CSPAN - Washington Journal 04/04/2025

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April 4, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:57

Washington Journal 04/04/2025

Participants

Main

greta brawner

cspan 44:32

Appearances

brian lamb

cspan 00:46

chuck schumer

sen/d 01:58

howard lutnick

admin 00:58

karoline leavitt

admin 01:19

marco rubio

admin 03:04

maria cantwell

sen/d 04:01

mark carney

can 00:47

Clips

dave walsh

00:09

donald j trump

admin 00:12

glenn spencer

00:01

lee hawkins

00:17

walter jones

rep/r 00:05

Callers

eben in california

callers 01:45

steven in nevada

callers 00:08

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Journal, your calls and comments live.
		And then we'll talk with Amy Parnes, senior political correspondent for The Hill, about her new book, Fight Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, co-authored with NBC News political reporter Jonathan Allen and Trust for America's Health president and CEO Dr. J. Nadine Gracia about her organization's recent report evaluating states' preparedness for public health emergencies.
		Washington Journal is next.
		Join the conversation.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, everyone.
		On this Friday, April 4th, we'll begin with the headline that's dominating the national newspapers this morning.
		President Trump's tariffs ripple across the global markets.
		This morning, we want to know how they will impact all of you.
		Here's how you can join the conversation.
		If you're a Republican, dial in at 202-748-8001.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Fourth line this morning for farmers and business owners.
		What will this mean for you?
		At 202-748-8003 is where you can join the conversation.
		If you don't want to call, you can text at 202-748-8003, include your first name, city, and state.
		Or you can join the conversation on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or NX with the handle at C-SPANWJ.
		Take a look at the Trump tariff policies from the second administration.
		These are the tariffs so far, not including what the president announced this week.
		10% tariffs on nearly all imports.
		That takes effect on Saturday.
		Higher reciprocal tariffs for China at 34%.
		But the newspaper is noting this morning that for China, it's really more like 70%.
		Japan, 24%, and EU, 20%.
		25% tariffs on imported vehicles.
		This went into effect on April 3rd.
		25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports.
		That was in effect in March.
		20% taxes on Chinese imports, previously announced in March, which means China, as I said, now faces tariffs over 50%.
		This is from marketplace.com this morning.
		So those are the president's tariffs in totality since taking office for the second term.
		This morning, China announced that they will now impose a 34% retaliatory tariff on all goods imported from the United States.
		I want to show you what President Trump had to say to reporters yesterday as he left the White House for a dinner in Florida on his tariff policies.
unidentified		I think it's going very well.
		It was an operation.
		I like when a patient gets operated on.
		And it's a big thing.
		I said this would exactly be the way it is.
		We have six or seven trillion dollars coming into our country.
		And we've never seen anything like it.
		The markets are going to boom.
		The stock is going to boom.
		The country is going to boom.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		And the rest of the world wants to see if there are any way they can make a deal.
unidentified		They've taken advantage of us for many, many years.
		For many years, we've been at the wrong side of the ball.
		And I'll tell you what, I think it's going to be unbelievable.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		The thing that people have to talk about, we're up almost to $7 trillion of investment coming into our country.
unidentified		And you'll see how it's going to turn out.
unidentified		Our country's going to boom.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		President Trump promising our country is going to boom.
		How are these tariff policies impacting you now?
		Have you seen it in your 401k or your 403B?
		Are you seeing consumer prices go up?
		What are you worried about if you're a farmer or a business owner?
		How do you think this is going to impact the supply chain for you?
		That's our conversation here on the Washington Journal this morning.
		Related to that, on the front page of the Washington Post, is a story about what this means for our allies.
		In Europe's eyes, yet another blow to a key alliance.
		In announcing plans in 1947 to rebuild post-World War II Europe, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall linked security with economics.
		Without the United States doing whatever it could to promote normal economic health in the world, he said there can be no political stability and no assured peace.
		This morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Europe at NATO headquarters, meeting with his counterparts from our allied nations, holding a news conference.
		You can watch it in its entirety over on C-SPAN 2.
		We'll show you what he had to say to reporters when he was asked about the impact of these tariffs on European countries.
		Rohan, in Saratoga, California, and Independent, we will go to you first this morning.
		How have you seen these tariff policies impact you or what are you worried about?
unidentified		Yeah, so that's actually with regards to, so actually, to be honest, I'm not too, I guess, familiar with TARES, but what I have heard is I'm not sure if you know about the new Nintendo Switch to release.
		And apparently the prices are much higher this time around because of the tears.
		So just, you know, in terms of entertainment products, I'm kind of worried that prices of that will go higher now.
		Okay.
		Nintendo products are from Japan.
		So I think maybe that might be a reason why.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Rohan worried about the electronics and what does that mean for purchasing goods, a lot of electronics produced in countries like China, in other Asian countries.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Michael in Smithfield, North Carolina, Republican.
unidentified		Good morning, Greta.
		Good morning.
		Definitely.
		Samsung in South Korea, you know, I think it's 20 or 30, 34 percent, something like that.
		And I was just in the market for looking at some appliances for Samsung.
		I have Bosch now.
		And wow, I can't afford that.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You can't afford it.
		You can't afford what, Michael?
		A price increase of what?
unidentified		Well, I can't afford to buy the Samsung now because there's such a heavy tariff on South Korea.
		And South Korea is the maker of Samsung.
		So you're talking about televisions, you're talking about washers, dryers, you're talking about stoves, microwaves, refrigerators.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Michael, do you think you're a Republican?
		Do you trust the president on this?
		He said there is going to be some uncertainty at first, but that this is going to level the playing field.
		Do you believe him on that?
unidentified		I think he's trying to be sincere because he does eight years ago.
		We went through the same thing.
		And the stock market was in a different situation than it's in now.
		Every 10 to 12 years, we're seeing a recession.
		And this has been a little longer than normal.
		But if you go back to 2022, the summer of 22 and October, the stock market was horrible.
		That summer it really peaked.
		It seemed like the inflation did because of the prices we were paying here in North Carolina $4 a gallon for gasoline, regular, unleaded.
		That is crazy.
		And we were paying that under the Biden administration in 22.
		And so he's done this before to answer your question.
		I think he's sincere.
		I think he can get enough to generate.
		Maybe two years from now we'll be back on track.
		But unfortunately, we're in a recession.
		The country's got to wake up.
		The media's got to wake up and email that this is a recession.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So a recession triggered by what, Michael?
		Because as you said, economists, others are not saying we're there yet.
		Some fear we may go there with these tariff policies.
		But why do you think we're in a recession now?
unidentified		Because we have back-to-back negative GDPs.
unidentified		Okay.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Michael in Smithfield, North Carolina, Republican there.
		Let's listen to the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York.
		He said that these tariff policies by the President will walk us into a recession.
		Here he is from yesterday.
chuck schumer ▲ ● ▼		The President made one of the dumbest decisions in history, one that will negatively impact every single American family, every single one.
		He's walking us into the dumbest and most avoidable recession probably in history.
		And let's call the Trump tariff tax for what they really are, a huge tax hike on American families.
		And not just any tax hike.
		Uh-uh.
		J.P. Morgan called it, quote, the equivalent to the largest tax increase in 1968, since 1968.
		Here's what Bloomberg said.
		Quote, roughly $2 trillion was erased from the SP 500 at the start of U.S. trading on Thursday amid worries that President Donald Trump's sweeping new round of tariffs could plunge the economy into a recession.
		And it claims more than 80% of the companies in the SMP were trading lower.
		Stock market is plummeted.
		Retirement savings are tanking.
		Consumer confidence is falling.
		Consumer expectations for the future are historically low.
		Companies are already announcing layoffs.
		I saw Stellantis just knocked off who's going to fire 800 people, lay them off.
		All for these Trump tax, the Trump tariff tax.
		All for that, so they can have more money to reduce taxes on the billionaires.
		The average American family is going to pay more for everything, for food, for gas, for cars, for groceries, for clothing, for beer, for you name it.
		It makes no sense.
		And the bottom line is that they're not fighting for American families.
		They're just aiding and abetting what they're doing and making it even worse with the Trump tariff tax.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, do you agree with him?
		He says that Americans will feel it.
		They will pay more.
		And they are feeling it now.
		Do you agree with him or disagree?
		We're turning the conversation to all of you this morning.
		Washington is debating these tariff policies.
		What do you think?
		Jeff in Indianapolis, Democratic caller.
		Hi, Jeff.
unidentified		Yeah, thank you for taking my call.
		There's no way that businesses are going to be able to avoid passing these increases down to the consumer.
		And that's going to have an effect on the overall economy since two-thirds of economic activity is consumed with spending.
		Now, I don't understand what Trump and his economic advisors think they're doing with this.
		To me, it seems like they don't know what they're doing.
		Every time I see Commerce Secretary Howard Ludlik and Trade Representative Peter Revow on TV, both of them look like fools.
		I don't understand why.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		In what way, Jeff?
		In what way?
		Why do you think that?
unidentified		Because they don't seem to be talking like regular economic theory.
		There's a British economist that came out with a theory back in the 1800s.
		His name is David Ricardo.
		He came out with a theory called the Law of Comparative Advantage.
		Some of this stuff is necessary to be produced overseas because it benefits the American consumer.
		You're not going to be able to get all these businesses to bring production back to the United States.
		If they do, it's going to cost more.
		That's the reason why stuff is made in China and Vietnam because it costs less.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So there's that.
		And then there's also countries that can produce items that we cannot produce on a mass scale.
		Bananas, for example.
		We're not going to produce bananas in the United States.
		We're going to have a trade deficit with countries that do produce bananas.
unidentified		Law of competitive advantage.
unidentified		They seem to be going against established economic theory.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Jeff's thoughts there in Indianapolis.
		The Secretary of Commerce, Howard Luttnick, was on the airwaves after the president announced these sweeping tariffs.
		And here's what he said on his appearance yesterday on CNN when he was asked about prices going up for American consumers.
unidentified		A lot of Americans put Donald Trump in office because they were unhappy with prices at the grocery store, right?
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		They didn't feel like Biden did enough.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		They put Trump in office to fix that.
unidentified		In a few days, we're about to see prices go up at the grocery store.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		What do you say to those Americans?
howard lutnick ▲ ● ▼		I don't think that's going to happen.
howard lutnick ▲ ● ▼		The reason it's going to happen.
chuck schumer ▲ ● ▼		Watch.
howard lutnick ▲ ● ▼		No one can guarantee anything, but that's very nice.
		Thank you.
		I wish I could guarantee whatever you'd like.
		But the fact is, wait, let's take one moment.
		Wait, wait, wait.
		You asked me a question.
		Let's go through it, okay?
		Our farmers are blocked from selling almost anywhere.
		We can't, 1.4 billion people in India, and we can't sell them corn.
		Europe won't let us sell beef.
		Australia won't let us sell beef.
unidentified		Why?
howard lutnick ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, no, that's not why.
		It's because they want to just protect.
		I know.
		They want to say, oh, what?
		The seeds are different, right?
		Other people in the world are using seeds that insects.
		Come on, this is nonsense.
		This is all nonsense.
		What happens is they block our markets.
		When we open those markets, our volumes grow.
		Our farmers will thrive, and the price of groceries will come down.
		Let Donald Trump run the global economy.
		He knows what he's doing.
		He's been talking about it for 35 years.
		You got to trust Donald Trump in the White House.
		That's why they put him there.
		Let him fix it.
unidentified		I understand.
howard lutnick ▲ ● ▼		It's broken.
howard lutnick ▲ ● ▼		Let him fix it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Howard Luttnick arguing that the American people should trust the president that he can fix the global trade system.
		Your reaction to what you're hearing from the White House and Democrats who are opposing the president's moves.
		Arthur in Florida, Republican.
		What do you say to Washington?
unidentified		Basically, what I say is this: that we need to encourage more American-made products.
		And also, another point nobody has thought about.
		God forbid we get into a war.
		What is going to happen when all our ammunition is made overseas?
dave walsh ▲ ● ▼		When all of our trucks, all our tractors, and everything is made overseas, and you can't get parts in this country.
unidentified		Thanks for your time, Mimba.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Arthur's thoughts there.
		We'll go to Richden Park, Illinois.
		Marie is an independent.
		Marie, what do you say?
unidentified		Well, I say that it's weird that he surrounds himself with all these tech people, right?
		But they're not mentioning the element of AI and robotics.
		You know, I don't see bringing jobs back to manufacturing.
		I see a surge in AI.
		I see a surge in robotics because my husband saw an actual truck driving a couple of days ago with no passenger.
		And he's a truck driver.
		I'm just saying, it just seems something is carefully orchestrated here.
		I can't afford a container.
		I operate a frozen food manufacturing company, and I don't know, I buy all my stuff from China, all my packaging, and an Alibaba.
		And I don't know how I'm going to afford all of that.
		I don't know how I'm going to move forward.
		So that's all I have to say.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Marie, hold on.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So you get all your packaging for your frozen fruit production from China?
unidentified		Yes, I do.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		I order off Alibaba.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And how much do you know yet how much they're going to increase the pricing for that packaging?
unidentified		Well, I know it's 25% is what they're saying as far as overall from China.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So you expect to get hit with that 25% increase.
unidentified		Absolutely.
		Absolutely.
		You know, from everything from shipping, from container costs, you know, small businesses know this.
		It's very difficult to find a packaging company, a company that makes boxes here in the United States that doesn't have a union, that doesn't have all the high prices.
		There's no way I can afford those prices with margins and make money and have good margins.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me ask you, yeah, let me ask you about that because some say businesses should then look at their margins and reduce their margins.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		If you had to reduce your margins by 25%, do you even have a margin of 25%?
unidentified		I do not.
		Because when you're going to grocery stores, it's 35%.
		That's how they want you to have it.
		It said 35%.
		25%?
		I'm already skating on 15% profit.
		I've got workers to pay.
		There's no way.
		The overhead is ridiculous.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So can you add it?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Can you pass it along to your consumers?
unidentified		I'm going to have to.
		I'm going to have to.
		And when you think of dairy, it's not only packaging, it's the food.
		Dairy has gone up, eggs have gone up, you know.
		I'm taking a hard look at moving forward.
		I'm looking, you know, it's just, it's really a catastrophe for small businesses.
		The dream is like gone.
		That was the dream, being able to buy, you know, and import and export.
		It was for small businesses.
		But now, I don't know how we're going to survive.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Marie, there in Richton Park, Illinois, an independent caller.
		What does it mean when we have a trade deficit?
		Wall Street Journal this morning, a trade deficit is the difference between the value of the goods and services a country imports and the value of goods and service it exports.
		A deficit means that a country is importing more than it exports.
		A surplus means the opposite.
		Economists sometimes examine the total trade balance, goods and services, and sometimes analyze just goods or services trade.
		Services include transportation, construction, and the provision of accounting or legal support.
		The White House says tariff analysis appeared to not include only goods.
		It appeared to include only goods, not services.
		What does the trade balance say about U.S. industrial strengths and weaknesses?
		The U.S. excels at exporting services such as banking, insurance, consulting, and legal advice.
		It's also a major exporter of some goods, including aircraft, soybeans, and oil.
		Over the years, it has increasingly turned to other nations for many of the goods it consumes, including electronics, clothing, and other items.
		So economists say, some economists say, that President Trump's numbers on tariffs and the deficits numbers that he put out in the Rose Garden this week at the White House do not include the services that we export.
		And so some economists argue the president's numbers are wrong.
		Robin in Cleveland, Tennessee, Democratic caller, Robin, what do you say?
unidentified		I say that it's going to be terrible.
		As for me, I went out yesterday and bought a new washer and dryer because we're not going to be able to afford them.
		And this is nonsensical.
		He does not know what he's doing.
		And if people would have read Project 2025, you would know that this is going to happen.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Have a nice day.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Israel.
		Crystal River, Florida, Republican.
		Good morning.
		Welcome to the conversation.
		What do you think?
unidentified		Yes, this is what I think.
		And please don't cut me off.
		I think this is what's going on.
		Our hearts are set so part from the God of heaven.
		And it's the dollar says, in God we trust.
		We're trusting in fake gods that are yoked apart from God's heavenly mandates.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, we're talking about trade tariffs this morning.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Kathleen, Chicago, Democratic Color.
unidentified		Morning, how you doing?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
unidentified		Okay, going to the grocery store, maybe put two or three packs of meat in the cart, cart half full, get to the register, three and four hundred dollars.
unidentified		Then I hear this millionaire or billionaire just a little while ago, Loopneck or whatever his name is.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Howard Luttneck.
