CSPAN - Washington Journal 04/18/2025

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April 18, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:56

Washington Journal 04/18/2025

Participants

Main

ann coulter

32:57

john mcardle

cspan 18:17

Appearances

bill foster

rep/d 01:07

brian lamb

cspan 00:39

madeleine dean

rep/d 02:45

marjorie taylor greene

rep/r 00:46

nicole kobie

00:50

reginald dwayne betts

00:43

Clips

barack obama

d 00:02

bill clinton

d 00:02

donald j trump

admin 00:09

george h w bush

r 00:02

george w bush

r 00:04

jd vance

admin 00:17

jimmy carter

d 00:03

joe biden

d 00:03

ronald reagan

r 00:01

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Support C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy.
		Coming out this morning on Washington Journal, your calls and comments live.
		And then we'll discuss President Trump's militarization of the U.S.-southern border and his use of emergency powers to address immigration with Elizabeth Goyteen, Senior Director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program.
		And columnist, author, and political commentator Ann Coulter on the latest Trump administration actions and political news of the day.
		Washington Journal is next.
		Join the conversation.
		Good morning.
		It's Friday, April 18th, 2025.
		A three-hour Washington Journal is ahead.
		Today marks the halfway point of the longest congressional break since the start of the 119th Congress.
		And with members back at home, district and statewide town halls have become a focal point for engaging with legislators.
		So this morning, we're asking you about your experience at congressional town halls.
		Have you ever attended a town hall?
		If not, would you attend one if you had the opportunity to do so?
		Phone lines split as usual by political party.
		Republicans, it's 202-748-8001.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can also send us a text, that number, 202-748-8003.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		If you do, please include your name and where you're from.
unidentified		Otherwise, catch up with us on social media on X.
		It's at C-SPANWJ on Facebook.
		It's facebook.com slash C-SPAN.
		And a very good Friday morning to you.
		You can go ahead and start calling in now.
		Here's some of the headlines about town halls with members of Congress this week.
		This from today's New York Times.
		Republican lawmakers receive fresh backlash to Trump back at home is the headline there.
		The conservative news site Breitbart focusing on Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green's town hall this week saying she laughs off protests to deliver her pro-Trump message at her Georgia town hall.
		C-SPAN covered that town hall this week along with another one last night.
		It was in Pennsylvania.
		Congresswoman Madeline Dean, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, holding her town hall.
		About 500 constituents showed up last night for that event.
		Here's a portion of that town hall.
		What is the plan?
		It's a big question.
		Yeah, the Republicans had their Project 2025, which most of us have all read, don't like.
		But is there a plan that the Democratic Party is coming up with for future elections in terms of how are we going to address the country and the problems and undoing what Trump has done?
		It just seems to me that just, and this is, I'm almost saying we look like we're the party of, I hate Trump, instead of being having some kind of future plan for what we're going to do down the road in future elections.
madeleine dean ▲ ● ▼		And I so appreciate that question, and it is one I get an awful lot.
		And I'm going to start by saying elections have consequences.
		This man got elected twice.
		I do not know how it happened.
		I did everything in my power.
		This is not a political event.
		We know that.
		But I did everything in my power to lift up a candidate I thought would be more worthy, that would be lawful, that would respect citizens and the rule of law.
		And I was not successful in that.
		So elections have consequences.
		Please, I don't have to tell this audience, you all know it.
		Be sure you vote, you pay attention.
		We're going to come up on some midterms.
		We have some important elections this spring, this year, around retention of judges and new judges coming in.
		But elections have consequences.
		What are the Democrats doing?
		I hope you see we're doing some of the things that I suggested there: making sure we are active in the courts, making sure we are fighting back against this attack on institutions.
		And by the way, this didn't happen just with Mr. Trump.
		I observed this the entire time I've been in Congress.
		Speaker Johnson served with me on the Judiciary Committee, and they were committed well before he was Speaker of the House, they were committed to tearing down our faith in institutions.
		That was their playbook, the Republican playbook.
		By some, I don't mean to say all Republicans, because I know a lot of Republicans don't believe what's going on is right.
		But some were committed to this: tear down our faith in institutions, demoralize it, demean them, and now with Musk, cut their numbers in radical, erratic ways, and then privatize.
		A lot of this is the grift.
		Let's not forget that.
		It's the grift.
		What are Democrats doing?
		We're going to make sure we get the majority next time around.
		We have to get the majority next time around because look what happened when we did have the majority.
		We had the chance to pass really good legislation, whether it was legislation protecting our veterans, the PACT Act, the infrastructure bill, the IRA, protecting our planet, reducing prescription drug costs for seniors.
unidentified		This administration wants to undo all of them.
madeleine dean ▲ ● ▼		So, what are Democrats doing?
		I know we're always criticized for being so crappy at messaging.
		I'm looking at Howard and Jill.
		Aren't we always criticized for that?
		We're so criticized for being crappy at messaging.
		But I actually see a shift.
		And here's the shift: it's not Republicans versus Democrats.
unidentified		It's literally all of us.
		That was Madeline Dean, Democrat of Pennsylvania.
		That was last night at her town hall.
		We're asking you this morning on the Washington Journal, as we've covered several of these town halls this week: have you ever been to a town hall?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What was it like?
unidentified		What did you ask your member of Congress?
		If you haven't, would you go to a town hall?
		What would you ask if a town hall was available for you to go to?
		Republicans, it's 202-748-8001.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
unidentified		And Independents, it's 202-748-8002.
		We're also looking for your social media posts as well.
		Here's a couple of those posts as tech writing in this morning.
		The idea and concept of town halls are awesome.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Unfortunately, all you get from the speaker or the host is talking points, and very little is accomplished.
unidentified		In today's world, you get a lot of quote paid protesters at town halls.
		That's just one response.
		This is Deb from supposedly Wisconsin saying, Our local Democrats are planning to hold a town hall with or without, as Deb describes, immoral Glenn Grothman, the Wisconsin Republican, is why I assume Deb is from Wisconsin.
		Taking your comments, your questions via Facebook, via Twitter and X, as it's called now, and your text as well.
		202-748-8003.
		We'll also take your phone calls, especially.
		This is Kevin in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Independent.
		Have you ever been to a town hall, Kevin?
		I have been to frequent town halls over the years as I'm a civic-minded individual.
		Unfortunately, for all the citizens of the third congressional district, which I'm part of, we are not currently being in any way, shape, or form, you might say, represented by our elected officials.
		In fact, to note, when we had a no-chair town hall, as they're referred to in recent times, in early March of this year, one of our senators, the junior senator from the state of Indiana, Jim Banks, not only did not attend, nor did either the Congressman Stutsman or the other senator, Mr. Young, they did not send representatives.
		And the only thing the cowardly Mr. Banks chose to do was send donuts to everyone participating at the meeting.
		Kevin, who organized the meeting?
		You called it a no-chair town hall?
		It was a no-chair town hall.
		It was organized by a chapter of a national grassroots organization known as Indivisible.
		They're part of a number of group umbrella organizations that have sprung up, especially with the second term inauguration of Donald Trump, largely opposed to his policies and his actions since becoming president again.
		And we've had the head of that group on this program to talk about their efforts around the country, Kevin.
		So what happened at a town hall where members don't show up, Kevin?
		Well, in our case, and in fact, as a matter of repetition to a degree, local Democratic officials, in this case, the minority leader in the state legislature and another member of the Democratic group downstate, came and attended in the place of these other Republican elected officials,
		who, like I said, apparently were spineless and cowardly enough not to show up in spite receiving invitations from our organizers.
		And as I say, the one, Jim Banks, in addition to recently referring to a former federal employee as a coward, Clown, took the moment to carry out a Marie Antoinette moment in our situation by, again, just simply sending donuts.
		Kevin, how many town halls would you say you attended over the years?
		Over the years, as I said, I've done quite a few.
		I would say at least somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 or better.
		I love politics, and I'm civic-minded, and I intend to still remain active in that regard.
		But it was affront to everyone, and there was well over 400 people at that town hall meeting that I referenced there.
		It was an affront to each citizen, whether they were supporters or non-supporters of Trump and the like.
		And to send donuts, that is about as childish and sophomoreic as you can get.
		It's Kevin in Indiana.
		This is Rush, New Milford, New Jersey, Republican.
		Good morning.
		Have you attended a town hall?
		No, I haven't, but I've been trying to, because when I call our local congressman's office and I ask him when he's going to be speaking next, I never get an answer.
		They tell me they don't know.
		I don't understand how a staffer doesn't know that congressman's schedule.
		What I would ask is how we can go about, as a country, you know, to get term limits put on and maybe as a national referendum.
		I think that would help solve some of these problems that the country is going through.
		And some other issues would be the HIPAA laws, how you're expecting somebody that maybe has a psychological disorder, whether it's bipolar, schizophrenia, substance abuse, to make a decision on their future care as opposed to speaking to a parent or a child who is much better able, equipped to answer those questions and manage their care.
		Bunch of questions.
		I'm against these online sports, betting, and gambling.
		I see people in local convenience stores with the last two nickels buying rubber and trying to hit the jackpot.
		There's a lot of things I think that are affecting this country negatively.
		So that's about it.
		But I would attend a town meeting if I just find out when they are.
		Who's your member in New Jersey?
		Josh Gottheimer.
		Let's rush in New Jersey.
		John is in Brooklyn.
		Democrat.
		Good morning.
		You attended a town hall?
		Good morning, yes.
		I've been to a few town halls.
		I don't go regular because I don't get a chance to speak.
		They seem to not have time for everybody to speak, so they just pick certain ones.
		But the lady from Pennsylvania, Democrat, that came on before this show started, she was talking about the plan.
		Democrats don't have a plan.
		She didn't give a plan.
		She just talked.
		That's the problem with Democrats.
		I give Democrats a kill.
		Democrats don't like fraud and overpricing in our government.
		We want that stuff.
	But they should let everybody know that Democrats, let the Republicans know it's the way you do it.
	You don't turn down America to solve the fraud problem.
	And that's what Democrats do, you know?
	That's what Republicans are doing.
	I'm sorry.
	Trump is destroying the infrastructure of America.
	I don't know whether he's setting up a coup.
	He's setting up something by destroying everything.
	And ask him, where's his plan to put it back?
	It's John in Brooklyn.
	Our first caller, Kevin, in Indiana, this morning, was talking about members not showing up for town halls.
	This was the NBC news story from right before this congressional recess, this two-week recess that's happening right now, noting that the congressional Republicans are being advised against holding in-person town halls after several instances of lawmakers being derated by attendees went viral.
	The story noting that the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee compared the moment of 2017 when a series of GOP town halls made headlines after angry attendees confronted lawmakers.
	That story getting a lot of attention heading into the recess break, though that hasn't kept some Republicans from holding town halls, including Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia on Tuesday held a town hall.
	C-SPAN covered that event.
	Here's part of the opening from that event.
	We'll welcome everyone. Thank you.
	Thank you.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		Thank you to our great police officers.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		Ladies and gentlemen, my town hall.
unidentified		This is a town hall.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Accelerate it.
unidentified		This is, let me tell you, this is funded.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		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 listen, you're welcome to listen.
marjorie taylor greene ▲ ● ▼		Everyone across the aisle, Democrats, Independents, Republicans.
unidentified		This is a good place.
unidentified		You have a lot to learn.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, that was back on Tuesday night.
unidentified		C-SPAN covering that event.
		You can watch it in its entirety at C-SPAN.org.
		We're asking you this morning, have you attended a town hall?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It doesn't have to be this week.
unidentified		It can be in recent years or in your lifetime.
unidentified		Have you gone to a political town hall?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Have you asked a member of Congress a question?
unidentified		If not, would you go?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And what would you ask?
unidentified		This is Alvin in Gardner, Massachusetts, Independent.
unidentified		Good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		We're 10-1 personally, but I've seen enough of these people to know town halls is basically a stare.
		People are doing something.
		I'm 71.
		And like I tell my people I care about, I don't care.
		But they better start knowing.
		They better start watching.
		They better learn something about the Constitution.
		It's not that young man.
		They grabbed up and just took him over there.
		He know America has things to do.
		He know we live by the law.
		He knows that.
		Give that man his due process and let his man go on.
		Of course he's going to jail.
		Of course he's going to jail as soon as he gets his due process.
		That's Alvin in Gardner, Massachusetts this morning referring, I assume, to the Maryland man who was deported and who has become the focus of the deportation fight.
		Mr. Obrego Garcia is the man in the El Salvadorian prison who members of Congress, Democratic members of Congress, have been speaking a lot about at town halls this week.
		And one senator, Chris Van Holland, Democrat of Maryland, heading to El Salvador to try to visit and check on Mr. Obrego Garcia.
		And that actually happened yesterday.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Here's the tweet from Senator Van Holland yesterday evening.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar.
unidentified		Tonight I had that chance.
		I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love.
		I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.
		And it was the president of El Salvador noting that that meeting had happened and taking to X on his own to say now that he's been confirmed healthy, Mr. Garcia gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's the latest on the fight over due process on this illegal immigrant who was living in Maryland, deported, and as the Trump administration had said, mistakenly deported.
unidentified		We'll see where the courts stand on that fight, that ongoing issue.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We've been covering it, and it is getting a lot of attention at these town halls.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Back to your phone calls.
unidentified		This is John in Easton, Pennsylvania, Democrat.
		John, good morning.
		Have you attended a town hall?
		Yes, John, I did.
		Rick Santorum was a senator in Pennsylvania, and I got up and asked him a question, and I got a little antsy with him, you know, like some exchange there with and Secret Service started moving around the building.
		There were no cops.
		I don't think there was any police there in township here.
		And they started surrounding him, you know.
		What was the question you were asking at the time, John?
		I blew him out of the water, and he lost the election.
		And I'm pretty sure he's a lobbyist in Washington now.
		That's what he did after he left, you know, after he lost his election.
		But yeah, it was a hairy moment.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What was the question you were asking him?
unidentified		He was doing something with, I think, the state funding.
		And the government at that time was cutting back.
		And the Republicans were pushing back to cut the budget like they're doing here.
		And it wasn't a good deal.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And, John, was this when he was running for president or was this during one of his congressional town halls?
unidentified		Huh?
		Was this when he was running for president or was this during a town hall?
		Well, he was an election time, and he was working with his people.
		Right.
		He was trying to get the people to vote.
		That's John in the Keystone State.
		This is Mary next in Michigan Independent.
		Mary, have you ever attended a town hall?
		No, John, I haven't.
		Jack Bergman is our congressional representative.
		He's retired military.
		Of course, I live in northern lower Michigan, and then he's got all of the Upper Peninsula.
		So geographically, he's got, you know, not a lot of people.
		Well, he's got the, you know, everybody has, what, 700,000 people.
		But, you know, the thing with Jack Bergman is he's retired military, and I have to give him that.
		But everything, every bill he's been part of and everything is all military.
		He has done nothing for our younger families in that.
		And the thing that's happened in northern lower Michigan, and I don't know how much national news it got or whatever, we had a once-in-a-hundred-year ice storm.
		It happened on March 29th, and we still have people, a few people, that are without power.
		Most of us were without power for four or five days.
		They had to rebuild the entire infrastructure.
		Now, we had Governor Whitmer here, and she did speak to President Trump.
		She was actually in Washington a couple days later.
		She came.
		Our state representative came, Cam Cavot, or whatever.
		And the local politicians have been great.
		People dropped everything for three days to keep people warm.
		I'm starting to get emotional.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Mary, from Congressman Bergman's website, the Congressman issuing a formal request in the days after that storm urging him to visit the communities across northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula impacted by the devastating ice storm.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The copy of the letter sent to the president there on his website.
unidentified		How is the Upper Peninsula in the wake of that?
