a congressman on Brett Baer's show.
		He's going to submit a bill this week to find out all the citizenships of the people in official positions, because there are many, apparently, who have more than one, and that has to be straightened out.
		The second thing is to find out who the IGs are and why they're not doing their job fairly.
		I'd like to know who's in charge of inspecting Social Security.
		They put disability in there, too.
		Everything has been robbed from us and given to foreign entities.
		The third of four things have to do with international institutions that are pretending to be ours.
		The first one is the Federal Reserve, which are groups of foreign banks that are only liable to their shareholders.
		So every time they bring them in as if they were ours, that's false, and that needs to be explored.
		And the last thing I wanted to say is who vetted Mr. Musk and his friends?
		Because the five eyes were everybody from former British Empire has a looky look at our military and also Israel and Singapore.
		And if we could get a look at who actually vetted them, and I hope they didn't get their hands on the Pentagon yet.
		And thank you for your patience, your wonderful moderator.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Bye-bye.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Maria.
		And about the Inspectors General, who are in charge of oversight, PBS NewsHour has this about the Inspector General's fired by Trump issue warning about lack of oversight.
		You could read the full transcript on their website.
		And this is Eileen, Spotswood, New Jersey, Republican.
		Good morning, Eileen.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just want to say that for your Democrat John Marson that you had on here, you know, he doesn't say anything about that the country ever voted to have these immigrants.
		And he's always talking about Trump and Social Security.
matt baker in cali ▲ ● ▼		Well, they all both, both the Democrats and the Republicans, took money out of Social Security for years and never put it back and use it towards other things.
matt baker in cali ▲ ● ▼		And I'd like to know why there's so much asking about Trump and what he's doing when he's never asked about Biden and what he was doing to the country.
unidentified		And what did he do for the country?
		Nothing.
		And I don't think John Morrison is worried about the poor people.
		He's doing all right.
		He makes over $174,000.
		And I'm sure he ain't poor and thinking about the poor.
		But why don't they, which I really believe, give up their hospitalization.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Eileen.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Mary Ellen, Homestead, Pennsylvania, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		I had hoped to get through when Mr. Gonzalez was on because I wanted to remind him that he's like the personification of the tactic that MAGA uses where people speak against things that are against their self-interest, such as Clarence Thomas being against affirmative action.
		And this is Mr. Gonzalez.
		He wasn't even born in this country, and his ancestors were not slaves for hundreds of years as this country acquired its stability.
		But yet he's going to describe what wokeness means to black people.
		And it just, it upsets me a lot when he talks about like, oh yeah, they can sit in the front of the bus now and things like that.
		He didn't know about there.
		It had a lot to do with jobs and homes, acquiring homes and things like that.
		It just upsets me a lot that people like him can do that.
		The Tuskegee pilots who perform far better than the whites were not hired by the airlines afterwards.
		And the airlines actually told them, well, how would our customers feel if we told them there was a black man that was the pilot?
		So we were able to go and die for this country, but it took another, what, almost 100 years for us to believe that, for people to believe that we were equal to them.
		Thanks a lot.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And the New York Times is reporting that the U.S. says deportation of Maryland man was an administrative error.
		A gentleman by the last name of Garcia, who was in the U.S. legally, is now in prison in El Salvador, and federal courts have no jurisdiction to order his release, the Trump administration said in a court filing.
		Well, Senator Tommy Tuverbill was on the floor of the Senate yesterday speaking in favor of the Trump tariff policy.
		Here he is.
tommy tuberville ▲ ● ▼		President Trump's views on tariffs, they aren't complicated.
		He believes, as I do, that America has been ripped off by unfair trade deals for decades and simply wants a level playing field.
		We have to change directions.
		What we're doing is not working.
		U.S. catfish and shrimp producers have faced some of the worst blows.
		For example, Vietnam is dumping billions, I repeat, billions of pounds of catfish.
		And India is dumping billions of pounds of shrimp every year into U.S. markets, flooding the markets and reducing the price for our quality domestic products.
		It's devastating.
		We need to put a reciprocal tariff on these countries to protect our American producers.
		I get calls every day, whether it's cabinets, whether it's produce, whether it's fish, it makes no difference.
		Our people are going broke.
		Now, I recognize that tariff actions may cause reciprocal tariffs from other countries.
		We need to take that in stride.
		In this country, we've had a party for 249 years.
		The United States has put that party on.
