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|---|---|---|
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Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, your calls and comments live. | |
| And then we'll talk with Cliff Young, President of Polling and Societal Trends for Ipsos, about his organization's new polling on President Trump's first 100 days in office. | ||
| And CNBC senior markets reporter Dominic Chu discusses the drivers of the continued volatility of the U.S. financial markets. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| It's Friday, April 25th. | ||
|
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President Trump issues a rare rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin after the Russian leader sent 70 missiles and 145 drones toward Kiev on Thursday, striking 13 locations, killing at least 12 and wounding another 90. | |
| This morning, we want to get your take on President Trump's handling of the Ukraine-Russian peace talks. | ||
| If you're a Republican, dial in at 202-748-8001. | ||
|
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Democrats, 202-748-8000. | |
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also text if you don't want to call at 202-748-8003. | ||
|
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Just include your first name, city, and state. | |
| You can also post on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| We'll get to your thoughts on the president's handling of the Ukraine-Russia peace talks in just a minute here, but let's start with what the president had to say in that rare rebuke, as it's being called by news observers this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Here he is in a Truth Social Post yesterday morning. | |
| I'm not happy with the Russian strikes on Kiev. | ||
| Not necessary and very bad timing. | ||
|
unidentified
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Vladimir, stop. | |
| A personal appeal to the Russian leader. | ||
|
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5,000 soldiers a week are dying. | |
| Let's get the peace deal done. | ||
| Here's a little bit more from the president in the Oval Office yesterday. | ||
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unidentified
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Mr. President, this morning in a Truth Social Post, you used the words, Vladimir, stop. | |
| That seemed like a slightly different message, a personal message. | ||
| What is your level of frustration with President Putin? | ||
| I didn't like last night. | ||
| I wasn't happy with it. | ||
| And we're in the midst of talking peace and missiles were fired. | ||
| And I was not happy with it. | ||
| That's what I meant. | ||
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unidentified
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And that's, you know, I assume that's what you mean. | |
| If the bonds keep falling, will you consider additional sanctions for Russia? | ||
| Or what will you do if President Putin? | ||
| I'd rather answer that question in a week. | ||
| I want to see if we can have a deal. | ||
| No reason to answer it now, but I won't be happy. | ||
| Let me put it that way. | ||
| Things will happen. | ||
| President Trump in the Oval Office yesterday talking about the peace deal put forward by the White House between Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| This morning, we're getting your thoughts on how the administration is handling these negotiations. | ||
| Teresa in Danbridge, Tennessee, Republican, you are up first. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning to you. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I believe President Trump is doing a good job in negotiations so far, but I think it's time to walk away. | ||
| I believe that Zelensky wants continued support for life and weapons. | ||
| And I just think it's time for the United States to completely walk away from Ukraine. | ||
| And this $48 billion that was added to the budget deal, I don't think it should be signed. | ||
| I think it should be vetoed by Trump. | ||
| We shouldn't give one more cent to Ukraine and Zelensky. | ||
| Enough is enough. | ||
| I mean, we can't support them. | ||
| All right, Teresa. | ||
| Well, let me share with you from the Washington Post. | ||
| They're reporting this morning, U.S. officials have proposed freezing current battle lines, which would give Russia 20% of the country. | ||
| Ukraine has also been told it will not be allowed to join NATO. | ||
| The alliance Kiev has long seen as the fastest, cheapest, and safest way to protect the country from future attacks. | ||
| And to your point, Teresa, Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that the United States would walk away from the peace process if progress were not achieved soon. | ||
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Duane in Jamaica, New York, an independent. | |
| Dwayne, let's get your take on this. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
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Good morning. | |
| Good morning, Greta. | ||
| This is the very same man while on the campaign trail. | ||
| He can end this war in 24 hours. | ||
| We're 100 and what? | ||
| We're at 99 days close to his 100 days. | ||
| Yeah, we're getting close to that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yep, next week. | |
| Yes, so in 24 hours has gone beyond that. | ||
| I want to thank Pennsylvania. | ||
| I want to thank Michigan. | ||
| And I want to thank Nevada for putting this man back in office, Greta. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Mark in Bowie, Maryland, Independent. | ||
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unidentified
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Mark, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you for allowing me to be on C-SPAN. | ||
| I don't know if people remember or not. | ||
| President Trump promised us that he would get this problem solved even before he officially took office. | ||
| And that has not happened. | ||
| So my question out there to people who support President Trump: when you have an employee that's not delivering on their promises, what do you do with them? | ||
| Well, I know in the businesses that I've worked in, if you can't do your job and meet your expectations, you get fired. | ||
| So for all those people who say President Trump is doing such a great job, I just asked them, well, is he delivering on his promises? | ||
| And I don't think he is. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you very much, Jihan. | ||
| All right, two calls, noting what the president had to say before he took office. | ||
| New York Times does the same this morning. | ||
| The Russian-Ukraine war, which Mr. Trump had previously said he could resolve in 24 hours, was now, he suggested, a matter of great difficulty and complexity. | ||
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Quote, this isn't my war, Mr. Trump said during Thursday during an Oval Office meeting with Norway's prime minister. | |
| It's Biden's war. | ||
| Your reaction to the president saying that. | ||
| This morning, Barbara in Tennessee, an independent, good morning to you. | ||
| How do you think the president is handling peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine? | ||
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I think he sucks at it, actually. | |
| I hate to say that, but we promise to have Ukraine's back, which, you know, as long as it takes. | ||
| We're America. | ||
| We're not like, well, one president comes in, we have a whole country to protect or help. | ||
| And then another president comes in and we walk away. | ||
| Who can depend on us? | ||
| It's embarrassing. | ||
| It's awful. | ||
| And I'm very upset about it. | ||
| Well, Barbara, I mean, what you're very upset about it. | ||
| Explain that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Because why? | |
| Because Russia, we know what Russia is. | ||
| Russia's always been the way they are. | ||
| They're not going to change. | ||
| Ukraine is independent. | ||
| They're sovereign. | ||
| I don't see what so hard it is to figure that out. | ||
| It's not hard. | ||
| We protect people like that. | ||
| You know what's going on? | ||
| All right. | ||
| That's Barbara in Tennessee. | ||
| I want to show for you the seven-point plan that the president has put together. | ||
| And this is a Telegraph's headline this morning in the Telegraph newspaper out of the UK with the headline, Trump to let Putin keep land seized from Ukraine. | ||
| From the president's plan, and this is reported by Axios, this proposed peace framework, how it would benefit Russia, a formal U.S. recognition of Russian control in Crimea, a de facto recognition of the Russians' occupation of four regions in eastern Ukraine, a promise that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO, and the lifting of sanctions imposed since 2014, | ||
| plus enhanced economic cooperation with the United States, specifically in the energy and industrial sectors. | ||
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What does this proposed framework mean for Ukraine? | |
| It means assistance from European military forces as a robust security guarantee, return of the small part of a small part of what Russia has occupied. | ||
| This is the fourth largest region in Ukraine, by the way. | ||
| An unimpeded passage of the Dnieper River and compensation and assistance for rebuilding. | ||
| So this is the president's peace plan for Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| Those are the points, how it would benefit Russia, how it would benefit Ukraine. | ||
| Your thoughts on it this morning and the president's handling of it. | ||
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Loretta in Cleveland, Ohio, Democratic Caller, good morning. | |
| Good morning, Greta. | ||
| Good morning, America. | ||
| I don't think too much of any of that helps Ukraine. | ||
| And I am upset. | ||
| I'm upset at the very first call you had. | ||
| That lady sounded like she'd been listening to Trump sitting directly next to him, talking about he scared wake away. | ||
| Listen, I'm going to tell you what Trump is doing. | ||
| Trump is cut and running. | ||
| Cut and running. | ||
| What do you mean? | ||
| He can't handle this. | ||
| Cut and running in what way? | ||
| What do you mean? | ||
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unidentified
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He don't want to go through with the agreement. | |
| They made an agreement with NATO to protect Ukraine. | ||
| I mean, how come nobody knows this? | ||
| Greta, you know what? | ||
| I think ZBAN needs to do like a quick historical on each topic to bring people up to date so they know what they're talking about. | ||
| And I don't like the way the Republicans are calling in and just parroting everything that Trump says. | ||
| If they say they don't like something, Greta, you should ask them why. | ||
| If they say, oh, well, Trump did this and Trump did, what did he do? | ||
| All right. | ||
| I mean, I want to know. | ||
| All right. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Loretta wants to know for the Republicans out there. | ||
| So we want to include you all in the conversation this morning, getting your different perspectives on how the president is handling peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| Here's the President Moore from the Oval Office yesterday talking about concessions Russia has offered to achieve peace with Ukraine. | ||
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My question is, is Russia the obstacle to peace based upon that? | |
| Just getting to that 30-day ceasefire? | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| I think that they both want peace right now. | ||
| They're ready to do something. | ||
| We'll see what happens. | ||
| Complicated, very complicated, but I think they are both very much looking to make a deal. | ||
| Marco, what would you say? | ||
| Well, first of all, what was put before our partners was options to discuss about things that it would take to end a war. | ||
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unidentified
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This war is endable. | |
| Both sides just have to agree to it. | ||
| We've shown them a pathway forward. | ||
| We've discussed those ideas. | ||
| It was a good meeting yesterday. | ||
| There'll be good meetings over the weekend. | ||
| We've shown them the finish line. | ||
| We need both of them to say yes. | ||
| But what happened last night with those missile strikes should remind everybody of why this war needs to end. | ||
| It's horrible those missiles landed. | ||
| What's even worse is there are today people that were alive yesterday that are not alive today because this war continues. | ||
| And the president wants to stop it. | ||
| And everyone should be thanking the president for being a peacemaker and trying to save lives. | ||
| That's what we're trying to do here. | ||
| It's not our war. | ||
| We didn't start it, as you know. | ||
| But we're trying to end the dying. | ||
| We're trying to end the destruction. | ||
| And we've shown the path forward. | ||
| We can see the finish line, but both of them have to get there. | ||
| We're going to do everything we can to help them get there, but they have to ultimately say yes. | ||
| We are using a lot of pressure on both. | ||
| You know, if you think we're just in there because we're nice people and we are nice people, but we're using a lot of pressure on both. | ||
|
unidentified
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What concessions, Mr. President, and to your national security team, what concessions has Russia offered up thus far to get to the point where you're closer to peace? | |
| Stopping the war. | ||
| Stopping taking the whole country. | ||
| Pretty big concession. | ||
| Do you agree with the president that it's a pretty big concession by Russia to stop the war and stop taking the rest of Ukraine? | ||
| His handling of these peace negotiations with Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| That is our conversation with all of you this morning. | ||
| NATO Secretary General Rute was out at the White House yesterday in the Oval Office there with the President, and he spoke to reporters then outside in the White House driveway. | ||
|
unidentified
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And this is where he sees the peace talks going. | |
| Well, what I'm seeing here is a United States under leadership of President Trump who first broke the deadlock. | ||
| I think when you look at the outcome of the meeting yesterday in London, we can be quite positive on where we are. | ||
| So I'm not seeing a situation where the U.S. is walking. | ||
| I'm seeing a situation where under President Trump's leadership, this could be brought to a positive end. | ||
| And that's very important. | ||
| And I really want to thank him for that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Do you think the Russian president wants to make peace? | |
| I don't know. | ||
| I worked with him for four years between 2010 and 2014 when I was Prime Minister of the Netherlands. | ||
| And I stopped trying to read his mind. | ||
|
unidentified
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You mean President Putin? | |
| President Putin. | ||
| You meant the Russian president. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| So I worked with him for four years between 2010 and 2014. | ||
| I stopped trying to read his mind. | ||
|
unidentified
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We'll see, but there is something on the table now, I think, where the Ukrainians are really playing bull. | |
| And I think the bull is clearly in the Russian court now. | ||
|
unidentified
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How does it happen? | |
| The NATO Secretary General at the White House yesterday is saying he believes the Ukrainians are playing ball and that the ball is now in the court of the Russians. | ||
| What do all of you think? | ||
| Join in in the debate here on the Washington Journal here this morning. | ||
| Another headline to share with you out of the UK. | ||
|
unidentified
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This is from the Mir. | |
| Russian attack prompts NATO nation to be in highest state of readiness as tensions spike in the region. | ||
|
unidentified
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John, let's go to you. | |
| And Sykesville, Maryland, a Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I think he's doing a wonderful job. | ||
| I think he needs to continue what he's doing. | ||
| He's cleaning up Joe Biden's mess. | ||
| If Joe Biden has done his job as a president, he would have kept energy prices down, which would have cut Vladimir Putin's ability to buy more weapons, which Biden sold in record numbers. | ||
| And we all know that's true. | ||
| Look at the hundreds of billions of dollars we gave him, just a blank check to Democrats. | ||
| Here you go, take what you want. | ||
| You know, so we could have kept energy prices down, just like Trump had when Biden, first thing he did, first thing he did, let's shut down that pipeline That could have saved, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars for our economy and would have cut the legs out from that war effort from Ukraine from Russia. | ||
| He could have done that, but no, he didn't do that. | ||
| He wanted to give away more. | ||
| He wanted to put money in the hands of the arms dealers. | ||
| And that's exactly what Joe Biden did. | ||
| The blood's on his hands. | ||
| You know, Barack Obama and Biden are the biggest warmongers that have ever been, and nobody holds them accountable. | ||
| So stop blaming Trump. | ||
| It's not his fault. | ||
| And that's my take. | ||
| All right, John. | ||
| And what do you think about the actions by Russia during this Trump administration so far? | ||
|
unidentified
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The president proposed in March a 30-day ceasefire. | |
| Ukraine agreed to it. | ||
| Russia did not. | ||
|
unidentified
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Now you don't know what you don't know what Ukraine is. | |
| You don't know what who agreed to what. | ||
| They're still killing each other with drones, and it's not going to continue until there's a resolution. | ||
| And this thing is such a mess now that you just can't turn around and walk away. | ||
| They've lost hundreds of thousands of lives on each side. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Needlessly, needlessly. | ||
| And unless you're prepared to send young Americans to go and die, you need to stop talking about escalation. | ||
| You really do. | ||
| So, John, do you hold Russia and Ukraine equally accountable here? | ||
|
unidentified
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Now, there's no accountability equally. | |
| This is a mess that got started by Joe Biden. | ||
| Barack Obama, Barack Obama was the one that opened the door with his lack of leadership, and they marched right on in. | ||
| When they took Crimea and they started, they went to the dumbbeast. | ||
| This was all Barack Obama. | ||
| He had his hands in this thing, and he had no leadership whatsoever. | ||
| And Putin knew this. | ||
| Putin knew he was going to stand down. | ||
| He had his hands full with blowing up Syria. | ||
| So Barack Obama went and destabilized the whole Middle East. | ||
| And Putin knew the time was ripe for him to do something about the mess along his border. | ||
| And that's exactly what he did. | ||
| All right. | ||
| John's thoughts there. | ||
| Republican in Sykesville, Maryland, to the New York Times and their headline this morning: red line for Zelensky and Ukraine. | ||
|
unidentified
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It's Crimea. | |
| From their reporting, in peace talks mentioned by the United States, Ukraine had hoped to leave control of Crimea out of the discussion. | ||
| It has sought an immediate ceasefire, freezing the conflict along the existing front line, as well as security guarantees against renewed attacks, such as the deployment of a European peacemaking force or eventual membership into NATO. | ||
| But the Trump administration rejected that approach this week. | ||
| The proposal included an acceptance of Russia's role in Crimea and a prohibition on Ukraine joining NATO. | ||
| In return, hostilities would be halted along the current front lines. | ||
| So for the Ukrainian leader, Zelensky, this Crimea proposal is a red line and not something that he would agree to from the newspapers this morning. | ||
| The Ukrainian people also behind that are also behind his rejection of that point. | ||
|
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Kate in Columbia, Missouri, and Independent. | |
| Hi, Kate. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| I think we should not be part of these negotiations. | ||
| I think Trump certainly needs to be out of it because I don't think he's neutral. | ||
| I think he is, quite frankly, out to police Ukraine. | ||
| And they are the victims in this. | ||
| I think he's on the side of Russia and would like to see Russia get as much as they want out of this. | ||
| I think Trump is also after, I don't know how else to put it, real estate, whether it's rare earth minerals or whatever. | ||
| He's out to fleece Ukraine. | ||
| He sees an opportunity here. | ||
| So I don't think Trump is neutral. | ||
| I think we could be neutral as a country, the United States, but I don't think Trump is that person. | ||
| I think there needs to be someone else, some other country who steps in to negotiate peace between Ukraine and Russia. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Case thoughts there in Columbia, Missouri, an independent caller. | ||
| The president was asked about that. | ||
| He spoke about his allegiance yesterday in the Oval. | ||
|
unidentified
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Here's what he had to say. | |
| Very simply, I have no allegiance to anybody. | ||
| I have allegiance to saving lives, and I want to save a lot of lives. | ||
|
unidentified
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A lot of young people, mostly young people, it's the war. | |
| It's the soldiers. | ||
| And if we can do that, also, as you know, I got started because the money that's been spent on this war is insane. | ||
| It should have never happened. | ||
| And it would have never happened if I were president. | ||
| But Biden spent $350 billion on this, and it's a shame. | ||
| And that's what got me involved. | ||
| And then I looked at, and I see the results. | ||
| It's horrible. | ||
