CSPAN - Washington Journal 04/16/2025

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April 16, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:51

Washington Journal 04/16/2025

Participants

Main

george beebe

28:40

greta brawner

cspan 38:36

Appearances

brian lamb

cspan 01:19

chris murphy

sen/d 01:23

joe biden

d 01:20

karoline leavitt

admin 02:38

kevin kiley

rep/r 01:25

marjorie taylor greene

rep/r 00:49

pam bondi

admin 02:18

sean hannity

fox 00:35

steve scalise

rep/r 00:47

steve witkoff

01:31

Clips

bernadine smith

00:10

jennifer vasquez sura

00:05

michael flynn

r 00:07

scott pelley

cbs 00:19

ted gunderson

00:13

ted nugent

00:10

Callers

charles in louisiana

callers 00:06

rich in tennessee

callers 00:03

ron in oklahoma

callers 00:04

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, your calls and comments live.
		Then Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union and David Cass of Americans for Tax Fairness discuss potential changes in U.S. tax policy and the debate over extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
		And former CIA Russia analyst George Beebe talks about efforts by the Trump administration to bring an end to the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
		Washington Journal is next.
		Join the conversation.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, everyone.
		It's Wednesday, April 16th.
		Thanks for watching today's Washington Journal.
		We're going to begin this morning with a conversation on President Trump's threats to colleges and universities to cut their funding.
		We want to know from you this morning: do you support or oppose these actions?
		If you support it, you agree with the president, dial in at 202-748-8000.
		And if you disagree, dial in at 202-748-8001.
		If you do not want to text, excuse me, if you do not want to call, you can text at 202-748-8003.
		Just include your first name, city, and state, or you can post on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X with the Handle at C-SPANWJ.
		We'll start with Harvard.
		And President Trump yesterday at 10 o'clock a.m. Eastern Time posting this on Truth Social.
		Perhaps Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status and be taxed as a political entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist-inspired supporting sickness.
		Remember, tax-exempt status is totally contingent on acting in the public interest.
		The president put that on Truth Social after Harvard pushed back on demands made by the Trump administration.
		Those demands from last week included in a letter that Harvard needed to eliminate its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
		They wanted to see reforms on their records of anti-Semitism on campus.
		They also wanted reforms to university governance and leadership.
		They wanted a comprehensive, a look at a comprehensive mask ban.
		And they wanted changes to merit-based hiring and admissions as well.
		Then an audit of viewpoint diversity and new student disciplinary policies, including police involvement.
		That audit would come from the government.
		Now, Harvard pushed back on the president's demands, saying the university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.
		Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.
		Accordingly, Harvard will not, they wrote, accept the government's terms as an agreement in principle.
		Harvard remains open to a dialogue about what the university has done and is planning to do to improve the experience of every member of its community.
		But Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.
		Now, the administration has moved to freeze $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard.
		At the White House briefing yesterday, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt responding to questions on the president's moves.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to Harvard, the president's position on this is grounded in common sense, in the basic principle that Jewish American students or students of any faith should not be illegally harassed and targeted on our nation's college campuses.
		And we unfortunately saw that illegal discrimination take place on the campus of Harvard.
		There are countless examples to prove it, particularly with the stunning confession by then Harvard President Claudine Gay, who said that bullying and harassment depended on the context.
		The president at that time made it clear to the American public he was not going to tolerate illegal harassment and anti-Semitism taking place in violations of federal law.
		So the president made it clear to Harvard: follow federal law, no longer break Title VI, which was passed by Congress to ensure no student can be discriminated against on the basis of race, and you will receive federal funding.
		Unfortunately, Harvard has not taken the president or the administration's demands seriously.
		All the president is asking: don't break federal law, and then you can have your federal funding.
		I think the president is also begging a good question.
		More than $2 billion out the door to Harvard when they have a more than $50 billion endowment.
		Why are the American taxpayers subsidizing a university that has billions of dollars in the bank already?
		And we certainly should not be funding a place where such grave anti-Semitism exists.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt yesterday responding to questions about the president's actions against universities and colleges, specifically Harvard.
		And as you heard her there at the end, say, why is the federal government giving money to Harvard when they have an endowment fund that's over $50 billion, tax exempt?
		USA news, colleges, universities, rankings show the top 20 colleges with the biggest endowments, and Harvard comes in first.
		Since October, according to David Ignatius and the Washington Post, that number is at $53 billion.
		David Ignatius notes that number in a column that he writes today, Harvard Saves Its Soul.
		And he writes this: What's really going on in this battle for Harvard's soul?
		Martin Wolfe of the Financial Times argued recently that Trump, like Mao Zedong in China more than 50 years ago, has embarked on a cultural revolution that seeks to overthrow the bureaucratic and cultural elites that are anchored in the nation's great universities.
		Liberal professors aren't yet forced to wear dunks caps or work in re-education camps in farms and factories.
		Maybe that's next.
		David Ignatius, with his opinion today about what is really behind these moves from the Trump administration.
		It's your turn now to be part of the debate here in Washington.
		Theodore, in Livonia, Michigan, you support the president here.
		Explain why.
unidentified		Yes, I support the president's actions because you cannot protest a terrorist organization.
		Your First Amendment rights are relinquished when you start to do things like that.
		These Ivy League colleges are way, way too liberal to the left.
		Way too liberal.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, what about freedom of speech?
unidentified		Freedom of speech is relinquished when you protest for a terrorist organization like Amas.
		And you terrorize legitimate students trying to go to class.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Theodore's thoughts there in Michigan.
		Bob, Nashville, Tennessee.
		You oppose.
		Bob.
		Good morning to you.
unidentified		Yeah, this is ridiculous.
		I'll say Harvard is equivalent to the person back in the 50s who stood up to McCarthy and asked, Do you have no decency, sir?
		But my problem is this loose interpretation of anti-Semitism.
		I sometimes question people's intelligence on this because criticizing a foreign government, which in this case is Israel, who calls themselves a Jewish state, which excludes indigenous people in that country.
		But calling that anti-Semitism is dangerous.
		When you conflate criticizing the state of Israel with anti-Semitism, it cheapens true anti-Semitism.
		So a bully for Harvard.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Donald in New York, supporting the president's threats on funding cuts to higher education.
		Go ahead.
		Oh, we lost it.
		We'll go to Will in Baltimore.
		Will, your turn.
unidentified		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		College campus protests have been with us since the 60s prominently.
		The protests of the Vietnam War, the protests of the Iraq War.
		And in retrospect, those college campus protesters were correct.
		The Vietnam War was bad government policy.
		The Iraq War was bad government policy.
		Now, these college campus protests that are going on and are being driven primarily, I think, because of what's going on in Gaza and the genocidal tactics of the nation of Israel and our government support of arming them and making all these things possible.
		And they have a right to protest.
		And it doesn't mean it's anti-Semitism.
		Being anti-government against the government of Israel does not make you an anti-Semitist.
		And that's pretty much all I wanted to say.
		And thank you so much, C-SPAN, for taking my call.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Will, Will Swatzer in Baltimore.
		Mel is next.
		Jamestown, New York, supporting the president here.
		Hi, Mel.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Absolutely.
		Thank you, Greta.
		There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the federal government the delegation of power to give tax money to educational institutions, besides the fact that Harvard is already heavily endowed.
		I don't want my tax money to go for their agenda.
		And I feel the aspect of free speech is still kept in place.
		They can do all the free speech they want, just not on my dime.
		And I feel like Harvard, too, has strayed far away from its original model for Christ and for his church.
		So I don't want to fund their religious agenda that undermines Christ and his church, like I don't expect those to fund my congregation or scholastic institutions that are religious and Christian in nature.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mel.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So do you think then they should use their endowment money?
unidentified		I mean, of course, I mean, if Harvard has that endowment money, they can do with it what they like.
		The line for me is drawn when they would promote Hamas in a way that advocates terrorism.
		If they want to say that Israel should give up land, well, that's fine.
		But when it comes to the aspect of speech that is in line with terror to actually exterminate people, I think that college should be more responsible and govern themselves in a way conducive for respecting humanity.
		But I feel like Harvard is drifted far from that.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mel.
		So do you think they should have their tax exempt status taken away?
		As the president noted, it's only for institutions that are serving the public good, the public interest.
unidentified		Their tax exempt status taken away?
unidentified		Maybe I'd have a little problem with that, but certainly they should not be getting any federal funding whatsoever.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mel, let's dig into their federal funding.
		This is from the Washington Post.
		Federal funding is the largest source of support for research at Harvard, according to the university.
		In fiscal 2024, federal funding of $686 million made up approximately 68% of total sponsored revenue at Harvard.
		The university has been preparing for the fallout since the Trump administration said last month that it was reviewing nearly $9 billion in federal funding to Harvard and its affiliates amid allegations of anti-Semitism and illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs on campus.
		The Trump administration sent the school that five-page letter last week that called for changes to leadership, student discipline, extensive government oversight, as well as cooperation with federal immigration forces.
		The multi-agency joint task force to combat anti-Semitism on Monday night paused $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contract values to Harvard after the school rebuffed the government's demands for changes.
		So as we said, that is where the back and forth stands with Harvard and the President.
		Do you support what the President is doing here with colleges and universities and specifically Harvard?
		Now on this serving the public interest and taking away their tax exempt status, the Washington Post also notes that the president does not have unilateral authority to revoke the school's tax exemption.
		But the IRS can eliminate it if Harvard is found to be participating in political campaigning or lobbying.
		We'll hear from Bill next in West Virginia, opposing the president.
		Morning to you, Bill.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, I firmly oppose it.
		I don't think the government we saw in Florida a few years ago when DeSantis decided the same thing and control what people could say or what they couldn't say.
		And his was anti-gay, anti-free speech, anti-everything.
		Even Tennessee took away books.
		We can't have a government control in our brain trying to control our brains and our thought process.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Why, Bill?
unidentified		Absolutely.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What happens?
		What happens?
		What's your fear there?
unidentified		Over the government trying to tell them what they can teach, what they can't teach.
unidentified		And I would give money to remove Trump and Bondi from office.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Bill's lots are in West Virginia.
		By the way, the Attorney General Pam Bondi, she's going to hold a news conference this morning, 8.15 a.m. Eastern Time.
		We're going to have live coverage of that over on C-SPAN 2.
		She'll be talking about Maine not complying with the transgender athletes ban, the executive order put in place by President Trump.
		She'll be holding a news conference on that.
		You can watch on C-SPAN 2 on our C-SPAN Now, our free video mobile app or online at c-span.org.
		We're talking about the president's threats to higher education over their DEI programs and campus protests.
		Yesterday, Harvard responded to the president's moves, saying that they would not agree to his demands.
		Take a look at the Harvard Crimson, the college newspaper headline from Tuesday.
		Trump freezes funding after Harvard defies demands.
		Another headline from the newspaper this morning.
		Harvard says legal challenges with the Trump administration could have adverse effect in bond sale disclosure.
		Harvard yesterday moved to sell $750 million freed up to Wall Street to shore up its coffers in response to what the president had to say.
		They're worried about all of this impacting their revenue and their costs at the college.
		Bill in West Virginia.
		Bill, what do you say this morning?
unidentified		I already said.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Oh, all right.
		We'll go to Patrick in Pittsburgh, who's supporting the president.
		Patrick, we'll go to you.
unidentified		You know, it's stunning the amount of theft.
		This is a level of theft that this country has never witnessed.
		And it's all being exposed.
		You have the amount of money, which is in unbelievable amounts.
		An elite institution, which has $50 billion, billion in funds, $8 billion a year.
		And we're fleecing our country to provide education for hostile governments that send our children to be educated in advanced technologies.
		They shouldn't be receiving one penny of our money.
		All of this should be eliminated, right along with all of the institutions in the deep state media system, which is completely brainwashing our children who are completely inept now, don't even know anything.
		It is absolutely stunning.
		My say is go in, eliminate everything, and cut off countries that send their students here to destroy us.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		That was Patrick's thoughts there.
		Michael in Florida opposing.
		Michael, good morning to you.
unidentified		Good morning to you.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I oppose it because finally, you know, I cannot understand how Congress makes these rules, a lot of them, and they're not standing up.
		They got a knee to Trump.
		They all bow to him and all this stuff.
		And I'm glad to see an institution as Harvard stand up to him and not take a knee.
		It's time more people did that.
		He wants to turn this country into a Nazi state.
		That's what they want.
		That's exactly what they're after.
		That's what they want.
		You better wake up.
		That's a fact.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Michael's there in Florida opposing the president.
		Richard's also opposing the president in San Francisco.
		Richard, your turn.
unidentified		Actually, I'm not opposing.
		Yeah, yes, I am opposing him.
		Boy, you've got a lot of people that are just totally like 180 degrees out of phase and are not educated, don't understand anything.
		That's probably why Trump got elected.
		You know, the funding that the federal government gives these institutions is for medical research and research, like cancer, like, you know, all kinds of things where they've had innovation.
		That's the main, that's where the fundings go.
		That's where your tax dollars, like it might save your grandmother or your life sometime, you know.
		So it's not the endowment.
		That is all, that's not necessarily a fund that they can just draw from.
		And then everybody is every 180 degrees this way or not, you know, like either the liberals or some kind of crazy people that are going to overthrow something, you know, that are being educated there and brainwashed.
		You know, everything's a deep state.
		What's a deep state?
		What are you talking about, deep state?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Richard.
		Well, to your point, the Washington Post notes that this freeze on funds to Harvard began Monday night as a trickle of stop work orders on major contracts that support projects ranging from research on a deadly infection to the effects of spaceflight on the human body.
		The damage assessment on which research had been stopped was occurring throughout the day Tuesday with more cancellations expected.
		So these researchers were receiving stop work orders and they woke up Tuesday morning to them.
		One of them was worth $60 million over seven years supporting work at Harvard and at multiple other institutions.
		And it focused on unraveling how the immune system fights tuberculosis, something that kills many Americans every year.
		So Richard, hearing that, do you have something to add?
unidentified		I'm just saying that we have the highest level of research in the world because these institutions that have the smartest, most able people to do innovative research on life-saving kinds of medical conditions are in the United States.
		And when foreign students come here, they're the top of the line of students that come here.
		As a matter of fact, we don't have enough well-educated people in this country to fill all higher education jobs.
		That's a fact.
		But it kind of goes along with this wrecking ball that they're doing with all these institutions, including the foreign aid program.
		They just eliminated things, cut funding.
		It's like it's some kind of chaotic.
		I guess they have an agenda.
		They want to like, you know, they're not finding any waste and abuse.
		That's almost a joke.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What they're doing is understood.
		Richard, they're opposing the president's moves on threatening higher education funding cuts.
		That's our conversation here this morning on the Washington Journal.