unidentified		Trust Trump.
		He knows what he's doing.
		He's been doing this for 35 years.
		How can I trust somebody that bankrupt his own business six times?
		You know, it's a shame that people won't wake up and see what this man is doing.
		He said the other day when the car prices go up, he didn't care.
		Then went off to golf.
		People wake up.
		This man needs to be ran out of their White House.
		He do not.
		I was under the impression when he got in, he was going to just do the immigrants, get them out this country.
		But what he has done since he's been in there, and give me a second, please.
		He has hurt, he's not hurt the immigrants.
		He's hurt the American people.
		People are losing their jobs.
		Now, how in the world are you going to buy stuff, pay rent, pay your bills, go to the grocery store.
		If you find American workers.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Kathleen, what should Democrats do about it?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How should they respond to the president?
unidentified		Democrats, let me say this before you slam the phone on me.
		The Democrats tried in their best before November to tell the American people that this was going to happen.
		But the American people gave the Republicans the House, the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court.
		So it's too late to ask what the Democrats are going to do.
		What the American people need to ask and demand that the ones that they put up there in the White House, the House and the Senate, do your job.
		You said America first, do America first.
		Instead of trying to sell tons of cars for the richest man in the world.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Understood.
		All right.
		Kathleen's point there in Chicago.
		As we said, Secretary of State Marco Rubio meeting with his counterparts in NATO and at NATO headquarters in Belgium.
		He held a news conference earlier today, and right away he was asked by reporters about these tariffs and what it means for economies around the world.
marco rubio ▲ ● ▼		The markets are reacting.
		No, their economies are not crashing.
		Their markets are reacting to a dramatic change in the global order in terms of trade.
		And so what happens is pretty straightforward.
		If you're a company and you make a bunch of your products in China, and all of a sudden, shareholders or people that play the stock market realize that it's going to cost a lot more to produce in China, your stock is going to go down.
		But ultimately, the markets, as long as they know what the rules are going to be moving forward, and as long as that's sentence and you can sustain where you're going to be, the markets will adjust.
		Businesses around the world, including in trade and global trade, they just need to know what the rules are.
		Once they know what the rules are, they will adjust to those rules.
		So I don't think it's fair to say economies are crashing.
		Markets are crashing because markets are based on the stock value of companies who today are embedded in modes of production that are bad for the United States.
		We have to be a country that thinks we're the largest consumer market in the world, and yet the only thing we export is services.
		And we need to stop that.
		We need to get back to a time where we're a country that can make things.
		And to do that, we have to reset the global order of trade.
unidentified		The other part of my question.
marco rubio ▲ ● ▼		Well, the worst thing is to leave it the way it is forever.
		I mean, this just can't continue.
		We can't continue to be a country that doesn't make things.
		We have to be able to make things to provide jobs for Americans.
		That's it.
		It's that simple.
		China is an example.
		I mean, it's outrageous.
		I mean, they don't consume anything.
		All they do is export and flood and distort markets in addition to all the tariffs and barriers they put in place.
		So the president rightly has concluded that the current status of global trade is bad for America and good for a bunch of other people.
		And he's going to reset it.
		And he's absolutely right to do it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Marco Rubio had a news conference earlier this morning at NATO headquarters.
		If you want to watch what he had to say to reporters in its entirety, go to our website at c-span.org.
		The headlines related to Rubio's visit to NATO this morning, Wall Street Journal, U.S. going to remain in NATO, Rubio tells his allies and then his counterparts.
		And then there's also the world section of the Washington Post in NATO talks.
		Trump team puts onus on Europe to defend itself.
		Rubio travels to Brussels to reassure the alliance about Trump's intentions, but also to warn that it can't rely so heavily on the United States anymore.
		Back to our conversation about the president's tariff policies.
		How does it affect you?
		Sean in Naples, Maine, Republican.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Well, I don't think we're really going to see much unless you're looking for, you know, maybe buy a brand new car or something like that.
		But I feel like your average American isn't going to see much.
		I think we're really dialing in on perceived or guessing of what these tariffs might do.
		And the same people telling you that the sky is falling today didn't even want to talk about inflation over the last four years.
		Whatever the tariff does is not going to be as bad as the increases we've seen over the last four years.
		The McDonald's cheeseburger went from 89 cents to $3, and now they're just starting to take it back.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So, Sean, how do you respond to people who say that this is going to increase prices for the American consumer on goods that they normally get from other countries?
		And that even if a good isn't coming from another country, businesses are going to raise prices and blame it on tariffs.
		And those prices are then going to stay at that price.
		They're not going to come back down.
unidentified		Well, then I wouldn't shop with that business.
		How will you know?
		Look where the product is made.
		If you've been buying the product for the last six months, year, and all of a sudden the price jumps on the tariff and it's not made in the U.S., stop buying it.
		Put your money where it actually gets something done.
		People are more angry about paying a 25% tariff on a Timu paper doll than they are about buying something local and helping support your neighbor.
		The idea of the tariff was to get you to buy things that are in our country.
		Keep your money here.
		We're shipping all of our money overseas for cheap junk.
		And people are outraged.
		The best case scenario, an absolute crash of the economy.
		Absolute crash.
		And then the reason why the time after World War II was so good is because it dumped and then all the way up to 1980.
		You want the American dream?
		People want to be able to afford a home again?
		Crash the economy.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, what about people's 401ks?
		People who are 10 years out from retirement and they lose what they've built up and they don't have enough time to rebuild it before they're going to retire.
		What do you say to them?
unidentified		It doesn't affect me.
		If you have a 401k, you're doing just fine.
		The average person that is stuck paying $2,000 a month for rent and will never be able to afford a home unless there is a crash and I'm talking a big one.
		So the people that have a house that is today, they say is worth a million dollars was worth $250,000 40 years ago, they're going to get mad.
		I don't care.
		Dump it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So, Sean, explain your economic situation and why it doesn't impact you, the 401k and the price of a home.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And explain why you're saying for you and for you and others, this would be the best thing for you.
unidentified		Because the price of a home is unobtainable.
		It is unobtainable.
		Impossible with what you can make.
		I live in the state of Maine, rural Maine at that.
		If you're not working at a gas station or a Dollar General, you're traveling an hour just to get a job.
		Do you think everybody in the world got 401ks and owning homes?
		60% of all mortgages never even get paid.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So, Sean, you're a renter, right?
unidentified		No, I own.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You do own.
unidentified		I own something that was affordable, that you could buy and not get stuck in a mortgage or a crazy payment.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And where do you work, Sean, if you don't mind telling us?
unidentified		I do outdoor activities.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		I don't work a corporate job.
		Because what am I going to do?
		Go work a cash register, stock shelved somewhere for $13.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, do you make a decent living then?
unidentified		You can't make a decent living then.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		No, but do you?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Do you make a decent living?
unidentified		Yes, we buy what we need.
		We don't buy what we want.
		I would argue that I eat better than people that make a half million dollars a year because I know how to cook.
		I don't buy things in boxes.
		A seven-pound pork roast is $6.99 at the butcher.
		You chop it into.
		You got seven pork roasts, a dollar apiece.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Sean there in Naples, Maine, with his thoughts, a Republican.
		Gerald Creston, Washington State, Democratic caller.
		Gerald.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		My name is Daryl.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I am one of those that how this is affecting my particular financial situation is.
		I am 78 years old.
		I have worked my entire life to stack what I think is very comfortable for continuing my life in my portfolio, my investment portfolio, and now I'm seeing it trashed for the obvious reason that I think Trump is totally off of his rocker.
		I think he needs to be impeached and his policies just do not fit.
		And I'm glad we're waking up and realizing that far too late.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Gerald, so tell me about the financial hit you've taken.
unidentified		Yes, I've watched my portfolio drop $70,000 in the last two days.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		In the last two days?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And how about overall over recent weeks?
unidentified		Over recent weeks, since the 12th of February, that is my loss to date is the $70,000.
		But I'm saying that is substantial.
		And it does not look like anything there is correcting.
		So, what choices do I have?
		I'm one of the people that you're talking about.
		I don't have time to recover.
		I've recovered from 2008.
		I've recovered in my investment portfolio from pandemic.
		I don't have that time anymore.
		Not if we're looking at recession, depression.
		I don't think we even know what we're looking at right now, which I think is totally reckless.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Darrell there in Creston, Washington State.
		Let me show you, as we said at the top, the national newspapers and their headlines this morning, how they're framing it.
		This is the Washington Post this morning: onslaught of tariffs, ripples across the globe, showing what the impact has been on the NASDAQ, the SP 500, tech stocks, et cetera.
		That's the Washington Post.
		This is the Wall Street Journal.
		Stocks suffer the steepest slide since 2020.
		And again, showing you the impact on these individual indexes.
		You also have the New York Times this morning.
		Tariff shockwaves circle the globe, turning long-time grievances into an emergency markets dive as countries vow to reciprocate.
		Let's go to Jerry and Redfield, Maine, Republican.
		Jerry, welcome to the conversation.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Kudos to Sean in Maine.
		Lobstering in Maine.
chuck schumer ▲ ● ▼		All right?
walter jones ▲ ● ▼		We're just not business smart, and Trump is a businessman, not a politician.
unidentified		We're blessed to have him.
		God send him to us.
		So what do we do in Maine?
		Okay, we have 18 processing plants in the state of Maine.
		So the lobster men, what do they do?
		They send the lobsters to Canada, who has 250 processing plants.
		The same way with blueberries.
		Down east, we rake the blueberries.
		It's one of the big crops.
		What do we do with it?
		We take the blueberries, we put them on tractor trailers, and tractor trailer loads go to Canada where they have a processing plant.
		We're just not smart as American people.
		And we finally got a businessman who's got almost $7 trillion of businesses coming into America.
		And we're all panicking about the immediate effect of us.
		And Trump's got his energy policy going drill, baby, drill.
		Okay, so all those people don't understand the price of energy is going to affect heating oil.
		It's going to affect the ability to move product.
		And that's going to help us 100%.
		So stand back.
		We had a canoe.
		I'm a Native American.
glenn spencer ▲ ● ▼		We were heading to the falls.
unidentified		Trump is smart enough to turn the canoe around and head it back the other way instead of our $36 trillion.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Jerry, nothing.
		How long do you think it would take for companies to build processing plants in Maine for lobster and blueberries?
		How many years do you think it would take for them to be back into place so that they are not exporting that to Canada?
unidentified		We have to be doing the right thing, and that is to build more processing plants.
		Canada is not smarter than Maine.
		Our politicians have let us down.
		You don't have a product like lobster that you send away to be processed somewhere else or lumber that goes back over the Canadian border and it's rough cut in Maine and it's sent out to be planed and comes back to Maine.
		It's just not smart.
		Buy your planer.
		Employ your people in Maine.
		Let's get things right.
		And we're just blessed to have Trump, and just people are just so knee-jerk.
		Look, we're heading to the falls, like I said.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We heard the point.
		We heard the point, Jeremy.
		Speaking of politicians, from page of the Washington Post this morning, hours after global stock markets tumbled, Senators Chuck Grassley, a Republican of Iowa, and Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington State, introduced a bill Thursday requiring Congress to approve any tariffs within 60 days of their proposal by the President.
		The legislation would also mandate that the White House provide an analysis of tariffs' impact on businesses and consumers.
		Senator Grassley argued the bipartisan bill would reassert Congress' constitutional role and ensure Congress has a voice in trade policies.
		Listen to his colleague Senator Marie Cantwell, his partner in this legislation, on the floor yesterday.
maria cantwell ▲ ● ▼		It's arguable that the current approach is literally a misconstruction of statutory authorities.
		But what we know for sure today, what we know today for sure, is that 95% of the world's consumers are outside of the United States.
		That means the global middle class includes almost 4 billion people.
		Those are markets for American businesses, for farmers to reach, to grow, and prosper.
		According to the World Bank, in the recent decade, trade has lifted 1 billion people out of poverty.
		My colleagues here who've worked on deals in the past that opened up markets in places like Chile, Peru, Singapore, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, the update of the USMCA, all know that this hard work created economic opportunity.
		Our trade agreements helped American farmers export $176 billion in agricultural products last year.
		They helped ensure that the United States is the world largest agriculture exporter, with soybeans and corn leading the way as the top export.
		I want to return to trade agreements.
		I want to open up more markets.
		I want us to have a robust export opportunity for the excellent U.S. manufactured and grown products.
		Our trade agreements have ensured that the U.S. remained the second largest exporter of manufactured goods in the world, $2.06 trillion in 2024.
		And it's clear today the United States must be competing hard to win in the race for emerging technologies like AI and quantum.
		Our foreign adversaries and our competitors are in this global race too.
		So that is why economic disruption puts America at risk.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington State, there on the floor of the Senate.
		She joined up with Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a bipartisan piece of legislation.
		Unclear if it'll get a vote on the Senate floor.
		Back to the Washington Post in this same article: fear of fallout from Trump tariff plan put some Republicans in a tough spot.
		Over on the House side, this is from the Washington Post.
		Representative Gregory Meeks, Democrat of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced he would introduce a resolution to end the made-up national emergency that he says will disproportionately hurt working families.
		By introducing his resolution under privilege next week, Meeks will force the Republican majority to take up a vote within two legislative days.
		House Democrats hope it will show whether Republicans support the economic path Trump is inflicting on their constituents.
		So, Democrat Gregory Meeks hoping to force a vote on the president's declaration of an emergency, and that is why he says he can put forth this 10% tariff across the board.
		It goes into effect on Saturday.
		Gregory Meeks wants Republicans and Democrats on the record to do away with the emergency proclamation.
		That's the Washington Post this morning.
		Lee in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a Republican.
		Lee, you're a business owner.
		What do you do?
unidentified		I do construction landscaping.
		I don't mow lawns.
		I do brick patios, rock walls, all the fun stuff.
		I'm a small business owner.
		I'm owner-operated, me and one other guy.
		And what we do is go out and create art.
		And thank God AI cannot do what I do for a living.
		So I got a secure job.
		And I'd suggest anybody get a trade job.
		But the whole thing about the tariffs, I see it being, it's quite fair.
		I'm small business.
		What I do, the tariffs aren't affecting me.
		The rich will always spend their money.
		There's no doubt about it.
		You're guaranteed the rich will spend their money on what they want.
		And when you want a really nice-looking patio, that's what I do.
		But besides that, do we forget what China did to our kids by sending, you know, when you got the happy meal from McDonald's?
		The poison that was coming off the toys.
		The materials that we get from China, the flooring that leeches off toxic gases.
		These are things that we're purchasing from China that are affecting human, the United States health.
		We don't know what they're putting in their paint.
		They've done it before where they poisoned us.
		So rightfully, I think the tariffs, we should say stop buying Chinese stuff.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but Lee, so this, I want to share this article with you and hang on the line because I want to get your reaction to it.
		This is the Wall Street Journal.
		World braces for flood of Chinese goods.
		So if they don't bring what they've already produced by the barge load, shipload to the United States because they want to avoid this tariff, then what happens to the goods that you're talking about?
		The inexpensive toys and clothing and all of that.
		So from the Well Street Journal, U.S. consumers and businesses learned on Wednesday that from April 9th, Chinese imports will face tariffs of around 70% on average because that includes tariffs put in place by President Biden and then the ones that President Trump added during his second administration.
		The new tariffs will likely push up prices in the United States for products ranging from consumer electronics and toys to machinery and essential components for manufacturing.
		Goes on to say this, that it will be hard for other countries to absorb Chinese exports that normally went to the huge U.S. market.
		The U.S. in 2024 imported around 440 billion of goods from China, according to the Census Bureau.
		China in 2023 was the source of a fifth of iron and steel products imported into the U.S., more than a quarter of its imported electronics, a third of its imported footwear, and three-quarters of its imported toys, according to data from the International Trade Center.
		To be sure, U.S. imports from China are unlikely to drop to zero overnight.
		Consumers might be able to find alternatives to some Chinese-made products, but others and manufacturers outsource big chunks of their production to Chinese factories.
		Even if they manufacture goods at home, they are often bringing in parts and basic materials.
		Goes on to say, though, that since Trump launched his trade war in 2018, China has been the subject of almost 500 anti-dumping rulings and investigations.
		So, Lee, going back to you, where is all this stuff going to go if it doesn't come to the United States?