| It's a killing field. | ||
| 5,000 soldiers a week on average. | ||
| And we want to stop that. | ||
| We both want to stop that for a lot of reasons, but I would say that is my number one reason. | ||
| President Trump in the Oval Office yesterday asked about his allegiance here in these negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| We're getting your thoughts on how the president is handling it. | ||
| Keep calling in this morning. | ||
| We'll go back to calls in just a minute, but I want to share with you what Democrats are saying on Capital Hill. | ||
| Excuse me, here is Veronica, excuse me, Jason Crowe, Democratic congressman who is a military veteran. | ||
| The day after the president said Ukraine should surrender its land, Vladimir Putin launched one of the largest attacks on Kiev. | ||
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This is what happens when you give in to a dictator. | |
| Putin will take as much as he can before any agreement. | ||
| And who's to say that he will stop there? | ||
| And this is also from Senator Michael Bennett, Democrat. | ||
|
unidentified
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Ukraine accepted President Trump's 30-day ceasefire proposal in March. | |
| Putin rejected it and continues to pummel Ukraine, including with today's attack on Kiev, Russia's deadliest strike on the city in nearly a year. | ||
|
unidentified
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Russia is the obstacle to peace, not Ukraine. | |
| And Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, I think we have a deal with Russia, Trump told White House reporters confidently last night. | ||
|
unidentified
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And I think the deal is screw Ukraine. | |
| James in Campton, New Hampshire, Democratic caller, what do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, as a former residing in Ukraine, I look at historical perspective. | |
| I don't have the information that any of these high-level people would have. | ||
| However, following the long-term Russian Soviet domination, they were given the opportunity about 1988 to 92 to explore their own independence, various nations in Eastern Europe. | ||
| Russia has announced to their leader their aspirations and rejection of what occurred back in 91. | ||
| All these nations became independent, both Romania and, well, all the others. | ||
| I won't mention them. | ||
| We know who they are. | ||
| And they ultimately joined the Western NATO. | ||
| Now, Russia has, under Putin, reversed the policy under Mikhail Gorbachev. | ||
| He was trying to reach an agreement with the West. | ||
| He is interested in expanding Russia's footprint. | ||
| And that hasn't changed. | ||
| Now, the people now know the present balance of power of what's going on far better than I do. | ||
| I'm just a person with not technical knowledge. | ||
| But my view is historically, going forward, we might best support NATO and the other countries that are threatened by this expansion and hopefully put an end to Russians' expansion in the Eastern countries. | ||
| And the Western European countries are very concerned about this. | ||
| I don't have to listen to them. | ||
| All of you are Western European powers. | ||
| And James, reflecting what you're saying is a headline today in the New York Times. | ||
| To some in Europe, Trump peace terms amount to a historic betrayal of allies. | ||
| Johnny in Leesburg, Georgia, Republican. | ||
| Johnny, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Go ahead, Mr. Morton. | ||
| Go ahead with your thoughts. | ||
|
unidentified
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I think Trump is doing a pretty good job with the mess that he was handled, that he was handed to. | |
| I think he is trying to stop the killing. | ||
| I know when he was president last time, we didn't get our boys involved in any wars and get them killed. | ||
| I don't want to see one drop of American blood shed for this mess. | ||
| This is almost like a civil war between the Ukrainians and the Russians. | ||
| Those people have been involved in one another for a long time. | ||
| And as far as America backing out of allies, look, America, the Yankee government there in Washington broke every treaty they ever made with the Indians. | ||
| We left the people behind in Vietnam that supported us, and we left them to the mercies of the North Vietnamese. | ||
| When we pulled out of there, America has betrayed a whole lot of allies. | ||
| World War I got started over one country, and then with all the alliances, got to be very careful. | ||
| But I don't want to see any more American money sent to Ukraine. | ||
| I don't want to see one drop of American blood shed in Ukraine. | ||
| And Zelensky, he ain't exactly the best example of a democracy either. | ||
| Why do you say that, Johnny, real quick? | ||
|
unidentified
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Because before he had folks arrested that was running against him. | |
| You know, it's just not that. | ||
| Everybody's not like America. | ||
| Most people in the world don't have a sense of their rights of what they can do. | ||
| Most of the people in the world, the governments that they prefer, they're more like a subject. | ||
| They all know what they can't do in their government. | ||
| It's only in America where we have the sense of, hey, that's my right. | ||
| You can't do that to me. | ||
| And I got the right to say this or to go there to do that. | ||
| And I like that. | ||
| All right, Johnny. | ||
| Kim in Iowa Independent. | ||
| Kim, what do you say this morning? | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm going to keep it simple. | |
| Our president just conceded a country. | ||
| Russia invaded a country, and we're celebrating or we're debating an invasion. | ||
| This is nuts. | ||
| Celebrating how? | ||
| Celebrating how. | ||
|
unidentified
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I hear some of the callers thinking that Ukrainians started a war. | |
| And it was the opposite way. | ||
| They're bringing Zelensky. | ||
| I just heard the last caller just put out something that Tomat Zelensky killed his opponents to be getting in that office. | ||
| That doesn't make any sense. | ||
| He was a producer, a comedian. | ||
| I don't know where they're getting these news from, but Russia invaded a sovereign country twice, and our president just conceded to Russia. | ||
| So that means he's compromising with Putin. | ||
| I never heard no stuff like this. | ||
| Why is Zelensky is not compromising or negotiating with Russia? | ||
| Ukraine is not our country. | ||
| The United States is our country. | ||
| Shouldn't the president of Ukraine be talking to the president of Russia, not the United States president? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Kim there on these talks between the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine. | ||
| Kevin in Virginia, Democratic caller. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
| We can. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Yeah, I think Trump is not doing a good job with this thing. | ||
| He seems to side toward Russia. | ||
| He never really acknowledges that Russia invaded Ukraine. | ||
| And then when you listen to him, he says things like he talks to Putin, just like he talks to China, and he knows him very well. | ||
| But he never tells us what does Putin say. | ||
| They had a ceasefire agreement. | ||
| Putin kept on bombing Ukraine during the ceasefire. | ||
| Ukraine agreed to it, and Russia did not. | ||
| And then he sends Marco over there, and they're acting like Ukraine is the bad guy. | ||
| You know, what is Putin doing? | ||
| If you can stop the war, you said you could stop it in a day. | ||
| So why haven't you got with Putin somewhere or had your delegates get with Putin and sit him down and tell us what he's saying? | ||
| You know, you got Zelensky here, and they beat him up. | ||
| So I don't think he's doing a good job because he seems to be saddened toward Russia. | ||
| He won't acknowledge that they invaded Ukraine. | ||
| He won't talk about them continuing the bomb. | ||
| And lately, he's been saying, you know, or the administration has been saying, hey, we're about to walk out of the peace talks. | ||
| You know, well, what are the peace talks? | ||
| What's happening? | ||
| Ukraine's agreeing to stuff. | ||
| So what is Russia doing? | ||
| They never say anything about Russia and Putin. | ||
| So I think he's saddened toward them. | ||
| Maybe he wants to build a hotel or golf course or something one of those days over there, but he just doesn't seem to live up to the Putin relationship that he claims that he has. | ||
| If he's tough, then tell Putin to come to the table, stop the bombing, and let's sit down and talk. | ||
| And they can stop the, and they can do something about this. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Well, Kevin, Kevin, we may learn more today. | ||
| This is from BBC.com. | ||
| The U.S. envoy, Steve Witkoff, is expected to meet with Vladimir Putin today. | ||
| This is from the BBC's reporting. | ||
| Witkoff, a former real estate developer, has already met Putin three times over the last two months. | ||
| Earlier this month, Donald Trump's special envoy suggested a potential peace deal hinged on the status of five Ukrainian regions. | ||
| So you expect to learn more today when the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, meets, if he does, with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
John in Gordon Hills, California, an independent. | |
| Hi, John. | ||
| Oh. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Trump is doing a terrible job of this. | ||
| He lacks the spine. | ||
| Trump thinks that he can play, you know, on the international stage with the big guys, and he cannot. | ||
| It's obvious that he runs from Putin. | ||
| He wants to make Ukraine give up everything and Russia zero. | ||
| He doesn't have the troops behind him or these votes, Ukrainian people. | ||
| And look at how he's handling the terror deals with China. | ||
| He's not the big player that he thinks he is. | ||
| I mean, all he can do is just think about transactional analysis, and it just isn't working. | ||
| He needs to get people in there that can really negotiate. | ||
| Not these people that are ex-box guys and ex-real estate developers. | ||
| He needs people that are experienced at this that actually have the intestinal fortitude to say what needs to happen. | ||
| All right. | ||
| John there in California, Independent Caller. | ||
| We'll continue here this morning on the Washington Journal in our first hour. | ||
| Your thoughts on the president's handling of Ukraine-Russia peace talks. | ||
| There are the lines on your screen. | ||
| Keep dialing in this morning. | ||
| Here's the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board's thoughts on this question this morning. | ||
| A moment of truth in Ukraine is what they write. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And they say that it's also that Vladimir Putin's overnight missile assault on civilians in Kiev is a grim moment that strips away the false pretenses and excuses about the Russian dictators' invasion of Ukraine. | |
| It's also an opening for President Trump to rethink his strategy, which is failing to produce peace. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But the assault is clarifying about the war and its causes. | |
| Mr. Putin didn't invade Ukraine because it might join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which the Trump administration has ruled out anyway. | ||
| Mr. Putin's war isn't about Russian ties to Crimea, which he swallowed up before he rolled tanks toward Kiev. | ||
| It isn't about a few provinces as Mr. Putin pummels civilians far from the front lines. | ||
| And it isn't about a lack of U.S. respect for Mr. Putin's security concerns. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Putin, an enemy of the United States, wants to subsume Ukraine as a free nation. | |
| Readers may think this states the obvious, but this basic truth is the starting point for any productive negotiation with Mr. Putin. | ||
| That's the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board this morning. | ||
| Do you agree or disagree? | ||
| Donald, in Michigan, Democratic caller, let's hear from you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, CPAN. | |
| Good morning, Greta, and the American people. | ||
| Trump and his administration of forced slingers do not have a clue of what they're doing. | ||
| We made a deal with Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons. | ||
| And if they did, the world countries would come in and help if they were invaded. | ||
| So we made this bargain with them, and now we're backing out of it. | ||
| And then we have Donald Trump, a taxi for Putin, doing everything he can to help him win this war. | ||
| We should be giving Ukraine everything they need to win. | ||
| And we have Trump in there just kissing Putin behind every chance he gets. | ||
| And these Republicans who support him, they are not supporting the Constitution, and the Republican leadership should be dismantled in this next midterm election. | ||
| God help America. | ||
| All right. | ||
| The Ukrainian people. | ||
| Donald, in Michigan, Democratic caller from the Associated Press. | ||
| Ukraine says another Russian drone attack kills three after the president's rebuke of Putin. | ||
| From the Kiev in Kiev in the Associated Press, a Russian drone struck an apartment building in a southeastern Ukraine city, killing three people and injuring 10 others. | ||
| Officials said on Friday, a day after the president rebuked Vladimir Putin for that deadly missile and drone attack on Kiev. | ||
| From the Associated Press this morning, it says a child and a 76-year-old woman were among the civilians killed in the nighttime drone attack in this Ukrainian region. | ||
| Back to calls. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Luis in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Republican. | |
| Luis, good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Why do you keep referring this as a peace talk? | ||
| It is not peace talks. | ||
| This is a negotiation for a ceasefire. | ||
| That's all this is. | ||
| And then if they show something that they're willing to then talk peace, this is not peace negotiations. | ||
| And Ukraine is so full of it. | ||
| Zelensky is so full of it that it's just, I mean, he's absurd. | ||
| He is a comedian. | ||
| And as President Trump said, he's a sub-par comedian. | ||
| And he's led his people to slaughter. | ||
| He has destroyed his own country for his own ego. | ||
| Louise, you haven't heard the president use the word peace in these talks? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, it's not peace. | |
| It is a ceasefire. | ||
| It's negotiations for a ceasefire. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Haven't you been listening? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Well, let's listen to the president in the Oval Office yesterday when he was asked about concessions from Russia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My question is, is Russia the obstacle to peace based upon that? | |
| Just getting to that 30-day ceasefire? | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| I think that they both want peace right now. | ||
| They're ready to do something. | ||
| We'll see what happens. | ||
| Complicated. | ||
| Very complicated. | ||
| But I think they are both very much looking to make a deal. | ||
| Marco, what would you say? | ||
| Well, first of all, what was put before our partners was options to discuss about things that it would take to end a war. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This war is endable. | |
| Both sides have to agree to it. | ||
| We've shown them a pathway forward. | ||
| We've discussed those ideas. | ||
| It was a good meeting yesterday. | ||
| There'll be good meetings over the weekend. | ||
| We've shown them the finish line. | ||
| We need both of them to say yes. | ||
| But what happened last night with those missile strikes should remind everybody of why this war needs to end. | ||
| It's horrible those missiles landed. | ||
| What's even worse is there are today people that were alive yesterday that are not alive today because this war continues. | ||
| And the president wants to stop it. | ||
| And everyone should be thanking the president for being a peacemaker and trying to save lives. | ||
| That's what we're trying to do here. | ||
| It's not our war. | ||
| We didn't start it, as you know. | ||
| But we're trying to end the dying. | ||
| We're trying to end the destruction. | ||
| And we've shown the path forward. | ||
| We can see the finish line, but both of them have to get there. | ||
| We're going to do everything we can to help them get there. | ||
| But they have to ultimately say yes. | ||
| We are using a lot of pressure on both. | ||
| You know, if you think we're just in there because we're nice people and we are nice people, but we're using a lot of pressure on both. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What concessions, Mr. President, and to your national security team, what concessions has Russia offered up thus far to get to the point where you're closer to peace? | |
| Stopping the war, stopping taking the whole country? | ||
| Pretty big concession. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Oval Office, yesterday, if you missed the conversation, you can go to our website, c-span.org, and you can watch it in its entirety. | |
| The president, they are taking questions from reporters about negotiations with Russia and Ukraine to stop the war. | ||
| You heard the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, say that the president is a peacemaker. | ||
| Here's the headline in USA Today. | ||
| Russia wields nuclear threat as it attacks Ukraine, and Trump says Zelensky inflammatory. | ||
| From their reporting, the Kremlin's top security officials said his country reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if it faces aggression by Western countries, as overnight Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukraine's capital killed at least eight people and injuring more than 70 others. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Russian officials routinely make saber-rattling remarks about Moscow's nuclear posture. | |
| The former defense minister who now heads Russia's powerful National Security Council made his comments in an April 24th interview to a Russian state news agency. | ||
| He said Russia might consider a nuclear strike in response to a conventional attack on Russia or its ally Belarus that, quote, created a critical threat to their sovereignty or territorial integrity. | ||
| Brian in Zanesville, Ohio, and Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Brian. | |
| Yes, good morning. | ||
| My whole thing is, as the Donald always says, if he was the president of the United States, the war would never start it. | ||
| Well, first of all, the war is still going on, and it is a pass day one, and he hadn't done a daggone thing about it. | ||
| Second of all, what if he invited, say, Putin to Mar-a-Lago and he refuses to leave and he invaded Florida? | ||
| So all these Republicans think that it would be okay and that he would think that Donald was doing a good job because Putin took over Florida now and Mar-a-Lago. | ||
| The bottom line is: Russia started this war over in Ukraine, and Ukraine is defending themselves. | ||
| And Putin is making a mockery out of the United States and Donald Trump. | ||
| And every one of these Republicans that's calling in and supporting Trumble, Trump, Putin is laughing in your face, and you guys are too silly to see that Putin is the one that's the aggressor. | ||
| And the Donald, he hasn't done a daggone thing to stop the war. | ||
| Let's say if Ukraine goes to China and asks China to start helping them and just refuse to do business with the United States, what would the Donald or the Republicans do then? | ||
| That's all I got to say. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And Brian, do you support the money spent in Ukraine, the money sent to Ukraine from the United States? | ||
| Oh, we lost that caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We'll go to Alex, who's in Brooklyn, Democratic College. | |
| Alex, it's your turn. | ||
| Yes, hello. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I wish I could honestly reply to all of these Republicans calling about every single point. | ||
| There's just not enough time. | ||
| But if you go back, Bush started two wars that cost us trillions and cost us the faith of the world in Bowling, North Korea. | ||
| That was Republicans, and Biden had to pull out of Afghanistan, which cost them the election and cost him his presidency. | ||
| This president now is saying that the concession is that Russia is not going to take the rest of Ukraine. | ||
| Right now, Russia is conscripting over 160,000 young men in the next year, 160,000 young men in Russia. | ||
| What do you think he's going to do with those young men once they are able to go on the front lines? | ||
| Do you think Russia is making any plans to somehow just extract themselves from Ukraine? | ||
| It is a failure of the United States not to take this matter seriously because unfortunately we have a president that is creating chaos. | ||
| Germany is arming itself with over a trillion dollars worth of defense. | ||
| Europe is rearming itself. | ||
| That never bodes well for anyone. | ||
| And the only thing that I called for is for all of these ignorant, stupid people and people that are mindful and understand what's going on to just listen to the podcast, Ukraine the latest. | ||
| I repeat, it's called Ukraine the Latest. | ||
| They have a podcast almost every day, and you can hear everything that is actually happening in this war so people can understand. | ||
| And what's the source, Alex? | ||
| What's the source? | ||
| Excuse me? | ||
| What's the source for Ukraine the latest? | ||
| They take sources directly from soldiers on the ground. | ||
| They talk to children that have been misplaced that are living in England now. | ||
| They talk to reporters that are actually in Ukraine. | ||
| It is direct information from people that are living through this war. | ||
| And they are actually talking to people that are trying to understand how to get out of this conflict, how to be able to make sense of it in Europe, in Ukraine, talking to even Russian children that are living in England, working and talking with kids from Ukraine. | ||
| Every day, they have something to give more light to the human factor of what this war is actually doing. | ||
