| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
2017, including the withdrawal from a Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement and construction of a border wall between the United States and Mexico. | |
| And at 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures in History, Santa Clara University history professor Sonia Gomez on the intimate relationships between people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds that occurred in Hawaii and Japan during and immediately after World War II. | ||
| 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. | ||
| We'll talk about the president's plan for the budget, including those 2017 tax cuts, increasing spending on his deportation and immigration policies while also trying to find spending cuts. | ||
| as well as the president's tariffs policies. | ||
| Take a look at news out of China this morning. | ||
| Here's the New York Times. | ||
| China now raising their tariffs on U.S. imports to 125%. | ||
| That's up from 84%. | ||
| Beijing's retaliation today came after the White House had raised its tariff on Chinese goods to 125% on top of an existing 20% tax. | ||
| So the tip for tax with China continues this morning, and we can get your thoughts on that as well. | ||
| Take a look at a recent poll done by Quinnett Piak on whether or not people approve of the president's trade policies. | ||
| 55% said they disapprove, while 39% said they approve. | ||
| On the overall economy from the Quinnet PIAC poll, this is what they found. | ||
| 55% of those surveyed disapprove of the president's handling of the economy, while 40% approve. | ||
| The president held a cabinet meeting yesterday and he talked to reporters about the transition problems. | ||
| That's a quote from him when it comes to his tariff actions. | ||
| Here's what he had to say. | ||
| We had a very good meeting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're talking about a lot of different things. | |
| Consumer prices have actually dropped. | ||
| There's very little inflation. | ||
| Everybody predicted a lot of inflation, very little inflation. | ||
| Energy costs are down. | ||
| Interest rates are probably down. | ||
| They scatter, but they're probably down. | ||
| Prescription drug prices are even to down. | ||
| We're doing very well. | ||
| It's been amazing. | ||
| We had a big day yesterday. | ||
| There'll always be transition difficulty, but we had a in history, it was the biggest day in history. | ||
| The markets. | ||
| So we're very, very happy with the way the country is running. | ||
| We're trying to get the world to treat us fairly. | ||
| This is something that should have been done 25 years ago and it wasn't. | ||
| Should have been done 40 years ago and it wasn't. | ||
| But no president was willing to take it on, but you had to. | ||
| It's not sustainable. | ||
| It wasn't sustainable. | ||
| And as you know, without a lot of money being added, this is a lot of money that we could add. | ||
| The country is making approximately $2 billion a day. | ||
| And when you think of it, we've never done that before, never come close to it. | ||
| And the number is probably $3.5 billion a day. | ||
| And that makes us a very strong country. | ||
| But we have Scott here and Howard and some of the people that are working on deals. | ||
| And the biggest problem they have is they don't have enough time in the day. | ||
| Everybody wants to come and make a deal. | ||
| And we're working with a lot of different countries. | ||
| And it's all going to work out very well. | ||
| Think it's going to work out really very well, but we're in good shape. | ||
| There is no inflation. | ||
| There's very little inflation. | ||
| And I went four years without inflation and I tariffed. | ||
| I took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China and others, taxes in China. | ||
| But we took in hundreds of billions of dollars a year from China, and we had no inflation, essentially. | ||
| So we think we're in very good shape. | ||
| We think we're doing very well. | ||
| Again, there'll be a transition cost and transition problems, but in the end, it's going to be a beautiful thing. | ||
| President Trump in the cabinet room on Thursday talking about the economy. | ||
| Do you support or oppose the president and Republicans' economic policies? | ||
| As he said, inflation did cool. | ||
| This is Axios' headline. | ||
| Consumer prices fall in March with much cooler inflation. | ||
| Axios says, why does it matter? | ||
| Inflation moved down as President Trump began ratcheting up the global trade war last month, a relief after warnings that inflation progress had stalled out. | ||
| But concerns about inflation remain. | ||
| Trump 10% across-the-board tariff that took effect this month could hit consumer prices as well as the higher levy of 125% on imports from China. | ||
| Related to that from the Wall Street Journal this morning, Trump inherited a solid economy and labor market. | ||
| But recent data and corporate announcements have presented a gloomy picture going forward. | ||
| Walmart on Wednesday cited tariff risks as a reason for backing away from its previous target, according to the Wall Street Journal report, for first quarter profit growth. | ||
| Delta Airlines pulled its earnings forecast for the year because of broad economic uncertainty around global trade. | ||
| Let's get to calls. | ||
| Tom in Frederick, Maryland, Republican. | ||
| Tom, support or oppose the Republicans, including President Trump's economic policies. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you for taking my call. | |
| I just want to say I absolutely approve. | ||
| I think everything he's doing is great. | ||
| I just wish some of these, you know, the left, if we could just sit back, let him do his thing. | ||
