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April 27, 2025 10:01-13:06 - CSPAN

03:04:57

Washington This Week

Participants

Main

amber athey

25:24

donald j trump

admin 08:27

kimberly adams

cspan 36:52

Appearances

brian lamb

cspan 00:40

jane mcmanus

00:48

Clips

barack obama

d 00:02

bill clinton

d 00:02

boris epshteyn

00:03

deborah jeane palfrey

00:14

george h w bush

r 00:02

george w bush

r 00:04

marty schachter

00:06

Callers

chris-2 in oklahoma

callers 00:08

donna in texas

callers 00:07

george in the colony of texas

callers 00:08

jim in rhode island

callers 00:07

johnny in florida

callers 00:03

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Washington Examiner previews the week ahead at the White House.
		And Mohsen Milani of the Center for Strategic and Diplomatic Studies at the University of South Florida on U.S.-Iran relations and the state of nuclear negotiations.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
		Join the conversation live at 7 Eastern Monday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org.
		Tonight 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.
jane mcmanus ▲ ● ▼		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, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on the C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Sunday, April 27, 2025.
		This week will wrap up the first 100 days of President Trump's second term in office.
		Over the last several months, the president and his team led an overhauling of the federal workforce, including tens of thousands of layoffs, locked down the U.S.-Mexico border, set off a trade war, and began the rollback of many programs and policies baked into how the government has run for decades.
		Our question this morning, is President Trump's first 100 days what you expected?
		Our phone lines are for Republicans, 202-748-8001, for Democrats, 202-748-8000, and for Independents, 202-748-8002.
		If you'd like to text us, that number is 202-748-8003.
		Please be sure to include your name and where you're writing in from.
		You can also contact us on social media.
		We're at facebook.com slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
		Now, President Trump will be marking the first 100 days in office for his second term in Michigan.
		Here's a story in the Associated Press.
		Trump will hold a rally in Michigan to mark his first 100 days in office, saying that it will be his first trip to Michigan since returning to the White House earlier this year.
		Trump will visit Macomb County on Tuesday, the White House press secretary said.
		The region is just north of Detroit, known as an automotive hub.
		President Trump is excited to return to the great state of Michigan next Tuesday, where he will rally in Macomb County to celebrate his first 100 days, Caroline Lovitt said on Wednesday on social media.
		Now, looking at some polling related to how the American people feel about Trump's first 100 days in office, there's an AP Nork poll that said, 100 days in, and the public feels Trump's presidency is proceeding mostly as expected.
		Most partisans agree they are getting what they expected from Trump's second term, but 84% of Democrats think Trump is doing a poor or terrible job as president so far, and 68% of Republicans think he's doing a good or great job.
		Looking at some additional polling here, ABC News has a story saying Trump has the lowest 100-day approval rating in 80 years.
		Majorities of voters disapprove of many of Trump's policies.
		A poll found.
		This is a ABC News Washington Post Ipsos poll.
		And nevertheless, he still beats Democrats in Congress in terms of trust to handle the nation's main problems.
		39% of respondents in this ABC News Washington Post Ipsos poll said they approve of how Trump is handling his job as president, down six percentage points from February, while 55 percent said they disapprove.
		The previous low in approval for president at or near 100 days in office in polls dating to 1945 was Trump's 42 percent in 2017.
		Now then, let's look back at how President Trump started his term in his inaugural address nearly 100 days ago, promising a golden age in America.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		The golden age of America begins right now.
		From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world.
		We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer.
		During every single day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first.
		Our sovereignty will be reclaimed.
		Our safety will be restored.
		The scales of justice will be rebalanced.
		The vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.
		And our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous, and free.
		America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before.
		I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success.
		A tide of change is sweeping the country.
		Sunlight is pouring over the entire world.
		And America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		One of the key markers of the presidency thus far has been the astonishing number of executive orders that the president has signed thus far.
		There's a story in the Wall Street Journal.
		Trump signed 26 executive orders at the start of his second term.
		The first batch of 137 implemented as of Thursday.
		That is more than three times as many as former President Joe Biden and over 100 more than the first three months of his previous term.
		The orders have varied from implementing global tariffs to banning paper straws in federal buildings.
		More than 80 lawsuits have been filed that challenge his executive orders on immigration, gender and diversity, and climate change.
		And here's a look of a chart marking the difference in Donald Trump's executive orders in this term compared to previous administrations, showing this 137 executive orders as of April 24th, compared to much lower numbers here for Joe Biden, Trump in 2017, Barack Obama, and George Bush in their first 100 days.
		Now, getting into some of those executive actions, executive orders, as well as other executive actions, there have been a total of 207, according to CNN, breaking down to about 38 on the economy, 52 related to the federal government specifically, including DEI, 38 again on the economy, 15 on climate and energy, 12 on immigration, 11 on national security, 11 on education,
		7 on foreign policy, 6 on health, and 55 on other issues.
		Now, again, our question this morning: Are President Trump's first 100 days what you expected?
		Let's start with Kyle in Truth or Consequences New Mexico on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Kyle.
unidentified		Thank you so much.
		Yes, and as I read it, it was about the question of whether or not in the first 100 days who I voted for, I voted for President Trump, is doing what I expected him to do.
		And largely, he is.
		He is.
		Now, where he's not, and this is a big one, I think this might be the biggest one, is Israel.
		Is Trump America first or Israel first?
		And we look at politicians like Thomas Massey, who personify leaving AIPAC out of the question, being America first.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Kyle, what would you like to see the president do differently when it comes to Israel?
unidentified		Well, you know, as a millennial combat veteran, we've been over there, and it's a lot of fun, but I wouldn't do it again.
		And there's no point in it.
		You know, boy, oh, boy, that's a really tough question.
		There's a lot of books to read about it, a really lot of experts about it.
		I'm not one of them.
		Oh, boy, oh, boy, Hannah Arendt.
		Oh, my goodness, my gracious.
		I'm from New England.
		My gosh, what accent do you want me to give you?
		That's not the, but come on now.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		That's a tough question.
		That's a really tough question.
		You know what I mean?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Is there anything else about the president's first 100 days that stands out to you, Kyle?
unidentified		Well, that's the biggest.
		I'm going to be honest with you.
		That is what I believe to be the biggest theme is that break, that friction.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		America first, Israel first.
unidentified		Which is it?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's hear from Tyrone in New York on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Tyrone.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		Yes, he's pretty much doing what I expect him to do when he left this country.
		I mean, when he left the White House the last time, you know, millions of Americans was dying.
		Our job, unemployment was going up.
		He refused to turn over power like he's doing now.
		You have a flat disregard for our Constitution and the laws of our country.
		And this is pretty much what I expected of him.
		I'm not surprised that he's signing executive orders, fighting judges, fighting against our country as a whole.
		He had our capital attacked.
		We would not have had our capital attack if he wasn't president.
		So he's doing pretty much what I thought he would do.
		And now he's attacking our health industry.
		Measles is coming back.
		He makes us a pariah on the international stage.
		He got our allies looking at our side eyes.
		He's pretty much doing what I thought he would do because this man is who he is.
		It is not, I'm not surprised that he's doing this.
		The shame that I have is that 160 million people is responsible for this man being president, U.S. citizens.
		And I say 160 million because you had 80 to 90 million people that did not vote, and you got 77 million that voted for him.
		So I just put them all in the same bucket.
		If the people don't participate in the path that this country takes, we deserve to lose it because we don't stand up for what we need and what we have.
		We take this thing for granted, and we will lose it.
		We will lose this country.
		And we take a lot for granted.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Al is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Al.
unidentified		Yeah, so he's doing exactly what he said he would do.
		I want to remind people: this president was adjudicated with all the cases sent against him in the left-wing media complex on election day.
		The big story the last hundred days is a non-consecutive term.
		Imagine if this was a Democrat, how much we would be talking about.
		This is historic.
		What is the message in that?
		A non-consecutive term for this president.
		I watched the correspondents' dinner last night.
		They were all patting themselves on the back last night, you know, making fun of the Fed, the fact that President Trump wasn't there.