		Here's how you can join.
		If you support what the president is doing here, call in at 202-748-8000.
		If you oppose, 202-748-8001.
		Remember, you can text, include your first name, city, and state, to 202-748-8003.
		You can also join on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ.
		Tax exemptions for universities and colleges.
		Why do they have this tax exemption?
		And this is from the Association of Leading Public and Private Universities.
		The vast majority of private and public universities and colleges are tax-exempt entities as defined by the IRS because of their educational purposes, purposes that the federal government has long recognized as fundamental to fostering the productive and civic capacities of citizens and or the fact that they are state government entities.
		In turn, states generally grant tax-exempt status to organizations, including universities and colleges, which qualify as tax-exempt entities under federal law.
		Sam in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, supporting.
		Good morning to you, Sam.
unidentified		Yes, yes.
		My thoughts on this thing is: I'm an old timer from the Vietnam War.
		A lot of opposing, a lot of the demonstrations back then.
		I think somebody's got to look deeper into this and find out why.
		Because we're doing the same thing we did in the 70s.
		We're going right back to where it was.
		And I just can't understand why we're not looking at that deeper.
		All this demonstration, all this demonstration is because of Israel and the Palestine.
		Israel's got to find a better way to combat the Palestines instead of wrecking the whole place.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Sam in Massachusetts there.
		John in California.
		John, what is your take on this?
unidentified		I'd like to say one thing.
ted nugent ▲ ● ▼		The deep state are the people that sent the IRS agent to Matt Taibbi's house the day he testified in Congress about the censorship of the government.
unidentified		Going on from there, why do we need, with $37 trillion in debt, to be giving money to an institution that has $50 billion in their own coffers?
		It is totally ridiculous.
		The other thing, all you'd have to do is exchange black students for the Jewish students that are being terrorized, and the National Guard would be there tomorrow.
		People want to defend this scruffy guy that came over here under false pretenses, lied about why he wanted to be here and demonstrated against our own people and supports the baby killers.
		Does anybody look at what Hamas did to the Jewish people on October 10th?
		Does anybody ever consider that and how they would feel if that was done in our country?
		And this is ridiculous.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And, John, how do you respond to the protesters who say, look, what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How do you respond?
unidentified		What are the Israelis to do?
		Hamas comes in, murders their men, women, and children in the most horrific way.
		I wouldn't even repeat it on the TV, the things that Hamas did.
		And then they hide like a bunch of rats amongst school children, amongst hospitals, amongst all these civilian entities.
		What is Israel supposed to do?
		Honestly, what would we do?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		When is it too much?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		In comparison, the protesters would point to the amount of deaths of Palestinians.
unidentified		What is the death?
michael flynn ▲ ● ▼		One death is too much, but you have to do whatever you have to do to protect your citizens.
unidentified		You know, you have to, whatever measure it takes.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		John, there in California on the president's moves to support these protests, to oppose these protests, excuse me, on college campuses.
		And we'll go to Wally next in Aurora, Colorado, who's supporting this as well.
		Wally, what do you say about the president's decisions here?
unidentified		Hello.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Wally, we're listening to you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hi, Greta.
		Yes, Course, I support because I happen to believe that this is God's doing, that Donald Trump is God's man, and Donald Trump is aware of God's desire to put an end to this ungodly thing that's been going on with our government.
		And our God is answering prayer.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Wally.
		So, so blanket approval from you for whatever President Trump does.
		Is that what I'm hearing?
unidentified		I believe that God has his hand on Donald Trump.
		God is answering prayer.
		It is something he's been wanting because we have been crying out to God.
		He is answering our prayers as we speak.
		People don't understand what God is doing because God is, people aren't seeking God.
		They don't know God's will, and I believe it is God's will.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Wally in Colorado.
		Gene in New Jersey.
		Gene, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
bernadine smith ▲ ● ▼		I heard the representative from the administration at the beginning of this talking about relying on common sense, which I think we need to think twice about.
unidentified		My common sense tells me that the sun rises in the east and circles the globe and sets in the west, and most of humanity believes that for longer than we know.
		And it's a clue to stop and think a little bit further.
		And if you think a little bit further about this, ask yourself some questions.
		Like, Wally, would you like to have the government remove tax-exempt status from your church if they didn't like what they were hearing from the sermons?
		Where would you stop with using government power to stop speech of any kind?
		The universities have been a place where people can get together, oppose each other's ideas, stress test them in discussions and arguments.
		And that has been a function of the university since the founding of the country.
		And that's one reason we have public universities.
		It's something we all need to think a lot more about.
		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		That was Gene there in New Jersey.
		Tim is next in Michigan.
		Hi, Tim.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, I just, it cracks me up because every day we get on here and talk about money and what our tax dollars go to.
		And for Harvard to have a lot of money that supposedly they invest in, well, the professors and everybody gets a salary from that.
		So why are my tax dollars going to pay their salary for something that they can teach the kids to not like what our country is doing?
		It does not make sense to me, just as a simple person, to try and understand why my money would go to that.
		And I should have the right not to pay that.
		So that, to me, that makes more sense.
		If I don't agree with that, I should not have to donate to that or I should be able to donate to my church if my church is doing what I think is proper.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		So Tim, what do you say, though, to those that say Harvard and these other colleges and universities, the money that they receive, A good sum of it is going toward research that helps the public, that they're doing research on cancer and infectious diseases, etc.
		That it all, that research then benefits America and the American economy.
unidentified		Okay, so Harvard's been around since, what, 17-something probably, or 18-something, 1800s.
		They started that research back then.
		Now, if we're still throwing money at stuff, then we don't have very smart people to figure that out if we're still throwing money at it.
		That's my point.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, Tim, here's Dan Diamond, who writes for the Washington Post on the impact of the freeze of $2.2 billion by the Trump administration this week.
		David Walt, a professor at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, received an immediate stop work order from the Health and Human Services Grant supporting ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, valued at, it was worth upwards of $300,000 per year.
		That was the type of work that one of these professors, these researchers, was doing at Harvard along with other institutions and received a stop work order because of the Trump administration's decision to freeze $2.2 billion.
		Your reaction to what the president is threatening to do to universities and colleges over DEI programs and protests on campus.
		Here's how you can join the conversation.
		If you support the president here, dial in at 202-748-8000.
		If you're opposing, 202-748-8001.
		California Republican Congressman Kevin Kiley, he's a Harvard alum himself, and he spoke about the situation on Fox Business yesterday.
		Here's what he had to say.
kevin kiley ▲ ● ▼		And it's pretty hypocritical for the University of Harvard or any other university to say we can commit massive civil rights violations.
		We can violate the federal civil rights laws.
		And yet we expect to have massive amounts of federal funding in the process.
		I mean, you know, Harvard is saying that we do all of this important research, which is true.
		There is a lot of important research that's being done there.
		But that doesn't mean we should just ignore the massive civil rights violations and anti-Semitism that exists on that campus.
		Imagine if they were having Klan rallies on the campus.
		Would we say, well, you know, we're still going to provide federal funding because you do important research?
		No, of course not.
		We would say there is no way that any institution that allows this, that propagates it, should receive a penny of tax dollars from the federal government.
		And so that's what the administration is saying here.
		That until you make the systematic reforms that are necessary to stop this ongoing violation of civil rights and the abhorrent anti-Semitism on campus, then you are not entitled to federal funding.
		And here's the thing, and the thing is, we have an opportunity here because one of the things we've seen in this country is that a lot of the problems we have as a country are incubated at universities, whether it's anti-Semitism, whether it's censorship.
		They spread to the rest of the country.
		Now, this used to be a good thing when our universities were leading lights in this country, but something has gone very, very wrong in American higher education.
		We now have this moment of reckoning and an opportunity to bring real reform.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Kevin Kiley, a Harvard alum there defending the president, another alum of Harvard Law School, former President Barack Obama, posting on X yesterday that Harvard has set an example for other higher ed institutions, rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry and rigorous debate.
		Roberta in Georgia opposing the president.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, first off, I just want to say that when it comes to this administration, it's not about, in my opinion, they don't want diversity of thought.
		They don't want diversity of speech.
		And going further in regards to research and the money that they are getting for research, my son probably wouldn't be alive today if it were not for a doctor at Harvard.
		So he's over 20 years ago, he was suffering from multiple, and I mean multiple trips to the ER and hospital stays and intensive care due to aspiration pneumonia.
		It was constant.
		And doctors here pretty much kind of, you know, didn't know quite what to do.
		They thought about putting it a trach.
		And eventually, a doctor contacted a physician who have been doing some research on research when it comes to people in aspiration pneumonia.
		Contacted a doctor there.
		They said this is something that's kind of experimental right now.
		We've done some research so far.
		We've had a handful of people and it's been some success, but you'll need to find a doctor or a clinic there who would be willing to do this type of procedure.
		If not, he'll need your, the patient would need to come here and found a facility here who would perform the procedure.
		And my son has not had a hospital stay with pneumonia since 2002.
		And we're in 2025.
		So I feel like, too, you got to be careful with, you know, cutting off your nose to spite your face because it may be someone there who will be saving your family at some point in your life.
		So I just want to put that out there as well.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Roberta in Georgia, Alex in Minnesota.
		Alex, it's your turn.
unidentified		Hey, thanks for taking my call.
		Can you hear me?
		Yes.
		Okay, great.
		So I think I have a bit of an interesting perspective here.
		My background is I have a PhD in physics, and I support this for a number of reasons.
		I think the main reason is that we need to view universities as businesses.
		They really are.
		They take inputs from a lot of different things.
		They take inputs from the government.
		They take inputs from the foreign tuition that they get.
		And they take inputs from sports, other things.
		And it's the government's job to advocate for what is in the interests of the citizens of America for the universities to do.
		And, you know, a lot of what universities do right now is educate foreign students.
		It's unfortunate.
		And a lot of those foreign students are good people.
		I'm not trying to demonize them.
		But when I was in my PhD class, I sat in classes where it was 90%, 95% Chinese foreign nationals.
		And again, a lot of them are good people.
		But I had to think that this is really not in the interest of the taxpayers to be funding this because a lot of those people don't want to stay in the U.S.
		They want to go back to China, which is totally understandable.
		But there needs to be a feedback cycle in which the government funding can express what's in the interest of the American people in the same way that the other funding is contingent on the universities doing what they want to.
		Another thing is that I think a lot of people are going to be able to do that.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Alex, do you think those foreign nationals, those students from China, do you think they were likely paying full price, don't you think, for that university and college?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		I mean, they weren't getting any.
unidentified		That's exactly the point, is they're paying full price, and the university has adopted their model to, because actually pay more than full price because they're foreign students.
		So, the university is basically making money off of it.
		And the thing is that if you're talking about a STEM field and you're worried about, well, why can't we reindustrial, industrialize America?
		Well, it's because seats at land-grant universities are 90% foreign nationals in a lot of the advanced STEM classes.
		And it's not just one class, it's a lot of classes.
		So, we, and again, it's the job of the American government to advocate for American citizens with its funding.
		And my second point was ideological capture.
		I think there's a really interesting testimony from back in, I think, 2021 or 22, when it was just starting to come out that, yeah, there was a good chance that COVID came out of a lab.
		Not that it's certain, but there was a good chance.
		And there was a professor of physics from, I'm not sure where, but he was called to testify.
		And what he said was, yeah, I had a lot of misgivings about this being a lab origin.
		And I was a physicist.
		I knew I needed to bring somebody else on board to help me sort it out.
		And what he said was I called people and asked for their help.
		And they said, yeah, we agree with you, but we're not going to do this because we think it would help Trump.
		And regardless of whether you like Donald Trump or don't, you have to understand that for a scientist to give that kind of feedback is a sign that there are some real ideological problems that have infiltrated academia and they need to be sorted out or else we're going to end up with a model that where scientists are slanting things.
		It happens in China.
		There are some areas that are just off limits.
		You can't study them because of the political impact.
		And America needs to be very thoughtful about the road that we had down.
		All right, Alex, where'd you get your PhD in?
		I got a PhD in physics from the University of Illinois.
		And I'm sure I'll never get a job in academia once this comes out, but it needs to be said.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Alex there in Minnesota.
		We're going to continue with this conversation this morning.
		Your reaction to President Trump's threats to colleges and universities.
		In some other news, we want to share with you.
		Former President Joe Biden, in his first public remarks since leaving office, made news.
		This is from the Associated Press.
		Biden alleges Trump has taken a hatchet to Social Security in his first post-presidency speech.
		Here's the former president.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		Why are these guys taking aim in Social Security now?
		Well, they're following that old line from tech startups.
		The quote is, move fast, break things.
unidentified		They're certainly breaking things.
unidentified		They're shooting first and aiming later.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		As a result, the result is a lot of needless pain and sleepless nights.
		My friend Governor O'Malley knows what they're really up to.
		He says, and I love his quote: they want to wreck it so they can rob it.
		They want to wreck it so they can rob it.
unidentified		Why do they want to rob it?
unidentified		In order to deliver huge tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations and keep it going.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		They want to make permanent the 2017 tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefits the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		That's going to cost $5 trillion.
unidentified		Where are they going to get $5 trillion to pay for it and then continue to run the deficit up?
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		Well, where they always do, by winning, by running up the national debt, number one, and then by taking the money from someplace else.
		What are the two big pots of money out there in raw numbers?
		Social Security and Medicaid.
		Well, from other programs people rely on and have paid into.
		Republicans or these guys are willing to hurt the middle class and the working class in order to deliver significantly greater wealth to the already very wealthy.
unidentified		Who in the hell do they think they are?
		I really think they, I mean, just basic decency.
		Who do you think they are?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		More from the former president's remarks coming up here on the Washington Journal.
		If you missed it, you can find it on our website, cspan.org.
		This week, we have also been continuing our coverage of congressional town halls.
		Last night, we were in Georgia to cover Marjorie Taylor Greene's discussion with her voters there on President Trump's agenda.
		It began and it continued throughout her town hall with protests.
unidentified		Take a look at this moment.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		Well, welcome, everyone.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Thank you.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		Thank you to our great police officers.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my town hall.
		This is a town hall.
		This is not a political rally.
		This is not a protest.
		If you stand up and want to protest, if you want to shout and chant, we will have you removed just like that man was thrown out.