		Has the recovery been sufficient?
		I believe we need federal dollars.
		I'm 65 years old.
		We've never asked.
		We've never had, we've been lucky.
		I mean, we've had blizzards and stuff like that.
		We've never had a hurricane.
		We never had devastating wildfires in this century.
		We've never asked for FEMA money.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you need it now?
unidentified		But I believe we need it now.
		Our local and state need it now.
		Google Ice Storm Michigan.
		It happened in Ontario also.
		I mean, we've got people that are still without power two weeks, going on three weeks.
		They had to rebuild the entire infrastructure.
		And these are small, what do you call it?
		Small power companies.
		And then our state and local government, I mean, this is devastating.
		It really is.
		Just look at the drone footage of the trees that are down.
		People are, you know, I don't think anybody was killed, to tell you the truth.
		But our state and local spend a lot of money.
		And where is Jack Bergman?
		I mean, he's 77 years old.
		And when he did have a town hall a couple weeks ago in Escanaba, Michigan, which is in the Upper Peninsula, people drove.
		And this, I mean, we had snow the other day.
		It was March.
		People drove like 100 miles to his town hall, and his chief of staff showed up.
		He didn't show up.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Mary in Michigan.
unidentified		This is Vincent in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Republican.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Have you been to a town hall?
		Hello, John.
		I have a topic to discuss.
		Is it a town halls, Vincent?
		Because that's what we're talking about right now.
		Yes, it is town.
		I want to start my own.
		I want to get a group together.
		I'm not talking about nothing like hard drugs, but I don't want to see Musk get rid of the penny with DOGE.
		We have snow yet.
		And that's what you talk about at the town hall, Vincent?
		I'll talk about it in Tulsa as soon as I can at the meetings, city council meetings, make the speech and discuss it with the Mayor Nichols.
		That's Vincent in Oklahoma.
		This is Ernie, back in Pennsylvania, independent.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ernie, have you been to a town hall?
unidentified		Good to see you, John.
		I've been to three kinds of meetings.
		One, you have the state with the congressman like Dean was talking.
		And then you got the county, and then you got the city council.
		And I've got to tell you this.
		The congressional state is nothing more like the federal.
		They just talk about ideology, this party versus that party.
		The county gets a little bit more what a town meeting is supposed to be.
		They have their ears open, the commissioners, they listen to what the public has on their mind, what is affecting them.
		And the small town meetings, you have no groups.
		The people come as individuals and they level their concerns.
		What is happening to them with taxes, with prosperity, or demise of the community?
		And that's where a town meeting is supposed to be.
		The representatives are not doing their job.
		They're supposed to listen to what the individuals as citizens have to complain about or to bring about what issues.
		Not about which party, which character assassination they get involved with.
		So I just want to make that clear, that there's differences between town, county, and state.
		And the state is no different than the federal government because all they talk about is one group versus another group where they engage in character assassination and you don't need to any informative meeting.
		It's just a cheer meeting session for one party versus another.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ernie, thanks for the call from Pennsylvania.
		As we noted, Madeline Dean's town hall was in Pennsylvania, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, meeting with some 500 members of her district there.
		The Democratic Congresswoman holding that event last night.
		You can watch it in its entirety on c-span.org.
unidentified		In addition, we also interviewed a few constituents who showed up at that town hall ahead of that town hall.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We asked them what they were looking to find out about going into that meeting.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Here's some of what they had to say.
unidentified		My name is Eliza Schotzman.
		I'm from Ambler, Pennsylvania in Montgomery County.
		What do you expect to hear from the Congresswoman this evening?
		I'm guessing the Congresswoman will talk a lot about the Trump administration and their efforts to dismantle civil society and the federal government.
		I hope she'll also talk about anti-Semitism and some other issues that we faced before Trump and will continue to face after Trump.
		Is there a particular issue that you have a question about?
		I'm planning to ask about anti-Semitism, but I might ask about judicial accountability because that's a focus of my nonprofits.
		The entire federal judiciary is exempt from anti-discrimination laws, so I've been working with the Congresswoman's office on that too.
		And what is your feeling about how this Congress has reformed in just this early two months of their term?
		Terribly.
		Terribly.
		They dropped the ball, and frankly, we have great Dems in office like Rev Dean, but even some Dems have really just dropped the ball.
		They should have been prepared for what was coming with Trump.
		And of course, I mean, Trump's Republican Party just awful dismantling civil society, as was expected.
		I'm Todd Valentine.
		I'm from Fort Washington, just outside Philadelphia, which is part of Upper Dublin.
		What issues do you expect to hear the Congresswoman speak about tonight?
		What are you looking forward to hearing her say?
		I'm hoping to hear her take on Trump's policies that he's been pushing through and trying to push through.
		Any particular policies that you're interested in?
		No, all of them.
		There is especially, you know, with the firing and closing of different departments, that kind of thing.
		And when they're putting out a letter to a person, they're being fired because they, you know, substandard work, but they've been there for 15 years and never had a bad report.
		So all of a sudden, with no interview, they're being fired because, you know, for cause.
		Are you a registered Democrat or Republican?
		No, I'm a Republican.
		Registered Republican.
		What is your feeling about the Congress so far?
		I've never been too much of a Congress supporter.
		I hate to say it.
		I'm still not.
		My name is Dhruva Reddy.
		I'm from Penn Valley, Pennsylvania.
		And what do you expect to hear from the Congresswoman this time?
		What are your views?
		Well, unfortunately, it's going to be, I imagine it's going to be about the Trump show and what they're doing about it, what we can do about it.
		Is there a particular issue that you would have a question about?
		Well, it's the, I mean, there are a lot of troubling things going on, but most troubling is disappearing immigrants.
		So are you a registered Democrat?
		No, I'm independent.
		Registered independent.
		So what are your thoughts about the administration so far in the first 100 days?
		I'm not sure that's appropriate for C-SPAN.
		And what about the Congress, how they've reacted to?
		I haven't, I've seen very little reaction.
		I wish they would do more.
		James Carville mentioned, has called for staying quiet and letting them trip over themselves, but I don't have a lot of faith in that strategy.
		C-SPAN's Justin Metzger interviewing attendees to that town hall last night in Blue Belt, Pennsylvania.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And again, you can watch that entire town hall on our website at C-SPAN.org asking you this morning on the Washington Journal, have you attended a town hall?
		If not, would you if you had the opportunity?
		This is Marty out of Shreveport, Louisiana.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning, all.
		Good morning, all like-minded people.
		I have.
		I attended a town hall when Mike Johnson was in office here.
		It was about the timeframe that the Obama was in office.
		The reason I went to a Republican town hall was because he was over on the board for defense, and I was having problems getting some of my VA benefits.
		So I decided to go to his town hall.
		And I went and I had a chance to speak, and I asked my question, and I got proper answers, and I got notification to go to his office.
		But I also asked, why are you speaking so negative about the president at that time and speaking negative about the care that he was trying to get to the American citizens?
		Now, the audience itself, mean income probably was over $200,000.
		So when I asked questions like that, they kind of third their error at me.
		But I just politely gave them that rock eyebrow lift and everything got kind of cool.
		But I just wonder sometimes when you go to some of these, well, now it's different, but when you go back then, the rhetoric that was being drilled in these people's heads by our representatives and certain things were not true.
		But I'll just say, though, he did help me in my situation, but I just, the disrespect that our representative present to the people, that is why they have disrespect going back up the chain.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Marty, you're a Democrat.
unidentified		Thank you very much.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Before you, Marty, you're a Democrat.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You went to a Republican town hall.
unidentified		Do you think people are more inclined to go to a town hall if the member of their district is of the opposite party?
		Or are they more inclined to go if it's their party, their member is a member of their party?
		Mainly just a member of their party.
		I went because I'm a guy.
		I want to know what's going on.
		I came here.
		I'm a military officer.
		I've been here over 40 years.
		And I look at the politics and I wonder why certain things are done the way when we vote down here.
		But I figured out because of the gerrymandering system, I'm what considered in Shreveport and Bosier, they put me in like an urban area, so I have a minority representative.
		But when his district, it snakes across the river into Shreveport, less than maybe 10 miles from my home.
		So again, I just wanted to go here and make myself represented because he's a representative of me in North Louisiana, and I just wanted him to know some of my values also.
		Marty, thanks for the call.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		From Shreveport, this is Tom Nex from Ohio, Republican.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		Hey, I live in the 5th district of Ohio, Bob Latto's district.
		He's like a six or a seven term representative, and he hadn't done a town hall meeting since 2015.
		I guess he doesn't think he needs to, but here in heavily red Ohio and his heavily red district.
		But yeah, I would go if he would do one.
		He just turned down an invitation four days ago.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What would you ask if that happened?
unidentified		What are you guys in Congress actually doing these days?
		And what would you expect he'd answer?
		I'm not sure.
		I don't know that he would really have an answer.
		The story from Action News 13, WTVG out of Ohio.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Tom, some of Congressman Bob Latta's constituents are demanding a district town hall.
		They claim the congressman has been ignoring the district for five years.
		However, the congressman's office says he's not entertaining the request, adding he will not participate in, quote, orchestrated disruptions to create media spectacles.
unidentified		That was the response from his office.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What did you think about that response?
unidentified		Probably I would expect exactly what he said.
		So, yeah, I don't think he wants to get involved.
		That's Tom in Ohio to the Peach State.
		This is Harry in Norcross Independent.
		Good morning.
		Good morning, Ceasepen.
		Excuse me.
		I first went to a town hall with my mother in Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1967.
		And she wanted to show me she was a League of Woman Voters kind of woman.
		And she wanted to show me how the business worked, how the town made decisions.
		So we went to the town hall.
		I mean, it was very interesting.
		The first time I got a chance to vote was years later.
		Of course, I was only 16 then.
		But I had, when I was 18, I was driving a cab in downtown Boston when, what's his name there?
		George McGovern was running against Richard Nixon.
		And McGovern walked out of a church right by the Boston column.
		And I was sitting in my cab outside that church.
		And I thought he'd get in my car and I'd take him over to City Hall in Boston because that's where he was going.
		But he waved at me and smiled, but he didn't get my cab.
		But I didn't get to vote.
		I moved to New Mexico and went to college when I was 20 years old.
		And I never voted there when I was 21.
		I never got to vote.
		By the time I visited Massachusetts again, the voting age was down to 18.
		But when I was 18, I was called in for a draft for the draft, you know, for a physical and there was a lottery the year I was still in high school.
		And, of course, my mother was also a draft counselor, told you how to stay out of the draft, but I had a separated shoulder.
		I pulled my shoulder out of the socket.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Harriet, it sounds like your mom was big on teaching you about civics and how politics works.
unidentified		Yeah, she wanted me to understand how the government worked.
		And, of course, she was very opinionated.
		And my father was a Republican.
		My mother was a Democrat.
		And we had great conversations around the dinner table.
		That's all I can say.
		I mean, it sometimes got loud.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Harriet, thanks for sharing your story out of Georgia, the Peach State.
unidentified		We'll take you to the Hawkeye State in Iowa on Tuesday.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It was Senator Chuck Grassley, longtime Republican senator, holding a town hall with his constituents there.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Here's some of that event.
unidentified		These changes have been taking place, and that's what concerns us.
		Okay, I would welcome refugees, and I would welcome people to meet asylums.
		From El Salvador?
		Yeah.
		Why not?
		Well, because that's not a powerful conquer.
		The Supreme Court said to bring him out.
		The president has a police constitution.
		He's defined the constitution.
		You're on the judiciary committee.
		Trump don't care.
		If I get an order, he's paying for $1,200 and I just say no, does that stand up?
		Because he's got an order from the Supreme Court and he's just said no.
		Yeah.
		Screw it.
		I'll be able to answer your question.
		You ignored my letter.
		A lot of miles.
		Or El Salvador is an independent country.
		Speak up, please.
		We can't hear you.
		The president of that country is not subject to our U.S. Supreme Court.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, that was on Tuesday.
		Again, you can watch that event as well on our website at c-span.org.
		Back to your phone calls.
unidentified		About 15 minutes left here.
unidentified		And we're simply asking you, have you attended a town hall?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		If you had the opportunity to attend, would you attend a congressional town hall?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is John in Florence, Massachusetts, Independent.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yes, I'd love to attend a town hall, but we have one of the worst swamp creatures in America, and Jim McGovern is our representative.
		And we have all the, and it's Massachusetts, so all of them are swamp creature Democrats almost.
		And they don't do anything for us.
		If I went there, I'm sure I'd be attacked by the Democrats' Army, who attacks anyone who disagrees with them like with their anti-Semitic army or their BOM army.
		It's just all over the place.
		They'll probably try to burn my car.
		I did go to the BLM riots in Northampton, and they had the police lined up on the street, two different streets, and I wore my Navy hat and my Navy shirt and walked up to each one of them and said, thank you for your service.
		And was spit on and yelled at and screamed at, called a Nazi, called Hitler, called a baby killer for my service, where I earned two bronze stars during the first Gulf War.
		So, yeah, nobody really wants to go to any of those around here.
		But I do remember, if I did get a chance, I would ask him if he could tell me why they lied about the order only being able to be controlled by Congress and stuff with a bill when now it's controlled, or why they lied to me about how the economy was so good when it was going bad, or how it was the Republicans that killed the border bill when both my senators voted against it and they had 51 votes, so they couldn't be beaten.
		And like I say, I'm just not, I'm just disillusioned with the people around here.
		There's some good and some bad with every party, but the media only focuses on the negative narratives for the Republicans and the positive aspects for the Democrats, never the other side of the coin.
		I don't remember Americans fighting for the January 6thers, the way that guy was screaming and yelling about this guy from El Salvador.
		And even if you know, the Democrats could have earned a lot of credit if they would have stuck up for people that were in their districts that were in jail and got no charges for three years.
		And what happened to their civil rights?
		So it wouldn't be a lot if they could just do the other side of the coin or show some compassion for the other side and stop calling all the Republicans Nazis and Hitler or independents like myself who are just thanking the police for the job that they do.
		Because I know the police, they keep saying that the Democrats support all the police, but they don't.
		They rioted for over a year.
		They called all of them bad police and said they were all hunting down minorities.
		It's absolutely ridiculous.
		So I appreciate you giving me the time to talk, John.
		You're one of the best moderators, and I appreciate the time.
		That's John in Massachusetts.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Clark, Peach Creek, West Virginia.
unidentified		Republican, good morning.
		Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, all sorts.
		We have no town halls, and the representative is Shelly Moore Capito and Joe Manchin.
		Well, I was a miner.
		Back now, these guys went to NAM.
		I was supposed to go, but I was mining coal to make the bullets with, covered up, electrocuted under the ground, and the mines just about died two or three times.
		Now, according to the news outlets, Trump has shut down the federal investigators, mine inspectors.
		Now, that was one of my jobs as a union rep to inspect the mines.
		Now, in the day and age back then, we had a union.
		Nowadays, it's all non-union here in southern West Virginia.
		If a man is in a dangerous situation, he can't say anything.
		If he says, hey, boss, that place is not fitting to go in.
		It's dangerous.
		It might cave in.
		He'll say, either go in there or you're fired.
		Well, see, when you had the federal mine inspector, you could call for what was called a 105C for a dangerous situation.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Clark, for all these mining issues, have you brought these up with members of Congress?
unidentified		Have you tried to attend town halls back when Joe Manchin was serving in the United States Senate?
		Or have you ever attended a town hall?
		That's what I'm trying to get at.
		We never did have one.
		Nobody talked about it.
		Everybody liked to get on the local radio stations and complain, but we never had one.
		That's what I'm trying to say.
		Everybody likes it, it's sort of like the old bait and switch.
		They're all time keeping your mind on something else when the pressing matters is we got men's lives on the line here, and even our good president.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Clark, you still with us?