| He's a businessman. | ||
| He's going to help this country out tremendously. | ||
| Just give him a little bit more time. | ||
| Some of the things I've proved with, some of the things, eh. | ||
| But thank you. | ||
| Tom. | ||
| Hey, Tom. | ||
| Tom, what do you approve of specifically and what are you eh on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, you know, like his trade policies, the tariffs. | |
| I mean, we've been losing for years, and it's ridiculous. | ||
| You know, it's like, look at the immigration stuff. | ||
| I mean, everything, everything he's done. | ||
| I mean, he's been doing a total of 180 and is bringing this country back up to speed. | ||
| And that's where we need to be. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And what are you not so crazy about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, he's really tough with, you know, negotiating stuff like that. | |
| A little scared about China, but hey, you know what? | ||
| In the end, they're all going to come to a deal, and it's going to be fair. | ||
| You know, China just up their thing to what? | ||
| What was it, like 148 or something like that? | ||
| Yeah, 125. | ||
| And the president. | ||
|
unidentified
|
125. | |
| No, I think they just went up again at midnight. | ||
| I heard it went up to 148. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And in retaliation of that. | |
| So, so, Tom, and they're also, China's also saying today, we have other tools in the toolbox. | ||
| We're not going to go any higher than what they just did today, they said, because that would be silly, I think, paraphrasing here. | ||
| But they did say we have other tools in the toolbox. | ||
| We could, for example, some folks are saying, prohibit the sale of any soybeans from U.S. farmers into China. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, yeah, we need to bring back our U.S. farms. | |
| I mean, you know, look at the solar panels. | ||
| I can't eat a solar panel. | ||
| You know, and it's like we import and export. | ||
| You know, it's just, you know, America needs to be America first, and that's what he's doing. | ||
| So what everybody just needs to let him do his thing. | ||
| Oh, sorry, cut you off. | ||
| No, it's all right. | ||
| I was just curious, what specifically about China concerns you? | ||
| Because of what? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, I don't know. | |
| That's a pretty good question. | ||
| Now I'm looking dumb here. | ||
| That's all right. | ||
| Not at all. | ||
| Not at all. | ||
| I mean, I'm asking because of the headlines in the papers this morning just talking about how much we import from China versus how much we export to China. | ||
| And the difference is, as you know, pretty startling. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, I mean, why can't we just bring back manufacturing here to America and just have American-based things again? | |
| You know? | ||
| All right. | ||
| So take a look at these numbers from the U.S. Census. | ||
| Nearly $582 billion worth of goods are traded between the United States and China. | ||
| These are 2024 numbers. | ||
| U.S. imported around $438 billion worth of goods and services from China. | ||
| China imported $143 billion from the United States. | ||
| So $438 billion versus $143 billion. | ||
| Let's go to Dave in Wilmington, Delaware, Independent. | ||
| Dave, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| A couple of points. | ||
| On China, it was Besson or Lutnick was talking about how America holds all the cards in this. | ||
| China has way more to lose. | ||
| And I think there are a couple of problems with that. | ||
| One, yes, there's a huge deficit, but China also holds 9% of America's debt in Treasury securities. | ||
| That's something that they can retaliate with. | ||
| If they decide to dump that debt, it's going to lose value just like stocks lose value when people start to sell them. | ||
| And that is going to cost the United States a lot more if those notes depreciate and we can't sell them anymore. | ||
| The Republicans are still talking about a budget that is going to have a huge deficit, and we're going to have to sell more debt to fund it. | ||
| And rates are going to go up. | ||
| So just servicing the debt is going to become even more than it is now. | ||
| Second, on China, Americans rely on all of our consumer goods, which contribute to the nice lifestyle that we have for all of our TVs and clothing and all of that. | ||
| Now, yes, that's discretionary spending, but it's still something that Americans want. | ||
| It's part of our lifestyle. | ||
| So if we cut all of that off, are we going to be happy about that? | ||
| No. | ||
| I don't approve of the way that Trump is doing this because it is rash. | ||
| It is unsophisticated. | ||
| We need to take a more reasonable approach, look at specific industries and go from there. | ||
| And even Democrats who are generally favorable to the idea of protecting our businesses and manufacturing more here because of abuses in the international trade system and what it does to people who are actually producing those goods overseas will say, | ||
| you can't just bring it back and overnight and... | ||
| start producing those goods here. | ||
| If they do, if, yeah, go ahead. | ||
| Dave, I just want to share this headline with you because you said the United States is not in a good position when it comes to China. | ||
| However, there is this story in the international section of the New York Times of China not being in a great place either. | ||
| There is some leverage here. | ||
| Here's a headline: China expects to shop itself out of a bind. | ||
| It'll be tough. | ||
| Consumers were skittish even before this tariff war. | ||