		Accelerate it.
		This is, let me tell you, this is funded.
		The Democrats have been rioting.
		They are the party of violence.
		They are the party that.
unidentified		Go. Go. Go.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		If you want to sit and listen, you're welcome to listen.
		Everyone across the aisle, Democrats, Independents, Republicans.
		This is a good place.
		You have a lot to learn.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, there taking questions and talking to voters in Georgia about the president's agenda.
		We covered that town hall.
		We also covered Senator Grassley's town hall in Iowa.
		We're covering Democrats as well, and you can find them all on our website at c-span.org.
		Put congressional town halls in the search engine, and you will find all that we have covered in recent days and weeks.
		Back to our conversation about the president's threats to universities and colleges to cut off their federal funding.
		Deborah in Maryland, opposing the president here.
		Good morning to you.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I just wanted to say: you know, the administration's attempting to stop activism on Harvard's campus against the inhumane treatment of Palestinians.
		Yes, the October 7th attacks were wrong, but every person that's a Palestinian is not part of Hamas.
		So many, many people are being killed.
		And he's also wanting to silence and stop DEI as part of the initiative of recruiting people from different demographics.
		And I think that once we get to the point where in the country, you must agree with the president or else you'll be deported or you'll be defunded.
		I think that this is a very dangerous, very dangerous climate for our country.
		And we're heading towards something that is something that none of us really want.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Deborah there with her concerns in Maryland.
		Charlie in Bloomington, Indiana.
		Good morning to you.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Can you hear me okay?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We can.
unidentified		Okay, a couple of quick things.
		One is I just have a question for all the conservatives out there.
		Is this the small government you were yearning for?
		Is this the small government you're dreaming of?
		They're in everything.
		They're trying to control everything.
		The other thing is some folks were calling in and saying, I don't want my tax money going to these universities like Harvard.
		They have these huge stacks of money, billions of dollars, 50 billions of dollars.
		They don't need our money.
		Guess who else does not need our money?
		Elon Musk.
		He has more billions than anyone on earth.
		I don't want my tax money going to his boy toys so he can shoot them up in the air.
		I don't agree with anything he believes or thinks.
		Why is he getting millions of dollars a day from us?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Charlie's thoughts there in Indiana.
		Dave in Georgia.
		Good morning to you, Dave.
unidentified		Morning, Greta.
		I find it really difficult.
		They're asking for diversity.
		The left is.
		You have a faculty there at Harvard that's 97% liberal.
		And I wonder what, is that diversity?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so what does the government do about that then?
		How do you get more conservative thinking thoughts, that side of the debate, into universities and colleges?
		Is it the role of the government to make sure that that happens?
unidentified		Well, if it's the rule of the government to support whatever the entity does, doesn't the government have a saying in what goes on in the faculty?
unidentified		The idea that you will allow only one side of the argument in the debate is that diversity is what my point is.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Right, understood.
		Dave's there with his question.
		We'll see if anyone answers that, Dave.
		Doug in Fairfax, South Dakota.
		Doug, good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		Yeah, good morning, Greta.
		I disagree with what Trump's doing.
		This is third world stuff.
		You ask me.
		It's picking people up off the street and holding them off to another country without getting them due process or anything.
charles in louisiana ▲ ● ▼		I don't know about the money situation, but people should be able to protest the money going to Israel, killing all these people.
unidentified		There's 60-something thousand they killed over there.
		Suppose some are buried under the concrete.
		But just the other day, they shot an American, Palestinian American over there for throwing rocks at a 14-year-old kid.
ted gunderson ▲ ● ▼		And here, quite a while back, they shot a Turkey-American lady for protesting, and they shot her in the head.
unidentified		The family lives in Seattle, and you never hear nothing about it.
unidentified		So these people do not value Palestinian people.
rich in tennessee ▲ ● ▼		They think they're trash, just like we kind of treated the Indians way back.
unidentified		And all these people that are getting deported, guess what?
		They're getting their information from Beta.
		You know what Beta is?
ted gunderson ▲ ● ▼		It's revisionist Zionist from Zeev Jabowski way back.
unidentified		He once started the organization in 1923.
		And I don't want my money going to Israel killing all these people.
		I mean, the Geneva Convention is not there.
		They're starving these people.
		They haven't given them food for over a year.
		They got them locked in a cage.
		It's just wrong.
		It's all wrong.
		And I just, you just, it upsets me.
		It's not right.
		This is not America.
		It's not my American.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Doug there in South Dakota with his thoughts.
		And Richard, who's in South Carolina, opposing, or excuse me, supporting President Trump and his actions taken towards universities and colleges.
		Richard, good morning to you.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Anti-Semitism is just wrong.
		One of your, you have a piece from the person in California saying if it were the KKK, everybody would be against it.
		It should be.
		Anti-Semitism is wrong.
		If you have foreign students coming in and supporting that, they don't have a right to be here to do that.
		That's not their right.
		They're not a U.S. citizen.
		That's number one.
		Then, number two, you ask, how much is too much?
		I guess you were referring to Hamas in Gaza.
		How much was too much in Nazi Germany?
		A lot of Germans were killed, not because they were Nazi Party, but because they were Germans.
		Gaza, in a way, supported Hamas because they allowed them to be in power.
		That's why you have revolutions, to get those kind of people out of power.
		Not saying that in a revolution, a lot of people would not die.
		They would die.
		But you've got to stand up for the rights.
		And that's just my thoughts on that.
		All right.
		Thank you for taking my call.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Tina, Richmond, Virginia.
		Tina, we'll hear from you next on the president's actions towards colleges and universities because of these campus protests and his opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
		Tina, good morning, Richmond, Virginia there.
		One more chance for Tina.
		Oh, we'll go to Jim, who's in Virginia.
		Hi, Jim.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Greta.
		I think it's wonderful to see that Harvard has finally seen the light on government interference.
		It's just amazing to me.
		It's taken them 50 or 60 years to notice it.
		For instance, I know single-sex schools with Title IX officers.
		Why?
		Because there's a government mandate.
		They don't have to provide equal opportunity because they're single-sex, either all male or all female.
		But Imperial federal government has decided that every school should have a Title IX officer, whether or not that job has anything to actually do other than make mischief.
		There are other examples of the bureaucratization of college and university administration over the last few decades.
		It's why it's one of the main drivers of inflation in higher education.
		And suddenly Harvard has decided they don't want government interference, but they sure want the filthy lucre that Uncle Sugar is providing.
		It's amazing to me that the rank hypocrisy that they have, that statement, I actually laughed out loud when I heard it this morning.
		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Jim's thoughts there in Virginia.
		Let's go to Nellie, who's in St. Joseph, Missouri.
		Hi, Nellie.
		Your turn.
unidentified		Yes, this is Ashley Mary in St. Joseph, Missouri.
		Okay.
		And I was calling that I think the president has stepped way beyond his bounds.
		This is not small government when they're involved in every aspect of our lives and in private education.
		We should not be allowing the president to step in to every facet of our lives.
		That's not small government.
		That's big government and big brother.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Nellie, the New York Times has a very lengthy piece inside the newspaper this morning inside Trump's university offensive.
		What if we never pay them?
		A quote there from the New York Times and their full-page story on this.
		And it ends this way in the New York Times.
		They write long-term change in the piece in the New York Times.
		Let me show you that.
		They say, in the long run, the goal of Mr. Trump and his allies is to permanently disrupt the elite world of higher education.
		We want to set them back a generation or two.
		The administration's zeal has flummoxed even some close Trump allies concerned that the pressure campaign could set a troubling precedent for future administrations that, for example, decide to eradicate sexism from college campuses or bigots from the faculty who gets to decide which people fall into what category and when.
		Inside the White House, such worries are dismissed.
		That kind of thinking held back the first Trump administration officials said.
		They are not concerned about what the political left might do in the future, they said, but instead are focused on setting in motion long-term change.
		Jim in Louisville, Kentucky.
		Jim, go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, I support President Trump, but also I support the protesters.
		Well, what I don't understand about the protesters, if you are a student at Harvard, why do you have to cover your face?
		And because the people that are there that should not be on campus are not students, they get together and we'll all cover our face.
		And that way they won't know who we are, the people that are not supposed to be there.
		What they should do is they should take those people off when they cover the face.
		Tell them to take their mask off, not cover their face.
		If you cover your face, you're going to go come off campus.
		You're going to be arrested.
		You're going to be taken somewhere.
		We're going to find out who you are.
		And if you're not a student there, you're going to have to pay the price for whatever they have to do to them for them not being there.
		But I don't understand if you're a student, why do you have to cover your face?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		And also, it's always, every time that somebody says something about giving the money, it's always for the research.
		So they got $50 billion.
		Don't they have enough money for the research?
		And I appreciate it, and I listen to your calls.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, $53 billion, Jim.
		According to David Ignatius' reporting in the Washington Post as of last October, that endowment up to $53 billion.
		Adam, in Essexville, Michigan.
		Adam?
unidentified		Yeah, it's just amazing.
		Everybody on the right wing over there, they just ignore blatant facts.
		It's just, this is research for mostly medical things, and they want to just take money away because of some faux Zionist belief that they've been told.
		If they actually think about it for a minute, they would realize it's just absolute BS.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Adam's thoughts there.
		Charles, also opposing in Cleveland, Ohio.
		Charles, we'll hear from you.
unidentified		Thanks for taking my call.
		I disagree with this.
		I think that the whole thing is a distraction since we've been talking about this as well as other matters.
		Several children have been murdered in Gaza.
		I think that a lot of what happens with the news cycle and news media is tied to atrocities that can be committed in Gaza.
		I don't think that the whole notion of anti-semitism on campus or in Harvard is such that people or individuals should be taken off and put into camps.
		I think this whole thing is just a smokescreen to try and keep the emphasis off people uh really getting into the issues about this, and the issues about this is not about Anti-semitism, the issues that this is not about Dei.
		The issue is about power, the power grab of that land and Israel, and I think they will continue to keep uh smokescreens going on every day and using the media to do it all.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Right, Charles there in Cleveland.
		Oh, our last thought on that conversation, when we come back after this short break, we're going to turn our attention to the Republicans tax cut plan and we'll get two perspectives on that, Pete Zepp of the National Taxpayers Union and David Cass of Americans FOR TAX Fairness.
		The both of them will join us for that conversation and then later former CIA Russia analyst George Beebe discusses the state of negotiations for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
		Stay with us. We'll be right back.
unidentified		This weekend at 445 A.M eastern, we'll look at baseball America's pastime examining the question, what is baseball's place in America's national story?
		With Washington POST columnist George Will and author Kevin Baker.
		And then at 8 P.m eastern on lectures in history, Tulane University history professor Jana Lippman on Cold War, refugees from Cuba and Vietnam and the impact of the Refugee Act of 1980.
		At 9, 30 P.m eastern on the presidency, author Jay Hakes shares his book The Presidents and The planet, looking at the politics and government policies on climate issues through the lens of the White House and presidents dating from the 1950s to the 1990s.
		And at 1030 P.m. Eastern we'll look back at the history of Earth Day from a 1990 C-span interview with former Democratic Wisconsin governor and U.s senator Gaylord Nelson, founder of the first Earth Day in 1970, where he reflects on his work and the state of the environment.
		Exploring the American story.
		Watch American History TV saturdays on C-span 2 and find a full schedule in your program guide or watch online anytime at C-span.org.
		C-SPAN's student camp competition challenged middle and high school students nationwide to create documentaries with messages to the new president.
		Our panel of judges evaluated over 1700 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.
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brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		British writer Phil Tinline has written a book titled Ghosts of Iron Mountain.
		The publisher Scribner calls it an investigative masterpiece for readers curious about the surprising connection between John F. Kennedy, Oliver Stone, Timothy McVay, QAnon, Alex Jones, and Donald Trump.
		In his introduction, author Tinline says the book is the true story of a hoax, a hoax that shocked the nation in the late 1960s and that once created, seemed impossible to extinguish.
		Those involved in the hoax include Victor Navaski, E.L. Doctorow, John Kenneth Galbraith, and the author, the writer, Leonard Lewin.
unidentified		Author Phil Tinline with his book, Ghosts of Iron Mountain, The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today.
		On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
		Washington Journal continues.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Joining us at our table this morning is Pete Sepp.
		He's the president of the National Taxpayers Union, as well as David Cass, who's the executive director of the Americans for Tax Fairness, here to debate tax policy.
		Let's begin with Republicans' efforts in the House and the Senate to push forward on President Trump's plan to extend, make permanent 2017 tax cuts.
		I want to show our viewers and the two of you what Steve Scalise, one of the leaders for the Republicans in the House, had to say recently about the tax provisions in the Republican budget bill and why he believes they're important.
steve scalise ▲ ● ▼		You can talk to people in any walk of life in the private sector, in any industry.
steve scalise ▲ ● ▼		They will tell you there's trillions, four, five trillion dollars of money sitting on the sideline, not being invested in America now until they see what the tax code looks like.
unidentified		Everybody's talking about tariffs right now.
unidentified		Most businesses are waiting to see what the tax code will look like before they make major investments.
steve scalise ▲ ● ▼		And they will tell you, if we just prevent a tax hike, which by the way, every Democrat voted today to raise taxes, and they've said they wanted the tax rates to go up.
unidentified		We do not.
steve scalise ▲ ● ▼		And if we flatline and say no tax increases on American families, that alone will spur trillions of dollars more investment in our economy.
steve scalise ▲ ● ▼		And you could see 3% GDP growth, which would be not only great for the economy, more money in your pockets when you go to the grocery store, when you go to the gas station, but it also gives us, the federal treasury, more money coming in to lower the deficit.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Republican Majority Leader in the House, Steve Scalise.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		David Cass, respond to him.
unidentified		Well, so the House and Senate Republicans have passed this budget resolution that he's talking about.
		And what does the bill actually do?
		So it would cut key programs that workers and families rely on, like Medicaid and SNAP, to the tune of $1.1 trillion and give a big tax cut to those at the top, to billionaires.
		So the top 1% would actually get a $1.1 trillion tax cut.
		So it's really shifting money from average Americans to those at the top, and it's deeply concerning.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Pete Sepp?
unidentified		Well, this bill that they are envisioning is about extending $4 trillion worth of tax relief, preventing a tax increase.
		We're talking about a $2,000 child tax credit that could go to $1,000 for an average family unless Congress acts.
		We're talking about maintaining roughly the same level of progressivity prior to the 2017 law as we have now.
		We're also talking about shaving $2 trillion off an $86 trillion spending plan under current law if the House prevails in its view of how to move forward.
		There's a whole debate going on right now between the House and the Senate.
		We call this a budget resolution that they've both agreed on.
		Well, yes, but they're both taking divergent paths, which calls into question all kinds of policy and political matters going forward.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And then they need to come to a reconciliation.
		They need to reconcile their differences and put forth a budget reconciliation, which allows them to pass it in the Senate with a simple majority.
		That is where this debate heads next in Washington.
		When lawmakers return from this two-week recess, there will be committee hearings and a lot of debate happening on Capitol Hill to try to solve these differences that you were just talking about.
