CSPAN - Washington Journal 04/24/2025

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April 24, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:38

Washington Journal 04/24/2025

Participants

Main

mimi geerges

cspan 31:29

Appearances

dick durbin

sen/d 00:40

donald j trump

admin 01:49

josh shapiro

d 01:01

karoline leavitt

admin 01:02

pete hegseth

admin 01:08

scott bessent

admin 00:42

tim walz

d 01:13

Clips

barack obama

d 00:02

bill clinton

d 00:02

dasha burns

politico 00:10

george h w bush

r 00:02

george w bush

r 00:04

jimmy carter

d 00:03

justice neil gorsuch

scotus 00:04

ray mcgovern

00:12

ronald reagan

r 00:01

tim donnelly

00:07

Callers

bob in new york

callers 00:10

charles in louisiana

callers 00:15

dawn in colorado

callers 00:10

debbie in north carolina

callers 00:11

rodney in arizona

callers 00:25

terrence in washington

callers 00:11

tim in michigan

callers 00:07

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Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Coming up on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live.
		Then author and Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies lecturer Charles Stevenson talks about changes to the Pentagon in President Trump's first 100 days under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and University of Pennsylvania economics professor Jesus Fernandez Villa Verde on the implications of declining U.S. fertility rates and global trends.
		WASHINGTON JOURNAL STARTS NOW. GOOD MORNING.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's Thursday, April 24th.
		This first hour of Washington Journal will focus on the relationship between the Trump administration and state governors.
		Specifically, we're asking if you're satisfied with the job your governor is doing.
		Do you want to see more cooperation or more opposition to President Trump's policies from your state executive?
unidentified		What would you say is the top issue facing your state?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's how you can share your thoughts with us.
		Republicans 202748-8001.
		Democrats 202748-8000.
		And Independents 202748-8002.
		You can text us at 202-748-8003.
		Include your first name in your city-state.
		You can also post your thoughts to social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
		Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
		We're glad you're with us.
		We're going to start with a portion of the state of the state address from Minnesota.
		That's Governor Tim Waltz.
		That was last night, and he talked about reducing government spending.
		Here he is.
tim walz ▲ ● ▼		Another way we're protecting investments is by doing more to prevent, investigate and punish fraud in government.
unidentified		We all agree.
tim walz ▲ ● ▼		I thought you'd like that.
		But look, it's easy to demagogue government spending.
		The truth is, as long as there have been programs aimed at helping people, there have been people looking to steal from those who need them the most.
		We've made strides in catching the backed actors, stopping their schemes.
		We've sent a lot of crooks to prison, but we can do more.
		Minnesota should have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to misuse of taxpayer dollars and theft.
		And earlier this year, we took action.
		I know it's being worked on in this chamber, and earlier this year, I issued an executive order to strengthen our state's capacity to investigate fraud by establishing a centralized fraud and financial crimes unit at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
		I have a proposal before this chamber to use artificial intelligence to sniff out and catch the bad actors before they get their hands on the money, and a proposal to increase criminal penalties for theft of public funds by 20%.
		Bottom line, I believe that when criminals try to steal public funding, you don't cut the funding, you stop the criminals.
		And that's exactly what we do.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And just as a reminder, we have been covering those state-of-the-state addresses by governors from across the country since the beginning of the year.
		We have all those on our website.
		If you would like to take a look at those, that's cspan.org and just do a search on your governor's name.
		This is CNBC with this news.
		A dozen states sue Trump in bid to block new tariffs.
		It says that a dozen states sued President Donald Trump and his administration Wednesday, seeking a court order declaring that his new tariffs on foreign imports are illegal.
		This is New York Attorney General Letitia James, who says, quote, the President does not have the power to raise taxes on a whim, but that's exactly what President Trump has been doing with these tariffs.
		It says it argues that a president has no authority to arbitrarily impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the law, the U.S. law that Trump has cited in executing his tariff policy.
		That is, and here are the states that are involved in that suit.
		It's New York, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont.
		And this also from the LA Times, Newsom, announces lawsuit against Trump's tariffs as California stands to lose billions.
		Go to your calls.
		Here's Dave in Baltimore, Republican.
		Good morning, Dave.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you very much for taking my call.
		Yes, as a Marylander, I probably in the minority in our state with about 33% Republicans in Maryland, but Governor Moore is just not doing a good job at all on a number of fronts.
		One, the state's counties have a very poor track record of working with ICE with respect to illegal immigration.
		Two, in Maryland, probably one of the wealthiest states in the country per capita.
		And the governor continues to just drive the state into fiscal despair, specifically with the amount of money that he wants to spend on education.
		And, you know, the thing of it is, with education, at some point, every dollar that you add to the till, it's not going to generate any significant gains in value.
		And what's happening here is the state should be much more concerned about parenting the children and encouraging policies that foster better parents versus trying to turn our schools into those parenting institutions.
		And it's just simply not working.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, like what, Dave?
		How do you do that?
		How do you encourage better parenting?
		How does the state do that?
unidentified		Well, so think of it this way.
		When you look at the number of families that are on SNAP, MUL programs, I mean, all those programs are needed.
		They're all necessary.
		No argument, no dispute there.
		But in the same breath, I would say that when you look at the sheer number of these programs and how the programs are structured, if they're not structured in a way to help the recipients wean themselves off the program, the people become somewhat programmed and they become reliant on the programs.
		And that really starts this vicious cycle.
		And the state could be doing so much more to say, we have this sect of a population that needs the program, and we're going to give it to them.
		But in the same breath, they have to get an exit ramp to get off the program.
		It's sort of like the other analogy would be like going to war.
		You know, everyone says, hey, we're going to go in, we're going to do battle.
		And everyone's saying, well, what's the exit plan?
		How do you get out of it?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Dave, in the case that you brought up, the exit ramp would be a better paying job.
unidentified		Well, sure.
		I mean, you could think of it like with education.
		You know, a number of the students who are going to college, they've been somewhat brainwashed to think that if I come out with a college degree, I'm immediately going to have a well-paying job.
		And when they go into their programs, they might go into, say, an arts program, not recognizing that the number of jobs available at working in a museum or in a particular area of where they may be studying are few and far between.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		And Dave, this is Mike DeWine.
		He's the governor of Ohio Republican who talked about manufacturing jobs coming back to Ohio.
		Here he is.
unidentified		Now let's head back south to Pickaway County, where we had another remarkable economic win.
		Andrew, the world's new leader in defense technology.
		They're bringing the single largest job creation project in Ohio history, creating more than 4,000 high-paying manufacturing jobs.
		These Ohioans will produce cutting-edge technologies and build revolutionary aircraft that will transform both our aerospace industry and our military.
		And finally, we'll head back north and a little east to Licking County, the Silicon heartland.
		Intel is completely changing the landscape.
		They've already invested $7 billion of their $28 billion of planned capital investment, already invested.
		And they poured enough concrete, listen to this, to build the Ohio State horseshoe six times over.
		And that's just so far.
		The 3,000 future jobs there will make Ohio the world's leader in the manufacturing of microchips critical, critical to our innovation economy and to our national defense.
		This investment in Ohio is a clear signal to China and to the rest of the world that from now on, our essential manufactured products will be made in the United States of America.
		And once again, it will be Ohioans, Ohioans making the things that keep us safe.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, and here is John in Dearborn, Michigan, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Well, good morning to you.
		Question is: do we like our governor or do we think they're doing a good job of Michigan?
		No, absolutely not.
		Our governor, Gretchen Whitmer, she's not doing a good job.
		Still have slow population growth.
		That's a long-standing issue in Michigan.
		Old water infrastructure that I don't think she's really been taking too seriously, especially in our older cities.
		And loss of industry, which, you know, our governor's solution, of course, is just to give money to whatever company it is, be it American or an international company.
		So, no, and I think she was one of the worst governors during COVID, just trampling on constitutional rights, left, right, and center.
		And also, you know, put elderly, sick people in the nursing homes and never really got exposed for that in the way that Andrew Cuomo did.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And, John, what are your ideas as far as bringing jobs back?
unidentified		You mentioned that as an issue.
		Oh, I really have no idea.
		I think it's probably too, the industry is too far gone to bring it back.
		So, what can you say?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And let's hear from Mark, who's also in Michigan.
		This is Ishpaming, a Republican line.
		Where is that, Mark?
unidentified		Up in the UP, up by Northern Michigan University, Lake Superior.
unidentified		We're right on it up here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		What do you think?
		As far as Gretchen Whitmer goes, rule number one: she put our elderly in nursing homes during COVID.
		Her mandates, everything she did was unconstitutional.
		How many she killed of our elderly in nursing homes is just unacceptable.
		And they had to die alone.
		I'm almost crying saying this.
		They had to die alone.
		Our children got locked out of school, got masked and locked up like dogs.
		And some of them committed suicide because of Gretchen Whitmer.
		I am shaking right now.
		She is so terrible.
		Now, how can anybody not be jailed for murdering people like she did?
		Our news is fake up here.
		We have TV6.
		They don't cover nothing.
		Nothing.
		Our DNR is wrecking our deer herds with the wolves.
		Our water supply is poisoned now from chemtrails.
		Our fish are poisoned.
		Our dirt is contaminated.
		Nothing is on the news.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Mark, who would you like?
		I know you're a Republican.
		What Republican would you like to replace Gretchen Whitmer if you could?
unidentified		Any Michigander that is an American patriot that cares about Michigan and Michigan people and our jobs.
		If it wasn't for Democrats destroying our auto industries down in downstate, we would be thriving right now.
		And one other thing, Whitmer and all the Democrats told us that we had to tear down our coal-fired plants, our power plants.
		I'm a power plant operator.
		And let me clue you in.
		They closed down a 360-megawatt generator down on Superior in Marquette.
		And it was the worst decision they ever made.
		They say whoever owns the power grid will run the country.
		China, India, Russia are building coal-fired power plants every day.
		We are going to be eating China's lunch if we don't get our heads out of our butts.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mark, and let's take a look at the state address by Governor Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan talking about finding common ground with the Trump administration.
unidentified		Yes, I do hope to find common ground with President Trump and work with the Democratic-led Senate and Republican-led House on our shared priorities.
		Now, I'm not looking for fights, but I won't back down from them either.
		In Michigan, we have an opportunity and an obligation to lead by example.
		Our state represents America in every way, economically, geographically, politically, and socially.
		People from every walk of life call Michigan home.
		We don't always agree, but we move forward together.
		That is the source of our strength.
		Let's show the rest of the country how to get things done.
		Right now, I know that politics, especially national politics, can be exhausting.
		I feel it too.
		At a high level, we're facing two big challenges, economic uncertainty and political division.
		First, economics.
		It's hard to buy a house or car because of high interest rates.
		It's still hard to pay the bills.
		Just this month.
		Just this month, inflation jumped back up to 3%.
		Businesses are facing uncertainty too.
		Industry leaders and top economic minds on both sides of the aisle are warning us about the havoc that 25% tariffs would wreak on Michigan's auto industry, while also raising expenses, everyday expenses for our families.
		And as for politics, there's no sugarcoating it.
		We seem very divided today.
		Partisanship has infected every aspect of our lives, driven by opportunistic politicians and media figures who live by a philosophy, I win if you lose.
		Their divisive rhetoric is amplified by algorithms designed to make us angry and keep us scrolling.
		We're all being manipulated by the largest and most powerful companies in the world who profit more when we start to believe that we have nothing in common.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was Governor Whitmer, and this is the New York Post saying, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer regrets hiding from photographers while in Oval Office with Trump.
		Quote, we all have our moments.
		She said this, quote, you asked me what was going on in my mind at that moment, Whitmer said.
		It was, I don't want my picture taken.
		That's all it was.
		And that's in the New York Post.
		And this is Thomas, who's in Daytona Beach, Florida, Independent Line.
		Hi, Thomas.
unidentified		Hey, how we doing today?
		Good?
		Our governor here is pretty much a bootlicker.
		I mean, for Trump.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is Governor Ron DeSantis.
unidentified		That's right.
rodney in arizona ▲ ● ▼		And he is under investigation right now for funneling like $10 million.
rodney in arizona ▲ ● ▼		I mean, he's being investigated by the Republicans here in this state.
unidentified		You know, I've been here like 20 years and everything is just, you know, the insurance has just skyrocketed here.
		A lot of people can't even find insurance.
		And he's just been a rubber stamp form for insurance companies right and left.
		You know, my thoughts are on it.
		You know, these insurance companies, they don't want to sell home insurance here, but they don't mind selling car insurance.
		I don't think they should have it both ways.
		I think if they sell one and they're going to leave and don't want to, you know, sell it, then they should take their car insurance with them too.
		On the tariffs, you know, many years ago, those tariffs, they're an idea of the Republican Party.
		NAFTA was, and making China a most favored trade partner was.
rodney in arizona ▲ ● ▼		Now they're expecting the taxpayer, the consumer, to pay these high tariffs on, because we're going to be the ones that pay it.
unidentified		The people that have got rich off of manufacturing overseas, they don't care.
		They've made the billionaires that he's wanting to give tax breaks to today.
		Some people need to go to the Library of Congress and they need to look up some of these bills that they want to blame on Democrats and independents.
		They need to go and look the bills up and just see who voted for the stuff.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Thomas.
		Yep.
		So, Thomas, let me just circle back to what you said about the investigation of Ron DeSantis, the governor.
		This is the Miami Herald.
		It says the $10 million steered to Hope, Florida by the state was Medicaid money.
		According to documents, it says that DeSantis administration diverted to a state-created charity last year, consisted of Medicaid doctors, sorry, Medicaid dollars owed to state and federal taxpayers, contrary to what the governor and other officials have publicly asserted.
		You could read that in the Miami Herald.
		And here, yep, sorry, did you want to say something else, Thomas?
unidentified		Yeah, and you know, from what they're saying, that money was funneled through his wife, and it ended up in their pockets.
		So, you know, we'll just have to see how things work out.
		But I don't know if they're going to be able to sweep this under the rug or not for him.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's a Republican in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Michael, you're on the air.
unidentified		Thank you for taking my call, Mimi.
		And I think the biggest problem that we have is a problem that we've had for a long time here in Pennsylvania, and it's voting.
		Voter fraud and correct voter count.
		I think that we've had that in the past, and I don't think it's been cleaned up to a significant degree yet.
		I think Governor Shapiro signed an executive order to allow many illegal aliens the right to register to vote automatically upon showing their driver's license.
		And these kind of things are things that have been happening in Pennsylvania for a long time, and it really demeans the purpose of any debate, political debate, I think, is useless.
		I love it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Michael, you're saying that in the state of Pennsylvania, an illegal immigrant can register to vote?
unidentified		Yes.
		I mean, that's what he was.
		Okay, but that is the intent of.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're talking about in federal elections, not like a school board election?
