| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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C-SPAN Student Cam competition challenged middle and high school students nationwide to create documentaries with messages to the new president. | |
| Our panel of judges evaluated over 1,700 thought-provoking student films on their use of multiple perspectives. | ||
| C-SPAN awarded $100,000 in total cash prizes, and our grand prize of $5,000 goes to Dermot Foley, a 10th grader from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. | ||
| Congratulations to all our winners. | ||
| The top 21 winning entries will air on C-SPAN this month. | ||
| You can also watch all the award-winning documentaries anytime at studentcam.org. | ||
| C-SPAN, bringing you democracy unfiltered. | ||
| We're asking the question: Are you feeling unsettled because of some of the political, economic, and social changes going on in the world today? | ||
| There's tariff policy, there's a reordering of the federal government, there's personal finance and retirement issues, China tensions, political protests. | ||
| All that stuff is going on. | ||
| We just want to get your view on it, whether it's making you unsettled or if you're feeling that these are necessary changes, course corrections, that type of thing. | ||
| We'll be getting to your calls in just a minute. | ||
| We want to start off this morning, though, with the front page of the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| Stock market today is already down about a thousand points in the futures. | ||
| Asian stocks plunged as Trump tariff turmoil deepens, is their headline. | ||
| Well, here was President Trump yesterday on Air Force One. | ||
| And those tariffs next year will make us $1 trillion. | ||
| In addition to the $1 trillion, thousands of companies are going to relocate back into the United States. | ||
| In North Carolina, already furniture people are starting to move back in. | ||
| In Detroit and Michigan, which I won, because of what I said, what I'm telling you, car companies are starting to open up. | ||
| In Indiana, a big one is under construction, as an example. | ||
| Honda. | ||
| But they're moving in like nobody has ever seen this before. | ||
| So it's unsustainable for us to allow China to have surpluses of a trillion dollars. | ||
| We will be taking in over a trillion dollars over the next short period of time with the tariffs that I've already instituted. | ||
| They're already in place. | ||
| Now, what's going to happen with the market, I can't tell you, but I can tell you our country has gotten a lot stronger. | ||
| And eventually, it'll be a country like no other. | ||
| It'll be the most dominant country economically in the world. | ||
| Which is what it should be. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is there a Trump put, though? | |
| Is there pain in the market? | ||
| At some point, you're unwilling to tolerate this idea of what Trump put. | ||
| Is there a threshold? | ||
| I think your question is so stupid. | ||
| I mean, I think it's a I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something. | ||
| And that was President Trump flying back to Washington on Air Force One yesterday. | ||
| Arlene has texted in to us. | ||
| I am retiring at the end of the month. | ||
| Unsettled doesn't fully describe the intensity of my feelings. | ||
| Let's hear from Andrew calling in from Virginia, a Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Andrew. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Speak with you this morning. | |
| Yes, sir. | ||
| I've never been so upset, so distraught over the direction of over the direction of this country onto this lunatic that we have as our president. | ||
| The world, especially this country, seems to be diving into an abyss. | ||
| This man has single-handedly destroyed every democratic principle, every constitutional law that we have forged in the past couple hundred years. | ||
| He has destroyed so much, regardless of what Republicans say, along with the Russia, or the Republican enablers, have enabled the Russians, the Chinese, to basically we are the most vulnerable point in our history, and the Russians and the Chinese are ecstatic. | ||
| Andrew, can you give an example of what the president has done that is undemocratic in your view? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first of all, he seems to be ignoring every judicial decision that goes against them. | |
| He led basically the insurrection against our constitutional presidential election. | ||
| He's unbridled in what he's doing right now. | ||
| And no Republican, no elected Republican seems to be doing anything. | ||
| And along with Elon Musk, they are the greatest dangers to this country that I've ever seen. | ||
| Andrew, what do you think about the 79 million Americans who voted for President Trump in 2024? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, to be honest, they were succored. | |
| They fell for the lives of a con man. | ||
| These people who voted because over the price of eggs, bacon, or whatever, they'll be lucky if they're not living out of their car in another four years. | ||
| That's Andrew in Virginia. | ||
| Where in Virginia do you live, Andrew? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| Sterling, Virginia. | ||
| Here in the suburbs. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Thanks for calling in. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| Here's Eddie. | ||
| Text. | ||
| Unsettled? | ||