		China will dump it somewhere else, according to this reporting from the Wall Street Journal.
unidentified		Hopefully, they dump it in a landfill because it's all garbage.
		Well, then what happens to our Earth?
		It's already going there, isn't it?
		I mean, periods, periods.
		Like you said, they're dumping so much.
		It's going to get dumped somewhere.
		And what happens to our Earth?
		It's going to get dumped somewhere.
		It's the same cycle.
		But besides, if you look at your Walmart, every store you go into, you cannot find something that's American-made.
		I mean, that's what's crazy about it.
		I can go into Walmart and buy every piece of cheap Chinese crap there is.
		That's what I call it.
		But you cannot go and find American-made products.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Lee, I'm going to leave it there and go to Ronald, who's in New Hampshire, Independent.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Ronald, good morning to you.
unidentified		Yes, Greta, thank you for taking my call.
		I would like everyone to pick up their copy of the Constitution.
		And on Article 1, Section 7, it says, all bills for raising revenues shall originate in the House of Representatives.
		This is something that I learned in grade school, but the process is that the House of Representatives is the only one who can raise taxes, who can raise a tariff.
		The president can't do that.
		Nobody can do that.
		And that's hard-coded in the Constitution.
		Nobody can change that.
		The president can't change that.
		Supreme Court can't change that.
		Congress can't change that because it's hard-coded in the Constitution.
		The only way to change that is with a constitutional amendment.
		There are no tariffs.
		Just because the president announced that there are tariffs, there are no tariffs.
		Nobody is obligated to pay that tax or any other tax, really, because this whole regime is illegitimate.
		We need to take down this regime.
		We need a revolution, a peaceful, nonviolent revolution, to take down this regime and replace it with a democracy, a democracy that actually cares about the people.
		And the way to do that, boycott, join the worldwide boycott, stop buying things, stop driving, stop going to work, stop everything.
		Let's take down this whole regime and replace it with a democracy.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Al, Tucson, Arizona, Democratic caller.
unidentified		Al?
		Yes, good morning.
		I've been studying everything within what Trump is doing and everything.
		And from the very start when he was elected president, and I said to myself, it's going to happen.
		He is going to totally, totally put everything down within America.
		And he did it.
		And it's a complete insult to us, especially the people who did not vote for him.
		Because he is not very, very intelligent.
		His mouth is bigger than his brain.
		You know.
		And the world, the countries right now are laughing at him for his stupidity.
		That's why I think with his first name, he should change it to Toilet Trump.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Al Swat's there in Tucson, Arizona.
		Let's listen to the White House Press Secretary, Caroline Lovett.
		The Trump officials, after the president made these announcements, hitting the airwaves at different networks to argue in favor of what the president had done.
		Here's his White House press secretary on NewsNation.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		As for prices and what the American public can expect, they can expect price stability.
		They can expect to buy Americans.
		It's a patriotic thing to do.
		And most importantly, they can expect their wages to go up.
		We know that in President Trump's first term, wages went up by $6,500 per person.
		And that's because of the whole of government economic approach that this administration is taking.
		effectively implementing tariff while also this won't be painful at all for american people and consumers caroline it's It's going to be, there's not going to be any pain for American-owned companies and American workers because their jobs are going to come back home.
		And again, as for prices, President Trump is working on tax cuts to put more money back into the pockets of Americans.
		He's working on a massive deregulatory effort, which we know has already saved American taxpayers millions of dollars in just two months.
		And we're also working on driving down the cost of energy with a Trump energy boom, just like we saw in his first term.
		The president effectively implemented tariffs in his first term while driving down the cost of living.
		This is a proven economic formula that works, and the American people should trust in Trump.
		That's why they elected him back to the White House.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Your reaction to the White House press secretary and her argument there on trusting the president and what will happen with his tariff policies.
		We want to know how they are affecting you or how you think that they will affect you.
		We're going to hear from the Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell, on the U.S. economy later this morning at 11:25 a.m. Eastern Time.
		And you'll be able to watch it right here on C-SPAN on our free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW, if you're not near a television, or you can go online on demand at c-span.org.
		Surely he'll be talking about and/or asked about the tariff policies and the impact it'll have on the economy.
		As we noted, countries have threatened to retaliate against the United States.
		The Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announcing yesterday tariffs that they'll now impose on U.S. vehicles.
		Here he is.
mark carney ▲ ● ▼		Canada will respond to the U.S. auto tariffs.
		And today I'm announcing that the government of Canada will be responding by matching the U.S. approach, by matching the U.S. approach with 25% tariffs on all vehicles imported from the United States that are not compliant with CUSMA, our North American Free Trade Agreement, and on the non-Canadian content of CUSMA-compliant vehicles from the United States as well.
		Our tariffs, though, unlike the U.S. tariffs, will not affect auto parts because we know the benefits of our integrated production system.
		And they will also not affect vehicle content from Mexico, who is respecting the CUSMA agreement.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		The Canadian Prime Minister on Canada's response to President Trump's tariffs against them.
		We're going to get back to calls with all of you, but first, some other headlines to share with you.
		This is from the Wall Street Journal.
		The Defense Secretary role in the Signal chat group is now under review.
		The Pentagon's Inspector General said Thursday it had launched a review into the Defense Secretary's sharing of military plans ahead of a U.S. strike on Yemen in the Signal chat group.
		Wall Street Journal reporting that this morning.
		Also, other headlines to share with you.
		The New York Mayor, Eric Adams, announcing that he will now run as an independent, leaving the Democratic Party in the primary for his second term.
		This story, by the way, on page 21 of the New York Times this morning.
		From the politics and the nation section of the Washington Post, yesterday the Senate confirmed Mehmet Oz to serve as the head of Medicare and Medicaid.
		And then there is also this in politics this morning, two stories to share with you.
		The top of the page, Senate Showdown Looms in Texas as the Attorney General there, Ken Paxton, sizing up a primary against Senator John Cornyn.
		Below that story is this headline for the California governor's race.
		President Biden's health secretary, Javier Becera, has entered the race for governor in California.
		James in Boca Vertown, Florida, Republican.
		Hi, James.
unidentified		Good morning, Greta.
eben in california ▲ ● ▼		Yes, just a comment about the, I guess, we should be discussing what these tariff policies would be impacting us as individuals.
unidentified		I can say that my wife and I are on a modest fixed income, and I am not concerned whatsoever.
unidentified		I did a deed one time, have a portfolio, and I did financial services for a living.
eben in california ▲ ● ▼		And those folks who are crying a little bit today don't understand anything about long-term investing, which is markets go up and go down.
unidentified		And so this is actually a buying opportunity for anyone who has money to invest in the market.
eben in california ▲ ● ▼		What we're seeing now is a revolution, which is a long time coming.
		What I mean by that is, as a 72-year-old man, I grew up in an America where we had an industrial base.
		For decades, we have offshored tens of millions of good-paying industrial jobs to primarily China, of course, but across the world.
unidentified		The world economic order that was established after 19, after World War II for 80 years, is being blown up.
eben in california ▲ ● ▼		But the economic, corporate, and political elites on both sides of the aisle, like the Bushes, et cetera, have turned a blind eye to the suffering of the working-class people in this country.
unidentified		And another reason why Mr. Trump, I'm sorry, got essentially re-elected or elected for a second term.
unidentified		People are not stupid.
eben in california ▲ ● ▼		They know they're being screwed by the corporations who are globalists and think that it's just fine to offshore jobs.
		And we have hollowed out the middle class.
		It is extremely hard for young people to start in this country and build a life together.
unidentified		And this destruction.
		And then, of course, Mr. Biden opened the floodgates to probably 15 to 20 million illegal aliens.
		That's what they are.
eben in california ▲ ● ▼		And they're going to also drive down wages.
unidentified		These people are unskilled.
unidentified		A lot of them, of course, are criminals.
eben in california ▲ ● ▼		But the ones that are not criminals are just going to drive down wages and take jobs.
unidentified		And the corporations love it, right?
		And then, of course, Democrats think that we're all going to become Democrats.
		So my comment is that this is a revolution.
		It's a welcome revolution.
eben in california ▲ ● ▼		And we should rejoice that we have a man in office who is not going to be kowtowed to these corporate elites or the Democratic Party, either side of the aisle.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, James.
		Let me go to Brandon, who's in Baltimore, Independent.
		Hi, Brandon.
unidentified		Hi, thanks for taking my call.
		I'm concerned about the actual understanding of the trade tariffs and the difference between a trade tariff and a trade deficit.
		My concern is if no one truly understands and doesn't get an unbiased explanation of those two things, they can't make a real decision on how things should or shouldn't be.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Santos in Texas, Democratic callers, Santos.
		Trump's tariff policies, what do you think?
unidentified		Yes, I think they're going to hurt all the people that are depending on their Social Security, Medicare, and everything, their groceries, because we're on a fixed income and we're trusting a man that has spent his life in court, filing bankruptcy, said everything he's tried.
		And that's all I have to say.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Chris or Cordell in Columbia, Pennsylvania, independent.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, Greta.
		Wow, you guys answered quick today.
		I'm not exactly sure yet, right, as far as how I'm going to be affected because it's just a little bit early.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		But you're a business owner.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Is that right, Cordell?
unidentified		Yeah, that's right.
		Yeah, yeah.
		Well, I'll put it to you this way.
		I've been an entrepreneur for the past 20 years.
		So if you consider that a business owner, you know.
		But anyway, like the previous callers were saying, right, I'm trying to get started.
		So imagine, like, you know, my company was originated in the SBA, like Small Business Administration.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		In fact, I was like the poster boy for our local library.
		The business administration had actually just gotten started the month before I walked into the library.
		Okay.
		That was back in like 06.
		So from 06 till now, which is getting ready to be 26, right?
		I still don't own a home.
		I still don't have a staff.
		I still don't have a building.
		You know what I mean?
		I'm building my clientele.
		You know, I get about an average, about 23 switches and outlets over the summer.
		You know, about 23 of my neighbors, closest neighbors, you know, call me because I make lawn signs through Vistaprint, right?
		You know, and they're pretty cheap for me.
		So I put them all throughout the city, what have you.
		But anyway, so I'm just waiting to see what the tariffs would do, you know, to me.
		Like, this has been a long time coming.
steven in nevada ▲ ● ▼		So ever since way back when Obama was in, when they were saying small business is the future, well, hey, you guys, here's Harris D.C. Electrical.
unidentified		My name's Cordell Harris, and it's been 20 years.
unidentified		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		I'm Cordell.
		I'm going to go to Chris, who's in Lovatown, Pennsylvania, Republican.
		Chris, what do you say to Washington on these new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration?
unidentified		For your time, like a lot of people, I have a 401k.
		I'm retired, 68 years old.
		Last two days, I lost 30,000.
		Since the tariff started, I'm about $105,000.
		And if you look to his tariff numbers, percentages, and then fact-checked them, they're all incorrect.
		And I did vote for Trump.
		I looked at, I'm curious.
		No increased tariffs on Russia, North Korea, or Cuba.
		And he says, because we don't trade with them.
		It's minimal.
		But we don't trade with Cyran at all.
		He raised those.
		He put tariffs on two small islands out off of Australia.
		The only thing on the islands is penguins.
		I have a hard time getting behind him when they're not true facts.
		His statements the other day, gas is well under $3.
		Yesterday, the national average was $312.
		AIDS are down 59%.
		They were 850.
		They're 625 now.
		That's about 25%.
		I have a hard time getting behind a guy that gets up there and doesn't give you honest facts.
		So I'm not real optimistic about this.
		And people tell him he's a great businessman, but he's been bankrupt.
		How many times?
		Claimed bankruptcy?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Chris, did you vote for him all three times?
unidentified		I did.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You did.
		And Chris, is your how are you divvying up your retirement fund right now?
		You are retired 68.
		So is most of your money in bonds?
unidentified		I have a financial advisor I use.
		I'm more towards bonds.
		You know, now that I'm retired.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And you, but you still lost $100,000.
unidentified		Yes.
unidentified		Yes.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Chris and Pennsylvania Republican.
		We're going to leave it there.
		Chris, thanks for calling in, all of you, for participating in that conversation this morning.
		We're going to take a short break.
		When we come back, we'll be joined by the Hills senior political correspondent Amy Parnes.
		She's going to discuss her new book with Jonathan Allen, Fight Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.
		A look at events during the 2024 campaign that led to the election of President Trump.
		Then later, we'll be joined by Dr. Jay Nidine Gracia, who's the president and CEO of Trust for America's Health.
		We're going to discuss her organization's recent report evaluating states' preparedness for public health emergencies.
		Those conversations coming up on The Washington Journal.
unidentified		American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2.
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		This weekend, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, the Virginia 250 Commission commemorates the March 1775 speech by Patrick Henry, where he spoke his famous words: Give me liberty or give me death.
		Event speakers include Virginia Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, filmmaker Ken Burns, and VA 250 National Honorary Chair Carly Fiorina.
		At 6 p.m. Eastern, author Bruce Dorsey, with his book Murder in a Mill Town, talks about an 1832 murder of a young pregnant woman in New England that captivated the country.
		Then, at 7 p.m. Eastern, watch American History TV series First 100 Days as we look at the start of presidential terms.
		This week, we focus on the early months of President Barack Obama's first term in 2009, including an $800 billion economic stimulus package and plans to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in Cuba.
		And at 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures in History, University of Dallas history professor Susan Hansen on the legacy and cultural importance of the 1918 Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams.
		The author is a descendant of President John Adams.
		Exploring the American Story.
		Watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/slash history.
		Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		At 7:30 p.m. Eastern, Vanda Kreft talks about the founding, graduates, and impact of the Catherine Gibbs School, which trained women for executive secretary positions during the early and mid-20th century in her book, Expect Great Things.
		Then at 8 p.m. Eastern, Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, author of Seven Things You Can't Say About China, argues that China poses a significant threat and that major American institutions refuse to talk about it.
		And at 10 p.m. Eastern, on afterwards, New York Times investigative journalist David Enrich argues the rich and powerful are using free speech laws to suppress dissent.
		With his book, Murder the Truth, he's interviewed by author and George Washington Law School professor Mary Ann Franks.
		Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Washington Journal continues.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We want to welcome to the program this morning Amy Parnes.
		She's senior political correspondent with The Hill and co-author of the book Fight Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.
		She's co-author with NBC News political reporter Jonathan Allen.
		Amy Parnes, thanks for being here.
		Let's start with the opening scene of your book, a behind-the-scenes look at the June 27th, 2024 presidential debate.
		What do you describe as the inner circle of the Democratic Party watches President Biden's performance?
unidentified		Well, Greta, we open up, and good morning, thanks for having me.
		We open up with Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker, in her living room watching the debate.
		And we did that intentionally, obviously, because Nancy Pelosi had such, played such a major part of this period of time with Joe Biden and getting him out of the race.
		Her fingerprints are all over this.
		And so we have her set inside her living room alone, watching the debate.
		And we talk about her reaction.
		At the same time, we take you inside Jim Clyburn's living room.
		He's having a drink.
		We take you to Al Sharpton.
		He's alone.
		And we did this intentionally to show that all these people, you know, normally during these sorts of events, they gather together.
		It's a social kind of thing.
		They're all sitting there watching the debate alone.
		It's almost as if they knew what was about to unfold.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And what was their reaction in real time?
unidentified		It was not good.
		I mean, we show you Nancy Pelosi's cell phone and she's getting a lot of incoming from donors and from lawmakers.
		Same across the board.
		My phone was blowing up.
		I think everyone who was watching the debate, who has a part in politics, was watching and couldn't believe what they were watching.
		But this is the first time I think we really reveal.
		We take you really play, we do a play-by-play and show you exactly what people were hearing.
		There's a funny moment, an anecdote where Nancy Pelosi is hearing from one donor, John Morgan, and she's listening to what he has to say.
		And he's essentially saying it's a disaster playing before everyone's eyes.
		And she thinks she's responding, she thinks she's texting her husband, but in reality, she's texting John Morgan back and saying, this is what John Morgan thinks.
		He thinks it's a disaster.
		So clearly she is watching and in a moment of panic as well.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And was the consensus that very night that they needed to make an effort as a group to convince the president to leave the race?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Or how did that come about?
unidentified		They knew something had to happen.
		It wasn't clear at that moment what had to happen, but I think that was the moment where the wheels started to spin and everything was in motion after that.
		And a lot of people thought, including Nancy Pelosi, they didn't want her, they didn't want Joe Biden pushed out very quickly because they sensed that Kamala Harris would come in.
		And there was a weird reaction about that as well.