		Why don't you find out why he wasn't there?
		Because you have a press that's been hostile.
		This is the honeymoon period, folks.
		Let's see what the press does in three and a half years.
		Did we forget about Russia Gate?
		Nobody's buying Hunter's paintings any longer.
		The press, the left-wing media, you still don't get it.
		Good luck.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Next up is Melvin in Richmond, Virginia on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Melvin.
unidentified		Good morning, Kimberly.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Kimberly, may you live long and prosper.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Answer the question of the day.
		He is doing exactly what I had expected also as a Democrat.
		I know that you have an economic background, so you're familiar with what the Forbes 400 is, correct?
		Well, Trump is listed as number 319 on the Forbes 400.
		And his main goal was to be number one.
		So he's using this presidency in any way that he can to move his status up to be number one.
		When he got elected, he got elected by taking the number one guy on the list to give him $250 million to get himself elected.
		And everything that he does that has an economic bent in it is there to further help him move up the line.
		These little social issues like DEI and immigration and abortion, those things he doesn't really care about.
		He cares only about money and what kind of money he can get put in his pockets.
		So when you hear him talk about the things that he loves, oh, he loves tariffs because he knows that if he can get those tariffs, he can get money into the coffers and then, of course, give his rich friends tax breaks.
		And in return, they will give him kickbacks, of course.
		You know, and of course, the American corporations, they know that, and so they cozy up to him.
		You know, Amazon and all of these tech companies, Facebook, you know, all the so-called big cap stocks, they all love him because they know that he's going to make them money, and in turn, they're going to give him money through his campaign facility and or through buying what his cryptocurrencies, his Trump meme coin.
		So.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Melvin, you mentioned several issues there, including the tariffs.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I want to go back to President Trump speaking in the Rose Garden earlier this month, announcing those new global tariffs in an event that the administration referred to as Liberation Day.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day, waiting for a long time.
		April 2nd, 2025 will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again.
		We're going to make it wealthy, good and wealthy.
		For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.
		American steel workers, auto workers, farmers, and skilled craftsmen, we have a lot of them here with us today.
		They really suffered gravely.
		They watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream.
		We had an American dream that you don't hear so much about.
		You did four years ago, and you are now, but you don't too often, and for many years and decades even, you didn't hear too much about.
		Our country and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years, but it is not going to happen anymore.
		It's not going to happen.
		In a few moments, I will sign a historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world.
		Reciprocal.
		That means they do it to us and we do it to them.
		Very simple.
		Can't get any simpler than that.
		This is one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history.
		It's our declaration of economic independence.
		For years, hardworking American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense.
		But now it's our turn to prosper and in so doing use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt, and it'll all happen very quickly.
		With today's action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again, greater than ever before.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Of course, the markets had quite a reaction to that announcement and the variety of changes we've seen to tariff policy since that announcement.
		This relates to a comment we received on Facebook from Mike Bullerman, who said to the question of whether President Trump's first 100 days were what he expected: no, I didn't expect him to single-handedly tank the markets.
		I should have known better.
		Looking back at that AP Nork poll, it breaks it down across several policy areas.
		And when it comes to the economy, President Trump has an overall 37% approval rating on the economy, but just 12% of Democrats approving 27% of independents, but 72% of Republicans approving his performance on the economy.
		And when it comes to trade negotiations with other countries, 37% overall approval rating again, 13% Democrats, 29% Independents, 68% Republicans.
		A few more comments we received on social media and text.
		Ricky James said, yes, he's doing what he promised, getting rid of illegals, securing the border, and lowering gas prices and giving press conferences, unlike Biden.
		Gary Gonzalez says, Doge has surprised me with so much more waste, fraud, and waste, and fraud than I thought was imaginable.
		We are broke financially and it has to stop now.
		Lawrence Rose says he's done what he said he would do, which is more than most presidents do in their first 100 days.
		He accomplished a lot.
		And people who voted him voted for him and will give him that latitude to achieve as much as he can in these four years.
		And we just got to remember a whole lot better than the alternative.
		All right.
		Now let's get back to your calls.
		Alvie is in Colorado on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Alvie.
unidentified		Good morning, all my relations, and to you as well.
		The economy and what I thought that he would do to it, he's doing exactly what I thought in general, not specific.
		I took my 401ks out.
		I cleaned out, so I saved money.
		It cost me a lot of money, but I saved money.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, because of what's happened with the just for clarification, did you pull out of your 401k before your retirement age and have to pay a penalty for that?
unidentified		Well, I did have to pay a penalty, and yes, I did because I still have a couple more years before I can retire.
		But it so happened that I'm an over-the-road truck driver.
		I'm retired from doing plumbing and retired from doing electrical in Colorado in the elite area of Colorado, Aston, Glenwood, Carbondale, Vale area.
		My point is that he is doing exactly what they have written that they would do.
		And most people are not even acclimated as I talk to them and interact with them because, as I said, I'm an over-the-road truck driver now, and I drive out to the Oakland ports.
		Now, the tariffs out there from what I heard last week are affecting the cargo that is coming in.
		I can't see that because I am a cargo carrier out there.
		I go out to the Midwest and pick up pork, chicken, and beef and take it to the port that goes overseas.
		And then I bring back other commodities like wine and whatever.
		But my point is that he has done exactly what he said that he was going to do with the tariffs.
		And I knew this, that it was going to destroy everything because they could stop buying from us, but they're not going to.
jim in rhode island ▲ ● ▼		We're the ones that are buying from them more than they are buying from us across the table, period.
unidentified		Plain and simple.
		He hasn't blinked.
		America is the one that's blinking right now, trying to figure out what they're going to do.
		Because our economy is not in devastation right now.
		However, it has implemented that it could be really dominant.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Tom is in Smithfield, North Carolina, on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Tom.
unidentified		Oh, yes.
		Good morning, Timberlake.
		I think we have to recognize what the president's job description is.
		And there's really no written job description for that.
		He gets elected by the people, and then the people put their faith in him and making proper business decisions.
		And I think he's delivered on that.
		His board meetings or his cabinet meetings are very similar to his board meetings that he had during the apprentice.
		And so that visibility discloses what the accountability is in our government.
		And there's no question there's a lot of waste in our government, a lot of tax dollars going to different places.
		That once the treasury releases the money, we don't really have an accountability where it goes if it's going to the proper locations and where it should be going.
		But I think he's doing the best job he can do.
		He's got some good people.
		Again, that job description, I don't think anybody could write that job description because as a president of the United States and as a government official, everybody deals with day-to-day problems, day-to-day negotiations with foreign leaders.
		And, you know, we just try to get along as best we can and do the best we can with our job.
		And I think he's doing pretty good compared to the previous administration.
		That's all I have.
		All right.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Emma is in North Carolina on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Emma.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Well, my thing is, I don't like what he's doing.
		And the other column, they don't like what he's doing.
		Everybody is going to suffer.
		They don't like what he's doing.
		I don't like it.
		You don't like it.
		Nobody around the world likes what he's doing.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Some of our callers already have said they do like what the president's doing so far.
unidentified		I hear there.
		But here in North Carolina, don't nobody like what he's doing.
		Who's going to take people jobs?
		This man has took millions and millions of jobs, bro.
		Come on now.
		This is not good.
		But at the end of the day, the same ones got on here days after days now.
		They're going to see it.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Emma, are there particular policies that Trump has enacted thus far that you think are particularly troublesome?
unidentified		Excuse me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Are there particular things that Trump has done so far that worry you or bother you the most?
unidentified		Yes.
		Taking those children and those women.
		I don't care about the men.
		You're talking about the deportations.
		Excuse me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Are you talking about the deportations?