| No. | ||
| I think things in my life are going great. | ||
| Got a wonderful family, a great president, and an administration that is keeping their promises that got them elected. | ||
| Working hard to save wasteful spending in order to help bring our enormous national debt down. | ||
| Unsettled? | ||
| No, not at all. | ||
| Our next call comes from a Republican in North Carolina, Steve. | ||
| Steve, where in North Carolina are you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Fairville, North Carolina. | |
| Please go ahead. | ||
| How are you feeling these days? | ||
| I feel absolutely settled because I put all my refuge in Jesus Christ. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And a lot of people think that that's just religious nuts talking like that. | |
| But let me tell you something, folks. | ||
| All this stuff has got to come and pass and happen, but everything's going to be okay. | ||
| It's going to be some hard times coming ahead, though. | ||
| Get ready for them. | ||
| There's a bad storm coming, and you need to get along and stop all this hate and put your faith in God and start doing some serious praying. | ||
| Hey, Steve, what is, on a secular level, what are some of those issues that could add up to a bad storm? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The economy is going to crash because of greed. | |
| Everybody's greedy. | ||
| Money is the root of all evil. | ||
| The economy is going to crash. | ||
| The global warming is going to continue. | ||
| You're not going to stop it. | ||
| It's in the Bible. | ||
| If you're not sure about the future, just pick up the book, wipe off the dust, and read, and it'll tell you everything you need to know about what's coming. | ||
| Thank you for calling in, Steve. | ||
| Let's hear from Ed, another Republican in Connecticut. | ||
| Hi, Ed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah, I think President Trump is doing the right thing on a tariff. | ||
| Last year, we ran like a half a trillion-dollar current account deficit. | ||
| That is, we're importing more goods than we're exporting. | ||
| And the world does this not out of the goodness of their heart, but because they need the dollar. | ||
| The dollar is our number one export. | ||
| It's become the international currency of the world. | ||
| But as a result, we've denuded our industrial base that's lowered wages. | ||
| So we've replaced good-paying manufacturing jobs with ultra-high-paying financial jobs. | ||
| The productivity of the country has declined. | ||
| The McKinsey Consultant Group identified a $10 trillion gap in our GDP as a result of the declining productivity trends. | ||
| And it's also encouraged divergence in social issues in our country because of the widening gap between the really high-paid financial people. | ||
| So I think we need to get back to manufacturing, and I think the tariffs will enable that. | ||
| Hey, Ed, do you consider yourself to be a populist? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I wouldn't think so. | |
| I think what we should do is for the benefit of the country. | ||
| And I think he is doing it. | ||
| Longer term, the eradication of our industrial base. | ||
| Look at what has happened in the military sphere. | ||
| China now has the largest Navy. | ||
| I don't think they have the most capable Navy, but they have the largest Navy in the world, so that's manufacturing. | ||
| Now, it's done good things. | ||
| The economists would call convergence a good thing, which is where the developed countries grow at a slower rate than the undeveloped countries, so that the wage gap, I mean, across the world, poor people are getting out of poverty. | ||
| I think like 5 billion people over the last 20 years have gone from very poor countries to good. | ||
| But the United States has grown at 2% versus the world growing at 4% and the aggressive countries, dynamic countries, growing at 7%. | ||
| So it doesn't take long before many countries pass us. | ||
| We think of ourselves as the richest country in the world, but this is not the case. | ||
| On a per-person basis, many countries have passed us. | ||
| And if we continue to grow at 2% and the rest of the world grows at 4% or 7%, many more countries will pass us. | ||
| Hey, Ed, what kind of work do you do in Connecticut? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm retired. | |
| From? | ||
| Business. | ||
| Thank you for calling in. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| On RealClearPolitics.com, you can get all the latest political polls. | ||
| And the two that came out on Sunday, a little bit divergent, the Wall Street Journal, President Trump job approval rating, 46, disapprove 51. | ||
| That's opposed to the Daily Mail, which has a poll. | ||
| President Trump approval, 53, disapprove at 47. | ||
| Let's talk to Doris in New York, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Doris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Are you feeling unsettled these days because of some of the political, social, and economic issues going on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm very unsettled. | |
| I don't know what's going to happen to my Social Security. | ||
| The tariffs have brought groceries and essentials up to the point where you can't afford them anymore. | ||
| It's just gotten ridiculous. | ||
| He's tearing the country apart from the inside out. | ||
| And I don't know how anybody can't see that. | ||
| And I don't know how they can stand behind him. | ||