unidentified		He's doing nothing.
unidentified		And these boys are underground now with no representation of keeping them from getting crushed or whatever underground because they shut the federal mine inspecting unit down here in West Virginia and cut off a bunch of people that could save a miner's life.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Clark in West Virginia to Tennessee, to Birdstown, Tennessee.
		This is Daniel Democrat.
		Good morning.
		Have you attended a town hall?
unidentified		Yes, I have.
		It's been a while, John, because here in Pickett County in Tennessee, and generally Tennessee in general, the Republicans have such a luck on the voters that they don't need to have town halls.
		They just do photo ops and thereabouts.
		But the last one I did attend was in 2006, May, in the Anderson, Indiana City Hall auditorium, where Mike Pence was the midterms in 2006, and apparently he was trying to lie for George Bush, saying how well we were doing in Iraq.
		He had half the people in attendance were soldiers in dress uniforms to make a good show, and he only took seven questions from the audience.
		By the time I had the nerve to ask a question, the seventh hand to raise, he said he had to catch a flight back to Washington.
		Now, why this is important is I was watching PBS last night, the Vietnam series, me being 70 and just had my draft card, but they didn't need to call me there at that time.
		Well, watching Westmoreland lie about how well we were doing in Vietnam last night, it just brought it around full circle about how Pence lied about how well we were doing in Iraq at the time.
		These congressmen and senators here in Tennessee are afraid to do a town hall, John.
		They're afraid.
		They can't take a question from everyday people.
		So I don't know.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Standing in Tennessee, one member of Congress who held town halls during this congressional recess, Congressman Bill Foster, Democrat of Illinois, C-SPAN, also attending that event.
unidentified		I want to show you one of the scenes from there on Wednesday night.
		Don't understand why Democrats can't agree on certain talking points when they go to the media.
		Republicans always seem to be on the same page.
		Why don't the Democrats hire a communications consultant so you guys can get your stuff together when you're talking to the media and get messages out the way the Republicans do?
bill foster ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, you know, the old, I think, Will Rogers quote about that he doesn't belong to any organized political party.
		He's a Democrat.
		That's as true back then as it is today.
		In a way, I'm kind of proud of the diversity of voices in our party.
		You know, I sit in the back of the caucus meetings and look out at the ocean of faces and think about the districts they all came from.
		And it's natural that their voices are different on things.
		There's some that really care about the VA and let's not cut the VA.
		Others care about the unions.
		Others care about the scientific enterprise.
		So everyone comes from a different place.
		But the thing that unites the Democratic Party is a desire to do the right thing for the average person.
		And that's the difference.
		And as long as we keep the core principle that makes us all Democrats visible when we do any of our talking points, I think people will understand that we're in it, you know, not for ourselves.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Democratic Congressman Bill Foster, that was in McHenry County, Illinois, on Wednesday, Ceaseman attending that event as well.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Pat in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, line for Democrats.
unidentified		Have you attended a town hall?
		Hi.
		No, I have not ever attended a town hall.
		Unfortunately, our representative, Lloyd Smucker, will not do a town hall.
		He also really wouldn't debate even for elections.
		However, I do have some hope because recently we had an election for a state senator and Representative Parsons was running who was actually a commissioner in Lancaster.
		And he ran against a Democrat by the name of Malone.
		And he would not do any debate or have a town hall.
		And he wouldn't even respond when he was invited to a debate.
		And Malone actually won.
		So this is a deep red area.
		So there's some hope.
		We need town halls.
		Our voices need to be heard.
		What is happening to our country is just so frightening and despicable.
		We need some voices out there, and something needs to change.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Pat, I only asked because I came across this as I was watching our Twitter feed.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are you one of the folks who watch and tweet about our program each day?
unidentified		I am not.
		I do watch your program all the time.
		This is the first time I ever tried to call in, and I have never tweeted.
		But yeah, I'd listen to your program religiously.
		Then there's somebody else on X who posted, I would absolutely attend one.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		However, Congressman Smucker has steadfastly refused to hold an in-person town hall over nearly one decade that he's been in office.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		He claims his telephone town halls are equivalent, but of course they pre-screen questions and announce them with 30 minutes notice.
unidentified		Have you ever tried a telephone town hall with him?
		I have not.
		I have called his office numerous times.
		I wouldn't do the phone one because, again, they screen everything.
		And even calling his office, he will give you an email with a canned response, does not address most of your questions.
		He is a die-hard Trump supporter and will do anything that Trump wants.
		So yeah, he is not listening.
		And like I said, I do have some hope because there are people out there who are trying to do something and get something started here.
		That's Pat in Pennsylvania on what is and isn't a town hall.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Lynn on X saying I would not call what Marjorie Taylor Greene had a town hall.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It was more like a rally and they took questions ahead of time and only answered questions that she agreed with.
unidentified		Talking about town halls, about five minutes left here in this first segment of the Washington Journal, simply asking, have you ever attended one?
unidentified		What was it like?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Todd in West Virginia, Republican.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Hey, good morning, America.
		I experienced a town hall.
		I was about six years ago, give or take.
		Jim Justice is governor of our state.
		God bless.
		Yeah, West Virginia is almost seven.
		We were at the Clarion in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
		And if anybody have ever heard of SickLarion, Google that.
		And Google 1996, President Clinton landed Marine one in Shepard, Shepard's baseball field to land because they had the Middle East Peace Summit during Shepherdstown where I grew up.
		And the thing that I have to stress most about the experience that I had with Mr. Justice was there was a thing called impartiality.
		And a lot of the people that I was with, I've voted on for both parties at one time.
		I was an independent.
		I've swung to the Democratic Party.
		I've swung back to the Republican Party.
		I am now the party of Lincoln.
		And the good thing about the time before Mr. Justice went to the Capitol is he was trying to look out for the people of our state.
		And the thing that I believe that the congressmen and the senators of this country, unfortunately, worry about too much now is one person.
		And that's our president of the United States.
		They have lost their ways.
		I believe it's a disgrace to be in a popularity contest.
		These people really need to start focusing on running the country's business versus how pissed off can we get this guy today?
		Maybe we can try to assassinate this guy today.
		Maybe we can feed more poison into the people through the reckless media.
		And I'm talking about all three networks.
		And it's a real shame that we as Americans can't get behind each other instead of hate each other like we do.
		The interactions that I had with a couple of Democrats at this get together at the Clarion where the Middle East Peace Summit was conducted in 1996, Clinton was trying to bring peace to the world in that region of the world.
		And they're never going to be able to figure that one out either, I guess, which is sad.
		But the sooner that we as Americans get back on supporting each other and supporting our country, I think the better off as a nation and a people we are.
		You know, we could be in a situation back in 25 years ago.
		I know most of your listeners are older people.
		We could agree to disagree.
		We may not have supported one party and we didn't like the other party, but by God, we were all Americans first.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Todd in West Virginia.
		This is Ed in Florida, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yes.
		You know, I've been listening to the previous callers and also the congressperson from Illinois, which his response was totally disingenuous and intellectually dishonest, saying that they're the party of acceptance, et cetera, et cetera.
		Their priorities are all backwards.
		The American people is supposed to be focused first.
		But actually, a forum is for individuals to come and sit and express their concerns of their communities, their regions, and also the country, to do it in an intellectually honest manner.
		And people want to come and yell and scream and call people racists and fascists and homophobes and think you can't get anything accomplished like that.
		We already have a dysfunctional government.
		For the past 30, 35 years, we've had dysfunction in our government.
		So, Ed, what's the alternative?
		First, you've got to get money out of politics.
		You've got to get money out of politics.
		Everybody complains about all the rich doesn't pay their fair share of taxes, but the rules and laws that are written by Congress are the ones that the rich are obeying when it comes to.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		In terms of being able to speak with a member of Congress, do you think these telephone town halls are the way to go?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		If you're saying the in-person ones are becoming unproductive, what's the alternative?
unidentified		Well, you're going to have to have, like, I'm a retired federal law enforcement officer from the Department of Homeland Security.
		Whenever we had discussions or briefings, we did it via a television monitor, a secured line, of course, based on who I used to work for.
		But we talked to people in Washington, D.C. in our field offices based on a television screen, on an accessed link.
		Do you think people act better when it's via a Zoom link or something like that?
		People have lost their minds, actually.
		I think they're so torn that the government is not representing them or not listening to them.
		And they have no other way but to lash out.
		Look at all the things you just had polls recently on television saying that 40-some-odd percent of the individuals agree an assassination on someone, a political figure.
		You can't do that.
		When that utterance comes from your mouth, you just committed a crime.
		Free speech is free speech, but when you actually are going to engage or verbalize, you're going to engage in violent acts.
		That's a criminal act that you just engaged in.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Ed in Florida.
		Time for maybe one more call.
		This is Ann in Buffalo, Line for Democrats.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Hi.
		Yeah.
		Thank you for taking my call, and you guys do a great job.
		I'll be short.
		I'm a Redditor.
		I get on Reddit.
		And I was on the upstate New York Reddit today.
		There was a post about Elise Stefanik thinking of running for New York governor.
		She's the congressperson from what we call the North Country.
		And almost all of the replies on that post were about the fact that she will not hold a town hall.
		And they also, somebody brought up Claudia Tenney.
		Now, these are very red districts.
		Both Claudia Tenney and Elise Stefanik are in very red districts.
		I fail to understand why they would not hold a town hall.
		I support them.
		I have attended them.
		I was in District 19 when Antonio Delgado was congressman.
		He had very effective town halls.
		So I support the idea, and I fail to understand why Claudia Tenney and Elise Stefanik refused to hold them.
		And I'm calling them out right here on C-SPAN to do just that.
		And I'm a Democrat, but I think people have a right to have their say.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Ann in Buffalo, New York, our last caller in this first segment of the Washington Journal.
		Stick around, though.
		Plenty more to talk about this morning, including up next.
		We'll be joined by Liza Goitin of the Brennan Center.
		We'll talk about President Trump's use of executive powers, especially in his deportation policies.
		And later, as President Trump nears the 100-day mark of his second administration, a conversation with columnists and author and political commentator Ann Coulter.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		Book TV, every Sunday on C-SPAN 2, features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		At 7 p.m. Eastern, John Green examines the history of tuberculosis and his friendship with a tuberculosis patient in his book, Everything is Tuberculosis, The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection.
		Then at 8 p.m. Eastern, the Nation magazine's legal analyst Ellie Mistahl, author of Bad Law, looks at 10 laws he believes are ruining America and offers his thoughts on how to reform them.
		At 9 p.m. Eastern, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt shares his book, Genesis, a collaboration with the late Henry Kissinger, on the promise and challenges posed by artificial intelligence.
		Then at 10 p.m. Eastern on Afterwards, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Van Wen reflects on how society can build allegiances beyond racial identity and have more global solidarity in his book, To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other.
		He's interviewed by author Ijoma Aluwo.
		Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule in your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Watch our signature interview program Q&A all week on C-SPAN 2.
		Today, ex-convict, award-winning poet, and Yale Law School graduate Reginald Duane Betts is our guest.
		He wrote the afterword for a new commemorative edition of Dr. King's Letter from Birmingham Jail and talks about the book and the work done by Freedom Reads, an organization he founded that builds libraries and prisons.
reginald dwayne betts ▲ ● ▼		You know, the judge might have been under no illusion that sending me to prison will help, but he did say I could get something out of it if I tried.
		And I think that this is a testament, not just that I got something out of it, but that I came home to a world where it might feel overwhelming.
		It might feel like it is absolutely hard to make a way when you have hurt somebody in the past.
		But I also came to a world that has radically changed and shifted and created more and more opportunities for people to reflect on the ways in which they've changed and to be welcomed back into what I like to think of as King Say the Beloved Community.
unidentified		Reginald Duane Betts today at 7 p.m. Eastern on QA on C-SPAN 2.
		You can listen to Q&A wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
		Democracy.
		It isn't just an idea.
		It's a process.
		A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles.
		It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted.
		Democracy in real time.
		This is your government at work.
		This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered.
		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Liza Goitin is back with us.
		She's a senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice, where she focuses on national security and presidential emergency powers.
		And Ms. Goitin, I want to start with your view on one of the first acts of this second Trump administration.
		It was declaring a national emergency on the southern border.
unidentified		What does doing that mean for the powers granted to the president, in this case, to enforce his policies to lower the incidence of illegal immigration and secure the border?
		Sure.
		Thanks very much for having me.
		The National Emergencies Act is a law that allows the president to declare a national emergency.
		And when that happens, it unlocks enhanced powers that are contained in about 150 different provisions of law, all of which say something like, in a national emergency, the president can do X.
		So in January, the president declared a national emergency to address unlawful immigration at the southern border.
		He had declared a very similar emergency in 2019 during his first term.
		Now, emergency powers are obviously meant for urgent crises.
		It should be used for a sudden, unexpected situation.
		That's the definition of an emergency.
		And it's supposed to be very temporary and short term until the emergency passes or until Congress has time to address it.
		Now, in 2019, when the president declared an emergency, unlawful border crossings were hovering near a 40-year low.
		When he declared an emergency in January of this year, there had been a steady decline in unlawful immigration over the southern border for the past year.
		Both times he invoked emergency powers that would allow him to move funding around within the Department of Defense in order to secure money for military construction projects.
		That was the wall, the border wall in 2019, presumably the same thing now.
		And he also invoked a provision that allows the Secretary of Defense to call up reservists in the military to go to the border and assist the Department of Homeland Security in border security.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What are the rules surrounding the usage of the military in a national emergency?
		I think people are used to the idea of a national disaster declaration and National Guard members going and helping in the wake of a hurricane or a fire or something like that.
		What does it mean for securing the border to the United States?
unidentified		Well, in a national emergency, the president can call up reservists, but that is not a waiver of the Posse Comitatus Act.
		Now, the Posse Comitatus Act is a law that prohibits federal armed forces from participating directly in law enforcement activities, and that would include immigration enforcement.
		And this is really a critical protection for personal liberty and for our democracy, because an army turned inward can very quickly become an instrument of tyranny.
		There are exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act, not when the president declares a national emergency, but the president can invoke the Insurrection Act.
		That's a different law, and that actually does constitute an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act.
		It authorizes the president to use the military to enforce the law.
		It is also a power that's meant to be used only in the most urgent crisis situations where civilian law enforcement is completely overwhelmed.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So in the wake of that legal background, legal definitions, explain your view on this story.
		And we talked about it on yesterday's Washington Journal as well.
		The U.S. Army is set to control land on the Mexican border as part of a base.
		Migrants could be detained there, according to officials that the AEP interviewed for that story.
unidentified		Right.
		So this appears to be an attempt to evade posse comitatus.
		I mentioned that there are exceptions.
		One of the loopholes is something called the military purpose doctrine.
		And under that doctrine, if the actions of the military have a primarily military purpose, then they do not violate the Posse Comitatus Act, even if they have an incidental law enforcement aspect.
		And a quintessential example of this, something that has come before the courts several times, is when a person intrudes on a military base.