unidentified		Yes, in federal elections.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's illegal, though, Michael.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, a non-U.S. citizen cannot vote.
unidentified		The point is that he pushed that proposition to have illegal aliens register to vote.
		Now, whether they actually did vote, I can't say.
		But the point is that these voting machines are not legitimate.
		There's a lot of problems with these voting machines.
		We should go to paper ballots where you can really authenticate the vote, where you can reproduce it and show how people voted.
		And I think that would go a long way.
		I think there's no point in having debates about all of these things if you don't have a legitimate vote count.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Got it.
		And here is an opinion piece that Governor Shapiro wrote about that arson attack in the New York Times, finding moral clarity after an arsonist attack.
		This is how the article starts.
		He says, I woke up to yelling in the hallway.
		A few seconds later, there was a bang on the door.
		It was just after 2 a.m.
		And a state trooper in the hallway of our private living quarters at the governor's residence said there was a fire in the building.
		We needed to evacuate immediately.
		My wife, Lori, and I ran to the bedrooms where our kids and two dogs were sleeping.
		We got them up quickly and followed the trooper down a back stairwell to the driveway.
		He also spoke about that to ABC News, and here's a portion of his interview.
josh shapiro ▲ ● ▼		I was in here at about maybe 3 o'clock in the morning with the fire chief when it became immediately apparent to me this wasn't just, you know, an accidental fire, candle being left on or something.
unidentified		He said it was clear to you it's not an accidental fire.
		It's clear to everyone now that that's not.
		What happened?
		Was this a hate crime?
josh shapiro ▲ ● ▼		I think that's a question for the prosecutors to determine.
josh shapiro ▲ ● ▼		They're going to determine motive.
unidentified		But what does your gut tell you?
unidentified		I mean, this man was talking about Gaza, talking about Palestine, talking about his hatred for you.
josh shapiro ▲ ● ▼		I recognize when you're in these positions of power, there are people out there that want to do you harm.
josh shapiro ▲ ● ▼		I try not to be captive to the fear, and I try not to worry or think about why people want to do that harm.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		You say you don't want to be captive to it, but this is something we're seeing.
unidentified		This is a dramatic and scary example.
		We're seeing this kind of rise in threats and attacks all across the country.
		Homeland Security has been warning about it for years.
josh shapiro ▲ ● ▼		It's real.
		I mean, this is sadly a real part of our society today.
		And it needs to be universally condemned, George.
		I don't care if it's coming from the left, from the right.
		I don't care if it's coming from someone who you voted for, someone who you didn't vote for, someone on your team or someone on the other team.
		I think every single leader has a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity and condemn this kind of violence.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And there is an article here on Fox News that says, Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro says Trump called him about the arson attack.
		He was very gracious.
		He says that Shapiro said Trump called him on Saturday morning.
		The governor did not answer Trump's call and let it go to voicemail because he did not recognize the number the president was calling from.
		Quote, I appreciated that the president called me, he told reporters.
		I actually didn't take his call because it came from his cell phone and I didn't have that number in my phone, so I didn't know who it was.
		As soon as I heard his message, I called him right back.
		And this is a picture of the governor standing in the damaged residence with state officials.
		Back to Michigan.
		Jeffrey is an Alpena, Michigan Democrat.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Jeffrey, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		God, I had a call.
		This really upsets me.
		The last two people that called in about our governor in Michigan.
		And you can tell they're mega clowns.
		It's just ridiculous.
		This gentleman up in the UP that worked at the power plant, they're shutting power plants down because the mercury from the coal is polluting our fish and our land.
		If you go into the Michigan DNR website, it'll give you a description of how many fish you can eat a week or a month.
		And pregnant women, aren't you supposed to be eating these fish?
		And it's because of the power plants that are doing it, polluting our land and air and water.
		But our governor, nobody wanted to fix our roads.
		And she's the one that said she's going to fix the damn roads.
		The Republicans never wanted to do it.
		And we just had this big ice storm up here that affected 12 counties and knocked out the power for weeks.
		And she was right on it.
ray mcgovern ▲ ● ▼		But the Republicans were just slamming her and saying she was doing a bad job on it.
ray mcgovern ▲ ● ▼		She called a state of emergency address on day one.
terrence in washington ▲ ● ▼		And one other thing I'd like to point out is our previous governor Snyder, he taxed my 401k.
unidentified		And our governor took that tax off.
		She's doing a great job.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Carla in Wayne City, Illinois, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Carla, your governor is J.B. Pritzker.
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
		Good morning to you this morning.
		Yeah, I give him a thumbs down.
		He's been in for quite a while, and every time we turn around, there's a new tax on either property or your registrations or your driver's license or just about any tax you could put on somebody.
		I think he's done it.
		And really, he stays mostly in Chicago.
		You hardly ever hear of him come into any small cities or counties or anything like that in the southern part of Illinois.
		I think the furthest he's been in Illinois is FBA.
		And it's like he doesn't know what's going on in this state, honestly.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What would you tell him was the biggest issue in Illinois?
unidentified		The biggest issue is, I think, the whole deal with the license and property taxes, all of it.
		Because we've got outrageous property taxes.
		Got outrageous, you know, we pay like $150, $160 for your tags for your license.
		That's just that little tiny sticker.
		And it's just getting, it's gotten out of hand in the education system.
		He has no clue what's going on.
		And it's like, I think he needs to maybe lay off the Krispy Kremes and start doing some work.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's what I thought was interesting, Carla, was in Realtor.com, it talks about the top five states Americans fled in droves in 2024.
		And your state is on there.
		Illinois is one of them, along with Louisiana, California, South Dakota, and New York.
		And the reason, one of them, so California and New York, it's high cost of living.
		For Illinois, it's high taxes.
		That was the number one reason people mentioned in Illinois for leaving.
		And here is Kathy in Petosky, Michigan, Democrat.
unidentified		Potoski or Patoski?
unidentified		Pardon me?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How do you pronounce it?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is it Petoski?
unidentified		It's Potoski.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Potoski.
unidentified		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Kathy.
unidentified		All right.
		Thank you.
		Thank you, Mimi.
		The gentleman, I think, two calls ago, when the storm hit up here, and it was very severe, Mimi, just look at my backyard.
		So many trees fell.
		I didn't think I was going to make it to work live that Friday when the storm hit.
		She did nothing.
		And I voted for her four times, two primaries, two general elections, until I called and left a message.
		There was an article I read in a newspaper.
		It might have been the Washington Post.
		There was a phone number, and I called it Between five and six hours later, the lieutenant governor was up here.
		The devastation, well, the world's still cleaning up, was I've never seen anything like it before.
		She was in Saudi Arabia, if I read correctly in a newspaper, and then I think she was in London.
		She belonged up here immediately.
		She eventually did come up and she saw the devastation.
		But when you're driving to work, excuse me, most of these people that live in this part of the Potoski area, Harbor Springs, they drive from Sheboygan on away way up in the upper part of the lower peninsula.
		We made it to work.
		We did our job.
		And I don't feel that she's really invested in the state as she should be.
		And then just going back to the tapping thing.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, tell us a little bit more about the storm.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This was an ice storm in Michigan.
unidentified		It was an ice storm.
		I remember sitting at work looking out the windows, feeding residents, and I see the power lines are completely encased in this very clear, but about one inch thick ice.
		I've never seen anything like it.
		And then just the droplets frozen.
		Just you would see the lines and you're thinking, I've never seen anything like this before.
		And then it just became, it just rained and froze and rain and froze.
		And then, you know, gravity took over and the line started falling.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And you wanted to say something about the kidnapping attempt on the governor.
unidentified		I have a piece of, well, I sold a piece of property.
		More than likely, it was adjacent to a boat launch on Birch Lake in Key Waden, Michigan.
		It had 12 and a half acres and it was kind of swampy part of it.
		More than likely, because my former spouse called me at the desk where I was working and said, that was your property.
		And more than likely it was.
		It creeped me out.
		She should not have violated the whatever type of mandate that you can't travel.
		Her husband came up and visited their cottage.
		Well, who wouldn't like to go up north and visit their cottage?
		But, you know, you can't.
		You can't put yourself above everybody else.
		You have to follow the rules.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Kathy.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is Governor Jeff Landry of Louisiana, a Republican, and he talked about his efforts to restore law and order.
unidentified		We are not just joining the new Industrial South, but we are leading it.
		And we did it by focusing on crime, education, and on jobs.
		We began by restoring law in order to protect our neighborhoods and our families.
		We lifted the veils of secrecy that control too many aspects of our criminal justice system.
		And we gave victims a voice.
		We let our men and women in law enforcement know that they are supported and appreciated.
		We have strengthened our drug courts, focused on logistical improvements and effective reentry programs.
		Our victims' assistance coordinators, our pardon and parole board now operates with a stronger focus on victims' voices.
		We inherited a juvenile crime crisis.
		And we began working immediately, investing $100 million in regional juvenile facilities in order to keep juveniles close to their homes, emphasizing safety and education and rehabilitation.
		We opened a multi-agency resource center to reduce juvenile crime through early assessment and guidance.
		We've partnered them with our community and technical college system to provide workforce training for these young offenders.
		And contrary to George Soros and the money he spent lying to Louisiana citizens, had Amendment 3 passed, today we would have tens of millions of more dollars to spend in rehabilitation services, and not one juvenile would have ever been placed in an adult prison.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Louisiana Governor Landry, and as a reminder, we have all those state-of-the-state addresses on our website at c-span.org in their entirety, so you can take a look at whichever ones you're interested in.
		But speaking of Louisiana, that is one of the states, the five states that Realtor.com has mentioned as the top five states that people are leaving from in 2024.
		And the reason for Louisiana, it says, is the lack of jobs.
		It says for Louisiana.
		Anyway, I'll see.
		Oh, here it says.
		Taxes were another reason.
		That's for Illinois.
		Anyway, we'll take a call and then I'll get that for you.
		Tasha, Laurel, Maryland, Democrat.
		Good morning, Tasha.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, Amy.
unidentified		How are you?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What's happening in Maryland?
unidentified		So I will say in particular, I feel like I'm pretty satisfied with Westmore.
		But I will say specifically, I like his response to the federal job cuts and layoffs.
		He has this initiative that he's kind of expedited the hiring process through the state and is trying to really meet the needs of federal employees and contractors that are being laid off.
		And that's something that's really impacting our state.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is that impacting you personally, Tasha?
unidentified		Not me personally, thankfully, but I have family members who have been, I'm not going to say laid off, but have been given notice that they are officially at will.
		I have colleagues that have come back to work where I work now that have been impacted by that also.
		And so I know several people who have had that unfortunate experience.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here is John in Salem, Oregon, Republican.
		Hi, John.
unidentified		Hi, Amy.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		Like five calls back, we were talking about paper ballots.
		And in Oregon, we've had this mail-in ballots since I think 1972.
		And I don't think we've had a fair election in Oregon because Ron Wyden and who's the other one.
		I can't think of his name.
		But these two senators keep getting reelected.
		And I suspect that the mail-in ballot has something to do with that because it's not safe.
		We need, I remember 1968, or whenever Nixon ran for president, my parents went down and they voted and we knew the results that night.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, John, What would you say is the biggest issue, though, for your state?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You think it's the elections?
unidentified		Yeah, it's the election.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		course it's always about the election if they're not and then speaking of your your governor is tina kotech a democrat what do you What do you think of how she's done?
unidentified		Well, I don't think she's done very well because I work at a gas station and she signed a proclamation.
		I don't know if it's a proclamation.
		She signed this half the pumps have to be self-served, which means the other half have to be full-served, right?
		Well, for 50 years, we voted on this.
		It came up on the special election, and we voted on this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, John.
		And here's what I wanted to get for you about Louisiana.
		The number one reason for residents leaving was a lack of jobs and job opportunities.
		That's according to the Shreveport Times.
		Additionally, a study conducted ranked Louisiana as the fourth worst state in the U.S. for life expectancy, which could be another reason people bolted from the state.
		That's at realtor.com if you'd like to read that.
		And this is Timothy, Fayetteville, North Carolina, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of Governor Josh Stein?
unidentified		Well, I'm looking at the whole United States of America.
		How are we being good governors and presidents and congressmen when we ain't passing laws and bills to protect all citizens?
		But when we have no law since laws putting assault weapons in the streets of the United States of America and to anybody here, even with it, and we pledge a league to slaughtering children in schools, slaughtering killing people in the streets.
		It's the girl epidemic in this nation.
		So who girl or watches where any of us can walk out in the street of the United States of America and be dated, either cause of hate or the color of our skin?
		So how on earth are we good governors and politicians and presidents when we don't care for all in the United States of America?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Timothy.
		And this is Melvin in Illinois, who sent us a text.
		He says, Pritzker is incredible.
		He's doing great things in Illinois to protect us from Trump's tailspin he's put on our country.
		He's recently made a trade deal with the U.K. to go around Trump's tariffs.
		He's presidential material, in my opinion.
		And this is what Melvin is talking about.
		This is mystateline.com, local news.
		It says Pritzker signs Illinois trade agreement with the United Kingdom.
		It says he signed an agreement, in addition to an agreement with the state of Mexico, signed last week, in an effort to strengthen economic ties with global trading partners.
		It says it's a memorandum of understanding, and it's a non-binding agreement, comes amid tensions with the Trump administration's tariffs on foreign imports from almost all of the countries the U.S. trades with.
		So wonder what you think about that, what you're thinking about for your state specifically.
		And this is David, Boca Rattan, Florida, Democrat.
		Hi, David.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I think I should preface my remarks by saying everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
		Here in Florida, we've progressively moved very Republican in our governor's mansion.
		But the worst in my lifetime here in Florida, 60-some-odd years, is our current governor, Ron DeSantis.
		DeSantis came into office originally proclaiming his commitment to protect the environment in Florida.
		That was the attraction with the help of environmental people.
		He was elected because he was a non-entity in the Congress.
		Since then, he's gravitated to be a living caricature of Willie Stark, the character in All the King's Men, who came in with goals for the people and reverted to become a culture warrior.
		He's a culture warrior here in Florida.
		He has put up signs at the border saying, Welcome to the free state of Florida, and he signs his name on the billboard.
		He is someone who has decided that he can reduce the quality of public education with grants to private schools, tuition.
		Our public schools are failing.
		Our schools are going empty.
		Only the minorities who cannot afford a private education are still in the public schools, and the quality of the education is failing.
		He's also a guy who's all about retribution.
		He went after Disney.
		He didn't like Disney's criticism.
		He cannot absorb criticism.
		He's gone after anyone, for example, who's promoting Medicaid.
		He's denying hundreds of thousands, nearly a million Floridians, since his time in office of access to Medicaid.