unidentified		Yes.
		Yes.
		That's not good.
		At the end of the day, when all this damn breakdown close that damn, stop that one, they gonna see.
		We gonna see, now we gonna see.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Doug is in Ohio on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Doug.
unidentified		Hi, I got to say one thing.
		It's been the longest 100 days of my life, it seems like.
		The economy's going crazy.
		I mean, the terrorists are rotting.
		He's deporting people.
		He's scaring hardworking Americans, you know, and even the ones that are here legally and illegally.
		I mean, he's just, he's scaring the heck out of people.
		And, you know, and it's crazy.
		It's like he's trying to take away people's voice.
		He's trying to take away our rights, like freedom of speech, freedom of action, all that.
		But mainly, let the American people, he took a great economy that Joe Biden had, and he's destroyed it.
		Now he's trying to blame Biden.
		Biden was a great president, and Trump is a terrible president.
		Obama was a great president, and Trump is a terrible president.
		I think the American people are dumb for voting back in.
		And I'm glad I didn't vote for the man.
		But he's going to destroy this country if we don't stop him now.
		Thank you very much.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Once again, our question this morning.
		Are President Trump's first 100 days what you expected?
		Our phone line for Republicans 202-748-8001.
		For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Several folks have mentioned so far the performance of the stock market since President Trump came into office for his second term.
		The Wall Street Journal has actually made a chart comparing the performance of the S ⁇ P 500 change from Inauguration Day through April for several past administrations, looking here at the difference between Bush 2001, Bush 2005, Obama 2009, Obama 2013, Trump 2017, Biden 2021, and Trump 2025.
		So with Trump waging a trade war and clashing with his Federal Reserve chair, stock indexes have declined since the president took office.
		Stocks rallied after Trump appeared to soften on China tariffs and the Federal Reserve.
		But overall, the SP 500 index is down 8.5% since Inauguration Day.
		During the first 100 days of George W. Bush and Barack Obama's administrations, the stock market declined sharply, driven by the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2001 and the 2007-2009 recession.
		The index rebounded in 2009 to finish Obama's first 100 days up 8%.
		All right.
		Back to your calls.
		Robbie is in Coronado, California on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Robbie.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How you doing?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
unidentified		And you said the question was.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Are President Trump's first 100 days what you expected?
unidentified		Yeah, it is.
		It is.
		He's out for retribution.
		We're not just legislating.
		This man is just out to tear down America.
		He'll tell you that Americans didn't tear down, but he's doing what he wants to do.
		They're not legislating.
		We are no longer with three branches of government.
		It's a shame.
		It's a shame that America have to stand on a child's dream.
		This is his dream.
		He wanted to be the richest and the powerful man in the world, and he got it.
		This is what he wanted.
		He got people to back him up.
		Republicans, this is all on their hands.
		This is their nominee.
		This is what they wanted.
		And now they can't even and now they back.
		They're not doing anything.
		They're not legislating.
		This is not America anymore.
		This is a mob.
		It's pretty sad.
		You know, for so many years, America went with three branches of government.
		Now we only got one man doing all this.
		Come on, y'all.
		We can do better than this.
		It's sad.
		I'm sorry.
		It's hard to say.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Bradley is in West Virginia on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Bradley.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		You like some pretty weather back behind you there.
		I support Trump 100%.
		He has done more in the 100 days than Biden has done in his whole term.
		You know, for years I've been debating on what to do.
		September the 10th, I turned 75 and I was a diehard Democrat.
		The Democrat Party is completely insane.
		They're in the dugout with the gates shut.
		We need to bring America back.
		We need to bring our jobs back.
		The Democrat Party, if they would just help a little instead of fighting, they'd make America great.
		You cannot buy nothing.
		Nothing.
		Hardly made in America.
		I just bought two tamping chairs, one for my wife for her birthday, and I bought another one.
		And when I read up on them, both of them was made in China.
		I called the people and told them if I know they'd been made there, I wouldn't have bought them.
		But I had to drive, probably spent $20 in gas to go take them back.
		I was complaining to the lady, which would be the receptionist for the company.
		She told me that they were moving to Vietnam from China.
		I told her, I said, you go tell your boss anything with his name on it when he goes to China, where I am a Vietnam veteran.
		We lost 40-some thousand GIs over there.
		They're taking their jobs.
		Wake up, Democrats.
		And I told her, I said, I'll never buy another thing the day you move to Vietnam.
		America needs to straighten up.
		The Democrats need to get out of the dugout and start supporting doing something for America.
		That's what Trump's doing.
		That's why he's doing so good.
		And listen, wake up.
		Wake up.
		That's the main thing.
		It's pitiful these judges as ruling again, put their butts in jail.
		Okay.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		TJ is in Chicago on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, TJ.
unidentified		Yeah, it's a doggone shame.
		We got 100 years out of 100 days of disgrace, and everybody is saying a lot of things about Trump.
		But let me tell you something about me.
		I'm 70 years old.
		I'm retired from the VA.
		And I have realized a long time ago, like from 1971, that Donald Trump wasn't nothing but a liar, a thief, and a kind man.
		He talks loud, and he makes people believe that what he's saying is true because he won't give you a chance to check it out because by the time you check that lie, he's already into another one.
		I understand how the people in this country feel.
		I worked with veterans for the last 22 years before I retired.
		And I talked with a lot of them.
		A lot of them, when Trump was running the first time, they were for that.
		You know, but when I spoke with them and told them about things that he did, this man used to get on the phone and call the newspapers and call journalists and tell them lies, pretending like he was somebody else, disguising his voice.
		You can look this stuff up.
		It's the truth.
		You know, disguising his voice and saying, oh, so-and-so and so-and-so is in love with Donald Trump and blah, blah, blah.
		And then one of the journalists said, wait a minute, wait a minute.
		You sound like Trump.
		And he went from that to what's that paper?
		The national.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned that you used to work for the VA.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What are your thoughts on the cuts to the VA staff as well as throughout the federal government that Doge has been doing since Trump came into office?
unidentified		Man, yes.
		I mean, I'm sorry.
		And good morning to you.
		I'm sorry.
		I'm just so hyper about this.
		My wife still works there.
		She's been working there over 40 years.
		Soon she'll be retired maybe in the next few years.
		But it's like the things that, okay, she came home one day.
		She was upset a little bit about it.
		You know, she got that call.
		I mean, got that email talking about, you know, fill out something that you did, five things you did yesterday or whatever it was.
		And, you know, I still talk to a lot of the people there.
		So they were explaining to me how some of them wasn't going to do it and some of them was going to do it.
		My wife is a supervisor, so she just did it, you know.
		And when she came home and told me she did it, she thought I was going to say something bad about it.
		I said, no, you know, you do what you feel because either way it go, this stuff ain't real.
		All he's doing is playing a game, trying to keep people from looking at the picture.
		You know, I always keep the money.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I do want to follow up on this point about Doge because going back to that Wall Street Journal article looking at federal employees, the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, has touted massive cuts in federal spending largely by reducing the federal workforce.
		Around 75,000 government employees took a voluntary buyout in the first few months of Trump's term.
		Tens of thousands more federal workers have been laid off, though many have been at least temporarily reinstated by court orders.
		On a Tesla earnings call this month, Musk said he would be devoting significantly less time to Doge beginning in May.
		This chart here showing the difference in the staffing levels of the federal workforce across multiple administrations with a pretty obvious sharp decline here in the Trump administration compared to previous administrations.
		President Trump back in February held his first cabinet meeting of his second term and Elon Musk was in attendance and the president talked about his goals for Doge.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		One of the most important initiatives is Doge and we have cut billions and billions and billions of dollars.
		We're looking to get it maybe to a trillion dollars.
		If we can do that, we're going to start getting to be at a point where we can think in terms of balancing budgets, believe it or not, something you haven't heard in many, many years, decades actually.
		And it's a big, whether it's this year or next year, I think we'll be very close to balancing budgets.
		And the Doge is very important.
		And Elon is here to give you a summary of what's happening, some of the things they found, some of the horrible things they found, some of the theft and fraud, and we call it waste and abuse, but a lot of fraud and probably some fraud that we're not going to be able to prove is fraud.
		But when you hear the names in the places where this money's going, it's a disgrace.
		But we've requested that a lot of people, we want to make sure that the people are working.
		So letters were sent out, and I think everyone at this table is very much behind it.