		And in that situation, the military can apprehend that person and temporarily hold them until the police can come and get them.
		And that is considered not to be primarily for law enforcement purposes, but rather to protect the base, the personnel, the equipment, maybe sensitive information on the base.
		So, what we're likely to see if there is this military installation spanning hundreds of miles along the southern border is that when a migrant crosses over the border in that area, the government will take the position that the migrant is not only violating immigration law, they are trespassing on a military installation.
		And therefore, apprehending, detaining, and removing that person will have a primarily military purpose.
		Now, of course, this is in this situation exactly the opposite of what's actually happening because the stated purpose of this installation is to facilitate apprehending, detaining, and removing migrants.
		That's not incidental.
		It's the purpose of the installation.
		Now, it's described as repelling an invasion.
		But whatever framing is used, the actions of actually apprehending and removing migrants, those are civilian law enforcement functions.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Come back to the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act.
		Are these two acts at odds with each other?
		And why do we have each?
unidentified		That's a great question.
		One is an exception to the other.
		The Posse Comitatus Act reflects a long-standing tradition in Anglo-American law against military interference in civilian government.
		And as I mentioned, that is really a very critical protection for our democracy.
		It prevents presidents from becoming kings, essentially.
		But the framers of the Constitution understood that there might be emergencies, situations that would require the use of the military very rarely, very sparingly.
		But they left it to Congress to strike a balance between those competing considerations.
		The Insurrection Act was basically Congress's solution to that.
		It's a law that allows the president to deploy federal armed forces domestically to quell civil unrest or to enforce the law in a crisis.
		It was meant to apply only, again, in absolute crisis situations where there was an urgent threat to public safety or to constitutional rights.
		It's been used quite rarely in this country, only 30 times in the nation's history.
		It hasn't been used since 1992, and it hasn't been used without a state's request for assistance since 1965.
		And it has never been used for immigration enforcement.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		If you, as viewers, have ever had a question about presidential emergency powers, now would be a great time to call in.
unidentified		Elizabeth Goitin is our guest.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		She's with the Brennan Center for Justice, working in the Liberty and National Security Program there, taking your phone calls as usual on phone lines split by political party.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		She's with us for about another 35 minutes this morning.
unidentified		So go ahead and get your calls in.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		As folks are calling in, can you do one more of these acts that we've heard so much about and with this one more recently, the Alien Enemies Act?
unidentified		So that is an antiquated wartime authority.
		It's the last remaining vestige of the Alien and Sedition Acts that were passed in 1798.
		And it only applies during a declared war or an invasion or an incursion by a foreign nation or government.
		When those conditions are in place, the president can detain or deport any non-U.S. Citizen age 14 or older who is a citizen of or was born in the enemy nation.
		So this is very much a wartime authority.
		The power that it grants is enormous.
		On its face, the law does not require any hearings or due process before a person is detained or deported.
		So what we've seen is that President Trump has invoked this law claiming that the Venezuelan gang Trenda Aragua is somehow affiliated with, controlled by the Venezuelan government, and that we are under invasion by the gang.
		Now, this is a blatant misuse of the law.
		The term invasion in the law is very clearly meant to address armed attacks by political entities.
		It's not meant to encompass a rhetorical invasion by people coming to the country unlawfully or drug trafficking or anything like that.
		It's meant to refer to an act of war.
		And Trump's own intelligence community assessed that this gang is not actually controlled by the Venezuelan government.
		So it is a blatant misuse of a wartime authority for peacetime immigration enforcement.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Elizabeth Gortin is our guest.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And I tell you what we're going to do.
unidentified		If I could add just one more thing.
		I mean, yes.
		So, and just to sort of talk about some of the things that we've all been seeing happening, the problem when you get rid of hearings and due process is that innocent people will inevitably be caught up in the net and deported, detained, whatever the action is under the law.
		That is why we have due process.
		It's very important to realize that under immigration law, regular immigration law, not this wartime authority, the president has ample authority to deport members of violent criminal gangs.
		So dispensing with due process, all it does is to virtually guarantee that innocent people will also be deported.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A couple callers waiting to chat with you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We'll go first to Pendleton, Oregon.
unidentified		This is Dale on our line for Democrats.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Dale, you're on with Elizabeth Goitin of the Brennan Center for Justice.
unidentified		Yeah, this whole discussion brings to mind the case of a Henderson man, a resident of Henderson, Nevada, who sued the police force of Las Vegas for staging, you know, on Third Amendment grounds, for staging, you know, using his apartment as a staging area for a drug raid against, you know, a neighboring apartment.
		And so the argument was.
		Yeah.
		You know, on Third Amendment grounds.
		However, the problem is, I guess, you know, we're talking about two distinct spheres of law.
		The police on the one hand versus, okay, the military, that invokes a sphere of law that involves the sacrifice of one's life for one's country.
		Collateral damage can happen, a lot of things.
		And so then that might have gone toward the determination, you know, against this man who was trying to sue the police force, because then police function within the sphere, you know, of civil society.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Dale, let me take up the case with Elizabeth Goitin.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is it a case you're familiar with?
unidentified		Yeah.
		A little bit, but mostly the principle that the caller is articulating here is so important.
		There are many reasons for this line that we draw that is drawn in the law between the military and between civilian government.
		But one of those reasons is that soldiers are trained to fight and destroy an enemy.
		That is their training.
		That is their mission.
		They are not trained.
		They do not receive training.
		Most of them do not receive training in peaceably enforcing the law and respecting constitutional rights as they do so, which is sort of the job of domestic law enforcement.
		So throwing them into an unfamiliar law enforcement role that has very different roles without all of the training and preparation that law enforcement officers have to go through, it creates risks.
		It creates risks for civilians and for the soldiers themselves.
		So that is one of the many reasons why we have this dividing line.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So some numbers from that same Associated Press story that we talked about earlier on U.S. military personnel currently assigned to the border.
		There's about 7,100 active duty troops under federal control at the border, and then about 4,600 National Guards troops under state control at the border.
		How does that compare to at any other time in the past when it comes to the southern border and U.S. military presence?
unidentified		So it's really important, and I'm glad that you raised this, to distinguish between the kinds of law enforcement activities that are prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act and what the military is doing at the border right now and what the military has been doing at the border for the last 20 years.
		The Posse Comitatus Act only prohibits direct participation in core law enforcement activities.
		It does not prohibit logistical assistance and support to law enforcement.
		And that is the role that the military has been playing pretty much continuously at the border since 2006.
		So the soldiers down there do things like stringing concertina wire or operating surveillance aircraft, sharing intelligence, repairing CBP vehicles, those kinds of sort of logistical support activities.
		Things have been a little bit different in this administration.
		The differences are that there are more troops at the border right now.
		There are about 10,000 troops.
		That's not an order of magnitude of difference under George W. Bush.
		There were about 6,000 troops at the border.
		So, you know, not a huge expansion, but definitely more.
		Trump is relying more heavily on active duty armed forces rather than National Guard forces.
		President Biden also used active duty armed forces, but normally National Guard forces have been the primary source of this logistical support at the border.
		So that is different under President Trump.
		And then also the types of support activities that we're seeing down there have expanded.
		So I've seen reports of soldiers actually patrolling the border and also military aircraft now are engaged in these deportation efforts.
		So those are new types of support that we haven't seen in the past.
		But at least so far, it doesn't appear that the military has crossed that line, that posse comitatus line, where they're engaged in directly apprehending, detaining migrants.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To Lafayette, Louisiana, this is Paul, Line for Republicans.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Morning.
		Yeah, three things.
		Number one, I think he might have answered the question on due process for illegal aliens.
		Good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Paul, we're listening.
		Got your first question.
		Just tell me your second and third, and then we can run with all of them.
unidentified		Okay, the second one is the birthright citizenship.
		Right.
		Yeah.
		Years ago, Chinese women would come in pregnant and get their child to have a social security card, and they stopped doing that.
		And what's your last question about, Paul?
		And you think they can deport all 8,000 illegal aliens out of the country?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Elizabeth Gortine, due process, birthright citizenship, and deportation.
unidentified		Right.
		So due process under the Constitution applies to anyone inside this country, no matter how they got there.
		But it's also important to point out that the Alien Enemies Act, which is what Trump is using right now, is not limited to people who are in this country unlawfully.
		It's not limited to undocumented people.
		You can be absolutely lawfully in this country.
		You can have a green card.
		And under the Alien Enemies Act, you can still be deported without any due process.
		So, and frankly, due process is one of the ways they find out if people are in this country unlawfully, right?
		Because if it's just the president say so, then there's no proof, there's no evidence, mistakes can be made.
		So due process makes sure that everybody gets fair treatment.
		And then if that process reveals that a person is in the country unlawfully or that a person has committed crimes that make them deportable, then they can be deported.
		On that second question about birthright citizenship, I'm not sure I totally understood the question, but birthright citizenship is, you know, it's established in the Constitution.
		It's not nuanced.
		It's not subtle.
		It is a right that we all have under the Constitution.
		And I think the core principle here is that the president can't just snap his fingers and make constitutional rights go away.
		There's a process to amend the Constitution if people feel that birthright citizenship is somehow problematic.
		But, you know, announcing that there won't be birthright citizenship anymore through an executive order is not how we do things in this country with our Constitution.
		And then what was the last question?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Deportation was the third, but it leads to this question on two recent cases in the news, obviously getting a lot of attention.
		Kilmar Obrego-Garcia.
		The other case, the Palestinian graduate of Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, actually has a column in today's Washington Post writing about his detention by ICE and what could be next for him.
		Can you talk about the difference between these two cases and does one particularly concern you more than the other?
unidentified		So one of the cases is a deportation under the Alien Enemies Act, where there is no due process whatsoever and where there is at least one person whom the government has admitted was deported by mistake.
		I should mention that among the others, I mean, we've talked a lot about Obrego Garcia and rightly so because we know a lot about his case.
		There are other cases we know very little about, but one thing that has come up is that 75% of the people who are deported have no criminal record whatsoever in the United States or in the countries that they came from.
		So, you know, whether there are other innocent people And those other people who were deported without due process or hearings, you have to sort of assume that there might be.
		So, to me, there are a lot of things that are troubling about that case, which include the fact that this law is being completely misused.
		There is no armed attack and act of war against the United States.
		Trendaragua is not the government of Venezuela.
		We're not at war with Venezuela, so it's a misuse of the law.
		But the law itself is troubling because, on its face, it seems to allow the president to dispense with hearings and due process.
		There's a strong legal argument that laws that have been passed since the Alien Enemies Act, which dates back to 1798, have changed the legal landscape and that, in fact, due process now is required regardless of what's in the Alien Enemies Act.
		And that was largely confirmed when the Supreme Court held that before anyone is deported under the Alien Enemies Act, they have to at least have a chance to get some judicial review and that and that they are entitled to due process.
		But whether they're also entitled to some of the other protections of immigration law is something that the courts are going to figure out as this moves forward.
		In the case of Khalil, the issues are different.
		In, you know, he is being, he is going through immigration proceedings.
		He is getting that chance to have a hearing to make his case.
		The issues here are the First Amendment implications because, again, you know, people who are in this country on student visas or however they're in this country, they are entitled to First Amendment rights.
		And thus far, it appears that the government's basis for wanting to deport Khalil is his speech activity.
		And so that raises real concerns because the rights that Khalil has under the First Amendment are the rights that all of us have under the First Amendment.
		And so if he can be penalized for his speech, any of us can be penalized for our speech.
		So I think that that's a concern in that case for sure.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		More calls for you.
		This is Susan in Whitman, Massachusetts, Line for Democrats.
		Susan, you're on with Liza Goitin.
unidentified		Thank you very much for taking my call.
		First, I just want to tee it up and say that I'm really opposed to this deportation to this horrible prison in Venezuela and the use of this Alien Enemies Act.
		But I want it, the question I have is: some of these other acts you said allow the president to move troops around and move funding around from different departments.
		But what about this Alien Enemies Act?
		Does this give the president the right to move our money, taxpayers' money, to pay this Venezuelan government to house these prisoners?
		And he asked the leader this week in the White House to build more prisons.
		I'm really opposed to have my taxpayer monies go into their Venezuela to support a prison where clearly there's human rights abuses going on here.
		It seems like a violation of our core American values.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Liza Goitin.
unidentified		That is such a great question.
		I think that's the first time that anybody has asked me where the authorization for that $6 million comes from.
		And I'll tell you, I'm going to look into it.
		I don't know the answer.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Maury in Portage, Michigan, Independent.
		Good morning.
		You are next.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm calling basically because the lady that's doing the talking.
		We don't know if she's an attorney, or at least I didn't hear she was but she sounds like she's a typical, very typical Democrat, and you have to know the bias before you can pay attention to these people.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You put on Liza Gortine.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you want to talk about your background and how you got into studying these issues?
unidentified		I'm an attorney um, and uh, I work at a nonpartisan organization, the Brennan Center FOR Justice.
		I have been extremely critical of executive power under every president since I have started doing this work, and that includes presidents Obama and Biden.
		Uh, you can, you can, if you would like, look up my work.
		Um, i've been consistent in my concerns about uh, the steady growth of executive power uh, and the, the ways in which uh power is essentially being transferred from Congress to the president.
		Uh, it you know, for the past, since 9-11 in particular, but for even longer than that.
		Uh, that's a theme in all of the work that i've done.
		So this, this is not to me.
		Uh, this is not a partisan issue, not remotely.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What did you do before the Brennan Center?
unidentified		Before the Brennan Center?
		Uh, I worked for the.
		I worked on the Senate Judiciary Committee as a staffer.
		Before that I was at the Department OF Justice for 10 years and with us sorry, eight years at the and with us for about another 10 minutes this morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Liza Gortine is our guest.
unidentified		Laura is in Spokane Washington, Republican.
		Good morning morning.
		Good morning, um.
		My question is, in that law it does say the 1878 law.
		It says that it's a predatory invasion.
		And if you don't consider uh, Trend AWAY or TDA or MS 13 predatory people, how can you say that it's um an unlawful thing for him to remove them because they are not directly connected to Venezuela or the foreign, another foreign government?
		Um, I don't see where it says in the law that there is uh, it has to be a declaration of war that says predatory invasion.
		And that's my question and that's.
		Thank you for your time.
		Bye-bye, it's a.
		It's a really good question.
		So, and there are two separate things.
		You have to keep them separate, the the law requires that the uh it's an invasion or a predatory incursion.
		The law requires that it has to be by a foreign government or nation.
		So you do have to wrestle with that question of the relationship between Tarantaragua and the Venezuelan government.
		The Venezuelan government is trying to actually crack down on on this gang.
		Um uh but, and then there's a separate question of whether there is either a declared war or an invasion, and I understand uh, you saying that you know you have to look at these people coming into the country as an invasion.