| That's Chinese consumers. | ||
| So if the United States is not going to purchase, import all these goods from China, this is the strategy, according to the New York Times, from the Chinese government, is that they'll encourage their own citizens to start buying up these goods and services. | ||
| Can they shop their way out of this, Dave? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I agree. | |
| I mean, China also has a lot to lose. | ||
| If we were to stop buying their products, yeah, it's going to kill their economy. | ||
| Now, as a state-controlled economy, you know, that doesn't really entirely follow free trade policies. | ||
| Maybe they're going to make a way around that. | ||
| But my point is that we're not holding all the cards in this country. | ||
| Yeah, Dave, I'm going to pick up on that point that we don't hold all the cards. | ||
| This is the Wall Street Journal this morning. | ||
| After tariff climb down, the world asks: is it a method or madness? | ||
| And not just with the negotiations with China. | ||
| Because from the Wall Street Journal reporting this morning, some economists said the swift climb down after the market convulsions of the past few days provided world leaders with valuable information about Trump's pain threshold, which could lead them to take a tougher stance when negotiations start in earnest. | ||
| And you've heard it from the Trump administration officials, the Treasury Secretary Steve Besson from Howard Luttnick, the Commerce Secretary, saying countries are lining up now to talk and negotiate. | ||
| Ronald, in Kaplan, Louisiana, Republican Ronald, let's hear from you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I like what you're doing. | |
| I want to make a couple of comments. | ||
| First of all, everybody keeps saying that we're in a recession. | ||
| False, false thoughts. | ||
| Maybe we win a recession in 1924 because it takes three things to make a recession. | ||
| Economy, we went 19% higher than we are right now. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| The next thing: unemployment. | ||
| Unemployment stayed the same throughout 24. | ||
| And then the amount of people that work. | ||
| Come to find out was 850,000 people that were falsely working. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| So you went in a recession in 24. | ||
| Right after election, things started to pick up. | ||
| Everything's starting to fall. | ||
| All right, Ronald. | ||
| It's a little difficult to understand you. | ||
| I think we got the gist of it. | ||
| Mark, Clayton, Illinois, Democratic caller. | ||
| Mark? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I got one comment, and that is they did all this at one time with no strategy, it looks like to me, except for to tear down our economy, period. | |
| It's the way it looks with the tariffs. | ||
| You have, and then they sacked a lot of different parts of the government. | ||
| These are the people they're going to need to find the waste and abuse. | ||
| And after all that, then they're going to add another seven, eight trillion dollars to the national debt. | ||
| Already put 8 trillion last time he was here when they're going to start worrying about the national Charter, national debt and Mark, you're talking about this plan to increase or extend, make permanent some of those 2017 tax cuts. | ||
| Are you talking about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes yes, they've been trying that. | |
| They did back in, reaging all the way up. | ||
| Uh, give a whole bunch of money to the rich. | ||
| They pay, buy off their stock or whatever. | ||
| It doesn't help the economy, it helps the rich. | ||
| All right Mark, we'll leave it there. | ||
| Yesterday, the speaker and his counterpart in the Senate, Senate majority leader, John Thune. | ||
| They had a news conference in the morning saying that uh, that the Senate would agree to 1.5 trillion in in tax cuts, that they think they were confident they could find that and that the two sides should move forward. | ||
| Um, with the a budget blueprint for the president. | ||
| That was just before a vote on the floor and, as we said, at the top 216 to 214, this budget blueprint was approved. | ||
| Two Republicans joined with all the Democrats to oppose it. | ||
| There were 20 holdouts the day before on voting for this budget blueprint. | ||
| Listen to speaker Mike Johnson. | ||
| After it was approved in november, the American people delivered unified government to the Republican party. | ||
| They returned president Donald Jump to the White House. | ||
| They gave us UH control of the House and the Senate and we are going to make good by that. | ||
| We have a big responsibility in the budget Uh Reconciliation bill the reason we call it the One Big, Beautiful Bill everybody in this crowd of journalists knows that all the components that will be in that. | ||
| We're talking about ensuring that the border is secure, having the resources that are necessary to do that. | ||
| We're talking about getting the American economy going again by reducing regulations. | ||
| We're talking about restoring peace through strength and and making sure we have the measures in place to properly fund those priorities. | ||
| We we have a lot of things, American energy dominance, all the, all the components that will make uh things better for Americans, drive down the cost of living and get our economy really going again. | ||
| And, of course, not the least of which the big components of the One Big, Beautiful bill is to ensure that we don't have the largest tax increase in U.s history all at once, which is what would happen at the end of this year if we didn't accomplish this mission, because the Tax Cuts And Jobs Act the tax cuts from the first Trump administration, as we know, would expire. | ||