| When you're here in the United States and hearing all these talking points of people that don't have anything to do with it, it's easy for you to say, it's not our war. | ||
| Let's walk away. | ||
| Well, if Russia takes over Ukraine, they're not going to stop there. | ||
| And they're talking about a nuclear. | ||
| I mean, all I am saying is that people should be more mindful of the fact that there are human beings dying, not just soldiers, and their lives are being destroyed. | ||
| And it's easy for you from the comfort of your own home to make all of these opinions. | ||
| Just listen to the podcast if you care. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's what I'm saying. | ||
| Alex, I'll leave it there. | ||
| You and others may be interested in this headline from the Telegraph this morning out of the UK revealed how China is fueling Putin's war beyond the detained soldiers. | ||
| Beijing is sustaining Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine with military supplies. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mike in Oak Grove, Missouri, and Independent. | |
| Mike. | ||
| Good morning, Greta. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| First thing I want to say is: I'm 65 years old. | ||
| This is the first time in my life I've ever felt embarrassed to be an American. | ||
| I have to put this really on Joe Biden and on Barack Obama because Barack Obama drew the line in the sand that they couldn't take Crimea then let them have it. | ||
| Joe Biden, he drug his feet. | ||
| He wouldn't give Ukraine what they needed to fight the invasion. | ||
| I'm calling it an invasion because that's what it was. | ||
| It is. | ||
| It's not a war. | ||
| Shame on any news channel that says war instead of invasion. | ||
| And I am totally tired of the way the Russian Republicans are attacking Ukraine when they're a sovereign country trying to defend themselves from an invasion. | ||
| And they didn't start this war. | ||
| And Donald Trump should be ashamed of himself for saying that he's going to even leave Ukraine out in space. | ||
| Because as soon as the United States leaves Ukraine and stops helping Ukraine, then they're going to start using weapons to attack cities inside Russia. | ||
| This war will escalate unbelievably when the United States says they're done. | ||
| Then the United States keeping Ukraine from using long-range weapons in Russia will end. | ||
| And Ukraine will start attacking cities in Russia, and then there goes the whole deal altogether. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Finish up, Mike. | ||
| We're listening is that is I saw here on Washington Journal one day, a reporter asked Donald Trump if Russia wouldn't accept the deal. | ||
| What would he do? | ||
| Trump said, we would arm Ukraine like no one's ever seen before. | ||
| Russia is refusing to take peace. | ||
| When will the armament start? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Never because Trump's a liar. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Mike there, an independent in Oak Grove, Missouri, with criticism for not just this administration, but the ones before as well in the handling of Russia-Ukraine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is our conversation here. | |
| This morning, I want to share with you from the Council on Foreign Relations. | ||
| How much money has the United States provided Ukraine? | ||
| The U.S. Congress has voted through five bills that have provided Ukraine with aid since the war began, doing so mostly, most recently in April of 2024. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The total budget authority under these bills, the headline figure often cited by news media, is $175 billion. | |
| This historic sums have helped a broad set of Ukrainian people and institutions, including refugees, law enforcement, and independent radio broadcasters through most of the aid, though most of the aid has been military related. | ||
| Dozens of other countries, including most members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Union, are also providing large aid packages to Ukraine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In late 2024, the United States also provided the Ukrainian government with a $20 billion loan funded by interest generated from frozen Russian assets. | |
| George in Circleville, Ohio, Republican. | ||
| George, good morning. | ||
| Good morning, Greta. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| And I want to compliment you. | ||
| You did such a great job. | ||
| I really like listening to you. | ||
| Well, I hear these callers wouldn't call some Republican supporters, but actually what they meant was ludicrous, but they called him ignorant. | ||
| A gentleman from Michigan said Trump was a patsy. | ||
| That's THS, the Trump hate syndrome. | ||
| That's all it is. | ||
| Biden should never have been president, but the Democrats put him in there. | ||
| He was the stoo for someone else so that he didn't reign the country. | ||
| He let Russia, this is a fact, he let Russia build up their military at the Ukraine border for at least three months. | ||
| This is during the last Winter Olympics. | ||
| No one's reporting on that, but that's a fact. | ||
| Why would Russia build up a military for three months? | ||
| Common sense people, they were going to attack. | ||
| That's why they built that up. | ||
| And President Trump is doing everything. | ||
| What did Joe Biden do in the last four years to try to end the war? | ||
| Absolutely nothing. | ||
| And President Trump hasn't been in office 100 days, but on day one, he began this process. | ||
| Now, if Putin wants to play games and stabs and tries to stab President Trump in the back, I'd beware. | ||
| Because, you know, just like we can take out terrorists, we can consider Putin a terrorist. | ||
| So Putin's walking a very narrow line, and he better realize it. | ||
| Because, you know, President Trump, he knows how to work the art of the deal, but he has other options as well. | ||
| But I just can't, yeah. | ||
| Can I ask you a question? | ||
| I want to cite this Pew Research poll, and I want you to answer this or respond to this. | ||
| A declining share of Republicans say the U.S. has responsibility to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia's invasion. | ||
| If you were asked that poll question, what would you say? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, with the recent attack on Kiev, I would have to agree. | |
| And I think President Trump will do something, too. | ||
| If the peace process fails, beware, Putin, because you're going to have hell to pay. | ||
| That's plain and simple. | ||
| So if Russia continues with these attacks, then you think the U.S. has to get more involved. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We have more of a responsibility? | |
| Well, Putin's doing this to put pressure on the peace process. | ||
| They want peace, but they want it on their own terms. | ||
| So if we do the same thing and say attack with some part of Russia, you know, Moscow wouldn't even be off the limits in the convention. | ||
| They like to use the nuclear threat, but do you think they'd actually use it? | ||
| Would they risk their own people hitting by a nuclear bomb, too? | ||
| That's just a threat. | ||
| That'll never happen. | ||
| Answer that. | ||
| George, you answer that question. | ||
| Do you think Russian President Vladimir Putin would sacrifice his own people? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I don't believe that. | |
| No. | ||
| You know, the Russian people are good people. | ||
| They're more like Americans than probably any other people. | ||
| Oh, and another thing, Greta, I saw on YouTube where Putin went to the Easter or the Orthodox Church for the Easter. | ||
| And it's funny that he calls a ceasefire for one day, but he can't continue it. | ||
| Why couldn't he continue it for 30 days? | ||
| But, you know, these are just games he's playing. | ||
| And I think Trump's going to be – yeah, go ahead. | ||
| Well, that's what Ukrainian President Zelensky called it, too, just a PR stunt, the Easter ceasefire. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| It's just the games he's playing. | ||
| And, you know, he's, like I say, he's walking a narrow line, and it may not end good for Russia. | ||
| But, you know, I think in the end result, I bet you within 30 days, there will be a compromise. | ||
| And Putin's going to see the writing on the wall. | ||
| All right, George, there's a prediction there from Circleville, Ohio. | ||
|
unidentified
|
More from that Pew Research poll. | |
| The majority of Republicans and Democrats see the Russia-Ukraine war as important to U.S. national interests. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is the percentage who say the war between Russia and Ukraine is very or somewhat important to U.S. national interests. | |
| And you can see the numbers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A majority of Republicans and Democrats see it as important. | |
| We're asking all of you to give us your thoughts this morning on how the Trump administration is handling peace talks with Ukraine and Russia. | ||
| Joshua in Illinois, a Democratic caller, we'll hear from you next. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| Good morning, Greta. | ||
| Just want to go back to that clip you played with the Trump president, you know, speaking in the Oval Office. | ||
| To me, it's just a clear reminder of how misinformed the Republicans are. | ||
| You had that caller accusing you, telling you that it was a ceasefire peace deal. | ||
| He clearly said that they're going to end the war, him and Mark Rubio, but they just continue to repeat what they hear from the pundits. | ||
| They don't even repeat what Trump says. | ||
| Even just like your last caller, he said that the Russians are closer to Americans than, I don't know, I guess Ukraine. | ||
| That's exactly a line from propaganda that's been spewed over here by Russia. | ||
| These people have zero memory. | ||
| Like, this is the Russia from the 80s at Reagan Flaw. | ||
| There's whole sections in the library that talk about how the KGB and how the FSD are infiltrating the United States government. | ||
| If you look at some of the actions the Trump administration did, like remove sanctions, remove protections from cybersecurity that were placed on Russia for invading our election and meddling in elections, the proof is there. | ||
| These people like Tim Poole, who sits in a press conference, he was given $100,000 a day by it's proven with evidence in an indictment that you can go read in a court where the truth is the only place that matters nowadays. | ||
| These people, your callers, are just an example of every day how they live in an alternate reality. | ||
| They can't read alternate sources and they have to accept what's been fat to them because otherwise they have to admit that they were wrong. | ||
| The cognitive dissonance will fall in front of their eyes. | ||
| All right, Joshua, I'm going to leave it there and go on to Helen, who's in Cape May, New Jersey, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Helen, your turn. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| There are no good guys in this conflict. | ||
| Putin is an old KGB dictator, and Zelensky is a dictator. | ||
| He has suspended civil liberties. | ||
| He has arrested his political opposition and even suspended church services of people he considers political opposition. | ||
| And the bloodshed is appalling. | ||
| I mean, 5,000 young people, mostly young men, being slaughtered every week. | ||
| The president is correct. | ||
| The bloodshed has to stop. | ||
| Helen, before you go on, I want to ask you about the president's peace plan that he's put forth to both of these countries and get your reaction to the benefits for Russia from what the administration is putting forth. | ||
| Formal U.S. recognition of Russian control in Crimea, de facto recognition of Russia's occupation of four regions in eastern Ukraine, so the battle lines right now, and a promise that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Those are from Axios, as they're reporting. | |
| The lifting of sanctions imposed since 2014 and enhanced economic cooperation with the United States. | ||
| Helen, do you think that the president is giving too much to Russia? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Beginning under Stalin, millions of ethnic Russians have been moved into Ukraine. | |
| And so millions of people in Ukraine are ethnic Russians who speak Russian and really don't want to be part of the Ukrainian community. | ||
| And that includes Crimea. | ||
| Remember the, you don't remember, but you remember the Crimean War? | ||
| I mean, it was a time when it was part of Russia. | ||
| So that area of Ukraine has gone back and forth like a pickleball contest. | ||
| So people have to realize that. | ||
| It's not a clear-cut and dry issue of whether Ukraine are the good guys and Russia's the bad guys. | ||
| Understood. | ||
| But so Helen, understood. | ||
| Answer my question. | ||
| What do you think about what the president is, how this benefits Russia? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Russia gets to have a warm water port, which is what they want. | |
| And they don't want NATO on their border. | ||
| Now, I have no love for the old communist Russians. | ||
| They haven't changed much. | ||
| There has to be a deal made. | ||
| People are going to have to give up something. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And on this proposed peace framework from the Trump administration, here are the benefits for Ukraine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Assistance from European military forces as quote: a robust security guarantee, return of the small part of a region that Russia has occupied. | |
| It's the fourth largest region in Ukraine. | ||
| Unimpeded passage of the Dnieper River and compensation assistance for rebuilding. | ||
| That is what this framework, this peace framework, that is how it would benefit Ukraine. | ||
| Michael and Sterling, Virginian, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Michael. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| You know, what amazes me most right now in the United States is both media's left and right have become propaganda machines. | ||
| That's about it. | ||
| The information they're putting out is misinformation and disinformation. | ||
| The way Trump is handling these supposed peace negotiations is amateurish. | ||
| He has a former real estate developer doing it who doesn't have an understanding of the people, their traditions, and the geography of the area. | ||
| Everybody can discuss how Crimea was Russia, Ukraine was Russia. | ||
| Ukraine has been a sovereign state for decades. | ||
| It was thriving. | ||
| The aggressor here is Putin. | ||
| Putin is gaslighting Trump and his negotiators completely. | ||
| Why Trump is willing to make these ridiculous concessions to Putin, I don't understand. | ||
| What will happen is Putin is old guard KGB. | ||
| He wants to reestablish the old bear and have perimeter country as it was back in the 60s. | ||
| All right, Michael. | ||
| That's where he's going. | ||
| All right, Michael referring to Steve Witkoff, the former real estate developer who is the president's special envoy for these negotiations. | ||
|
unidentified
|
BBC reporting that Mr. Witkoff expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin today. | |
| And they note in their reporting that has already met, he's already met with the Russian leader three times over the last two months. | ||
| Ben in McLean, Virginia, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Ben. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you for this program. | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
| We can. | ||
| Good. | ||
| You're providing an important service here. | ||
| And I have a couple of comments on your reporting regarding this issue. | ||
| You've had, well, what I would recommend is that you have two experts on that part of the world and on Russia and Ukraine with opposing views and then take questions because I think the discussion is rather one-sided and I can explain why. | ||
| But also, I wish you would also have something on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. | ||
| You've had two people, I think, from the Council for Defense of Democracies, which is pro-Israel outfit. | ||
| And I wish you would have more balance and perhaps have a couple of experts on that issue as well. | ||
| If you'd like to come and I think if you go to our website, cspan.org, and go to the Washington Journal's page, you'll find the conversations that we've had here on the journal on both of those disputes, those conflicts that are happening in Russia-Ukraine and Palestinians and Hamas and Israel. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We've had conversations, and we've done what you've talked about, which is having experts here at the table to experts on the regions to talk about it. | |
| So, again, go to our website, cspan.org. | ||
| We're going to take a short break when we come back. | ||
| Clifford Young will be with us, President of Polling and Societal Trends at Ipsos. | ||
| He'll discuss his organization's recent polling on President Trump as we near his first 100 days in office. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then later, CNBC senior markets reporter Dominic Chu discusses what's driving the ongoing volatility in the U.S. financial markets. | |
| Stay with us. | ||
| American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | ||
| This weekend, the 2025 White House Correspondents Association dinner is Saturday. | ||
| Over the years, former presidents have attended the annual event. | ||
| American History TV will feature many of those past speeches beginning at noon Eastern. | ||
| Then at 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures in History, American University Professor Laura Beers on Winston Churchill and the special relationship between Great Britain and the U.S. during World War II and the Cold War. | ||
| At 9.30 on The Presidency, a discussion about John Adams' political philosophy and his influence on the U.S. Constitution, especially on the separation of powers and checks and balances. | ||
| At 10.30 p.m. Eastern following Pope Francis' death, we'll air his address to a joint meeting of Congress in 2015, the first pontiff in history to address both chambers. | ||
| And at 11.15 p.m. on the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, we'll look at the April 29th, 1975 announcement by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on the end of the Vietnam War and the loss and evacuation of Saigon. | ||
| Exploring the American story. | ||
| Watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN2 and find a full schedule on your program guide. | ||
| Or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Book TV, every Sunday on C-SPAN 2, features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | ||
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| At 2 p.m. Eastern, Book TV presents coverage of this year's New Orleans Book Festival held on the campus of Tulane University. | ||
| You'll hear from Dr. Anthony Fauci and journalist Connie Chung on their careers, as well as author discussions on artificial intelligence, social media, and more. | ||
| Then at 8 p.m. Eastern, Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, author of Seven Things You Can't Say About China, argues that China poses a significant threat and that major American institutions refuse to talk about it. | ||
| At 8.30 p.m. Eastern, we'll feature author discussions on the late Pope Francis with Robert Waples on the Pope's vision for society and Mark Shriver on the pontiff's journey from Argentina to the papacy. | ||
| And at 10 p.m. Eastern on Afterwards, journalist Stephen Witt profiles the company NVIDIA, its founder, Jensen Wang, and the development of their microchip in his book, The Thinking Machine. | ||
| He's interviewed by business insider reporter Emma Cosgrove. | ||
| Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN2 and find a full schedule on your program guide. | ||
| Or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Back at our table this morning, Cliff Young, polling and societal trends president of Ipsos, here to talk about public interest and public opinions in President Trump's first 100 days. | ||
| So let's talk about his overall approval rating as we approach 100 days. | ||
| That is next week. | ||
| What did you find? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We found there's been a decline since he took office. | |
| And whether that be Ipsus polling or just the average of all polls, both show a five-point decline. | ||
| Ours shows from 47 points to 42 points. | ||
| And so the question is, is that a lot? | ||
| Is that a little? | ||
| And let's look at history a bit. | ||
| What we know by history is that if we go back to 1948, the average decline in the first 100 days is about three points. | ||
| He's at five points, so he's a little bit above that. | ||
| Not significantly so, not outside the expectations. | ||
| But when you look at public opinion generally, there's a lot of noise in it. | ||
| We can talk about that, especially relative to tariffs and a lot of the actions taken. | ||
| But his approval ratings, I would say, are within expectations. | ||
| When you say there's a lot of noise, what do you mean by that? | ||
| A lot of, depending on the indicator, if you look at his handling of the economy as one, people's opinion of tariffs as another, thwarting court orders, these are just examples of a variety of specific issues that America is a little bit standoffish about. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're negative towards. | |
| And that doesn't necessarily translate into the approval ratings right now. | ||
| It can, it might, but at this moment, it isn't. | ||
| But we can see on the edges this sort of noise friction unease. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Indeed, if we look at focus groups, that is not polling, which is quantitative, where we call you or knock on your door and talk to you, but when we basically sit down with you and have a conversation, Americans are saying the same thing. | |
| Well, if it's not the issues that are driving down his numbers, then what is it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it is the economy. | |
| It's the anticipation of the economy potentially doing worse. | ||
| And so it's not what's happening today. | ||
| It's an anticipation of what might happen. | ||
| Obviously, doing things that are different, breaking routine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Any human, including Americans in general, but humans feel uneasy about that. | |