		That's why it's important, when you're interpreting laws, to also look at the context, The, what they call the legislative history, which is what the people who pass a law said about the law and why they were passing it.
		And if you study the legislative history of this act, it becomes extremely clear, and in fact, they were explicit about it, that this was being passed as part of the law of war, and that when they talked about invasions, they were talking about acts of war, armed attacks by political entities.
		And yes, the word invasion has a rhetorical meaning that may be consistent with, you know, or that Trump may be using in a way to sort of describe people coming to this country without authorization, gang members who come into this country without authorization.
		He's saying that's an invasion.
		But the way that that law is used in the Constitution, and in, because this was the same time period, right, roughly, it's about 10 years apart when this law was enacted, when the Constitution was ratified.
		The way that that term is used in both the Constitution and in this law, we have a lot of evidence from the Constitutional Conventions, from the legislative history of the Alien Enemies Act, that they were referring to an armed attack from a political entity, an act of war.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A question on some of these topics.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		On some of these topics, but from a different perspective, Agaca writes in: when U.S. citizens travel to other countries, what civil rights do we have there?
unidentified		It depends on the country.
		Every country has its own laws, has their own constitutions, have their own rights.
		Their constitutions may distinguish between the rights held by citizens of that country and others.
		It really depends.
		We don't get to decide what rights people in our country have in other countries.
		It's up to their laws, their constitutions.
		In our country, people who are in this nation have constitutional rights.
		They have certain constitutional rights.
		They certainly have First Amendment rights.
		They have due process rights.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is that unusual compared to other countries?
unidentified		That's another good question.
		I'm not sure.
		I'm not sure I have the comparative law basis to answer that question.
		So, yeah, can't really say.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		John in Mississippi, Independent, good morning.
unidentified		I just want to say one thing, folks.
		Us Americans, I'm going to say it out loud, and the world knows that we are better than everybody.
		We are smarter, tougher, and stronger than everybody.
		You know what I'm saying?
		And everybody wants to be a part of that.
		But everybody can't be a part of that.
		If you weren't born here, or you don't have, you know, you're not going to come here to help.
		So, and I feel this way for, I feel this way for all, for all of the, for all the, you know, people that's coming here, legal and illegal.
		If you are trying to build this nation, then you got to get out of here.
		And it's disrespect to all the soldiers that stormed Normandy.
		It's a disrespect to all the slave people that their souls, their bones, and blood are in the soul.
		It's a disrespect to anybody that comes here and thinks they're going to be a part of this.
		We are different.
		All right.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's John in Mississippi.
		Frank is in Massachusetts, a Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Is that girl still on?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Liza Goitin, yes.
unidentified		What Biden did to this country, isn't that treason and shouldn't he be like shot in the head?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		I apologize for that.
		You said you've raised concerns in previous administrations.
		What are some concerns that you have had with different administrations?
unidentified		Sure.
		I mean, I certainly had concerns, for example, with President Obama's bombing campaign in Libya, right?
		This was something that rose to the level of hostilities against another nation.
		And therefore, it should have triggered the war powers resolution.
		That's a law that Congress passed that basically says that Congress has to approve hostilities within a certain period of time.
		But this was essentially sidelined by a legal opinion that said, Well, it doesn't apply in this case.
		This isn't really hostilities.
		I mean, it was a many-month bombing campaign.
		So, essentially, again, this issue of the president claiming powers that are supposed to belong to Congress.
		I was opposed to President Biden using emergency powers to forgive student loan debt.
		I said that was a misuse of emergency powers because student loan debt is a long-standing problem.
		It is not a sudden, urgent crisis, and it's a problem that Congress really can and should address.
		It's not something that the president should sort of take over by relying on emergency powers.
		Across every administration, I've been critical of surveillance practices that I think don't fully account for the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans.
		So, those are some examples.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The Bluegrass State, this is Tim Democrat.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, everybody, and thank you for C-SPAN.
		Excellent, excellent.
		First thing I'd like to point out would be that that guy called about the bias thing and all that.
		This happens every day.
		Here we have a studied law professor, expert, attorney, trying to answer questions.
		But if she's a Democrat, well, they don't even want to listen.
		They want to dispute it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, Tim, I'm running short on time here.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's your question?
unidentified		Okay.
		The blatant abuse, okay?
		I would like to hear more about that because it's obvious.
		He's blatantly abusing the law and the Constitution.
		And that's basically my comment and question.
		And thank you all very much.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Isaac Gorteen.
unidentified		Yes, I think it's really important to continue to say this is not normal, right?
		I mean, this administration, this president has declared nine or it's eight or nine national emergencies.
		I'm trying to remember whether his military installation invoked emergency powers.
		I don't think he declared a new emergency.
		So, at least eight national emergency declarations in three months.
		No other president has declared emergencies under the National Emergencies Act at anything approaching that kind of pace.
		And if you look at these quote-unquote emergencies, I mean, unlawful border crossings right now at the southern border are at the lowest that they've been in decades.
		President Trump himself posted on social media: the invasion is over.
		Our border is closed, and yet he is still relying on this emergency declaration using emergency powers under it.
		He declared an energy emergency to promote fossil fuel production when we are the world's largest producer of oil and gas.
		He declared a national emergency in order to impose tariffs on every single country in the world, including islands that are inhabited only by penguins.
		It's simply not possible that we are facing an urgent existential crisis based on our trading relationship with every single country in the world.
		So, these are abuses of power.
		Are just beyond anything that can sort of fall within an acceptable sort of interpretation of these authorities.
		And we need to call that out.
		We need to talk about it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are there rules, though, about when an emergency has to end?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is there anything written into the law about when you have to give back emergency power?
unidentified		Unfortunately, not.
		Unfortunately, the law right now is very short on checks and balances.
		And so, well, in the beginning, when the law was first passed, there was a check, and that check was that Congress could terminate a national emergency declaration at any time using what was called a legislative veto.
		And that's a law that goes into effect without the president's signature.
		It requires just a simple majority of both houses.
		But in 1983, the Supreme Court held that legislative vetoes are unconstitutional.
		And that completely changed the balance of power in that law.
		So that now, if Congress wants to put a stop to an emergency declaration, it basically has to pass a law by, presumably, by a veto-proof supermajority, two-thirds of both houses, in order to override the president's veto.
		And so that greatly weakened Congress's ability to step in and stop abuses of emergency powers.
		There are efforts afoot.
		There have been now since President Trump declared a border emergency in 2019.
		Immediately after that, there was an effort led by Republicans, led by Senator Mike Lee of Utah, with 19 other or 18 other Republican senators joining him to reform the National Emergencies Act to make it easier for Congress to shut down emergencies that aren't really emergencies.
		And that legislation actually has very broad bipartisan support.
		It's been sort of percolating these last few years.
		Last year, there was a vote in both the House and Senate in committees on the legislation.
		In both cases, not only did the bill pass out of committee, but in the Senate, the vote was 13 to 1.
		And in the House, the vote was a unanimous voice vote.
		And I'm telling you, you don't see numbers like that in Congress today.
		That's how popular this reform is.
		So obviously, we're in a unique political environment right now.
		I don't know how else to put it.
		But I think reform of emergency powers right now is a question of when, not if.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Time for just maybe one more call in this segment.
unidentified		This is Rose in Illinois, Republican.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, everybody.
		I just want to ask you something.
		Didn't the Constitution get put together in the people form of government to protect us from all invasions?
		And all these laws that they're putting in now is corrupting our protections of the American citizens?
		Because most citizens are afraid to live in this country anymore.
		And all these laws haven't made it easier on us to live here free and safe.
		And we're being corrupted by some of these laws.
		And the Battle of Tripoli that we had was mostly by independent pirates who are attacking our coasts and kidnapping our sailors and selling them into slavery.
		We've had all this bad stuff, but we sent an army after them without all these new modern laws under the old laws.
		And we still have the rights to use all those laws because they were once enforced and nobody's ever taken them away.
		What would you say about the war at Tripoli and the reason why America went Rosa?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Got your question and short on time.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me give the final minute and a half here to Liza Goitin.
unidentified		Yeah, again, I think if there are armed attacks on the United States or U.S. ships, or you know, that the United States is entitled to defend itself and the President of the United States has inherent authority under the Constitution as commander-in-chief to repel armed attacks.
		Our nation is not under an armed attack.
		That is simply not the situation.
		We are not under, you know, there is not an act of war that's being perpetrated against the United States.
		Now, again, immigration law gives the president plenty of power to detain and deport immigrants in this country who are committing violent crimes.
		Those people can be detained and deported under immigration law.
		There is absolutely no need to resort to a facially inapplicable wartime authority in this setting.
		And in fact, even for people who are, you know, or groups that are designated as terrorist organizations, immigration law provides a very specific way forward for deporting, detaining, and deporting members of terrorist organizations.
		That's different from the procedure that usually applies in immigration proceedings, but there is still, there's a special court for those cases.
		So there are still hearings.
		There's still a court.
		There is still a process.
		And that is how Congress decided that we should handle the issue of deporting members of terrorist organizations.
		So there is, it is both unnecessary and wrong to try to rely on a wartime authority that on its face does not apply here when we have these ample authorities under other laws to address national security threats to this country,
		including any threats that might be posed by people who are in this country unlawfully.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		For more on Liza Goitin's work at the Brennan Center for Justice, it is brennancenter.org.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You can follow her on X at Liza Goitin.
unidentified		And we appreciate the time this morning.
unidentified		Thanks so much for having me.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Coming up for about the next 45 minutes this morning, it's a conversation about the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We will be talking with columnist and author and political commentator Ann Coulter.
unidentified		We'll be right back.
		This week, watch a prime time encore presentation of our 10-part series, First 100 Days.
		We explore the early months of U.S. presidencies from George Washington in 1789 to Donald Trump in 2017.
		We'll learn about the decisions made and how they shaped the White House, the nation, and history.
		Tonight, the first 100 days of Gerald Ford's presidency.
		He took office after the resignation of President Richard Nixon during the Watergate investigation.
		My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.
		Our Constitution works.
		Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men.
		President Ford later made the controversial decision to pardon Nixon.
		In those first few months of his term, President Ford also tried to tackle high inflation in the country, energy issues, and the treatment of Vietnam War draft evaders.
		Watch First 100 Days tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2 or online at cspan.org.
		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.
		Sunday night on C-SPAN's Q&A.
		Technology reporter Nicole Kobe, author of The Long History of the Future, talks about how technology evolves and discusses why many predicted technologies, including driverless and flying cars, smart cities, Hyperloops, and autonomous robots, haven't become a reality.
nicole kobie ▲ ● ▼		If you've ever tried to build anything, you know, whether it's like an IKEA cabinet or, you know, something a little bit more complicated than that that doesn't come with instructions, it's very difficult to build something.
		So engineers who are working on these kinds of problems, you know, whether it's driverless cars or flying cars or, I don't know, even sillier ideas like Hyperloop, they're taking science that we know works and they're applying it to the real world, to a physical object.
		And then they're trying to build that.
		And it's kind of in the details where things start to fall down a bit.
		It's kind of in, you know, how you actually make it happen, the materials you choose, the business model, all of that can just kind of take something that sort of works in the lab or works in an academic paper and just make it completely fall apart, even though, you know, people have spent maybe 80 years on an idea.
unidentified		Technology reporter Nicole Kobe, Sunday night at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q ⁇ A in all of our podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts or in our free C-SPAN Now app.
		Washington Journal continues.
		C-SPAN viewers are very familiar with our next guest.
		It is author, columnist, substacker Ann Coulter.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ms. Coulter, last time you were on this program was a couple months before the 2024 election.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		As we sit here today, close to 100 days into the second Trump administration, what do you think these first 100 days will be remembered for?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		The most wonderful 100 days in United States history.
		I can't believe how great Trump is if you've followed my work assiduously.
		You know, I campaigned with Trump when he was running in 2016.
		He did ask for a copy of my book, Adios America.
		A lot of the immigration stuff came from that huge fan.
		I was ecstatic the night he won.
		And then he hired Jared Kushner and Gary Cohn and turned the keys of the kingdom over to Wall Street.
		And it was basically, you know, Jeb Bush.
		So I gently encouraged him to go back to the great stuff he had campaigned on.
		I showed up in the Oval Office.
		I didn't release this, but it came out.
		I think the yelling and cursing was so loud in the Oval Office about three months into his first term and just yelled at him.
		And I wasn't the first one to use the F word, but oh boy, did that fly because he wasn't keeping his promises on trade, on anchor babies, and especially the wall, the walled wall.
		I say that to say I think we're actually kind of lucky that he lost in 2020 and that the left spent four years absolutely persecuting him, prosecuting the absurd things they went after him and his supporters for.
		And apparently that made him mad.
		So term two, I'm getting everything I voted for.
		I mean, even more.
		I can't believe it.
		Every day, it's things I didn't even think of.
		Yes, the water pressure, the showers, the toilets, the going after the universities, the anchor baby executive order, which I understand as of yesterday will be going before the Supreme Court.
		I'm very happy about that.
		Congress should pass a law to make it permanent, but hopefully the Supreme Court will rule the right way because I believe the law, as I described in Adios America, is absolutely clear on that, which I'm happy to elaborate on.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And I want to get to that, but you say you can't believe it.
		I want to show viewers just 30 seconds from just a couple months before election 2024, and we were talking about your views on Donald Trump being re-elected.
		I want to show viewers what you had to say back then.
unidentified		Ms. Coulter, who are you going to vote for in this election?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Well, Donald Trump, because if he loses, he will be running again in four years.
		And then he will have lost four successive elections for us.
		And, you know, truthfully, I really like his choice of JD Vance, which I had recommended back in May.
		Can't trust Trump as far as I can throw him, but I do trust JD Vance to care about the left behind people.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ed Coulter, what was it that caused this change from your opinion to today?
		Was it a JD Vance pick?
		Is it the people that Donald Trump is surrounding him with?
		Or is it he's just unexpectedly running the country different than he did last time?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Oh my gosh, is it different?
		I mean, all of those things.
		But apparently, you don't want to make Donald Trump mad because, I mean, I don't even want to remember the things I didn't like about him first term because I'm so ecstatic second term.
		But, you know, I mean, he won in 2016 with regular Americans, with the working class, with the left behind, with people like me and all of my friends in New York who've been waiting for a Republican candidate or any candidate our entire lives to run on the basket of issues that Trump was running on.
		No more permanent wars, immigration, immigration, immigration, and bringing manufacturing and trade back to America.
		Those were the three big things Donald Trump ran on in the end of political correctness.
		And then he gets into office and he's on the horn with Maggie Haberman every day and sucking up to the New York Times and sucking up to Wall Street.
		Hey, where's the wall?
		What happened to the wall?