| So a big day for us. | ||
| We will now get the committees operating on all cylinders. | ||
| They'll be working over the two-week district work period that encompasses Passover and Easter. | ||
| They'll take a couple days off for those those holy uh celebrations, and then uh, keep their sleeves rolled up and get right back to work. | ||
| The, the committees in the Senate and the House will be working in a collaborative fashion. | ||
| We've explained this, that this really is a one-team approach by Republicans in both chambers. | ||
| I'm so grateful uh, to leader Thune and his steady hand of leadership. | ||
| We had a joint press conference this morning making our commitments known of what we're going to try to do, and that is ensure real savings for the American people, because we have to do that. | ||
| We have a responsibility to get our country back on a sound fiscal trajectory and also make sure that we ensure and Protect those essential programs. | ||
| The Democrats, as I noted this morning, have said that we're going to gut Medicaid. | ||
| It is not true. | ||
| We're going to protect the benefits that everyone is legally entitled to. | ||
| The beneficiaries who have a legal right to that, it will be preserved. | ||
| Those are essential safety net programs that Republicans support. | ||
| The president has made clear, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid will not take a hit. | ||
| So you can count on that and you can watch it develop as we go. | ||
| Speaker Mike Johnson, after House Republicans approved the budget blueprint to move forward on President Trump's tax and spending proposal. | ||
| From the Washington Post, their headline, Congress approves agreement to implement Trump's legislative agenda. | ||
| And from their reporting about that joint news conference with the Speaker and the majority leader, it was seen as an effort of good faith by roughly 20 holdouts, budget hawks, and members of the House Freedom Caucus who delayed a planned vote Wednesday until they received a firm commitment from the Senate on spending cuts. | ||
| But the chambers remain sharply divided over how to find the savings and whether it will truly reduce the federal deficit as House hardliners have demanded. | ||
| So more to come in inter-party squabbles for the Republicans and whether or not they can move forward with President Trump's quote, big beautiful bill. | ||
| The Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in the House also talked to reporters yesterday after that vote and reacting to the budget framework by Republicans. | ||
| Here's what he had to say. | ||
| Here in the Capitol, the battle lines with respect to Democratic values and Republican values have once again been clearly drawn. | ||
| House and Senate Democrats are standing on the side of the American people and we continue to be committed to building an economy that's affordable and that works for everyday Americans and drives down the high cost of living while protecting health care, nutritional assistance, and the social security of the American people. | ||
| Donald Trump and extreme MAGA Republicans are doing everything they can to tank our economy, drive us toward a recession, and gut the health care of the American people by visiting upon them the largest Medicaid cut in history, | ||
| along with the largest cut to nutritional assistance in American history, all in service of enacting massive tax breaks for their billionaire donors like Elon Musk. | ||
| It's a toxic scheme that they cannot hide from because it continues to be on full display on the House floor and on the Senate floor for the American people. | ||
| The budget resolution that passed the House today will set in motion some of the most extreme cuts to health care, nutritional assistance, and the things that matter to everyday Americans in our nation's nearly 250-year history. | ||
| It's a disgrace. | ||
| This is just the beginning. | ||
| And House Democrats are going to aggressively push back every day, every week, every month, until we bury this reckless Republican budget resolution in the ground, never to rise again. | ||
| Democrats plan to respond to Republicans' move on the president's tax cuts and spending proposal. | ||
| You heard it there. | ||
| They will try to bury it in the ground. | ||
| We're getting your thoughts on the president Republicans' economic policies in our first hour here of the Washington Journal. | ||
| Mark, let's hear from you in Clayton, Illinois, Democratic Caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
If you were born today, you would already owe $100,000 because of the national debt. | |
| And they tell you how they're getting rid of waste and abuse, but they can't name it. | ||
| They won't show it. | ||
| And they inherited the best economy in the world from Biden and turn around. | ||
| And I'm all for getting rid of waste. | ||
| If, you know, it's legitimate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just hacking and cutting is not the way to do it. | |
| And they need to focus on paying off this national debt. | ||
| If they're going to go put us through the pain of it, at least pay off the bill. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So, Mark, is the stock market the economy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, it's not. | |
| But I'll tell you what, it's not the nation's economy, but it's our economy. | ||
| If you have a 401k and you've lost a large amount of it because the careless talk and the careless actions of the president, then yeah, it's your economy. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Mark's the thoughts there in Clayton, Illinois. | ||
| Take a look at the headlines from yesterday. | ||