		So they kind of wanted to take the temperature of lawmakers and other Democratic operatives and see what was going on.
		And so you see how it sort of unravels from there.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And at the time, there were reports that the former speaker was playing a pivotal role in convincing the president to exit the race.
		What did you find out about the role she was playing?
		And what roles did the former president Barack Obama play and George Clooney, et cetera?
		The people that we heard about at the time.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, they played a lot of, they had very big roles.
		I mean, I know that everyone thought that Barack Obama was involved.
		He clearly was involved.
		We have two calls, at least two calls between himself and the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
		They were talking about what to do.
		A lot of people thought that there was still time for a mini primary or an open convention.
		And so they were sort of testing the waters there and feeling out what some people were thinking.
		And I think that a lot of people were kind of open to other options.
		And we report for the first time in this book that, you know, Nancy Pelosi was listening.
		She was on kind of a listening tour, listening to a lot of her colleagues.
		Barack Obama was doing the same thing.
		And they were trying to figure out what to do next.
		But the money, you know, the money was being taken away from Biden.
		It was a really bad, chaotic scene.
		And what we do is we play out those 24 days.
		We take you inside what was happening and how everything evolved in real time.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk about his opponent's reaction.
		The candidate President Trump, his thinking at the time, you write about in the book how he and his campaign maneuvered, but what he was thinking when he's on the debate stage with him, Trump couldn't believe it.
		You're right.
		It took him some time to adjust to the idea that he had been right about Biden.
		His attacks went unanswered.
		Biden absorbed blows and didn't punch back.
		How do I keep hitting him without coming off as an asshole, Trump thought?
		And if I stop hitting him, will viewers lose interest?
		He suddenly became acutely aware of the optics of bullying a sitting president of the United States.
		He could go too far.
		They all think I'm going to go off the rails, Trump thought.
		Instead, he drew back.
unidentified		Yeah, a very kind of untrumpy response, if you will.
		A lot of people thought that he could seize that moment and kind of, you know, they knew going into the debate that they would win against President Biden, but they didn't know just how bad he would be.
		And so he kind of had to tweak his response.
		I think a lot of people around him were saying, you know, you don't want to go too far.
		You don't want to hammer this home.
		This was before they knew what was going to happen.
		And so he had to kind of tweak his game plan and scale it back a little bit.
		And a lot of people think, when we talked to them, they said, you know, that was sort of the counter response that we expected from the president.
		But you could kind of see Greta in that moment where he says, I don't even, you know, Biden talks about, he goes off the rails and talks about Medicaid.
		And the former president says, I don't even think he knows what he's talking about.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Amy Parnes is the co-author of the book, Fight Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, authoring this with NBC News political reporter Jonathan Allen.
		And she's our guest here this morning.
		She'll take your questions and your comments about her reporting.
		Here's how you can join the conversation.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		And we'll take your text messages if you prefer that at 202-748-8003.
		Include your first name, city, and state.
		Annie Parnes, you report on several episodes that signaled former President Biden's cognitive decline.
		What are some examples?
unidentified		Well, for starters, about a year before the debate, there's a congressional picnic held at the White House.
		The president comes face to face with Representative Swalwell of California, and Swalwell has to kind of remind him who he is.
		And he thinks that this is a little odd because this is someone who he ran against in 2020, but he has to kind of remind the president who he is.
		In another episode, he goes, he's taking around a tour of folks who are visiting the White House.
		And he kind of, you know, he wants to take them outside.
		He leads them into a locker room.
		Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker, is along for this ride, this tour, so to speak.
		And he's watching him, and he can tell that the president is sort of not with it.
		Jill Biden, the first lady, is kind of trying to stop him from doing this tour at one point, but he keeps going.
		And there are other examples, too, you know, where aides notice that when he travels overseas, he was met with a makeup artist.
		That was the first order of business each day.
		And that would sometimes cause him to miss a meeting or two because they were so focused on sort of the optics of what he would look like.
		And, you know, people also told us that they noticed that he wasn't present during certain times.
		We document all of this in the book.
		I think this was the first time that people felt a little bit of liberty, a little liberated, if you will, to kind of talk at length about what they were seeing.
		I think when he was still the president, they felt like they couldn't really talk and be as candid with us.
		And so it was an interesting glimpse at what even his advisors and aides were seeing and obviously lawmakers who came into contact with him.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How do you respond to viewers who we've heard say this was a cover-up by the Biden administration officials who knew they should have come forward and they should have said something to the American people because he was not capable of doing the job?
unidentified		Well, to their defense, they say, you know, he had good moments.
		They point to the State of the Union address, for example, last year, where the president was, you know, responding to people in real time and he delivered an incredible speech, they say.
		They thought that he would have a similar moment during the debate.
		They wanted to change the trajectory of the race and that's why they did the debate.
		But there certainly is that feeling among Democrats, Greta, that there was a bit of a cover-up and that his aides were not being candid with them about the president's cognitive, his mental acuity.
		And there is this sense that they should have been more candid and that could have led to someone else coming into the race earlier.
		If not Kamala Harris, they could have had an open primary or a mini primary.
		And so there is a lot of anger towards the Biden team right now.
		And, you know, there isn't as much anger guided at the former vice president, Kamala Harris.
		It's more directed at the president and his team.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What about the role of the media in not talking about some people critical of the media and how do you respond to that of not reporting on the president's mental condition?
unidentified		I don't think you can loop all of us and put us all in a basket.
		I certainly had reported in great length about the president's age and his mental acuity.
		I know a lot of other journalists have.
		The White House would often get a little agitated with reporters for asking those questions and would threaten to cut off access.
		And I think that that was in play.
		But I think that as a whole, I think a lot of journalists were covering the story.
		But you can only get so far, obviously, when the White House is sort of denying what we're all seeing before our eyes.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's go to calls.
		Bob in Baldenville, Massachusetts, Republican.
		Morning, Bob.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Dude, there's so much here.
		It's just so hard to touch.
		Joe Biden, when he first ran for president, and everybody in every state across the country, mostly Democrats, were changing all the voting laws.
		And we had 20 million people that never voted before vote.
		Now, in every election in the last 20 years, there hasn't been as many voters as that one time.
		You'll never reproduce it because it was a lie.
		And nobody can explain that.
		It is statistically impossible to get 20 million people to come and vote, and then they don't come back and vote again.
		And for Joe Biden, they knew the entire, from the day that he started running for president till the day he left office that he was mentally incapacitated.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Bob, let's take that point.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Amy Parnes, was it known from the day he started running that he did not have the mental cognitive condition to run and to be president?
unidentified		I think that the president and his team, I mean, his team certainly felt like he had the ability.
		They thought that he had a successful first term and that's why he should run again.
		They would often get annoyed at operatives or lawmakers who would suggest otherwise, who would say that the president should step down.
		They saw him more as, I think a lot of people saw him as a transitional president, someone who could step in.
		He defeated Donald Trump, someone who could sort of pass the torch on to another Democrat.
		And I think some people were taken aback when they realized that he was going to run again.
		And that's when questions started to arise about his cognitive ability and whether a man who was well into his 80s could perform and continue to perform as president.
		And so there was certainly that doubt there.
		And that's why you're seeing a lot of frustration and anger directed at his advisors who a lot of people felt should have convinced him.
		But the president himself, I think, was pretty stubborn and wanted to remain in office, thought that he had done a good job and was kind of ignored everything around him, including the polling numbers that showed otherwise.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And what role did his wife play?
unidentified		I think his wife really wanted Jill Biden, Dr. Jill Biden.
		She wanted him to continue to run and was one of his closest advisors in his first term.
		And I think was frustrated by the mounting pressure in the final days of, you know, from Democrats to have him leave the race.
		I think she felt like it was unwarranted.
		And there's still a lot of animosity there, you know, from the Biden, from the Biden family toward Barack Obama and toward Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats who were trying to push him out.
		And we have a scene in the plane, we have a scene in the book where the president is on the plane with people like Jim Clyburn, the congressman, and Al Sharpton, and he thanks them for being there for him.
		This is sort of after the switch happens, but he says, you know, the one person that I won't ever forgive is Nancy Pelosi.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Nick in Trenton, Michigan, Democratic caller.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you so much, Amy, for answering these questions.
		So I was a strong, you know, Biden, you know, second-term supporter.
		I felt like after all of his accomplishments, he deserved it.
		But like most Americans watching June 27th, I was mortified.
		My question is: what was Kamala Harris's actual reaction to the debate?
		I remember watching her on, I think it was Rachel Maddow after, and she acknowledged that it wasn't a great performance.
		I think he was sick.
		But what was her actual feeling for those 24 days?
		Like, did she feel like it was time for him to step down?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Nick.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Amy Parnes.
unidentified		That's a very good question.
		She's watching the debate like everyone else in real time.
		She was in Los Angeles, and so she was watching it in a hotel conference room.
		And we take you inside that room to find out her reaction.
		But, you know, I think she was trying to be a loyal foot soldier, obviously, in the days that he was still at the top of the ticket.
		But she also was caught in a weird position where she had to plan.
		And, you know, they were secretly, they were saying publicly, obviously, and this is the first time we were hearing about this.
		We're reporting in the book that her aides, her closest advisors, were in fact planning the what if, what if Joe Biden leaves the race?
		What do we do?
		How do we suddenly, how do we get the Democrats together and galvanize the party quickly behind her?
		And there was a meeting that we talk about that was happening the day that Sunday that Joe Biden does drop out.
		She has a meeting in her pool house at the Naval Observatory with it.
		She's not involved in the meeting, but her closest advisors are involved in this meeting, the what-if meeting.
		They think that it's going to happen in the next few days, and they're trying to plan what would happen, how they would get the delegates, what they would do in terms of fundraising and all of that.
		And that's happening right as the switch happens, right as the president is calling to tell her that he's going to drop out of the race.
		And so it's an interesting thing.
		It hasn't been reported until now, and it's in this book.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Mike in Baltimore Independent.
		Mike, the book is Fight Inside the White Wildest Battle for the White House.
		Go ahead, Mike.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, and thanks for taking my call.
		We knew this in 2019, depending on where you get your sources from.
		And we teach that in schools and stuff being reliable sources.
		And the media itself knew this in 2019.
		They hit them In the basement, New York Post, Fox News, Newsmax, and all the above put this out there, but they put them in conspiracy theorists and stuff like that.
		Now, Americans only want, they don't trust the media, NPR, MSNBC, and stuff like that, because they hid that.
		I think you should throw stuff out there and let people decide for themselves and what they see.
		And then from there, you know, then people can make decisions.
		But we shouldn't lie to people.
		We shouldn't hide things from people, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
		All right, Mike.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Amy Farnes.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, and to be honest, Mike, we wrote another book about the election called Lucky in 2020, where we talked at great length about how Joe Biden was sort of how his advisors did sort of hide him in his basement, so to speak, during the pandemic.
		And yeah, that was very much something that they did.
		And at the time, it worked for him.
		It worked to his favor.
		He won in 2020.
		And, you know, it just he couldn't continue to do that.
		His advisors did sort of, he didn't do as many press interviews.
		You're seeing President Trump right now and how available he is to media.
		He was really, Biden was knocked at the time for not coming out, for not sitting with, you know, network anchors, for not doing podcasts.
		And so I think all of this hurt him in the end.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Summer in Jonesboro, Tennessee, Democratic caller.
		Welcome, Summer.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, I'd just say I knew for a long time that he was in cognitive decline.
		There was no doubt about it.
		I would have voted for a potato before I would have voted for Donald Trump.
		In no other election would I have voted for Joe Biden.
		That's the point for Kamala.
		I am so tired of being screwed by the DNC.
		It's ridiculous.
		They screwed us during Hillary.
		She bought her way in there.
		We could have had Bernie.
		And they screwed us this time with the primary.
		We all knew he was in cognitive decline.
		We would have voted for him anyway.
		I voted for Kamala.
		I voted for her the last time she ran.
		I had no problem with Kamala, but we should have been given a choice.
		And that's all I got to say.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Summer, let's take that point.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Amy Parnes.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people, there is frustration at the Democratic Party right now.
		We're seeing that play out before our eyes.
		I think a lot of people think that, you know, they blame the president, President Biden, at the time, for not, as I said earlier, for not stepping aside sooner.
		They thought that an open primary would be in their best interest or a mini primary.
		So there is this frustration.
		And I think the Democratic Party right now is trying to figure out how to rebuild and how to, what to do, because I think there's a sense from a lot of people that they have lost their way and that many of these Trump voters should really be Democrats and how to connect to these voters again.
		And I think a lot of people look at messaging, you know, the lack of messaging.
		In 2016, the same thing, my co-author and I wrote about this in our book Shattered, how Hillary Clinton wasn't able to properly connect in the moment, how she didn't understand the populist movement that was happening at the time.
		And so there is that same sense this time that Democrats didn't connect and weren't speaking about the issues that voters care about, including the economy and inflation.
		And, you know, they have to find their way back, and I think they're trying to right now, but I think it might take a cycle or two until they figure out who they are and what they want to be.
		And there's this sense that they have to sort of almost accept what happened and admit what happened and admit that they were kind of asleep at the switch with Biden.
		And all of that is there's a reckoning happening right now.
		I just think it's going to take a long time for Democrats and the party to figure out who they are and who they want to be.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And who is the leader of the Democratic Party right now?
unidentified		That's the other big question, Greta.
		I think people are trying to figure that out.
		And that's why you're seeing lots of people, you know, doing interesting things.
		Gavin Newsom has a podcast.
		Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are on the road doing these rallies.
		People are trying to make a name for themselves right now, and they're trying to kind of stand up and be the leader of the Democratic Party because there is this huge void right now.
		And the party feels leaderless and rudderless.
		Would you put Corey Booker in that category as well?
		A lot of Democrats were really impressed with what he did this week.
		I just don't know if, you know, it was a lot of people also say it was a stunt and how memorable will this be.
		But I think right now Democrats are looking for someone who will be that fighter, who will kind of step into that role.
		And I think Corey Booker certainly got a lot of attention this week for his filibuster.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Sylvia, Etlin, Virginia, Independent.
unidentified		Yes, thank you.
		I was wondering about his doctors.
		When they were asked, they said he was cognically fit.
		Were they being paid big money to say that?
		I mean, we still don't know what, there's many kinds of dementias.
		We still don't know what is wrong with President Biden.
		Thank you.
		Yeah, I think a lot of people feel that way.
		I mean, certainly his doctors came out and said that he's able to handle the office of the presidency more than able to.
		And so there is this big question.
		Obviously, you know, that's why journalists like myself were trying to really figure out what was going on, but we're also not doctors.
		And so we don't, we can't do, we can't say what a doctor can say.
		But, you know, I think in looking at him, some people say, you know, people with these cognitive abilities or decline, they have good days and bad days.
		And I think we saw one of the bad days play out in that debate in June.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Going back to your argument about not connecting, you write this in the book, and I'm wondering if this was related to that.
		No longer able to defend his own record, he expected, that is the president, Harris, to protect his legacy.
		Whether she won or lost the election, he thought she would only harm him by publicly distancing herself from him, especially during a debate that would be watched by millions of Americans.
		To the extent that she wanted to forge her own path, Biden had no interest in giving her room to do so.
		He needed just three words to convey how much all of that mattered to him.
		No daylight, kid, Biden said.
unidentified		Yeah, a really interesting moment that we reveal in this book, Greta, for the first time.
		He called her the day of the debate and said, no daylight, kid.
		And I think that's why a lot of Democrats were frustrated and they wanted to find out more about why she wasn't trying to distance herself from the president.
		And now we kind of know.
		I mean, I think there was this pressure from him.