		So let's just put that behind us.
		The good news is he's come out of the gate firing on all cylinders this time.
		I mean, every day, I'm in heaven.
		I can't believe how magnificent he is.
		This is absolutely what I voted for in 2016.
		Took a little while, but we got the real Donald Trump now.
		I think it's the real Donald Trump.
unidentified		You mentioned the birthright citizenship case.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that the Trump administration and the federal judiciary are on some sort of collision course here for some sort of constitutional crisis?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		No, no.
		I think the constitutional crisis is district court judges and the judiciary defying the powers of the presidency.
		I mean, it's really unbelievable.
		The Supreme Court has repeatedly held for 100 years, immigration is part of the plenary power of the president, and sometimes in surprising extensive ways, because it's part of his control over foreign policy.
		So, for example, under Clinton, Janet Reno and Bill Clinton sent a poor little eight-year-old boy back to a communist dictatorship.
		And the families had one in court, one in court, one in court.
		The father he was being sent back to was not married to the mother under standard American state law on that.
		He didn't have rights to the kid.
		But courts ruled: nope, immigration is totally up to Bill Clinton.
		If they want to send the eight-year-old boy back to a communist dictatorship, they win over state law.
		That Arizona, I won't go through all of them, but that famous papers please law by Arizona, written by the magnificent Chris Kobak, denounced right and left.
		It was the papers pleased part of that law, and that was when Arizona, law enforcement officials, if they pull over someone for a reason, and he seems to be, they have probable cause to believe it's illegal, they can ask for him to prove his citizenship.
		And by the way, immigrants are required to carry papers with them.
		That's been the law for a long time and hold him.
		So their position was: okay, Obama is not enforcing federal immigration law written on the books.
		Obama has decided not to follow it.
		But we're going to follow it.
		We won't go beyond federal law.
		Goes up to the Supreme Court and they say, nope, if the president doesn't want to follow immigration law, well, that's his prerogative.
		Plenary powers.
		So those are just a few examples of this is 100% in the president's presidential powers.
		The district courts do not have authority to do this.
		And just one other quick point on that.
		Something that I think all Americans have lost sight of because the Supreme Court's kind of lost sight of it.
		And that is the Supreme Court, all courts, are not supposed to be writing law.
		They are not supposed to be writing policy.
		What they are doing is deciding cases between two people, two or institutions, the parties.
		And that's it.
		They are ruling on a case between two parties.
		So for example, quick, easy example, the Supreme Court's affirmative action decision, or race discrimination decision, a couple of years ago against North Carolina and Harvard.
		Technically, the court's ruling applied only to North Carolina and Harvard.
		But by implication, that meant other universities probably shouldn't keep discriminating on the basis of race because you could just keep taking those cases up to the Supreme Court.
		But it wasn't announcing a policy the way Congress can write a law.
		And people have forgotten that.
		And these district court judges seem to want to take presidential powers and also not just decide cases between the two parties, but nationwide injunction, which is the equivalent of writing a law.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		No surprise, phone lines lit up for you, Ann Coulter.
		I can promote them as well, though.
		Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, we'll put the numbers on the screen.
		But we'll start on our line for Democrats.
unidentified		This is Raymond in Florida, in Seminole, Florida.
		You are up first with Ann Coulter.
		Hey guys, how are you doing?
		Doing well?
		Yeah, Ian, I just want to push back a little bit on something you said as far as the wall and being disappointed with him in the first term.
		I don't know what else the guy could have done.
		He offered him, what, $1.2 million instead of $800,000 on the DACA.
		He got the military involved, the OD.
		He tried to pass all sorts of laws.
		I mean, as president, he can only do so much, so you've got to admit that.
		As far as the judiciary, I agree with you 100%.
		You can't have a guy with one district basically dictating the law for the nation.
		So that stuff needs to stop.
		And I'm actually very proud of the Supreme Court.
		I think they've done a wonderful job.
		Tony Barrett, I'm a little disappointed with her.
		Not that she needs to stick with the conservative judges, but I think she's kind of been all over the board.
		So I'm kind of interested.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Raymond J. You say that as a Democrat, you're calling on airline for Democrats.
unidentified		Democrat.
		I don't know if you know what that means or not, but you know, basically, you put this out of the party.
		I'm from Massachusetts, obviously.
		You can hear my accent.
		I can't live in that domain anymore.
		Those people are like whack jobs up here.
		Now, my best friend Kevin up there, we talk all the time.
		He still lives up there.
		He's moving to Florida.
		That's where I'm from, obviously.
		I call it the free state of Florida.
		So I just want Ann's opinion on Coney Barrett.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ann Coulter.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Okay, first of all, Raymond, you are so my favorite kind of Democrat.
		And I'm only slightly joking when I say that obviously we agree on a lot of things there.
		That was, I think, the great thing about Trump, Trump in 2016 and now, or Trump campaign, and now the actual Trump.
		The parties really had become the unit party.
		No matter which party won the presidency, we were going to be going to war.
		Taxes would be cut for Wall Street.
		And really nothing else would get done.
		Your kids would still be discriminated against applying to college.
		Criminals and illegals would still be moving into your neighborhoods.
		I mean, it's like a nightmare remembering Jim Bush talking about illegal immigration being an act of love.
		And that was the big thing in W's second term as soon as he got re-elected.
		Okay, we're going to push amnesty.
		It was just unbelievable.
		And I mean, before the 2016 election, I felt like my, I don't know, a month before the election, my entire job was going out every night in New York and persuading Bernie Sanders supporters that they were way closer to Donald Trump than to Hillary Clinton.
		Trump and I think JD Vance have moved the Republican Party in, obviously, in the direction of a populist party that ought to be appealing to old-time Democrats.
		I mean, one of the most obvious examples that kind of blew me away, that what's his name, the head of the UAW, Sean Fane, maybe.
		Yeah, that's it.
		Oh, man, when I'd watch him at Kamala rallies during the campaign, I wanted to shoot my TV.
		He was so obnoxious.
		Trump comes out with the tariffs to bring auto manufacturing back to America, something I highly approve of.
		And suddenly, Sean Fane is singing his praises.
		I want a party of the American people, the middle class, the working class, that have genuinely been left behind over the party of elites and their foreign servants.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To Humble Texas, this is Thomas Independent.
unidentified		Good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Ann Coulter.
unidentified		Hey, good morning, America.
		Hey, Ann.
		I love you, boy.
		You're just amazing.
		I won all kinds of bets.
		I met a friend of mine the other day.
		I said, well, when did America become energy independent?
		And he said, oh, well, Trump's.
		I said, no, it's been that way for the longest.
		And so that was another $50 bet.
		But anyway, is this now Trump's economy?
		And oh, yes.
		And when will he end the wars in Gaza and Israel?
		Because he said, you know, on day one, we'll get this together.
		100 days in counting.
		I love you, Ann.
		Man, great.
		Keep up the good work.
		And, hey, change your mind anytime you get ready.
		Take care.
		Ann Coulter.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		As for the economy, I mean, obviously, I think these tariffs are really important and vital, and I think it's really important to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.
		I would think everyone would think that after COVID, you have this supply chain disruption, and suddenly for the first time, I find out we don't make any of our own medicine, we don't make our own aspirin.
		I mean, this is a national security issue in many ways when we're not building our own ships.
		A country should be largely self-sustaining.
unidentified		This is a particular beef of mine.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		It's always annoyed me that when Democrats act like they're offering these wonderful things to the American people, we'll give you family and medical leave.
		And here's another ground on which you can sue your employer for discrimination.
		Hey, yay, isn't that great?
		Okay, every time Democrats pass these things, making it more expensive to hire an American worker, Republicans shouldn't just be saying, oh, this doesn't make sense economically.
		They should be saying, Democrats are sending your job to China.
		They're sending your job to Mexico.
		And I firmly believe, and I wish someone smarter than I am who's an economist would run the numbers on this.
		I think an awful lot of the cost of hiring Americans isn't the wages.
		It isn't standard medical care, that sort of thing.
		It's having to have a phalanx of lawyers on retainer the entire time for when you get sued by your employees.
		It's having lawyers to deal with OSHA, with EPA.
		Now, obviously, some regulations are necessary.
		We don't want to have China's slave labor, and we won't.
		But these gifts the Democrats claim they are giving employers have just put them out of work.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To New York, this is Jim Republican Line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Is that me?
		That's you, Jim.
		You're on with Inculture.
		Hi.
		This is great, Anne.
		And, you know, I can't think of a better guest I'd want to talk to because they always have these pencil pushes and everybody else on here who don't know what's going on.
		Now, let me give you an example of something you left out in your book.
		And I don't know how you know all this stuff.
		I'm steeped in this stuff right here in this town.
		I go to all the town meetings.
		We're now censored on the government channel.
		Here's an example of something that's going on around here that nobody's talking about.
		Many of these houses are single-family houses where I live right now.
		You'd love to get out of here, but who can afford it?
		So the thing is, you've got nine adults or more in a single family house, and the house is taxed as a single-family house.
		And just as an example, my school taxes are about $3,600 a year.
		So you got nine people, nine adults paying that.
		They're paying $400, and I'm paying a full price.
		And I'm subsidizing their kids because they've got nine adults plus kids in these houses.
		You wouldn't believe how packed this neighborhood is.
		Cars on the sidewalk, cars on the lawn.
		It's a mess.
		I got parties.
		It's okay.
		And Jim, what neighborhood in New York are you in?
		Centralized, look, it's a disaster.
		I go to all the town hall meetings.
		You were talking about town hall meeting.
		But we have been censored.
		They have a government channel.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Wait, could I ask you a question?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		These nine people in the house, are you talking about immigrants?
unidentified		Oh, yeah, it's all Spanish here.
unidentified		You know, I mean, you go to the house.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's kind of a crucial point.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		You dropped.
unidentified		Well, you're gone.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Yes, that's a huge problem.
unidentified		We got evicted.
		We got evicted in the 60s from East Meadow.
		And I said it to Town Hall when we got the eviction notice, because my father lost his job.
		We didn't call up our relatives in Europe and say, could you come over here and live in our house and get a job and help pay for the mortgage?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Jim, got your story out on Long Island and Culture.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Give you a chance to respond.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		He dropped the crucial point.
		I was guessing when he was talking about nine people in a house, because, yeah, that's a huge problem.
		And as I and my friend Ryan Jarduski and others keep pointing out on Twitter, the reason housing costs have gone through the roof is, well, for one thing, we have at least 40 million illegal aliens in this country.
		That was true in 2015 when I wrote Adios America.
		The explanation is in that book.
		The way they do it now, it's been 11 million my entire life, allegedly.
		They ask people, are you an immigrant and are you here legally?
		Okay, there might be a better way to count this.
		So a couple of economists from Bear Stearns have done some studies on this to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, studied the issue for a year.
		And the figures they came to in 2015 was 40 million.
		So yeah, get rid of an extra 50 million people.
		And what the caller was mentioning is absolutely true, and not just in central Iceland.
		I have a friend in Brooklyn whose house kept burning down because these illegals don't have, they're not paying for electricity, they're stealing electricity, they're fiddling around with electric lines, fires are constantly going off.
		He's totally right about, I mean, okay, I admire people for working hard if they are working and not collecting welfare, but not our problem.
		It makes the mass of both legal and especially illegal immigrants are creating fire hazards.
		They are bringing diseases, as many medical journals, they probably aren't admitting it now, they've all gone PC, bringing diseases that were long eradicated in this country.
		They're not being checked.
		I mean, we have to get COVID cards to go into a restaurant in New York.
		But no, they're not checking the illegals, the 10 million, 20 million that Biden was bringing in.
		They're not being checked for COVID, for measles, for leprosy, for Ebola.
		So you have the diseases, you have the unfair or rather unsafe electricity, and you have housing costs through the roof because we have an extra at least 50 million people here now.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Nisi is next out of Southfield, Michigan, Line for Democrats.
		Good morning.
		You're on with Ann Coulter.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I wonder, do Ms. Carlton know that coming across the border illegal is not a felon, is a misdemeanor.
		And for her to talk about immigrants like that, we all are immigrants.
		The only true Americans are.
		We're not all Indians.
		Yes, we are.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		No, they're not Americans.
		We're not living in Navajo Nation.
		We're living in the United States of America.
		It was created.
		It was built.
		It was founded by Western Europeans.
		That's what made it America.
		You're not living in Cherokee Nation.
		So yeah, we're not all immigrants.
		In fact, I think at least half of all Americans trace their ancestry back to people who were here in 1790.
		And that's about when we probably should have cut off immigration.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Nixon.
		Good morning.
		You're on with Ann Coulter.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning, Ann.
		I spoke to John about this a while back.
		Why do we have military bases all around the world?
		We only should have military bases on our borders.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		I couldn't agree more.
		I could not agree more.
		I am 100% with you.
		When you look at, I mean, I don't remember now, but every once in a while I look it up and put it in a column.
		It's absolutely enraging how many troops we have around the world.
		I mean, I really think our military at this point, I really like Pete Hegseth, and hopefully he can do a lot about this, but our military has become a gigantic welfare program with a tiny little group of warriors attached.
		And you are completely right.
		The point of the military is to defend this country.
		It is not to be flinging troops around the world.
		And by the way, when we have these bases all over the world, okay, you know, somebody, I'm not saying this is deserved, but you're sitting ducks.
		You have some other country fire at one of our troops, and suddenly we have to go to war because, oh, they killed an American, or they wounded an American or they bombed an American base.
		Well, maybe don't have bases all over the world.
		Just be Fortress America.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned Pete Hegseth.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Coming back to the first 100 days, what was your take on the signal chat leak story?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		I think it was entirely Tim, no, his name is Mike Waltz.
		He was the one who invited Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, an absolute ferocious lunatic opponent of Donald Trump's.
		He's the one who pushed what I consider a defamatory lie about Trump calling our troops suckers and losers.
		I mean, you don't have to watch too much of Donald Trump to see how he reveres the military.
		That I am just absolutely not believing.
		And that's who this guy, former representative, Mike Waltz, he has this guy on the speed dial.
		And I think he does have him on the speed dial because contrary to my preference and the preference of several of the callers so far, I don't think we should be constantly at war with pip squee little countries that pose no danger to a hair on any American's head.
		But Waltz was a big permanent war guy.
		So yeah, of course he had Goldberg on a speed dial.
		I can't believe Trump hasn't fired him.
		He has no self-respect.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		About 15 minutes left with Ann Coulter this morning on the Washington Journal.
		A good way to connect with her, if you'd like to do that, is via her substack.
		It is unsafe is the name of the substack.
		And one thing you do on that substack is often talk about the five stories that we may have missed this week.
		What are going to be your five stories this week?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		You know, I was realizing, thinking about her, maybe doing them last week, that sometimes some of the five stories, I mean, they're not all like stupid stories about, oh, the chess champion.
		So sometimes it's a big story that you've heard of, but you haven't heard the points I need to make about it.
		So maybe I should rename it.
		Not just the usual conservative blather.
		Because I will mention the big stories, mention them.
		So I'm thinking this week, real ID.
		This is, oh, this is driving me crazy for two reasons.
		One is instead of having, boy, talk about papers please, forcing Americans to give all this information to the government and prove to them who we are.
		How about we get rid of airport security altogether?
		I mean, the record on airport security, for one thing, wastes an enormous amount of time.
		It's a ridiculous hassle.
		Whenever they do tests on airport security, they have, you know, their test people getting through with every possible form of armament there is.
		So it stops nothing.
		The TSA, Homeland Security itself, admitted just a few years after 9-11, you know, they're listening to all the chatter among the terrorists.
		Nobody's planning on doing that again, and for good reason.
		That was a sucker punch, 9-11.
		You can't pull that off twice.
		It used to be that, you know, you'd hear of a hijacking.
		It was, take me to Cuba, take me to Algeria.