| Dow tumbled a thousand points, wiping out a chunk of Wednesday's historic rally. | ||
| And then here is that CNBC from the same outlet this morning. | ||
| Their headlines about futures, stock futures rise as traders assess latest tariff-related developments. | ||
| And as we told you at the top, China announcing today on this Friday that they had retaliated again against the United States, raising tariffs above that 84% to now over 100%. | ||
| We'll see what President Trump does today. | ||
| Steve, let's go to you in Tampa, Florida, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My feeling is that good leadership has to make tough decisions. | |
| If you look back, Nancy Pelosi, Schumer, Obama all suggested that we were being taken advantage of by China, that we were paying big tariffs and we needed to do something about it. | ||
| Trump is doing that. | ||
| Trump has spent the last four years trying to decide how he can help America. | ||
| I think one of the problems that the public has is there's a saying from the Amish proverb: when you're looking for something, you find what you want to see. | ||
| And I think that's true. | ||
| People on one side, on the Republican side, look at Fox and Newsmax. | ||
| People on the Democratic side look for CNN and MSNBC. | ||
| When they hear what they want to hear, they're happy. | ||
| Not enough people focus on the truth. | ||
| The other thing is earlier this week, you had a show called About Financial Literacy. | ||
| Unfortunately, a lot of America is not financially literate, and they don't understand what's going on. | ||
| When they hear what they want to hear, they're happy. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Steve, let me ask you about polls then and how that your thought on polls that are taken. | ||
| Quinnipiek on tariffs asked people their views of the president's tariffs, and 72% said they'll hurt in the short term. | ||
| 22% said they'll help in the short term. | ||
| When it came to the long term, 53% said it'll hurt, and 41% said it will help. | ||
| What do you think of those numbers? | ||
| Is that the truth? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think polls tend to be biased depending upon who's taking the poll. | |
| The Democratic polls tend to talk to mostly Democrats. | ||
| The Republican polls tend to talk to most Republicans. | ||
| Well, Quinnipiac would say they're neither. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, obviously, it's not necessarily the case because in the last polls, everything was wrong. | |
| In the last polls, Trump didn't have a chance of winning. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I don't believe in the polls because they change from day to day, and it depends on the questions. | |
| I haven't heard of the same poll being asked to two different populations, the exact same questions. | ||
| The polls are designed to elicit the responses that they want, that would like to hear. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And Steve, I mean, you know, this is not broken down by party. | ||
| These are overall numbers. | ||
| So if you go into Quinnipiac's polling, you'll see how this breaks down by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. | ||
| They are putting those three together to come up with the numbers that you see there on your screen. | ||
| Let's go to Patrick in Ironton, Ohio, Independent. | ||
| Patrick, morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to speak. | ||
| The first presidential campaign I can remember was Mr. Eisenhower and coming up to Donald Trump. | ||
| And my thought is the legislative branch has totally negated its responsibilities. | ||
| And as far as Mr. Trump goes. | ||
| Negated its responsibilities on what issue? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Standing up for just the regular working fella. | |
| The man that has no voice. | ||
| The man that goes to work every day and hopes that he can put a roof over his family's head and pay his bills on time and have groceries on the table and maybe have a little bit to put in the bank. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, Patrick, there is an effort bipartisan in both the House and the Senate to take back the power over trade from the President of the United States. | ||
| And it is bipartisan in the House and the Senate. | ||
| We'll see as these negotiations with countries take place in the coming weeks whether or not Congress has momentum to take that power back from the president. | ||
| Related to that, front page of the Washington Post headline, a scramble to make progress in trade talks. | ||
| As negotiations begin, one Trump official vows results within weeks. | ||
| Let's listen to Kevin Hassett. | ||
| He's the director of the National Economic Council for the President, served in the first administration as well. | ||
| He was talking with reporters outside the White House in the driveway on Thursday, making the case that the president's tariff approach is already yielding results. | ||
| And USTR has informed us that there are maybe 15 countries now that have made explicit offers that we're studying and considering and deciding whether they're good enough to present to the president. | ||
| And we're setting up with the chief of staff's office a very orderly process to prioritize countries and to make sure that the countries that are most important for getting this finished line are the countries that we bring in first. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We could do negotiations a number of ways. | |
| We would expect that there'll be quite a bit of movement of world leaders into the White House in the next three to four weeks. | ||
| But yeah, this is a really, really fast process now that's not beginning today or yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It began long before. | |