| Would you say, what, 90%, 100% of your unsettledness is due to President Trump? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I didn't vote for him the first time. | ||
| I literally cried. | ||
| I have never been afraid of an election before in my life, but that one scared me. | ||
| And this one's even worse. | ||
| Just to give you a little sense here, in his first term, President Trump signed 220 executive orders. | ||
| So far, he has signed 111 in the first 80-plus days of his administration. | ||
| President Obama in eight years signed 276 executive orders, and Joe Biden in four years signed 162. | ||
| Next call is Antone in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Antone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Very, very unsettled. | ||
| There are 73 million baby boomers. | ||
| who currently live on Social Security, and now their retirement via IRAs, the stock investments, are being lost due to the Trump administration. | ||
| The stress on seniors are killing them. | ||
| And I personally lost a loved one due to that fact. | ||
| Seniors 80 years old, 1946, the baby boom generation, do not have time on their side to recover. | ||
| And honestly feel seniors that are dying from the stress of what has been created for them should be considered, like anything else, a wrongful death, and they should be suing the Trump administration and make them accountable. | ||
| I just heard earlier, $23 million to bail out farmers in his previous administration. | ||
| What about $23 million to bail out seniors to save their lives? | ||
| Seniors have been hit by the 208 housing collapse. | ||
| Seniors have been hit by COVID. | ||
| Seniors have been hit by hurricanes. | ||
| And now seniors are being hit by the Trump administration with tariffs now costing them their retirement again, threatening their Social Security and Medicare on top of that. | ||
| There is something really, really wrong with this picture. | ||
| And seniors need to band together and fight this administration before it ends up killing them. | ||
| That is Antonio. | ||
| Am I saying your first name correctly? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's correct. | |
| That's Antone in Florida. | ||
| Where in Florida are you, Antone? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sarasota. | |
| And now you're calling on the Independent line. | ||
| Have you voted for D's and for R's in the past? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, and that's why being an independent is important to me, because this thing, I'm a Republican, this thing, I'm a Democrat, and it doesn't matter whether what I'm doing is right or wrong, has got to go. | |
| What has to matter is the issue at hand. | ||
| And the issue at hand here is we're killing senior citizens in this country based on what is going on up in Washington. | ||
| And they need to be accountable for that. | ||
| Thank you, ma'am, for calling in. | ||
| We appreciate it. | ||
| Joel Pollack in Breitbart writes about political realignment a little bit. | ||
| And here's his most recent article, Blue State Blues. | ||
| Trump is the greatest Democrat president since FDR. | ||
| President Donald Trump is the best Democrat to have held the office since FDR introduced the New Deal and fought the Second World War. | ||
| Obviously, Trump is a Republican and not a Democrat, at least not officially and not anymore. | ||
| But his policies are those that many Democrats used to champion and that many would still embrace were it not for the fact that Trump and the Republicans are the ones backing these policies today. | ||
| Take, for example, Trump's reciprocal tariffs, announced on April 2nd, Liberation Day in the Rose Garden. | ||
| Until the Clinton era, union-friendly Democrats like Dick Gibhardt would regularly argue for tariffs and against deals like NAFTA. | ||
| Both of the major parties, in fact, were split on trade issues, but Democrats tended to lean toward protectionism. | ||
| Now they denounce Trump's tariffs predicting doom. | ||
| Or take peace with Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| Democrats, who long had a soft spot for communism, were easy to parody as pro-Russia during the Cold War. | ||
| When President Barack Obama came into office, he adopted an appeasement strategy toward Russia that predictably failed. | ||
| But after Russia made a fool of Obama by invading Crimea and after Democrats convinced themselves that Russia had stolen the 26 election for Trump, they turned into Russia hawks. | ||
| Trump, who was far tougher on Russia in his first term than either his predecessor or successor, campaigned in 2024 on ending the war with Ukraine after several years of stalemate. | ||
| Democrats have strenuously opposed his efforts to drag the two sides to the negotiating table, preferring instead to see the war continue apparently without end. | ||
| It is Trump, Joel Pollack in Breitbart writes, who has lifted the banner of peace once carried by Eugene McCarthy and RFK Sr. | ||
| That is in Breitbart. | ||
| We are asking you this morning if you are feeling unsettled with all of the political, economic, and social changes going on in the world. | ||
| We're going to put the numbers up on the screen. | ||
| 202 is the area code, 737-0001 for Republicans, 737-0002 for Democrats, and 628-0205 for Independents. | ||
| Pardon me. | ||
| If you can't get through on the phone lines, still like to make a comment, try social media. | ||
| A, text us. | ||
| 202-748-8003 is the text number. | ||