		There had never been one where a commercial airline was turned into a missile like that.
		Now you would need at least half the plane to be terrorists in order to take over the plane.
		Otherwise, they're going to, I mean, even the fourth plane on 9-11, they couldn't pull it off because the passengers found out what was in store for them.
		So, of course, that's what everyone is going to be anticipating.
		We don't need it at all.
		There's no chatter that anyone is trying to do.
		They have not stopped weapons getting through.
		Let the airlines do their own security.
		Their business will go down rather dramatically if one of their planes is overtaken by a terrorist and flown into the World Trade Center.
		They know most of their passengers.
		I think I looked up, this was in a column recently.
		70 to 80 percent, I think it might be 80 percent, of travelers in the U.S. belong to a frequent flyer program.
		The airlines know 80 percent of the people flying with them.
		But we have to go through and take your shoes off and be you know sexually molested, little old ladies going through.
unidentified		It's preposterous, but now it's this is the problem.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Government programs never ever go away.
		Okay, Trump's done a lot of great things.
		Get rid of the TSA, let airlines do their own, do their own security.
		And oh, other point about real ID, and this is my main point.
		I already have a real ID, it's called a driver's license.
		But why do we need an extra real driver's license?
		Because about 20 states are giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens.
		Hey, don't give them to illegal aliens.
		So, when these same states give the real ID to illegal aliens, are we gonna have to get a real real ID?
		A real, real ID?
		How long will this go on for us to accommodate people who have no right to be in our presence?
		Second story, I'm thinking, I don't know what order this will be in.
		I've been giving updates on Maryland Man, mostly because, I mean, this is just my little vindication story.
		I've always insisted I could decide every immigration case before breakfast, and I could do it on Tinder.
		Just give me a picture, and I'll let you know: is this an immigrant that's going to immigrants who are better than us, not worse than us, not immigrants we need to support?
		And I'm talking about legal immigrants.
		The Maryland man, Garcia, he is an illegal alien, and two immigration judges have found that he was a member of MS-13.
		We find out this week that his wife brought domestic got a restraining order against him, and her own handwriting said how he hit her, he scratched her eye, he did it all in front of their infants.
		And the Democratic Party has staked its claim.
		I love Representative Van Holland flying to El Salvador to bring a criminal back to America.
unidentified		Okay, what was a third story I was thinking of?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'll tell you: the big finale is going to be the big finale of my, not the finale of the religion, but the finale of the story of my religion.
		It's Easter this weekend.
		So, I have a little rap on Christianity at the end.
		What else am I going to do?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you want to save the last two for unsafe readers if they want to come to the sub stack and find out?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Yes, be surprised.
		There's some great stuff there.
		And it's coming out today.
		I talk about five stories you may not have heard of, but some of them, stories big, but my take isn't.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Plenty of callers here, and just about 10 minutes left.
unidentified		This is David in Independence, Louisiana, Independent.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, you Scars.
		Happy Easter.
		Mr. John, look, I've been paying my service provider bill since it was $18 a month.
		So please give me just a second without turning my channel.
		Good morning, Miss Ann.
		My mom was named Miss Ann.
		Look, I appreciate your attitude, and I appreciate Washington Journal having someone like you on.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		I have nothing to do with the Wall Street Journal.
		I hate the Wall Street Journal.
		I'm at war with the Wall Street Journal.
unidentified		They are the permanent war open borders crowd.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I think he said thanks to the Washington Journal for having you on.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that may just be my ears that I'm about to attack the Wall Street Journal anyway.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		David, what's your question?
unidentified		Well, I'm missing a few teeth here in the front.
		I must sound a little bit different.
		God bless y'all.
		But look, he's talking about Trump's fantastic first hundred days.
		I prayed for years, man, all through most of my life to see a real leader.
		Instead of these talk out of both sides of their mouth at the same time and lie at both times.
		I can't tell you.
		I don't have enough time to explain to you how I know Trump is the right person.
		That's just unbelievable.
		But look, but you got it, if you could get some more conservative people.
		It's like Mr. Bob Woodson.
		I happened to see him on Fox last night for a couple minutes.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		David, I appreciate the recommendations.
unidentified		And Coulter, anything you want to follow up on?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		No, but his breathless enthusiasm for Trump term two, I totally agree with.
unidentified		Terrell is in Owingsmill, Maryland.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Democrat.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Ann, I know Ronald Reagan is turning over in his grave.
		I was a steelworker back in the 80s.
		And under Ronald Reagan, you know, I was laid off from 82 to 84.
		I went back to work six months in 84 and was laid off from 84 to 87.
		Ronald Reagan did not believe in tariffs.
		And another thing, Ronald Reagan also had dementia.
		You hear about Ronald Reagan.
		I hear people talk about Ronald Reagan when he legalized 3 million immigrants.
		And I know why he legalized 3 million immigrants because he couldn't remember.
		So, Ann, I'm asking you, Ann, Ann, Ann, listen, baby.
		Who was running the White House?
		Who was running White House when Ronald Reagan forgot that he legalized 3 million immigrants?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ann Coulter.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		I find that totally hilarious.
		That's totally going to be my defense of Ronald Reagan now for his absolutely worst act, his amnesty.
		I will say, I loved Reagan, but he was no Trump, and flew out to meet him six months, at least six months after he was president.
		It may have been a year later.
		And he didn't get the dementia until after he left office.
		But the amnesty thing is, well, that and Sandra Day O'Connor were the biggest mistakes he made.
		And the only defense I can make of it is that, as with the 1965 Immigration Acts, we were absolutely lied to.
		For one thing, the deal was there only there, I think there were only supposed to be like 800,000 illegal immigrants in the country at the time.
		Maximum, maximum 3 million.
		And that was, of course, a lie.
		That first amnesty, you know, they go to court, as we're seeing now with the district courts.
		People will go, and under the Agricultural Adjustment Act, for example, that was one.
		Oh, if you've been working hard in the field, yes, you can prove you've been in the country for X number of years.
		I don't know, most of the last year you only got here recently.
		Then, okay, you get amnesty.
		You've been a hard worker.
		Oh, no, we had like Nigerians flying in 10 years later saying, going to immigration court and saying, no, it's not fair that I wasn't here when this amnesty was issued.
		And having judges saying, you're right, that was unfair.
		You get amnesty too.
		So it just, it led to the, you can't pass any kind of amnesty for anyone, everyone, ever, ever, because the courts will take it over and say, yeah, that's unfair that you don't technically qualify.
		Also, under the Agricultural Adjustment Act, letting in amnestying this small number of agricultural workers, we got a whole slew of terrorists coming in.
		Cab drivers in New York, when they were asked questions during their interviews, they'd say, you know, corn was purple, grew in the ground.
		They had to pull out of the game.
		They had nothing, no idea about any kind of agriculture.
		And the Immigration Service itself admitted that 90% of the applications were fraudulent, and they approved 90% of the fraudulent applications.
		So you can never do this.
		The defense, I'll say, of Reagan is, I don't know.
		I think some people knew it was going to happen, but we know what's going to happen now.
		The other thing is that as with every amnesty, and that was one of the bigger ones, it's always a trade-off.
		Okay, we'll amnesty some people, but in return, we're going to get really strong E-Verify.
		We're going to have protection at the border.
		And somehow you always get the amnesty and you never get the other end.
		So no, no amnesty ever.
		Deport them all, build a wall.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Columbia Station, Ohio, Ed Republican.
unidentified		You're on with Ann Coulter.
		Oligarchy, oligarchy, boy.
		I tell you, Ann Coulter is my favorite columnist forever alive.
		And I miss, God rest his soul, the Rushi, the great Rushi.
		But I'd like to have Ann's opinion.
		Who do you think the Democrat Party, when it's all done and said, is going to run for president to the primaries?
		And who would she like to see him run?
		I'm going to stop there.
		Have a great safe with your loved ones.
		Oh, tell Bill Marhei.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		You are a wise and insightful man.
		Thank you on the column.
		For some reason, we love talking about this.
		And who knows, it's three and a half years away.
		I tend to think that the smart guys in the Democratic Party are going to put their foot down this time.
		And we're going to get, well, some of the ones, the New York Times manifestly, and big Democratic donors really wanted to replace Biden.
		Someone like Andy Bashir or Mark Kelly.
		I'm not praising any of them.
		Gretchen Whitmer.
		But these were the ones, right, the day Biden pulled out.
		I was reading just live updates in the New York Times for the next couple of hours.
		And it was funny.
		They didn't even talk about Kamala.
		They were explaining how, you know, someone other than Kamala could take over from Biden and still get his money.
		They so did not want Kamala.
		And then, you know, two hours later, Biden, I'm endorsing Kamala.
		And then nobody could go against it.
		So I would think that, and the Democrats do this to their voters a lot.
		Republicans let voters choose whomever they want.
		But Democrats, I think after the McGovern catastrophe, they sort of fiddled with, I don't know if these are still in place, but they fiddled with the rules to make sure the smart guys in the smoke-filled rooms would be able to pick the candidate.
		If that happens, it's going to be a moderate Democrat.
		If I were Democrats, I'd run Ned Lamont, governor of Connecticut.
		But I don't think they will be that smart.
		Whom I would like them to run, AOC would be fantastic.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The caller said that you're his favorite columnist.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Who are your favorite columnists?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		I tend not to read conservative columnists.
		I sort of skim to see what they're saying.
		You don't want to get it in your head and then end up writing a column and, oh my gosh, that was what I just read.
		So I mostly both watch MSNBC and CNN religiously read the New York Times.
		And thinking of a columnist I actually like in the sense of liking.
		Well, some are not safe for work.
		Like David Cole attacking magazine.
		He's pretty funny.
		Obviously, I read like the Ryan Jorduski substack.
		Who else do I go to when I want to know something I actually will enjoy reading?
		It's funny, my go-to place is the New York Times.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you think people will be surprised to hear that?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Well, they shouldn't from my reading.
		Half my oeuvre is attacking the New York Times.
		I mean, and there's a reason for that.
		I'm not just being a brat.
		It is an incredibly influential newspaper.
		You read it in the New York Times, suddenly it's being regurgitated everyplace else.
		And I would say, I mean, I think their standards have fallen a little since 2020, but the New York Times is probably the most articulate expression of liberal thoughts in America.
		So that's what you want to go to first.
		Also, they had, ooh, this is going to be one of my stories.
		Can't believe I forgot this.
		This just took me by storm.
		And you still get these articles in the New York Times, which is what drives you crazy.
		Some of the reporting is really, really first-class fabulous.
		And then, you know, they start talking about Trump and they all lose their minds.
		But anyway, there was an amazing magazine piece last week on the truth of ADHD.
		I can never remember what it stands for, so I'm just going to call it attention deficit disorder.
		Turns out, totally fake, doesn't exist.
		Adderall makes it worse, not better, does not help at all.
		We have drugged up these kids.
		Oh, and you know what else Adderall does?
		It makes you shorter.
		So this is just a few of the takeaways.
		And these were, this isn't somebody just, you know, trying to make a political point.
		The author, I forget who it was, but he goes to long-time attention deficit disorder researchers who have been researching it since the 90s.
		And apparently, and I'll leave it with this so you can read the article, they all believed back then this is medical.
		We are going to find something in the genes.
		We're really making so many advances looking at the genetic code.
		We're going to be able to see attention deficit disorder on an MRI.
		We're going to find some proof that it's real way.
		They've been looking for 30 years and they can't not find it.
		Turns out, little boys are just fidgety.
		And when they get into something they're into, they can focus fine.
		I'm sorry, one more point from this article that I thought was just amazing.
		So it's good for the teachers and it makes the parents happy, I guess, because the Adderall, or before that, I guess it was a riddle.
		And it makes kids seem to be really focused on their homework.
		And they're working frenetically, but they do worse on the tests.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned the New York Times.
		I think you're up to 13 New York Times bestsellers.
		What's the next book about?
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		I think I've said it all.
		I genuinely think I've said it all.
		I mean, when you look at everything happening now, Guilty is about the victim culture.
		Godless about how so much of liberalism, that's a really fun book, is like a cult religion.
		All the ridiculous foreign wars and also just the left-wing, sorry, hates America.
		That's in treason.
		I also have the attack on Darwinism in Godless.
		And the last three books are incredibly pertinent right now.
		First Adios America, then in Trump We Trust, written for the most magnificent presidential campaign in history.
		And then about a year into his administration, even when he was really annoying me, you know, he'd do something that was sort of a jackass thing to do, send out some stupid tweet.
		And I'd be thinking, okay, I'm with the New York Times.
		That was a stupid thing to do.
		But liberals could never just limit it to what Trump actually did.
		They'd have to like add on, and he killed a nun, and he nailed a kitten to a church door.
		And, you know, stop making me defend this guy.
unidentified		It was bad, but he didn't do that.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		But Trump has just driven liberal minds crazy.
		So that was resistance is futile, how the left lost their collective minds over Donald Trump.
		And it goes through a lot of these examples.
		I mean, the Nazi stuff, the authoritarian, oh, come on.
		Just if you're going to criticize him, just stick to what he actually did and don't call him a Russian agent.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		As usual, short on time.
		Let me try to get one or two more calls in.
		Michael, thanks for waiting here in DC.
		Go ahead, Independent.
unidentified		Hey, good morning, John, and John, I would just like to applaud your patience this morning.
		And by your own definition, I am actually a true American.
		Both my mother's and father's families trace themselves to pre-revolutionary war.
		Both families fought in the Revolutionary War on the side of patriots.
		And as a true American, I can tell you what the current administration is doing is as un-American as it gets.
		Now, because I believe in civic discourse, I would like to ask you a question.
		The Trump administration, specifically President Trump, recently stated that he would be open to allowing migrant workers who work on farms and hotels to stay and not get deported.
		What's your opinion on that?
		Thanks.
		I'll listen offline.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, we have some bad ones, even who can allegedly trace their ancestry back to the revolutionary area, just not as many as among immigrant voters who just worth saying, pre-1970 immigrants were better than us, smarter than us, made more money, bought more houses.
		Whoa, as that flipped with the post-1970 immigrants.
		And yeah, as for the migrant workers, okay, he's not perfect.
		He's still not perfect.
		No, the farmers are driving me crazy.
		I mean, it's a joke among immigration, I don't know, patriots, I guess you would call people like myself, that the moment we talk about farmers not being able to farm the way their ancestors did in 1800, no, we need people outraging.
		Have you heard of computers and robots?
		10 years ago, there were machines that can perfectly pick a strawberry.
		They have like three little cameras on it.
		You do not need people for this.
		We are bursting into the future.
		We're worried about what kinds of manual jobs will be left, and I think there will be plenty.
		With AI and with more and more things being done robotically, like my precious Roombas for every room in my house.
		But farmers, no, we need this vast army of small people from Latin America doing the raking and the hoeing.
		Oh, come on, just upgrade.
		And yeah, if you cut off the cheap labor that we are subsidizing, I think farmers will farms.
		There aren't that many like regular farmers anymore.
		They're huge conglomerates.
		Yeah, they're going to have to modernize.
		Oh no, what a mistake.
		But we're going to be left with, as everything is modernized, this huge mass of cheap manual labors, laborers whom we absolutely do not need.
		And we're paying for them.
		We're subsidizing, well, all of their anchor babies, their hospital care, their medical care, the SNAP program, the schools.
		When they commit crimes, well, that's going to require they're going to have a court-appointed attorney.
		We have the prosecutor.
		We have the police, the jailroom.
		No, we are subsidizing farmers' cheap labor so that they can farm the way their great-great-great-grandfathers did and not move into the 21st century.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We'll have to end it there this morning with Ann Coulter.
		The substack, if you want to follow, is unsafe, the website andcoulter.com.
		And we always appreciate your time on the Washington Journal.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Good to talk to you, John.
ann coulter ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		About 25 minutes left in this morning's program.
		In that time, it will be our open forum when we let you lead the discussion.
		Phone lines are yours to start calling in Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
		As usual, there's numbers on your screen.
		We'll get to your calls right after the break.
unidentified		C-SPAN 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 1,700 thought-provoking student films on their use of multiple perspectives.