| One of the options that the president was considering before he decided to go the way he did yesterday was to announce some deals that are already so far along that we could pretty much finish them up and make them public. | ||
| But in the end, he decided that a more general announcement, the one that he made yesterday, was the best way to let everybody understand that he's 100% serious about putting American workers first and making the trade deals happen as fast as possible. | ||
| Kevin Hasse, economic advisor to the president, talking to reporters yesterday saying progress is being made already on the president's tariffs moves. | ||
| USA Today front page this morning, GOP fears a political payback from tariffs. | ||
| If the president's gamble fails, voters could sour in the midterm 2026 elections and hurt Republicans' majority in both chambers. | ||
| Let's go to Sue in Michigan and Independent. | ||
| Sue, good morning as an independent. | ||
| What are you thinking? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Well, I'm a retiree, and all I know is that since President Trump came into office, my quality of life has decreased. | ||
| Groceries have not gone down. | ||
| Gas has gone down a little bit, but my 401k has taken a beating. | ||
| And I think the other thing that worries me the most is that the lack of communication with his party. | ||
| Trump says one thing and his department heads, his administration says another. | ||
| So I am very concerned about that. | ||
| Sue, can you give me an example of that happening? | ||
| On which issue? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you're talking about his department heads? | |
| Yeah. | ||
| They act like they don't know what's going on. | ||
| The way I heard it on the TV is that Trump says one thing and they don't have a clue about it. | ||
| You know, I do, I watch or I read the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| And, you know, he did chick them down because of the bond market. | ||
| And he has to remember, retirees are the ones that vote, okay? | ||
| If our quality of life has decreased, I really think that Republicans are going to take a beating. | ||
| I like some of the stuff he does, but President Trump is not truthful about stuff. | ||
| He says groceries have gone down. | ||
| They haven't gone down. | ||
| Drugs have gone down. | ||
| I just paid, I'm on a new drug, and I paid $600 for a medication. | ||
| The only thing that's saving me is Biden put a cap on all medications, so they can't charge me more than $2,000 a year. | ||
| So he hasn't improved my quality of life. | ||
| He decreased it. | ||
| All right, so Sue, did you vote for him in the last election? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I did not. | |
| Have you ever? | ||
| I did not vote for either one of them. | ||
| I didn't like either one of them. | ||
| So I did not vote for them. | ||
| But I have one more thing to say. | ||
| Well, before you get to it, Sue, have you ever voted for President Trump? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, his first time. | |
| Okay, go ahead. | ||
| His first time. | ||
| Second time, I did not vote for him because I didn't think he knew what he was doing with the pandemic. | ||
| He acted like it was out of his league. | ||
| He didn't know what the heck he was doing. | ||
| The third time, you know, he promised us a bunch of stuff, and he did not deliver at all, as far as I'm concerned. | ||
| Now, I wish you could have a call in for retirees like me who are on fixed incomes that, you know, what do you think about this? | ||
| Because, you know, we do have 401ks. | ||
| We do take a little bit of risk or we would not make any money. | ||
| You know, so you know, I I wish you would have some kind of call-in for retirees like me who who will tell what they're going through. | ||
| Our groceries have not gone down. | ||
| Price of medication is still high. | ||
| And, you know, we're the ones that go to and we vote. | ||
| They have to understand that. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And Sue heard those points, and I appreciate that suggestion of retirees only. | ||
| Maybe we'll try that in the coming days. | ||
| Samantha in Washington, DC, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Samantha. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I have a comment that says basically one thing. | ||
| This is a con game on the part of the president and all of his MAGA, whatever people they are. | ||
| The problem is everything that they have played this game on us with us, which is basically a bait and switch. | ||
| Tell the public one thing, get elected, and you come with a scaffold to destroy the fabric of this country. | ||
| Tariffs are going to tear up the supply chain. | ||
| The lie about eggs will be less costly. | ||
| Eggs were like $2.99 for the small white eggs, and now they're up to $7.99. | ||
| He doesn't have a clue as to what the people that he's conned are going through. | ||
| He's probably never been in a supermarket. | ||
| He's probably never gone to a gas station. | ||
| He hasn't been anywhere that has cost him or his family and the clowns who are around him. | ||
| All right, Samantha, on grocery prices, this is from the end of March. | ||
| Inflation levels have leveled off for grocery prices, but the cost of these items continue to rise. | ||
| While the cost of eggs and some other items continue to rise, grocery price inflation overall seems to be leveling out. | ||
| We'll see what happens after the tariffs, though, that were put into place after this article was written. | ||
| For example, the price of eggs rose 10.4% and beef prices rose 2.4% from January to February. | ||
