Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Participants
Main
peter slen
cspan05:34
Appearances
Clips
barack obama
d00:02
bill clinton
d00:02
donald j trump
admin00:09
george h w bush
r00:02
george w bush
r00:04
jimmy carter
d00:03
joe biden
d00:03
ronald reagan
r00:01
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Voice
Speaker
Time
Text
Congress's Budget Resolution Debate00:15:12
unidentified
With China concerning their requested meetings with the U.S. will be terminated.
Negotiations with other countries, which also have requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.
The Associated Press reports on the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 1,200 points as trading began on Monday morning, and the SP 500 was on track to enter a bear market, which means falling 20% from a recent high.
The AP goes on to say that even some of Trump's allies are raising alarms about the economic damage, and financial forecasts suggest more pain on the horizon for U.S. businesses, consumers, and investors.
You can read more at APNews.com.
On Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamison Greer is on Capitol Hill for a second day to testify on President Trump's trade and tariff policies before the House Ways and Means Committee.
Watch the hearing live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org.
No, what this does is it gives instructions to different committees as to how much in spending cuts they are supposed to achieve.
It's going to tuck something else in there, instructions for a debt ceiling increase, and then some special instructions to tax writing committees for how much they can cut in taxes.
And what is the outlook for this budget resolution, which is not a budget?
unidentified
This is as bumpy and rocky as it gets in the House.
And you already started to see that yesterday at a conference call that House Speaker Mike Johnson put together.
My Wall Street Journal colleague Olivia Beavers got inside of that, and there were a lot of concerns being expressed about the structure of this bill.
And there are two different things.
Well, the loudest voices on that call were really the fiscal conservatives who looked at what the Senate passed and said, wait a minute, we noticed that you are instructing the Senate committees to cut spending by $4 billion.
And we're not convinced that we can actually support this.
There is another coalition of Republicans, and they've been a bit silent, but I would expect to hear from them by midweek who are terribly concerned about what this means for the Medicaid program and cuts to the Medicaid program.
Because buried inside this budget resolution is a number, $880 billion.
That is how much the House Energy Committee is supposed to come up with in cuts.
And guess what that committee oversees?
Medicaid.
And as Senator Susan Collins put it to us, the only way you can get to that level of cuts is if you go after Medicaid, and that was why she voted against the budget resolution over the weekend.
Well, that's one issue that the Congress is bringing up this week.
We're going to be talking about some other issues as well.
With Siobhan Hughes of the Wall Street Journal, numbers are up on the screen.
If you want to dial in and talk about what's coming up in Congress or how Congress is doing, 202-737-0001 for Republicans.
202-737-0002 for Democrats and Independents.
You can call in at 202-628-0205.
We'll also put up our text number and our social media accounts.
So in case you want to participate that way, you're more than welcome to.
Well, so much of the talk this morning and the past couple of days, since April 2nd, has been about tariffs.
Has there been reaction from the Republicans?
Have you seen splintering from the Trump side with the Republicans?
unidentified
So we absolutely have seen splintering from the Republicans.
And it's not overt.
Nobody is poking a direct finger in Donald Trump's eye, but it's unmistakably there.
And we see it in a couple of different ways.
Number one, we saw Chuck Grassley from Deep Red Iowa come out and unveil a bill that would basically say within 60 days, Congress has to approve any tariffs.
And then you saw Don Bacon on the House side say he was going to introduce a companion measure.
And so what that tells us is that some Republicans already want to put Trump on a leash and give him a timeframe, give him 60 days.
Beyond that, you are hearing some voices now step out and express concerns.
We saw Ron Johnson in an interview with, I believe, a CBS reporter express some concerns.
Ted Cruz from Texas, who has a very big voice because of a podcast he has, sort of said, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, but if this goes on for too long and there's a recession, that is a problem.
And boy, is there going to be a backlash in the 2026 elections.
And to put a fine point on this, you don't hear Republicans challenge the president that openly.
And so when Republicans are out there making these arguments, that is a big deal.
Siobhan Hughes, I'm old enough, unfortunately, to remember the 90s and Dick Gebhardt, the Democratic leader, protectionist when it comes to trade and tariffs and anti-NAFTA.
It's really kind of flipped, hasn't it?
unidentified
Yes and no.
So rhetorically, at this leadership level, it has flipped.
And you are hearing Democrats talk about inflation, about the damage to Americans' pocketbooks.
And all of that is real and true.
But I will also say I was on a call last week with Debbie Dingell from Michigan, who did talk about how she supported tariffs generally, that it's a way to bring manufacturing back to the United States.
But, but, but there's a big caveat here.
What Democrats, the ones who are still embracing tariffs, say is this does not seem to be thought through because if you want to bring manufacturing back to the United States, that is not a short process.
There is permitting, there is locating.
And they say this is a process that at its very, very best and quickest would take about three years.
Are you hearing from, and again, we're hearing from the Democrats, but are we hearing from Republicans about Doge and the cutting of the federal government?
unidentified
We're hearing from Republicans in very, very quiet ways about this.
And part of it is they don't want to challenge their president.
Another part of it, and it's amazing that this is true for some Republicans as well as some Democrats, there is a terror about damaging one's own constituents by being too overtly opposed to the Doge cuts.
There are a lot of programs that Republicans are trying to save, and they're concerned that if they're not a little bit politic, they take away their ability to help their constituents by rolling back some of these cuts.
You know, this is a really, really interesting week because we are already seeing the early damage from the tariffs take hold.
And depending on what public sentiment does, are people going to be a little bit more open?
And Democrats still have two open seats because of Raul Grijalva's death.
unidentified
Exactly.