		And if they aren't, I'd want them to speak up.
		But they're very much behind it.
		Letters were sent out to people just to find out if the people exist.
		Do they work?
		Who do they work for?
		Where are they?
		Where have they been working?
		Have they been working for other companies or other entities at all?
		Being paid by the government.
		So they have two jobs, but they're supposed to have one.
		And the letter asks some simple questions like, what have you done lately?
		And they can answer that, because I can.
		I can tell you everything I've done for the last long period of time, a lot more than a week.
		And in many cases, we haven't gotten responses.
		Usually that means that maybe that person doesn't exist or that person doesn't want to say they're working for another company while being paid by the United States government.
		So there's a lot of interesting things.
		It's very unique, but we have a very unique situation because we have a lot of people that were scamming our country.
		We have a lot of dishonest people.
		We have a lot of people that took advantage of a lot of different situations.
		And we're not going to let that happen.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Back to your calls on whether Trump's first 100 days are what you expected.
		Let's hear from Roseanne in San Diego on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Roseanne.
unidentified		Hi.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I think he's doing much, much worse than I expected.
		I expected the cruelty and the lack of human compassion.
		That was a given.
		I did not expect him to tank the economy, destroy so many people's livelihoods.
		And I didn't expect him to let Elon Musk, who was never neglected, to take a chainsaw to our lives.
		I didn't expect that at all.
		I think Doge is a sham.
		And, you know, we're going to pay the price.
		It may take a couple of years.
		It may take a couple of months.
		It may take the next presency.
		But we are going to pay the price for what this man is doing to us today.
		That's all.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		John is in Milan, New Hampshire on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Hi, how are you doing?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
unidentified		I think that Donald Trump is the greatest president in our lifetime.
		What he is doing to this country right now is straightening out the mess we've been in for the last 40 years.
		I think a lot of people out there hate Donald Trump so bad, and they have Trump derangement syndrome.
		I do believe that that is a real thing.
		This country is going to be great.
		It's going to take time because this country is in a mess right now.
		But if people have patience, they will see that this country will get straightened out and this will be the greatest country in the world again.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So, John, which of the president's policies that he's enacted thus far in his second term are you most in favor of?
unidentified		I am most in favor of the policies with the border.
		What he's doing with this economy, I think, is a great everything that he's doing right now is for the future.
		This is not going to happen overnight.
		But everything that he's doing right now is very smart and calculated.
		People don't think he has a plan.
		I know he has a plan.
		What he's doing right now is setting us up for the next 40, 50 years.
		By bringing the manufacturing back to this country, we are going to be the greatest country in the world.
		A country that doesn't make their own stuff is going to be a country that's going to fall quickly.
		And that's where we're at right now.
		We're at the breaking point.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Pew Research asked in their own survey a similar question.
		What do Americans like most and least about the Trump administration's actions so far?
		And the top issue here, immigration actions, 20% like that the most.
		And this was an open-ended question.
		How Trump governs, 11%.
		Reducing government, Doge, 9%.
		Tariffs and trade, 6%.
		Other economic actions, 3%.
		Foreign policy, 2%.
		And then puts America or the American people first, 4%.
		And our previous caller was mentioning several of these things in terms of what people like least, 11% like the immigration actions least, 22% like the way he governs least, and on tariffs and trade in particular, 15% put that at the top of their list in terms of things they like the least about the Trump administration's actions so far.
		Let's hear now from Norma in Tustin, Mississippi on our line for independence.
unidentified		Good morning, Norma.
		I have never, ever in my lifetime been so scared.
		My husband and I are on Social Security, and every month we are overdrawn at the bank because we can't make ends meet on Social Security.
		I'm scared.
		I'm absolutely scared.
		I'm scared what I hear about the veterans.
		And when they went in with the Doge and what they've done to the federal workers, there's a lot of other ways that they could have handled that.
		Gore, when he was vice president with Bill Clinton, they did the same thing.
		They went in to the federal government and examined all of the jobs to clean out, to do what Trump thinks they're doing now.
		And they cleaned up the government just fine.
		The people that didn't need to be there were gone.
		There's just so many other ways that could have been handled.
donna in texas ▲ ● ▼		And to have Musk in there, that was, I mean, oh my Lord, have mercy.
unidentified		And then they think he's so great about the economy.
		Well, look at his record for his businesses and his bankruptcy that he's had over the years.
		I have never been so scared in all my life.
		He's going to bankrupt the company or the country.
		And the first administration in four years, he spent more money in four years than any other president that's ever been elected.
		And for me, I watch the stock market.
		I do not own stock, but that's what I watch to give an idea of what's going on and watching the stock market go down like it has.
deborah jeane palfrey ▲ ● ▼		And the other thing, if somebody takes him and criticizes him or disagrees with him, then in his rallies, he's calling these people names.
unidentified		What kind of person does that?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Norma, I want to follow up.
		Go ahead.
		You said his cabinet.
unidentified		His cabinet is, he's got incompetent people in his cabinet.
		And of course, right now, in the news, it's the Department of Defense.
		And that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So, Norma, I do want to follow up on the point that you made about the Department of Government efficiency because there's a story in the New York Times this morning saying that the Doge savings could be offset by firing costs.
		President Trump and Elon Musk promised taxpayers big savings, maybe even a Doge dividend check in their mailboxes when the Department of Government Efficiency was let loose on the federal government.
		Now, as he prepares to step back from his presidential assignment to cut bureaucratic fat, Mr. Musk has said without providing details, the Doge is likely to save taxpayers only $150 billion.
		That's about 15% of the $1 trillion he pledged to save, less than 8% of the $2 trillion in savings he had originally promised, and a fraction of the nearly $7 trillion the federal government spent in the 2024 fiscal year.
		The errors and obfuscations underlying Doge's claims of savings are well documented.
		Less known are the costs Mr. Musk incurred by taking what Mr. Trump called a hatchet to government and the resulting firings, agency lockouts, and building seizures that are mostly wound up in court.
		The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that studies the federal workforce, has used budget estimates, has used budget figures to produce a rough estimate that firings, rehirings, and lost productivity and paid leave of thousands.
		I'm going to have to get to the next page that will cost upwards of $135 billion this fiscal year.
		And so let's get back to your calls.
		Robert is in Worcester, Massachusetts, on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Robert.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Ignorance comes with a lack of education.
		Donald Trump cut the education department.
		Now, most people that are ignorant voted for Donald Trump and they're not educated.
		And first of all, the Ku Klup Klan is rose again in the last 100 days.
		Atlanta, Georgia will never rise again.
		What Donald Trump did in the first 100 days, he let Nazism, white supremacy, he abolished the Proud Boys, he abolished the Oath Keepers.
		And Donald Trump said there's good people on both sides.
		Now, that's an ignorant man.
		Okay, now, the Supreme Court, too, within 100 days.
		I have a little teeny faith in them because you're buttoned back against this man.
		Now, in Charlottesville, David Duke was at Charlottesville when Donald Trump said there was both people on both sides.
		And David Duke was a Ku Klux Klan member.
		He's the first man to take that white robe off himself and put on a black robe.
		That's the Supreme Court.
		Now, another thing Donald Doge had left.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Are there specific things that Trump has done in his first hundred days in terms of actual policies that you take particular issue with?
unidentified		My policy is that when he talks about going into Canada, he's talking about going into Greenland.
		He's letting Kutchin go into Ukraine so he can go into Poland.
		Donald Trump, he's locking people up without duty.
		Matter of fact, okay, let me tell you one thing.
		He let out 1,500 people that had an insurrection talking about killing Nancy Pelosi and hanging Mike Pence.
		They went and handed Paul Pelosi.
		This is getting very dangerous.
		When you have senators and congressmen have to carry pistols and guns and security, and you're going into places like Ray in Tennessee on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Ray.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yes, I've listened to the last few people that expressed their opinions.
		And it just seems like to me that there's a whole lot of paranoid people in this country.
		And they're not listening and they're not paying attention to both sides.
		Now, since Donald Trump's been in office, it's him and his whole cabinet and people that work for him have worked their tail off to try to straighten this country out and get us back to a normal country.
		And if you're not, that lady that said she's so afraid, what are you afraid of?
		The last four years were a mess.