| And I would just sort of characterize the President Zeitgeist as unease and underlying tension. | ||
| Okay, and so what are people uneasy about when it comes to the economy? | ||
| Inflation, cost of living, making ends meet. | ||
| If you go out and talk to people, that's what they cite. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They talk about, I'm expecting that. | |
| We came off of high inflation. | ||
| We came off of cost of living. | ||
| I voted for Trump because of that, but I'm anticipating that that will happen. | ||
| I'm cutting back on some non-essentials. | ||
| I'm not going to travel like I thought I was going to. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm stocking up on things that I can. | |
| And that's what we're hearing today. | ||
| It's specifically about the economy. | ||
| It's about cost of living. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right, so let's take a look at this graphic that put together by Ipstas. | |
| Approval ratings decrease with inflation. | ||
| Two-point inflation increase is consequential for approval ratings. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Explain that data. | |
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, you have inflation and you have unemployment, right? | |
| These are two economic indicators that have negative impacts on presidential approval. | ||
| Inflation has a much greater impact. | ||
| And so by our own modeling, our own analysis, a two-point increase in inflation translates to a decline of four to six approval rating points. | ||
| In other words, a negative impact. | ||
| And why is that the case? | ||
| Once again, people can't make ends meet. | ||
| They can't take care of their families like they expect that they should. | ||
| And this typically obviously is translated into more negative approval ratings. | ||
| They blame the president. | ||
| They blame the administration for the present scenario. | ||
| So when the president, I mean, is your poll an outlier here on inflation or are you seeing this in other polls? | ||
| This is everywhere. | ||
| Right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is everywhere. | |
| And just the caveat is it's the worry about inflation. | ||
| It's a worry about cost of living. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's a worry about the economic scenario in general. | |
| Will I have a job in six months? | ||
| I'm not quite sure. | ||
| These tariffs look pretty scary. | ||
| I don't really like them. | ||
| I'm not quite sure. | ||
| But it's also the friction I talk about. | ||
| There's a lot of worry about threats to democracy writ large. | ||
| There's a lot of worry about thwarting rules and thwarting norms. | ||
| That sort of dovetails with this worry about inflation. | ||
| When the president says the price of gas has gone down, the price of eggs has gone down, the price of groceries has gone down, and then Americans go to the store and they see the price of things, or they go fill up their tank and they see the price of things. | ||
| What about that disconnect? | ||
|
unidentified
|
CNN did a segment this morning about how those claims by the president on gas prices and eggs and grocery prices isn't true. | |
| So the president can say it, but then people don't see it. | ||
| So then what happens? | ||
| Yeah, how are they interpreting it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's say the average American, just an individual living in my hometown, Elgin, Illinois, how are they thinking? | |
| They're basically saying they're not thinking about inflation rates because inflation rates have come down. | ||
| They're thinking about how much things cost relative to a year ago, relative to two years ago, and how much money is left over at the end of the month. | ||
| That's the most important gauge for households determining whether they're in a good situation or not. | ||
| And they still aren't. | ||
| They still have problems making ends meet because income has not increased faster than the cost of living. | ||
| And that's what Americans are saying when they're saying that they're worried about inflation. | ||
| They're struggling with inflation. | ||
| So worried about inflation, and then take a look at these numbers for our viewers. | ||
| Most Americans expect the prices of goods to increase due to tariffs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So on top of where the prices are right now, they're worried they're going to go up. | |
| And along these areas, household appliances, fresh produce, personal electronics and phones, automobiles, et cetera. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
By the way, whether it will or it won't, that's another issue. | |
| That's a policy discussion. | ||
| But public opinion has that perception. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Indeed, I've already sort of cited our own qualitative work talking with people, and a lot of people are saying, I'm anticipating higher inflation. | |
| I'm worried about in the future higher inflation. | ||
| I'm basically cutting back on non-essentials, as I said. | ||
| I'm not going to travel. | ||
| I'm not going to go to, you know, we're not going to go to Florida this year. | ||
| We're not going to go to Mexico this year. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'm basically buying a whole bunch of stuff, like toilet paper, in order to sort of manage in the short term potentially higher inflation. | |
| So what we're talking about is perception and not necessarily reality at this moment. | ||
| Where is the president polling well on what policy moves? | ||
| Yeah, the strongest place right now is immigration. | ||
| That obviously is his bailiwick. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He won in 2016 on that. | |
| It was a very important issue in 2020. | ||
| Obviously, cost of living was more important, but that was an important issue. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's still strong there. | |
| He basically, that's his net positive. | ||
| He doesn't have any other net positives across the issues. | ||
| They're all net negatives at this point. | ||
| But immigration still is a strong place and really a place he can go if the tariff issue, if the economic policy issue becomes too difficult politically. | ||
| When you dig into what you did on immigration moves by the president, support for deportation is conditional on specifics of it. | ||
| Americans say yes to criminals, no to children. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So they support deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have criminal records. | |
| 87%, large numbers, support. | ||
| We could all agree with that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And then when you go down to ending protecting from deportation for immigrants who were children when they arrived in the U.S. illegally, 62% oppose that. | ||
| Yeah, and so America's nuanced. | ||
| We're not a monolith, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
People can think two things at once. | |
| They can be in favor of certain policies of administration against other ones. | ||
| And I think that that's one of the reasons we put that in there to show that America is this mosaic. | ||
| It's not just red and blue. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think we overstate the polarization, though it's very important today. | |
| And ultimately, we see that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But the caveat I would say is they do critique the way it's being done. | |
| So this goes back to my point about friction. | ||
| Yeah, I'm in favor of deporting illegal immigrants who are criminals, but man, they deserve due process. | ||
| You can't sweep them up in the dead of night and take them out of here. | ||
| That's not America. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's not fair. | |
| That's not fundamentally fair. | ||
| By the way, that's a very foundational value in America. | ||
| It's a very foundational value in the world in general. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But this notion of fundamental fairness and Americans, red, blue, purple, or whatever, really hold that dear and are critical of the way the administration is going about doing things. | |
| As we approach the president's first 100 days of his second term, we invite you to join us in this conversation. | ||
| Your perception of how the president and his administration is doing, the executive orders that he has signed, the other actions that the president and his cabinet have taken. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Here's how you can join us this morning. | |
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| In Independence, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And remember, text with your first name, city, and state to 202-748-8003. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jason is up first in Greensboro, North Carolina, Republican. | |
| Hi, Jason. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| Hi, Greta. | ||
| I think President Trump has had to take some very tough decisions in his first 100 days. | ||
| And some of those decisions were not popular. | ||
| And that's why I think his small numbers are slightly down. | ||
| But you have to remember, he inherited the inflation. | ||
| Because of all the free money we gave out for COVID, people just chose not to work. | ||
| And that's what drove up the employment and staffing costs for businesses. | ||
| I think people are forgetting that. | ||
| And I think he has done more than what President Biden did in four years. | ||
| All right, Jason. | ||
| All right, so Cliff Young, is there a nuance there? | ||
| There is. | ||
| I mean, I think the caller is very right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, the Trump administration has been making decisions, taking decisions that go against convention, that go against norm. | |
| As I was saying before, we humans, we like routine. | ||
| And when you challenge our routine, we don't feel well. | ||
| We feel uneasy. | ||
| That's a natural reaction. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's what I think we're seeing. | |
| We're seeing a lot of, obviously, an issue with the economy and the anticipation of inflation. | ||
| That's real and concrete. | ||
| The rest is sort of noise, this friction that's affecting his numbers on the margin are exactly that. | ||
| He's making decisions that are not easy decisions. | ||
| They cause friction. | ||
| The question will be: will public opinion give him the latitude in the long term to see these decisions through? | ||
| Or will he be punished with his numbers, with his approval ratings, because of it? | ||
| And that's obviously a question mark. | ||
| What about the president, speaking of unconventional, the Doge committee set up, Elon Musk running that, the way that that commission committee went about trying to find ways to reduce the federal government? | ||
|
unidentified
|
How does that pull? | |
| Americans love it. | ||
| They love, let's step back and set aside for a second Doge, the word Doge, the concept Doge, but finding ways to make the government more efficient. | ||
| I think that that's a supermajority belief and demand of Americans. | ||
| They really, really love that. | ||
| That's one of Trump's signature issues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But once again, it goes about how, you know, once again, it goes to how you go about doing it. | |
| Are you doing it in a fair and just way? | ||
| I think that's where Americans diverge at this point. | ||
| Yes, they're in favor of greater efficiencies. | ||
| Yes, we have to make the government more efficient, but do it in a way that's fundamentally fair. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's where the administration's, from a perception standpoint, has had a lot of friction. | |
| All right. | ||
| David and Gregory, Michigan, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you very much. | |
| Yeah, no, I'm very much against what's taking place, but I'm not surprised that it did. | ||
| Forever, there's been, you know, us Americans who's been, you know, complaining about the government. | ||
| You know, well, do this, do that. | ||
| How can you do this? | ||
| What's interesting, though, as far as you see all these polls on TV. | ||
| I find it frustrating. | ||
| I've asked many people if anybody's been contacted on polls, you know, either way, one way or the other. | ||
| And nobody says, yes, I have been. | ||
| In any case, so that's kind of frustrating there in itself. | ||
| But the way Trump has come in is a very threatening, intimidating situation. | ||
| And people, you know, as a rule, some don't like change. | ||
| And this year is being partly ramrod down their throat a lot of different things. | ||
| What Eldon Musk is doing is very severe tactics. | ||
| You know, it's like nobody voted this in. | ||
| Nobody has a say-so in this. | ||
| And it's being forced upon. | ||
| So this is very scary in itself. | ||
| So, you know, this year was a long time coming. | ||
| You know, people complain about our government. | ||
| You know, the old saying is, you know, vote for the worst of two evils. | ||
| Why does that have to be? | ||
| You know, why cannot be somebody who can be standing right on the line of a Democratic or Republican? | ||
| And that's where it should go. | ||
| You know, I haven't seen that yet. | ||
| I've seen, you know, little bubbles pop up of independent, and then all of a sudden it's gone. | ||
| And David is an independent and sounding like one this morning. | ||
| Yes, very much so. | ||
| And just kind of, you know, basically reflecting on what we've just said. | ||
| I mean, basically, there's a lot of friction. | ||
| People don't like change. | ||
| Trump is making very difficult decisions from his standpoint. | ||
| They're going against public opinion. | ||
| The huge question will be: will he be able to convince public opinion in the long term that these were the right decisions, or will the friction lead to his ultimate approval decline? | ||
| And we don't know. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The one point I wanted to make about not being interviewed, I just want to remind the caller that there's 330 million people in the United States. | |
| Therefore, the likelihood of any one individual being interviewed is very, very low. | ||
| But I also want to say for those of you that have, we appreciate you doing that. | ||
| We see it as a civic duty. | ||
| Your ability, the ability, and we see it as an honor to hear your voice and being able to bring it to the table and talk about the constraints that ultimately public opinion is laying out and how the Trump administration is navigating that. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We see it the same way. | ||
| Okay, there we go. | ||
| Warrington, North Carolina. | ||
| Mike, Democratic caller for all of you participating in our conversations here on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Hi, Mike. | ||
| Mike in Warrington, North Carolina, Democratic caller. | ||
| Okay, let's get this straight. | ||
| There's something called a note. | ||
| And our friend is playing a game of the notes. | ||
| Started back in before the 60s. | ||
| And he's playing a note. | ||
| And he sits there and played a note. | ||
| If it doesn't say work, if it. | ||
| All right, Mike, we're not following. | ||
| I'm going to go on to Leo, who's in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Republican. | ||
| Oh, yes. | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Yes, I think Donald Trump is doing an awful job. | ||
| I think him cutting the programs without thinking about the American people and the impact of them, as opposed to just making them more efficient, is just deplorable. | ||
| He doesn't believe in due process, obviously, or the separation of powers and the separation of state. | ||
| I think he's a crook and a narcissist. | ||
| I think that what he said about John McCain, I'm appalled by fellow veterans who still support Donald Trump when he talks badly about our true heroes. | ||
| And I felt this way ever since the first debate, and I didn't vote for him, and I didn't vote Republican for the first time in my life. | ||
| And thank you very much for taking my call. | ||
| Leo, so in 2016, you did not vote Republican. | ||
| How about in 2020 and in 2024? | ||
| I did not vote for him ever. | ||
| Ever. | ||
| Clifford Young, I mean, when you hear Republican, he says he's voted Republican his whole life, and then the first time doesn't vote Republican when the president is on the ticket for the first time in 2016. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Interesting, and how many people, how many Republicans are there like Leo? | |
| He's rare. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| The big chunk stayed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Even if they're not MA, they stayed on the red side. | |
| I think the caller was noting something interesting. | ||
| We've seen this in the polls sort of increase since the election. | ||
| This notion of threats to democracy. | ||
| It's increased manyfold since the election. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's actually in our polling, it's the most important issue, even over the economy. | |
| And I think the caller was kind of noting that, sort of thwarting rules, not respecting laws, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
| Just one other point I want to make, the first caller about notes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they were getting at jazz. | |
| I think what he was saying was Trump's sort of like, he dances around the edges of what's possible. | ||
| I would say he dances around the edges of public opinion, especially when we're talking about tariffs. | ||
| And once he gets, he feels the friction, he feels the pushback, he steps back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that's what we've seen a bit. | |
| Whether it's good for the country being a little bit seen as being all over the place, that's another issue. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But I do think that Trump has a sixth sense about those sorts of things. | |
| And I think the caller was getting at that specific point. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thanks for interpreting that. | |
| I want to go back. | ||
| You could be totally wrong, but I think so. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, let me go back to what we were just talking about. | |
| Political extremism, threats to democracy, concern with that is surging. | ||
|
unidentified
|
These are the numbers that you were talking about. | |
| And you can see the uptick since January 2025 to March of 2025. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Concerns about the economy pretty much staying the same since January of 2025, but that political extremism or threats to democracy is rising. | |
| This is the message that Democrats tried to send in the election about the president. | ||
| That's what they ran on that issue. | ||
| But cost of living was more dominant. | ||
| Indeed, what we found, especially at the beginning of 2024, is that this issue, threats to democracy, was the number one issue. | ||
| But over the course of time, when the levels of prices stayed high, cost of living became the primitive issue, that's what Trump won on. | ||
| But what we're seeing now in the surge is exactly what we've already talked about. | ||
| Trump is challenging convention and norms. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There is pushback because of that. | |
| And some people think of it as being more authoritarian. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would read those numbers also as just noise friction and unease and not liking what they're seeing out of Washington. | |
| We'll go to Brooklyn. | ||
| Alan, Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you. | |
| First, I want to thank the people who prompted my point this morning. | ||
| There was a Facebook post by Professor Tribe from Harvard who was quoting an op-ed piece in the Times last Sunday about the relative benefits of the new major question doctrine by the Supreme Court as between Democrats and Republicans. | ||
| It was invoked for the first time in a major way a few years ago to slap down Biden's rules against carbon emissions under the EPA statutes, which seem to permit Biden to regulate carbon dioxide. | ||
| And the Supreme Court said, well, even if the law says you can do this, if it has a major impact, we want Congress to weigh in and really say they meant that by their statutes. | ||
| So the point of the op-ed piece by Aaron Tang last Sunday was that, well, the same rule could be used to help Democrats against some of the overreach of Republicans using executive power that wasn't clearly authorized in terms by the Congress. | ||
| And whether we're looking at Doge or excess deportation efforts or attempts to interfere with the free speech of law firms and media or reductions in health care administration, there's a lot of action by Trump here, which arguably should be blessed by the Congress, specifically because they're so vast and so radical. | ||
| So the question is, will the Supreme Court act under the major question doctrine as much to guard excesses by a Republican president as they did to guard against climate action by a Democratic president? | ||
| That's a vast question that took an hour. | ||
| Okay, Cliff Young. | ||
| Well, I'll talk about it from the public opinion standpoint, which I know a little bit about. | ||
| But basically, the question is, where does it end, right? | ||
| One side goes really far one way, then the other side comes back and goes very far the other way. | ||
| That's not actually sustainable in the long term from a Democratic perspective, right? | ||
| But ultimately, what reinforces that from a public opinion standpoint, there's a widespread belief that the system is broken, that parties and politicians no longer care about the average person, that it's rigged by the elites, and there's a strong belief in America, not just America, all over the world we find this, a belief that strong leaders to take the country back need to break the rules. | ||
| And that's, we're talking supermajority levels in the United States, and like I said, we see it around the world. | ||
| I think a lot of the institutional creep, the fraying of institutions, is a function of this frustration, a deep-seated frustration that society is not working for the average person like them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We'll go to Canton, Ohio. | |
| Dana, Independent, good morning to you. | ||
| Good morning there. | ||
| I just have Ms. Clifford. | ||
| I really respect him. | ||
| He's a smart man. | ||
