CSPAN - Washington Journal Siobhan Hughes

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April 7, 2025 18:07-18:30 - CSPAN

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Washington Journal Siobhan Hughes

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peter slen

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Speaker	Time	Text
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.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is worth dying for.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼		Democracy belongs to us all.
bill clinton ▲ ● ▼		We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼		Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		American democracy is bigger than any one person.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		We are still at our core a democracy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		And we are now joined by Siobhan Hughes, who is a congressional reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		How long have you been covering the Hill?
unidentified		My current bout, almost 15 years.
unidentified		I came after the Tea Party wave.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		And current bout, what do you mean?
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Have you done that?
unidentified		You know, I did it before.
		I did a stint for Congressional Quarterly back in the 2000s.
		I was more of a beat reporter, and it's very, very different going from that to being kind of more leadership and broadbush.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		So remind us what the Senate did Friday night, Saturday morning.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		What did they pass?
unidentified		This is going to sound incredibly technical.
unidentified		They passed a budget resolution.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Which is not a budget.
unidentified		No, which is not a budget.
		This is a mechanism for unlocking the passage of Trump's tax cuts, the extension of the 2017 tax cuts, the expansion of the 2017 tax cuts.
		It sounds incredibly technical, but it's what's going to allow the Senate to pass that bill on a simple majority.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		So, budget resolution: was there a top-line figure for the U.S. federal budget in this budget resolution?
unidentified		This is really, really tricky because there's a certain sleight of hand going on here.
		What the Senate did was to say, listen, we don't actually want to say that the Trump tax cuts have a cost.
		And so, we are just going to assume this is a cost-free endeavor.
		And then, on top of that, we're going to make room to do another $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, increase the deficit by that much.
		And so, that's going to set up a very, very interesting conflict with the House and unspool a whole range of conflicts.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		So, it's called a budget resolution, but it truly is not a budget.
unidentified		No, this is not a blueprint.
unidentified		This is not us saying, here's how much we want to spend on ads.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		This doesn't unlock the appropriations bills or the appropriations committees and subcommittees in any way, shape, or form.
unidentified		No.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Correct?
unidentified		No, what this does is it gives instructions to different committees as to how much in spending cuts they are supposed to achieve.
unidentified		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.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Siobhan Hughes, you called it instructions, but there's no penalty if you go beyond the instructions, correct?
unidentified		To a degree, it depends on what you mean by the word beyond.
		So, for example, the House will let you do up to $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.
		The Senate sort of says up to $1.5 trillion.
		There is a little bit of a penalty that is going to come up in the Senate.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry, $4.5.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		And what did the Senate say?
unidentified		The Senate said overall it's basically more than $5 trillion.
unidentified		But what they want to focus on is just this $1.5 trillion number.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		So beginning today, the House is going to take up what the Senate passed, correct?
unidentified		This week, the House is going to take this up.
unidentified		Yeah, this week.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		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.
		That's a drop in the bucket.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		A B.
unidentified		Yeah, a B, not T, B.
		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.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		So that's where we stand going into this week when it comes to this bill.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		And again, it unlocks a bill for cutting taxes, correct?
unidentified		Yes, this unlocks the bill for cutting taxes, for extending tax cuts and adding to them.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		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.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		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.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		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.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		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?
		That's a question mark out there.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Politico, there's a poll out.
		Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leads Chuck Schumer in head-to-head New York primary matchup by double digits in the Senate.
		Is Chuck Schumer in real trouble with the Democrats?
unidentified		Well, I mean, a couple of things.
		That election is not going to happen next year, 2026.
		And so this is a long ways off.
		But clearly, that poll tells you something.
		It tells you something about this shift that we are seeing in the Democratic Party.
		A little bit of it is a generational shift.
		And so that's very much watched this space.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Mike Johnson, how's he doing with his 220 members, which is not a lot of members.
unidentified		It's not a lot, but what they would tell you is after those Florida elections, their margin has now grown by one.
unidentified		They can now lose three votes.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		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.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		He's been very supportive of Mike Johnson so far, hasn't he?
unidentified		And Trump has been very supportive of Mike Johnson.
		And Mike Johnson has argued so far successfully, at least in this budget reconciliation process, that we're just unlocking a process.
		Keep it going, keep it going.
		Our momentum is only going to last for so long.
		We'll sort out all of the kinks later.
		But, you know, at some point there's going to be a reckoning, and I think we're starting to see that right now.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		And that reckoning being?
unidentified		There are two reckonings.
		Number one, the conservatives who are terribly concerned that the spending cuts they want to keep the deficit low are not going to happen.
		And number two, the more moderate Republicans who are terribly concerned that the reckoning is going to mean pain for their Medicaid recipients.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		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?
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Is this an image thing or is this sincere?
unidentified		My reporting indicates that this is really sincere, that this is Mitch McConnell unchained.
unidentified		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.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Let's take some calls.
		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?
		He's crazy.
		This is destroying our economy.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Matt.
unidentified		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.
		But boy, I've got to tell you, it's hard to see this lasting very long.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Ben Cardin did that already.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Gene Shaheen.
unidentified		Gene Shaheen, exactly.
		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.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		You've been observing now Mike Johnson for a couple of years as accidental speaker of the House.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Very interesting politician to watch.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Siobhan Hughes, is it easy to be, you know, to have strident positions on either side of the aisle when you're a backbencher or not in leadership?
		And then you kind of alter your behavior once you get into leadership.
		Is that a trend?
unidentified		I think it probably is because, you know, when you're in leadership, you have an obligation to the full spectrum of the conference or the caucus.
		And you can't get too far out on any one side or you miss your opportunity to bowl down the middle.
		And that's especially true when the margins are as narrow as they are now.
		I mean, don't forget Paul Ryan, when he did those tax cuts, had a super big margin.
		It was dozens and dozens, so he could afford to lose votes.
		But Mike Johnson is much more constrained.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		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.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Steve, Kansas, Republican.
		Hi, Steve.
		Where in Kansas are you?
unidentified		Hey, Kansas City.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, sir.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Siobhan was talking about a reckoning.
		The reckoning is going to be for all the deep state ghouls and goblins that have hollowed out the center of our country for the last 30 years.
		And now you're going to, now the Wall Street editorial board is going to have to tighten its belt a little bit when the trade starts to go south.
		It's really let them eat cake.
		The 50 countries have already come back on their knees from this president and are begging to have their tariffs flattened or reduced to zero.
		And the Wall Street Journal is just going to have to have to tighten their belts like the rest of this country.
		This is a long, drawn-out process.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Stephen.
		We're going to leave it there.
		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.
unidentified		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.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Next is John in New York Independent Line.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Hi, John.
unidentified		Hi, Peter.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		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.
		It's just counterintuitive.
		I just don't understand that.
		And people get upset.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		All right, John, we're going to let Siobhan Hughes have a moment to respond to what you were saying.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		But where in New York are you and what do you do up there?
unidentified		Okay, I'm in upstate New York.
		I'm in the town of Malta.
		I'm halfway between Albany and Saratoga.
		And I'm a retired teacher.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, sir.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		What did you teach?
unidentified		I taught social studies in middle school for 40 years.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		God bless you.
peter slen ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Manufacturing got hit hard.

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