		We did not even have a president.
		We had people behind the scenes running this country.
		Now we got a leader, and he's working hard.
		And what the rest of us need to do is get on our job, do our job, and quit listening and quit to the mainstream media that is throwing this stuff out there, trying to block everything that's going to be done that needs to be done in this country.
		If you can't see that, then you're blind.
		You're listening to the wrong side, and you're not investigating and finding out the exact truth of what's going on.
		And if we don't do this, we're going to lose this country.
		And all you people that are paranoid, you need to get a hold of yourself and find out the truth about what's going on.
johnny in florida ▲ ● ▼		He is doing a great job, and he is a good president.
unidentified		He is going to go down in history as one of the greatest.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		A previous caller did make a comment that people who voted for Trump were not educated, and that's not accurate.
		This wanted to bring up some statistics about that.
		This is from the Washington Post, looking at exit polls from the 2024 election, how people with different levels of education voted.
		And even though people with college degrees did vote, the majority of them voted for Kamala Harris, 42% of Americans with college degrees did indeed vote for President Trump.
		Let's hear from Steve in Dennis, Massachusetts on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Steve.
unidentified		Hi, how are you?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
unidentified		Good.
		This is a really, really excellent format because you're getting all sides, which doesn't seem to happen a lot.
		As far as the question, I would say that to me, it's extreme, but it's also something that has to be done.
		This has been going on for 40-plus years that kind of sold us out bit by bit.
		So I think that he's really trying to get us back the way that we were before.
		And it's going to hurt.
		That's the thing that people don't like.
		It's going to hurt us.
		You know what I mean?
		It takes time.
		My wife lost tons of money in the stock market, so she's not happy, of course.
		But I think in the long run, this is going to work out for America.
		He's not going to be popular for doing it, but hopefully it all works out.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Karma is in Zephyr Hills, Florida, on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Karma.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would like to say all this business about the tariffs.
		He said he was doing it to bring manufacturing back to America, but it seems like he's doing it just so he can make better deals so that companies can remain in the countries that he's put the tariffs on.
		And I just don't know which way he's going.
		Is he bringing manufacturing back or is he doing it for better deals?
		And if you've been to the grocery store lately, I bought a pack of meat for lunch meat that's a third smaller than the pack of meat I bought the month before.
		He's done nothing about inflation.
		And he's everybody's talking about how great he is.
		But to me, it just seems like a man can't make up his mind.
		He's using the military.
		He's spending hundreds of million dollars a month to put the military on the border when they're just standing around, putting a barbed wire fence and standing around because people quit coming in the middle of last year.
		I mean, they said that's caught like maybe 200 people a month for the last six, eight months.
		Why do we need 10,000 soldiers doing a civilian job?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So, Karma, the administration says the reason that those crossings have declined is because that timing that you just laid out lines up with pretty much when President Trump was elected and then when he came into office.
unidentified		Well, I heard that it started going down drastically in around September, October 2024.
		And then when he became president, it went down even further.
		And then he puts the military there.
		I mean, are you not questioning how much money he is spending on this?
		I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars instead of just hiring more border patrol.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And I'll get to the job.
		A couple more folks before we have to end this segment.
		But first, I want to get to some comments that we've been getting on social media in response to this question of whether President Trump's first 100 days are what you expected.
		Shelly Washington says on Facebook, considering it's all laid out in Project 2025, yes.
		Joe from Big Rapids, Michigan says, his actions denying people their constitutional rights, hiring his rich friends, and lining his pockets with taxpayers' money is exactly what I expected.
		But what I didn't expect was that the three branches of our government would cower to his bully tactics.
		Peg Alexis says on Facebook, yes, it's why I voted for him.
		He knows he has a short window of time to get financial issues worldwide straightened out.
		He warned us that it's going to be hard and asked us to hang in there with him during this time.
		His three-legged plan needs to come together to achieve it.
		It's not easy, but they have a solid plan.
		I have faith that nothing comes that worthwhile without a little pain, and we'll all see good things come to all of us in the end.
		And Patty Duke says, No, this is worse than I expected.
		I expected he would put Putin in his place and stop the war on the Ukrainian people.
		I expected he would MAGA make America great again, not put thousands of Americans out of work, not tank the economy.
		Let's hear from Mark in New York on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Mark.
unidentified		Hi.
		A lot has been spoken about domestic policy, but let me say something about foreign policy.
		First of all, I voted for Trump.
		I support Trump.
		Where I think he is a little bit, let us say, problematic is his predictability in what he's going to do in the world.
		Two problems.
		Number one, not using an accomplished politician expert like Marco Rubio to negotiate deals, for example, with Iran, and using his friends from the real estate industry to do that.
		Many of my friends I've spoken to, people are absolutely amazed at this.
		You know, negotiating with Iran is tremendously complicated.
		Similarly, Ukraine also.
		Having these, you know, press-wise, Trump is great.
		He talks to the press, and no one can fault him for having these press conferences and talking to the press.
		But to sit with Zelensky in the Oval Office and basically berate him in front of the American people is not effective in making progress in solving the war in Ukraine.
		And also with Netanyahu.
		You know, Netanyahu is sitting there, and Trump is telling him, would you please be reasonable with Iran?
		This is not the place for a president to make these kinds of statements with foreign leaders.
		This is done in private, and it is not effective to do this with your friends in the real estate business.
		It's not effective.
		It doesn't work.
		And it could potentially lead to a world crisis.
		I support the president tremendously, but I think he needs to reset his foreign policy direction and put more responsibility in the hands of the Secretary of State.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's hear from Dennis in Janesville, Wisconsin on our line for independence.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, gosh, this is what you get when you got a house of cards built on nothing but lies for the past 40 years.
		In 1999, when Bill Clinton left office for the first time since Ronald Reagan, there was a $199 million surplus in private pension programs, and nobody talks, nobody says.
		I contacted him in like 97 about when he passed NAFTA.
		I sent him a copy of a Fleetwood Mac album that had a picture of him and Bush from the NAFTA photos.
		And they looked like Beavis and Butthead.
		And I captioned it that I blew it up to an 8x10.
		I captioned Bush saying, let him eat cake.
		Our pensions are covered.
		And I put a picture of my wife's 30-year birthday cake next to it on the cover of Fleetwood Mac album and snapped it in four pieces and mailed it to him.
		Contents damaged prior to shipping.
		And he did something.
		He made GM sell off EDS $20 billion to shore up their pension program.
		This does not get discussed.
		Nobody talks about it.
		But people jumped in line.
		Whatever he did to them, by 2000, there was $199 million surplus in private pension programs for the first time.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And then I said just at a time, I'm just wondering what you are hoping the Trump administration will do in line with what you're laying out here.
unidentified		In the fourth, the state will step up and do what it's supposed to do.
		The reason we're in this mess is because they put him in office the first time.
		They put him in office a second time.
		And this country is just, you know, have a nice day.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Gail is in North Carolina on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Gail.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Okay, I'll make it quick.
		The people that support Trump are in a cult.
		He is the worst president in history.
		And if you look at the information about dictatorships, which I've been researching dictatorships, Trump is a dictator.
		And there's one thing that they have in common.
		They all have millions of people that die under their watch.
		Trump is completely devastating every facet of our lives.
		The USDA is no longer inspecting milk.
		You've got a man in charge of our North Carolina or the Department of Health and Human Services who has no medical degree, no science degree, no doctor.
		You've got our food that's not going to be inspected properly, which is going to cause disease.
		He's going to the universities.
		He's trying to take over the universities.
		He's trying to stop education.
		He's deporting people that are innocent, not giving them due process.
		He is making our military and our lives unsafe by having somebody in charge of the Department of Defense who is constantly doing things that putting information out online that's not doing his job, unqualified.
		He's making enemies with our allies.
		We're enemies with Canada, Mexico.
		Canada's not even selling United States U.S. products anymore.
		They took all the liquor from Kentucky off the shelves.
		We don't have tourism like we did before.
		Our tourism is down.
		So, Gail, we're just not getting free lunch for this summer.
		I'm just saying, these people that support Trump are going to get what they voted for.