		Medicaid is paid almost entirely, almost entirely, by the federal government.
		There were also a number of tax credits available for the upgrading of air conditioning and other appliances that would be not much more environmentally friendly.
		And he's blocked granting those particular credits to the people in Florida who are entitled to have them.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, David, let's get another perspective from Dodie in Bradenton, Florida, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of Ron DeSantis?
unidentified		I think he's fine.
		Okay, I think Trump's fine.
		He's doing okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you turn down your TV?
		We can hear it in the background.
		Still there, Dotie?
unidentified		Yes, Dodie.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
unidentified		He's in Florida, the friendly city.
		And I like DeSantis.
		Yes, I do.
		What do you like about him?
		Everything.
		I don't see too much about him wrong.
		They made hell about his wife giving that money to her donation to the thing.
		Hey, is that what she gives to?
		Why shouldn't she give that to?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		And this is Charlotte in Walden, New York, Republican.
		Good morning, Charlotte.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		We have Governor Hochle here, who I really have to stay in for because she's allowed these poor Jewish children not to be able to get an education.
		She's allowed all this ruckus to go on on campuses.
		She has a saying she can do something about it.
		And as far as immigration goes, she's allowed our cities to become cesspools for victims and violence.
		And it's really disgraceful.
		She's tied the hands of the criminal justice system and created a revolving door that the judges can't properly put these people in prison.
		And I'm just really sad that we've become in the state of disarray that we are.
		And I really think that all these photo ops that she does and I see on Facebook are just her way of saying, oh, vote for me, vote for me.
		I care so much.
		I care so much.
		No, you don't, because you were there with Cuomo when Cuomo was allowing the senior citizens to be put back into the nursing homes.
justice neil gorsuch ▲ ● ▼		and a lot of my friends weren't able to say their last goodbyes.
unidentified		So I really hope that this wakes up a lot of people and we can get some new fresh in perspective on how to...
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Charlotte, this is what I wanted to ask you.
		There's news reports that Elise Stefanik, the congresswoman from New York, is thinking about running for governor.
		What do you think of that?
unidentified		I think it's wonderful.
		I think she's young.
		She's fresh.
		She's got good ideas and she's got chutzpah.
		And that means that she can do the challenges and take care of New York State and stand on her own two feet.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And let's take a look at Delaware Governor Matt Meyer in his state of the state address a few weeks ago, criticizing the Trump administration's Doge efforts.
unidentified		We agree that every Delaware should have access to the highest quality education, affordable health care, stable housing, good paying jobs, and grocery and utility bills that don't break the bank.
		And that's why I'm here today, asking for your partnership, your collaboration.
		Together, we can navigate these challenges.
		Together, we can build a state that not only endures, but emerges stronger, more equitable, and more prosperous than ever before.
		Let me take a moment to speak directly to those in this chamber offering unconditional support to the current leadership in Washington.
		You cannot have it both ways.
		You cannot offer your full-throated support for a federal administration that is slashing hundreds of millions of dollars in critical funds to our state and promoting tariffs that are literally crippling our economy.
		And then in the very next sentence, rise in opposition to responsible and hard decisions we're making here in Delaware to meet those challenges.
		In other words, you can't give more fuel to the arsonist with one hand and then with the other hand, point your finger disapprovingly and say we're not putting out the fires fast enough.
		We have to be able to work together and we have to be responsible in that work.
		Now, hear me now, Delaware.
		We will not run from a fight and we will never let someone else define who we are, who we love, or what we as a state value.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was the governor of Delaware, and we're taking your calls for the next 10 minutes on what you think.
		Are you satisfied with the job your governor is doing?
		And Betsy in Upper Marlboro, Maryland as a Democrat, what do you think of Governor Westmore?
unidentified		Hello, Mimi.
unidentified		This is Betty, not Betsy.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Betty.
		Did I say Betsy?
		Sorry.
unidentified		Yes, Betty.
		Yes.
		No, it's okay.
		I hope you're well.
		I also just to add on the previous call about Governor Mo, I'm really happy with the work that he's doing, especially with education, because I'm very passionate about education,
		the investment that has been done there, and also access to, especially for deaf people in Maryland, there is so much access and also has an office that specifically works with the deaf community of Maryland.
		And lastly, the job response, because my husband was also a federal employee, and unfortunately, he had to be put on administrative leave, and now he's unemployed, and the burden is on me.
		But then, how he has responded to that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Buddy, tell us how he has responded to that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What has he done in response to those job losses?
unidentified		Like, for instance, he has set aside, I think, allocated a budget specifically to deal with that, the job fairs as well.
		Like, my husband attended a job fair last week and he's going, has a job fair interview today as well.
		So, he has set programs in place just to at least minimize the unemployment rate, especially in Maryland.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here is Phil in Westbury, New York, Independent Line.
		What do you think of Governor Hochul?
unidentified		Oh, horrible.
		You know, I'm just going to brief you some things real fast.
		You know, in New York here, back in 2019, when she was lieutenant governor under Como, they started purging the Medicaid roles to have people that were working eligible to work, actually.
		And they were throwing a lot of people off for Medicaid because they couldn't afford it.
		You know, with another thing in New York here, so if you're on Medicare and you work your whole life, you have to pay extra for dental prescriptions, eyeglass coverage, whatnot.
		But if you're on Medicaid, they pay for transition surgery.
		They pay for in vitro fertilization.
		I know one person that got $40,000 worth of dental work.
		They got their whole mouth redone on Medicaid.
		So, you know, when they talk about reforming Medicaid, you know, countrywide, you know, why in New York State?
		Because I think there's only 11 states paying for the transition surgery.
		You know what I'm saying?
		So each state incorporates what they want into their Medicaid program.
		But I think the federal government should be paying that.
		All the taxpayers in New York.
		People that work hard their whole life on Medicare don't get those same things.
		You know, and people living in New York, it's not the high cost of living.
		People living outside the city, it's the high cost of school taxes.
		You know, when this guy in law talks about they want the full deduction, they want the full salt, they want everything reimbursed.
		That's for the wealthy.
		That's not for the working class.
		$10,000 is fine, and most working class people do the alternative deduction.
		They don't even claim the $10,000 separately.
		That whole full salt deduction, both sides, whether the Democrats or Republicans, is only to put the federal government more into debt.
		You know, I welcome the fact that Stefanik may run.
		And the last thing is Melia Kakis, the congresswoman from Staten Island.
		She was on Bloomberg yesterday, and she said, you know, she wrote a letter about Medicaid.
		And what that comes down to is that's $880 billion over 10 years.
		All right.
		And everybody should have basic Medicaid coverage, but all those extra things, you know, is helping bankrupt the federal government.
		Thank you for letting me in.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And let's talk to Teresa in Bloomington, Illinois, Republican.
		Good morning, Teresa.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would just like to say the first caller from Illinois, a few calls back.
		She said that he only went, Mr. Trump only went to Effingham.
		That was not true.
		I live right by the Bloomington airport.
		I got pictures of him.
		I sat in my backyard.
		And another thing why a lot of people are leaving the state of Illinois is we have more politicians that has been in prison and they have taxed us to death.
		We are leaving in four years.
		Our stuff's paid for.
		We're leaving in four years when retire.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Where are you going to go, Teresa?
unidentified		Florida.
		I was raised in Panama City, came back in the 80s with my parents.
		And we have more politicians just like Mr. Fritzer.
		He almost condemned the capital, Springfield, because they called him the porcelain throne because he took out 19 toilets because he didn't want to pay for them.
		We are just sick of Illinois cramming, cramming, pushing, pushing.
		If anybody in their own right mind, is there anything that somebody from Illinois could call in and tell me what would make you come to Illinois to see anything?
		There's nothing here.
		We've been took advantage of.
		We've been run over.
		We got a pot dispensary stores, and our roads are still crap.
		And you guys have a good day, and I hope the ones that can get out of Illinois, good luck.
		I feel sorry for the ones that have to stay because Illinois is not going to like what they're going to get.
		Have a good day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Teresa.
		And we got a text from Kristen in Portland, Maine.
		I'm so proud of Maine's governor, Janet Mills.
		She showed courage and competency when she spoke up to President Trump regarding our state's rights.
		We need more adults in the room when Trump tries to illegally grab power.
		And let's take a look at what Governor Mills said on MSNBC last week talking about the federal freeze threat from the White House.
unidentified		Very unexpectedly, the president called on me to answer a question that was unrelated to the topic at hand.
		I've been to the White House and talked to President Trump before, President Biden, President Obama, several presidents.
		Always been a good conversation, exchange of ideas.
		This was different, very different.
		And when he said, I am the law, basically, we are the law, my jaw dropped.
		I thought, you know, I've been district attorney, attorney general, defense attorney, and now governor.
		And I always had respect for the, I've always had respect for the rule of law.
		And that just boggled my mind to say that I am the law.
		Every fifth grade civic student knows that there are three branches of government and that the chief executive is required by the Constitution to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, not to make the laws, not to invent the laws or reinterpret the laws by tweet or Instagram post or press release or executive order.
		He's not allowed to do that.
		So when he reinterpreted Title IX, I support Title IX.
		I have spent my career, the better part of my career, defending and protecting the rights of women and girls in health care, in employment, housing credit, and the like.
		And I'm appalled.
		I was appalled at his interpretation that he can just reinvent the law.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's Maine Governor Mills, and this is Linda in Warsaw, Kentucky.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Line for Democrats.
unidentified		Hi, Linda.
		Yes, this is Linda Wilmorestall.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I love my governor in Kentucky.
		He has saved a lot of lives during the pandemic.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is Andy Bashir.
unidentified		Yes, he is.
		He's a wonderful man, and he's been a great governor.
		And if he had a little bit more backing behind him, he could probably do a lot more.
		But we do have a lot of Republicans.
		But these people saying something about voting and fraud, they need to take a day off and go and be at the voting polls and work the polls.
		I have done it.
		It's a hard job, and there's nothing illegal that's going on.
		It's just people's minds and these conspiracy problems.
		This is a wonderful country.
		We're not living in the 50s no more.
		There's a lot of people out there, and we do not live on the island.
		There's people on the north and the south of us.
		We need to take the best of everybody and look at the best of everybody, not complain all the time.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Linda, when you said that the governor saved a lot of lives during COVID, what do you mean?
unidentified		Well, he stopped a lot of the in-person, like churches, and a lot of people complained, and restaurants closed down, and people said you couldn't do that to me and stuff.
		I stayed home.
		I did what I had to do, but I stayed home.
		And people survived in Kentucky.
		We had some deaths, and that man would get on the phone, I mean, on the TV every night and cry almost with the deaths of what's going on.
		He would tell you how many counties, how many people died.
		People don't understand.
		Some of the problem we have with our budgets are all the deaths we had.
		There was a lot of wonderful people died that can't be replaced.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Linda.
		And that's the time that we've got on this topic.
		But up next, we've got author Charles Stevenson from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies to discuss Defense Secretary Hegset's leadership at the Pentagon and why the position of Defense Secretary has been so fraught in modern history.
		Later, a conversation with University of Pennsylvania economist Jesus Fernandez Villa Verde on the policy impacts of declining U.S. fertility rates and what the Trump administration wants to do about it.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		Tonight, watch the final segment in our encore presentation of our 10-part American History TV series, First 100 Days.
		We've been exploring the early months of presidential administrations with historians and authors and through the C-SPAN archives.
		And we learned about the decisions made and how they shaped the White House, the nation, and history.
		Tonight will feature the first 100 days of Donald Trump's first term.
		As a businessman, he won elective office for the first time in 2016 by defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton.
		President Trump pushed for construction of a wall at the southern border, a travel ban against people from certain countries, repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and tax cut plan.
		He also nominated Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court, the first of three justices confirmed to the high court during his presidency.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
unidentified		Watch First 100 Days tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2 or online at c-span.org.
		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.
		Pope Francis is lying in state over the next few days at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican until his funeral early Saturday morning in St. Peter's Square.
		President Trump and other world leaders are expected to attend.
		The first Latin American pontiff died on Easter Monday at the age of 88.
		Our live coverage begins Saturday morning at 4 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN now, and on our website, c-span.org.
		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We are talking about the Trump administration's changes to the Pentagon these first hundred days of the Defense Secretary's tenure there.
		This is Charles Stevenson.
		He is a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
		He also wrote a book called Sec Deaf: The Nearly Impossible Job of Secretary of Defense.
		Charles, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why is the job of Secretary of Defense nearly impossible?
unidentified		Well, the Secretary of Defense has to do so many different things.
		And 20 years ago now, when I wrote the book, it was to answer the question: why is it that one out of every three over our history has been fired or forced to resign?
		And it so happens in the last 20 years, that one out of three record has been maintained.
		It's not a resume-enhancing job for many people because they fail at it.
		They fail because they lose the confidence of the president at some point.
		They lose the confidence of the Congress.
		They lose a good relationship with the senior military.
		It's rarely because they mismanage the Pentagon.
		Pentagon is a pretty good bureaucracy if they're given orders to carry them out.
		But at least a third of our secretaries of defense have ultimately bungled that in one way or another, and they've been fired or forced to resign.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		There has been several changes at the Pentagon recently in this first almost 100 days of President Trump's term.
		Senior officials have been fired.
		DEI programs have been rolled back.
		There have been layoffs among the civilian workforce.
		Transgender troop ban.
		What do you make of those changes?
unidentified		Well, I think all the media have been using the word chaos, and it sure looks as if the new secretary, who didn't have the traditional qualifications of previous secretaries, either high-ranking government service and national security, or being a big business leader with a lot of experience managing large companies, didn't have either of those qualifications.
		And so he's learning on the job, yet he is trying to lead an organization that he disparaged so greatly before he got the job.
		He said that the folks in the Pentagon were weak, were cowards.
		You know, he came on really as an outsider to lead an organization that he already said bad things about.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You don't think that works?
		I mean, he wants to be a disruptor.
		He wants to change those things that he sees is wrong with it.
unidentified		Well, the military follows lawful orders, but I think he's come into the job projecting disparagement of the folks that are there, and yet they've got to learn to trust him.
		But you've got to give trust to get trust, and I don't think he's done a good job of that so far.
		He's also almost alone.
		He has a deputy secretary, but only one of his five undersecretaries have been confirmed.
		And so he's having to learn on the job with only a few outside folks on his staff to help them.