| Please include your first name and your city if you would. | ||
| And you can make comments and continue the conversation on Facebook and X as well. | ||
| Bill is a Republican in Texas. | ||
| Bill, good morning. | ||
| Are you feeling unsettled? | ||
| And if so, why? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm feeling very settled. | |
| I'm a 76-year-old former Marine. | ||
| And I just, I can't be any more settled than I am. | ||
| It takes a tough man to get a tough job done. | ||
| The problem we have is cleaning up the Democrat years. | ||
| Once we get them cleaned up, get them smooth back out, the tariffs will kind of work themselves out. | ||
| And next thing you know, everybody will say that, oh, you know, just like Reagan, that Trump knew what he was doing. | ||
| So Bill, beyond the tariffs, when you look at the reordering of international relations, you know, U.S. and Europe perhaps, the reordering of the federal government, China tensions, do you find those things unsettling? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nope, I don't. | |
| Not a bit. | ||
| Not a bit. | ||
| It takes a tough nation and a tough man to run it to get things done. | ||
| You know, we've got so much fat. | ||
| I mean, on everything that's got to do with the government. | ||
| I worked a contract store dealing with the government. | ||
| And there's so much waste. | ||
|
unidentified
|
If they order something, it didn't matter what the cost was. | |
| Just get it. | ||
| If it was wrong, it'd get thrown over in the corner. | ||
| It's a crying shame. | ||
| But, hey, once I get through trimming the fat, people will be very satisfied. | ||
| That's Bill in Texas on the Republican line. | ||
| Betsy is in North Carolina on the Democrats line. | ||
| Good morning, Betsy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| How are you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I want to thank you for what you do. | |
| Before I retired from teaching, my first class, we would always listen to a certain amount of C-SPAN in my AP government class. | ||
| Awesome. | ||
| I always love it when government students call in. | ||
| We get that quite often. | ||
| And they always call out their teachers. | ||
| So I think that's kind of neat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am very unsettled, and I'm very hurt. | |
| I consider myself an extreme patriot, and I have never seen anybody hatch it up the U.S. government like this. | ||
| It is mournful. | ||
| And people who don't think so have their head in the sand and are misinterpreting things. | ||
| Social Security is in danger because the organization has been reduced to a point where it will not be able to function. | ||
| That is a corporate raider technique. | ||
| If they can't out and out take over something, they will carve it out so it can't function and then go in and jump on it. | ||
| Also, tariffs have never worked on this scale. | ||
| In the 1890s, it caused a major depression. | ||
| In the 1930s, the Smooth Hawley tariff contributed to the Great Depression. | ||
| Also, all of our greatest allies are looking at how they can do without us as an ally because of what Trump is doing. | ||
| We cannot exist without allies. | ||
| He is hateful. | ||
| He does not care about the American people. | ||
| He is fixing it so he will turn it over in sections to these billionaires who will run a sector the way Russia is being run. | ||
| And we will no longer be the United States of America. | ||
| It is very, very sad, horrible. | ||
| All right, Betsy, thank you for calling in and thank you for telling us about your teaching career as well. | ||
| We started off this morning about 20 minutes ago with this headline, the stock market today. | ||
| This is the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| Dow Futures, Asian stocks plunge as Trump tariff turmoil deepens. | ||
| Before coming on the air, I think the stock futures were down another thousand points at this point. | ||
| The European markets were down. | ||
| The Asian markets were down as well. | ||
| And that's part of what's going on with the tariffs. | ||
| Also, this weekend, don't know if you saw the UN Trump rallies that were live on C-SPAN, but they were all over the world. | ||
| This is one from Washington that we're showing you on the air there. | ||
| Next call is William in North Carolina, an independent. | ||
| William, where in North Carolina are you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Shelburne, North Carolina. | |
| Thank you for that. | ||
| And so how are you feeling these days? | ||
| Are you feeling unsettled? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am very settled, as a matter of fact. | |
| My question and the things I wish to expound upon, the nation, in God we trust. | ||
| So that means y'all trust God, right? | ||
| Well, William, go ahead and finish your thought, okay? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| In God we trust. | ||
| That is y'all's motto, right? | ||
| I'm going to let you ask that rhetorically and to go on and finish your thought. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Well, if y'all trust in God, what God do y'all serve? | ||
| The world serves? | ||
| Because it sure is not Christ, and it sure is not his way, his will, nor his law, and y'all have perverted God's words for man's gainsay, for man's rules, for man's laws, and you have neglected father. | ||
| All right. | ||
| William, we're going to leave it there. | ||
| We appreciate your time. | ||