		This man is a disaster and he is going to ruin this country.
		And we are going to pay the price.
		But these Republicans need to speak up and they need to get their tail in gear and they need to impeach the man.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's one last comment before we go from Facebook.
		Anna and Garcia DeVoe says, yes, promises made, promises kept.
		Draining the swamp, exposing fraud and corruption just for starters.
		Thanks to everybody who called in for this segment.
		Coming up next, we're going to hear from Cook Political Report Senior Editor David Wasserman, who's going to join us to discuss the latest analysis of the electorate and shifts in political polarization.
		And later, Daily Caller Senior Editor Amber Duke will be here to discuss media coverage of the Trump administration and press access at the White House.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		Next week on the C-SPAN Networks, the House and Senate return from their two-week congressional recess.
		The House will vote to repeal several of the Biden administration's emission standards rules.
		The Senate will vote on more of President Trump's nominations for U.S. ambassadors to China, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Italy.
		On Tuesday, after failing seven financial audits, financial officers from the Defense Department will appear before a House Oversight Subcommittee examining the DOD's financial practices, management of American taxpayer dollars, and its progress towards achieving a clean audit.
		Also, on Tuesday, as the Department of Education prepares to recognize its 45th anniversary, Education Secretary Linda McMahon will discuss why the department needs to be eliminated, how that can be done, and what American education would look like without a federal Department of Education.
		Live next week on the C-SPAN Networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app.
		Also, head over to C-SPAN.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime.
		c-span democracy unfiltered tonight on c-span's q and a sports journalist jane mcmanis 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.
jane mcmanus ▲ ● ▼		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, tonight 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.
		Washington Journal continues.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are joined now by David Wasserman, who is Cook Political Reports Senior Editor and Elections Analyst.
		Welcome back to Washington.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So the Cook Political Report recently released their 2025 Partisan Voting Index for all 435 congressional districts.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So what is this index and what kind of trends are you looking at among voters?
unidentified		Well, we first introduced it in 1997.
		It's a metric that allows us to compare the partisanship of every congressional district and state to the nation as a whole.
		And we used the last two presidential elections.
		And it's actually a lot of meticulous work to calculate the presidential results by congressional district because a lot of counties are split.
		So we compiled this over the course of the last few months.
		And what we found is that we're still a very polarized country.
		No big news flash there.
		But this was actually a slightly depolarizing election in 2024.
		Donald Trump did make inroads with working class voters of color and he actually gained more ground relative to 2020 in places like San Francisco, New York City, LA, even Fairfax County, Virginia, than he did in a lot of the stereotypically white working class parts of swing states, whether it was Wausau, Wisconsin, or Erie, Pennsylvania, or Saginaw, Michigan.
		And what that had the effect of doing is it actually reduced slightly the geographic polarization of the electorate.
		Donald Trump carried 230 out of 435 House seats, which is the exact same number that he carried in 2016, even though in 2016 he lost the popular vote by two points, whereas this time around he won the popular vote by one and a half points.
		And what that illustrates is that Trump, his gains were most concentrated in solidly Democratic districts with a lot of non-white voters.
		In fact, the top 25 districts that migrated towards Republicans in 2024, according to our index, all 25 of them were minority-majority districts.
		And those aren't necessarily going to be in play for the most part in 2026.
		What we've seen in the Trump era is that he's traded support among whites with college degrees for working class non-whites.
		And whereas the latter group mostly lives in non-competitive seats, whites with college degrees tend to live in suburban districts that are more competitive.
		And so the House is actually less skewed towards Republicans than it was in 2017 when Trump first took office.
		That puts Democrats a lot closer to the House majority.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		That's interesting because you're saying that Trump has had more success in more communities and yet it's making it potentially easier for Democrats to take the House.
unidentified		It's a bit counterintuitive, but what we've seen Trump do is the districts that are moving towards Republicans by the most aren't quite competitive yet.
		So for example, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's district in the Bronx and Queens actually saw the biggest increase in Trump support of any district in the country between 2020 and 2024.
		And Richie Torres' district in the Bronx, a number of districts in California that are still solidly Democratic.
		For example, AOC's district only moved from D plus 28 to D plus 17.
		That's still a pretty solidly Democratic seat.
		And there were a few seats, for example, in Texas that we saw movement into a more competitive column.
		So for example, Texas' 34th district in the Rio Grande Valley held by Democrat Vicente Gonzalez.
		The previous PVI score for that was D plus 9.
		In other words, it voted nine points more Democratic than the nation as a whole.
		That is now a dead-even district in our index.
		And so whereas the most Democratic trending seats tend to be in these mid-sized metro areas that are attracting left-leaning professionals for lower cost of living and outdoor amenities, places like Asheville, North Carolina,
		Colorado Springs, the district in California that include the Lake Tahoe area, we're seeing Republicans gain the most ground in places that are still not quite on the map.
		But there are 239 districts.
		There were 239 districts according to our index in 2017 that were more Republican than the nation as a whole.
		And what that reflected was back then, Republicans were kind of at the apex of their redistricting advantage.
		And so they had a big structural advantage in the House.
		Today, not only have Democrats gained ground in those suburban seats, but there are more districts that were drawn by courts or commissions in the last round of redistricting.
		So only 222 districts in our index today lean more Republican than the nation as a whole.
		And that tracks pretty closely with the current split in the House, which is 220 to 215.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, a new Pew Research poll found that with President Trump coming up on his first 100 days in office, just 40% of Americans approve of how he's handling the job.
		That's a decline of 7% from February.
		I know the 2026 midterms are pretty far off, but given the data that you're looking at and the president's approval rating, what does that tell us of what might be coming up in this next campaign for the House?
unidentified		So President Trump's approval has been somewhere in the mid-40s on average.
		We're beginning to see a few polls in the last week that peg it closer to the low 40s.
		So far, in his first 100 days, it's been higher than it was in the initial phases of 2017, but that's starting to come into question.
		Overall, there are three warning signs for Republicans that I see for the midterm elections, and that explains why Republicans are moving so quickly to try and enact an agenda while President Trump still has political capital.
		And the first warning sign is even though Trump's personal favorability has been higher than it was in his first term, Elon Musk's favorability has been lower.
		And Trump, thus far, his average has been somewhere at 46 to 52, 45, 53, somewhere in that range.
		Most of the polls we're seeing that test Elon Musk's favorability have Musk at something like 41 fave, 56 unfave.
		And that's ballot box poison.
		He's injected himself and a lot of his money into down ballot races that previously he had not taken an interest in.
		And whereas some independent voters give Trump credit for being ideologically flexible and not beholden to one party, so far in the data, they do see Musk as something more of an ideologue.
		And so with these Doge cuts, how long are the political nuptials between Trump and Musk going to last as we head into the midterm election cycle?
		The second warning sign I see is that Trump and Republicans they live and die on voters' views of cost of living.
		And what we noticed in 2024 was when we narrowed down our survey samples to just voters who were softly committed, were not firmly in the Harris or Trump camp, they skewed more female, younger, and more diverse than the rest of the country as a whole, which ought to suggested more upside for Kamala Harris.
		They had very negative views of both candidates, but the tell was that by 55 to 26, those uncommitted voters, they favored Trump.
		They believed in Trump more to lower the cost of living.
		But those voters aren't seeing it yet.
		Consumer confidence is down 18% since Trump was elected.
		Trump's economic approval is lagging his overall approval, which is a flip of what we saw in his first term.
		And so that is creating peril.
		And then finally, the partisan engagement gap between the parties is the opposite of what it was in the Obama era.
		It was generally true in the Obama years that when more people voted, Democrats did better.
		And the Obama coalition included a lot of newer participants to the process who were not reliable voters.
		And so when they showed up for Obama, Democrats did great.
		But when he was not on the ballot, Democrats got clobbered in the midterms of 2010 and 2014.
		Today we're seeing the opposite.
		And Donald Trump is getting a lot of his support from people who are on the periphery of political engagement and are loyal to him, but not necessarily other Republicans.
		And so it's going to be a challenge for Republicans to turn those voters out when he's not on the ballot.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We're going to be taking your questions for David Wasserman of Cook Political Report.