		And he just sent three of them away because of perhaps leak.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So what do you think of that, the role of the Deputy Secretary of Defense?
		Because some people have said that he's the person that actually runs the place internally.
		Currently, it's Steve Feinberg.
		What are your thoughts on the role and the person?
unidentified		Well, Mr. Feinberg is a financial management type.
		And I guess he could do a good job of managing.
		Most of the deputies, yes, have been the people who day to day do the business of the Pentagon.
		And many of them have done a pretty good job of that.
		But you still need a leader who can give orders and respond to things.
		One of the allegations about Mr. Hagseth lately was he hasn't even moved papers on his desk that have been prepared for him to send to the President, to the White House, to the National Security Council.
		He just hasn't managed the paper flow very well, which, you know, a deputy can help, but the principal still has to do the job.
		I think Mr. Feinberg probably can do a good job, at least in management.
		But remember, the Secretary is also an advisor to the National Security Council.
		He's a war planner.
		He is often a diplomat who travels around the world relating to our military and doing military relations.
		Hagseth's already done that to Asia.
		So it's much more than just are the rules of the bureaucracy being followed.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you'd like to join our conversation with Charles Stevenson, we're talking about changes at the Pentagon and the tenure of Secretary Hagseth thus far.
		You can join us on our lines by party.
		So Republicans are on 202748-8001.
		Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
		And Independents 202748-8002.
		So what do you think needs to change then to make the role of Secretary of Defense not nearly impossible?
		And to make that role more successful going forward?
unidentified		I don't know that you can change much to make the job easier.
		You have to get people who can do this very difficult job.
		Bob Gates, who I thought was probably the best Secretary of Defense we've had, did a good job so good that President Obama kept him on after he'd been Secretary under President Bush.
		So if there's someone who can handle the jobs of advising, of managing, of being a major diplomat, as Gates did pretty well, then you can succeed.
		If you don't know what you're doing, if you can't trust your advisors or they don't trust you, you can't get very far.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, Hagseth's nomination, it was a tie-breaking vote by the vice president to get him confirmed.
		Remind us about the issues that some of the people, especially the Republican senators, had.
		Those were three senators, McConnell, Collins, and Murkowski, voting against him.
unidentified		Well, I don't remember specifically what they said.
		The basic critique of him by opponents was he was not, well, he wasn't well prepared for the job.
		He lacked the qualifications.
		And he'd had some personal misbehavior with women, with alcohol, that they thought might be disqualifying.
		Well, he said he's not going to drink, so maybe that'll solve the alcohol problem.
		But he still has to learn the job.
		And that takes an openness.
		And he's also, he needs to understand that his job isn't just warfighting, it's diplomacy and advising and strategic planning.
		Somebody, I guess it was Max Boot in the Post a couple days ago, said he's so much, he's just a major.
		That was his highest rank in the Army.
		And majors are very good at many things, but their focus is on the immediate battlefield, not on grand strategy.
		And the Secretary of Defense has to help the president come up with a grand strategy toward Russia, China, Iran, Israel, all the countries that we have to deal with.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about the signal chats.
		So there are two now that have been in the news, the original one regarding the strike, both of them about the strike on Yemen Houthi forces.
		The latest one being his signal chat with his wife, his brother, and his private lawyer.
		Your reaction to that.
unidentified		Well, it shows that he was a communicator on Fox News, and he still wants to be able to communicate widely.
		But he's got to learn that in the Pentagon, there are secrets, and you've got to use secure methods.
		It must be very hard for somebody who wants to reach out, is used to reaching out, to have to live under those restrictions.
		But the folks who do security do say signal is not safe for classified stuff.
		And it's obvious to everyone.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, he said it was not classified and that he can just declassify that information.
unidentified		He has some authority to declassify, but he can't declassify things that the intelligence community would say are classified.
		They can't.
		The president can't.
		So I think he certainly was on the verge of sending stuff on Signal that should not ever have been on that kind of a system.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now regarding his wife and his brother, and now his brother is on the payroll at the Pentagon.
unidentified		It's not clear that his wife has a security clearance.
		It's not clear, maybe his brother has a security clearance.
		Okay, but they've got to be caught up in the culture of security and not just the culture of communication.
		And I think that's the criticism by folks who know, understand security far better than I do about what you have to do to preserve.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that's a fireable offense?
unidentified		Not specifically, no.
		I think it's a learning experience.
		You shouldn't do it.
		You shouldn't make mistakes more than once.
		And your mistakes should be judged by how bad they were and what consequences there were.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's take calls.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We'll start with John in Sopas, New York, Independent Line.
unidentified		I'm watching this, and I always want to see two sides of the story.
		And I'm listening to you.
		You say you're a John Hopkins professor.
		Do you feel comfortable sitting here and pouring on all this trash on Pete Hegseth without having somebody on the other side of the table there debating and criticizing and defending Pete Hegseth?
		And you have a lot of nerve to sit there and pile all this political trash on him.
		And the American, I mean, the Washington Journal audience has to sit there and listen just to you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So why don't, John, why don't you tell us, how would you defend Secretary Hegseth?
unidentified		This guy's a pro he's a professor from John Hopkins.
		I'm just a normal citizen.
		I want to learn.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, so let's hear from you on your background, your experience.
unidentified		Well, I am a civilian.
		I have not served in the military, but I was a professor at the National War College for 13 years, teaching military officers and others and being well regarded for that.
		I worked in the Congress for 22 years as a staffer on defense and foreign policy and interacted with military and civilians and helped my Senate bosses make decisions on those things.
		So, yeah, I guess I have some experience.
		I'm not saying, and I'm not sitting here saying Mr. Hagseth is a bad man who should be punished.
		I'm saying things are happening that do not look good, and he does, he does lack the qualifications his predecessors have had for the job, and that helps explain why I think he's not doing the kind of job that we would expect from Secretary.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you think this would have impact to America's readiness, America's national security strength?
unidentified		Oh, sure.
		And especially if Hegseth gets us involved in something that is either beyond the law and the Constitution or is a dangerous thing.
		He's talked about using attacking in Mexico.
		That would be a war with Mexico.
		They've already used active duty folks along the border in a way that appears to be a near violation of the Passe Camitadas law.
		The active military are not supposed to do law enforcement.
		So they say, well, we're calling this an Army facility, and so any migrant is trespassing, and so we'll start getting involved.
		You know, this is borderline stuff that should not happen if you follow the law and the Constitution.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Linda in Orange, Connecticut, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Linda.
unidentified		Good morning.
		First of all, I completely agree with you about Secretary Robert Gates.
		I actually wrote him a letter when he was in office complimenting him, and he wrote me back.
		And I respected that.
		But my son is in charge of Army parts.
		We're a major defense contractor, and he literally takes care of the East Coast.
		And he works directly with the Army.
		And I don't think people realize how much of our economy is generated by the Department of Defense and the contracts.
		And that's in all 50 states.
		And it's a very large enterprise.
		And you not only need security clearances, but you also need some business expertise.
		And I'm wondering how well Mr. Hagseth, of course, I don't wish him any harm, but I'm wondering how well equipped he is for that channel.
		And thank you for your service, sir.
		I don't think Mr. Hagseth has much business experience.
		He came close to bankrupting two nonprofit organizations for veterans that he added.
		But I'm not worried that the Pentagon is going to misspend its money because of Hagseth.
		I think they may misspend its money because they can't solve the budget dilemma they face between Elon Musk who wants to cut and the President in Congress who want to add.
		They've got to resolve that one and I don't know how they're going to do that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk about that a little bit more.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is the Doge wants to cut 200,000 civilians and others, but add $150 billion.
unidentified		The Doge has not said they want to add a penny.
		The President and the Congress appear headed in the budget discussions to adding $150 billion to the $850 billion current budget.
		But DOG has come in, both in the Pentagon and elsewhere, saying cut, cut, cut.
		I don't know what they've proposed in DOD.
		The only things that have been publicized were a 30% cut in civilian personnel.
		But if you're cutting civilian personnel 30%, how are they all going to do a job that they currently do, and how can they do an added $150 billion?
		I think there's a disconnect.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, they would tell you that those 30% have always been redundant and are not really doing anything.
		Do we know?
		How do we judge that?
unidentified		We'd have to see what the actual cuts are.
		It is mind-boggling to think, however, that a 30% cut is all waste and duplicate.
		No.
		Government does misspend money sometimes, but not that badly.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Brent in New Iberia, Louisiana, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Brent.
unidentified		Hi, thank you.
		I just had a question.
		What was Leon Panetta's experience to be Secretary of Defense?
		Well, Mr. Panetta had been a member of Congress for many years, was both chairman of the Intelligence Committee and chairman of the Budget Committee in the House.
		He was chief of staff to the President, President Clinton.
		I think those, and of course, he was head of the CI, was CIA director, and then became Secretary of Defense.
		I think that's a pretty impressive resume.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's take a look at the White House Press Secretary, Caroline Levitt, from Monday, responding to the Pentagon leaks, and then I'll get your response.
dasha burns ▲ ● ▼		You said on Fox News that the entire Pentagon is working against Secretary Hegseth.
unidentified		But the people who were fired were Hegseth's own guys.
dasha burns ▲ ● ▼		So how do you square that and what do you say to concerns that that's bad management?
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		They were Pentagon employees who leaked against their boss to news agencies in this room.
		And it's been clear since day one from this administration that we are not going to tolerate individuals who leak to the mainstream media, particularly when it comes to sensitive information.
		And the Secretary of Defense is doing a tremendous job.
		And he is bringing monumental change to the Pentagon.
		And there's a lot of people in this city who reject monumental change.
		And I think, frankly, that's why we've seen a smear campaign against the Secretary of Defense since the moment that President Trump announced his nomination before the United States Senate.
		Let me reiterate, the President stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth in the change that he is bringing to the Pentagon, and the results that he's achieved thus far speak for themselves.
		Is there an FBI investigation into the leaks?
unidentified		The Secretary said that these people would be prosecuted.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		So is the FBI investigating?
		You have to ask the FBI.
		You have to ask the Department of Justice on what they plan to do.
		But certainly we take leaks with the utmost seriously across this administration.
		You've seen people fired from the Department of Homeland Security.
		The President has made it clear it's an unacceptable behavior.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you make of that?
unidentified		Well, she's saying what a White House press secretary says, always defending the administration.
		But she says they were fired because of leaks.
		Well, no leak allegations have actually been made.
		We don't really know what they did wrongly.
		And she's saying the whole Pentagon is, other than the Trump people, are against Hagseth, which I think is probably wrong, but it's indicative that they are in a paranoid mode and don't know how to sort out what is significant and what is insignificant in these issues.
		And the people that were fired were hired by Hegseth.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		These were not like Biden holdovers.
unidentified		Inner office people that had worked for him before that he brought along to help him as secretary.
unidentified		So if the loyalists are either stabbing each other in the back or questioning the boss, something's wrong there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Rob in East Islip, New York, Independent Line.
unidentified		Thank you for taking my call.
		Good morning, Mr. Stevenson.
		My question is where I would like your opinions on, you know, there's a lot of talk about our warfighters and what the ethos should be.
		How the culture has been affected by society's changes and infiltration into the military.
		So my question to you is, do you feel that adjustments do need to be made in order to make our military warfighters, to have more strength and to kind of weed out some of the what I consider aspects that have watered down our abilities?
		I had one more question and then I'll hang up and listen.
		Go ahead.
		The other question was, do you feel that or do you not agree that there needs to be a great change in how the bureaucracy and the military needs to be refined and streamlined in order to make the tax dollars that we use be more effective?
		I'm going to hang up.
		Thank you.
		Okay.
		Thank you.
		Absolutely.
		The Pentagon needs a lot of major change.
		It does have too much bureaucracy in so many ways.
		They can't move quickly and agilely.
		I think the previous administration, Secretary Austin, Deputy Secretary Hicks, made a good start in that direction.
		And I regret that Hegseth and others have been disparaging what they did, the replicator program, Defense Innovation Unit, things like that.
		But yes, it is a bureaucracy that needs to be modified.
		I don't think we have a shortage of warfighting ethos or lethality.
		I think our forces are very good and they show it every day under this president, under the previous president.
		They are lethal, committed, but they are law-abiding.
		And Hegseth's criticism, it's clear from his book about it, is not that they're not tough enough, it's that there are lawyers telling them to show restraint.
		He fired the military lawyers in all three services, hasn't replaced them, hasn't explained why he fired them, but from his previous writings, it's clear he thinks they put too many restrictions on the military.
		It so happens the military believes they should follow the laws of war.
		And that's all that the military lawyers have insisted on.
		And yet Hegseth was defending and seeking pardons for war criminals, military personnel convicted by their peers of violating the laws of war.
		Now, that's where I think he's wrong.
		I think he's misdirected and incorrect in claiming we have lost a warfighter ethos.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Sam in McLean, Virginia, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Sam.
unidentified		Yes, I totally agree with our guest, and I think you are very well qualified to speak on what you're speaking here.
		Do you think Pete Hegset is an idealist?
		He comes across to me as an idealist because there's a lot of veterans out there who probably were never really gone beyond the rank of a major, and they have fought in some wars.
		Maybe they won some medals, and now they wrote some books, and they base their opinion based on their own views.
		And this guy seems to be like he doesn't even, he's never served as a flag officer, and he thinks he knows everything.
		And also, I believe he's just a yes guy for Trump.
		That's why he was placed there.
		So, what is your feedback on that?
		Well, I think he is ideological, and he's in sync with the administration and the president.
		And their analysis of what's wrong, I think, is exaggerated or mistaken.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The Associated Press says this headline: former defense chiefs call for congressional hearings on Trump's firing of senior military leaders.
		Of course, we had the firing of the senior military leader, which was General C.Q. Brown.
		What were your thoughts on that?
		How did you react to that?
		And what do you think should happen?
unidentified		Well, the president has a right to his own people, even in the military.
		But Congress set up the system of terms for senior officers, four-year terms for the chairman and these other chiefs of staff, because they wanted to insulate them from politics.
		And yet, I think firing General Brown, firing the chief of naval operations, Admiral Franchetti, were punishments for following the lawful orders of their superiors in the Biden administration.
		And no, you want them to follow lawful orders, but if you start punishing people because they followed lawful orders, you set a very bad precedent.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Chris, who is in Sharpsburg, Georgia, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Chris.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		I'd just like to say, I can tell this person that you have on has never been in the military.