		Let me go to the other side of the aisle because here's Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat senator from Connecticut on the floor talking about the Senate debate during the Senate debate on this House budget bill, excuse me, their budget bill, explaining why he thinks extending the Trump tax cuts won't benefit the middle and lower class.
chris murphy ▲ ● ▼		Under this new tax cut, if it looks like the old one, and that's the signal that we get, is that households in the top 1% are going to get an average tax cut that's 120 times bigger than the tax cut given to people who are making $90,000 or less.
		So that's 152 times bigger than the very poor.
		But let's take somebody who's making $60,000.
		The richest 1% are going to get a tax cut that is 120 times bigger.
		How is that fair?
		Okay, now you'd say, well, that's because they make a lot more money.
		So of course they're going to get a bigger tax cut.
		But let's do the math a different way.
		As a share of after-tax income, the tax cuts at the top are still more than triple the total value of the tax cut received for people with incomes in the bottom 60%.
		So even when you adjust for the fact that they are making more money, they are still getting a tax cut whose value is three times bigger than folks who are making a middle income in this country.
		And why?
		I mean, does anybody believe in trickle-down economics anymore?
		It has been completely discredited.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Piece up your response to the senator.
unidentified		Well, we're actually talking about trickle-up tax increases here.
		So progressive taxation was strong before TCJA.
		It will remain strong after TCJA, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
		And when you take a look at the top 1% of earners, I'm not sure where the senator got his math from.
		Okay, they account for roughly one-fifth of all adjusTedros income.
		They're paying a tax burden of about 40%.
		In other words, 1.8 times the tax load versus the income load.
		You look at the bottom end of the scale, roughly 3% of the tax load, roughly 12% of the income load.
		This is a very progressive system.
		It was progressive before the 2017 law.
		It's progressive now.
		If people want to argue that it should be more so, fine.
		But everyone from the Congressional Budget Office to the Tax Policy Center on the left will acknowledge this is a highly progressive system.
		And the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act did not really change that equation a great deal.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		David Cass, is that true?
unidentified		So I think Senator Murphy is absolutely right.
		You know, the bill before us, the 2017 bill, the top 1% would get a $61,000 tax cut.
		If you're in the top 0.1%, you got a $250,000 tax cut.
		If you're in the bottom 60%, you got $500.
		It was highly skewed to the rich.
		You know, I just don't understand why anyone thinks that billionaires need more tax cuts.
		That seems like the absolute wrong approach.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We want our viewers to join us in this conversation this morning.
		Get your thoughts on Republicans' efforts on tax cuts, as well as their spending proposals and spending cuts.
		Here's how you can join the conversation.
		If you are a Republican, dial in at 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		Remember, you can text if you don't want to call at 202-748-8003.
		Just include your first name, city, and state.
		Let me share this reporting with the both of you and get your response to it.
		White House is quietly discussing a plan with House Republicans that could give people making $1 million or more a 40% tax rate, sources tell Fox News.
		Talks very preliminary, and it's one of several options floated for reconciliation.
		Bloomberg first reported these plan details.
		Pete Sepp, your initial, what would that mean, 40%?
unidentified		Well, it sure seems like an orphan proposal from the start.
		Majority Leader Scalise is denying it.
		Speaker Johnson is denying it.
		Most conservatives in the House, where the votes are really going to count, are denying that they'd ever vote for it.
		So I'm not sure.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Where would it come from then?
unidentified		Well, these are called trial balloons here in Washington, D.C., and I don't think it's a serious one.
		Now, if we want to have a discussion about tax breaks that favor the wealthy, well, one of them is the state and local tax deduction.
		The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act limited to $10,000, the amount you could deduct.
		There are those on the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle who want to blow that cap away entirely or lift it to some higher level.
		Well, that benefits primarily the wealthy.
		If you were to double the cap, for example, that would be a huge revenue impact going mostly to people making $100,000 or more.
		You know, those are discussions to have about fairness in the tax code rather than jacking up rates or discussing a proposal that just seems dead on arrival.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		David Cass, what do you think?
unidentified		I mean, look, why is the White House talking about this?
		It's because they're feeling the heat.
		The public does not want more tax cuts for the very wealthy.
		And this is a way to try to respond.
		But just to step back for a second, I mean, the top tax rate on the wealthy was 39.6 before the 2017 bill.
		So this is no radical step.
		We would be thrilled if we did this.
		I am very skeptical ultimately that Republicans will realize that they really need to do something to tax the wealthy.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Before we get to calls, I want to share with you and our viewers of the opinion pages of the Washington Post this morning.
		Senator Josh Hawley writes this, a working class tax cut is needed and possible.
		He writes this, that Republicans can begin to repair the way that working class and lower class Americans are feeling.
		They can give America's working people a lifeline by giving them the biggest working class tax cut in our history.
		Here's how.
		Make the largest income tax credits, the home mortgage deduction, the child tax credit, and the charitable deduction available to all Americans who pay the payroll tax.
		Pizza?
unidentified		It's a good start.
		I think that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which doubled the standard deduction, was not only an important step for middle-class tax relief, it was an important step for tax simplification.
		Maybe that's a way to square the circle here.
		Maybe since the law doubled the standard deduction and suddenly instead of 60% using that deduction, you have 90% of filers using it.
		Maybe you increase it even further.
		That could also address some of the equity concerns over wages and tips, which the president, I should say, overtime wages and tips, which the president now wants some kind of tax relief for.
		That could create unfairness in the system laterally.
		What if you don't get overtime or you don't get tips, but you still have a pretty low wage?
		You still need the tax relief.
		Making the standard deduction bigger is one way of addressing that.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So what do you think, David Kass?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Do you agree with this Republican senator here?
unidentified		Well, I think the underlying thing is we have to look at the 2017 bill.
		And just remember, it was an expensive failure.
		So what did they promise at the time when they passed it?
		They said that it would pay for itself.
		Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan CBO, said, look, it costs almost $2 trillion.
		They said it was going to increase wages by $5,000.
		That didn't happen.
		The best analysis found that corporate executives, highly paid ones, they did well.
		Anybody under $115,000 got nothing.
		I think it's a great conversation to have about increasing tax credits for working families.
		We should increase the child tax credit.
		Democrats did it a few years ago, and it cut child poverty almost in half.
		That's the right approach, rather than giving more tax cuts for billionaires.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So what's on the table right now?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		When you look at Senator Hawley's proposal here, is any of it included in the House or the Senate bill?
unidentified		Oh, certainly.
		I mean, the increased child tax credit, which doubled in 2017, still on the table.
		There are discussions right now, led by my organization, on how you move forward with preserving the child tax credit and maybe making some changes that would allow it to be more generous while still being fiscally responsible.
		We've got to index the amount of the credit itself for inflation.
		Right now, it's only the income thresholds for eligibility.
		They're very complex changes, but the end result needs to be that we strengthen the child tax credit so families have tax relief at the same time allowing businesses the certainty they need to invest and grow the economy.
		And there's a whole stack of studies which, you know, we could get into a game of my economists can beat up your economists, but there's plenty of research to suggest that Tax Cuts and Jobs Act did have a positive impact on a lot of business investment and family well-being.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, let's see what our viewers have to say on this.
		They've heard the arguments from the two of you, so let's turn to them.
		John in Virginia, Democratic caller.
unidentified		John, what do you say?
		Good morning, Chris.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I think you have to understand one thing.
		People need to realize the lawmakers, they signed a contract a long time ago that Gerovna, whatever his name was, not to increase the tax no matter what they do.
		That law is still there.
		The lawmakers cannot talk about reduce the tax because they will lose their seats.
		Republicans, they know that and they cannot do nothing about it.
		The reality is all these millionaires, they know that the law goes their way and they get the benefit out of this.
		Seven out of millionaires, when they ask, what are you going to do the money if you get a tax retest, two of them say that we're going to invest the community.
		Five of them, they say they don't know what to do with it.
		And it's a shame that Uber drivers who get the tips, they have to pay taxes out of that.
		Waitress, they have to pay taxes.
		It's a shame that if we want our country to go better, we have to reinvest our community and our streets, our schools, our police officers.
		This is not something you have to be a genius.
		The minimum men have to be out of our life and let's invest our community.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, so John, let's take your point about investments.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Pete Steph, I want you to respond to him and his citation of those wealthy CEOs saying that, or wealthy individuals saying what they're going to do with the money if they get a tax cut.
unidentified		Well, there is a lot of economic evidence to suggest that investment has increased since the 2017 law.
		Here's the National Bureau of Economic Research base near Harvard.
		Companies were impacted by lower taxes increased their investment by 20% in the first two years of the law.
		Here's Duke University, a study showing it increased GDP and total wages paid to employees by 2.2 and 3.4% respectively, and on and on and on.
		Look, it's very clear taxes do have an impact on businesses and individuals' decisions.
		Otherwise, we'd be talking about the weather here.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		David Carris?
unidentified		I mean, look, the centerpiece of this 2017 bill was they reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.
		More than a trillion dollars basically was given to corporations.
		What did they do with that money?
		The biggest thing they did with that was to buy back their own stock and to give out dividends, which overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy.
		You know, the top 10% owns 93% of all corporate stocks.
		So rather than investing in workers and increasing salaries, that's what corporations did.
		So we need to raise the corporate rate back up to make sure that they're paying their fair share.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So Pete Steppe, respond to that because we've heard that, and for our viewers who've heard this discussion, you know, these corporations did stock buyback.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Was that a bad or a good thing?
unidentified		Not necessarily a bad thing.
		Companies do stock buybacks when they want to strategically reposition their cash.
		And of course, that can help to raise stock values.
		And with more than 50% of American households invested in the market somehow, that can benefit them.
		Now, as for corporations paying their fair share, well, you got to look at the history of how taxes have changed on businesses.
		Pass-through businesses, S-Corps, sole proprietorships, self-employed individuals, those types of establishments have increased dramatically since the 1960s.
		If you include their income and the taxes they pay alongside the taxes that corporations pay, the business contribution to the revenue stream is about 3% of GDP, almost exactly where it was in the 1960s when business structures were mostly corporations.
		It's the evolution of the economy.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, let me go to Sean, who's in Florida, Independent.
		Sean, you're next in this conversation.
unidentified		Grand Rising, y'all, I actually have two things.
		One, me being a single male with adult kids, none of what you all are talking about has any kind of positive effect on me.
		Number two, you talk about fair share.
		The top, I would say maybe 10 to 15 percent of the earners in this country control 80 percent of all the money in the United States.
		So if they control 80 percent of all the funds in the United States, why are they not paying 80 percent of the taxes?
		That would be fair.
		All right, Sean.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		I'll have David Cass respond to you.
unidentified		I think the caller has a great point.
		Look, I mean, just look at billionaires, for example.
		In 2017, billionaires had $3 trillion worth of wealth.
		Now it has more than doubled to $6.5 trillion.
		Do we really think that billionaires need more money as opposed to they should be paying their fair share, which is why we, you know, President Biden has proposed in the past and Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat in the Senate Finance Committee, a billionaire minimum income tax.
		So just like your average worker has to pay taxes on their income every year, that billionaires should have to pay on their gains as well.
		So that would, I think, make a much more fair tax system.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Joe in New Jersey, Republican, welcome.
unidentified		Thank you.
		By the way, there's only 902 billionaires in the whole country out of 330 million people.
		So let's throw that one out.
		That's crazy.
		If you took all their money, you wouldn't be able to run the government for a few months.
		The top 1% of taxpayers pay 40.43% of the taxes.
		It goes down to the top 5% pay another 21%.
		The top 5 to 10 pay another 11%.
		And so on and so on.
		The bottom 50% pay less than 3% of the taxes.
		So all of this stuff is baloney.
		Here's the one thing I want to ask Mr. Cos, the Democrat, how much, now I got it.
		I only graduated high school.
		I've done very well in life.
		My father would say, the harder you work, the luckier you get.
		And it's true.
		I worked hard.
		I've done very well.
		How much of my hard-earned money, Mr. Kotz, are you entitled to?
		Please answer that question.
		How much of my hard-earned money are you entitled to?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean?
		Why him?
		What do you mean, you entitled to?
		Like the government?
unidentified		Are you saying the government?
unidentified		And he's fighting for more taxes for people.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Understood.
		All right.
unidentified		So I'm not entitled to anything, but in terms of the government, you know, look, anybody who is a multi-millionaire, a billionaire, I don't think they're paying their fair share.
		And I think this is often what happens is that the conservative side will say, well, what you mean is to raise taxes on everybody.
		That's not what we're saying.
		We just want big corporations and billionaires to pay their fair share.
		That's really the, so I don't know what the caller's income is, but if he's a billionaire, then he should pay more.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, what about his math, though, about the percentage of taxes being paid by wealthy versus the percentage of tax being paid by lower income, well, zero, according to him, by lower income Americans?
unidentified		Well, look, first off, the very wealthy have so much of the income pie, it's not surprising that they're paying a fair amount of taxes.
		But the other thing is, you have to actually include payroll taxes, too.
		When you include federal income taxes and payroll taxes, payroll taxes hit average workers very, very hard.
		So the total amount of taxes that are being paid, and you include state and local taxes, it actually hits workers very hard.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Pete Steph, you're shaking your head.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You agree?
unidentified		It certainly can hit workers very hard.
		But even after accounting for those, Congressional Budget Office has done studies by income quintile, by top 1%, by top 0.1%.
		The effective rates go from negative at the bottom end of the scale because of the earned income credit offsetting both income and payroll taxes all the way up to 35% for the people at the very top.
		Are there billionaires who might be using tax loopholes creatively?
		Yeah, sure.
		That doesn't necessarily mean that the income distribution and the tax distribution are terribly skewed.
		This remains an incredibly progressive system with very high compliance rates.
		We should be proud of the fact that we have so many Americans paying in, even billionaires.
		And we have to look at our tax system as one that is hardly broken.
		It needs fixing.
		It needs repairs.
		But it hasn't been utterly destroyed by the 2017 law.
		It's been made stronger.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Can I question that?
		So, you know, look, 55 corporations, huge corporations, pay zero in taxes.
		Tesla, for many years, pays zero in taxes.
		It is a system that those at the top, we really have two tax systems.
		If you're a plumber, if you're a nurse, you pay taxes every two weeks.
		If you're a billionaire, you may never pay taxes on your gains.
		If you get all the stock and you don't sell it, you may never ever be taxed on it.
		That doesn't make any sense.
		We should have one tax system that treats everybody the same, and the very wealthy need to pay their fair share.
		The tax system treats families when they realize their capital gains and they are subject to rates of up to 24%, but only when the gains are realized.
		If we want to treat everybody the same, that should apply to everyone regardless of their income.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		In what way?
unidentified		Well, Joe Biden's proposals were to tax unrealized gains on certain investments on an annual basis, but only for the wealthy.