| A couple of texts. | ||
| This is Kim. | ||
| Are you feeling unsettled? | ||
| Is the question. | ||
| No, Kim says. | ||
| Our country has been on life support. | ||
| As President Donald J. Trump said, the operation is over, and now it's recovery time. | ||
| We have to go through this in order for our country to survive. | ||
| Our previous financial situation was not sustainable. | ||
| One more text. | ||
| This is Larry in New Jersey. | ||
| I feel extremely unsettled about the evisceration of the Internal Revenue Service and other important government agencies, including the military, and of the ability in the future to hold a fair election of any kind. | ||
| Next call is Joseph, Florida, Republican. | ||
| Joseph, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much for taking my call. | |
| I've been a Republican my entire life, except for two times. | ||
| Both times, I did not vote for Donald Trump. | ||
| I had business dealings with him. | ||
| It is the most ridiculous, corrupt situation. | ||
| This person shouldn't be doing what he's doing. | ||
| But let me give you two real-time situations here, and I hope Republicans listen up because it's coming to your front doorstep. | ||
| One is personal. | ||
| My daughter has a very acute Lyme disease. | ||
| She was buying a, beside the prescription drugs, she was taking a supplement which was very effective. | ||
| It's called Bullock. | ||
| You can look it up. | ||
| She was able to buy it in the United States 60 pills for around $44. | ||
| Mr. Trump's tariffs, it's a Canadian pharmaceutical company. | ||
| She can no longer buy it in the United States. | ||
| It has to be bought in Canada. | ||
| And now the 60 pills is $184 a bottle. | ||
| So Republicans, it's coming to your doorstep. | ||
| The second thing is I play golf in Florida in a very Republican area. | ||
| There's about 40 of us. | ||
| Let me tell you something. | ||
| This 47% approval rating, watch what's going to happen next. | ||
| A couple of situations. | ||
| We never talk politics in this golf group. | ||
| It is all about politics, and it's all, I'm done with Trump. | ||
| The kneel in the coffin was when this guy was out playing golf, and we have veterans in that group, and those soldiers were buried the other day. | ||
| The second thing is they have had it. | ||
| They are saying to us in conversations now, we have one golfer who said that he was going to he's helped pay his two grandchildren for college, and now his money has been decimated, and he's now going to tell those children that they're going to have to take out loans. | ||
| This is the reality, Republicans. | ||
| And I beg you, Republicans, it's coming to your doorstep. | ||
| And please, if you think you're independent, and I find interesting is the people say I'm comfortable. | ||
| Those people are probably independently, they don't have a lot of debt and things like this. | ||
| That's not the majority. | ||
| The average person in this country, retiree, has around $200,000 in savings. | ||
| That was two weeks ago. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| That ain't happening now. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| So I really, really beg the Republicans, before it affects your children and your grandchildren, to wake up. | ||
| That's Joseph in Florida on the Republican line. | ||
| Williams calling in from Ohio, Democratic line. | ||
| William, are you feeling unsettled by world events? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Bill, I am very unsettled. | |
| With that psycho in Washington, Lord only knows what's going to happen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I used to live in West Palm Beach. | |
| Used to see him every day. | ||
| I'm thankful that I am out of there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then him and his MAGA, that's Make America Go Away in his Doge, that's the Department of Government Elimination. | |
| He is just an idiot. | ||
| I'm so thankful I don't have much longer to go. | ||
| And I am really thankful that my baby granddaughter, who is a nuclear engineer in the Navy and her husband, they both got out of the Navy. | ||
| At least they can maybe halfway survive. | ||
| It's just a shame what this country has gone to. | ||
| Hey, William, when did you live in Palm Beach and what did you do down there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I lived in West Palm Beach from 66 to 77. | |
| I worked in the beer industry, but I can count on my 10 fingers the number of beers that I've had in my life. | ||
| That's William in Ohio. | ||
| Tony's in Connecticut, Independent Line. | ||
| Tony, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| You're asking about feeling settled, unsettled. | ||
| I'm an independent. | ||
| I live in a Republican area, and it's right next door is a Democrat area. | ||
| So I have Republican and Democratic friends. | ||
| And I'm feeling settled and unsettled. | ||
| First, I'm feeling unsettled because we're not getting the truth out for what Doge is saying. | ||
| I said, you don't see on these, I converse to different stations. | ||
| They don't bring up, you never see the Doge database. | ||
| You never see the Doge database with the savings coming out and what's happening. | ||
| Everybody knows, both sides of the fence know there's waste fraud and abuse. | ||
| But if it comes knocking on their door, they seem to have a problem with it. | ||
| Another thing that bothers me is we're, you know, I'm an independent. | ||