		Bobby's never been in the government service.
		Bobby never had.
		I'm a concept manager for over 20 years as far as communication security, held top secret clearances for well over 30 years.
tim in michigan ▲ ● ▼		And so what Pete Hesit did with the thing is just a media blow-up.
unidentified		But he did make a point.
		He's not a bureaucrat.
		He can pass a bag on, he can write a check for money.
		I'm sorry, I lost a lot of chain involved.
		But as far as not losing $2 billion, as far as not letting 13 Marines get killed, as far as not going to the doctor and not telling anybody, so we didn't have a Secretary of Defense for seven days during the Ukrainian war.
		I think he's doing a lot better job because he's not a bureaucrat.
		This guy seems to want more bureaucrats.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Chris, I'm going to let him respond, but I just wanted to know because you mentioned that you had a top-secret clearance for a long time about the signal chat.
		What were your thoughts on that?
		Do you just feel like it's not that big of a deal to discuss military attacks before they happen on an unsecure app?
tim donnelly ▲ ● ▼		Well, of course, just the way you phrase it, we don't really know what was said, what he said.
unidentified		I had deployments before, not the mid-82nd.
		And I tell my wife, hey, I'm going on deployment.
		That right there is not good to tell my wife I'm going on deployment, any soldier.
		It's not classified, but it's not good because it's just not.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, we'll get your response to your question, but we do know what was discussed because it was in the Atlantic.
unidentified		For what it's worth, I had a security clearance, top secret, and in SCI for 35 years, and I don't think I ever violated it.
unidentified		I think Mr. Hegseth has to become a bureaucrat in the sense he has to learn to manage a bureaucracy, a huge bureaucracy, and you just can't showboat and achieve that outcome.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		He did mention the situation with previous Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, going for medical procedures without telling anybody.
unidentified		That's bad.
unidentified		Shouldn't have done it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Mary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Democrat.
		Good morning, Mary.
		You're on with Charles Stevenson.
unidentified		Yes, I'm very old.
		I'm 92.
		I remember World War II.
		And some of my uncles, cousins, male relatives, I was six when the war started.
		I remember everybody talking about loose lips, saint ships, things like that.
		And I got the idea growing up listening to this of how important it was to mind your manners when it came to tipping off the enemy, things like that.
		In the smallest way, if you fell asleep on duty, you could be court-martialed.
		Maybe you could even be shot.
		And I don't understand the American public to be so stupid about all this.
		They show World War II.
		They talk about it a lot on the history channel on television.
		And so I'm even more familiar with what was going on.
dawn in colorado ▲ ● ▼		But I don't understand the attitude of these people that, like Hagworth or whatever his name is, can take over the military.
unidentified		He's like a boy, not even a teenage boy, he's like a nine-year-old showing off in front of his family and blabbing about what they were doing at the moment that they were doing.
		It's just incredible.
		And he has been in the military, and there's no excuse for acting so stupid.
		And what Trump is doing to our country is so dreadful.
		I don't know why we can't make a citizen's arrest and walking together.
		If my father and my uncles were alive now, I can't imagine what they would think.
		I have a few cousins, I think, who are left.
		I haven't contacted them for a long time, but I can't imagine what they're thinking looking at this Trump and that horrible crowd in the White House.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Mary.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We'll get you a response, okay?
unidentified		Any comments?
unidentified		I certainly agree that people should not be cavalier about security matters.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, and here is Joe in Shirley, New York, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Joe.
unidentified		Yes, how are you doing?
		I just want to ask Mr. I forgot, I can't say the name.
		Oh, yes, Stevenson.
		Thank you.
		I want to ask him just three simple questions.
		He says that I get the impression he's not for Pete Headset.
		And Judge, the first question is: what is the difference between the last administration being in charge of American security and that you find it was really good and Pete Headset, which you think is the worst thing?
		Could you answer?
		I think what I was saying is that I think Hagseth and Trump have wrongly criticized what the Biden administration was doing on defense because I think they did.
		They increased the money on defense and they came up with some innovative programs so they were making the defense more effective and more efficient.
		So that's my real criticism there compared to Biden.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We have a question on X from Andy who says, why does Hagseth need a makeup studio in the Pentagon?
		And to give you some background, the Hill says Hagseth creates a makeup studio in the Pentagon.
		It says that he has refurbished a green room as a makeup studio in the Pentagon for high-ranking officials to prepare before on-camera appearances.
		Most of the changes, quote, most of the changes in the green room were furniture, director's style chair, mirror, and a makeup light, all of which were added from existing inventories.
		That's according to a Defense Department spokesperson.
		Now, Mr. Hagseth has responded on X about that and said this on his post.
		He says, number one, totally fake story.
		There are no orders, no makeup, but whatever.
		Number two, we should have installed tampon machines in every men's bathroom at DOD instead.
		The leftist, quote, news media would have loved that.
unidentified		Obviously, I don't think it's a big deal if he improves the green room near the Pentagon broadcast facilities.
		But it's indicative of how people, given the concerns about a Hag Seth, are now coming out of the woodwork with whatever they think is embarrassing or bad.
		I'm not losing any sleep over it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, one thing is the audits.
		I want to ask you about the Defense Department's inability to pass a financial audit.
		Why can't they pass an audit and what's going on there?
unidentified		Well, this has been the case for 30 years.
		It's not as if it was just last year they failed to put.
		They've been trying over decades to meet the standards that the GAO sets, and they're failing.
		I'm not an accountant.
		I have trouble just looking at the tax forms.
		But clearly, they have to have a better system of proving how they're spending the money, and they continue to fail to do that.
		I don't know what the solution is.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Ron in Dunlap, Tennessee, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Ron.
unidentified		Hi, thanks for taking my call.
		What do you feel about a general who calls China and tells them that he'll let them know when they attack or are going to do something?
		And you already talked about Lloyd Austin.
		And you sit there and you use the word chaos.
		And, you know, DEI has no place in the military.
		All it does is lower standards.
		No real man wants to fight with some guy who thinks he's a woman.
		It just isn't going to work.
		And lowering the standards is not good for us.
		And, you know, your opinions, I don't, you know, I think you're only on there because you're bashing Trump and his administration.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think, Charles Stevenson?
unidentified		I disagree with that statement.
		I guess he did refer without the detail to General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, advising a Chinese general that he had regular contact with as the president wanted.
		Just I forget what the particular during the January 6th attack on the but just saying things are calm.
		The Constitution is constitutional order is being protected.
		I don't think that was incorrect in any way.
		But, of course, it's part of the Republican criticism.
		I just don't think it applies.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		He also talked about DEI and the transgender ban on the military.
unidentified		Yeah, and this administration disagrees with its predecessors in terms of DEI.
unidentified		And I think most senior officers that I've heard talk about it think its diversity is a strength in the U.S. military, and it shouldn't be disparaged.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's William, a Democrat in District Heights, Maryland.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, William.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
unidentified		How are you?
		Okay.
		Thank you for your knowledge, Mr. Stevenson.
		Very much appreciated.
		This gentleman has the same temperament as the commander-in-chief, and the arrogance that this gentleman brings to this office is very alarming, very alarming.
		You know, this DEI that the commander-in-chief has disbanded throughout the country is ridiculous.
		You know, I was in the military, served in the military, and if we had anyone that I served besides that was, you know, gender identity, I never knew it.
		We all fought as a team.
		We all banned it as a team.
		Teamwork is what gets the job done.
		You know, I pray for our country because between Trump and his whole staff, none of them are actually qualified for the positions that the Republicans have approved them for, but yet they're loyal to the president.
		And that seems to be the only requirement for a position in his cabinet.
		Thank you.
		Loyalty, of course, is, I agree, the chief requirement for this administration.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Paul in Escondido, California, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, I just I'm really astounded at some of the views I'm hearing.
charles in louisiana ▲ ● ▼		If you read any of the documents that, for instance, the January 6th Committee put out on the communications that went back and forth, I mean, you would know that it wasn't an attack at all.
unidentified		There were a few people that got out of hand, but mostly it was the Capitol Police that were attacking the protesters without any provocation.
bob in new york ▲ ● ▼		And that's, and the fact that they didn't arrest Ray Epps, who was the guy with the bullhorn there, telling everybody that, you know.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Paul, getting back to our topic of the Pentagon.
unidentified		My point is that you were talking about, you know, well, okay, you want to talk about that?
		Okay.
		Well, I was going to talk about, you were talking about the illegal deportation of people.
		Is that correct?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, we weren't really talking about that either.
		Maybe about General Milley?
		No?
		So we'll move on.
		Let's talk to Floyd in October, Iowa, Republican.
unidentified		Octoma, Iowa.
		Yes.
		Hey, Mr. Stevenson, or Dr. Stevenson.
		I want to know what you think about this.
		So we had a, we called him a whiz kid, the sec death, because you were the book about sec deaths.
		McNamara had the attack on the USS Liberty, 8 June 1967.
		You'll recall that.
		LBJ was president and a Democrat president.
		The response on that, they had jets on the way to aid that ship to repel the attackers, which happened to be, by the way, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force, an intentional, deliberate attack.
		What do you think about McNamara's response to that?
		He was sec death.
		He was not released after that.
		Let me hear your response, please.
		I don't remember enough of the details about that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, this is the attack on the USS Liberty in the 1960s by the Israeli forces.
unidentified		My ignorance is greater than my knowledge here, so I'll pass on that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And let's take a look at Pete Hegseth, Secretary Hagseth, speaking at the Army War College recently about the recent attacks on him.
pete hegseth ▲ ● ▼		It's a lot of change very quickly.
		Now, as you may have noticed, the media likes to call it chaos.
		We call it overdue.
		How are the men and women responding to this, to this call?
		Well, I can tell you personally, it's going better than we could have ever expected.
		This department, and you know it, across the joint force, is filled with patriots who want nothing more than to focus, be laser-focused on serving their country.
		And that's why retention is rebounding as well, big time in real time.
		But one of the clearest metrics so far is actually coming from outside the military.
		The enthusiasm of young Americans, in particular, is off the charts.
		You know firsthand how challenging it has been to recruit in recent years.
		Faced a legitimate recruiting crisis where we couldn't recruit enough men and women into the military, so we lowered the amount required and still didn't meet the amount of people required in recruitment.
		That's over.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Your response to that specifically about retention and recruitment and the uniforms?
unidentified		It is really good that recruitment is improving.
		It was earlier.
		It's not just because of this administration and this president.
		But there are real problems because what they find out is the people, a great number of the people who volunteer are physically incapable because they're overweight or otherwise just not capable to be in the military.
		That's a problem we have to solve as a country.
		It's not a question of military service.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, one more call from Janice Midlothian, Virginia, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Janice.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I really like to say I don't think Pete Hetseth is qualified.
		He was a Fox News host like five minutes ago, but my question would be: would there ever be a way that Congress would have to either vote on or agree with who a president is deciding is qualified for some of these most not sensitive but important positions that protect the American people?
		Well, the Senate had its chance to vote, and they voted by a tie vote, and the tie was broken by Vice President Vance.
		They just did not, a majority failed to recognize what you've said and what I said.
		He really wasn't fit for the job.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's Charles Stevenson, lecturer at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
		He wrote a book called SEC Deaf, The Nearly Impossible Job of Secretary of Defense, and he also has a substack called Policy Matters 113.
		Charles, thanks so much for being on the program.
unidentified		Thank you, Mimi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And up next, we will have a conversation with University of Pennsylvania economist Jesus Fernandez Villa Verde on the policy impacts of declining U.S. fertility rates and what the Trump administration plans to do about it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We'll be right back.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We are joined now by Jesus Fernandez Villeverde.
		He's a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, also a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
		Thanks for joining us.
unidentified		Thank you for having me here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And when we're talking about declining U.S. fertility rates and the economic impact of them, I'm just going to put up on the screen the fertility rates that so people can kind of see the trajectory there since 1960, actually.
		Going back to 1960 starts at 3.6 and then currently at 2024 at 1.6.
		Talk about that trend and why you think that might be a problem.
unidentified		Okay, well, so the US, as you were saying, used to have a relatively high fertility for being a rich advanced economy.
		3.6 means for people who may not be familiar with basic ideas in demographics that the average woman in the United States around 1960 was having 3.6 children.
		Then it went down during the 1960s.
		By the early 1970s, it was right around 2.
		It was at around that level for maybe 30 years or so, 35 years.
		And then starting in 2008, it fell again to the current level of 1.6.
		Seems to be stabilizing now.
		So why is this important?
		Well, think about it in this way.
		For population to stay roughly constant over time, the average woman needs to have 2.1 children.
		Why 2.1?
		Well, because of these children, one of them, a little bit more than one on average, is going to be a boy.
		The other one will be a girl.
		And that's what you need for that woman when she grows up to continue the population having children of her own on average.
		So any number of fertility below 2.1 means that in the long run, population will be falling.
		Of course, considering the absence of immigration.
		So at this moment, with a fertility rate of 1.6, and again, forgetting for a second about immigration, the U.S. population will start shrinking in some moment over the next 10 years.
		And as we will probably discuss during the rest of this conversation, this is going to have huge consequences for economic growth, for the government deficit, and for many, many other aspects in society.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, this is the U.S. fertility rate.
		What about worldwide?
		And specifically in areas that we typically call the global south, right?
		So Africa, parts of Asia, Latin America.
		What's happening with those fertility rates?
unidentified		Okay, so this is the really interesting thing.
		Fertility is collapsing worldwide and it's collapsing at a speed that is absolutely unprecedented.
		Even for those people like me who, you know, you asked me around 2005 what was going to happen with fertility, I will have forecasted it was going to fall pretty fast.
		It has fallen even faster than I anticipated.
		So I always like to ask the following question.
		Which country do you think has a higher fertility rate?
		The United States or Mexico?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I would say Mexico.
unidentified		Actually, the United States has now higher fertility rate, which is absolutely unprecedented.
		Not only the US has higher fertility rate than Mexico, it has higher fertility rate than Brazil, that Argentina, that Colombia, than Chile, pretty much every country in the Americas now has a lower fertility rate than the US.
		Asia is pretty much the same.
		China, we all know, is at extremely low fertility rate.
		India is still a little bit higher than the US, but it's falling very, very fast.
		Most of the states in the south of India already have a lower fertility rate than the United States.
		Fertility in India is still kept higher because of the states in the north of India.