		Well, families don't have to do that.
		They don't have to sit there and say, well, the painting my grandma gave me hanging on a wall, I have to pay a tax every year on it.
		That's not quite how some of these mark-to-market proposals, as they're called, work.
		But the point is, if we want equality in the tax system, we want equal treatment, you tax a gain when it is realized, when you sell the asset, not simply because you're holding on to it year after year.
		I mean, that's just the way the principle has been in tax systems for quite a number of years, centuries, indeed.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, what about leveraging your stock equity by borrowing against it and then taking that money and doing more important questions?
unidentified		The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, for example, actually limited some of those practices, some of the shuffling around of cash and how you could take interest limitations or what you could include.
		This long acronym called EBITDA is a real worse ones in the tax system.
		You know, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was not just an exercise of let's see how we can give the most to the rich and the least to the poor.
		There were honest efforts to try and flatten out some of the most unfair elements in international taxation or how companies were treated across the tax system.
		You know, we talk about fairness as an issue of looking up and down the income scale.
		What about across the income scale?
		Are people with the same income paying roughly the same amount of tax?
		TCJA helped to address that, but we're a long way from that kind of equity and fairness.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, David, add to this.
unidentified		Yeah, so, I mean, look, billionaire wealth has been skyrocketing.
		And I think the impact on our society is really corrosive.
		It's very undemocratic.
		We just did a study of the 2024 election and found that 100 billionaire families contributed $2.6 billion to fund the elections.
		One out of six dollars in our total campaigns came from billionaires.
		You know, that's not Democratic.
		I mean, when you see one person like Elon Musk contributing $270 million to try to win an election, that's not one person, one voice.
		And I think we need to get at the source of so that we don't have these dynasties, these billionaire dynasties of people who are able to really buy their own views.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		I want to add to the conversation this reporting by Punch Bowl News this morning.
		The red lines begin.
		As we told you, House Republicans, Senate Republicans, they have to come together on their two budget proposals or their differences within their party and come up with a budget reconciliation that can be passed with a simple majority in the Senate.
		In other words, Republican votes only.
		And this is Punch Bowl News.
		The red lines begin.
		A dozen House Republicans say no to big Medicaid cuts.
		David Cass, your reaction to that reporting this morning.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, I think that's great.
		I think, again, the Republicans are feeling the heat that Americans don't want $880 billion in cuts to the Medicaid program.
		I mean, what is Medicaid?
		Medicaid is it helps seniors to afford nursing homes.
		It helps disabled people to get health care.
		It is one in four a burst in this country.
		People don't want health care ripped from Americans.
		And, you know, this idea that we're just cut, that Republicans are just cutting waste or fraud or abuse, you cannot cut that much from this program without taking away health insurance from Americans.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Pete Chup.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So if you don't have Medicaid cuts, then how do you pay for these extending the tax?
unidentified		First, we're not looking at Medicaid cuts.
		We're looking at slowdowns in the rate of increase in spending.
		Even the bipartisan policy center pointed out recently, for example, there's the Medicaid provider tax scam where states will raise that tax on willing providers in order to get more money from Washington into the system.
		It's been a scam that Barack Obama himself proposed to end and phase out in his own budget way back in 2013.
		Well, if you do reforms like that, you're going to achieve Medicaid savings over the long term that are not going to take away people's health care or insurance.
		It's going to make the system fairer.
		Now, paying for it, yeah, I'm one of the folks who says tax cuts don't necessarily just magically pay for themselves.
		We have to pay attention to the federal deficit.
		In either budget resolution that you want to look at, the Senate's version or the House version, they envision an increase in the national debt of between $5 and $6 trillion on top of 35 plus.
		We can't afford that.
		And we have come up with, along with left-wing organizations, ideas for reducing or controlling the growth of federal spending.
		With U.S. PIRG, a left-leaning group, we've identified $800 billion in budget savings.
		Just this morning, as part of the Pentagon Budget Campaign, a broad-based coalition that we're a part of.
		We're calling on President Trump to start looking at foreign military bases and whether we have too big of a footprint abroad.
		That could be a huge savings in military spending.
		We need to take a look at every area of the federal budget, not just from the Doge perspective of waste, fraud, and abuse, but prioritization of spending, because we haven't seen anything yet with the deficit situation with Social Security and Medicare on the line in the future.
		They are in bad shape financially, and tax increases are going to be swamped by the spending increases in those programs unless we get them under control.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's go to Marion in Athens, Georgia.
		Democratic caller, thanks for waiting.
		Your turn.
unidentified		Yes, thank you for taking my call.
		And you were just right where I wanted to go.
		We keep talking and arguing about tax cuts and about cuts or tax to the rich and taking away Medicaid.
		But listen, the problem is the debt and the money that we have to pay, the interest that we have to pay on the debt.
		The bottom line is until we do something about the debt, none of this is going to go away.
		My suggestion would be to have a national sales tax on everything but food and medicine of maybe 1% or a half of a percent to every time you buy something, everybody is paying a little bit on the debt.
		And that's, we would call it a deficit tax.
		Okay?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Marion, let's take your idea.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		David Cass.
unidentified		You know, look, there's a very simple way to reduce the cost of this bill.
		It would be to say everybody who makes under $400,000 a year, we would continue it, but everybody over $400 would get nothing.
		Why are Republicans, as Pete said, look, in the bill itself, they're going to increase the national debt limit by $400 or $5 trillion because they're not paying for it.
		They're cutting programs that workers and families rely on to give tax cuts to the wealthy, and they're increasing the debt.
		It's like the worst of all possible worlds.
		We're also not paying for all of the spending increases.
		That's the primary driver of our national debt in the future.
		Suppose we decide to go the route of preserving all the tax relief under $400,000 for those households, and we decide to, I don't know, double the tax rates for those making over $400,000.
		You might, you might, if you're lucky, raise a trillion dollars out of that.
		Federal government is going to spend 80 times, 100 times that much over the same period of time that you would realize that revenue.
		You could let all of the tax cuts expire.
		And as a percent of the economy, revenues would shoot up from about 17%, as the way they are now of GDP, to maybe 20%.
		Federal spending would go from 22 to 26% over the same period of time.
		If we don't attack the structural problems, which is interest on the national debt, the mistakes we made borrowing under Republican and Democratic administrations and the entitlement programs, not only Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, but other benefit programs that people are counting on, they aren't going to be around.
		Social Security faces a 21% reduction in benefits when the trust fund goes belly up about 10 years from now.
		Time is running out for people to get courage in this town and think about how they address those problems.
		So may I?
		Sure.
		So I think this is my favorite statistic.
		So the increase of the debt since 2000, 57% of it is due to the Trump tax cuts and the Bush tax cuts.
		So the majority of the increase in the debt is due to these tax cuts, which mostly benefited the wealthy.
		And if you take out the spending for COVID, which was one time, and you take out the spending in 08, 09 for the Great Recession, 90% of the increase in the debt is due to these tax cuts.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, David Cass, Washington Post editorial board says you can't take that money out of the equation, the money that Congress and the presidents at the time injected into the economy.
		And they say because of that and the situation we're in, America's ill-positioned for a recession.
		And this is what they argue.
		Until the financial crisis that began in 2008, U.S. government debt generally amounted to less than half of America's gross domestic product.
		That sole exception was World War II, when borrowing briefly drove the debt to 106% of GDP.
		As soon as the war ended, however, fiscally responsible legislators raced to bring down the debt to a sustainable level, and by 1956, it was once again back in the safe zone.
		The response to the global financial crisis 2008 dramatically altered this math.
		By the time President Barack Obama left office, the national debt was hovering around 75% of GDP.
		It expanded still further during the pandemic, approaching 100% of GDP in 2020.
		Like the World War II debt, most of this was incurred because the government was responding to an extraordinary emergency and borrowing as needed to fund many stimulus measures.
		After the emergency ended, though, policymakers made no effort to pay down the debt.
		The Biden administration and its congressional enablers chose instead to worsen the situation, running bigger and bigger deficits even as the economy recovered.
		5.3% in 2022, 6.1% in 2023, 6.3% in 2024.
unidentified		So I think that's absolutely right.
		And there are very clear ways that we could raise revenue to be able to pay down the debt.
		So this idea that we only can cut spending, look, if we raise the corporate tax rate to just to 28%, that would be more than a trillion dollars.
		If we raise the top income rate on those over $700,000, that would raise $600 billion.
		If we did this billionaire minimum income tax, that would be half a trillion dollars.
		You know, there are things that if we ask the wealth, the billionaires and big corporations to pay their fair share, we would raise revenue and be able to decrease the debt.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Peace that before you respond, the Washington Post editorial, what can be said with confidence is that the United States is ill-positioned to weather another economic storm because of the feckless policy decisions that have been made during the past decades.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		There's no room to go.
unidentified		It's called a lack of fiscal capacity.
		And here's the problem.
		If we were again to let the tax cuts all expire to contemplate a $4 trillion tax increase, sure, revenues would grow by 4%, 5% a year easily.
		The benefit programs are going to grow between 6 and 7% a year.
		They will be chasing that figure forever.
		And we have to make structural improvements to these benefit programs.
		Otherwise, nobody's going to have the benefits that they can count on.
		We need to realize, too, that there are other revenue-raising solutions besides punitive tax hikes that might reduce investment.
		We should be looking at spectrum auctions.
		The federal government owns a lot of airwaves.
		Those auctions have yielded hundreds of billions in revenues in the past.
		We should be looking at whether we're getting a fair return when there's oil and gas exploration or grazing on public lands.
		Those kinds of things can bring in revenues to the federal government, as well as working on the spending reductions.
		That would give us, I think, a path to return to fiscal sanity.
		We can't balance the budget in any reasonable amount of time, but I think Treasury Secretary Besson's goal of bringing the deficit back down toward 3% of the economy, GDP, every year, is a reasonable one.
		We're above 5% right now.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, David Cass, I'm going to give you Jim in Lafayette, Indiana, Republican who's joining us there.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Jim.
unidentified		Hi.
		I have a question and I guess kind of a comment for Mr. Cass and the other gentleman can add in.
		But basically the Democrats, you know, it's always tax the rich, tax the billionaires, tax the millionaires, tax the corporations.
		You know, my question/slash comment is how does how does taxing corporations and rich people more going to improve the lives of everyday Americans, you know, just giving more and more, taking money from Americans, giving it to the federal government.
		The more money the government gets, they're not going to improve the lives of everyday Americans.
		I mean, that's what I think.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's take your point, Jim.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		David Kassi.
unidentified		Look, it's a great question.
		Whatever our size of government, the question to me is, who should fund it?
		Is it just that we should tax working families or do rich people need to pay their fair share?
		And so, you know, if we're paying for national defense, if we're paying for health care, if we're paying for education, whatever the size of that government is, you know, I think my point is that the rich need to pay their fair share to fund it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Osper in Virginia.
		Sarah's a Democratic caller.
		Hi, Sarah.
unidentified		Hi.
		My question has to do with the distribution that the billionaires and millionaires have a way of investing their money and they never have to pay taxes on it.
		Here, the people who have invested in a 401k, when they change, when they turn 72 and a half, then that distribution has to come out.
		And it's at a higher tax rate, especially for people making about $150,000 or below.
		So my taxes have gone up a lot due to the distribution because my income has gone up.
		And I think that there should be a way to reform that distribution tax, especially for people who have invested all these years for the retirement and only see it to go for more and more taxes.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Sarah.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Pitch up.
unidentified		Yeah, legislation called the Secure 2.0 Act, which passed a few years ago, tried to address that RMD required minimum distribution problem and the taxes that were attended to it.
		They've still got a way to go to help smooth that out.
		And again, with an increased number of people saving and investing, which is a fantastic thing, over half of American households doing that with the stock market.
		It's vitally important that we not penalize that at the same time that Social Security has problems and pension systems outside of Social Security are weak.
		The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, a quasi-federal agency that's supposed to back up pensions, has traditionally had undercapitalization problems.
		And so we could wind up with a situation where there's a meltdown in federal finances, corporate pensions.
		People need those nest eggs and they need to be able to accumulate them without getting punished by the tax system.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Dick, who's in Sharpsburg, Georgia.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Republican, welcome to the conversation.
unidentified		Good morning, gentlemen.
		When Trump was in his first term, he was standing on a stage somewhere.
		They were accusing him of not paying his taxes or his fair share or whatever.
		And he was standing on a stage and behind him on the table was the federal tax code, 86,000 pages.
		And he said, like he said, you, Congress, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution says only Congress will lay and collect taxes to pay the debt.
		Not the IRS, not the Federal Reserve, not the Senate, not the President, only Congress.
		Now, you know perfectly well there's no way in the world did Congress write 86,000 pages of federal tax code.
		Trump at the time, I think he cut that almost in half, which was way, way, way too much.
		And I would imagine both of you men carry a copy of Neil Borch's book, The Fair Tax, around with you as if it was your Bible, because a federal sales tax only will solve every problem in this country.
		But boy, it will make all of our elected officials so accountable.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Dick, Dick, let's take what you had to say there.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		David Cass.
unidentified		Well, you know, look, I think we do know that President Trump, there were several years where he paid zero in taxes.
		You know, as a billionaire, is that, I mean, you know, we all have to pay taxes.
		Everyday Americans have to pay taxes.
		Why is there a separate system, essentially, where you can hire fancy accountants and lawyers and use all these loopholes to pay zero in taxes?
		And that's why we really need a better tax system that makes sure that the wealthy pay their fair share.
		What about his proposal?
		Well, you know, I think that the problem with a flat tax is that it really hits very hard to working families.
		It would have to increase their taxes and it would lower taxes on the very wealthy.
		So that's really the problem with it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
unidentified		The question is how we get there.
		Now, my organization tracks complexity in the tax code and the caller's right.
		The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act roughly reduced the amount of hours we spend every year on complying with the federal tax system by from 8 billion hours to 7 billion hours.
		That's still a huge sum when you consider the time value, the actual money that you give up spending that time and the out-of-pocket costs.
		It's about $460 billion a year, 20 cents on every income tax dollar collected.
		We do have to simplify the system.
		How do we get there?
		Well, there was an effort about 15 years ago led by Senator Ron Wyden called Cleanse the Code.
		A number of organizations, Citizens for Tax Justice, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, partners of yours, Dave, and on the conservative side, American Conservative Union, NTU and others, we united around three principles, simplification, the opportunity for all Americans to get ahead, and fiscal responsibility, three principles to guide tax reform going forward.
		Let's do it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, who fought it?
unidentified		A lot of interests who both rich and middle class and politicians who claim to represent both who like the status quo.
		You know, all these credits and deductions exist for a number of reasons, but a big one is so elected officials can take credit for having provided them.