		Republicans can call in at 202-748-8001.
		Democrats at 202-748-8000.
		And Independents at 202-748-8002.
		Now, we've talked about the risks to Republicans, but Democrats also have some warning signs as well.
		There's polling.
		A Gallup poll earlier this month showed that confidence in Democratic congressional leadership hit an all-time low since the organization even started surveying going back to 2001.
		What's happening there?
		And what did you see in your own numbers when it comes to the Democrats?
unidentified		Yeah, Democrats' favorability as a party and Democrats' faith in their leadership is nothing to write home about either.
		In fact, it's lower than a lot of the job approval results we're seeing for President Trump.
		That said, the 2026 midterms are not likely to be a referendum on Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.
		Midterms are almost always referenda on the White House and the president's performance.
		And we saw that in 2018.
		Democrats didn't necessarily need a clear leader or a clear unifying message to win those midterm elections.
		Keep in mind, they picked up 40 seats in the House that year, even though they didn't take back the Senate.
		But in that scenario, Democrats, all they have to be is the alternative to the party in power.
		And so they have the luxury of being able to run candidates who have biographies and messages that fit each individual district.
		What I'll be curious to see is how many candidates on the Democratic side have personal stories to tell about what's gone on in the past few years.
		There are already rumblings of candidates who have been fired from federal jobs or who are considering running.
		An example would be the past few months.
		Okay.
		Or as a result of kind of being activated by the culture wars of the last few years.
		But an example from recent times would be Andrew Lennox in Michigan, a VA official who was fired from a probationary role, is reportedly considering running against freshman Republican Congressman Tom Barrett in a toss-up district around Lansing.
		So there could be Democrats from non-political backgrounds who come out of the woodworks and rally grassroots activism.
		One of the differences between now and eight years ago is it took longer for Democrats to get re-engaged.
		The reaction after Trump's first election in 2016 was very immediate with the women's march and a surge of female candidates running.
		This time around, Democrats were demoralized.
		They were fatigued after losing to Trump for a second time.
		But these doge cuts and the deportations have renewed Democrats' energy level, and we are seeing full town hall protests.
		We're seeing overperformances in special elections.
		And so in that sense, it's a similar political dynamic to the first go-round.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And also, there's some pretty big pending legislation in Congress having to do with tax cuts and potentially health care issues.
		There's a Democratic-aligned group called Save My Care running ads against a group of House Republicans that's warning of cuts to Medicaid per the House GOP budget that's been laid out thus far.
		Here's an ad that's running in Washington State, Republican Representative, Dan Newhouse's congressional district.
unidentified		Your representative in Congress, Dan Newhouse, just voted to slash our health care to help pay for massive tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.
		Over 70 million Americans count on Medicaid for their health care.
		And putting seniors, children with disabilities, working families, and rural hospitals at risk to provide another tax break for the wealthiest Americans is just plain wrong.
		Call Dan Newhouse and tell him, hands off Medicaid.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Should we be expecting to see more of these across the country?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		And you talk to Democratic pollsters.
		They are very intrigued by the idea of running on this issue in 2026.
		Obviously, Medicaid is not top of the news right now.
		It's a lot about deportation cases, El Salvador.
		It's a lot about the economy and tariffs.
		And yet, part of the cost savings in Republicans' tax legislation and the reconciliation bill would involve revisiting Medicaid funding.
		And Democrats know based on the polling that cutting Medicaid is very, very unpopular.
		In fact, the most recent Kaiser poll I've read found support for cutting Medicaid funding at 17%.
		And whereas Trump has advantages on the immigration issue in a lot of polls, tariffs are underwater in voters' eyes.
		And what are Republicans doing to try to combat some of the voters' skittishness around the economy and the failure to rein in inflation and cost of living so far?
		Well, they kind of have to lean into those culture wars similar to how Democrats were able to rally their side around the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 to kind of mitigate voters' frustration with the inflation rate under President Biden's term.
		So I'm not sure it's going to be as effective for Republicans to focus on issues like Deportations or transgender athletes.
		But Republicans are also hoping that that tax reform legislation and the reconciliation bill and trade deals that President Trump is hoping to strike with the EU, other nations, could lead to more economic optimism.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's take your calls with questions for David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report.
		We'll start with John in Gold Beach, Oregon on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, David.
		Yeah, I was just wondering, it seems to me like the voter or you know, the Republicans' organization as far as voter disenfranchisement, you know, disenfranchisement and the redrawing of districts and purging people off the voter rolls.
		I think that had more of an effect than it's just their organization, I think.
		What's your opinion?
		So the caller brought up the way districts are drawn, and this is actually going to be another rodeo in 2026.
		The redistricting cycle never ends.
		And in 2024, Republicans were able to redraw the district boundaries in the state of North Carolina because Republicans had taken a majority on the state Supreme Court.
		And that allowed them to effectively eliminate three Democratic seats.
		Well, what was the margin in the House at the end of the 2024 election?
		It was 220 to 215 in Republicans' favor.
		So if you had taken away those three seats from Republicans, Democrats would be in the majority by one seat.
		So that proved decisive.
		This time around, Republicans are hoping for a slight insurance policy in the form of Ohio, which needs to redraw its districts because per its state constitutional amendment, the districts that are in effect today are only valid through 2024.
		And Republicans, there are some limitations as to what they can do under state law, but they effectively control the process.
		The state Supreme Court is friendly to Republicans and unlikely to rein in whatever the state legislature or the redistricting board does.
		And they could eliminate or redraw two districts in northern Ohio and one in the Cincinnati area to be friendlier to Republicans.
		And that would kind of play keepaway for the House majority, considering that Democrats only need to pick up three seats to get to that magic number of 218.
		There are also some outstanding questions in Utah and Wisconsin.
		Democrats are hoping that state court decisions in both of those states will yield at least one more winnable seat for them there to offset potentially what we're seeing in Ohio.
		So the House has really become a game of inches, whereas decades ago we saw 40 or 60 seats swings depending on changes in the political environment.
		A wave these days might only be a dozen seats and that explains why both parties are clawing for every advantage they can get.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I mean we haven't talked much about the Senate.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I mean are some of these dynamics at play there?
unidentified		Well in the Senate there are 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats right now and it's a different scenario fundamentally from the House.
		Republicans are more insulated there because of the seats in the states that are up for election.
		Obviously gerrymandering doesn't play a role when it comes to state lines.
		But Democrats only have two plausible targets in genuinely purple states.
		And those are Susan Collins in Maine and Tom Tillis in North Carolina.
		But they would need to pick up four seats to get to the majority.
		Now, the good news for Democrats is they could have made it 43 Senate seats had they not been able to win four states in 2024 that Donald Trump carried at the top of the ticket.
		And those are Alyssa Sotkin in Michigan, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Jackie Rosen in Nevada, and then Ruben Gallego in Arizona, all four of whom were able to convince just enough voters to cross over to their side based on the weakness of Republican candidates or Trump voters to check the box for Trump but not vote in the Senate race.
		And had Joe Biden remained the Democratic domine and Democrats turned out at a lower level, it's possible that Republicans could be sitting at 57 Senate seats today.
		So at least that puts Democrats in slightly closer contention, but they would need to not only defend their own vulnerable seats, including John Ossaff in Georgia, an open Senate seat in Michigan, but they would also need to dive deeper into the Republican depth chart, including states like Texas or Iowa or Ohio.
		And from today's vantage point, that's very hard to do.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Tom is in Nashville, Tennessee on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Tom.
unidentified		Yes, yes, yes, ma'am.
		Mr. Washman, I was just curious about the first hundred days.
		You're talking about what might happen in November.
		Let me get this straight.
		2026, you mean like 450 days from now?
		That's amazing to me that you could predict that far in the future and see what's going to happen or even talk about that far in the future.
		Why don't we see what happens in May, June, and July?
		Or maybe as the Cook political report says, report on what's going on for the first 100 days instead of being conjecture about what's going to happen in the future.
		I mean, you don't know what's going to happen in the future.
		And one more thing, that ad out in Washington state about Medicaid.
		Why don't people take care of themselves?