And the death of a Texas congressman as well.
That's right, yeah.
Yeah.
But this is probably Mike Johnson's biggest test yet.
He has, a lot of people would say, been really masterful in how he has managed the relationship with Donald Trump.
He has had really one big insight, which is that to get all of this across the finish line, the person he needs to persuade is Donald Trump, who then calls into the House.
What do you think about Mitch McConnell essentially voting down every big initiative that the president has had in the past since he retired from leadership?
Is this an image thing or is this sincere?
unidentified
My reporting indicates that this is really sincere, that this is Mitch McConnell unchained.
He no longer has to, as the face of the party, go along with the president, and he can be a little bit more himself.
Siobhan Hughes with Wall Street Journal is our guest.
We're talking about Congress.
Matt is a Democrat in Virginia.
Please go ahead, Matt.
unidentified
So first, I'd just like to comment quickly since I heard the polling, please Chuck Schumer retire, let someone else take over.
But my question for the, I guess, is, you know, looking at what's happened to the stock market, looking at how disorganized this rollout of tariffs is, and how extraordinary in terms of the history of tariffs in terms of blanket tariffs on everyone based on strange numbers.
How long do you think the Republicans give this president before they go, this emperor has no clothes?
So what they've stated, at least, is it's maybe something like 60 days if you look at the number that's in the Chuck Grassley bill.
Ted Cruz on his podcast gave it even less time, about 30 days.
The one opportunity they're holding out to Republicans is that, you know, maybe some other countries will start negotiating and the tariffs can come down quickly.
Younger Democrats Push For Change00:04:11
unidentified
But boy, I've got to tell you, it's hard to see this lasting very long.
Well, Matt brought up the Chuck Schumer AOC issue.
Washington Post this morning.
Younger Democrats push for a changing of the guard.
They go through and list several examples across the country where younger Democrats are essentially challenging longtime members of Congress.
unidentified
Yeah, and you're seeing it a lot on the Democratic side.
And a piece of it, nobody has ever stated that, but don't forget Joe Biden was essentially pushed out of the presidential election last year because of his age.
And very quietly, you are starting to see a lot of the older senators step down or announce they're not going to run again.
And so there is, whether it's stated or not, you are seeing Democrats sort of retreat from the scene, the long-serving ones, and in a way making space for the others to rise up.
We are still not there yet.
Don't forget that AOC had wanted that committee chairmanship, and Jerry Conner got it instead.
So they weren't quite ready to go there, but the direction of this is pretty unmistakable.
You've been observing now Mike Johnson for a couple of years as accidental speaker of the House.
How has he changed?
unidentified
I think what the people, Republicans around him, would say is that they thought they were putting a hardcore conservative into place, and maybe they're not sure how totally committed he is to that.
He's also somebody who's grown in the job, who's maybe a more flexible politician than people thought he was capable of being.
And in connection with that, you know, maybe somebody who's more able to wait for his moment to kind of strike when everything lines up for him.
Don't forget, this is the same person who last year basically paved the way for more funding for Ukraine.
But the days of people being angry about that do seem to be over, and now we're in a more conservative Mike Johnson world.
Is Mike Johnson and is Hakeem Jeffries are they accessible to the media?
unidentified
I would say Mike Johnson probably a little bit more accessible to the media.
We can get him walking in the hallways to votes and from votes.
He's very controlled in the outlets to which he is willing to grant interviews, I will say.
And Hakeem Jeffries sort of has always come across as a much more controlled politician, somebody who will talk at press conferences, but really has a message that he wants to stick to.
And so it's very, very hard to get him in a free or revealing moment.
I'm going to take this opportunity to just say that Siobhan Hughes is on the news side of the Wall Street Journal, the editorial page side, which is separate from the news side, usually conservative and pretty consistent about that.
But they have been, and they have been negative on President Trump, especially with the tariffs issue.
unidentified
The editorial page, yes, has really been critical of Trump's moves on tariffs.
And, you know, one could also think about the history of the paper being a business paper and maybe them channeling some of that thinking.
I've got a couple of quick points to make regarding Trump's policies on a tariff.
I'm going to address them to Siobhan.
Trump's policies are normally business friendly.
I mean, he lowers the regulations and he's provides tax incentives.
One question I have: wouldn't this be advantageous to us?
I mean, instead of having these companies, if they're overtaxed and over-regulated, move out of the country and go to places like China, Mexico, Ireland, South America, and like that, and thus keeping jobs in the country.
One of the things I noticed that with this huge influx of immigrants, this is going to weigh heavily on, you know, on our financial situation.
We're going to have to provide all kinds of services for this, and it's just going to add to the process of being unsettled or the feeling of being unsettled that, Peter, you had on earlier.
But another thing I'd like to talk about, I'll do this as quickly as I can, regarding tariffs.
You know, I see tariffs as being protective, reciprocal, and punitive.
I mean, Trump has mentioned using the tariff to keep Mexico and Canada from allowing fentanyl in the country.
So in a punitive sense, I think maybe another course of action could be taken other than using a tariff.
But one of the things that concerns me and why I think Trump is on the right track, these tariffs could be protective and reciprocal.
I just don't understand how countries like Canada, the European Union, who are our friends and profess to be our friends, can have tariffs and non-tariff restrictions like VATs and things of that nature and keep American products out.
Thank you very much, Siobhan Hughes of the Wall Street Journal.
unidentified
Well, first of all, you're speaking my language.
I am from western New York.
And actually, when I followed the rise of Trump back in 2016, I remembered that the sentiment in favor of tariffs was really pretty pronounced up there.