		When they get a little less selfish and realize that we all benefit from a transparent system with a broad base, low simple rates, I think we're going to get somewhere.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		David Cass, would you agree?
unidentified		I would totally agree with that.
		You know, I think there are aspects of it.
		It's the Lawyer and Accountant Full Employment Act, right?
		It just creates lots and lots of hours and absolutely simplification.
		But I think the way we do simplification is to make sure, I mean, let's take, for example, the estate tax.
		You know, right now, If you have $28 million as a couple, you can pass that on tax-free.
		And some of the Republicans are talking about eliminating that.
		Well, you know, how rich do you have to be to be able to pass on $28 million tax-free?
		You know, we should be making sure that we're strengthening the estate tax.
		99% of Americans do not pay the estate tax.
		Absolutely, because they don't, you know, you have to be incredibly wealthy.
		Almost no family farms are impacted.
		Only 50 farms in the whole country each year pay any estate tax.
		So we should be strengthening the estate tax.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, I'm going to get final thoughts from both of you here about what you're watching for when House and Senate return next week and Republicans start to negotiate with themselves.
		David Cass.
unidentified		Well, I think one of the things that's been a big controversy is this current policy thing, right?
		So the Senate Republicans are saying, magic math.
		We can extend these tax cuts because, and we don't have to pay for it.
		And what they're arguing is because we're doing it now, if we do it in the future, it doesn't cost money.
		It's a little bit like saying, well, I'm paying Netflix each month.
		And moving forward, I don't have to pay for it because I'm discontinuing it.
		So that is just this magic math, which is terrible.
		And we'll see how that plays out.
		You know, they should pay for, you know, tax cuts need to be paid for.
		And I think the other big thing will be what happens with these big cuts.
		You know, do some of the Republican moderates really stand up and say, we don't want Medicaid cuts, we don't want snap cuts, we're not going to vote for it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Pete Seth.
unidentified		I happen to agree that as a fraught with risk strategy in the Senate side, we need to think about the deficit impact of tax and spending policies going forward.
		If we want to look at unfair tax subsidies, we're looking at salt.
		We're looking at the electric vehicle subsidies, many others that tend to skew toward the wealthy.
		We need to look at spending restraint.
		No one in Congress right now is talking about actually cutting spending.
		They're just trying to pull it back.
		The House's vision of $2 trillion and spending restraint has to be the starting point, not the end point.
		Both parties have to face up to the biggest drivers of the debt and the mismanagement of the debt, which is costing us trillions in interest over the future.
		We've got to address those problems along with maintaining pro-growth tax relief.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		You can find more out about Pete Seth and his group, the National Taxpayers Union, by going to NTU.org.
		And for more from David Cass and his group, he's the executive director of the Americans for Tax Fairness.
		Go to AmericansFortaxfairness.org.
		Thank you both for the conversation this morning.
		Appreciate it.
		Thanks for talking to our viewers.
		We'll take a break.
		Coming up on the Washington Journal, former CIA Russia analyst George Beebe will discuss the state of negotiations to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
		But first after this break, open forum.
		A lot of news to share with you and we can get your reaction to any public policy or political debate.
		There are the lines on your screen.
		Start dialing in.
unidentified		High schoolers, are you planning to take the Advanced Placement U.S. History exam on May 9th?
		Then join American History TV Saturday at 7 p.m. Eastern as high school history teacher Matthew Ellington and Southern Illinois University History Professor Jason Stacey, co-authors of Fabric of a Nation, a history with skills and sources for the AP U.S. history course.
		Talk about the exam.
		They'll explain how this year's exam is structured and provide strategies for answering questions and analyzing historical documents.
		Listen in on our discussion and be sure to take notes on the High School Advanced Placement U.S. History Exam 2025 Saturday at 7 p.m. Eastern on American History TV on C-SPAN 2.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		British writer Phil Tenline has written a book titled Ghosts of Iron Mountain.
		The publisher Scribner calls it an investigative masterpiece for readers curious about the surprising connection between John F. Kennedy, Oliver Stone, Timothy McVeigh, QAnon, Alex Jones, and Donald Trump.
		In his introduction, author Tinline says the book is the true story of a hoax, a hoax that shocked the nation in the late 1960s and that once created seemed impossible to extinguish.
		Those involved in the hoax include Victor Navaski, E.L. Doctorow, John Kenneth Galbraith, and the author, the writer, Leonard Lewin.
unidentified		Author Phil Tinline with his book, Ghosts of Iron Mountain, The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today.
		On this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
		Washington Journal continues.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And we are back here this morning on the Washington Journal in open forum.
		Any public policy issue or political debate that's on your mind, you can share with us this morning.
		I want to share this headline first before we get to calls.
		Washington Times judge warns of contempt after Trump defies order.
		Democrats turn MS-13 suspect into crusade is how the Washington Times frames this story this morning.
		The Washington Post, or excuse me, the New York Times, their headline on this is, Trump flirts with defying court order.
		Scholars raise alarm about path ahead.
		At the White House briefing yesterday, Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was asked about the refusal by the Trump administration and the El Salvadorian president to return the U.S. citizen Kilmar Garcia, a man from Maryland that was mistakenly deported.
unidentified		Administration officials made it very clear that El Salvador is responsible for Mr. Obrego Garcia, yet El Salvador's president said we're not going to do anything with him.
unidentified		So my question is, who is responsible for this man and where he's going to end up?
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		Well, no, first of all, President Bukeley said that he is not going to smuggle a foreign terrorist back into the United States of America, as many in this room in the Democrat Party seemingly want him to do.
		Abrego Garcia was a foreign terrorist.
		He is an MS-13 gang member.
		He was engaged in human trafficking.
		He illegally came into our country.
		And so deporting him back to El Salvador was always going to be the end result.
		There is never going to be a world in which this is an individual who's going to live a peaceful life in Maryland because he is a foreign terrorist and an MS-13 gang member.
		Not only have we confirmed that, President Bukeley yesterday in the Oval Office confirmed that as well.
		So he went back to his home country where he will face consequences for his gang affiliation and his engagement in human trafficking.
		I'm not sure what is so difficult about this for everyone in the media to understand.
		And it's appalling, truly appalling, that there has been so much time covering this alleged human trafficker and this gang member, MS-13 gang member.
		It's truly striking to me.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Caroline Lovett at the White House briefing yesterday responding to questions about that deportation.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Another wife of Kilmar Garcia spoke to supporters in the media yesterday in Belkesville, Maryland, just outside of Washington.
unidentified		Here's a portion of what she had to say: If you can hear me, stay strong.
		God hasn't forgotten about you.
		Our children are asking, when will you come home?
jennifer vasquez sura ▲ ● ▼		And I pray for the day I tell them the time and date that you'll return.
unidentified		As we continue through Holy Week, my heart aches for my husband, who should have been here leading our Easter prayers.
		Instead, I find myself pleading with the Trump administration and the Bukele administration to stop playing political games with the life of Kilmar.
		Our family is torn apart during this scary time, and our children miss their dad so much.
		Enough is enough.
		My family can't be robbed from another day without seeing Kilmar.
		This administration has already taken so much from my children, from Kilmar's mother, brother, sisters, and me.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Kilmar Garcia's wife in Maryland yesterday responding to the Trump administration's refusal to bring him back to the United States.
		Senator Chris Van Holland on X posting yesterday that today he'll be flying to El Salvador.
		He says that Mr. Garcia was illegally abducted by the Trump administration by their own admission, wrongly deported to El Salvador.
		He shouldn't have to spend another second away from his family.
		So the senator said he's going to fly to El Salvador today to check on his condition and discuss his return.
		We're an open forum.
		You can talk about this issue or others.
		Let's go to Jeff first, who's in Nebraska, Republican.
		Jeff, what's on your mind?
unidentified		Oh, I just had a couple thoughts listening to your last guess.
		I agree, you're like either a flat tax or a consumption tax.
		It even catches undocumented people.
		So everybody would be paying, but I've never gotten a job from somebody on welfare.
		We need the billionaires to create the jobs.
		And it seems like our senators and our federal government on both sides seem to find a way to be millionaires in a few years with a salary of $170,000.
		So maybe they got the secret to success.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		That's all.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Cindy in Maryland, Democratic caller.
		Hi, Cindy.
		Good morning to you.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		Wow.
		So hard to pick one item.
		First of all, I really enjoyed your whoever, those two men were talking about the tax code and tax issues.
		And I completely agree that new streams of tax revenue have to be identified, especially those that he brought up that benefit the wealthy.
		That is just insane.
		But there's always new things I'm finding out that I am shocked by lately.
		The other thing I wanted to say was: you know, I live in Maryland.
		I grew up in an area that was very close to a neighborhood that was known to have whatever that gang is.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		MS-13.
unidentified		Yes.
		Anyway, we would drive through there.
		We would drive near there.
		It's not a cesspool.
		Sure, there are areas in every county, every city, every place I've been to that have areas you want to avoid.
		But just because someone looks that way, may live here.
		Come on, people.
		We all know people in our communities.
		You could look at them and say they're a member.
		They have a tattoo on their neck.
		So what?
		It's just, it's absolutely disgusting that no one in that administration seems to believe in truth and fact.
		And how I don't, I have huge cognitive dissonance right now, and I have to do my own research.
		So Caroline Levit, she says that it's proven he is a gang member.
		Yet, I keep hearing the Trump administration said he is not, and he had no criminal behavior, no record, et cetera, et cetera.
		So what is the truth?
		I would love it if somehow we could get to the bottom of that.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Cindy and Maryland.
		James, in Rome, Georgia, an independent.
		We'll hear from you, James.
unidentified		Oh, yes.
		Thank you, Greta.
		I have three quick issues.
		They want to statement.
		First of all, black people, worry about your own base, the Democratic Party.
		You're polling at 29%, the lowest it's ever been.
		These people cannot vote for you.
		Worry about these black people who are going through this illegal injustice in this criminal justice system.
		Also, Greta, I would like for you to pull up the article about why the Trump administration has moved $450 billion worth of gold to seek ahead the military to secret locations in the United States.
		This is the reason why he's trying to kill the dollar.
		The dollar.
		$450 billion gold was moved to secret locations out of Fort Knox.
		And finally, finally, everyone is talking about the Hispanic.
		The majority of Hispanic men voted for Trump.
		They voted for this.
		They need to accept it now.
		And in their communities and things, they need to talk to each other.
		Why are black people worried about this when we are suffering?
		We are the worst and we are the base and we get nothing from the Democratic Party.
		They're so sorry that they won't do anything they're worried about.
		It's real, but they want to vote.
		Black men, stop voting for the Democratic Party and black women until they come through for you and promise you what they are going to do in the midterms.
		Otherwise, accept what Trump is doing.
		Thank you.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		James Fuss there in Rome, Georgia.
		Earlier this morning, the President's Attorney General Pam Bondi held a news conference to announce legal action against the state of Maine over the participation of transgender athletes in girls' sports.
		Here's a little bit of what the AG had to say.
pam bondi ▲ ● ▼		In February 2025, a biological boy won first place in the poll vaulting competition in Maine's indoor track and field meet.
		He beat every other girl by a significant margin.
		That qualified him for regional championships.
		That took a spot away from a young woman in women's sports.
		Shame on him.
		February 21st, 2025, President Trump has the governors at the White House.
		President Trump has the exchange with Janet Mills.
		He asked her about the issue.
		Her response, we'll see you in court.
		Well, we still didn't sue.
		HHS and the Department of Ed opened investigations in an attempt to get them to comply.
		They both found violations.
		And in March, Maine refused to comply.
		I want to read you this letter.
		This is from the Maine Attorney General to the Department of Education.
		We will not sign the resolution agreement.
		We do not have revisions or a counterproposal.
		We agree we are at an impasse.
		Nothing in Title IX or its implementing regulations prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls and women's sports teams.
		Well, they must not be reading the same Title IX that we're reading.
		We believe they are failing to protect women, and it's not only an issue in sports.
		It is a public safety issue.
		These boys are allowed to go in women's restrooms.
		They are allowed to go in the women's dressing rooms and get fully naked and change in biological boys and change clothes in front of these young women.
		Maine's leadership has refused to comply at every turn.
		So now we have no other choice.
		We are taking them to court.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Pambondi, the president's attorney general there, announcing legal action against Maine this morning.
		You can find her news conference on our website at c-span.org.
		Also, C-SPAN coverage today includes the President Eastern prayer service and dinner that'll take place at the White House.
		You can watch coverage of that at 6.30 p.m. Eastern Time on C-SPAN 2 on our free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW or online at c-span.org.
		And the markets will be watching Jerome Powell today.
		Excuse me, I'll start there with RFK Jr.
		He's also having an event today at 11 a.m. Eastern Time, Rise in Autism Among Children.
		That's what he's talking about.
		And our coverage of that at 11 a.m. Eastern Time on C-SPAN, C-SPANNOW, or C-SPAN.org.
		Jerome Powell, as I said, the markets will be watching what he has to say, the Federal Reserve Chair at the Economic Club of Chicago.
		And that's at 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time.
		Live coverage on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, online on demand at c-span.org.
		Back to Open Forum.
		Darren, Colorado Springs, Democratic Caller.
		Hi, Darren.
		Oh, let me punch the line.
		Darren, good morning to you.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		I haven't called in a while.
		I just had a kind of question for you.
		But first, the clip you just showed of Pam Bondi had just a short comment about that.
		I love how they distract with that, with all we got going on the news.
		But the gal to the right of Pamboni, I believe, was a professional swimmer.
		And her husband was going to get deported.
		And I guess since she's kind of always on the backstage of whatever Trump's speaking, everything, I guess, I guess her husband got to stay.
		I'm not sure.
		I'd be interested in looking into that.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Riley Gaines, you're talking about.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		She was standing next to the Attorney General there.
unidentified		Correct.
		Yeah, I was curious what happened with her husband.
		Yeah, because apparently he was deported, but you don't hear anything about that anymore.
		And I think if we were, there's cases of biological males changing in front of female athletes in the bathroom.
		We'd be hearing a lot more about that, just as I can't trust coming out of her mouth.
		But in regards to Mr. Garcia, I've been scouring news sources in the internet trying to find any reliable facts that he was a member of MS-13.
		And the only thing I could come up with was supposedly he has a tattoo that resembles something and that he, when he was younger living there, he was pressured to join.
		I was just curious if you had any other sources pointing to some MS-13 connection because I believe the administration said they made an error.
		So I was just wondering, if there's anything out there that I'm not reading that you might know of.
		Thank you.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Darren there in Colorado Springs.
		Jeffrey in Ohio, Independent.
		Jeffrey, what's on your mind?
unidentified		Yeah, I'm just passing on a personal note that I'm always sort of, I don't know, excited about.
		My father, Frederick Thayer, appeared on Washington Journal back in 1995.
		He had been, and he appeared on Washington Journal as a result of a series of letters to the editor that he had posted in Washington, D.C. newspapers.
		This was at a time when the Republican Party was, they had an initiative for a, I guess, a constitutional amendment that would require balanced budgets.
		And he had done some research and had been posting a series of letters to the editor that had been published in local newspapers there in Washington.
		He was living there teaching at George Washington University at the time.
		And his letters ultimately got him on C-SPAD because the hostess there that morning on Washington Journal pointed out the fact that they had seen his letters to the editor in the local newspapers, and they had to bring him on the show to discuss his letters.
		And I just find that interesting because his comments at the time, his arguments about against balanced budgets and in favor of deficit spending were interesting then in 1995 and they are certainly interesting today, considering the top the all the discussion about our, our federal debt and the need to reduce spending,