| And I was just going to ask him, does he think that history repeats itself? | ||
| And plus, I would like to say something about Putin. | ||
| Putin, everybody says he's playing games. | ||
| Well, I believe that's what he's doing. | ||
| Until Trump splits his foot down and give him this, give them, don't give them anything. | ||
| Just cut them off. | ||
| If we can cut them off somehow, that'd be the greatest thing. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Dana, referring to our conversation earlier this morning, we were asking our viewers their perspective on how the president's handling the Russia-Ukraine war. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Did you do some polling? | |
| Have you done some recent polling on that? | ||
| Yeah, we've done recent polling on that. | ||
| And basically, there's a huge party break. | ||
| I mean, it's very polarized, right? | ||
| Democrats still showing support, though it's declined since the beginning of the conflict, and Republicans really reflecting the position of the administration today. | ||
| So extremely polarized at this point and sort of stuck in a way. | ||
| There isn't consensus right now in America about how to deal with it. | ||
| I would just, you know, I want to return to the caller's question about history repeating itself. | ||
| I'm no historian, right? | ||
| But what I would say is I think of it more like this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Human beings are human beings. | |
| And we were humans 2,000 years ago and we're humans today. | ||
| And we kind of behave the same way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so as a pollster, we use the past to predict the future. | |
| And so there's a lot of behavioral traits and tendencies that are similar that we use. | ||
| Take advantage of to understand what will happen in the future. | ||
| So that's my mini tweaker riff on history repeating itself pieces. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Kerry in Missouri, Democratic caller. | |
| You know, what's very frustrating is that we have people like this pollster on TV and we have a man in office who didn't get the approval of the American people, didn't get the approval of Congress, didn't get the approval of Senate, and then we have an entire Republican Party sitting back saying that he's not breaking the norms. | ||
| He's doing what a president should do. | ||
| I have never understood how one man can become a dictator. | ||
| Our Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, gives him absolute power over everything that he wants to do, and he cannot go to jail for nothing. | ||
| Why do you think he's doing what he's doing? | ||
| And then you have a pollster on here basically giving him credence and giving him an okay. | ||
| How is Cliff Young giving him an okay? | ||
| Because he's sitting here basically making it a norm what Trump is doing. | ||
| No president in the history of this country has ever been against democracy. | ||
| Okay, Kerry, Cliff Young, did you? | ||
| I think we've been saying the opposite, that actually his behavior is thwarting the norm. | ||
| That means he's going against the norm. | ||
| And that's why we're seeing his numbers weaken, not just approval ratings, but across the board when we look at them across the issues. | ||
| Ultimately, I think the caller obviously is in the camp that believes that democracy is under threat. | ||
| We talked about that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's increased in importance markedly in the last few months. | |
| And I think that ultimately it reflects that. | ||
| But what I would say is this, and as a pollster, I'll say this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is what I believe. | |
| I believe that public opinion ultimately is the ultimate guardrail. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is what sets the parameters by which political actors like the president can behave and operate. | |
| And what we're seeing today is democracy in action, which is public opinion's reaction to off-diagonal behavior. | ||
| So maybe the caller was referring to how we started out when we talked about his approval ratings and how it's dipped from 47 to 42 percent. | ||
| And you were talking about how that's within historical norms, I guess. | ||
| Let's call them averages. | ||
| Averages. | ||
| Is that better? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So let's put it this way. | |
| Instead of saying that, we could say that Trump is nothing better. | ||
| He's nothing more than average right now. | ||
| And so he's just like the average of what we've seen, which is the average decline is three points. | ||
| He's at five points, whether it be the Ipsus poll or all the polls together. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so I say that because we have to separate the signal from the noise, right? | |
| There's a lot of noise right now talking about how he's imploding. | ||
| That might happen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Indeed, we see that noise. | |
| We see the friction on the edges like we've already talked about. | ||
| But if we look at the most important number, the number that predicts his ability to push forward his agenda and the number that predicts his electoral likelihood or that of his successor, he's not doing that poorly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So when did you take this latest poll to get to the point? | |
| That was this week. | ||
| Earlier this week. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Earlier this week. | |
| Give me a couple numbers. | ||
| Okay, so a sitting president at 40% approval rating has a 56% chance of winning. | ||
| A sitting president at 42% Approval rating has about has about a 63-64% chance of winning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's just a proxy for the relative power, the relative legitimacy that they have. | |
| And I think the point is, the analytical point is he still has legitimacy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Even though he's doing things that people don't like, his numbers haven't imploded. | |
| Does that mean that they won't? | ||
| Do we have leading indicators? | ||
| Like I already said, let's take inflation as an example, that anticipation of. | ||
| Could that erode his legitimacy, his approval ratings? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| But right now, he's nothing more than average. | ||
| Under 50%, and you still have a chance of winning again. | ||
| Yeah, because people come back around. | ||
| Well, how does it compare to other presidents? | ||
| You were talking about the historical, historically, it's 3% dip, but why have we seen presidents' numbers dip in the first 100 days? | ||
| Because they make choices. | ||
| Because you have an electoral coalition, plus, you have Americans that say, I'm going to give this individual the benefit of the doubt. | ||
| I might not have voted for him or her, but I'm going to, I'm going to basically support them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But then when they start to make decisions, that coalition begins to break down. | |
| And that's what we're seeing, right? | ||
| You know, I thought you were going to work on cost of living, but I'm seeing you doing all these things with the federal government. | ||
| Like, my cousin was just laid off. | ||
| She lives in Metro DC. | ||
| And so you lose people with that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's natural. | |
| That's what democracy shows. | ||
| That the trajectory for any administration, presidential, by the way, not just in the United States, but around the world, is that over time you lose support. | ||
| We'll go to Atlanta. | ||
| Joyce, a Republican. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Trump's doing exactly what 77 plus million people voted for him to do. | ||
| These people calling in about Elon Musk. | ||
| We knew Musk was coming with him to the White House. | ||
| Trump has our approval, but the media and people like this constantly try to berate him. | ||
| He was demonized for 10 years. | ||
| He still won. | ||
| Now he has to fight a branch of legislation with rogued judges that aren't even in D.C. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| People need to get behind him, support him, and let him do his plan. | ||
| He's trying to save America. | ||
| Joyce, there, Republican. | ||
| She says those that have voted for him are still behind him. | ||
| Did you break it down by party and supporters of the president? | ||
| Yeah, well, first and foremost, she's right. | ||
| He won the popular vote. | ||
| He won the Electoral College. | ||
| In a Democratic regime, that gives you legitimacy, at least for a time, in a conceptual sense. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Republicans are still with him. | |
| And so he's really lost support, especially among independents, who always waver, obviously. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're the ones that are the first ones that come and first ones that go. | |
| They're really sensitive to the economy issue. | ||
| They have been historically. | ||
| And so they've sort of drifted. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Republicans, no, they're still there. | |
| They're still supporting him. | ||
| They're worried about inflation, but they believe what he says when he said it's going to get, it might get worse before it gets better. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We actually tested that. | |
| And what we found is only 49% of Americans believe that. | ||
| So it's not a talking point that unites, right? | ||
| But among Republicans, you're talking super majority belief in that. | ||
| And so for a time, they've given him license to do what he needs to do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In Philadelphia, Bob is watching us there, an independent. | |
| We'll hear from you. | ||
| Okay, yeah. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I had some concerns about just polling. | ||
| I've noticed over some recent elections that some of the outcomes haven't matched the polls. | ||
| So I was curious about some challenges for pollsters just with the cell phone, old landline phones. | ||
| I was also interested in the idea of public opinion as a guardrail, as Cliff like Young talked about. | ||
| And one thing I noticed in this country is that the, you know, we talk about democracy, but it's not really a democracy. | ||
| It's a constitutional republic and there's a big difference. | ||
| And then in this constitutional republic, one thing that has been noted, there was a Princeton study where they looked at legislative outcomes. | ||
| And there's absolutely no relationship between voter preference and legislative outcomes. | ||
| But there is a very close relationship between moneyed interest and legislative outcomes. | ||
| And so I would almost think that the polling of the public is really superfluous or not very useful. | ||
| And that the pollster should actually talk to billionaires, K-Street, the think tanks that come onto this program if we wanted to understand outcomes legislatively in this country. | ||
| I'd be interested to hear what the pollster has to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Those were very thoughtful questions. | ||
| And, you know, let's go to polling first. | ||
| Is polling in crisis? | ||
| I think the perception is that it is, right? | ||
| Obviously, the world's changing considerably. | ||
| How we communicate with each other is markedly different. | ||
| I think of my kids using TikTok. | ||
| I mean, they communicate that way. | ||
| I don't. | ||
| But so, you know, we've had to adapt our methods to try to get at people. | ||
| We're using increasingly multiple methods. | ||
| Never before in polling have we used so many methods together. | ||
| Telephone, online, maybe some knocking on the door a little bit, texting to bring people together. | ||
| If you look at our performance from an electoral perspective, it's not really so far out of the norm, out of the average. | ||
| I mean, we're kind of where we have been historically. | ||
| The problem is that we've been on the wrong side of the fence a couple times. | ||
| Maybe within that range, that's considerable from a scientific perspective, but from a political and sociological perspective, it seems like we're way off. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And what I would say is I just want to emphasize this point that, like, yes, being a pollster and polling is about the craft. | |
| It's about the technique and the method. | ||
| And we have to take that seriously because a lot of our credibility rests on that. | ||
| But I believe that 2020 was about narrative failure. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We didn't do a good job as a profession painting a picture so people weren't surprised. | |
| Right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I say that because I think we can do better. | |
| We could especially do better there as a profession. | ||
| And that goes ultimately to the last point that the caller was making. | ||
| Yeah, so this notion of like constraints of the boundaries of public opinion, that's the other thing we do. | ||
| That's what I'm doing here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm in a way, kind of in a qualitative way, talking about what public opinion thinks and what they are likely to give or not. | |
| And if the political actor, in this case, the president crosses those boundaries, he's going to feel it, right, from an approval standpoint. | ||
| And so that's the other role we have is explaining that milieu to decision makers and more specifically to the people to people and gentlemen, people on C-SPAN. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Goravania, only Maryland, Democratic caller. | |
| You're next. | ||
| Good morning, CISTAN. | ||
| Good morning, America. | ||
| So I'm listening to your guest, and I just had the phone in. | ||
| Basically, the polls are statistics. | ||
| And you know what they say about statistics? | ||
| It's not about numbers, it's about who is interpreting them. | ||
| So I would like to point out a few things. | ||
| When you're talking about Trump's overall job approval, your poll says it's about about average. | ||
| The fall in the pool. | ||
| Actually, it's not, it's almost double worse than it's average. | ||
| Second thing, Trump's current approval is 42%, which is the worst in God knows how many years, how long time. | ||
| I mean, comparing his last three presidents, he's over 10 points down, 20 points slower than Obama was in his first term. | ||
| Obama was 62% job approval. | ||
| Trump is 42%. | ||
| One more thing, when we are talking about economy, your guest is trying to show the current state of economy about anticipation just because Trump is thinking almost outside of the box. | ||
| The truth is, this is the worst start under the new president since 1932. | ||
| That's not something that he takes with a smile. | ||
| And then the last thing is, your guest was on for 20 minutes before even mentioning where is the worst job, which is threat to democracy. | ||
| I mean, if there is the worst job there, I would start with that. | ||
| But that was like, yeah, by the way, this is also happening. | ||
| The truth is what Deutsche currently doing, I have real-life examples. | ||
| I know how they're interviewing people in the federal government. | ||
| It comes down to two questions. | ||
| What do you think about 2020 elections and what you think about January 6th? | ||
| That's not going against the norm. | ||
| That's going against everything this country should be standing for. | ||
| Also, when they go against Supreme Court, when they take off the Senate and the House from any decision-making, that's not going against the norm. | ||
| That's destroying democracy. | ||
| Okay, Bonnie. | ||
| I understood your points. | ||
| Mr. Yang. | ||
| He has a certain point of view. | ||
| I mean, we know kind of politically where he comes from. | ||
| There's a lot of Americans that think like him, that believe that Trump's a threat to democracy, that he's in a terrible place right now, that he's imploding. | ||
| I just don't think that if you take all the evidence put together, it's so simple, right? | ||
| There's evidence that things are fraying at the edges, but ultimately there's a degree of stability as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And what I would say is, like, our poll is 42. | |
| The average right now is 40, is about 45, 46, the overall average. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The decline has been five points. | |
| Historic is three. | ||
| And I don't, you know, basically that's, so he, yeah, he's outperforming in a negative way to decline, but nothing that's substantive in meaning. | ||
| But ultimately, I think the caller is representing a certain point of view that things are more dire than we have stated. | ||
| But I think there's more complexity and nuance in the situation than that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mary Joe in Pennsylvania, Republican. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| Hi, good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| And I also really appreciate you guys taking people's calls for opinions because you always wonder what other Americans across the country think and feel about what's going on. | ||
| And at least we get to hear it on your show. | ||
| As far as President Trump and what he's been doing the first hundred days, he's addressing a lot of issues that the Democrats wouldn't even go near. | ||
| Number one, auditing the different federal departments. | ||
| The way he goes about it, I think it could be done a little different. | ||
| I think it's kind of radical the way he's allowing Doge to just go in and kind of rip things apart and then have to piece it back together in some instances. | ||
| Mary Joe, I want to take your point. | ||
| They like the idea. | ||
| They don't like the execution of it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, and that's just sort of a story throughout the data. | |
| That basically the signature issues, like deporting illegal immigrants who are Criminals, as well as making the government more efficient. | ||
| Many Americans agree with that. | ||
| They do not like how the administration is going about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Cliff Young is the polling and societal trends president for Ipsos and author of Polls, Polsters, and Public Opinion: a guide for decision makers. | |
| As always, we appreciate the conversation. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| We're going to take a break when we come back. | ||
| We'll be joined by CNBC senior markets reporter Dominique Chu to discuss the volatility of the U.S. financial markets. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| This is a strange and ugly year in politics. | ||
| There's a lot of name-calling out there. | ||
| Candidates hauling out terrible epithets like corrupt, liar, hypocrite, fascist, racist, incumbent. | ||
| After all, I believe in the First Amendment. | ||
| Not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This Saturday, beginning at noon Eastern. | |
| Hold on to your Lily Whitebuts. | ||
| Join us for a marathon as we look at past White House Correspondents Association dinners with presidential remarks. | ||
| Mike Deevers in his book said that I had a short attention span. | ||
| Well, I was going to reply to that, but what the hell, let's move on to something else. | ||
| I have actually shown up here for eight straight years. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Looking back, that was probably a mistake. | |
| Relive the jokes, the jabs, and other memorable moments on this special evening where politics and humor collide. | ||
| I've been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there. | ||
| Well, I've got a few things I want to say for a challenge. | ||
| Watch our marathon of past White House Correspondents Association dinners beginning Saturday at noon Eastern on C-SPAN 2's American History TV. | ||
| Obama out. | ||
| If you ever miss any of C-SPAN's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. | ||
| Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. | ||
| These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. | ||
| This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington. | ||
| Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest. | ||
| Non-fiction book lovers, C-SPAN has a number of podcasts for you. | ||
| Listen to best-selling nonfiction authors and influential interviewers on the Afterwords podcast and on QA. | ||
| Hear wide-ranging conversations with the non-fiction authors and others who are making things happen. | ||
| And BookNotes Plus episodes are weekly hour-long conversations that regularly feature fascinating authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics. | ||
| Find all of our podcasts by downloading the free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts and on our website, cspan.org slash podcasts. | ||
| Democracy. | ||
| It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process, a process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy, unfiltered. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| This morning, we are joined by Dominique Chu, who's a senior markets correspondent with CNBC, here to talk about the financial markets. | ||
| Mr. Chu, the markets have been up and down, up and down for the past couple of weeks. | ||
| What is behind the volatility? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's no doubt about it. | |
| It's certainly trade and tariff policy that's been driving a lot of the market volatility that we've seen as of late. | ||
| If you go back to just what we saw on that so-called Liberation Day, the day that the tariff policy was unveiled by the Trump administration, that was when you started to really see the real pickup, the roller coaster ride in markets. | ||
| And for the first at least few days or so, the first week or so of it, it was pretty much all to one side and that was to the downside. | ||
| Meanwhile, you've had a lot more of the kind of upside, downside swings since then. | ||
| And all of it has been due to either hard news or headlines or source reporting coming out of Washington, coming out of the White House with regard to possible changes, course corrections and whatnot in what that tariff and trade policy could be. | ||
| So if you're looking for the proximate cause, the primary driver, the catalyst, if you will, over the course of the last few weeks, it's definitely tariffs and trade policy. | ||
| Well, tell us about the who. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Who's on the floor or who is doing the trading that we're seeing prices go up and down? | |