| Sometimes I vote Democrat. | ||
| Sometimes I vote Republican. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| I'm an American. | ||
| We're all Americans. | ||
| This president, whether you voted for him or not, is our president. | ||
| He had the majority votes. | ||
| He took all the other votes. | ||
| I'm sorry, I'm forgetting the name. | ||
| The electoral votes. | ||
| We stand behind them. | ||
| We're Americans. | ||
| Do you hear other countries objecting about what's going on? | ||
| You know, Americans, we're the stupid Americans that pay for everything. | ||
| I hate tariffs. | ||
| I hate tariffs. | ||
| Why doesn't everybody get off the tariffs? | ||
| Why don't we say to the Europeans, to the Asians, to the people across the world that have been ripping us off for 50 years, all of us drop the tariffs. | ||
| If Trump, for these people calling in saying Trump is wrong about tariffs, then you must hate the tariffs and the value-added taxes that the Europeans and other countries go. | ||
| Let's go zero tariffs. | ||
| And we're Americans. | ||
| You stand by your president. | ||
| We have our differences at the House, inside the House. | ||
| We have our differences and we can argue. | ||
| But when you go outside our house, we're together. | ||
| We're Americans and we stick together and we stand by our president. | ||
| And that's the way it should be. | ||
| None of this stuff here. | ||
| We're cutting ourselves off at the feet. | ||
| Our president, we're making our president's job harder than it has to be. | ||
| He's fighting for us and he's going to win. | ||
| Tony, what do you do up in, first of all, where in Connecticut are you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And what do you do up there? | |
| I'm in Wilkett. | ||
| I'm retired. | ||
| I used to be up in the insurance companies in Hartford Travelers, United Healthcare, and stuff. | ||
| And you get a full array of people's opinions. | ||
| And I'm an economics major from college. | ||
| I have a master's in it. | ||
| I see what these things do. | ||
| I've seen over and over how the Americans just spend the money, $300-something billion dollars for an endless war. | ||
| It's crazy. | ||
| It's really crazy. | ||
| Thank you, sir, for calling in. | ||
| We appreciate it. | ||
| On Meet the Press this weekend, Senator Adam Schiff of California talked about tariffs. | ||
| Unfortunately, he's wrecking our economy. | ||
| I think people have seen their retirement savings on fire, and there he is out on the golf course. | ||
| That may end up being the most enduring image of the Trump presidency. | ||
| That is the president out on a golf cart while people's retirement is in flames. | ||
| The Treasury Secretary is saying that people aren't looking at where the retirement savings are. | ||
| Maybe he doesn't have to. | ||
| He's got the wealth he doesn't have to. | ||
| Maybe the president with his wealth doesn't have to. | ||
| But what I'm hearing from Californians is those that have just retired, those are on the eve of retiring, they're terrified of this. | ||
| And I hope and pray we stay out of recession. | ||
| But if we head into a recession, it will be the Trump recession. | ||
| He will completely own it. | ||
| This is a completely self-destructive economic act that he's engaged in. | ||
| And it's not just the tariffs. | ||
| It's also the freezing of funds, the firing of people, the alienation of our allies. | ||
| In California, I'm hearing from farmers who still haven't recovered market share from the tariffs during the first Trump administration. | ||
| I'm hearing from people in the tourist industry. | ||
| You have people from other countries now who don't want to come here, most particularly Canadians. | ||
| I'm hearing from others, small business people, who are telling me that Canadians are saying, don't send us any more your products. | ||
| In fact, we're going to send you back what you've already sent us. | ||
| It's the whole range of Trump economic policies that are really hurting people. | ||
| And that was Democratic Senator Adam Schiff on Meet the Press. | ||
| Our next call comes from John in California, Republican line. | ||
| John, good morning to you. | ||
| You feeling unsettled? | ||
| And what do you think about what your senator had to say? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you for taking my call. | |
| And I'm about 10% unsettled and about 90% settled. | ||
| And I'll tell you why, because in 2021, the stock market hit, I think, 18,000. | ||
| Right now, it's at 36,000. | ||
| So it's got a long way to go. | ||
| Also, under Joe Biden, we had 11% inflation, and we're at 4% right now. | ||
| The tariffs will not get inflation back to 11%. | ||
| So overall, I think that reducing the overall debt of $36 trillion is the only way out. | ||
| And we have to take two measures. | ||
| One is decreased spending, which is caused by Doge. | ||
| And you'll understand that it's only government spending that we're decreasing. | ||
| It's not the private sector. | ||
| The private sector is adding jobs. | ||
| The jobs report last week was strong, and wages went up last week. | ||
| So the private sector is fine. | ||
| It's the government sector that's getting cut. | ||
| So I'm okay with that. | ||
| As far as revenues, I think the tariffs will generate revenues. | ||
| And so this $2 or $3 trillion deficit will be a combination of cutting spending and raising revenues. | ||
| So right now we got people, one caller said they want no tariffs. | ||