		Really, the only place at this moment in the world with relatively high fertility rate is Africa.
		And over there, the problem that we have with Africa is that the data is really, really bad.
		So everything that we say about Africa is really a lot of speculation more than hard facts.
		My reading of the evidence is that fertility is also falling very, very fast in Africa.
		And that we may have actually an interview in 2050 where we are commenting about the total collapse of fertility in Africa.
		So the really interesting thing, I was invited to a conference on fertility collapse in the US a few months ago.
		And I, a little bit in a provocative way, what I say was not the interesting thing about the US is not that fertility has gone down, is that fertility has gone down much less than it has gone down in many, many other countries.
		And that kind of makes the US a little bit peculiar.
		So the US has a little bit of a problem with fertility, but the fertility problem, for instance, that all Latin America suffers, and that's something I care about personally a lot, is really absolutely amazing.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So why is this happening?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why are fertility rates going down around the world?
unidentified		Well, I wish I had a better answer because that will probably be very good for my academic career.
		So let me tell you a few conjectures that people have put on the table.
		I have done that myself in my academic work.
		One is basically that women have better rights and there is more gender equality.
		And what happens is once you have more freedom to decide your own life and your own future, many women just don't want to have three, four, five kids.
		Some of them do, but many of them say, no, I want to have a career or I don't want to have so many children.
		I want to balance my work with my family life.
		And that probably explains a lot of what is happening, for instance, right now in Latin America and probably in East Asia.
		A second very important mechanism that we are having right now, and we can come back to that later, is that housing prices all around the world are at historical highs.
		It's more expensive than ever to buy a house in the United States, but it turns out to be the case that's everywhere in the world.
		And we can talk about the reasons why that's the case.
		So you are 25 years old, 26 years old, and you live either in New England, which is the part of the United States that has the lowest fertility, or you are in South America or you are in Asia.
		It's very difficult to start a family because housing prices are so high.
		And a third very important factor is what I have called the educational or the education weapons race.
		It's more and more important than ever to have children that are very highly educated, that go to the best possible university, that get the best possible education.
		And that's really very expensive, both in terms of money and in terms of time.
		And this is particularly relevant in countries like South Korea or Japan or even China, where school systems are so competitive.
		So in a country like China or South Korea, if you want your kid to go to a top university, you need to hire a tutor for him or for her and really be on top of your kids for 12 years.
		Some of these tutors are enormously expensive.
		A private, a top private tutor in South Korea makes over $200,000 a year.
		It's very, very expensive.
		People just don't have the money and the resources to educate their kids, so they have at most one.
		And finally, and that's maybe the more speculative of all the reasons, is a change in culture norms.
		You know, people seem to enjoy life on the virtual world more than in the real world.
		You talk with a lot of young people and they say, no, I have all these friends on the internet and in social media, and that has led all around the world to a big decrease in couple formation.
		And there is many more single people right now than in any other moment in time among young people.
		When you ask, you know, how many times have you gone on a date?
		That number has decreased not only in the United States, and people have pointed that out a lot of times in the US, but all across the world.
		So the average number of dates that young people are having around the world is lower than ever.
		That means that there are less partnership formations, there are less marriages, and that basically leads to many fevered children.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And I'll invite our callers to start calling in if they'd like to join the conversation.
		Jesus Fernandez Vella Verde is our guest.
		He's an economist.
		And our lines are by age this time.
		So if you're under 30, the number is 202748, 8,000.
		If you're between 30 and 55, it is 202748, 8001.
		And if you're over 55, it's 202748, 8002.
		You can start calling in now.
		So, I mean, Professor, what's the big deal from your perspective as an economist of the fertility rates going down?
		Why is this a bad thing?
unidentified		Okay, so let me give you a very simple example.
		People talk about Japan.
		Japan, a country that has stagnated for 35 years, no economic growth, a country that has very few opportunities for young people, tons of papers, tons of books written about Japan.
		And what I have documented, I think, convincingly is that when you actually control for the fact that Japan has had this very, very low fertility, Japan was actually the first country in the world to fall below 2.1, as I was mentioning before.
		Basically, nothing happens with Japan.
		There is nothing strange about Japan.
		It just happens to be the case that when the labor force is sinking, when population is falling, economies stagnate, economies stop, and that means there is not a lot of opportunities for young people and the country is just not doing very well.
		And what I have argued is that the present of Japan is going to be the future of most economies in the world as fertility goes down.
		And very linked with that is once there is no economic growth, how are we going to pay for pensions, for Social Security?
		Who is going to pay for Medicaid or for Medicare or similar programs?
		And if the economy also has stagnated, how are we going to pay for our public debt?
		And again, these are not theoretical worries.
		When you go now to Europe and you look at most countries in Europe, nearly all of them are in a very, very difficult fiscal position.
		And the reason again is because population has aged so much, fertility has gone down a lot, and really all these countries are in a very, very delicate fiscal situation.
		And right now, the economy is doing kind of okay.
		So they are more or less surviving for one year to the next.
		But the next time there is a big economic crisis, and we know economic crisis always comes sooner or later, many European countries are going to be in a very, very difficult situation and they will need to make very, very difficult choices.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, Professor, you alluded to this earlier, which is immigration, and that historically has made up for low birth rates.
unidentified		Yes, so immigration.
		So the first thing I always remind people is that immigration is a zero-sum game.
		What I mean by that is yes, every Mexican that moves from Mexico to the United States makes the problem of low fertility in the U.S. a little bit less problematic, but it makes the problem worse in Mexico.
		And at the end of the day, the total migration into the planet, into Earth, is zero.
		So yes, very rich advanced economies like the U.S. are going to be able to handle some of this problem with migration, but, and I emphasize once more, this is going to make the problem of low fertility much worse, as you were saying before in the global south.
		The second point that I like to point out is that migration is a very heterogeneous phenomenon.
		So you can bring, for instance, someone, a highly educated person with a PhD in computer science, let's say, and that person is usually a net contributor to public finances.
		What I mean is, you take a computer scientist, this person will pay a lot in taxes, will probably receive very little from the welfare state, and that makes the public finances better.
		But if you bring someone with low skills and low education, that doesn't help.
		That doesn't help.
		So I'm not saying that we should value migration only based on economic considerations.
		Not at all, migration is a very multi-dimensional phenomenon that we should value from many different perspectives.
		I'm just talking for a second from the perspective of the government budget.
		And if you are a migrant that comes to the U.S. and you happen to be below the 60 percentile of income distribution, that means you are, you know, middle class or lower middle class or below, you are actually not a net addition to the public finances.
		And that means that migration is not really helping a lot in terms of fixing some of these problems of public finances that I was mentioning before.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to callers.
		Marion is in Grovetown, Georgia, between the age of 30 and 55.
		Marion, you're on with.
		Jesus, Fernandez, Via Verde.
unidentified		Okay, thank you very much for taking my call.
		I do not understand why this is an issue at all.
		It sounds to me more like we're just wanting, I mean, we're overpopulated.
debbie in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		It says by right now we have, I'm looking at it, in 2023, there was 8 billion.062 billion people in the world.
unidentified		And then they're saying it's going to be going up to 9 to 10 billion by 2037.
		So what you're really saying, I think, is that you don't want immigrants here, even though we're a country of immigrants.
		All we would have to do is bring some of those people from other countries to help support our social security and everything and become part of our country.
		Or do you just want white people to populate?
		I'm trying to figure out what is your agenda here.
		It's very weird.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Professor, go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, so I get this question all the time.
		Okay.
		So let me emphasize the point I was making before.
		Fertility in Mexico is lower than in the United States.
		When I talk about this topic in Mexico, and I talk a lot of this topic in Mexico a lot of times, I remind people the problem for Mexico in 2050-2060 is homogenous.
		If you think there is a problem in the United States, you are wrong.
		The real problem is for Mexico.
		The real problem is for Nicaragua.
		The real problem is for Guatemala.
		The real problem is for El Salvador.
		All these countries are countries that are below fertility rate and that cannot bring in immigrants.
		No one is going to migrate into Nicaragua to solve the problems of low fertility.
		Now, having said that, is the world overpopulated?
		I don't think so.
		There is no evidence whatsoever that the world is overpopulated.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you feel that there's enough resources for the amount of people?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Because that's also been an argument made, that there's just not enough resources.
unidentified		No, I don't think so.
		You look at the price of a lot of commodities in historical level.
		They are not higher than ever.
		And in addition to it, let me put it in this way.
		When countries face a lot of fiscal concerns and fiscal constraints because low fertility, the first thing that is going to go through the window are environmental programs.
		Care for the environment, care for resources, concern about climate change.
		That's in some sense what economists call a luxury good.
		Okay, luxury good is a technical, it's a term of art, so let me be very clear about what I mean by that.
		Voters, we may like it or we may not like it, but the fact is that voters do not value those issues above their pensions.
		Okay, that's a fact of life that we need to live with.
		If the fiscal situation is dire because fertility is too low, voters are not going to vote to cut pensions and keep investment in renewable energies.
		They are going to cut investment in renewable energies.
		So if you are concerned about keeping investment in renewable energies, if you are concerned about transitioning toward a net zero economy, then you should be very worried that with a very low fertility, the fiscal space that we are going to have to accomplish those goals is going to disappear.
		So not only are we not going to help the environment, we are actually going to make things worse off.
		And again, as I was saying before, this is not a product of speculation.
		This is what we have already seen in Europe.
		And if I had a little bit more time, I could go country by country in Europe.
		And as the fiscal situation has deteriorated, the first thing that has been cut is investment in renewable energies.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to Carl in Naples, Florida, over 55.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Carl.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Mr. Val Verde, very interesting topic.
		I want to stay specifically on U.S. fertility rates.
		So my question is, can you tell me the current rate of fertility for women of unnaturalized citizenship versus women of naturalized citizenship?
		And I believe there is a difference in that the unnaturalized is somewhere around the 2.0 or the 2.1 tipping point that you said earlier, and how this might affect the economic power or the wealth gap in the United States.
		I'll hang up and listen to your answer.
		Thank you very much.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		Thanks.
unidentified		Thanks.
		Yes.
		So let's remember the total fertility rate in the US is around 1.6.
		So it's actually hard to know exactly what the fertility rate of naturalized versus unnaturalized.
		Usually we have better data on fertility for whether the mother was born in the United States or was not born in the United States.
		Okay, so when we look at that, for mothers born in the United States, it's around 1.55, 1.54, so a little bit below 1.6.
		For mothers not born in the United States, we are talking about 1.8 or 1.85.
		Now, why is that a little bit higher?
		Because you have a little bit of a composition effect.
		On one hand, you have mothers not born in the United States who came from Asia.
		Remember that a lot of the net migration into the United States over the last 20 years has been from Asia.
		Mothers born in Asia have very, very low fertility rates, around 1.0, 1.1.
		They are probably importing a lot of the very low fertility rates from Asia.
		And then the other big group of migrants that we have in the United States are mothers born in Latin America.
		They are a little bit higher, as you were saying before, and having the intuition of around 1.9, 1.95.
		And that basically means that the percentage of kids born from Hispanic mothers is a little bit higher than the percentage of Hispanics in the population.
		Having said that, one of the very, very interesting things that has been documented is how quickly the fertility rates of Hispanics is converging towards the fertility rate of whites.
		And in fact, a lot of the drop in fertility over the last 10, 15 years has precisely driven by that factor.
		So you have that, for instance, the second generation of Hispanic mothers in California or in Texas, and by that I mean Hispanic mothers born from Hispanic mothers not born in the United States, but the daughters were already born in the United States, those, they pretty much have exactly the same fertility rate that Hispanics, sorry, than whites.
		So the fertility, the convergence towards a common fertility rate is very, very fast, if anything has been coming faster and faster.
		So yes, the fact that we have so many immigrants from Latin America has pushed up the fertility rate of the United States a little bit more.
		That will probably mean there is going to be a little bit of an increase of the percentage of Hispanics in the population, but the interesting thing is that it's really converging towards the mean very, very fast.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Professor, there's an article on the front page of USA Today, Today's USA Today, with the headline, Pro-Natalism Movement is finding fertile ground, but the answers to falling birth rates can be complex.
		That's at USA Today.
		Can you talk about some of the suggestions that have been made to increase the fertility rate in the United States?
unidentified		Yes, of course.
		So what type of things have been put on the table?
		For instance, tax credits, you know, given, I don't know, I'm just going to say a number, $10,000 for every family that has a kid.
		The international evidence is that this type of tax credits have very little effect.
		So there has been very aggressive tax credits in France, in Hungary, in the Czech Republic, etc.
		This doesn't seem to matter much.
		Another possibility is, as I was mentioning before, housing, really trying to control the price of houses, make more affordable housing, especially at the entry level for young families.
		My particular reading of the empirical evidence in other countries is that this matters a lot, really giving young people access to having a first house, which by the way, is probably good anyway.
		Even if we forget about fertility for a second, it's probably good to get our young people married and starting a family.
		We know that people that are married and having a family have much better social outcomes regardless of fertility.
		There are people who are more active in civil society.
		They vote more since this is CSPAN.
		You will care a lot about that.
		They are more engaged with the political life of the community.
		So that's good in itself.
		And the third element that I think is very important is a better balance of work and life.
		For instance, I have been a very, very strong defender of having much more generous paternity and maternity leaves.
		Some European countries have gone as far as given six months of full maternity leave to both parents, and I think that that makes a difference.
		And particularly, those will be my two favorite policies.
		Make housing for young people much more affordable and reorganize our society in a way that there is a much better balance between work and family life and where younger people feel that having kids is not so much of a struggle as it is right now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, and Linda is over 55 in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
		You're on with our guest.
		Go ahead, Linda.
unidentified		Yes, thank you.
		Professor, I'm hearing everything you're saying, and I find it has great meaning.
		One of my concerns when I think about not so much fertility rates.
		Fertility to me means a medical condition.
		I'm perhaps talking about the desire to have children.
		And when I think about having children, I think about can individual men and women find a partner.
		So if you speak with sociologists or psychologists, is there impact on people, at least in the U.S., perhaps, being so individualistic that they are not finding partners and out of that love and care for progeny,
		perhaps the interest in having children has decreased because of poor relationships.