		balance budgets and make corrections obviously in our public spending.
		And I just find that fascinating when I think back on the fact that he was there.
		He was there on Washington Journal 30 years ago and what he was discussing and what other people discussed similarly are still with us today.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right Jeffrey, I'm gonna leave it there.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Lynn in Charlotte, North Carolina Republican.
unidentified		Good morning dear, I hope you are well.
		Thank you that are calling in.
		I just you know, give me a second here, but they're this father of the year number one, this MS 13 gang member.
		It doesn't change the fact he was here illegally.
		There's process that you need to be vetted to come into the United States and if you've got kids, I mean, for God's sake, do you not want their safety?
		And as far as the Maryland caller that said oh, they might not look like us, so you just don't go to that part of town.
		But here's the whole thing about that.
		How would these parents?
		these people, Democrats especially, how would you feel if it was your child that was brutally murdered, raped, killed?
		I mean, how would you feel?
		There's mothers out here that has lost their children to these illegal immigrants.
		You know, I don't get it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So, Lynn, what if he is not a gang member, though?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		That he had, you know, escaped according to documents already proved.
unidentified		There was already two courts that have proved that he was.
		And so, you know, regardless of that, he's here from El Salvador illegally.
		You have got, we've got to keep get our act together here in America.
		You know, if you don't like Trump's way of life, he's trying to keep us safe.
		And look, I only have one daughter, okay?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, let me read this, Lynn.
		Let me read this for you and others.
		This is from Yahoo News.
		Is Kilmar Garcia a U.S. citizen?
		He is not a U.S. citizen.
		He is a citizen of El Salvador.
		However, he was legally allowed to be in the United States because a federal immigration judge granted him a legal protective order in 2019 to prevent his removal to El Salvador.
		Court records say that Mr. Garcia left El Salvador when he was 16 in 2011 to get away from gang violence, claiming that a rival gang to MS-13 was threatening him and his mother's food business.
		So this, according to yahooenews.com.
		Flyer in North Carolina, Democratic Caller.
		Flyer?
unidentified		I'm a Vicato Native background person, and this call is about our newly elected Wisconsin Supreme Court lady.
		And she's very intelligent.
		And she said, in no uncertain terms, this seat is not for sale.
ron in oklahoma ▲ ● ▼		I want to see that on every sign of every marcher.
unidentified		Thank you.
unidentified		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		That was Flyer in North Carolina.
		We're going to take another break.
		When we come back, we'll end today's Washington Journal with a conversation about the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
		Joining us will be the director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, George Beebe.
		We'll be right back.
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greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We want to welcome back to our table George Beebe.
		He's the Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and he's the former special advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney on Russia and former CIA Russia analyst analysis chief.
		Good morning to you.
		Thank you for being here.
		Let's start with the where it stands, peace, possible peace between Ukraine and Russia, and the fighting between these two countries.
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, the fighting is certainly continuing.
		We have a situation where President Trump has come into office and said this war needs to end.
		He is resolutely seeking a settlement of the war.
		But while that is going on, the fighting on the battlefield is continuing.
		And the Russians are continuing to grind down Ukrainian forces.
		This has become a war of attrition.
		The Russians are taking advantage of their superior population size, their superior military-industrial production relative to Ukraine and the West overall.
		And their hope is that they're going to continue to grind down the Ukrainian military and make it increasingly difficult for the Ukrainians to put on the battlefield a well-trained and well-equipped army.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Where is Russia getting help in their fight?
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, they're not getting a lot of direct military help.
		The direct military help they're getting seems to be coming largely from North Korea and to some degree from Iran.
		The North Koreans have provided some soldiers.
		They've also provided artillery shells, which is a critical part of this war.
		It's largely a very artillery-heavy war.
		The Iranians have helped with drones.
		The Chinese have not provided direct military help, but they provided a lot of dual-use commercial products, help with machine tools, for example, semiconductors that have both civilian and military purposes.
		So the Chinese have been an enabler, but not a direct military benefactor of the Russians.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You said Russia is relying on its vast military resources.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How do their resources compare to the help that the United States has given to Ukraine?
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, the Russians have really stepped up their military-industrial production.
		They've put their factories on a war footing.
		And so they have greatly increased their production of artillery shells and missiles, drones, the kinds of things that are most useful in this conflict.
		And they're out-producing the combined output of the United States, Europe, and Ukraine.
		I think one of the realities that this war has highlighted is that both Europe and the United States don't have the kind of military-industrial production that we once did during the Cold War.
		And so right now, if you look at this as a military-industrial arms race over Ukraine, the Russians are winning that.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to the map that we're showing our viewers, if we can bring that back up on the screen.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		George Beebe, I mean, when you look at Ukraine and Russia, the red, the land between the two, what is happening here?
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, the Russians are slowly increasing those red areas.
		It's incremental at this point.
		But it's also deceiving, because in a war of attrition, if you look at the pace at which the front lines are moving, you can get a misleading picture of how the war is going.
		Those front lines aren't moving westward very fast.
		The Russians are not breaking through territorially.
		But what they are doing is they're systematically eroding Ukraine's ability to put a fighting force in the field.
		They're wearing down Ukraine's military, using up Ukrainian soldiers and forcing Ukraine to expend ammunition and missiles that they don't have a lot of.
		So if you look at this war of attrition not as movement on a map, but changes in numbers as to what the Ukrainians can use to fight the war, it's not going very well for the Ukrainians right now.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We want to welcome our viewers to join us in this conversation.
		We'll take your questions about the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
		Start dialing in now.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		And Independents 202-748-8003.
		Text with your question or comment as well.
		Include your first name, city and state, to 202-748-8003.
		George Beebe, I want to show our viewers and get your reaction to Steve Witkoff, who is the U.S. Special Envoy.
		He's talking to Fox News about his meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.
		Here's what he had to say.
sean hannity ▲ ● ▼		Is there with Putin a deal emerging or is he trying to buy time knowing that Putin sees a window of opportunity without hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars in weaponry, you know, giving him a military advantage?
sean hannity ▲ ● ▼		Do you really see a deal emerging?
unidentified		Are you confident?
steve witkoff ▲ ● ▼		I think you used the very good word there, Sean, emerging.
		I do.
		This is the third meeting I've had with him.
		This last meeting lasted close to five hours.
		We had two of his key advisors in the room at the time, Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev.
		And it was a compelling meeting.
		And towards the end, we actually came up with, and I'm going to say finally, but I don't mean it in the way that we were waiting.
		I mean it in the way that it took a while for us to get to this place.
		What Putin's request is to have a permanent peace here.
		So beyond a ceasefire, we got an answer to that.
sean hannity ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and will the deal include things that maybe are out of the box that people aren't thinking about now?
		I would imagine Vladimir Putin probably would want to be in business with the U.S. and with Europe.
		Is that a potential that could come out of this?
steve witkoff ▲ ● ▼		There's no doubt about it.
		I mean, this peace deal is about these so-called five territories, but there's so much more to it.
		There's security protocols.
		There's no NATO, NATO, Article 5.
		I mean, it's just a lot of detail attached to it.
		It's a complicated situation from rooted in some real problematic things happening between the two countries.
		And I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very, very important for the world at large.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		George Bibi, I want you to react to what you heard from Steve Witkoff.
		And then also, given your experience as the special advisor on Russia to the Vice President, former CIA, Russia analysis chief, what do you think Vladimir Putin would ultimately agree to?
		What does he want?
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, the Russians have consistently talked about the need to address the root causes, as they call them, of this conflict.
		Now, what does that mean?
		I think it means several things.
		One, it's geopolitical.
		The Russians believe that Ukraine was increasingly becoming a de facto military ally of the United States.
		And as that process was continuing, the chances that it would one day become a part of the NATO alliance with a formal Article V guarantee were increasing.
		And that's something that the Russians found profoundly threatening.
		The notion that Ukraine might be a military ally of the United States, and the United States in turn might put strike weaponry on Ukrainian soil that could threaten Russia was something that they found completely unacceptable.
		So one of the things that they believe has to be a part of a settlement is a firm guarantee that Ukraine's not going to be in NATO and NATO forces are not going to be in Ukraine.
		So that's number one.
		Number two, there is an issue of the treatment of ethnic Russians, Russian speakers on Ukrainian territory.
		This has long been a matter of contention between Russia and Ukraine.
		The Russians believe that these minorities have not been well treated, that the Ukrainian government has taken steps to impede the use of Russian language and otherwise restrict freedom of speech, freedom of religion, those sorts of things for these minority groups in Ukraine.
		They believe that this is an issue that has to be addressed as part of a settlement.
		Now, there are other concerns that they have about the size of the Ukrainian military and its potential to threaten Russia with offensive attacks into Russian territory.
		That's going to have to be a part of a settlement as well.
		So now, they also talk about denazification of Ukraine, which they've never really defined.
		But in general, I think their belief has been that since 2014, when the Maidan Revolution occurred, extreme nationalists have grown more and more influential inside the Ukrainian government.
		The Russians find this prospect threatening.
		They want to do something about that.
		So, and then finally, the issue of territory.
		There are parts of Ukrainian territory which historically have been either part of Russia or part of the Russian Empire.
		And when the Soviet Union broke up, those territories became no longer a part of Russia, but a part of Ukraine as an independent state.
		I think the Russians were willing to live with that situation so long as they were content that the overall relationship between Ukraine and Russia would be non-hostile.
		But increasingly, they've become convinced that it is a hostile relationship.
		And truth be told, Russia's done more than its share of ensuring that this relationship has become hostile to the degree that it has.
		All that said, all of these are things that the Russians regard as root causes.
		They want to address these things in a settlement.
		Now, how do you get there?
		That's the next question.
		And here's where I think we've run into some trouble.
		Part of what you have to do is establish trust with the Russian government, that you're actually interested in a real settlement that addresses some of these root causes.
		I think Special Envoy Witkoff has done an excellent job of starting to build that trust.
		It's going to be a long-term process.
		You can't do it just in a handful of meetings.
		But I think we've done well on that score.
		The other thing you have to do, though, is start big, which is somewhat counterintuitive.
		I think the approach that we've tried to take so far is let's get a ceasefire in place, end the fighting, the hostilities, and then get into these bigger issues, which are going to be hard to address.
		I don't think that is going to be successful.
		I think, in fact, you have to do something that's counterintuitive.
		Start with the big picture, the big issues.
		Put in place a framework.
		What is the geopolitical bargain going to look like?
		And then, under that umbrella, start to negotiate some of these details, which are going to take some time.
		So rather than having an early ceasefire, you have an early framework for what the fundamental compromise is going to look like.
		Then you negotiate the details of that compromise, which is going to take a while.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Excuse me.
		But we'll go to Tom, who's in New York.
		Independent.
unidentified		Thank you, Prasid, Sam.
		There has been a lot of social media clickbait news over the duration of this conflict about its impacts directly on U.S. commodity prices, particularly gasoline.
		I'm wondering about your perspective on the realities of that.
		Thank you.
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't think that the fighting in Ukraine has had a significant impact on world oil prices.
		That market is driven by other fundamentals.
		And I think the market has reacted much more strongly to the tariffs that have been announced by the Trump administration than it has to the reduced direct energy trade between Russia and the West that resulted after the invasion in 2022.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Mark in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Independent.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Mark.
unidentified		Yeah, hello.
		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I am very pleased to be able to talk to someone from the Cheney orbit, who ordinarily I would be at complete odds with, but things have changed so much over the past few years that here I am approving of Liz Cheney and thus approving of her father's position in the last election.
		But it lists you as being the director of grand strategy for your organization.
		I too have a background, number one, with Russia and Russians, and number two, with strategy.
		And I think, unfortunately, Ukraine got drawn into this Trench warfare thing with Russia where just sheer numbers are going to wear them down and they're going to lose unless they manage to get help from their allies in Europe or us.
		Doesn't look like they're going to get it from us.
		So they are very dependent on Europe drawing together for them.
		If they can't get that going, they better start making deals and they better hope Trump starts to like them better because otherwise everything is going Putin's way.
		This Woodcock is just incapable of keeping up with Putin and his experience in negotiating and winning such negotiations.
		I guess that's all I got.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mark.
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, yeah, I think what the Ukrainians lack in this war is first and foremost manpower.
		And there's not a lot that the West can do to help them on this issue unless we're willing to put boots on the ground, so to speak, in Ukraine, which so far we are not.
		And I doubt the Europeans can, because that would mean direct warfare with Russia, a nuclear superpower.
		And that would not go well for anybody involved.
		I think it would probably be quite catastrophic for all parties.
		And the Europeans have been talking about putting a so-called reassurance force on the ground in Ukraine.
		I think it's virtually certain that the Russians would attack any European forces on the ground in Ukraine almost immediately, because were they not to do that, they would be signaling to the West that they're not going to attack and almost encouraging the West to bolster the numbers.
		So, you know, a small force of, say, 5,000 would become 20,000, which would ultimately become 100 or 200,000.
		The Russians are not willing to see that happen.
		So I'm quite certain that they would strike any deployment from the West in Ukraine very early on and draw a very hard line.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Go back to your time advising the Vice President Dick Cheney, the George W. Bush administration, and then the President, George Bush, talking about resetting or trying diplomatic relations with Putin.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What was the concern at the time and why was that effort made?
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think to some degree every U.S. administration since the end of the Cold War has pursued an improved relationship with Russia.
		Under Clinton, of course, this was a central feature of his foreign policy.
		And he essentially attempted to transform Russia to encourage political liberalization and market reforms in the hope that Russia would become more or less like a normal Western country.
		That obviously didn't go well, and that's a long discussion in and of itself.
		But under George W. Bush, the hope was that Russia would become a partner in the war against terrorism.
		The belief was that we had a common foe and we could cooperate with each other against terrorists, and that would be the basis for a strategic partnership.
		That was only somewhat successful, but it got derailed for a couple of reasons.
		One, Russia did not continue to liberalize politically the way we had hoped and anticipated.
		That made it very hard for us to continue to cooperate with a country that looked increasingly authoritarian.
		But the other part of this was we had very different geopolitical goals.