| Well, that's what we're working towards. | ||
| You add a tariff, you meet the tariffs, and then you negotiate them down. | ||
| I think Trump would not like to have tariffs either. | ||
| And so overall, I think Trump has got us on the right course. | ||
| It's like taking chemotherapy for cancer. | ||
| It's a tough thing, tough pill, but we got to go through it in order to get well. | ||
| John, where in California are you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm in Ventura, California. | |
| I'm a surfer, and I'm a beach guy. | ||
| 38% of California voted for President Trump in the last election. | ||
| That's kind of the top line for Republicans in that state. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Well, Biden only had about a 27% rating at the time, too. | ||
| So my 10% that I'm unsettled about, and I watched that thing on Saturday, and I was unsettled that all these people were ranting and raving against Trump personally, but none of them had a solution to the $36 trillion deficit. | ||
| And that's really unsettling. | ||
| You can go and you can tear down Trump all you want, but you better come up with a better idea to reduce this deficit and to pay down the national debt. | ||
| If you can't do that, you're just spouting hot air. | ||
| You can say everything in the world bad about Trump, but if you don't have a better plan, nobody's going to listen. | ||
| Trump is nobody's going to win. | ||
| Like I said, it's like chemotherapy for cancer. | ||
| We're on a slow death. | ||
| All right, to make this a little lighter, John, you said you're a surfer. | ||
| How long have you been surfing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
60 years. | |
| I started surfing in 1960. | ||
| So I surfed all my life. | ||
| How old? | ||
| May we ask how old you are? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've been to Hawaii twice. | |
| I've sailed to Cabo once, a surfer and a sailor. | ||
| What do you do for a living? | ||
| What did you do for a living? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm retired now. | |
| I'm 77 years old, and I started in the lumber business. | ||
| I started as a yard worker stacking lumber, and I ended up working into management. | ||
| I ended up going to a huge company, Warehauser Company, which is a brilliant company. | ||
| I ended up managing as a general manager of a wholesale lumber outlet, and then I was hired in LA, and I managed one of the top five lumber yards in L.A. | ||
| I was shipping a million and a half feet a week. | ||
| I had 60 employees, and I ended up from being a poor boy through corporate climbing the corporate ladder. | ||
| I ended up, I got a million-dollar house, and I got a million dollars in the bank. | ||
| And so I surf and I worked hard all my life and I served hard all my life and that's what I do. | ||
| Are you going surfing today? | ||
| I'm going sailing today. | ||
| I'm too old to surf. | ||
| I gave up surfing when I was 72, but I didn't want to drown. | ||
| But I'm a sailor now. | ||
| I got a 31-foot boat down in the marina. | ||
| And I've been very successful in life because I'm really good at economics. | ||
| I'm really good at the commodity markets. | ||
| And I'll tell you right now, if you have any money, start buying in the stock market because earnings season is coming around, and you're going to see a lot of these companies posting really strong earnings. | ||
| So the private sector is not affected by, it's the government jobs that are being cut, not the private sector jobs. | ||
| And this tariffs will not. | ||
| Yeah, but a lot of people are invested in the stock market, John. | ||
| And what do they say? | ||
| A couple of trillion dollars in wealth has disappeared with the stock market going down. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm going to say that Joe Biden in 2021, the stock market was at $18,000, and it rebounded up to $44,000 or $45,000. | |
| So this stock market will rebound. | ||
| There's going to be strong earnings. | ||
| That's John in California, in Ventura, California. | ||
| Have a nice sale today. | ||
| We appreciate your time. | ||
| Renee is a Democrat in Florida. | ||
| Hi, Renee. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm very unsettled. | ||
| I'm very unsettled that you were reading from Breitbart this morning. | ||
| Why does that make you unsettled? | ||
| Why does that make you unsettled? | ||
| Breitbart? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| That was started by corporate Mercers that put Bannon in charge of it. | ||
| So does that make it illegitimate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, it does, because they spread false information just like Fox News. | |
| Fox News can't call itself a news corporation. | ||
| Their LLC is entertainment. | ||
| And how they get away with spreading false information, and I think they're just an arm of Russia. | ||
| So beyond my reading Breitbart this morning, Renee, what else are you unsettled about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
About where our country is going, how Russia, everything came to true, came true about them turning our people against each other. | |
| And it's so sad. | ||
| I mean, they've used the religion and the news, politics, you know. | ||
| Usually our mainstream media, even though Fox News is seen by more people than anybody, even though they aren't a news, they don't have to, you know, have facts. | ||
| And it's just sad. | ||