| And the average cost of cereals, bakery products, seafood, processed fruits, and vegetables also saw slight increases. | ||
| Samantha in D.C. here, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Samantha. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Oh, sorry. | ||
| We just talked to you. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| Let's go to Justin, who's in North Carolina, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Justin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I'm very concerned about the bear market we're in, including the cuts to Medicaid. | ||
| Representative Hakeem Jeffries that C-Span showed 10 minutes ago, I couldn't agree with him more. | ||
| Donald Trump isn't cutting spending in the places that really matter. | ||
| And I recently experienced the Medicaid cuts. | ||
| Now I have to turn to X-ray sites to get Iraq. | ||
| All right, we will go to Darrell in East Point, Michigan, Independent. | ||
| Darryl, your turn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Greta, thank you very much for taking my call. | |
| First thing I want to say is what Trump is doing as far as a tariff goes is absolutely necessary. | ||
| I just wish it would have happened 50 years ago. | ||
| When that was when our government voted to put China in the World Trade Organization, a big mistake. | ||
| I wrote every card from the Senator I could recommend that. | ||
| But in our naivety, we thought that if China came into the capital trading system, they would learn from us and they would smooth up their ways and be more accountable of freedoms. | ||
| Not happen, did not happen, has not happened. | ||
| And this month, he just mentioned today that we have imported $500 billion worth of goods, while China has imported $100 billion worth of goods. | ||
| Don't tell me words. | ||
| I agree with them. | ||
| So what that means is, amazingly, in this madness that America is going through, we're spending $800 billion on our military, and we're financing and paying for $500 billion for China's military. | ||
| It's absolutely unconscionable and absurd, and it has to stop. | ||
| All right, Darrell, let me give those. | ||
| Yeah, let me give those numbers again that you were referencing. | ||
| This is from the Census Bureau. | ||
| This is the numbers for U.S.-Trina-China trade in 2024. | ||
| Nearly $582 billion worth of goods traded. | ||
| The U.S. imported around $438 billion worth of goods and services from China, while China imported from us $143 billion. | ||
| So you can see there the trade deficit. | ||
| The trade deficit is what the president has pointed to for his rationale of moving forward with these tariffs, not just on China, but other countries as well. | ||
| This was tried by the administration, by President Trump in his first administration as well. | ||
| From the New York Times reporting this morning, the first trade war with China, which lasted from 2018 to 2019, resulted in billions of dollars of lost revenue for American farmers. | ||
| To help offset the losses, Mr. Trump handed out $23 billion in subsidies from a fund that the Department of Agriculture created to stabilize the farm sector. | ||
| Large farm operations and farmers in the South benefited the most, fueling concerns about fairness and leaving some farmers feeling cheated. | ||
| Now, the headline on the front page of the papers this morning, this is the New York Times. | ||
| American farmers are bracing for the loss of major market for crops, soybeans being the first and corn as well. | ||
| That's from the New York Times. | ||
| Let's go to Lou in Highland Park, Illinois, Democratic Caller. | ||
| Hi, Lou. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I think the president is moving away too fast. | ||
| If he wanted to settle our deficit, he could have done this in a much slower and moderate way. | ||
| For example, he could have asked each depart of the government to reduce their expenditures by, let's say, one half percent every year for four years. | ||
| That would be a 2% reduction. | ||
| And he could ask for a much slower solution to what's happening. | ||
| And I think what's happening, America, Americans have become addicted to low prices. | ||
| If you go to Walmart and buy a screwdriver and it costs $4, we cannot tolerate going to Walmart and buying a screwdriver for triple or quadruple what the $4 would become. | ||
| We just can't afford it. | ||
| But if it moved slower, I think we could have. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So you don't disagree with the strategy, but how it was executed is where you have concerns. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Correct. | |
| I think reducing and trade deficit. | ||
| Lou, you cut off there. | ||
| Reducing trade deficits? | ||
| Pardon me? | ||
| You were cut off. | ||
| So reducing trade deficits, pick up there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's a good idea. | |
| I mean, for example, if you have a speed ankle and you go to the emergency room and they cut off your leg, it's not a good solution. | ||
| They should take a slow approach and one that Americans can deal with. | ||
| We can't deal with triple, quadruple prices overnight. | ||
| All right. | ||
| All right, Lou. | ||
| Well, let's go to the Senate floor with the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, who over his years in the Senate has talked extensively about U.S. competition with China. | ||
| And you can find it in our archives if you go to c-span.org, all the times that he has talked about his concerns with the Chinese. | ||
| But here he is on the Senate floor Thursday on the president's sudden pause on tariffs. | ||
| So as we look back on this week of self-made chaos and even destruction, we have to ask, what was the purpose of this exercise? | ||
| What was the purpose of this exercise? | ||