| For those people who don't watch or follow this every single day. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| At the end of the day, financial markets are driven by end demand. | ||
| And for a lot of those people out there, it is actually people like you and me and many of your audience out there who have either brokerage accounts or 401k plans, individual retirement accounts and whatnot. | ||
| There's institutional traders, mutual fund hedge fund types who all serve as clients. | ||
| But at the end of the day, what you're looking at are investors out there who are trying to take a view or protect themselves against downside. | ||
| And that's the reason why the markets behave the way that they do. | ||
| Now, when you talk about people, say, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange or people who work at your brokerage company or your investment manager and whatnot, many of those people are conducting activity, trades, right? | ||
| Doing transactions at the behest of clients. | ||
| So if I and thousands or millions of my counterparts and peers in the population of America who have, say, a 401k account are doing something with it, in aggregate, what that causes is somebody to have to place an order to buy or sell to fulfill my request for a trade. | ||
| If you do that across just every single market, every single corner of our economy or market, that's why you start to see the size, if you will, the dollar amounts being moved around. | ||
| So when you look at at the end of the day, if we have a lot of people out there who are either very worried or very bullish or optimistic, that is when you'll start to see some of the bigger swings that we've seen, both to the downside and to the upside, Greta. | ||
| So these same people are buying one day, selling the next? | ||
| Yes, it is that simple. | ||
| And the reason why, by the way, it's not normally like this. | ||
| I would say that the evolution of technology from the Wall Street perspective has made it so that it's easier for people to transact or trade, to kind of call up their broker, or these days just hop on their smartphone or their computer to place a trade to buy or sell. | ||
| That speed is what's causing a lot of this right now. | ||
| And by the way, it's not just the speed at which you can do things at, it's also the idea that when you have potential catalysts that can either drive downside fright or upside bullishness coming out on a more regular and more frequent basis, that is what causes the volatility as well. | ||
| And just case in point, in the last couple of weeks, since Liberation Day, right, since the tariff policy was announced, there has been a lot of reporting with regard to whether or not it's as solid or as firm as some of the numbers would dictate. | ||
| There have been a lot of escalations and even de-escalations of those policies. | ||
| Escalations of those policies tend to be dampeners of the market. | ||
| People tend to get a little bit more pessimistic when trade rhetoric ramps up. | ||
| At the same time, when we hear about maybe deals possibly being cut, hypothetically being cut, if we hear about, hey, X number of countries have approached the U.S. about seeking a potential deal, there is then optimism that promotes people to want to get more bullish and buy things. | ||
| The problem right now is that because of the way that the news flow has evolved, there are not that many people out there who are saying, hey, I'm going to bet the farm that all of these trade policies are going to be resolved in the next few days or weeks. | ||
| At the same time, there are not that many people who are willing to bet the farm that there's just going to be continued downside in the market. | ||
| So what you have are people trying to stay nimble in these investing markets, buying and selling, which is the reason why some of these moves seem like they're massive to the upside and massive to the downside, but at the end of the day, they haven't really moved all that much. | ||
| Now, net net, we are still negative in the markets since the tariff policy was announced, but that's the reason why you're seeing such up and down movement to the degree that we're seeing. | ||
| And that's one of the reasons why there's at least a little bit more negative sentiment in the marketplace because of the way the markets are reacting right now. | ||
| So Dummy, to explain basing your decisions on rhetoric, and is that normal? | ||
| So basing your decision on buying and selling, and you're changing that based on the rhetoric coming out of Washington. | ||
| It's not something that is, I don't believe that to the people I've spoken to, either on the retail investor side or the institutional investor side. | ||
| I'm not sure rhetoric is something that people like to focus on more. | ||
| If you are a long-term investor, like millions of Americans should be, what you want to know is that when you, say, buy a stock or buy an index fund or have your money put away for retirement, that in the next, say, three, five, 10, 15, 20 years, that the value of the money that you put into your account is going to be worth more than the money that you put in X number of years ago. | ||
| And if it's not going to be better, then we have bigger problems as a country than just kind of what we're talking about right now. | ||
| The idea of trading rhetoric is something that is not normal for many investors out there because there are only so many people who are tuned and watching the markets on a tick-by-tick, minute-by-minute type basis where they can see what those headlines are that are driving the volatility. | ||
| For the most part, many of us, and myself included, every couple of weeks have money raked out of my paycheck and then kind of put into a 401k. | ||
| That 401k invests in things like index funds or target date funds that plan for a certain retirement date down the line. | ||
| And I just need to know that by the year 2035, 40, 45, 50, that I'm going to have a good amount of money saved so that I can retire. | ||
| There are institutional investors out there who are paid and get paid to watch these things on a second-by-second basis. | ||
| You compound that with the idea that computers and technology have now made the speed of trading not just in minutes and hours, but in seconds and microseconds and milliseconds and whatnot. | ||
| That is what's at least driving some of the volatility that we're seeing right now. | ||
| To trade headlines, to trade rhetoric, is something that a lot of investors normally aren't in tune to, but this is a fundamental paradigm shift, at least for the last few months, with regard to how people are viewing these things. | ||
| Now, whether or not they should be trading rhetoric or not, that's a huge debate for a lot of investment advisors out there with their clients. | ||
| What overall net impact will it have on the trading of rhetoric when the rhetoric seems to be a reversal of itself from one day to the next? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the sense that I get from the sources I talk to, the people I talk to, the traders on Wall Street and whatnot about this are that with every subsequent move with regard to trading rhetoric, it has a lot of force in the beginning, right? | |
| That kind of that big headline, that big trade policy, that big announcement. | ||
| The more and more you start to see kind of the fine-tuning, or I mentioned course correcting, if you will, right? | ||
| The rhetoric being not just one-sided. | ||
| If you have a certain trade policy, an escalation that happens, and then you have reports that maybe things could be tempered, and then reports contrary to that that say, no, no, no, things aren't going to be tempered. | ||
| This is very much something we're going to see through to the end. | ||
| And then you magnify it and amplify it by having multiple parties involved. | ||
| For instance, the Trump administration and the White House putting out their policies and saying one thing with regard to possible negotiations with China. | ||
| And then at the same time, having the Chinese Ministry of Commerce say, no, no, no, there are no ongoing talks between the U.S. and China. | ||
| All of these things tend to lead to a more dampening effect, meaning that it is a huge shock first off the bat, right off the bat. | ||
| At that point, every time you do it more often, you start to see a little bit less of that kind of effect because the traders who have traded on those headlines and have gotten burned or lost money on those are not willing to bank as much of it on any future bet or trade that they've placed. | ||
| If that continues in that way, in some ways it's a blessing because what you have is more dampened volatility. | ||
| There won't be as many of these massive wild swings. | ||
| Volatility will still be there, but like I said, nobody's willing to bet the farm that everything is going to be great on the trade front in the next several weeks or months. | ||
| And at the same time, because of that same headline risk, nobody wants to short the market, bet on the downside in the market because all it takes is one headline for all of those short bets or those negative bets to start losing money. | ||
| So in that way, what you might start to see is a little bit more dampened. | ||
| You may not see these massive thousand point swings in the Dow. | ||
| You could still see swings, but they won't be as big. | ||
| And by the way, if you look at it in that way, it's going to take something kind of big and something more solid in terms of policy in order for people to feel really good about not trading the rhetoric, but then trading the corporate and economic fundamentals as to where the economy is headed in the next one, two, three quarters and the next one, two, and three years. | ||
| And are you seeing those big indicators anywhere coming down the line? | ||
| Well, no, I'm not seeing them at all right now. | ||
| And based upon a lot of the reporting that we have on our side from our reporters here in DC, based upon the reporting that we've seen from a lot of other big news agencies out there, there may be developments. | ||
| The wheels are turning, so to speak, but they're not turning in a way or quick enough where anybody's willing to say that, hey, we have a trade deal imminent. | ||
| Or yes, we have a massive de-escalation regime in global trade imminent. | ||
| Now, if that were to happen, hypothetically, Greta, if you could say that, hey, the administration thinks that we could be on the verge of something massive and groundbreaking, that could have a massive upside catalyst move, an upside catalyst effect for the markets. | ||
| At the same time, if there is rhetoric or indications coming from either the administration here in America or from other big trading partners around the world, like say in Europe or in China or elsewhere, that say that maybe no deal can be counted on anytime soon, then that could have the same effect to the downside. | ||
| We're not seeing any signs yet. | ||
| We do have public comments from folks like Treasury Secretary Scott Besant that, you know, 100 countries have approached the U.S. about trying to negotiate a deal. | ||
| We have comments coming from Trump himself, the president himself, about this notion that people are willing to negotiate or that we want to get a deal done. | ||
| All of those things are great, but until you start seeing some kind of a real solid framework, something that you can bank on, so to speak, I feel as though, based upon the conversations I've had with a lot of institutional investors and folks who kind of have watched these markets for years, that the volatility that we are seeing is going to continue. | ||
| It may not be as massively wide, but you are not going to find an environment where stocks are going to break out of their range, either to the downside or to the upside, without any big catalyst coming up. | ||
| And that's the thing that I think a lot of folks on Wall Street are still watching for, whether or not there is something from the administration with regard to some kind of a breakthrough or a real stalling out in those negotiations as well. | ||
| All right, Dominique Chu is our guest here this morning. | ||
| He'll take your questions, your comments on financial markets. | ||
| We'll get to those calls in a second. | ||
| But first, Mr. Chu, how long does it take to negotiate and get a trade deal agreed to? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we don't know. | |
| I think that's the huge portion right now. | ||
| And by the way, there hasn't been a precedent for this kind of a thing, at least in recent economic or modern history, right? | ||
| The idea that you want to take a trade construct and policy that has been built up to the way that it is, at least up until the last couple of months, that has been built up over decades and maybe even arguably 50 plus years, certainly since the end of World War II. | ||
| Global trade policy and global geopolitical, I guess, constructs have been evolving over the course of the last 50 or 60 years to the way that we've seen it right now prior to the Trump administration coming in. | ||
| Many of those things, if it takes that long to put something like that together, to kind of build or evolve a global trade policy or construct the way that it is, it's hard to see a reality where you can just dissolve all of that and reshape global trade policy within a matter of days or weeks. | ||
| It seems as though if you're going to get a blanket groundbreaking change in the way that U.S. economic and trade policy fits into the global picture of things, it doesn't feel as though, it doesn't track as though it can happen in just days or weeks. | ||
| It's probably the reason why you're seeing a lot more of these talks take longer, because it's just not that simple. | ||
| It's hard work and it's not going to come without risk or sacrifice or any kind of pain at some point. | ||
| If that is the case, you can have perhaps indications from either this administration or other countries around the world that we're on the right path, that we have an agreement in principle, that we want to do things a different way, a certain way. | ||
| And that can happen within the, say, the matter of weeks or quarters. | ||
| But to actually execute and put those things into place and have the effects be felt, that could take years down the line. | ||
| I'm pretty sure that right now, from a policy standpoint, it's not just corporate America and the politicians here and abroad that are trying to wrestle with that. | ||
| It's also the notion that the American public is going to have to figure out what their tolerance is for the kinds of volatility and the kinds of possible downside risk that we'll see in order to set up for a bigger and brighter future down the line. | ||
| That is where I think you're seeing a lot of this debate come to light right now to really see what exactly is the pain threshold that we can tolerate for us to be able to say, yes, we can set up global trade in a way that's more advantageous to America and for all of us as Americans going forward. | ||
| All right, let's get to calls. | ||
| Charles, Fort Collins, Colorado, independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning, Charles. | |
| One last time for Charles, Fort Collins, Colorado, independent. | ||
| All right, Marshall, Nashville, Tennessee, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Current, how are you doing? | ||
| I would like to put forth an analogy to you and ask your opinion afterwards. | ||
| I was outside and I got a mosquito bite, and of course it ish, and I scratched it. | ||
| And I'm talking about our national debt, and I scratched it. | ||
| And a couple days later, I noticed I was kind of getting infected. | ||
| And I stressed it a little bit more, and then I went off to the course. | ||
| But I never did anything to eradicate the infection. | ||
| All I ever did was just kind of wash over it. | ||
| Now here we are, I'm 65, and I worked for 65 years. | ||
| This has been going on. | ||
| And now we're at the point where the infection is so bad that we have to either go to the doctor and he says we have to amputate the arm or it's going to cost your life. | ||
| $36 trillion in the hole. | ||
| And we are actually questioning whether or not we want to go through the pain and the absolute feelings of that limb being gone or if we want to die. | ||
| I'll accept your opinion offline. | ||
| Sure, Greta, should I take that one? | ||
| Yeah, go ahead. | ||
| No, no. | ||
| So that's exactly what you're saying right now is exactly what millions of other Americans are feeling about the way that our financial and economic markets have evolved over the course of, like you said, the last 50 or 60 years. | ||
| There is, I don't believe, any real doubt that the path that this country is on is unsustainable, that you cannot keep doing things the way that you're doing in order to set yourself up for long-term success. | ||
| The issue right now that you're dealing with is whether or not there is going to be the feeling that people want to take and undertake that change. | ||
| What we've seen in the course of the last couple of just weeks, maybe even a couple of months by extension, is that you have a feeling that the economy in America was ripe for a bullish catalyst, a more positive catalyst, because of some of the things that the administration, that the Trump administration had made promises on with regard to its campaign and then after its election as well. | ||
| And that is for things like deregulation and that is for things like tax reform. | ||
| The one thing though that hasn't really been tackled as much and is still being tackled right now are things on the spending front to address your point about where the deficits are and where our spending has gotten to. | ||
| There has been highly publicized efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency, DOE, right, by Elon Musk to try to cut government spending. | ||
| There are also plans in place with regard to policy coming out of Congress with regard to how we can possibly cut spending down the line. | ||
| At the end of the day, though, this is still a democracy where people are going to vote based upon how they feel their lives have been impacted or how their own personal families and their small business or business well-beings can be impacted by that. | ||
| The downside volatility that we've seen has caused some folks to question whether or not the types of policies that are being talked about are right for them. | ||
| And that's not for me to say. | ||
| That's just everybody's individual takes are a little bit different. | ||
| We do know that spending has to change. | ||
| We do know that the way things are moving have to change. | ||
| But if you start telling people, and I'm saying hypothetically, if you start cutting certain programs that have benefited certain people at some points in their lives and you say, hey, we can't do this anymore, there are understandably going to be folks out there who feel as though, no, no, no, I deserve that. | ||
| I want that, but I've always had this. | ||
| We need to keep this in place. | ||
| I guess my point is that there are going to have to be hard choices. | ||
| I just don't know how people will actually respond and make those choices once they know that there's going to have to be some kind of a sacrifice at the end. | ||
| What I will say is that you will start to see some of those feelings manifest themselves in state and local elections later on this year. | ||
| You'll start to see a lot more of that impact, at least I'm watching for it, in the midterm elections and then certainly in the elections to come as to whether or not we feel as though as a country, as an electorate, as a citizenry, that this is the path that we want to go on. | ||
| But until then, no, there's no doubt that the spending and fiscal situation is something that a lot of people are watching closely, whether or not there's the will to change it. | ||
| There hasn't really been that will to change it over the decades now at this point. | ||
| Well, as you were alluding to, Republicans return to Washington next week and they're going to start right away on the president's tax and spending proposal, making permanent those 2017 tax cuts. | ||
| And then also Republicans disagree on how much, but they're looking at trillions in spending cuts. | ||
| What will determine how the market reacts to that piece of legislation if it passes through both chambers and the president signs it? | ||
| So there's going to be a lot of debate and there's going to be a lot of folks out there making analyses on what future policy from the fiscal side of things could look like in terms of economic impact. | ||
| There are a lot of folks out there much smarter than I am with PhDs in economics and finance and everything else who are going to try to project based upon assumptions what those policies could do to things like inflation, to things like the jobs picture in America, and by extension, | ||
| what exactly our economic growth picture could look like in say the immediate one to two to three years after a policy or set of policies is enacted and then what the economic growth trajectory can look like say three, five or seven, ten years down the line. | ||
| Those are all assumptions driven projections. | ||
| Nobody knows the future. | ||
| What you can do is though, take the past and then try to see in your models, in your spreadsheets or whatever you use for projection, what that could look like. | ||
| The markets are going to be a little bit more in tune and react more solidly and more forcefully to ideas or policies that are going to lead to drastic changes in the economic trajectory down the line. | ||
| The markets are a leading indicator, meaning that the markets tend to price in what is expected already. | ||
| They're a forward-looking instrument. | ||
| So as people make projections over what this tax policy, what the spending policy and whatnot could look like, what is it going to do to the economic trajectory of this country, of the world, and then how exactly do companies operate in that new set of assumptions or forecasts? | ||
| Do they end up making more money? | ||
| Do their profit margins expand or get squeezed? | ||
| All of those things are things that are going to drive the way that markets perform. | ||
| If you look at markets from the stock market side of things, right? | ||
| Because those are companies. | ||
| If those companies are poised to do better, those stocks tend to go up in value because they discount the future optimism into a price today. | ||
| And those prices today can go higher. | ||
| At the same time, the flip side of the coin is, if we feel as though, or the assumptions are though, the companies don't fare as well on a relative basis. | ||