		And at the same time, there was kind of this multi-tiered, you know, narrative going on.
		And I think among staff, they said, oh, okay, you can kind of distance yourself as needed.
		But I think the two principals themselves had this agreement where they wouldn't, where she wouldn't distance herself from the president.
		And I think that hurt her in the end.
		I think even the people on her team were kind of frustrated by this.
		They felt like she should have said, This is how I would do things differently.
		She tried sometimes to kind of put a little bit of distance between herself and the president, but it never really amounted to much.
		And there was that big moment on the view, you might remember in the final couple of weeks of the campaign where she was asked if she would do anything differently, and she said she wouldn't.
		And her aides are backstage and at the campaign headquarters, kind of scratching their heads because they had almost planned for a moment like that and they had practiced for it.
		And her answer was going to be something radically different.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Rocky River, Ohio.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Janet Democratic Caller, welcome to the conversation.
unidentified		Yes.
		Yes, Miss Amy.
		I wish we had Biden back in office.
		Are you going to write a book about Trump, who is a disaster?
		Look what's happening to our country right now.
		And he's got the Heritage Foundation behind him, which are, I hate to say it, Christian nationalists who somebody called in and compared to Nazism and fascism.
		And not only that, Trump is an authoritarian.
		Write a book about him.
		I wish to God we had a normal, normal president like Biden.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Janet.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Amy Farnes.
unidentified		I mean, we have a lot of President Trump in this book, and some of it not very flattering either.
		I mean, there are times in the campaign where we see that his campaign is slightly out of spinning out of control, and we write about that in this book.
		And so I think we, you know, our job as journalists is to call balls and strikes on both sides.
		I know that a lot of people want to pay attention to the train wreck that we write about in this book, about the Democratic Party, but I think we do the same thing on the other side.
		And so there's a lot of Trump in this book as well.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And what about those moments when his campaign seemed out of control, chaos there?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What did you find out?
unidentified		We found out there's one scene in particular, several scenes that play out.
		When Kamala Harris does come in after the switch, his campaign is sort of taken aback.
		They didn't expect that she would come in.
		They don't know.
		Suddenly, she's surging in the polls, and he sees that she's gaining a lot of momentum.
		She has these bigger rallies.
		President Biden wasn't able to kind of garner that attention.
		And she's doing that.
		And she has this really big, exciting Democratic National Convention.
		And so there's this thought that maybe he should shake up his campaign.
		And he brings in his former aides, they return, people like Corey Lewandowski, and he's wondering if he should mix things up.
		And what he ends up doing in the end is keeping the same team, a team that really kept him.
		It was a tightly run campaign by Susie Wiles and Chris Lasavita at the top.
		But for a moment, you think that he's about to fire everybody.
		And we kind of take you inside those moments to show his frustration around that time.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How did President Trump decide on JD Vance?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Talk about that decision-making.
unidentified		Yeah, it was a, we also take you for the first time into those meetings, his meeting with JD Vance.
		He really felt a kinship with him, but it was down to Vance and to Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida.
		And he liked Rubio, but I think he felt more of a connection with Vance.
		And so we show you how JD Vance kind of really makes this pitch to Trump about how he really believes in the movement and take you inside that meeting and how he kind of lobbies.
		There was a really big lobbying effort going on on his behalf.
		And there's one scene in particular on Trump's airplane where you see kind of a fight brewing between Lindsey Graham, the senator from South Carolina, and Jason Miller, a senior Trump advisor.
		And Lindsey Graham is really pushing for his friend Marco Rubio, his colleague.
		And on the other side, Jason Miller is pushing for Vance.
		And there's also this lobbying effort happening right on the plane.
		You know, people are texting Vance people in real time saying that this is all playing out.
		And the president is watching it all play out in front of him.
		And he enjoys the theater and he's sort of relishing it.
		So we have those scenes in the book as well.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And now their relationship.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You know, we're not even 100 days into this new administration, but how would you or what are you learning about their relationship?
unidentified		It's still a decent one, but I think what was interesting recently, obviously, with the Signal chat is that, you know, there is a little bit of daylight between the two of them.
		And obviously, JD Vance has his own political ambitions, which will kind of run counter to the president's political ambitions.
		And so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Patty in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Independent.
		Hi, Patty.
		Your turn for a question or comment.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I just want to say how much I appreciate C-SPAN.
		And the reason I want to make a comment, a question about President Biden, but I wanted to say about the media.
		And I see I'm a big fan of Jonathan Allen and you.
		I see you on the shows and so forth.
		And I think that all the morning shows should have a half hour of community input and let the viewers call in and ask questions because there's not a lot of listening to the public now by the media and a lot of the media.
		And there's a lot of talking of the media to each other.
		And I think the media needs to listen.
		And that leads me to my focus on Biden.
		You know, I don't understand.
		I really want to say this to the media.
		That the focus on Biden is understandable.
		He is the president.
		But President Biden has been a jokester and a gaffer since the beginning of time.
		Now he's old and it just appears like he's, you know, maybe, I do not think he has dementia.
		I think that the media focus so much on Joe Biden, but what about Donald Trump?
		I mean, dancing, staring blankly, dancing to the YMCA, the lies, the J6 pardons, with Russia, the, you know, there were just so many things that the media could have focused on with Trump, yet every little thing that President Biden said was just analyzed and analyzed.
		And the Democrats did it to themselves.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		But Patty, I'll jump in.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Amy Parnes.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, first of all, Patty, I agree with you on the media point.
		I do think that the media and lawmakers and everyone involved in our world clearly need to do a better job listening and stop looking at the polls and stop listening to each other in our echo chamber.
		I think Democrats certainly learned that message.
		But yeah, I do think that also, as I said before, I think real journalists, they don't take sides.
		They call balls and strikes as they see them.
		And that is sort of what the aim is.
		I think that right now it's a very divisive political universe, a very divisive media landscape.
		But I went to journalism school where they encourage you to go to shoot straight down the middle, and that's always been my aim.
		And so when I get attacked by the left or the right, it means, or both, and sometimes that happens on the same day.
		It means I'm doing my job.
		And I encourage other journalists to do the same.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Alex in Bayer, Delaware, a Republican.
unidentified		Hello.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning to you, Alex.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We are listening to you.
unidentified		Yeah, I was just wondering about when Kamala Harris was running for office at her convention, they all said that she moved ahead of Trump.
		And then when he had the debate with Trump, oh, she moved more ahead of Trump.
		And come to find out, the end of the day, now they're saying she was never even close to him, ever.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Amy Parnes, is that true?
unidentified		I think when it came to the election, she had a very good chance of winning, but I think she failed to connect on certain levels.
		I think some of it isn't her fault.
		Obviously, she inherited a campaign.
		She was obviously on that campaign at the bottom of the ticket, but it was really Joe Biden's campaign.
		She inherited his team.
		And I think that, you know, and the limited timeframe obviously worked against her.
		A lot of people on her team actually felt if they had more time, they could have won.
		And it was certainly close.
		But obviously, I think that President Trump at the time ran a tighter, better campaign, like it or not.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Amy Parnes, economic news coming out just right now, U.S. payrolls rise by $228,000 in March.
		Unemployment rate increases to 4.2%.
		I'm sharing this with you to just as a question about the economy and the role it played in this last election, the role it continues to play for politicians.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, the stock market yesterday was certainly, I was hearing from Republicans who are really upset about the turn of events and what's happened on tariffs.
		And there is frustration brewing among Republicans that President Trump did campaign on the economy and there seems to be a focus elsewhere on other things.
		And so I think that clearly people are paying attention.
		Republicans are paying attention.
		And when lawmakers go back to their districts for the Easter break, I think they're going to hear from a lot of their constituents about how unhappy they are when it comes to tariffs and other things.
		But this is something that President Trump campaigned on also on tariffs.
		And I think that it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
		But certainly he is one to look at the headlines and the optics of something.
		And I'm curious to see if he kind of rolls back some of what he's put out there in recent weeks.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Judith in Pennsylvania, Democratic caller.
		Let's hear from you.
		Judith in Pennsylvania, Democratic caller, you're up.
unidentified		Yes, I'm here.
unidentified		Ms. Parnes, I think this was a really poor timing on writing a book which obviously you had to have started months ago disparaging President Biden, handing fodder to President Trump, which he doesn't need because all he does is badmouth President Biden.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Judith, how do you respond?
		Amy Parnes has made this argument a couple of times.
		It's reporter's jobs to call the balls and strikes.
		And she was reporting on what she was hearing from sources.
unidentified		Fought for this country.
		He ended up in his later years with dementia.
		She is playing a game with an older man's disability, actually.
		And writing a book, putting it out, practically reading the whole book to us now on your set there, is an insult to my husband, his service, to me, and my family.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Why, Judy?
unidentified		Why is it an insult?
		Because it enhance Trump a whole lot more.
		Now he will, I'm sure, you will hear him repeat a lot of what is in this book.
		Okay.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, heard your point.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Amy Parnes, why do you write the books that you have written with Jonathan Allen over the years?
unidentified		I mean, first of all, Greta, I'd like to just respond to the fact that we didn't even report this book.
		We didn't even sign a contract to do this book until like 50 days or 70 days out from the election, and we didn't even start really reporting the book until after the election.
		So anyone who thinks that we were sitting on any information, my job as a day job at the Hill, my editors would be frustrated, and I would be frustrated at myself for holding on to any information.
		So let's just put that out there.
		We weren't sitting on anything.
		This came out.
		We did the bulk of our reporting after the election, which was just a couple of months ago.
		And so we put this out there.
		We write these books because, as I said, our job is to show people what happened, what they did wrong, what they did right.
		And we use these, you know, these books that we've written, and my co-author and I, this is our third campaign book and our fourth book in total, but we write these books to give people a guidebook and a playbook on what they can do.
		And so we're not really just looking back, we're looking forward.
		Democrats can read this book, can pick up this book, as they could with Shattered, and learn what they did wrong.
		And this can help them in the future.
		And it has.
		I mean, we speak to college students all the time about messaging and grassroots efforts and all of these things.
		And there are lessons to be learned from this book.
		And I think that if you pick it up, you'll see that everyone can gain something from reading this book.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What lessons do you think Kamala Harris learned and her running mate Tim Walz?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And will we see them again as leading the party?
unidentified		I think that they're still kind of in this post-mortem state trying to figure out what went wrong.
		But certainly, I think they learned some things about messaging and grassroots.
		I kept hearing, even in real time, that they had a ground game, a stronger ground game than President Trump.
		They had better resources.
		All of this was not right.
		And it was all things, you know, podcasting, for example, played a huge, huge role for President Trump.
		He took a lot of advantage of getting in there, relying on his son, Baron Trump, which we report for the first time, asking his youngest son to help with podcasting and setting up podcasts.
		So he was willing to kind of do things that were different from his last campaign.
		And I think in certain ways, Democrats had been running the same playbook and didn't really learn their message from or their lesson from 2020 when they did win and certainly from 2016.
		But yeah, I do think that they are, they're certainly trying to piece together what happened.
		And I do think that we'll see Kamala Harris, Greta, in the future.
		She's trying to decide right now if she's going to run for governor of California.
		A lot of people think she might.
		I think Tim Walz, we're seeing him out there a little more now.
		I think that he wants to play a role in the Democratic Party.
		So I think, you know, we're going to be hearing from them in the days and months to come.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Amy Parnes is senior political correspondent at The Hill.
		You can find her reporting at thehill.com.
		And she's co-author with NBC News political reporter Jonathan Allen of the new book, Fight Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.
		Amy Parnes, thank you as always for talking to our audience this morning.
		We appreciate it.
unidentified		Thanks, Crota.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll take a break when we come back.
		We'll be an open forum.
		Any public policy or political issue on your mind, you can start dialing in.
		Those are the lines on your screen.
		Stay with us.
unidentified		Saturdays, watch American History TV's 10-week series, First 100 Days.
		We explore the early months of presidential administrations with historians and authors and through the C-SPAN archives.
		We learn about accomplishments and setbacks and how events impacted presidential terms and the nation up to present day.
		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 the near collapse of the American economy, President Obama signed a nearly $800 billion economic stimulus plan and a bill on fair pay.
		He also began to lay the groundwork for landmark healthcare legislation, the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
		Watch our American History TV series, First 100 Days, Saturday at 7 p.m. Eastern on American History TV on C-SPAN 2.
		Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		At 7:30 p.m. Eastern, Vanda Kreft talks about the founding, graduates, and impact of the Catherine Gibbs School, which trained women for executive secretary positions during the early and mid-20th century in her book, Expect Great Things.
		Then at 8 p.m. Eastern, Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, author of Seven Things You Can't Say About China, argues that China poses a significant threat and that major American institutions refuse to talk about it.
		And at 10 p.m. Eastern on Afterwards, New York Times investigative journalist David Enrich argues the rich and powerful are using free speech laws to suppress dissent.
		With his book, Murder the Truth, he's interviewed by author and George Washington Law School professor Mary Ann Franks.
		Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		As a follow on to Stuart Banner's history of the Supreme Court, this week's Book Notes 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.
		The cherry blossoms are in season and we're marking the occasion with our cherry blossom sale.
		Going on right now at cspanshop.org, our online store.
		Save up to 25% on our entire cherry blossom collection of t-shirts, sweatshirts, and drinkwear.
		Scan the code or visit c-spanshop.org during our cherry blossom sale.
		Washington Journal continues.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to the Washington Journal.
		We're an open forum here for the next 30 minutes.
		Any public policy or political issue on your mind?
		We'll start with economic news to share with you from CNBC's website.
		U.S. payrolls rise by $228,000 in March, but unemployment rate increases to 4.2%.
		Job growth was stronger than expected in March, providing at least temporary reassurance that the labor market is stable.
		It goes on to say, however, the unemployment rate moved up to 4.2%, higher than the 4.1% forecast.
		And as we shared with you earlier today, this also from CNBC China announced this morning that in response to President Trump's recent round of tariffs, that they would respond with retaliatory tariffs at 34% on all goods imported from the United States.
		You can talk about trade.
		You can talk about the economy overall.
		You can talk about other public policy or political issues this morning.
		Jim, Edmund, Oklahoma, Republican.
		Hi, Jim.
		What's on your mind?
unidentified		Well, I was kind of curious.
		I wanted to ask.
		It seems to me that the Democrats always have two issues that they bring up in any national election.
		One is, of course, abortion, and the other is Republicans are going to take away your Social Security.
		And I'm kind of curious how the Democrats are going to, their plan is to reduce the debt and start working on no deficit spending because it seems like that issue is so often overlooked.
		The fact that we're slowly going, not even slowly, but quickly going broke.
		At some point, we won't be able to pay our entitlements for Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid because of the debt.
		So try to refinance that at higher and higher rates.
		So I'm kind of curious how now everybody thinks I'm going to deal with that huge elephant in the room, which is our national debt.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Jim there in Edmond, Oklahoma, Republican, Lester, Zachary, Louisiana, Independent.
		Lester.
unidentified		He is.
		I feel that the Democrat Party and the media has done Benny Sanders wrong.
		I remember when he ran against Hillary and how Donna Brazil passed a question to the debate to him.
		When he ran against Biden, they were talking about, oh, he's crazy and he's too old.
		Now we see who is too old.
		He's the only one out of the three out there still fighting.
		And one more thing on the rebuttal to Trump State of the Union.
		Who's this young lady that the Democrat Party chose to give the rebuttal?
		Why not?
		Jasmine Crockett, they are still going by.
		When they go low, we go high.
		And the receipt, that is not working.
		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		You're talking about Elise Lotkin, the senator, new senator from Michigan, Democrat, who gave the response to the joint address by President Trump.
		All right.
		Victoria, Chesterland, Ohio, Democratic caller.
		Victoria.
unidentified		Yes.
unidentified		I'd like to know how it works out for President Trump that he can bankrupt his own businesses and he's going to bankrupt our country.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How's he going to bankrupt our country?