		The party needs to continue, but all the other countries that have been built off the American taxpayers, such as the Middle East, such as Europe, such as China, they need to start bringing gifts to the party because the American taxpayer can't afford it any longer.
		We're $37 trillion in debt.
		And the only way to pay that down is to force other people to help us.
		The American taxpayer can't afford it.
		As a result, American jobs have been sent overseas because of all the domestic problems that we're having for labor, for things that stand out for our manufacturing.
		We have to get manufacturing back in this country.
		The days are over.
		President Trump is 100% committed, folks.
		100%.
		He's going to do whatever it takes to usher in a golden age for the American economy.
		And by the way, just the threat of President Trump's tariffs has already led India, Vietnam, and Israel to proactively drop significantly and lower tariffs against the United States.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we're in open forum for another few minutes until the end of the program.
		We'll talk to Roger now on the line for Democrats in Oneida, Illinois.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would like to refer back to that gentleman that called in from Maine, the veteran.
		I'm a veteran also.
		I'm 70 years old.
		And he said he only makes $15,000 a year.
		I helped my uncle and another friend that served two tours in Vietnam because they were on Social Security and not making enough money.
		And I took them to the armory and got them signed up with the VA.
		And I don't understand why any of your politicians don't help with this matter.
		The veterans don't know how to get any help from the VA, but it's there.
		And Joe Biden did sign the Blue Water Act law that got my uncle his disability from the Navy, which was impossible before.
		And he got back pay and a monthly check from the VA to help him.
		And my other friend that was in Vietnam did two tours.
		He called me up and wanted me to read the letter when he got his award.
		And it was for $1,350 a month plus his Social Security, which helped him tremendously.
		So.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Roger.
		And here is Marcy on the line for Republicans, Advanced North Carolina.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		And thank you to the guy before me for giving out some good information.
		We do have, that is what our congresspeople are supposed to be helping us with.
		So if you're having problems with stuff like that, call your congressperson.
		If they're doing their job, they will help you through it.
		But we need to look at the history of Social Security.
		It was originally set up to be a supplemental.
		It was not meant to be income.
		We were reminded in the 70s to take ownership of our own financial future.
		And who would trust our politicians to do what's in our best interest from either party?
		We're given opportunities to build our own retirement, and And they were talking about the inspector generals.
		The inspector generals were not doing their jobs.
		There's fraud, and they were overlooking it.
		So, one more thing: Elon was attacked for calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme.
		So, if you look up the definition of Ponzi scheme, it's an investment fraud that pays investors with funds collected from new investors.
		Ponzi schemes require a constant flow of new money to survive.
		If any individuals get caught doing that themselves, they go to jail.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Marcy.
		And this is in the New York Post that says, New York City Mayor Eric Adams' historic corruption case has been dismissed, clearing the way for a second term campaign.
		That's in the New York Post.
		And this is Donald in Massachusetts, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
		I tell you what, Donald, if you can call us back on a better line, I'm having a hard time hearing you.
		Here's George in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, Republican line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
		I think it was kind of luck that I got in this form here.
		The previous callers about veterans.
		That's what I was calling about.
		I'm a veteran from the Gulf War, and I get a VA disability and my Social Security disability.
		Recently, I had an evaluation with Social Security, and they made a mistake.
		They cut my Social Security.
		So now, now I can't even talk about it hardly.
		I'm losing my home.
		I can't support my family.
		I'm trying to go out here and get some support.
		I've never had to ask for anything I would call a handout.
		And the ability for them to correct the problem in a timely fashion.
		I mean, I'm losing my home.
		I can get up now and walk in the bedroom.
		And my wife and they're sleeping.
		I let her sleep because that's the only peace she's going to have getting up worrying about this.
		I'm sitting here now looking at my father's burial flag that they handed me down in Bushnell after I had to pay for his color guard.
		He was awarded the Silver Star in Vietnam and his purple heart sitting here on his dog tags hanging together.
		I can't get any help.
		George, have you?
		I can't get any help.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Have you tried your representative in Congress?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Have you tried your two senators?
unidentified		As a matter of fact, I've written to them, and I'm still just sitting here waiting.
unidentified		All right, we wish you the best there, George.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is Ross in Pittman, New Jersey, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, this tariff stuff, the caller from earlier was saying that Trump's policy is complicated.
		It's not complicated.
		He has an infantile understanding of economics.
		He always has.
		It sounded like he just learned the word reciprocal earlier when he was saying it.
		But basically, it's just, it's bullying.
		It's economic bullying.
		It's not going to help us.
		We're bullying companies to come back.

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