| It's not to say that they're going to go out of business, but if they don't do as well, then the value of those companies, the stocks themselves, and then by extension, say the Dow Jones Industrial Index or the S ⁇ P 500 or the NASDAQ Composite will start going lower. | ||
| Those are the things, I think, Greta, that are going to drive a lot more of the market reaction. | ||
| Now, the bond market is completely different. | ||
| Not completely, but the bond market's going to be focused a lot more on things like the macroeconomic, the bigger picture economic trajectory for this country and for the companies that operate in them. | ||
| So that's going to be, I think, what drives more of the Wall Street reaction. | ||
| All right, let's go to Nancy, North Royalton, Ohio, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
| We can. | ||
| Go ahead with your question or comment, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I have a two-part question. | ||
| The first one is, I read that the yield rates in the bond market went up, and I'm wondering what impact will that increase in the interest on bonds have on individual borrowers and lenders. | ||
| And by de facto, didn't that just increase the interest on our national debt? | ||
| And my second part question is, it seems like the Federal Reserve has been not raising or lowering interest rates the last two times the Board of Governors met. | ||
| It seems that President Trump wants to deliver some kind of relief to debt holders. | ||
| And do you think that that will be changing? | ||
| I know it's hard to say, but do you think that the Federal Reserve will ultimately lower interest rates in the next six to 12 months? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And I'll let them off here. | ||
| Thanks, Nancy. | ||
| Two good questions for you, Dominique, too. | ||
| Oh, absolutely. | ||
| So she's absolutely correct with regard to the first point. | ||
| We did see a rise in interest rates. | ||
| The simple mechanics are interest rates rise when the value of bonds falls. | ||
| So if a bond is worth less, the interest rate that it gives you or interest rates in general tend to go higher. | ||
| We have seen that play out a little bit more. | ||
| And yes, it is absolutely correct that if interest rates rise, especially on things like benchmark treasury securities, our sovereign bond market, that the interest that we pay on our national debt also goes higher. | ||
| By extension, those benchmark interest rates that happen at the treasury security level, treasury bonds, treasury notes and bills, those are benchmark items. | ||
| And the things that are benchmarked to those treasury rates are things like credit card rates, are things like auto loan rates, are things like home mortgage borrowing rates. | ||
| So as those treasury rates go higher and the value of our treasury securities goes lower, you will start to see the effects of higher interest rates take their toll on consumers because anybody who borrows to do anything, whether it be for a car or house or anything else credit card-wise, will see their interest costs expand and go higher. | ||
| So that's the first part of your question. | ||
| The second part of your question or the second question with regard to whether or not there's any kind of relief down the line. | ||
| The simple construct right now is that we live in a world where central banks are operating or are supposed to operate independently of any kind of political influence. | ||
| The president, President Trump, has been one of the first, as far as I can remember, and certainly in kind of more modern market history, to actively take an interventionist type role in trying to influence policy from the Federal Reserve. | ||
| The reality right now is there's a reason why the Federal Reserve has not done anything with regard to interest policy just yet. | ||
| And it's because they're waiting to see what real market effects these kinds of policies coming from the White House will have on the broader economy. | ||
| The reason why I say that is because the general economic consensus is that tariff policy will have a negative impact on the economy. | ||
| What is to be seen is how much of that impact is due to inflationary threats. | ||
| When you start to put import taxes on things that we consume on a regular basis, what that tends to do is have an upward effect on prices, causing inflation, right? | ||
| And inflation is something which I think is interesting from a journalist standpoint. | ||
| We were very, and I was one of them, very concerned about the effects of higher prices, 40-year high inflation rates, not longer than maybe a couple of years ago, two, three years ago, right? | ||
| So that threat is something that we all felt and we don't want to feel again. | ||
| The Fed has responsibility for that. | ||
| And there are those who blamed the Fed and other policies for stoking that inflation to begin with. | ||
| Understandably, the Federal Reserve might be a little bit more gun-shy about lowering interest rates if they feel as though that inflationary threat has not been snuffed out and could be in play back again. | ||
| Nobody wants to go through that high, high inflation again, all over again. | ||
| At the same time, if you do see a situation where these current economic policies that have been laid out start to really have a downward effect on the economy, and most importantly, by one of the Fed's primary responsibilities, which is to try to create the maximum sustainable employment picture in America, if you start to see job losses hypothetically start to accelerate, more layoffs, more widespread industry furloughs and job losses, | ||
| that is when the Fed will start to have to step in and lower interest rates to keep the economy higher. | ||
| But there has been no hard economic data so far, at least notably so, that has said that we are due for an imminent job loss recession or sky-high inflation. | ||
| Hence the kind of stay still, wait, see what happens. | ||
| They are data dependent. | ||
| You'll hear that term a lot. | ||
| That's the reason why the Fed is kind of doing what it's doing right now. | ||
| Tony Chu, coming up here on the Washington Journal, we're going to ask our viewers how the economy has impacted their housing plans. | ||
| Front page of the Wall Street Journal this morning, home sales see steepest decline in two years. | ||
| Set up this conversation for us. | ||
| Sure, the conversation around real estate is nuanced and not so at the same time. | ||
| And what I mean by that is I think most Americans who are out there, Greta, who are in the market for a home, either to buy one or sell one, understand the big picture macro headwinds and tailwinds that are at play. | ||
| For the most part, what we have seen are at least issues with supply, and that has been keeping prices up. | ||
| There's just not enough houses out there for people to buy. | ||
| And if those houses come to market, there tend to be bidding wars around them. | ||
| At the same time, one of the things that's putting a damper on some of those purchases is the idea that you're seeing at least higher interest rates. | ||
| They're not nearly as high. | ||
| I remember hearing stories from my parents about the 19, 20% 30-year fixed rate mortgages they had when they first bought a house when I was a young child. | ||
| Meanwhile, there are still millions of Americans out there who are living in homes that might have a 2.5% to 3.5% or 3.3 quarter percent 30-year fixed rate mortgage. | ||
| There is no incentive for those people to leave those homes because their costs of borrowing and financing those homes are so low. | ||
| Those are those so-called silver or golden handcuffs that you'll hear talk about in the real estate market. | ||
| That being said, Home buyers are trying to find ways either to get in on the existing homes that come to supply right off the bat and putting bids and accelerated bids and outbidding or putting multiple bids in for homes or trying to find new home construction that can help ease some of that supply concern. | ||
| All of these things are in play because the dynamic that's developed over the last 10, 15 years on interest rates has kind of led us to where we are now. | ||
| And by the way, I remember in college, I took a real estate course one time and they said, you know, real estate is the most fixed of fixed assets. | ||
| There's only so much land out there. | ||
| So as we talk about the housing dynamic, it's not just about interest rate policy. | ||
| It's also about supply. | ||
| And by the way, supply is impacted by things like regulatory issues, who can build homes where, all of those things become in play at this point, Greta. | ||
| And of course, the cost of construction too right now as those products go up. | ||
| Dominique Chu, thank you very much, CNBC Senior Markets Correspondent. | ||
| We always appreciate a conversation with you. | ||
| We know you have to run and talk to your viewers, but thank you for talking to ours this morning. | ||
| Thanks for having us here, Greta. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| We're going to take a break. | ||
| When we come back, we're going to take another look at the economy, looking at housing, as you just heard Dominique Chu talking about amid market volatility and falling consumer confidence. | ||
| The National Association of Realtors reported yesterday March home sales dropped to their slowest pace since 2009. | ||
| We want to hear what that all means for you. | ||
| Has this economic outlook impacted your housing plans? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Join us by dialing in in the eastern central part of the country at 202-748-8000. | |
| If you live in the Mountain Pacific area, 202-748-8001. | ||
|
unidentified
|
If you're looking for a new home, your line, 202-748-8002. | |
| And remember, you can text instead of calling at 202-748-8003. | ||
| That conversation coming up next on The Washington Journal. | ||
| Saturday, watch the White House Correspondents Association dinner live on C-SPAN from the Washington Hilton Hotel. | ||
| First, join us online for exclusive red carpet arrivals at 6 p.m. Eastern at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| Then our live coverage of the White House Correspondents Dinner starts at 8 p.m. | ||
| Former Trump White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and veteran journalist Frank Cesno will join us in studio during the dinner to discuss the annual event, the role of the Press Corps, and its relationship with the Trump administration. | ||
| And we'll take your calls to get your thoughts on the president's decision not to attend this year. | ||
| Watch C-SPAN's live coverage of the White House Correspondents Association dinner Saturday, starting at 6 p.m. Eastern with arrivals online. | ||
| Then at 8 p.m. Eastern, live dinner coverage on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Sunday night on C-SPAN's Q&A. | ||
| Sports journalist Jane McManus, author of The Fast Track, discusses the rise in popularity of women's sports since the early 1970s and the challenges female athletes have faced since then, including unequal pay and lack of media coverage. | ||
| What you do have now are women who see themselves as athletes first, and they aren't looking to be pleasing to anyone else. | ||
| And I think that is where things have changed quite a bit. | ||
| They see today's athletes see sports as their birthright, not just their brothers. | ||
| And I think, honestly, their brothers would say the same thing for the most part. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jane McManus with her book, The Fast Track, Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA. | |
| You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on the C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts. | ||
| There are many ways to listen to C-SPAN radio anytime, anywhere. | ||
| In the Washington, D.C. area, listen on 90.1 FM. | ||
| Use our free C-SPAN Now app or go online to c-span.org/slash radio on SiriusXM Radio on channel 455, the TuneIn app, and on your smart speaker by simply saying play C-SPAN Radio. | ||
| Hear our live call-in program, Washington Journal, daily at 7 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Listen to House and Senate proceedings, committee hearings, news conferences, and other public affairs events live throughout the day. | ||
| And for the best way to hear what's happening in Washington with fast-paced reports, live interviews, and analysis of the day. | ||
| Catch Washington today, weekdays of 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| Listen to C-SPAN programs on C-SPAN Radio anytime, anywhere. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We'll turn our attention now to housing and how the economic outlook is impacting your plans for housing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We told you how you can dial in this morning, lines divided by region, but also if you're out there looking for a new home, your line this morning is 202-748-8002. | |
| We want to hear about your experience in the market. | ||
| The conversation prompted by a new report released yesterday showing that March home sales dropped to their slowest pace since 2009. | ||
| From the report, what they found is overall, the number fell 5.9% in March, the slowest pace for the month since 2009. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Inventory up nearly 20% from a year earlier, and median price climbed to $403,700. | |
| That's up 2.7% from a year earlier. | ||
| So that is from CNBC's reporting. | ||
| There's also this from MarketWatch: this headline to share with you: Spooked house hunters are dropping out of the real estate market as they confront economic uncertainty on many fronts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Stock market turbulence, recession fears, and the specter of job loss have nervous homebuyers calling off their plans. | |
| Are you one of them? | ||
| Let's go to Jerry in Bronxville, New York. | ||
| Good morning to you, Jerry. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| I have a couple of things to say about this. | ||
| I am not looking for a house. | ||
| I am a senior, but my children had and are looking for housing. | ||
| Where we are is a very expensive area, and housing has always been high. | ||
| And I really do not hold as much credence into CNBC reports as I do other types of trending reports. | ||
| I could tell you that my son and my daughter-in-law, when they went house hunting six years ago, when they would show up at a house, there would be 10 other people at the house. | ||
| People would be offering cash for at least $100,000 over asking. | ||
| And it had nothing to do what's going on economically today. | ||
| So this is something that's been going on for a very long time. | ||
| And I don't think that framing it that the causal, that the cause of this is what's going on now. | ||
| There are root causes way before this. | ||
| Yeah, what do you think those root causes are? | ||
| That's a difficult question. | ||
| I think that's, you know, I think it's got to do with supply and demand and all of those things. | ||
| I really do think it would supply and demand because there are people that are willing. | ||
| The buyers are willing to do these things in order to get into the housing. | ||
| Well, sure, I mean, Jerry, if the buyers pull back, then they wouldn't be taking advantage of the way they are. | ||
| Well, sure. | ||
| So six years ago, inflation or interest rates were down. | ||
| You're entering the market with an interest rate maybe at five. | ||
| I mean, in recent years, it was low as three. | ||
| So people want to get in then at that point. | ||
| And now interest rates are six, seven percent. | ||
| So, you know, people are reluctant. | ||
| But so you have a seller's market six years ago, and now you're starting to look like you have a buyer's market. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is that what your family is telling you? | |
| Well, not really. | ||
| I think that at least in this region of the country and the in Westchester County where I live, which is a very, if you look at all of the lists of the most expensive places, it's always in the top five. | ||
| I still think it's a seller's market. | ||
| I can tell you that my daughter and my son-in-law, who are looking for housing, they've stopped because the prices are so high. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, they're ridiculously high. | |
| My issue is, will they ever come down? | ||
| I mean, even if they lateralize their highs. | ||
| But I don't prescribe to the fact that what's going on now is an economy. | ||
| Understood, Jerry. | ||
| We'll go to Barbara, who's been waiting there in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts. | ||
| Hi, Barbara. | ||
| Oh, we lost Barbara. | ||
| We'll go on to Tony, who's in Philadelphia. | ||
| Hi, Tony. | ||
| Hi, how are you? | ||
| Morning. | ||
| Money. | ||
| What I wanted to say was that, you know, I noticed I saw your last guest, great guy. | ||
| But one of the problems with people who study finance is they very often don't understand geopolitics and vice versa. | ||
| So, Tony, is this about the housing? | ||
| Is this about the housing market? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, yes. | |
| Because we're going into a recession, regardless of what the last guest said. | ||
| And the reason why is something that he did say was that the Chinese are saying, we're not talking to Mr. Trump. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| They're deliberately taunting Trump because they know as a narcissist, if they keep taunting him, he will continue with the tariffs. | ||
| And when the shells start emptying out, we're going to see if people stop spending, we're going to go into a recession. | ||
| That's what's going to happen. | ||
| And the Chinese, right now, if you look at Chinese social media, they're taunting us like crazy. | ||
| They're saying, you know, you don't need tariffs. | ||
| You need a revolution. | ||
| You let your oligarchs screw you royally. | ||
| And now, look at the situation you're in. | ||
| Don't blame China for that. | ||
| So you spent $10 trillion on wars for Israel when we spent our money on our citizens. | ||
| So they're prepared for any kind of economic downturn because they built up their infrastructure. | ||
| They built up their society with a strong social floor. | ||
| And we spent our money on useless wars for Israel for the past 20 years. | ||
| Okay, Tony. | ||
| So the president was asked about this report that showed home sales slowing and people saying it's due to uncertainties in the economy, turbulence in the market, recession fears, as you were just talking about. | ||
| Here's what the president had to say to the reporter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, on the economy, there was a slowdown as it relates to home sales in the month of March, the slowest pace since 2009. | |
| Is that an economic indicator, and perhaps the Treasury Secretary can weigh in on this as well. | ||
| Is that an economic indicator that concerns you about the broader U.S. economy? | ||
| No, they have very good numbers on housing today, extremely good numbers. | ||
| And that's despite interest rates, because, you know, if you look at what happened, everyone said, oh, I said I was going to get prices down. | ||
| I did. | ||
| Energy just hit $1.98 in a couple of states. | ||
| It's way down. | ||
| Energy is down. | ||
| We're about $64 a barrel when I came in, and we were looking at $89, $90, $95. | ||
| And by the way, that helps us solve the war, too. | ||
| Having those energy prices is a big incentive for Russia to also agree with solving the war problem. | ||
| Groceries are down. | ||
| When I was with you two months ago, you were complaining about eggs. | ||
| I said, I just got here. | ||
| I've been here for, I was here for about a week when the press started saying about eggs have gone through the roof. | ||
| I said, I just got here. | ||
| Tell me about eggs. | ||
| And they have been. | ||
| They went through the roof and you couldn't get them. | ||
| So we just had a big Easter egg hunt at the White House. | ||
| Thousands and thousands of eggs. | ||
| And the price was down 87%. | ||
| So we did a great job. | ||
| Housing is doing very well. | ||
| We should lower interest rates. | ||
| That's the Fed. | ||
| I hope they lower interest rates. | ||
| That's a smart thing to do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Be ahead a little bit, although already it's a little bit late. | |
| But in the end, we just have a great country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
President Trump in the Oval Office yesterday, when asked about the economy and the impact of it on housing, you heard his response there. | |
| The economy is doing great. | ||
| CNN has a fact check on what he said. | ||
| If you're interested, you can find it on CNN.com. | ||
| Trump lies about the price of eggs, groceries, and gas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're talking about housing and if the economy outlook is having an impact on your housing decisions. | |
| Listen to the Federal Reserve Cherry's at a conference earlier this month, and he outlined a range of forces shaping the housing market today, from the low mortgage rates that emerged during the pandemic to President Trump's new tariffs. | ||
| You have several things there. | ||
| The first is we just haven't built enough housing, and we haven't kept up with the demand for housing. | ||
| So there's an underlying shortage. | ||
| Before the pandemic, there was a real housing shortage. | ||
| And by the way, that's happening in many comparable democracies around the world. | ||
| The second thing is, lock-in, as you say. | ||
| There were very, very low mortgage rates during COVID, and people are kind of locked in. | ||
| It would be very expensive to move. | ||
| And that'll, of course, wear off over time. | ||
| You also mentioned the costs of materials that might be imported, lumber and nails and things like that. | ||
| And yeah, and also labor. | ||
| A lot of labor in the homebuilding business has been traditionally immigrant labor. | ||
| So yeah, the housing, the new, the sort of new build market may face some cost pressures as well. | ||
| That may very well be the case. | ||
| That's what we're hearing from homebuilders, for example, both on the labor side and on the materials side. | ||
| But even once these short-term things happen, we're still going to have not enough houses. | ||
| And so it's all, you know, I think for a long time, we're still going to see upward pressure on housing prices, you know, maybe until population growth slows or until we catch up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair at a conference earlier this month, talking about the housing market and what are the factors that are contributing to what we are seeing in prices right now. | |