unidentified		How?
		I mean, look at his background.
		Look at his wonderful background.
		And that's supposed to be funny because people are laughing.
		I'm not.
		I'm not laughing.
		This is not funny.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What are you worried about, Victoria?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		With the economy.
unidentified		They hired a businessman to bankrupt USA.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Victoria's thoughts there.
		Democratic caller in Ohio.
		Sasha is in Indiana, an independent.
		Good morning, Sasha.
		What's on your mind?
unidentified		Yeah, I think the whole election, Pilon Musk, he had something to do with it big time.
		It's very nefarious.
		I think using Starlink and AI and then setting up the mega prolific people into the voter precincts, okay, working against the people, swamping votes or somehow did something really nefarious.
		And another thing, Trump back in the old days had a casino in Gary, Indiana, Buffington Harbor.
		Frank Bingham had millions, billions of dollars, billionaire from Las Vegas.
		He was mysteriously murdered.
		At the time, they used Trump was a partner to get licensing to help these River Bolt casinos.
		Not River Bolt, but yeah, I'm going to say that.
		I like Michigan.
		And I put nothing past that man.
		He's vile.
		He's evil.
		He's a freaking pig.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Sasha.
		We'll leave it there.
		Front page of the Wall Street Journal's this morning.
		The national headlines about the market reaction across the globe to President Trump's sweeping tariffs.
		Here's the Wall Street Journal.
		Stocks suffer.
		Steepest slide since 2020.
		Trump's tariff announcement rippled through world markets Thursday and led to the biggest U.S. market cap drop, approximately 3.1 trillion since March of 2020.
		The Dow dropped 1,679 points as tariffs are more severe than investors had expected.
		Then there's the front page of the New York Times this morning.
		Tariff shockwaves circle the globe.
		On again, off again, tariffs and mass layoffs of federal workers fomented unease on Wall Street.
		Higher than expected tariffs announced on Wednesday caused global markets to shudder once again.
		Front page of the Washington Post, onslaught of tariffs, ripples across the globe.
		And then also from the Washington Times this morning, their front page, tariffs trigger market crash and global fur.
		Rick in Boston, Democratic caller.
		Hi, Rick.
unidentified		How you doing?
		Yeah, I just want to make a couple of comments.
		First of all, you know, this tariff he got, the guy don't listen.
		It didn't work last time he was in there.
		Now he thinks it's going to work now.
		He doesn't listen to nobody.
		He thinks he can do anything he wants.
		And another thing, too, I think the only thing that's going to wake this country up is another 9-11.
		That'll wake these dummies out of here.
		But first, the whole time we're talking about this election, we're talking about eggs, eggs, eggs, eggs.
		And I don't see nobody out in the street talking about no eggs and whatnot.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Rick, well, you said this will wake him up.
		Listen to the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
		This morning he held a news conference at NATO headquarters.
		He's there meeting with his counterparts on the NATO alliance.
		And he was asked right away at this news conference about the impact of these tariffs on our allies.
		Here's what he had to say.
marco rubio ▲ ● ▼		Their markets are reacting.
		No, their economies are not crashing.
		Their markets are reacting to a dramatic change in the global order in terms of trade.
		And so what happens is pretty straightforward.
		If you're a company and you make a bunch of your products in China, and all of a sudden shareholders or people that play the stock market realize that it's going to cost a lot more to produce in China, your stock is going to go down.
		But ultimately, the markets, as long as they know what the rules are going to be moving forward, and as long as that's set and you can sustain where you're going to be, the markets will adjust.
		Businesses around the world, including in trade and global trade, they just need to know what the rules are.
		Once they know what the rules are, they will adjust to those rules.
		So I don't think it's fair to say economies are crashing.
		Markets are crashing because markets are based on the stock value of companies who today are embedded in modes of production that are bad for the United States.
		We have to be a country that thinks we're the largest consumer market in the world, and yet the only thing we export is services.
		And we need to stop that.
		We need to get back to a time where we're a country that can make things.
		And to do that, we have to reset the global order of trade.
unidentified		The other part of my question.
marco rubio ▲ ● ▼		Well, the worst thing is to leave it the way it is forever.
		I mean, this just can't continue.
		We can't continue to be a country that doesn't make things.
		We have to be able to make things to provide jobs for Americans.
		That's it.
		It's that simple.
		China is an example.
		I mean, it's outrageous.
		I mean, they don't consume anything.
		All they do is export and flood and distort markets in addition to all the tariffs and barriers they put in place.
		So the president rightly has concluded that the current status of global trade is bad for America and good for a bunch of other people.
		And he's going to reset it.
		And he's absolutely right to do it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, saying we don't make enough in the United States and we need to make more goods.
		From the Wall Street Journal's reporting about trade deficits, they say this: that economists sometimes examine the total trade balance, goods and services, and sometimes analyze just goods or services.
		Services include transportation, construction, and the provision of accounting or legal support.
		The White House's tariff analysis appeared to only include goods, not services.
		The U.S. excels at exporting services such as banking, insurance, consulting, and legal advice.
		It also is a major exporter of some goods, including aircraft, soybeans, and oil.
		But over the years, it has increasingly turned to other nations and for many of the goods it consumes, including electronics, clothing, and other items.
		President Trump, 10 minutes ago on Truth Social, having this to say to the many investors coming into the United States and investing massive amounts of money, my policies will never change.
		This is a great time to get rich, richer than ever before.
		We're an open forum.
		You can talk about the president's trade policies or any other public policy issue.
		Tina and Cropwell, Alabama, Republican.
		Hi, Tina.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Thank you for this opportunity.
		I love Marco Rubio and his opposed to parity, which was what came about with Clinton and Rospro and Bush.
		Rospreau warned us about how that was going to go.
		My question, and I wish I would have been able to get on with the author of the book.
		I would love some journalists to ask Barack Obama, he stated in an interview in 2017, his last interview at the White House, that he and his family are going to remain in Washington, D.C. to go back to community organizing.
		I've never seen a report or heard anybody interview him on how successful he's being in community organizing.
		So I'd love for somebody to take that test on.
		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Tina.
		You too.
		James, Johnson City, Tennessee, Independent.
		Hi, James.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		I'm surprised that C-SPAN never says anything about what's going on in the West Bank and Gaza and Syria and Lebanon and everything else.
		I watched C-SPAN 2 yesterday and watched the Senate vote to send more ammunition, arms, and money to Israel so they can keep on doing what they're doing.
		I mean, they are re-bombing what they've already bombed.
		So I just don't want to see our money going for that effort.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		James talking about Senator Bernie Sanders and his effort to stop the ammunition that's going to Israel on the floor of the Senate yesterday.
		And C-SPAN was there.
		Our C-SPAN 2 coverage is gavel the gavel.
		And you can watch it when the Senate is in session anytime on C-SPAN 2 on our free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW or on demand online at c-SPAN.org.
		Jules in Missouri, Democratic caller.
		Hi, Jules.
unidentified		Hi.
		I tried to get on earlier when Amy was on there, but she analyzed the election.
		But one thing she forgot to mention, and something that was very important, and that was white racism.
		If you recall, during that campaign in 2016, I guess it was, he put his thumb and his forefinger together and then he spread out his other three fingers.
		That's the white power thing.
		And the people that are most devoted to him are those people.
		He'll never lose them no matter what he does.
		Okay, that's all I've got to say.
		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Dee in Berryville, Virginia, Republican.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Dee, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have to say, I've been watching y'all for the last year.
		The Democrat Party is the reason why we are in so much trouble.
		I can go as far back as Clinton signing the bill for all these factories to go overseas, and here we are.
		We're in trouble.
		So I blame the Democrat Party for the chaos, the open borders, all the lines, and stuff.
		I'm sorry to say that, but that's what I see.
		Thank you very much.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Dee.
		On trade, in the Senate, Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, is teaming up with Marie Cantwell, a Democrat of Washington State, on a piece of bipartisan legislation that they say will take back the power of trade from the president and give it, put it back in the hands of Congress.
		For too long, here's a quote from Senator Grassley.
		Congress has delegated to its clear authority to regulate tariffs.
		Grassley said in a statement, he argued the bipartisan bill would reassert Congress's constitutional role and ensure Congress has a voice in trade policy.
		Marie Cantwell was on the floor of the Senate talking about the legislation.
		Here she is.
maria cantwell ▲ ● ▼		It's arguable that the current approach is literally a misconstruction of statutory authorities.
		But what we know for sure today, what we know today for sure, is that 95% of the world's consumers are outside of the United States.
		That means the global middle class includes almost 4 billion people.
		Those are markets for American businesses, for farmers to reach, to grow, and prosper.
		According to the World Bank, in the recent decade, trade has lifted 1 billion people out of poverty.
		My colleagues here who've worked on deals in the past that opened up markets in places like Chile, Peru, Singapore, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, the update of the USMCA, all know that this hard work created economic opportunity.
		Our trade agreements helped American farmers export $176 billion in agricultural products last year.
		They helped ensure that the United States is the world largest agriculture exporter, with soybeans and corn leading the way as the top export.
		I want to return to trade agreements.
		I want to open up more markets.
		I want us to have a robust export opportunity for the excellent U.S. manufactured and grown products.
		Our trade agreements have ensured that the U.S. remained the second largest exporter of manufactured goods in the world.
		$2.06 trillion in 2024.
		And it's clear today the United States must be competing hard to win in the race for emerging technologies like AI and quantum.
		Our foreign adversaries and our competitors are in this global race too.
		So that is why economic disruption puts America at risk.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Senator Marie Cantwell on the floor of the Senate talking about bipartisan legislation that would reassert Congress's role in tariff and trade policy.
		Unsure if that will get a vote, but according to the Washington Post, Senate Democrats plan to force Republicans to take more uncomfortable votes on tariffs this week.
		Also, next week, Representative Gregory Meeks, a Democrat of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced he would introduce a resolution to end the made-up national emergency.
		That is what President Trump did in order to do the 10% tariffs across the board that he says will disproportionately hurt working families.
		By introducing his resolution under privilege next week, Meeks will force the GOP majority to take up a vote within two legislative days.
		House Democrats hope it will show whether Republicans, quote, support the economic pain Trump is inflicting on their constituents, end quote.
		Paul, Miami, Democratic caller.
		Paul, we're an open forum.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Thanks for having me.
		I've been a long time listener and watcher.
		I've been listening.
		It's so many things.
		Our IRAs are at risk.
		Rumors of island in the Caribbean that was purchased by America in 1917 is now up for talks to try to negotiate to get Greenland back from Denmark.
		So we're still dealing with the Dutches.
		Everybody's talking about racism.
		I think it's actually turned into casting.
		We have people within its own race hating on each other.
		So this has definitely been the most interesting few months of any administration I have dealt with.
		I've been affected by already.
		You see bartering taking place in local neighborhoods instead of for cash.
		You know, they're trading for trading, simple trading within neighbors.
		Puerto Ricans being deported to El Salvador and they're U.S. citizens.
		You know, what happens with all of that?
		It's just there's a lot going on.
		You know, changes are hard to deal with, but this administration is attacking it too hard.
		It hasn't even been six months and it's already upside down.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Paul.
		James in San Diego, Republican.
		James, let's go to you next.
unidentified		Yes, I'd like to start off with tariffs.
		Since the tariffs have been announced, I have not heard on C-SPAN Washington Journal anything about the hundreds of millions of dollars that companies are investing in this country.
		And also the employment, the opportunities that these companies are going to take and create for Americans to go to work.
		I have not heard anything about the 12,000, 12,000 GM workers that are going to go back to work, which was announced.
		For those of you that have invested in the bond market, you don't have anything to fear because you receive a given dividend on those bonds.
		And most of those bonds are tax-free, so you don't have anything to complain about.
		Those of you that are invested in the equities market, I want you to sell, sell, sell so that I can buy, buy, buy, because those companies are obviously not paying you interest and dividends.
		I receive over $40,000 every year in interest and dividends from my equities.
		So I am going to buy, buy, and buy.
		Thank you very much, C-SPAN Washington Journal.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, James there in San Diego.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Denny in Akron, Ohio, Independent.
unidentified		Yes, calling in because I haven't noticed anybody talk about the original idea of having things produced overseas was because they paid the workers a lot less money.
		So if I'm, unless I got this wrong, if we bring the workers back here, we have to pay them three to four times more money than what the workers overseas make.
		So that's the reason why all the companies were saving a lot of money.
		So that's all I got to say.
		Thanks so much.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Denny, a little bit about the North American Free Trade Agreement, the history of it in today's Washington Post.
		NAFTA took effect on January 1st, 1994.
		Inspired by the European Union, it scrapped barriers to investment and the movement of goods and services across national borders.
		It was, Trump said Wednesday, the worst trade deal made, ever made.
		Many would disagree.
		The trade volume among the three countries has more than quadrupled over the past 30 years, surpassing $1.8 trillion in 2023.
		Foreign direct investment has surged.
		Though the deal was updated in 2020 and rebranded as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, it largely hewed to the original outline.
		Mexican economy was dramatically reshaped.
		We went from being one of the most economically closed countries in the world to being one of the most open and among the top 10 exporting countries.
		For Canada, the free trade deal built on an earlier pact with the U.S., which was struck in 1988 and went into force the following year.
		This was really a seismic change in Canada, but within 10 years, all the provinces had come to see that international trade, particularly with the United States, was in their interests.
		As the treaties took hold, auto parts flowed back and forth across borders, with manufacturers taking advantage of specialties in each country.
		Workers in Mexico molded our car parts out of Pennsylvania steel, which were then refined by machinists in Detroit or Ontario.
		Mexican brewers imported barley from Idaho and Montana, then shipped beer to thirsty Americans and Canadians.
		Tim, Erie, Pennsylvania, Independent.
		Hi, Tim.
unidentified		Hello.
		I've been listening, and I finally analyzed the President's speech the other day.
		And one point I'd like to know and like to make is in 1913, we passed an income tax law.
		And I would like to point out to him that it was to pay, I believe, for the Spanish-American War, and the tax was strictly meant for rich people to pay.
		I believe I'm right in this respect.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		But I have not seen.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Eric, Salt Lake City, Utah, Democratic caller.
unidentified		Eric.
		Hi, I was disappointed that we're planning on doing $4.5 trillion in additional debt when the Republicans had pointed out that that was what caused inflation.
		We're going to do that in the first few months of his current administration.
		That's $13,600 per person in the United States.
		And I'm wondering if C-SPAN or if you've heard anybody that has done any analysis as to how much, how long it'll take to pay that back when you get the tax cuts.
		My quick analysis showed that the bottom 60% won't reach the $13,600 in 10 years.
		So that's just additional debt we're giving our grandchildren.
		And our tax cuts for the middle class and the poor are not going to cover that.
		Only the rich are going to benefit from this.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Eric in Utah.
		Democratic caller.
		Ralph is an independent in Sparks, Nevada.
		Hi, Ralph.
unidentified		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		I just finished watching Senator Wyden and Senator Warren, and they remind me of why I left the Democratic Party.
		If we don't fix our economy now, if Trump and Doge don't fix our economy now, it's never going to get fixed.
		And while no one's looking, China owns us now.
		That's all I have to say.
		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Ralph there in Sparks, Nevada, independent caller.
		That does it for Open Forum.
		We're going to take a break when we come back.
		Dr. Jay Nydine Gracia of Trust for America's Health discusses her organization's recent report evaluating states' preparedness for public health emergencies.
		Stay with us.
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		We learn about accomplishments and setbacks and how events impacted presidential terms and the nation up to present day.
		This Saturday, the first 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency.
		In 2009, he became the first African-American president and set a record inaugural crowd of close to 2 million people.
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		Mr. Hawkins examines the relationship between the past violence experienced by family members, often at the hands of white people, and the way his parents raised and severely disciplined him.
lee hawkins ▲ ● ▼		All I knew growing up was that if I asked too many questions, If I said no to my parents, if I question any aspect of upbringing, and if I fell short of excellence, the price was going to be physical violence.
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greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We want to welcome to our table this morning Dr. Jay Nadine Gracia, who is the President and CEO of Trust for America's Health, here to talk about states and public health emergency preparedness.
		First, let's begin with your group, Trust for America's Health.
		What is it?
unidentified		Yes, Trust for America.
		Well, good morning, Greta.
		It's great to be with you.
		Trust for America's Health is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based here in Washington, D.C., and we work to promote health for the American people.
		Go ahead.