		The United States was hoping to build essentially a NATO-centric Europe, which by definition excluded Russia.
		And the Russians were not willing to let that happen.
		So that became an increasing friction point.
		Under Obama, we pursued what we called the reset quite famously in the hope that we could simply set aside some of our differences and build cooperation.
		But once again, that was premised on the hope that Russia would be more or less liberalizing and democratizing over time, and that we could continue to pursue that NATO-centric European agenda.
		And once again, it got derailed.
		So we're now in a situation where Trump is attempting to build a new relationship with Russia, but I think it differs from these previous efforts at resets.
		He's not expecting Russia to transform itself internally.
		I think he's saying we're going to deal with each other as great powers.
		And that is not going to feature a U.S. effort to change Russia from within.
		We're going to try to find a way to cooperate in areas where our interests overlap.
		And we're going to try to manage those aspects of the relationship where our interests clash with one another.
		And I think that's a fundamentally much more sound approach to dealing with Russia.
		And the other thing I think we're saying is we're not going to continue to try to turn Europe into a NATO-centric security architecture.
		We recognize that the Russians are going to have to have a role in European security.
		In fact, I think there's a recognition that you're not going to have European security if you build it against Russia.
		There's going to have to be some element of Russian involvement, some diplomatic engagement there, and that's what we're starting to try to do.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		I wonder what that means for our relationship with Ukraine.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		First, before you answer that, here is the President of Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky on CBS's 60 Minutes, talking about his country's relationship with the United States.
unidentified		does the united states have your back not be too many people problem don't want to get even in this pause of mine there's a problem because i want to answer truthfully and quickly that the united states is our strategic strong partner up the pause that said
		But the pause is doubt.
		I don't doubt that the people of America are with us.
scott pelley ▲ ● ▼		But in a long war, many details are forgotten.
scott pelley ▲ ● ▼		In Europe, everyone fears that the United States may drift away from Europe.
unidentified		And you do without the United States?
scott pelley ▲ ● ▼		I think without the United States, we will suffer great losses, human and territorial.
unidentified		So I wouldn't like to consider that.
scott pelley ▲ ● ▼		This is our destiny, our land, our life.
unidentified		One way or another, we will end this war.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Beebe.
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think unsurprisingly, Zelensky and Ukraine are seeking essentially security guarantees from the United States, the equivalent of an Article V commitment that the United States will go to war to protect Ukraine from invasion from Russia.
		That's something that no American president has been willing to do.
		President Obama was not willing to do that when Russia annexed Crimea and launched an all-but overt war in the Donbass region of Ukraine.
		President Biden was not willing to do that when Russia mounted the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
		And President Trump has indicated quite clearly that the United States is not going to go to war to protect Ukraine from Russia.
		So it's natural that the Ukrainians would want that, but it's not something that we're going to do.
		So the question here is, what can we do to ensure that Ukraine emerges from this conflict, an independent state, with an ability to reconstruct itself, anchor itself in the West, but not get the kind of concrete security guarantees that Ukraine wants and which we're not willing to provide, nor should we.
		The United States should not go to war with Russia over Ukraine.
		That would go nuclear.
		It would be a catastrophic result for everybody involved.
		But I think we do have an opportunity to fashion a settlement here that protects Ukrainian independence, that ends the war, that allows Ukraine to pursue membership in the European Union, which in turn can have a profound effect on Ukraine's ability to reconstruct itself, to prosper, to build a viable independent state.
		And that's, I think, the fundamental bargain that we're going to have to strike with the Russians.
		We agree that Ukraine is not going to be in NATO.
		We agree that NATO is not going to put forces in Ukraine.
		And in return, the Russians agree that they will support Ukraine's pursuit of membership in the European Union.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Will Ukraine have to give up territory?
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the reality is that Ukraine is not going to be able to drive the Russian military off of occupied territory.
		And they've already shown that they're not able to do that.
		They launched a counteroffensive in 2023 with great fanfare, which made almost zero progress in driving the Russians off occupied territory.
		So that's not going to happen.
		And I think it's very unreasonable to expect that you're going to recover at the negotiating table what you've not been able to capture on the battlefield.
		So that doesn't mean that Ukraine will have to acknowledge formally and legally that occupied territory is part of Russia.
		I think what they're going to have to wind up with is a situation where they agree that they're not going to try to change that by force, that this is going to have to be done by political and diplomatic means over time.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		George Beebe is our guest.
		He'll take your questions and your comments about Ukraine and Russia, the war there, and a possible peace deal negotiated by the Trump administration.
		Mark in Michigan, independent.
		Let's hear from you.
unidentified		Oh, thank you very much.
		I'm curious.
		I know we, United States, like technology and all the rest of good jobs.
		Why can't we?
		I seen the Tesla static machine was able to shoot down a drone.
		Why can't the United States offer a Tesla-type static machine so Ukraine can actually shoot down the drones that are infiltrating their lands and give them a half a chance to defend, just like Trump wants to put an iron dome on the United States?
		That's the Tesla static machine if you actually want to work with it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, Mark, we'll take your comment about drones.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		George Beebe.
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the reality is that the United States is, in fact, helping the Ukrainians shoot down drones, and the Ukrainians are doing an awful lot of that.
		The problem really is the numbers involved.
		The Russians are using enormous numbers of drones.
		They're also using some technical countermeasures to make it more difficult to jam these drones and shoot them down.
		But if the problem were only drones, we would probably not be in the situation that we're in right now.
		The bigger problem is missile strikes and glide bombs, which the Russians have increasing numbers of, and which you really have to address with advanced surface-to-air missile systems.
		And the United States just doesn't have enough of them right now to provide the Ukrainians with the air defense capabilities that they need.
		And we can't build new surface-to-air missile systems quickly enough to address the issues that the Ukrainians have in time.
		So this is a real dilemma.
		There's an enormous air defense problem for Ukraine, which, you know, if we had 10 years, we could probably solve.
		But I doubt the Ukrainians have 10 years.
		They're going to run out of men well before that.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Ken in Virginia, independent.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Morning to you.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		You mentioned that trust is a great issue here, obviously.
		Both sides don't trust the other.
		And historically, we're trying to get Russia to liberalize their political system, get more in line with America.
		But it seems to me that is Trump trying to gain Putin's trust by reversing our political system to make it more like the current Russia?
		He's taken a lot of steps that are not quite democratic, in my opinion, and against our Constitution.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Beebe, we'll get a response.
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, I won't comment on what Trump is doing domestically.
		That's a big issue that's well beyond the subject that we have here dealing with Russia and Ukraine.
		I will say that some of the things that Trump has done in, for example, addressing USAID programs and activities are things that are going to be reassuring to the Russians.
		Much of what USAAD was doing was well beyond providing humanitarian relief and the kinds of things that many people associate with international aid.
		A lot of the programs had to do with what we called governance.
		It had to do with funding non-governmental organizations in other countries that were actual political actors who were attempting to change political systems internally in many of these other countries.
		The Russians were far from the only country that found that sort of thing threatening, but that was certainly something that they had profound objections to.
		And the fact that Trump is taking action in this area does send a signal to the Russians that we're really not all about trying to change Russia from within, that we want to deal with Russia in more of a traditional diplomatic sense, where we engage in balance of power and balancing interests and managing areas where we have disagreements.
		And that's something that I think the Russians are far more comfortable with.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Here is a post from one of our viewers.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		They want to know, Mr. Beebe, what negotiation points do you feel are the most important for the U.S. and democracy in terms of securing enduring peace in the war?
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the critical things that we've got to do is create a bargain that all sides feel address their core interests.
		You can't have a situation where we coerce the Russians into capitulation.
		They're not going to agree to that, and they've got the military wherewithal to ensure that that can't happen.
		We're also not going to be able to force feed a settlement on Ukraine, essentially twist their arms into capitulating to Russia and giving in to all their demands.
		So in between those two extremes, we've got to find a way to create a settlement that the Russians see as addressing their core concerns and Ukraine does as well.
		Now, that's where I think EU membership for Ukraine is a very attractive part of all of this.
		That's something that Ukraine's government could point to and say, yeah, we lost enormous numbers of people.
		Yes, we've lost territory at least temporarily.
		But we have secured something that is historically significant for Ukraine.
		We have an opportunity to anchor Ukraine politically and economically in the European Union, in the West, rebuild ourselves, and that is a path toward a very bright future.
		That's the kind of thing that I think Ukrainians would find attractive.
		And the interesting part of this is that the Russians, early on after this invasion in 2022, did in fact negotiate with Ukraine over ending the war.
		And one of the things that they seemed to agree on was Ukraine would agree to being militarily neutral, to stop seeking membership in the NATO alliance.
		And Russia agreed that it would support Ukraine joining the EU.
		And I think right now, one of the things we need to do is nail that down, get the Russians to commit to that.
		Now, once you do that, then you can start negotiating some very difficult things, like, you know, what is the line of contact separating the two sides?
		What kind of monitoring arrangements are you going to build into all of this?
		What does the balance of forces look like between Russia, Ukraine, and NATO overall?
		That's going to have to be some tough negotiating over what are essentially arms control provisions.
		And the Russians very much want to do that.
		And I think that's something that is going to have to be a part of all this.
		But the negotiations on this are going to be very difficult.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Sam, who's watching in Georgia, Democratic Caller.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Sam, go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, and thank you for C-SPAN again.
		I wanted to ask the question you touched on it a few minutes ago about oil.
		I've noticed that the price of oil on the market has been coming down recently.
		And I know that years ago we were importing a lot of oil from Russia.
		But going forward, there are no tariffs against the Russian.
		We don't have any tariffs at all against Russia.
		So is Putin using these, his oil exports, to fund his war?
		Or where is this money coming from to continue his war machine and continue the war from the Russian point of view?
		All right, Sam.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mr. Beaver.
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, the United States has not imposed tariffs on Russia largely because we have almost no trade between the United States and Russia and haven't since the beginning of this invasion.
		But we do have quite extensive economic sanctions on Russia and those remain in place.
		Yes, the world oil market has declined.
		The price of oil has declined.
		I think it's largely the market's reaction to tariffs and its concern that the imposition of these tariffs will result in a global recession.
		And in the context of a global recession, the price of oil is going to go down.
		So that's the market anticipating where things might go.
		And that does, in fact, have an impact on Russia and its ability to generate revenues through energy exports and in turn use those profits to fund the war.
		And I would imagine that the decline in the oil market has definitely gotten Putin's attention.
		This is something that really strikes home.
		I don't think the motive in imposing these tariffs had anything to do with trying to make Putin more uncomfortable economically, but I do think it has gotten his attention.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Here is Hollywood legend with this post on X.
		I have one question.
		Was it a mistake for us to overthrow their duly elected government in 2014?
		Is that question related to this headline from Foreign Policy magazine, the stubborn legend of a Western coup in Ukraine?
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, yeah, this gets back to the Maidan Revolution.
		And this was a situation where Russia and the United States and the West have starkly different interpretations of what went on.
		The Russians believe this was essentially a coup d'etat where street action in the Ukrainian capital essentially forced a legitimately elected government, presidency, to abdicate and leave the country.
		And there had been an agreement that had been negotiated between Russia, the United States, and Europe to hold early elections where the president would be subject to popular will.
		But this coup d'état, as the Russians call it, essentially precluded that and launched a process that the Russians found quite disturbing.
		Now, the United States position on this was: this was not something that we orchestrated, not something that we directed.
		It's something that happened and we had to react to it.
		The Russian position was this street action may not have been directed by the United States, but the United States had been very much involved with Ukrainian non-governmental organizations for many, many years, had funneled an awful lot of money and training to these organizations.
		And they essentially did things that the United States had enabled them to do through training and funding.
		So the Russians saw this essentially as a U.S.-inspired extra-constitutional change of government.
		And the United States sort of viewed this as, you know, this is the voice of the people making itself felt.
		So these are very profoundly different interpretations of what went on there.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Cheryl in California, Independent.
unidentified		Thank you for taking my call.
		You know, I'm a little bit confused because, you know, prior to President Trump getting elected, it seems like both the House and the Senate were in agreement that we should fund and help Ukraine.
		And then, you know, Ukraine, you know, being as small as it is, was really overtaking Russia for quite a while.
		To the point where Russia had to go over to Korea and try to get help from different other countries to help him to be able to stay in the war when he started the war.
		Now, all of a sudden, President Trump gets elected, and it just seems like we have had a complete shift in the way America is thinking.
		So, to me, it seems like America is not steady in its position as to whether they want to support Ukraine or do they want to support Russia.
		So, it just seems like we're flip-flopping.
		And I want you, you know, I hope that you could address that.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Cheryl.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Reeving.
george beebe ▲ ● ▼		Well, there is no question that President Trump has a much different perspective on this conflict than President Biden did.
		President Biden's approach was essentially: we're just going to continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, but never defined what it meant in that.
		As long as it takes to do what?
		Well, we never said.
		And the problem that President Biden ran into was that he had a formula for preventing Russian victory, from preventing the Russians from achieving maximalist goals, overrunning Ukraine entirely, overthrowing the government, putting in place a puppet government there in the Ukrainian capital, but never had a plan for how do you end the war.
		And the support on Capitol Hill for this, it didn't flip-flop abruptly with the election of President Trump.
		It was eroding over time because increasing numbers of senators and congressmen recognized that the war was not going well, that the trends that were at work were leading toward some sort of Ukrainian collapse, although no one could predict exactly when that might occur.
		And so we had to have a different approach.
		And that's been increasingly a subject of contention in Washington.
		President Trump has taken a clear position on this.
		He said we can't continue the way we've gone on.
		It's a formula either for Ukraine's collapse, which would be very undesirable for everybody involved, or for escalation into direct war between Russia and the West, also highly undesirable.
		So by far, the best option is to seek a compromise settlement.
		So that's where he is right now.
		And I think there's a very strong argument that that's where we need to be going.
		The real question is now: how do you pull that off?
		How do you get to that compromise settlement that isn't just a capitulation?
		Because I don't think a capitulation to Russia is going to be viable.
		The Europeans won't support it.
		The Ukrainians won't support it.
		A large number of Americans won't support it.

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