| Let's go to Bob, who's in Spencervania, Virginia. | ||
| Bob, how is all this impacting you? | ||
| Well, let's put it this way. | ||
| I am a former journalist and I don't jump to conclusions. | ||
| I look at patterns. | ||
| My wife and I have been looking for a house now almost 10 months. | ||
| And one of the consistent problems that we've had is with realtors. | ||
| The realtors, they post pictures on various websites that are totally inaccurate. | ||
| The descriptions meticulously maintained. | ||
| The adjectives used are most of the time inaccurate. | ||
| Virginia happens to be a caveat emptor state, which I loosely translate as sucker beware. | ||
| So that is the biggest problem with basically price fix. | ||
| They tell the sellers that they can get so much for houses that are damaged, they're moldy, they have water damage. | ||
| This is a consistent problem. | ||
| And we've looked over 80 homes. | ||
| And I think we've only seen less than a handful that the description matches the reality. | ||
| These realtors are the biggest problem because they only care about their commissions. | ||
| They don't care about how they screw over the buyers. | ||
| And until there is some kind of regulation, I mean, there are truths in advertising laws, but they don't seem to apply to homes. | ||
| And people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. | ||
| As my wife put it, there are more protections at buying a used car for $10,000 than there are for paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a house that is damaged. | ||
| And let's not even get into flipping. | ||
| So, oh, we lost Bob there. | ||
| Crystal in Philadelphia. | ||
| Crystal, your turn. | ||
| Good morning, America. | ||
| Let me say this. | ||
| We have this delusional clown in the White House. | ||
| And you make a cult members, put him there. | ||
| I'm a retired person, me and my husband. | ||
| We've been in his home for 10 years. | ||
| There's repairs that need to be made. | ||
| You buy a home, you have to maintain it. | ||
| There's electrical problems. | ||
| I had an electrical guy come in, and he's going to fix that. | ||
| I have a leak in the tub upstairs. | ||
| I have a bucket, catch your water. | ||
| The plumber is going to fix that. | ||
| The roof, we put a hot coat on it. | ||
| Long and short, there's money to maintain your home, to keep your home. | ||
| My mortgage, we pay that, but I'm behind a month or so because I have to fix a home up. | ||
| I can pay the mortgage and have a roof over my head, and we can have no electric, don't pay the electric bill, don't pay the gas, water, a phone, like I'm calling on today. | ||
| America, Kamala had good plans to help us. | ||
| And you guys chose to put this guy in office. | ||
| And now we're all paying a price for this guy. | ||
| Please, people, we're in the streets. | ||
| We're in the streets and trying to tell our congresspeople to stop this foolish man deporting people, snatching people out. | ||
| This is what everybody has to pay for y'all's choices. | ||
| All right, Crystal. | ||
| Crystal in Philadelphia. | ||
| Bob in Ruskin, Florida. | ||
| Bob, you're looking for a home? | ||
| Well, you know, I've bought and sold homes for 40 years now. | ||
| And until the federal government gets involved in what way? | ||
| Well, the federal government has to enact some new bills that has to do with real estate agents, how they perform in their duties, the real estate brokers, the local city, and the taxes, and the title companies. | ||
| Buying a home today is a big scam. | ||
| That's the way it is. | ||
| And until there's federal actions and federal laws on the books and start putting some of these criminals in jail, the real estate is going to continue as it always has, and people are going to get ripped off. | ||
| So tell me what part of it is a scam? | ||
| Well, I mean, every part's a scam from the listing agent showing listings that are all fraudulent listings, and you go to the house, it doesn't even look like the pictures in their listings. | ||
| And then when you go there, the prices change. | ||
| Or when you call these new home builders, when you look at HOA and CDD and closing costs, if you go in with intentions of financing, they say, well, you got to use our loan department. | ||
| And then if you pay cash, you got to pay more in closing. | ||
| It's a total scam to buy a house today. | ||
| Bob, what do you think of this headline then? | ||
| Curious what you think on bankrate.com. | ||
| A new study showed that renting is increasingly more affordable than buying in most large U.S. metro areas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
More than closure. | |
| Well, when you look at renting, it's really not much than difference as far as the approach from the very first process of getting approved to rent. | ||
| I mean, and if you have a rental management company, if you're not making, you know, $4,000 a month, you can hardly even rent something for $1,000 a month if the rental management company is involved. | ||
| And then if, see, renting, if you rent something and you get sued, you're not going to lose your house because you don't own that house as rented. | ||
| A lot of people who have a lot of money, they'll rent a house because they're afraid of getting sued because if you get sued, you're going to lose your house and your car. | ||
| But if you rent something or if you have something financed, you know, they're not going to go after your car or your rental house. | ||
| But if you own a house, especially outright, and nobody's, you don't have a lien, you know, a mortgage on it, you're going to lose your house if you get sued. | ||
| All right, Bob, from this article, the takeaways. | ||
| On average, renting a home is cheaper than buying, paying a mortgage in all 50 of the largest U.S. metros in 2025, with the cost difference between the two growing in 38 metros since last year. | ||
| Nationally, an average mortgage payment costs 38% more per month compared to average rent. | ||
| And the metros with the smallest price gaps between renting and buying are mostly concentrated in the Rust Belt, including Detroit, Philadelphia, and Cleveland. | ||
| The biggest cost gaps between renting and buying are centered in the tech hubs of San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle. | ||
| I want to go to a hearing on Capitol Hill recently. | ||
| Harvard Economic Professor Edward Glasser testified about housing affordability last month and spoke about what's led to the rise in U.S. home prices. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We did this to ourselves. | |
| We did this to ourselves by stopping the natural genius of American builders, by restraining them over and over again, by making it impossible to figure out new ways to build. | ||
| Just look at what's happened to productivity in the construction industry. | ||
| Every other industry, right, it soars. | ||
| Construction has stagnated. | ||
| It has stagnated in part because our projects are tiny, which means that our firms are tiny. | ||
| And firms that have four people, six people, don't have research and development departments. | ||
| There was a time when construction was just as dynamic as every other industry, but because of this web of local land use regulations, it is no longer so. | ||
| The change in affordability reflects two things, right? | ||
| It reflects both the price of housing and the mortgage rates. | ||
| And I'm not a banking or a macroeconomist. | ||
| I study housing markets. | ||
| I study cities and other places. | ||
| So I'm not going to run down the litany of mistakes that my macroeconomist colleagues think that got us into the point where mortgage rates are currently what they are. | ||
| That's not my business, but that is a big part of it. | ||
| The other part of it that I am happy to talk about is the fact that housing is so much more expensive than it should be. | ||
| And I think this is an issue in which it used to be about coastal areas. | ||
| And now it is increasingly in Sunbelt cities where the inner ring areas have made it harder and harder to build. | ||
| And you used to see patterns in places like Atlanta where we built much more in the pricier parts of Atlanta in the 1970s and 1980s. | ||
| Now we don't. | ||
| Now we build in the lower density areas that are away from things. | ||
| And so I think this is no longer just a Massachusetts issue. | ||
| And that's in some sense what scares me about it: the places that were the escape valves for affordable housing in the U.S., the Houstons, the Atlantas, the Miamis, they're not turning into escape valves anymore. | ||
| And that just scares me. | ||
| And that's why I think having some national discussion, having some, even if it is largely symbolic, is just really important to recognize that we are going in the wrong direction as a country if we want to be a place where outsiders can come and forge a brighter future. | ||
| Economics professor from Harvard, they're testifying before Congress recently up on Capitol Hill. | ||
| And you can find that hearing on housing affordability if you go to our website, c-span.org. | ||
| We've got about 15 minutes left here in this conversation with all of you. | ||
| How has the economy impacted your housing plans? | ||
| We'll get back to calls here in just a minute, but first I want to let you know what's happening on the C-SPAN networks today. | ||
| At 10 a.m. Eastern Time, we'll have live coverage of a conversation with the European Central Bank board chair about stabilizing the global banking system. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then at 10 a.m. Eastern Time today, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt joins Axios in a conversation on the new media landscape. | |
| And we'll have coverage of that on C-SPAN 2, C-SPAN Now, our free video mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| And then later today, we continue our coverage of congressional town halls. | ||
| Well, this afternoon, Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts will give an update on his work on Capitol Hill to his constituents and talk about the president's agenda. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We'll have live coverage from Scotts Bluff for Nebraska at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, and our free video, that's our free video mobile app and online at c-span.org. | |
| Back to your calls. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ted in Raymond, New Hampshire. | |
| Ted, what are your housing plans right now? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, my housing plans is I bought an old trailer on my land, and as the age of the trailer gets up, the value of the trailer doesn't because of the age. | |
| You can't get a loan on a mobile home that as it ages. | ||
| But my point is that all the housing, especially for renters, I'm thinking everything should be based on minimum wage. | ||
| If somebody at McDonald's or somebody makes a minimum wage should be able to afford an apartment, maybe not a home, but an apartment. | ||
| I know people right now that if they don't live with kids or something, they're homeless. | ||
| And if you want a good indicator what the economy's doing, watch your homeless population grow. | ||
| It will grow faster than you can blink an eye. | ||
| And you need to make more mobile home parks, co-ops, where people may own their trailer, but they own the park. | ||
| Not everything has to be a five-story building with government rules and regulations. | ||
| Mobile home parks are fast to put up. | ||
| They can maintain them easier. | ||
| They can have their own water supply and sewer systems. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Ted in New Hampshire with his ideas. | ||
| Chris in Texas, what do you think about the housing market today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thanks for taking my call. | |
| You know, there's something called an inflation. | ||
| And, you know, I think the 10-year Treasury sat down at 4.3% yesterday. | ||
| Rates, or mortgage rates are 7%. | ||
| That's a wide, wide spread. | ||
| The spread used to be historically a lot closer. | ||
| So every lender out there is really who's stealing from every buyer. | ||
| But both political parties, you know, are in bed with the Jamie Diamonds of the world, and that's the big problem. | ||
| And go back to when Obama was president. | ||
| He passed that CD disclosure. | ||
| All that thing did was cost each buyer $1,000 extra closing costs. | ||
| He didn't know what he was doing. | ||
| Billback better didn't know what he was doing. | ||
| And here again, Trump, even though I voted for Trump, he's for the banks. | ||
| And when you go, and don't listen to the National Association of Realtors. | ||
| Y'all didn't do anything on it with this frivolous lawsuit that got all these, all the real estate brokers and realtors in trouble across the country. | ||
| And they used the discrimination thing against the realtors so that they could use Department of Justice money to do this lawsuit. | ||
| The attorneys made a lot of money, $80 million off of it. | ||
| Y'all didn't do anything about that. | ||
| And so nobody should be complaining about realtors when they get bullied around by all these judges. | ||
| That judge in Missouri, that guy should not be a judge anymore. | ||
| It's been ridiculous what had realtors and the National Association of Realtors, they have misrepresented every realtor across the country. | ||
| And so if you complain about your realtor, maybe you should complain about what's at the political people first. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Kiki in Massachusetts. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Hi, good morning, Greta. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I would like to echo some of the comments about how hard it is to look for a home. | ||
| And my partner and I just found a nice, beautiful, brand new townhouse, but we have to move about 30 miles away because we can't afford the town that we live in. | ||
| It's a beautiful town. | ||
| We're only seven miles from Boston. | ||
| And I haven't found any what I would call a fraud, but I will say that when I did start to look at these townhouses at this development, I did see something online. | ||
| And when I went to look at it, you have to read the fine print on the bottom of the picture where it says the picture may not represent what you will be looking at. | ||
| So it was misleading, but I wouldn't call it outright fraud. | ||
| Kiki, and why can't you afford the home, the community that you're in now, and you have to move how many miles away? | ||
| We're in Dedham, which is a beautiful town. | ||
| But it's like most towns that are too far from the city, it's very expensive. | ||
| So we're purchasing a beautiful townhouse in Bellingham for about, well, I probably should, I don't know if I should tell you, about $720,000. | ||
| But if we tried to purchase that here in Denham, it would be at least over $900,000, and that's way too above our price range. | ||
| So, are you going to sell the place that you're in right now to move? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're lucky that we don't have to sell it, but it's a small, old little home, but it has a lot of charm, but it needs too much work. | |
| So, we will be selling it eventually. | ||
| But I feel very lucky that we found this townhouse. | ||
| And now that we're in our late 60s, there's no maintenance and upkeep. | ||
| And just real quickly, the real estate market since the early 80s, where I used to follow it, has gone through so many swings. | ||
| I remember there was a GLET of home that builders built and the prices dropped. | ||
| And then you had the financial crisis of 2008, where too many people were giving mortgages. | ||
| I think we need something more consistent instead of these wild swings. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Jim, Gaithersburg, Maryland. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jim, good morning. | |
| Hi, good morning. | ||
| Happy Friday to everybody. | ||
| I just wanted to bring to everyone's attention a recent article from the New York Times. | ||
| I think it's been sped out all across the internet. | ||
| It's regarding boomers, baby boomers buying more houses than any other generation in the last, I think, two, three years, something like that, which is pretty surprising because, you know, I have a hard time imagining that baby boomers, you know, these individuals would be buying their first home at this point in time. | ||
| So my assumption is these are just rental homes, investments, and things like that. | ||
| So it's really difficult for newer generations like millennials, Gen Zs, to even afford a house with all this competition going on. | ||
| And then you've got all these investment firms that are just in the business for flipping houses, making houses into rentals. | ||
| So therefore, lowering the supply of actual houses that are available for sale and things like that. | ||
| So yeah, something has to be done about this because anyone who's trying to find their first home should be able to through any kind of means. | ||
| And that kind of reminds me of the discussion that you or the guest that you had yesterday talking about low fertility rates, how younger generations are not thinking about having kids. | ||
| And it's really because of that, because how can you think about kids by having a family if you can't even secure housing, a roof over your head? | ||
| All right, Jim. | ||
| So the headline that you were referring to, this is from the New York Times. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Boomers are buying the most homes again over most of the past decade. | |
| Millennials have purchased more homes than other generational groups, but not in 2024. | ||
| According to the National Association of Realtors, baby boomers accounted for 42% of the U.S. home sales between July 2023 and July 2024. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a rare exception in recent years. | |
| The only annual report since 2013 in which baby boomers were shown to have bought more homes than millennials was 2023. | ||
| How did millennials lose their rank to baby boomers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
One clue is that the percentage of first-time homebuyers, primarily millennials, now in their child-rearing years, dropped to a historical low, making up 24% of all buyers down from 32% the year before. | |
| And that's no surprise. | ||
| First-time buyers are facing limited inventory, housing affordability challenges, and difficulty saving for a down payment. | ||
| Baby boomers, by and large, simply have more cash in the bank. | ||
| Marjorie, Oakland, California. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Marjorie. | |
| I wanted to add to the agenda, the affordability agenda, the issue of insurance and the cost of utilities. | ||
| So this is adding not to development costs, but to maintenance costs, which are making affordability a real challenge, particularly for people like myself on fixed income. | ||
| Yeah, Marjorie, what was your electric bill like? | ||
| What's it been like in recent months? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's been hair raising. | |
| It's been just for gas and electricity. | ||
| It's been $400 a month, sometimes five during the winter. | ||
| And on top of that is, of course, my water bill. | ||
| So I've actually applied for some help with the utility costs because it's really stretching my resources. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Marjorie there in Oakland, California. | ||
|
unidentified
|
As many of you know, Pope Francis is lying in state 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. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The first pontiff from Latin America died Easter Monday at 88 years old. | |
| We'll have live coverage that begins Saturday morning at 4 a.m. Eastern Time on C-SPAN on the C-SPAN Now app and on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| Also happening this Saturday, C-SPAN will have live coverage from the Washington Hilton for this year's White House Correspondents Association dinner as various journalists are recognized with awards for their work in the field. | ||
| President Trump and members of administration will not be in attendance after declining an invitation from the association. | ||
| Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and veteran journalist Frank Sezno will join us in the studio during the dinner to discuss the annual event, the role of the Press Corps, and its relationship with the Trump administration. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We'll also give viewers a chance to call in and share their thoughts on the dinner and the president's decision not to attend, as well as his relationship with the media. | |
| Our live coverage begins at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| You can also watch on C-SPAN Now, the free video mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Jason in Perlin, Texas, we're talking about the housing market. | ||
| What are your thoughts? | ||
| My thoughts are keeping a home in the current economy. | ||
| That if you look at what's going on, especially in the IT sector, a lot of our jobs are being offshored overseas. | ||
| There was a recent Wall Street Journal article about the outsourcing, even in the oil industry down here in Texas. | ||
| So, I mean, there's a lot of outsourcing, and if you lose your job to that, then, I mean, how can you afford to keep a home that you've already purchased? | ||
| So it's tough. | ||
| Ted in Ocean View, Hawaii. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Ted. | |
| Hi. | ||
| It's good to talk to you again. | ||
| I haven't talked to you for a while. | ||
| I'm here on the big island of Hawaii, and I went out and bought a $16 framer's hammer. | ||
| And I built myself, I ordered some wood from Seattle, where I used to be from 48 years ago. | ||
| And I built my own house on a $10,000 one-acre lot. | ||
| And I don't even see another house. | ||
| I see oak trees and the Pacific Ocean. | ||
| And I recommend people investigate building their own house because it's really easy. | ||
| And since I did that, the year of the first Iraq war in 1989, I have not had a mortgage for 30 years. | ||
| And that allowed me to save my 401k up and have a nice retirement. | ||
| But a hammer is pretty easy to use and a saw. | ||
| And it's just a standard ranch, two-bedroom, two-bath, living room. | ||
| You know, it's a 1,400-square-foot house. | ||
| And I feel very fortunate, and I wish – this is a moment of hope for other people. | ||
| I hope that somebody can hear me and think about, yeah, I could buy a hammer and a plan and build my own house. |