		C-SPAN awarded $100,000 in total cash prizes, and our grand prize of $5,000 goes to Dermot Foley, a 10th grader from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland.
		Congratulations to all our winners.
		The top 21 winning entries will air on C-SPAN this month.
		You can also watch all the award-winning documentaries anytime at studentcam.org.
		C-SPAN, bringing you democracy unfiltered.
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, G.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.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is worth dying for.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼		Democracy belongs to us all.
bill clinton ▲ ● ▼		We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼		Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		American democracy is bigger than any one person.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		We are still at our core a democracy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
unidentified		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Just about 20 minutes left in our program this morning.
		In that time, we are opening the phones for you to call in.
		It's open forum.
		Any public policy issue, any political issue that you want to talk about, the phone lines are yours to do so.
		As you're calling in this morning, I want to bring you the latest on the ongoing negotiations over war in Ukraine.
		Vice President JD Vance is in Italy, is meeting with the Italian Prime Minister to talk about U.S. issues in Europe and specifically the war in Ukraine as well.
		Here's from this morning his update on the war in Ukraine.
unidentified		But this is a place that was built by people that love humans and love God.
unidentified		And the streets, the buildings, the beautiful landscape and cityscape, I think it really lifts up the human spirit.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		So we're going to have some good conversations, but I also take some inspiration from being in this beautiful city filled with wonderful people.
unidentified		And so we're grateful to you and, of course, to the people of Rome, the people of Italy for their friendship and also for their warm welcome.
unidentified		We have a couple of important issues to discuss today.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		I want to update the Prime Minister on some of the negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and also some of the things that have happened.
unidentified		Even in the past 24 hours, we think we have some interesting things to report on, of course, in private.
		So the negotiations, I won't prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war, this very brutal war, to a close.
		I also, of course, want to talk to the Prime Minister about some of the economic relationships, very important between Italy and the United States.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		But of course, we're having some big trade negotiations between not just Italy and the United States, but the whole European Union.
unidentified		We talked a great deal about that yesterday with the President, and we'll follow up on those conversations today.
		But most of all, just thrilled to be in the presence of a dear friend in a beautiful place with great people.
		So thank you for having me.
		Thank you very much.
		Thanks.
		Thank you.
		Vice President JD Vance in Rome there.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You can compare those comments to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was also speaking about the possibility of ending the war in Ukraine earlier today.
		He spoke to a group of reporters as he is traveling to negotiations on that front.
		Marco Rubio was speaking just a little while ago this morning.
unidentified		I think it's important to remind everybody that the Ukraine war is a terrible thing, but it's not our war.
		We didn't start it.
		The United States has been helping Ukraine over the last three years, and we want it to end.
		But it's not our war.
		I want everyone to understand that.
		And the reason why I make that point is the President has spent 87 days at the highest level of his government repeatedly taking efforts to bring this war to an end.
		We are now reaching a point where we need to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not, which is why we're engaging both sides.
		As you know, Ambassador Witkoff has had not one, not two, but three meetings with Vladimir Putin to determine the Russian perspective on this and understand what it would take for them to end it.
		We, through General Kellogg, myself, and others, have had repeated engagements with the Ukrainians.
		So we came here yesterday to sort of begin to talk about more specific outlines of what it might take to end a war to try to figure out very soon.
		And I'm talking about a matter of days, not a matter of weeks, whether or not this is the war that can be ended.
		If it can, we're prepared to do whatever we can to facilitate that and make sure that it happens, that it ends in a durable and just way.
		If it's not possible, if we're so far apart that this is not going to happen, then I think the president's probably at a point where he's going to say, well, we're done.
		You know, we'll do what we can on the margins.
		We'll be ready to help whenever you're ready to have peace.
		But we're not going to continue with this endeavor for weeks and months on end.
		So we need to determine very quickly now, and I'm talking about in a matter of days, whether or not this is doable over the next few weeks.
		If it is, we're in.
		If it's not, then we have other priorities to focus on as well.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The Secretary of State there and the Vice President earlier, both today traveling overseas.
		Taking your comments this morning in this last 20 minutes or so of the Washington Journal.
		It's open forum.
		Let us know what's on your mind.
		This is Dolores in Collierville, Tennessee.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, sir.
		Good morning to everybody.
		I'm sorry, I miss Miss Culture.
		I want to ask her supports.
		She wouldn't be up in that position if it wasn't for women's rights, civil rights.
		And Trump is getting up there.
		He lied and said he was going to help the economy.
		If the stock's been going up and down, and then they're setting up their sir saying that Ukraine started their war.
		Everybody knows Russia started their war, wanting to take over those people's land.
		I'm sick and tired of the Republicans getting out there lying to us, especially Trump.
		He said he was going to make everything better for us.
		Look at all the people he went in there and fired.
		He's not thinking about they got mortgages, the federal families, cardinals, insurances.
		And he's not concerned about these.
		He's fighting everybody.
		Even the people who were up there when they found him guilty of the crimes he did with the insurrection.
		He's going at them.
		What kind of leader is that?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Dolores.
		This is Diane in Florida, Republican line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, everybody.
		My name is Diane, and I live in Florida.
		I'm originally migrated from Maryland, Chris Van Holland's district.
		I was recently, I'm a senior.
		I'm over 75.
		I was recently in a store, a box store, here in Florida, and I was attacked by an illegal alien.
		He tried to grab my pocketbook, and I've been through, this has been a journey for me.
		I've gone to several hospitals.
		I'm a patient over at the Mayo Clinic, which is a premier hospital.
		I've gotten wonderful care, but I cry at night just seeing that man.
		It's like I can't get over it.
		These people do not belong here.
		They need to get out of our country.
		And I praise President Trump for what he's doing.
		Van Holland has no right to go down and get a Trendea Agua person out of a prison in El Salvador, but he doesn't go and visit Rachel Vard's mother, who was brutally attacked and raped.
		These Democrats are a joke.
		It's all about power.
		And I'm sick of it.
		I'm a victim, but I'm not going to look in the rearview mirror.
		But Democrats better wake up because the people of this country do not care what they have to say anymore.
		President Trump is the man that's getting these people.
		I'm sorry for crying.
		These people out of this country.
		And if it was their grandmother, as I am a grandmother, then they would feel it too.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Diane in Florida.
		You mentioned Chris Van Holland was traveling in El Salvador and yesterday met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in that country.
		Here's his tweet about it from yesterday.
		It was about 9 p.m. Eastern Time.
		I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar tonight.
		I had the chance.
		I've called his wife Jennifer to pass along his message of love.
		And I look forward to providing a full update upon my return to the United States.
unidentified		Bae is in Chester, Pennsylvania, Independent.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		You are next.
		Hi.
		Diane.
		For Diane, you can have it from anybody.
		I'm not just an illegal alien.
		Anybody from the state of this country can do the same thing.
		One, two.
		Do you know the tricky?
		Everybody keeps talking about Donald Trump.
		He's a 31st-time convicted splint.
		Yet he's still in office.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Tell you what, Bay, you're going a little in and out.
		If we can try you again on a different line.
		This is Barbara in the meantime in California.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yes, I really wanted to address Ann.
		She had claimed that we are not aliens in the country, but we are.
		Just because you steal something don't mean it belongs to you.
		Our founders were thieves, okay?
		It belongs to the natives.
		And that's very rude.
		We still have natives here on this land.
		And it's rude.
		Just because you steal something, it doesn't make you a hero.
		It makes you a thief.
		And if we would stop the millionaires, the multi-millionaires and the billionaires from working these illegal people, they've been doing it for many, many years.
		If we will stop them from working them, we put them down.
		But what about the millionaires?
		I bet she has some working in her home.
		I bet her parents have.
		I know Trump does.
		Why don't we go after them?
		Stop going after them poor people.
		Coming over, working up in these people's kitchen, keeping their children, all out in their fields.
		All these multi-millionaires and billionaires.
		That's where the blame should lie.
		And no, don't take pride in being a thief.
		Don't take pride in being the offspring of a thief.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Got your point.
		This is Leslie in Pennsylvania, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		I was listening to Ann Coulter belittling the farmers because they haven't moved into modern times.
		I would like to suggest she and anybody else who's interested watch rural evening news every night on RFD TV.
		They will find farmers are using computers, GPS, they're using drones.
		They are in the current decade.
		There are some crops that require human hands.
		And since American people are unwilling to do such hard physical labor for such poor pay, the farmers really have no choice but to employ illegal aliens or those on visas with work permits to do farming.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Leslie, do you come from a farm family?
unidentified		Yeah, my parents and my grandparents were, yes.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What kind of farmers were they?
unidentified		A mix of, they were out on the prairie.
unidentified		It was a mix of livestock and what they call row crops, dirt farmers.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And what do you do now, Leslie?
unidentified		Ah, I'm retired.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What did you do, Leslie?
unidentified		I worked in an office.
		And tell us about RFDTV.
		It is actually on public TV every night, Monday through Friday.
		And they go out to talk to the farmers.
		They follow the legislation that applies to agriculture.
		It's a very good program.
		And they talk to the farmers and they show the viewers what the farmers are doing, how they're doing.
		They show the working immigrants on what type of work they do and why it needs people, not machines, to do certain jobs.
		According to RFD TV, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of the crops in this country that are planted and harvested are done by immigrants with work permits, but immigrants.
		The other thing people have to think about is the birth rate has dropped so low in this country that there really are not enough American citizens, young people, to do a lot of these jobs.
		Even in the grocery stores, they've gone to automated tell you know cashiers.
		And I asked one manager why he didn't have more cashiers, and he said we can't find the people to do it.
		Everywhere you look, the stores have help one hiring signs.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Leslie in Pennsylvania.
		Just about 10 minutes left in our program today.
		And wanted to let you know about what else is airing on the C-SPAN networks today as Congress continues this two-week break from being on Capitol Hill.
		At 11:15 Eastern Time today, we'll bring you here on C-SPAN over to the Elliott School on International Affairs, a discussion on the ongoing war in Ukraine and its effects on Russian society.
		The event, 11:15 a.m. Eastern on C-SPANC-SPAN.org and the free C-SPAN Now video app.
		One other event today you might be interested in at 2.40 p.m. Eastern Time.
		That's when it's scheduled for.
		It's the International Space Station Change of Command Ceremony.
		Russian cosmonauts will give command over to Japanese astronauts in that ceremony.
		And you can watch live on C-SPAN too, again, at 2.40 p.m. Eastern Time.
		We're also showing that on C-SPAN.org, and you can watch it on the C-SPAN Now video app.
		Back to your phone calls for about the next eight minutes or so here.
		This is Brian, Mapleshade, New Jersey, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, hello.
		I just wanted to respond to something Ann Kohler said.
		You had asked her about who she thought the next Democratic presidential nominee will be.
		I think it's easy.
		You know, when Trump was in, he had not one but two attempted assassination attempts.
		And he used that to his advantage, which you can't blame him.
		And the Democrats basically, I just think, handed the whole thing to Trump to win the presidency.
		I think it's clear it's going to be Mr. Shapiro after what just happened in Pennsylvania on the attempt on his life, setting his place on fire.
		He was a Camilla.
		Thank goodness she never got in.
		But I think he's very possibly going to be out there in front to try to get that nomination and to get it early.
		And there's just no question in my mind.
		And I would be happy with him.
		And that's pretty much all.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What do you like about him, Brian?
unidentified		Well, it's not so much how much I like about it.
		I thought he was just a good candidate and everything.
		But now with this, and I think Trump played it up to his advantage.
		I think Mr. Shapiro will play it up to his advantage.
		But I just think he may well be a good run for the White House.
		I think he could win.
		And, of course, we don't know who the Republicans will pick, but we'll just have to wait and see.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Brian in the Garden State to the Wolverine State.
		This is Jim Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm just wondering about this fraud and all the wasted money that Elon Musk and his cabinet has found.
		Such wasteful money, stupid, stupid bills that somebody has passed and got these bills through Congress to give all these different countries, all these different countries, this extra wasted money from our taxpayer money.
		Nobody has ever mentioned who is sponsoring these bills, who is putting these bills to Congress to send that money to the U.S. AID program.
		Isn't there somebody that can be held accountable for you know the reason they're getting the bill sent?
		It's.
		It's.
		Very plain that it's got to be.
		They're getting kickbacks from the money.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To have you looked up whether your members have supported uh, these funding bills that go through, whether there are these massive omnibus bills for all these agencies or individual ones over the years for specifically, the State Department under which USAID existed for a long time?
unidentified		No, I haven't.
unidentified		That's a good idea.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Jim in Michigan will stay in Michigan in Pawpaw.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It is BOB Independent.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Well, you know, I I'm sure Ann Coulter is an expert in some field, although I can't imagine what agriculture unfortunately, is not her expert field of expertise.
		You know, we've gotten used to perfect produce in at our stores and the only way you can achieve that is by hand picking, and I live in an area that is one of the largest producers of specialty crops in America, in southwest Michigan.
		Here and, believe me, machines cannot do the work that is done by farm workers, they.
		It is a skill, I hate to mention it to Ann.
		This is not unskilled work, this is skilled work, and if you want produce that isn't smashed and and a bunch of gobbledygook, it has to be picked by hand.
		So let her stick to subjects that she is knowledgeable about and something she has never doesn't have a clue about.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Bob, what do you do?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is your family involved in farming or are you involved?
unidentified		Yes, I'm a farmer and I have grown vegetables and and fruit crops my working life.
		I'm retired now but, oh yeah, what did you grow in Pawpaw?
		Well, Concord grapes for one, and vegetables, and an array of vegetables I sold at farmers markets, and field crops also.
		You know, corn and soybeans.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You say Bob, the machines aren't there now.
		Do you think machines will get to the point where they will be, will be able to do what you're talking about?
		No, they'll never be able to get to that point.
unidentified		I don't think so.
		Not strawberries and some of these flushier, softer crops.
		We, we produce a ton of these specialty crops here and most of them are picked by hand because we require perfection in our stores.
		You know we're not going to get a bunch of, we're not going to buy bruised fruit and vegetables, you know, and and smushed up vegetables.
		You know we've gotten used to perfect stuff and that's the only way you can get it.
		That of that level of quality is by by hand.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Thanks to the call from Michigan.
		This is Evelyn in Baltimore Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, John I.
		I was calling because um, i'm trying to figure out why everybody is talking about Rachel Warren And leaking around you, I know they were killed, but you would think that the only people that kill people in the United States are foreigners.
		And if you ever do a statistic, I would like to know to see how many Americans kill Americans.
		It's just, and you know, Trump ran on those two things.
		You know, he got the people all hyped up about, you know, foreigners and all this and that.
		But come on, now, do you really believe it's more foreigners killing people in the United States than Americans killing people?
		I don't think so.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Evelyn in Maryland to Texas.
		It's Virginia, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's on your mind, Virginia?
unidentified		I just want to say I really appreciate that you, John, know like the state, like the Badger State and the Evergreen State and the Garden State.
		I think that's really great.
		As for the politics and everything, today is like Good Friday.
		So I think just lighten up everyone, okay?

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