		Can you give me your ideas on that, please?
		Yes, so I agree with you.
		So one of the things I have documented and I have talked a lot is that the social skills of younger people, in particularly men, is much lower than in the past.
		I think that we have educated a generation, and of course, you know, there is heterogeneity.
		Everything I'm just going to say is about the average and you are going to find many exceptions.
		But we have educated a generation that perhaps have spent too much time glued to the screen of their cell phones and have a much harder problem socializing.
		And I see it with my own undergrads.
		When they talk with me, they are much less able to engage in an interesting conversation than 20 years ago.
		And I think that's precisely because they have spent so much time online.
		So perhaps it's a moment where we can go back, as I was emphasizing before, to our schools, primary schools, secondary schools, high schools, and try to think about how we educate young men and women who are better at social skills, who are better at talking with each other, understanding each other, and as you say, falling in love with each other.
		Let me just add one very quick thought.
		It's very interesting.
		40 years ago, we will ask women how many children do you want in your life?
		And they will say, let's say, two.
		And how many do you have?
		And they will say 2.5 on average.
		So women were having more children than what they wanted.
		And that was a problem.
		I want women to have the right to decide how many children they have.
		But now you fast forward to today and you ask women how many children do you want to have?
		And they still tell you two on average.
		And then you ask them how many do you have?
		And they tell you 1.5.
		So now the real problem is that a lot of young people want to have more children and they cannot.
		And they cannot, as you say, because maybe they cannot find a partner to share their life.
		Or maybe they, even if they find a partner, because they cannot find a house where they can live or they don't have the right job market opportunities.
		So I don't want, and I want to be very clear because that's always the first thing I say.
		I don't want to force anyone to have children.
		But what I see is that a lot of people want to build families, want to start a life with someone they really love, and society is making this very difficult right now.
		And I want to help them.
		That's the only thing I want to do.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Debbie, who's in Vero Beach, Florida, over 55.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Debbie.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Yeah, I'm looking from an older person's perspective.
		Growing up in the 1960s, there was only like 200 plus million Americans.
		And I remember wide open spaces.
		And it was lovely growing up.
		And now we're up to like 340 million.
		And I just wish that government could design policy, law, tax space to accommodate a lower population rather than more and more babies.
		I mean, if you look at somebody mentioned the food supply, I mean, what they're doing to animals to feed our population, it's horrendous.
		There have been several films on that lately.
		Space is needed for farms, open spaces, and they're increasingly getting smaller and smaller.
		And I've seen pictures of houses in China where the apartments are really, really tiny because the population there is so great.
		So I don't think growing the population around the world to 9, 10, 11 billion is going to make it more comfortable.
		Americans are used to a middle-class lifestyle.
		And I think more people on the planet, more pollution, I don't think that's the way to go.
		I really think that if our government can come together and come out with policies, like I said before, to accommodate a smaller population.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Debbie.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's get your response.
unidentified		Okay, so let's get something a little bit clear because perhaps I was not clear enough.
		I'm not talking that we should increase population.
		Okay?
		I'm just saying that right now the fertility rate is 1.6.
		This is going to lead to a cliff, a democratic cliff, with a very fast and dramatic fall in population.
		I'm suggesting that perhaps we should go back to something like 2, 1.9, which will imply a gentle decline in population.
		It will not imply an increase in population.
		The tight, the level of fertility rates that we are seeing in many, many countries is going to lead to such a dramatic and fast change, sorry, drop in population that that's going to destroy society.
		Okay, so this is not about we are going to be a few, a bit fewer of us, and that's going to help with pollution and with environment and with urban sport.
		I'm talking about societies like South Korea that is going to lose 75% of its inhabitants in the next 50 to 60 years.
		And that's going to lead to society collapse.
		And the amount of pain and suffering that is going to generate in everyone in society is unbelievable.
		And thinking that somehow you are going to be able to handle this, that's not true.
		That's not true.
		I mean, I was mentioning before Mexico, I was talking with a lot of people in Mexico just four weeks ago about their fiscal situation.
		Mexico is going to really, really, really suffer a lot around 2050.
		And Mexico just doesn't have the fiscal space to handle that situation.
		So it's not that I want Mexico population to increase.
		I just want Mexico population to gently decline, not fall through a cliff.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Michael, who's over 55 in Plainfield, Illinois.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Michael.
unidentified		Hi.
		Mimi, pardon me.
		Please give me a moment to develop my point because we're talking around this subject and I think it needs to be put in context.
		You know, the professor has mentioned many things and I agree with many, many of his points.
		But this is we are an entire human society in decline.
		And it's because we have allowed the 1% to control everything in this world.
		I mean, you can ask for any government policy, as the professor mentioned previously, and it doesn't do you any good because the politicians don't listen to the average person.
		Now, I was born in 1950.
		I'm going to be 75 years old.
		I come from a family of three children.
		My sister died at birth.
		I have a younger brother, and neither he nor I have children.
		I didn't have them because I could see years ago, 50 years ago, that the system is choking off the economic opportunities for the average person.
		We have 50% of our population with negative net worth.
		What person with any common sense would bring a child into this situation?
		So I want the professor to address the fact that what we really need is a healthy society with the vast majority of benefits, tax breaks, and everything else going to the middle, not this pyramid scheme that the 1% developed.
		And even the dumbest among us are starting to realize that you can't win at the game of life.
		The deck is so stacked against you.
		And I am cynical.
		I admit that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Michael, I think the professor got your point.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, sir.
unidentified		Okay.
		Well, so there are two parts to this answer.
		The first one is I agree with you.
		I mean, as I was saying before, my policy recommendations have always been, as I was mentioning before, to make the life of younger people, of middle-class Americans, lower-middle-class Americans, much easier than what it is now.
		And that will help a lot with fertility.
		So I fully agree with you.
		On the other hand, we also need to put this in perspective.
		If you look at countries that have much more generous welfare states like Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, in Europe, they are not doing much better in terms of fertility rates.
		So it doesn't seem that having more generous welfare states help that much in terms of fertility.
		France, Italy, Spain have much more generous welfare states than the United States, and yet their fertility is much, much lower than in the United States.
		And then of course we have the evidence from the former communist countries and the existing ones like Cuba.
		Fertility in Cuba is extremely low, much, much lower than in the US.
		And fertility in the Soviet Union, in Poland, in Communist Poland, in Communist East Europe was very, very low and falling very, very fast.
		So this seems to be a little bit disconnected from the concrete economic and political system that countries have.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Mohamed next in Columbus, Ohio, between 30 and 55.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Mohammed.
unidentified		Hello, good morning.
		Thank you so much, Professor, and thank you for the opportunity given.
		So just want to ask two questions.
		The first question is, don't you think, Professor, with the rise of AI is impacting the younger generation to get engaged in fertility and having children?
		And the second question is, even though the population of the United States is roughly around 350 million, the inhabited area is much more smaller compared to the larger area that is not habited yet.
		And you mentioned about the increase of housing.
		Don't you think it will be a good idea to roughly create new cities where the younger generation will come in, fill those gaps and see if they can fill the next generation.
		Thank you so much for the opportunity again.
		Thank you.
		Let me start with the previous one, with the last part of your question.
		Totally.
		We need more housing.
		In fact, you don't even need to grow and build new cities in the middle of Kansas or Nebraska where there is plenty of space.
		Even here in the East Coast, where I live, there is a lot of space.
		I live right outside Philadelphia.
		And even within Philadelphia city, there is a lot of space to build.
		There is a lot of unused space.
		There is a lot of space that could be redeveloped.
		So if we wanted to lower the prices of housing in New York, in Philadelphia, in Washington, in Boston, in San Francisco, there is a lot of space to build over there.
		And the reasons we are not building are about regulation, zoning limitations, etc.
		Of course, I'm not defending, you know, let's build like crazy, let's build everywhere.
		But, you know, I have been following the issues about where and how to build in a lot of our great cities.
		And at this moment, we are not in the right balance between sensible regulation and allowing people to build.
		And if that was going to be the case, that will lower the prices and that will really help with fertility.
		With respect to the first question is about artificial intelligence.
		So when I give these talks and I talk to the public, someone always asks, well, will not artificial intelligence fix our economic problems?
		Well, that remains to be seen.
		Remains to be seen how productive artificial intelligence is going to be and more importantly, whether or not artificial intelligence can fix the problems that we face.
		And let me give you one very concrete example.
		We know how to write large language models like all of you have used probably with ChatGPT.
		We are very far away from being able to build a robot that can clean a resume.
		And why is this important?
		We are going to have dozens and dozens of very advanced age Americans that are going to have the simple problem that they are too old and not in a very good mobility to clean their own bedroom, their own bathroom.
		And artificial intelligence cannot do that.
		And it's not going to be able to do that most likely over the next 10, 20, or 30 years.
		So how do we handle that?
		How do we provide social services to a lot of people in their 80s and the 90s with limited mobility?
		So artificial intelligence can help, but it has a lot of limitations in what can and cannot do.
		Now, coming back, maybe perhaps part of the question was also about how artificial intelligence can be changing the life of younger people.
		And I agree.
		I already mentioned before that I think one unintended consequence of artificial intelligence and social media more in general is that it's making it harder for people to build relationships and to get engaged.
		And that's something that as a society, we need to think about how to facilitate people building families and having what I think are more meaningful personal relations that just not relations through a screen.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Walker in Cleveland, Ohio, over 55.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Walker.
unidentified		Hi, how are you?
		Hey, Jeremy Rifkin wrote a book years ago, The End of Work, and he spoke of the universal basic income.
		And he said technology, robots, AI would replace the people that are needed for the work to be done.
		Also, Elon Musk spoke of the universal basic income.
		And Bill Gates Foundation said there's too many people on earth.
		So there's a divide in the thinking on what's going to come in the future.
		Okay, so I'm actually not a big fan of universal basic income.
		And this actually comes from my personal experience.
		I was born in a small hometown, in a small town.
		It was a mining town, coal mine.
		And the coal mine was closed.
		And the government came in and it was very generous.
		I'm originally from Spain, in Europe, and over there, we have a very, very generous welfare state.
		So the government gave every miner around $2,500 to live every month.
		And believe me, where I'm from, with $2,500 a month, you live very well.
		Fast forward to 2025.
		My hometown has the highest suicide rate in the country, has the highest alcoholism rate in the country, has the highest divorce rate in the country, has the highest child abuse rate in the country.
		You cannot give people $2,500 a month and say, do nothing.
		You need something more.
		There is something meaningful about work that goes beyond the income.
		So if you were going to ask me, Jesus, do you think should we build social programs where we provide people with work, with meaningful work, for people who have been displaced by artificial intelligence?
		Yes, of course.
		Let's find people jobs, as I was mentioning before, helping older people.
		Let's find jobs to people, you know, helping in high schools and in middle schools, in parks, in gardens, in doing meaningful things in life.
		But there is something inherently important about the dignity of work of having something to do every day with your life that goes way beyond the income.
		So in that sense, I'm actually very, very much against the idea of universal basic income, but I'm very, very much in favor of being sure that every person in society who wants a job can get a job.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And that'll be our last word.
		Jesus, Fernandez Villa Verde, a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, also a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
		Thanks so much for joining us today.
unidentified		Thank you for having me here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Up next, it's more of your phone calls in Open Forum.
		We'll take your calls as soon as we get back from the break.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		It is open forum.
		We'll take your calls for the next 25 minutes until the end of the program.
		A few things for your schedule.
		Later today, this afternoon at 3.15 p.m., it's a discussion on the global economic situation.
		That's with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and other international financial figures.
		Again, that's at 3.15.
		That'll be here on C-SPAN.
		And you can also watch that on C-SPAN Now, our app, and C-SPAN.org online.
		Also, by the way, Pope Francis' funeral will be this Saturday.
		We will cover that live, but it starts at 4 a.m. Eastern Time because it's 10 a.m. in the Vatican.
		But we will have that for you.
		And you can, of course, watch it later on our website.
		Just before I take your calls, the NBC News has this headline, Vladimir Stop, says Putin.
		It says Trump as Putin launches worst attack on Ukraine in months.
		For Ukraine and its supporters, the attack symbolized the hypocrisy of Russia's position.
		U.S. President described the bombardment as, quote, not necessary and very bad timing.
		Says that overnight on Thursday, Russia launched one of the most devastating bombardments on Ukraine's major cities since the war began, killing at least eight people hours after President Donald Trump said he believed he had struck deals with both sides to end the war.
		And here's what the president wrote on his Truth Social: I am not happy with the Russian strikes on Kyiv.
		Not necessary, and very bad timing.
		Vladimir, stop.
		That's in all caps.
		5,000 soldiers a week are dying.
		Let's get the peace deal, all caps done.
		And we'll go to the phones now.
		Richard is in Louisville, Kentucky, Republican.
		Good morning, Richard.
unidentified		Yes, your last guest was with the American Enterprise Institute.
		And I took a quick dive into who the American Enterprise Institute is.
		And that gentleman was put on the air today to strictly push for more immigration.
		Illegal, however, you can.
		These companies, he's a globalist, by the way.
		It says in American Enterprise Institute, they are a global.
		They work on economic issues globally.
		And according to this gentleman, our birth rate is down, and therefore, where are we going to get the people to do the work for the Chamber of Commerce, big business, and whatnot?
		And I've got an idea where we get the workers.
		You cut off the government checks to those who are at home and think they deserve something for nothing.
		Now, your previous guest before that, talking about Pete Hegseth.
		Now, that gentleman there talked about his high security clearance.
		And you, ma'am, and I forget your name.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Mimi.
unidentified		Yes, you asked the very perfect question to that gentleman.
		Why can't you bounce the budget?
		Why can't the Department of Defense balance the budget?
		And what was his answer?
		Oh, well, it's been going on for 30 years.
		Exactly.
		Mr. High Clarence could not tell us where the heck the money's going.
		I think $50 billion last year was lost.
		Well, we don't know where it is.
		So, sir, that gentleman is exactly the reason why 70 million of us voted for Donald Trump because that gentleman represents the swamp.
		And it's the swamp we're going to get rid of.
		We're going to find out where the $50 billion go, either that or the Pentagon.
		And Pete Hegset is going to cut heads.
		And that's just, it's plain and simple.
		Thank you for your time.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Andrea Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Andrea.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Thanks so much for taking my call.
		What an interesting topic about a birth rate.
		Actually, this previous scholar showed exactly why people voted for Donald Trump.
		This country is extremely racist.
		We know that one of the reasons why the birth rate is dropping has a lot to do with education and with cultural changes, right?