		You know, in particular, we focus on strengthening and supporting the public health system, as well as advancing policies that help to promote health and well-being for every person and community.
		And we're an independent organization.
		We don't take government money, corporate money.
		We're actually fully supported by foundations.
		And so that allows us to have independence in our voice.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Nonprofit foundations, give us an example.
unidentified		Yes, so we have foundations that support us, like the California Endowment, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, over the years that have supported us the John A. Hartford Foundation as well.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Are you working with government agencies?
unidentified		Yes, we do, because our role is one to really help inform policymakers, in particular federal policymakers, Congress, the White House, the executive federal agencies, to be able to advance policies that we have evidence for that show that they actually help to promote health and well-being.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You recently released your annual Ready or Not report that evaluates states' preparedness for public health emergencies.
		21 states and the DC are in a high performance tier.
		16 states, though, in a middle performance tier, and 13 13 states in a low performance tier.
		What does that mean?
unidentified		So, this Ready or Not Report, what it is, is it's an annual assessment of our nation's and states' preparedness for emergencies and disasters.
		This is actually the 22nd edition of this annual report that we have produced that not only assesses the preparedness levels, it also provides recommendations to policymakers on how they can be able to actually strengthen emergency preparedness across the country and in their states.
		The report tiers states with regards to their performance based on a set of 10 indicators, emergency preparedness indicators, things like being able to expand your health care capacity during times of emergency or expanding your public health laboratory capacity during times of emergency, vaccination, for example, flu vaccination and patient safety in hospitals, as well as issues like water security.
		Every state, regardless of their performance tier, has areas that they can improve upon when we speak about emergency preparedness.
		And so, as you noted, 21 states and DC placed in that high performance tier with 16 in the middle performance tier and 13 in the low performance tier.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		I want to show our viewers some may be interested.
		Well, where's my state?
		So, let me just show you while it breaks down.
		These are the 21 states in the high performance tier.
		In the middle performance tier, you can see the states here by their postal code and then low performance tier.
		We're talking about Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming, all in that low-performance tier.
		What type of emergencies do you focus on?
unidentified		So, really, what this report is focusing on is what we call mostly all-hazards-type of approach when we speak about emergency preparedness.
		There are numerous types of health threats and emergencies that we know happen every day.
		That's infectious disease outbreaks, that's weather-related emergencies and other types of natural disasters, as well as bioterrorism.
		And what this report is providing is really actionable data that the nation and states can be using in order to strengthen our emergency preparedness so that we're better prepared when those types of emergencies arise.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What do you look at to evaluate a state's preparedness?
unidentified		So, we look at a set of 10 indicators that are associated with emergency preparedness.
		Things like whether states have entered into what's called the Nurse Licensure Compact, which allows nurses to have a multi-state license so that you can expand your health care capacity.
		If you're in an emergency, we often see healthcare systems can get quickly strained.
		Being able to have quickly an ability to actually increase your health care capacity during a time of an emergency can help support your health care capacity.
		Whether states have plans in place to surge their public health laboratory capacity so that they can increase the amount of testing that they do during times of emergency.
		It also looks at issues like water security, you know, the percent of residents, for example, who use community water systems that are in violation of health standards.
		We see in our report that the vast majority of people who have community water systems that meet the health-based standards.
		It also looks at factors like use of paid time off.
		We know, for example, that having access to paid time off is an important way, one, to be able to control infections, where workers can be able to stay home if they're sick.
		And it's also good for businesses because then you avoid having an outbreak, for example, within your company, avoid those costs, and decrease productivity that may happen in your business.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Why do you focus on water specifically?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What is it about disease and outbreaks and water?
unidentified		Well, you want to assure, for example, that there aren't any contaminants in water that could lead to the type of illnesses that lead to further outbreaks and injury for individuals.
		So, water security is actually really critically important.
		It's also important in terms of when we think about issues around bioterrorism and other things to ensure that water supplies are safe.
		That's a core element of public health and preparedness: assuring our water is safe, our air is clean and safe to breathe.
		These are part of the core elements that public health provides in its functions.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We're talking about emergency preparedness here this morning.
		Here's how you can join the conversation.
		If you live in the eastern central part of the country, dial in at 202-748-8000.
		Mountain Pacific area, your line this morning, 202-748-8001.
		We'll take your questions and your comments this morning.
		So, what do states need to do to improve?
unidentified		Well, some of our key recommendations is we have seen over the years how important it is to strengthen and bolster our emergency preparedness system.
		But it's critically important that that system actually has the funding and resources to be able to have a strong emergency preparedness system.
		We are not as prepared as we need to be, and we need to strengthen that emergency system.
		So, that means funding Congress, for example, to bolster the funding for public health, to have the resources in terms of the workforce, the disease detection capabilities to identify and contain these types of health threats quickly, to modernize our data detection systems.
		We've actually been making progress, but that progress is at risk because the funding for public health as well as funding for emergency preparedness specifically.
		We often see that the funding comes in the times of emergency.
		Once that emergency ends, the funding no longer is there.
		And that's a very difficult way to have a strong and robust public health system overall, as well as our emergency preparedness.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What was the status of state preparedness before COVID-19, and what is it now?
unidentified		So, what we've seen is we've made progress over the years in terms of our emergency preparedness.
		You know, we began doing this report after 9-11, recognizing the importance of public health and its role with regards to emergency preparedness.
		And what we've seen over the years is a strengthening, for example, of our public health laboratory capacity, a strengthening, for example, of the ability to have the health care expansion in times of emergencies.
		But what we also know is that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, we had a chronically underfunded public health system.
		We had workforce shortages in terms of public health, where state and local health departments don't have the full capacity of the workforce that they need to be able to respond to all of these health threats.
		We had outdated data systems.
		And why are those data and disease detection systems important?
		They're important because it's how you identify those health threats very quickly.
		You know, if it's an infectious disease outbreak like the measles outbreak or seasonal flu, to be able to identify that quickly and then have disease detectives that are able to then identify where those outbreaks are happening and being able to contain those outbreaks quickly.
		We had systems where health departments are having to manually enter that data and even fax data, for example, into federal aid into the federal agencies like CDC, and that there wasn't really great strong systems between the communications of public health and health care facilities.
		Now, with modernizing those data systems by investing in electronic data systems, it's automating those systems so that it happens faster and you can make decisions more real time and more efficiently.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Greg, who's in Whitewater, Wisconsin, Independent, joining us this morning for this conversation.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Greg.
unidentified		Hi, thank you for the show and thank you for coming on.
		Quick question in regards to a situation that took place in Milwaukee.
		A few months ago, there was a student where they found lead poisoning in the water, and they've been trying to work to deal with this situation.
		But due to recent federal budget cuts, what had happened, all the people who are dealing with that issue are not helping us out anymore because of the cuts.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Are you talking, Greg?
		Greg, are you talking about doge cuts?
		Cuts by this administration?
unidentified		Correct.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And go ahead with your question.
unidentified		When the doge cuts hit, we lost our federal support in dealing with this lead contamination issue.
unidentified		And so basically, kids have been out of school for three weeks so far because they tried to deal with this.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Gracia.
unidentified		Yes, well, thank you for that question and really raising this issue.
		It's a critical issue that you're sharing with us.
		And indeed, this is an example of why funding public health is so important.
		When we have a chronically underfunded public health system and you see budget cuts to public health, it means that programs and services in communities can suffer.
		You know, when we talk about federal budget cuts, these aren't budget cuts that just sit in Washington, D.C. or with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
		It impacts states and communities.
		And in this example, this is an important service, for example, that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides.
		When a local agency identifies that there's this type of a crisis in terms of lead, it can then coordinate with the state to make the request to have the federal government support its efforts, help with the disease detection, help with guidance that it should be doing in those communities.
		That's why it's so critically important that Congress works to increase and sustain funding for public health so that we have the resources in communities to be able to do this effort and so that our children are safe, that our children can go to school and not have to deal with these types of crises such as the concerns around lead.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Here is the Hill newspaper with an article this morning, a headline, measles vaccination clinics hit by funding cuts.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What is your concern with the measles outbreak that we've seen in Texas?
unidentified		Well, first and foremost, you know, when we talk about an infectious disease like measles, measles is a preventable disease.
		We know that there's a safe and effective vaccine and that vaccination is actually the best line of defense to prevent measles.
		So seeing these measles outbreaks and the U.S. had eliminated measles, has an elimination status of measles 25 years ago that we haven't seen this level of cases in many years.
		It's so important that we have these public health tools in place like vaccination, the support and work that health departments are doing in states and local communities.
		But this is the impact of when you have these types of funding cuts.
		That if you have these funding cuts, what we know, for example, is that we've heard from local health officials, for example, that they've had to actually stop health vaccination clinics to be able to actually administer the measles vaccine.
		They've had to lay off workers in Dallas, for example, that they were going to be providing the measles vaccines, doing that vaccine outreach, as well as doing the detection to see how much of a spread there is.
		The point is public health is really the best way that we have to actually prevent these types of outbreaks, and it's actually the cost-effective way of doing it because it's much less expensive to actually prevent measles than it is to actually respond to a measles outbreak where you have to pull all of these resources from the local, state, and federal levels to do so.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Dallas Morning News one day ago with this headline, as Texas measles outbreak grows, some Republicans leaders, some Republican leaders remain silent on vaccination.
		The Texas legislature will consider a host of anti-vaccine bills this session.
		Will the measles outbreak impact those bills?
		Lancy in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.
		Morning.
unidentified		Yes, what I wanted to make a remark about was since Crump is doing all those cuts, wouldn't that affect all the states even more, especially red states, as you might say, the low-income states?
		Well, you raise an important point, and the point about the fact that this federal funding is really an important resource to states and local communities.
		You know, 80% of CDC's domestic budget actually goes to states and local communities, to academic institutions, to other partners, community partners that are working to respond to and promote and protect their communities' health.
		So, when those funding cuts happen, they do impact what happens in states and local communities.
		In addition to what we just talked about with regards to the measles outbreak in Texas and seeing that there are local health officials that are having to make difficult decisions to actually no longer do vaccination clinics, we see when we have these types of cuts, that health departments around the country have to make decisions about laying off workers or they can't fill important positions within those health departments to be able to respond to and prepare for these types of emergencies.
		It also means an impact on the services that are provided.
		So, it's critically important that we really sustain our investment in public health so that we are best prepared to be able to respond to these types of outbreaks in the future.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Here is a post on X to you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How do you feel HHS has been handling the measles outbreak?
unidentified		Well, I think a critical thing with any outbreak is that we're following the science, we're following the data and evidence, working with experts, the scientists, the health care providers, the public health experts to be able to respond to the outbreak.
		By elevating the point around HHS, what the message is also importantly showing is that there's a role for the federal government.
		When we talk about emergency response and these outbreak responses, there's a coordinated effort between the federal government, state, and local governments to be able to respond, where the local agency is really the first on the ground and coordinating with the state and federal government.
		It's vital that we continue to be driven by the science and data on how we respond to that.
		Use the expertise of the public health agencies to be able to support states that are now dealing with this outbreak.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Mary in Las Vegas.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning to you.
unidentified		Morning.
		Allow me to finish my thought, okay?
		We're watching Project 2025 in full bloom, going after our health, our education, all the services that we rely on from our government.
		Business is not government.
		It's not only we got a health is being affected because they are cutting, what, 10,000 workers?
		The guy has no medical expertise, no science expertise.
		He's anti-VAC.
		Now they're going to cut every institution, including Social Security.
		They'll close offices to be able to close them down.
		It's the great privatization that is going on.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mary, heard your point.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Gracio, what policy recommendations has your group made to the federal government in response to your report, ready or not?
unidentified		So to share a few of those recommendations, one is certainly the importance of funding our public health system at all levels to be best prepared to respond to these emergencies, whether they're outbreaks, whether they're natural disasters like hurricanes or the tornadoes that we're now seeing, wildfires and the like.
		It's also that we need to modernize, continue to modernize our data systems.
		You know, we have been making progress in recent years.
		We actually saw important investments that were made through emergency funding during the pandemic to actually help address those vulnerabilities in our public health infrastructure, whether that's having a modernized data system so that healthcare facilities and public health agencies can share data more quickly and more efficiently.
		to also having more modernized disease detection systems like wastewater surveillance as well as a center for forecasting to be able to actually predict the trajectory of these infectious disease outbreaks.
		All of these are at risk because how we fund is often one-time funding.
		It's just during the emergency and then once the emergency ends that funding ends.
		And the important thing is that the time to prepare for these emergencies is before the emergency happens to build that infrastructure and strengthen our infrastructure.
		We need to focus on that in the non-emergency times and ensure that we don't continue to go through this cycle of boom and bust funding for public health.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We're talking about public emergencies like the measles outbreak that we're seeing, the flu, the bird flu outbreak, as well and any others that could come along.
		Emergency preparedness is our topic this morning.
		You can call in with your question or your comments for Dr. Gracia.
		If you live in the eastern central part of the country, the line is 202-748-8000.
		Mountain Pacific, 202-748-8001.
		On bird flu, here's a headline.
		FDA suspends program to improve bird flu testing due to staff cuts.
		This is from Reuters, similar headline on other outlets.
		What is the status of stopping bird flu from spreading?
unidentified		So in this actually, our report that we released, we have a special feature specifically on bird flu.
		This is an example of the types of health threats that we can see.
		Whether it's measles, bird flu, annual flu that we see each and every year, we have to be prepared for all of these types of infectious disease threats.
		And it's important when we talk about the ability to do that testing.
		That testing is important so that we can contain those outbreaks quickly.
		And the role of the federal government, as we see with a bird flu outbreak, is that bird flu, like other types of outbreaks, can happen in multiple states.
		And the importance of the federal government helping to support coordination around testing, also providing the expertise and the resources that states need to be able to control those types of outbreaks.
		When those types of funding cuts happen, it can slow the response.
		It means you have less people that are out in the community to be able to do the type of detection, but also to be able to do the outreach and education to the people that are most at risk or that are disproportionately impacted.
		People like farm workers, other groups that have direct exposure.
		And so that's why it's critically important to assure that we're maintaining that type of funding and resources and expertise because the states and localities depend on that from the federal government.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Joseph next, who is in New Jersey, Point Pleasant Beach.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning to you.
unidentified		Hey, Greta, how are you?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Doing well.
unidentified		Good.
		Good.
		I just, your guest seems like a very nice person, very smart.
		But I just, I think people forgot what happened five years ago with Dr. Fauci.
		My government lied to me about how COVID started.
		He knew about it.