| And I feel sorry for people that have been led down that path and don't know what's coming because I unfortunately probably watch too much news around the world. | ||
| And I feel like I see what's coming. | ||
| And it's really sad. | ||
| And I don't know how we get out of it unless we get a Congress that works. | ||
| But they're all part of, they all came from Fox News. | ||
| 21 people in our administration came from Fox News. | ||
| Renee in Florida, Democrat, thanks for calling in. | ||
| Next call is from New Jersey Independent Line Jelsine. | ||
| Did I get that right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, my name is Josephine. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Josephine. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| You would not believe what is typed up on my screen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not even going to throw my name out, but that's because that's the point. | |
| My MIM settled, yes. | ||
| My concerns are due process. | ||
| When we no longer have due process, we've lost our democracy. | ||
| We become a fascist country. | ||
| Now, I hear a lot of military men come on and say, oh, I fought for this country, and it's wonderful, and all that. | ||
| It was, no doubt about it, but not now. | ||
| When we cannot look at the court system and we're telling them that they no longer can do their job, that they have to fear for their life. | ||
| We had a judge here in New Jersey whose son was murdered on her doorstep because she was making a ruling in a court. | ||
| I don't think people understand due process because if I don't have the right to appeal, I've lost my rights. | ||
| The other thing which concerns me is you're all talking about inflation. | ||
| Forget about inflation. | ||
| I worked with the Department of Labor for 42 years. | ||
| You have not seen unemployment come barreling along. | ||
| It's at 4.2%. | ||
| I guarantee you, by September, our unemployment rate is going to be at 7%. | ||
| That's going to be like throwing a stone in the water and it has a ripple effect. | ||
| So the civil servants are gone. | ||
| They're not needed. | ||
| It's like oil in the car. | ||
| You never see them, but it makes everything run smoothly. | ||
| That's going to come home to ring badly. | ||
| People being unemployed is going to be the cherry on the cake. | ||
| And number three, I didn't mean to go on this far, is my concern about those who aren't Medicaid. | ||
| Now, I'm 81 years old. | ||
| Thank God I worked all of my life. | ||
| But the problem is there are a lot of women who supported their family and stayed home. | ||
| And now where are these women in nursing homes on Medicaid? | ||
| 60% of Medicaid recipients are women in nursing homes. | ||
| What's going to happen? | ||
| They're going to be thrown out to the street. | ||
| And then I guess the men will be happy. | ||
| They'll be dead. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Josephine in New Jersey. | ||
| From the Washington Post this morning, Trump, Team Trump, defends tariffs as bipartisan opposition grows, markets slide. | ||
| Trump administration officials blitz television networks on Sunday to defend the president's massive tariffs that have caused a sell-off in the stock market and triggered recession fears, arguing that the import taxes are already forcing dozens of countries to come to the bargaining table. | ||
| Well, Kevin Hassett, who served in the first Trump administration, is now the National Economic Council director, was on this week on ABC. | ||
| Here's a little bit of it. | ||
| On the one hand, you're saying that the countries are really angry and they're going to have to retaliate. | ||
| On the other hand, you're saying that consumers are going to bear the costs that it's going to drive inflation up. | ||
| But if U.S. consumers are bearing the costs, there's no reason for the countries to be angry. | ||
| So the fact is the countries are angry and retaliating. | ||
| And by the way, coming to the table, I got a report from the USDR last night that more than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation. | ||
| But they're doing that because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariff. | ||
| And so I don't think that you're going to see a big effect on the consumer in the U.S. because I do think that the reason why we have a persistent long-run trade deficit is these people have very inelastic supply. | ||
| They've been dumping goods into the country in order to create jobs, say, in China. | ||
| And George, also, I promise you, I'll answer your questions directly about Philip Esther. | ||
| So I'll stop with that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, where do you base your conclusion that you're not going to see an increase in prices? | |
| Just about every economist who's looked at this said you are going to see an increase in prices, including Goldman Sachs, including J.P. Morgan, including the chairman of the Federal Reserve. | ||
| Well, there might be some increase in prices, but the fact is that if there were going to be a heavy burden on the U.S. consumer, then this trade deficit that for 30 years we've seen really since China entered the WTO would be something that would have gone down. | ||
| It would have gone down over time. | ||
| It would have responded to the prices. | ||
| And our next call comes from Dan in Ohio, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning, Dan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so let's talk about jobs. | |
| People or many people are working two jobs. |