| Was it, as President Trump originally said, to force other countries to pay enough tariffs so the United States could eliminate the income tax? | ||
| No. | ||
| Trump backed off that. | ||
| Was it, as President Trump said later, to retaliate against countries that were unfair to us? | ||
| No. | ||
| That was never true. | ||
| But even if it was, Trump backed off that. | ||
| Was it, as some sycophants and cabinet secretaries have claimed, some 4D chess move to call China's bluff? | ||
| No. | ||
| Everyone knows that isn't true. | ||
| This was not a week of 3D chess, 4D chess, nor even checkers. | ||
| Again, to paraphrase a former Trump official, people think Trump is playing 3D chess, but most of the time, the staff is just trying to keep him from eating the pieces. | ||
| Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer on the floor. | ||
| Michael in Strongsville, Ohio, Republican. | ||
| Michael, what do you think about the Republicans' economic policies? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that they're, for the most part, good. | |
| The reason why I say that is because Donald Trump always ends up being right at the end. | ||
| And what really amazes me is I don't know what world some of these people live in. | ||
| Eggs are cheaper than what they're saying, number one. | ||
| And number two, the guy's only been in office 90 days to 100 days. | ||
| You guys talk about how fast he's moving, but you never talk about how slow the other president was moving. | ||
| None of it makes any sense. | ||
| That's the reason why the Democrats lost because of the common sense thing. | ||
| You have to have common sense. | ||
| Everything he does, he's always right. | ||
| He's not going to be perfect, but his policies, you see it, you know that it's right. | ||
| You automatically know it. | ||
| All right, Michael. | ||
| So your message to Republicans in the House is go along with him. | ||
| That in the end, because they still have concerns about how they are going to pay for extending tax cuts and increasing spending for immigration. | ||
| There are budget hawks in the House that want to see $2 trillion in cuts. | ||
| And the Senate passed a bill, which the House approved yesterday, with a promise of $1.5 trillion. | ||
| But are you saying to these House Republicans who have concerns, trust the president, just go along with it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so here's, let's keep it real. | |
| Nobody's always going to agree. | ||
| Everybody has different opinions. | ||
| And you know what they say about having the same. | ||
| Everybody has different opinions. | ||
| At the end of the day, Donald Trump's the boss. | ||
| He calls the shots. | ||
| If he makes a mistake, he'll have to own it. | ||
| So far, he hasn't made a mistake. | ||
| He's showing that everything he does is working out for everybody's best interests. | ||
| It's just that the Democrats, nobody hates him or anything, but why can't they just ever say that he does something right? | ||
| People are not stupid. | ||
| They see how they're acting right now. | ||
| All they got to do is give them credit once in a while. | ||
| Let the guy have time to do what he's doing. | ||
| He's the smart one. | ||
| Obviously, he's smart. | ||
| He won presidency. | ||
| Why is everybody else trying to play boss? | ||
| All right, Michael. | ||
| Terry in Atlanta, Democratic caller. | ||
| Your turn, Terry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Greta. | |
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's been a while. | |
| It's been a while. | ||
| I have a problem with the overall communication of the economic strategy. | ||
| Of course, everyone wants to cut taxes. | ||
| Of course, everyone wants lower food, gas, housing costs. | ||
| Of course, everyone wants to maintain and contain the number of people who legally come into our country. | ||
| But I don't think the communication of the strategy and the subsequent strategic plans have been communicated so that people understand them and can go along and accept them. | ||
| I also think that there is a real lack of just being in touch with the common people. | ||
| The lady that called in earlier, the retiree, I'm also a retiree. | ||
| I agree 100% with everything she said. | ||
| No, things are not costing less. | ||
| And we know it's going to take time. | ||
| Prices didn't rise overnight. | ||
| We know they're not going to drop overnight. | ||
| But don't try to okey-doke us and tell us, oh, yeah, the prices are good. | ||
| Everything's good. | ||
| It's going to be good. | ||
| Most people I know have 401ks. | ||
| They're retired. | ||
| And their 401ks have been decimated, just absolutely decimated. | ||
| They don't know what to do. | ||
| And the last thing I want to say is this whole thing with Elon Musk and the whole thing about cutting waste in the government, we definitely do need to do that. | ||
| I saw that video of the Social Security Administration's records down in this cave-like environment with the rows and rows and rows of files. | ||
| That's totally unacceptable in today's world of technology and how that all should have been digitized. | ||
| All right, Terry. | ||
| A couple headlines to share with folks, and you may find this first one interesting. | ||
| This is from the Washington Times reporting. | ||
| Doge, President Biden took 6,300 migrants with criminal records, and many took taxpayer benefits too. | ||
| This is according to Stephen Dinan's reporting in the Washington Times this morning. | ||
| Another headline to share with you next to that from the Washington Times: Trump takes 100 questions at meeting. | ||
| The president has answered nearly 100 questions from the press during his first three cabinet meetings this year. |