		He went against our government and funded some operation out in another country when our country said it was illegal.
		He did that, probably got a lot of money.
		And then he told me to get the vaccine.
		I got it.
		I'm not anti-vax, but they told me it would stop the spread.
		It never did.
		It didn't start.
		I regret taking it.
		I know people, I grew up in New York City.
		I know people that lost their jobs because they wouldn't get the vaccine.
		I don't trust my government anymore.
		And I think that's why I'm glad Bobby Kennedy's in there.
		Because I think he's going to clean it all up.
		I don't want to give any money to any Administration that's going to lie to me.
		And it's going to take a couple years to gain my trust.
		All right, what about that?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, what about that?
unidentified		Well, thank you for calling in.
		And I hear your concern, and I hear your frustration.
		And it's important that we have that conversation about the trust and trustworthiness of the science and the data that we're sharing so that people can make the decisions based on the best available science.
		You know, in particular with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, it demonstrated the challenges, for example, of dealing with a novel, with a new virus, and the importance of how we work together to be able to address a health threat such as that.
		I think it's important when we talk about our public health communications, for example, that we're also investing in and supporting public health communications that are based on the best available science and that we know, especially with a novel type, a new type of virus or a type of infection, that we're communicating the things that can be changed, the things that may happen over time as we're learning more.
		I think it's important when we talk about trust that we're partnering and engaging with communities, with families and individuals, so that they understand and that we are empathetic to hearing questions and concerns and assuring that our health experts, health care providers, public health experts, and others, trusted messengers in communities, and often that's community leaders as well, that are able to communicate those messages and not be judgmental when we speak to people to hear those concerns.
		Because we know, for example, that the COVID-19 vaccine saved millions of lives.
		It prevented millions of hospitalizations and deaths.
		And having questions and getting your questions answered is important so that you understand the value and importance of these types of prevention and treatment efforts.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Sean is in Washington.
		Good morning to you.
		Question or comment?
unidentified		I have a question.
		Well, kind of a comment.
		Thank you for putting out this study.
		But I think we should look at the government that we have and take that into consideration because Donald Trump waits for emergencies to pit people against each other.
		He threw away the emergency effort or whatever Brock left him last time before COVID hit.
		And then when COVID hit, he pitted states against each other.
		I'm from Washington State, so I was on the high tier of the rankings that you guys had.
		And what my legislature, if anybody's from Washington State listening, they should take out those dollars for emergencies, for any type of COVID-type incidents for education,
		take those dollars out before we send our tax dollars to Washington because we don't want Donald Trump holding a sword over our head and pitting people against each other so that they can bow to him before they get the funding that they need for emergency situations.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Sean there in Washington State knowing that his state is in the high performance tier, 21 states and the DC government in that category.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Doctor?
unidentified		Yes, well, thank you for sharing that concern and for the perspective you provided with regards to what happens in different states.
		You know, I think importantly, how our organization approaches this is we know that preventing illness, protecting health, promoting health and well-being, that should not be a partisan issue.
		That we all want to assure that we have the opportunity to be as healthy as possible and to be protected from health threats, whether it's an infectious disease outbreak or in response to a hurricane or wildfire.
		And importantly, one of the things that our organization does is really work with policymakers in Congress, with the administration, to share the proven and evidence-based policies that show that they actually save lives and promote health.
		In addition to this preparedness report on Ready or Not that we release, we also release a blueprint report for strengthening public health in the new administration in Congress.
		We release that report every four years to inform the incoming administration and Congress about how to protect not only our nation's health, but also our economic and national security.
		And we want to work with and with the Trump administration and with Congress to assure that we're implementing those types of policies and decisions that are going to protect and keep Americans safe.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Hollywood, Florida.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Nelson, good morning to you.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Dr. Garcia, I have a comment and then a question regarding it.
		I'm a retired firefighter paramedic, and I understand the difficulties of your job, and I thank you for the work that you do.
		Having said that, I have always been in favor of immunizations for our young people, but it was about 20 years ago I started to hear that the increase of asthma amongst children is due to the immunizations being placed that is slowly eroding the natural resistance of their bodies to be able to.
		to fight new kinds of infections.
		And that to a certain extent, those immunizations were part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
		Now, I have a lot of questions.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Nelson, let's take that up.
unidentified		So, Nelson, thank you for your service, first of all, in emergency services.
		And that's an area as well that we highlight as an important aspect when we speak about our emergency preparedness overall as a nation.
		You know, when we speak about vaccinations, it is important to know, like, when we speak about these types of vaccine-preventable diseases, just how important these vaccines are in terms of really being a best line of defense and protecting against diseases that we often don't see now in the U.S. because of the importance of vaccination.
		That's what makes the measles outbreak so troubling, really concerning, and tragic, you know, to even have, for example, two deaths from measles itself.
		What I would say is that we have systems in place when it comes to safety and effectiveness of these vaccines and also to monitor if there are any types of effects from these systems.
		These systems have been in place for many years, and it allows us to examine whether there are any types of safety issues.
		And what we know is that the vaccines that we have, they are safe and effective.
		And it's important to be able to answer these types of questions for people that have those questions to assure that they know that they can make these decisions based on the best available evidence.
		But what we've seen is the rapid decline of these types of vaccine-preventable diseases over the years, and that's so important to protecting our health and safety.
		And that there are numerous other factors that can be contributing to other types of health issues and rises in health conditions that we're seeing.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Adam in Palm City, Florida.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Good morning.
		Wondering in relation to the measle outbreaks or any kind of infectious diseases that is being talked about these days, if it's not just the anti-vaccine talk, but can it be contributed to the amount of illegal immigration that's came across the southern border in the last four years?
		Because it's not just from like South American countries, it's also countries outside there that flew into there and crossed our border that were probably not vaccinated from their home countries and could have transmitted a lot of disease into our country.
		And if it's about protecting our country through national or emergencies from infectious disease, couldn't they have shut down the border to prevent that type of transmission to us?
		Well, I appreciate you asking the question, trying to determine, you know, how are these infections happening?
		And that's an important public health function is actually when you see a case, for example, of measles, is to immediately work.
		That's what the local public health departments are doing is that they then are working, for example, to identify what factors and where that exposure may have happened, who else may have been exposed, and then working very quickly to be able to contain that outbreak.
		Because as we know, that, you know, these types of outbreaks, they don't have geographic boundaries.
		They don't have state boundaries.
		And we see, too, that they can cross the borders of countries.
		But actually what we know, for example, with regards to the measles outbreak is actually the vast majority, yes, are individuals who are unvaccinated, but it's often U.S. residents who travel and return back into the U.S. and having had that exposure.
		And if you then are in a community where there are lower vaccination rates, it can allow measles, which is a highly contagious disease, to be able to spread.
		That's why it's so important that we use these effective and proven public health tools like the MAX measles vaccine, which is the best way to prevent a measles outbreak to actually be able to prevent these outbreaks in the first place.
		But one of the challenges we're also facing is that we have a growing number of these types of infectious disease threats, but yet we don't have the level of investment that we need, for example, to assure our immunization programs have the resources that they need to do the outreach and education and actually administer vaccine.
		In the state of Washington, actually, because of the abrupt cancellation of the grants that they had from the federal government to help with that shoring up of the public health infrastructure, which included being able to provide access to vaccinations, they had to actually cancel a vaccine clinic for children who are uninsured.
		That puts those children, those families, and that community at greater risk.
		That's why it's so vital that we assure that we're investing in providing the resources for us to have a strong public health system.
		And that includes having a strong and robust vaccination system as well.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Earl's in Canton, Georgia.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Earl.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you doing?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Doing well, sir.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Question or comment?
unidentified		Okay, I'm a 75 years old, retired union electrician.
		We had always had good health care in the union.
		Well, we pay for it.
		And our jobs, and this has really got to do with health care.
		These corporations in this country and big companies have left this country because of the cost of health care that is provided by the countries they move to.
		It makes their wages lower that the corporations have to pay.
		Why can't people understand it?
		It's been all over the news.
		They don't pay attention.
		They say it's because of this cheap labor.
		That ain't what it is.
		It ain't cheap in Canada.
		I'm sorry.
		I'm just a little, you know, it's ridiculous.
		And I listened to the whole thing this morning.
		They said nothing, nobody said a damn thing about it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		All right, Earl.
		Do you have any thoughts on that, Doctor?
		Healthcare and the cost of it?
unidentified		Yeah, well, I just want to say I hear your frustration.
		And having access to affordable and quality health care is critically important so that we can be truly a healthy and healthier nation.
		You know, when we look at, for example, some of our health outcomes, we have, as in the United States, the lowest life expectancy among the high-income countries around the world.
		We have the highest rates of maternal deaths in the country, as well as the highest rate of infant deaths.
		We have high rates of chronic diseases as an example.
		But if you actually look at our spending as a nation, one, we spend about $4.5 trillion every year on health spending, but less than 5% of that goes to public health and prevention.
		And yet we know that actually public health and prevention, that is an important return on investment, that we can actually work to prevent illnesses as well as help to treat illnesses before they become even more severe and have obviously a human toll, but also an economic toll.
		So yes, we need to, one, really ensure that our policymakers are working to expand access to health care because we know that communities, families that have access to health care, that they're going to fare better, for example, in times of emergency because they have access to those services.
		And so we critically need to be able to address that in terms of our health care system.
		We also know that we also need to invest more in public health and prevention so that we can be a truly healthier nation and that can also help us to reduce those health care costs.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Del is in Warwick, New York.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Morning, Del.
unidentified		Morning.
		I just wanted to comment that Robert Kennedy Jr. is your biggest problem.
		He's the one that is against inoculations.
		All his children have been inoculated and he is disowned by his family.
		His family has disowned him because he is the most disgusting human being.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Del, I'm just going to leave it at the policy point that you were making.
		What is your thoughts?
		What are your thoughts on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s, the Health and Human Services Secretary's views on vaccination?
unidentified		Well, I think it's critically important that we talk about the importance of vaccinations.
		Vaccinations are how we save lives, how we prevent illness and injury, and truly support and promote and protect health.
		For example, with our measles outbreak.
		Our role, for example, at Trust for America's Health is really to be able to inform policymakers within the administration, within Congress, about these types of evidence-based and proven programs that actually work to help support and protect the nation's health.
		The data are there.
		We know that vaccines are really a best line of defense.
		We've seen it, for example, among children, with the routine childhood immunizations that have saved millions of children's lives, have prevented hospitalizations, and also reduced costs.
		And so when we talk about how do we work with, for example, policymakers, it's sharing that evidence and data, really working to find common ground so that we are putting forward the best available science and proven evidence-based policies to be able to protect the health and well-being of the American people.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Vincent is watching in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Vincent.
unidentified		Hi, how do you do?
		That's only the second time I've ever called, but I have a comment.
		You talked to the doctor, and I'm not going to attack her, but the CDC and the virus that, you know, not SARS, but we just.
		Bird flu?
		Excuse me.
		COVID.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Oh, okay, COVID-19.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		The guy from New York called and you know and he said he doesn't trust the system.
		Well, I am exactly in the same spot.
		I always thought a vaccine was going to prevent you from getting it.
		I've had shots.
		I never got tuberculosis.
		I never had measles and those kinds of things.
		But this was a lie.
		It was an absolute lie to the American people that if you get the shot, you won't get COVID.
		I took the two shots.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Vincent, let's leave it right there.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Was it ever promised that you would not get it, or was it promised that if you do, the symptoms would be reduced by having the vaccine?
unidentified		Well, what you're pointing out is an important point, especially when you're dealing with a new virus.
		As you're learning about that virus and the science and data are evolving, then you're understanding how is this going to impact the American people.
		With the COVID-19 vaccine, what we saw and what the data and science show is that it did reduce the severity of illness.
		And that was critically important because we know that there are groups who are more vulnerable, for example, to actually having serious illness from COVID-19, being hospitalized and potentially dying from COVID-19, whether that's older adults, people who have chronic conditions.
		And we have 129 million Americans who have chronic conditions.
		Reducing that severity of the illness and preventing serious illness as well as death is absolutely an important aspect with regards to the benefit and value of the COVID-19 vaccine.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Patsy next in Massachusetts.
unidentified		How are you?
unidentified		Good morning.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Patsy.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Can you mute your television, please?
unidentified		Oh, sorry.
		Good morning.
		I have just a simple thing.
		I'm 77 years old.
		I've been a social activist my whole life.
		And I believe that they're not looking at the right thing.
		What they should be looking at is why is America in such bad health?
		It's the three monopolies that carry produce 90% of this country's food.
		And the other country don't want to take it in because it's full of poison.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Patsy, let's take your point.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Bad health and leading to the spread of infectious diseases.
unidentified		So I appreciate your point of really thinking about what is causing these poor health outcomes in our country, whether it's high rates of heart disease or diabetes and cancer or other chronic diseases, but also then when we have these infectious diseases, and it's important to understand that these are interconnected when we talk about our health and really think about health holistically.
		It's important that we think about really the environments and the community conditions that we have to support health.
		And you raised some important issues, for example, assuring that people have access to healthy and nutritious foods, that they live in communities, for example, where it's safe to bike and play and engage in physical activity.
		We look at some of the leading risk factors, for example, of chronic disease.
		It's things like poor nutrition, not having access or not engaging in physical activity, smoking, as well as excessive alcohol use.
		If you look at smoking, for example, this is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, and it's a leading risk factor for chronic disease.
		That's why it's so important that we have the investments and the resources in public health to support smoking prevention.
		But our concern is, you know, based on reports, for example, is that the staff for the Office on Smoking and Health at CDC staff have been laid off, that staff at the Food and Drug Administration that look at issues around tobacco products, that there have also been layoffs there.
		And it's critically important that we say if we want to really improve health, we have to assure that we have that expertise as well as the resources that are helping to work with states and communities to be able to address these types of health issues.
		And we've seen progress.
		You know, youth smoking rates, for example, are at a 25-year low.
		Well, now is not the time to take the foot off the gas in terms of us being able to provide those types of resources and expertise.
		to states and communities to be able to assure that we're addressing those root causes of illness and that includes assuring things like people having good housing, good access to affordable and healthy foods, assuring that we address issues like poverty, which all also contribute to poor health outcomes.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll hear from Helen next in Shirley, New York.
unidentified		I got a couple of things.
		First of all, the guy that called up and said that it was Fauci's fault that he lied to you.
		No, it was Trump.
		He said it was a hoax from the beginning of the virus until he got caught on tape and that he was going to downplay it.
		And then also my brother-in-law is dead five years now from the virus because of the lie, of the hoax, because we all supposed to trust the presidents.

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