		There are populations, for example, in Africa, which the birth rates are very high because that's what women want to do.
		They like to have a lot of kids.
		Who doesn't say a lot of kids is a lot of kids?
		You can Google that.
		Everybody knows that.
		Why they don't want just to just go ahead and bring more Africans to this country.
		Nobody's talking about this.
		Everything about this administration is very simplistic.
		And I'm sorry to use this word kind of dumb.
		Saying that, oh, we're going to give some goodies to women if they get pregnant.
		I mean, you have to be very dumb to hear that and think that makes sense.
		And their main concern is not exactly birth rate, but more like changes in ethnicity.
		They don't want any more brown people or black people.
		They want more white people.
		That's their main concern.
		I am very concerned about racism in this country.
		I really think that this is going to really destroy this country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I am very about this.
		And here's Tina, an independent in Hedgeville, West Virginia.
		Hi, Tina.
unidentified		She's exactly right.
		The reason why people voted for Donald Trump is because of racism and misogyny.
		They just wasn't comfortable with a black woman running the country, and that's primarily due to religion.
		The other thing is, although the expert may have been an expert in economics, I don't think he's an expert in technology.
		Even in China right now, they have modalities where the bathroom can literally change itself in terms of cleaning itself, sanitizing itself.
		It's not a traditional bathroom that we have, but it's just a different, completely way of thinking about how a bathroom can be, where it can sanitize itself.
		So I just don't understand why he's even speaking on IT when he clearly doesn't have an expert teeth in IT.
		I don't have a problem with people coming to this country as long as it's done legally because it's very dangerous when they try to take that route coming into this country illegally, walking over dead bodies, women getting put into trafficking and all types of stuff.
		So yeah, that's my comment.
		Thanks for taking my call.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Tina, and here's Andres in Chicago, Illinois, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning.
		Thank you so much for taking my call.
		Yeah, I just wanted to call in about that's been going on about the funding cuts to Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, and sort of other higher institutions.
		I think it's important to note that these are all private institutions and this action has been threatening the principle of academic freedom upon which these universities were founded.
		A lot of the research and the funding that goes to these universities is critical for medical research.
		There's a treatment from Harvard Medical School that is currently used for the treatment of at least 12 types of cancer.
		There's other diseases that are constantly the research that the funding provides for is being cured by and cutting this funding is really harming this crucial research.
		We need to address these diseases.
		So I think it's important.
		I commend Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, these other 150 colleges who signed this letter for standing up for the rights of students, international students as well, and the right to free expression on college campuses and everything that this action stands for.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And that was a call from Chicago, Illinois.
		One of the senators from Illinois, Senator Dick Durbin, has announced that he is retiring.
		So he will not be running for re-election.
		And here is his announcement on YouTube.
dick durbin ▲ ● ▼		The decision of whether to run for re-election has not been easy.
		I truly love the job of being United States Senator.
		But in my heart, I know it's time to pass the torch.
		So I'm announcing today that I will not be seeking re-election at the end of my term.
		The people of Illinois have honored me with this responsibility longer than anyone elected to the Senate in our state's history.
		I'm truly grateful.
		Right now, the challenges facing our country are historic and unprecedented.
		The threats to our democracy and way of life are very real.
		And I can assure you, I'll do everything in my power to fight for Illinois and the future of our country every day of my remaining time in the Senate.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we are in open forum.
		Margo is in Highland, Indiana.
		Democrat.
		Hi, Margo.
unidentified		Good morning, Lee.
unidentified		How are you doing today?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		I just wanted to say that so far as hexa and just like Trump, what their mothers have opinions of them.
		And that's that nobody knows a character, anything about what the child is other than a mother.
		And Donald Trump's mother referred to him as no common sense.
		But that's her child.
		We keep calling it as you see it.
		The same thing with Hicks' mother was attacking his character.
		And nobody knows a child's character, but a mother does.
		So if you can't take their word for it, I don't know.
		Please you could.
		Thanks.
		Have a good day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Bill is an independent in St. Louis, Missouri.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Bill.
unidentified		Hi.
		Thank you for taking the call.
		So just a real quick brief history on American Social Security.
		That was created in 1935.
		It's been 90 years.
		The inflection point is 1981 when Reagan comes into office.
		What was our national debt in 1981?
		$998 billion.
		Not even a trillion dollars yet for the first 45 years.
		Wasn't until Reagan came in and started deregulation, which we started to have in bank failures in what, 86, 87, then all the tax breaks and all that kind of stuff.
		What was our national debt just after the eight years of Ronald Reagan?
		$2.7 trillion.
		Throw George Bush Sr. on there.
		We're up to $4.4 trillion.
		And I'm not just blaming Republicans on that.
		I'm just saying, look, you want to worry about the debt?
		You want to worry about Social Security spending?
		Hey, some of those underage kids that were on the Social Security rolls, I lost my parents as a kid.
		Those are survivor benefits so that kids aren't starving in the street.
		But again, Social Security for the first 45 years did not cause any of our national debt.
		As a matter of fact, legislatively, Social Security cannot add to our national debt.
		So I just wanted to get that out there because there's all this talk about, oh, Social Security's creating this debt.
		They've been beating up on Social Security welfare and food stamps since Reagan, but really it kind of goes back to Nixon.
		But if you have any questions on that, again, people, get out your Google machines.
		Our national debt in 1981 was $998 billion.
		It almost tripled.
		It went up 180% under Ronald Reagan.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got that, Bill.
		And here's John in Bulligy, Alabama, Democrat.
		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I like to say the biggest threat to our country, America, is Donald Trump.
		He, I don't know how people figure that he was the person who could work the finances of this country when he has over six bankruptcies, saying that he has done financially is a total failure.
		And I like to say also with the immigration, with the schools, and with health care and everything.
		And one of the things that the Democratic Party should put forth is that injustice to one immigrant is an injustice to all immigrants.
		Injustice to one school is an injustice to all schools.
		Injustice to one Jewish person is an injustice to all Jewish persons.
		This is the biggest thing that's going on.
		All this injustice that Donald Trump is doing.
		And this is what the Democratic Party should run on.
		An injustice to one is an injustice to all.
		Thank you for taking my call.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And on the economy, the Wall Street Journal has this.
		White House considers slashing China tariffs to de-escalate trade war.
		It says levies could be cut by more than half in some cases, although Trump hasn't yet made a final decision.
		And Treasury Secretary Besant was at a global finance event here in Washington and talked about the standoff with China over tariffs.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		There is an opportunity for a big deal here, that the U.S. is looking to rebalance to more manufacturing.
		The identity of that would be less consumption.
		If China is serious on less dependence on export-led manufacturing growth and a rebalancing toward a domestic economy, I think they use the term dual circulation.
		Well, right now it's really singular circulation.
		And if they want to rebalance, let's do it together.
		This is an incredible opportunity.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And back to the phones now to Pub in Gainesville, Georgia, Independent.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		Just want to let you know that after almost eight years in Vietnam, off and on, this ridiculous thing to let Russia take land from a country by invasion and keep it, that is the most stupid thing I've ever seen.
		And I voted for Donald Trump twice.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is in Chicago, Illinois, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is it Naya?
unidentified		Nia.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Nia.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead, Nia.
unidentified		Hi, I have a sister with severe disabilities who relies on Medicaid-funded programs in order to access her community.
unidentified		And right now, the Trump administration plans to increase fertility rates as well as their pro-life agenda with their intention to cut or defund the very programs that for some are lifelike.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is James, Madison, Wisconsin, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Thanks for taking my call.
		Hey, I think I know what's going on with old Pete Hagiseth there.
		I think he's hitting the sauce again.
		Man, showing his, oh, look here, we're going to bomb this, we're going to bomb that.
		I think they better look into if he's being back drinking again.
		I guess that's it.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, President Trump was with reporters in the Oval Office yesterday.
		He was asked about his communications with Ukrainian President Zelensky.
		Are you going to be meeting with President Zelensky?
		He's asked to meet with you this weekend.
unidentified		Will you be meeting with him?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
		I don't know that he's going to the funeral or not, but I just hope he gets his thing solved because we're losing about, think of this, 5,000.
		I was saying 2,500, and everyone was telling me that's low.
		5,000 soldiers are being killed every week, approximately.
		Think of that.
		Every week, 5,000 soldiers, but let's say from 3,000 to 5,000 are being killed.
		They're Russian and Ukrainian.
		They're not Americans, but they're Russian, but they're people.
		And they're humans.
		They're human beings.
		They have families.
		They wave goodbye to their son, and then they get a call that the sun's no longer there.
		It's a vicious war.
		And if I can help solve it, you know, we're not losing our soldiers, but we're losing soldiers, a lot of people.
		And if I can solve it because of a certain ability, that would be great.
		And if it doesn't happen, I will say that I think Russia is ready.
		And a lot of people said Russia wanted to go for the whole thing.
		And I think we have a deal with Russia.
		We have to get a deal with Zelensky.
		And I hope that Zelensky, I thought it might be easier to deal with Zelensky so far.
		It's been harder, but that's okay.
		It's all right.
		But I think we have a deal with both.
		I hope they do it because I'm looking to save.
		And, you know, we spend a lot of money, but this is about a lot of humanity.
		This is the worst.
		I get the pictures, the satellite pictures.
unidentified		I've never seen anything like it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		By the way, they did mention the Pope's funeral.
		BBC is reporting that Ukraine's President Zelensky is going to be attending, as will President Donald Trump.
		So we will see if the two men talk during that time.
		We will be airing that in its entirety starting at 4 a.m. Eastern here on C-SPAN if you would like to watch that live.
		And here is Lupe in Canoga Park, California, Democrat.
		Canoca.
unidentified		Hello.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Hello, Mimi.
		Hi.
		You know, when Trump is asked a question of any kind, he goes on and on and just talks like he's not saying anything.
		He just keeps repeating the same thing over and over and over.
		Am I on?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, you are.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We're listening.
unidentified		All right, because I have my TV down.
		And he never directly answers the question.
		He just goes on to something else.
		And he never spoke to the guy from China because there was a gentleman on last night on their programming.
		And he says we're not making any deals, and we haven't conceded to even settling anything right now.
		And Trump comes up.
		Yeah, we're talking.
		We're dealing.
		He's lying.
		Why do they allow him to lie so much?
		And every time he's asked the question, just the simplest thing, he goes on and on and talk about a bird or whatever it is.
		And I've never seen anything like this.
		And why does he blame everybody else?
		And he can't see what he's doing.
		He just doesn't know how to open his mouth without that lie flying out.
		And that is getting so crazy on this anymore.
		It just, I'm sitting here and I say he keeps lying.
		Why do people allow this?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Luke.
unidentified		Can't we just come out and let him know?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We got that.
		Here's Will in Chicago, Illinois, Independent.
		Good morning, Will.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I just want to talk about the U.S. tariff policy and economic policy.
		And I do believe that the U.S. needs to be self-sufficient to some extent in the case of a conflict that they can support themselves and support the economy.
		But I also believe it's important to have a general part in international trade and to uphold relationships with their allies.
		And I don't think a mass tariff on all countries is the right solution and just throwing out tariffs left and right because I don't think that really gets anywhere.
		But I do think that the U.S. needs to bring manufacturing into the U.S., so possibly more tariffs with China or competitors to help grow the economy and work towards a solution.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, and we've got this from Axios, a scoop Musk versus Besent dispute erupted into West Wing shouting match.
		It says, quote, it was two billionaire middle-aged men thinking it was WWE in the hall of the West Wing.
		One witness said of the argument last Thursday that was a hearing, a heated shouting match in earshot of President Trump and other officials in the White House last week during a dispute about the IRS.
		And here is Joe, Tampa, Florida, Republican.
		Hi, Joe.
unidentified		Hi, how are you, ma'am?
		Just wanted to comment.
		I mean, I hate to say it, but I've never seen such a cavalcade of ridiculousness as I've seen.
		I very rarely watch C-SPAN.
		I hate to say it, but I really, you know, I think it's very obvious now.
		I've mentioned this for 25 years to people that I know.
		The American media is so far left us in the tank.
		If anyone wants to know the reasons why, read a book by a prominent CBS reporter named Bernie Goldberg.
		He'll give you how this feeds down straight from these Ivy League schools like Columbia, who has a CNN reporter now as their president.
		I'm not sure what C-SPAN is doing here.
		Again, the cavalcade of ridiculous clowns I've seen calling in today, it's unbelievable.
		And also, the tenant that I generally see from CNN is along the same lines.
		So I just want to tell you, I won't waste my time much longer with watching this.
		Occasionally, I have, but I just, you know, I hope the American people are a little smarter than the clownishness I've seen here this morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And what are you suggesting that, Joe, what are you suggesting people watch instead?
unidentified		Well, I'm not sure.
		I just, I'm just calling it like I see it.
		And I mean, listening in the last 10 minutes, occasionally I watch CNN.
		It's a cavalclades of clown talking about Medicare cuts and silliness.
		And, you know, you guys usually bring up articles like you did a minute ago.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Wait, wait, you're saying CNN.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you talking about C-SPAN or are you talking about CNN?
unidentified		I'm talking about C-SPAN now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Oh, okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, got it.
unidentified		But what I was talking about before is how the American media basically is being corrupted by Ivy League institutions and other prominent journals.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We got that part.
		Victor in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Democrat.
		Good morning, Victor.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
unidentified		How are you today?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		All right.
		You know, Mimi, I just feel bad for America.
		She needs care.
		She really does.
		The foundation of this administration is really, really a corrupt foundation.
		It needs when you have a foundation of lies and untruth and unjustice and unrighteousness and all that kind of thing, you better believe that foundation is going to fall.
		And so I just feel bad for America.
		We need to pray for America.
		And we hope that God will get her back on track like she's supposed to be.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Janice in Wake Forest, North Carolina, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Janice.
unidentified		Yes.
		Hi.
		Hi, Mimi.
		Yeah, I just want to point out the fact that if Putin wanted to end the war with Ukraine, he could do that today.
		And Trump talks like as though Ukraine invaded Russia.
		And people are going along with that.
		They need to call him on his lies.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Zach.
		Hermosa Beach, California, Republican.
		Zach?
unidentified		Yes.
		Hi.
		Yes.
		I just wanted to comment that I think that we lost sight of leadership that we had from 1989 to 1992, specifically in the United States, with the leadership of General Cullen Powell doing much of the president's job at the time.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And that was Zach.
		That will be our last call for today.
		And we will see you again tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern Time here on Washington Journal.

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