		Why do they worry so much about getting a handout from the government?
		Why don't they get out of bed in the morning and go work and try to get something done and try to take care of themselves instead of always looking to Washington to help me out?
		This is ludicrous.
		I mean, I can't believe we're talking about things that are not going to happen until the end of 2026, which is a long way away.
		Thanks a lot for being on.
		Enjoy the show.
		I agree with the caller.
		2026 is still a political lifetime away, especially given how fast things have been moving in the Trump administration.
		And this has been shocking off from the highest levels.
		And it's possible that Republicans will get a reconciliation bill through Congress at some point in the middle of 2025.
		And yet, usually, once we get a taste of how voters are reacting within the first 100 days, it's kind of hard to change a first impression.
		And Virginia and New Jersey are going to be holding gubernatorial elections this year.
		And those down ballot races could be a good indicator of what we're likely to see in 2026.
		If Democrats win those by wide margins, that will be a real warning sign based on historical patterns that Republicans could at least lose control of the House.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, you mentioned that Virginia race.
		Republicans are already fighting pretty hard for that, even though it's an off year.
		Here's an ad from a Republican-aligned political action committee targeting Virginia Democrats ahead of November's legislative elections.
		Let's watch that.
unidentified		Virginia Democrats, like delegate Michael Faggins, are copying their friends in Washington.
		Higher taxes, ignoring women's and girls' safety, protecting violent criminals.
		Virginians didn't ask for this.
		Virginia Republicans are focused on what works, not partisan theatrics.
		That's why Republicans fought to cut taxes, create safer communities, and get schools on the right track.
		Virginia Republicans will put Virginia first every single day.
		RSLC PAC paid for and is responsible for the content of this advertisement.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Your thoughts on that kind of messaging heading into as far away as we are, 2026?
unidentified		You're not really hearing about President Trump in that ad.
		And Democrats are going to be talking a lot about Trump and cuts to the federal workforce, particularly in Virginia, as we head into this November's election.
		And the reason why Abigail Spanberger, former congresswoman, is the favorite in this gubernatorial election is Republicans don't have many of the advantages they had when Glenn Youngkin, the current governor who's term limited after one term, had when he won his race in 2021.
		Keep in mind at that point, there was a backlash brewing to both the withdrawal from Afghanistan and concerns about inflation that were creeping in.
		Glenn Youngkin took advantage of both the opportunity to put forward a proposal to rein in or end the grocery tax, but also a weak Democratic opponent in former Governor Terry McAuliffe.
		This time around, I think we're going to see Spanberger raise a lot more money than Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsom Sears.
		Even though Youngkin is decently popular in the state, this is still a blue state.
		And it voted for Kamala Harris by five points.
		And we're likely to see a number of Trump voters sit out the 2025 and 2026 elections.
		For example, in the April Wisconsin Supreme Court race, we saw the Democratic-endorsed candidate Susan Crawford get 78% of Kamala Harris's vote total.
		The Republican-endorsed candidate Brad Schimmel only got 63% of Trump's vote total.
		And if you repeat that dynamic in a state like Virginia, it might not even be close.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Darrell is in Washington state on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Darryl.
unidentified		Yeah, hi.
		I have two points.
		I just wanted to put in the fact that there's a lot of people leaving California.
		I spent a lot of time in Washington, in Idaho, and in Oregon.
		And Kootenai County, Idaho, there's so many people you see up there with California license plates anymore that are fleeing California.
		And the reason is, one of the reasons is property tax in, say, Kootenai County, Idaho for the same dollar value of property versus Lincoln County, Oregon is 2017.
		They were the same dollar for dollar.
		Now in Lincoln County, Oregon, it's three times as much as Kootenai County, Idaho for just paying property tax.
		I have relatives in California who are, when they retire, they're there for a job only.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So Darryl, are you saying that these population shifts might be affecting the way that these states vote?
unidentified		Well, no, it's affecting the representation in Washington, D.C. They're gaining representation in Texas.
		They're gaining representation in Idaho, but they're losing representation in California.
		And, you know, that's what I'm saying.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Ah, so, David, are you seeing that show up in your data as well?
unidentified		This is a case where the anecdote the caller mentions is really backed up by the data.
		If you look at census projections out to 2030, California is on track to lose four congressional seats and electoral college votes.
		And Idaho is poised to gain a third congressional district, which could be interesting actually, because right now, you know, Idaho's kind of got this northern panhandle district, a more Mormon eastern district, and then Boise is split.
		And it's possible you could have a Boise district created in the middle, depending on what the Redistric Commission would draw there.
		It could be somewhat competitive by the end of the next decade.
		But the larger point is we are seeing a number of voters flee blue states that have a lot of problems with either wildfires, crime, high cost of living, homelessness.
		And California is really struggling to retain residents.
		And that coupled with Texas and Florida poised to gain four seats each in the next census.
		Of course, this is still fairly early in the decade, and that could change.
		But that would effectively be the same as the state of Massachusetts flipping from blue to red.
		And so Democrats have an emerging geography problem when it comes to the electoral college and potentially the House.
		We talked last decade about how Republicans had a demography problem where they were overly reliant on old and white voters and voters without college degrees who were shrinking as part of the electorate.
		Well, now blue states are shrinking in population, and so it's up to Democrats to find a way to overcome that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		John is in Madison, Wisconsin on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My name is John Broder.
		I'm 71 years old, and the United States has capabilities.
		Capabilities of stopping tobacco, lead pipes, psychotropic drugs.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, John, did you have a question for David about the congressional political orientations or anything related to the 2026 midterms?
unidentified		Sitting states against each other, and Texas is the most important state for the Democrats.
		Thanks a lot.
		Bye.
		Okay.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Carol is in Norwich, New York on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Carol.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My question concerns New York 19.
		Josh Riley is my freshman representative, and I wondered what kind of comments you might have about his chances for reelection.
		I know it's a bill to be a very tight race.
		And since you're talking about the shift in electorate generally, I wondered if you have any comments about the growing strength of the Republicans in New York State generally.
		Thank you very much.
		Yeah, the caller from Chenango County, New York is situated in one of the most competitive districts in the nation.
		This was a seat where Democrat Josh Riley was able to unseat Republican Mark Molinaro in the last election by a slim margin.
		And Riley does benefit from the fact that Molinaro was appointed by Trump to a position at the Federal Transit Authority.
		And so that makes him a little less likely to seek a comeback.
		If he did, it would be the third straight race between them.
		And so Republicans are kind of back to the drawing board in this district, which spans Ithaca all the way to the Hudson Valley.
		It's very closely politically divided.
		And it is kind of the exception to what we're seeing in a lot of New York, which is that Republicans are seeing areas trend their way.
		Not only was President Biden flagging in popularity towards the end of his term, but Governor Kathy Hochul was badly underwater in her ratings, still is, and in some polls was less favorably viewed than Donald Trump, which is pretty remarkable given how blue the state of New York is.
		So it's an open question as to whether Republicans are going to get a top-tier candidate in the governor's race.
		Congressman Mike Lawler would fit that description.
		He represents a Democratic-leaning district in the Hudson Valley, is considering running for the state's top job, and that would make it a very fiercely fought race.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I want to talk a bit about sort of internal politics within the Democratic Party.
		David Hogg, who is the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, has donated $100,000 to the DriCCC after a plan to primary what he refers to as ineffective Democrats ignited a civil war in the party.
		This is a story from Fox News that Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg recently gave $100,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee shortly after his plans to shake up the Democratic Party with new leadership angered party insiders.
		And that plan involves contributing potentially an organ, there's an organization that he co-founded called Leaders We Deserve, and that group is planning to contribute about $20 million to younger, more progressive challengers of Democrat incumbents in safe blue seats.
		What does this strategy tell you about the outlook for Democrats moving forward?
unidentified		There are a couple of different components to it.
		I think the first is generational, and a number of Democrats are frustrated by the longevity of their leaders, even though we did see Nancy Pelosi and Cindy Hoyer pass the leadership team onto, or torch onto a newer generation.
		There's still frustration with Leader Schumer in the Senate.
		There's a drive on Democrats' part to kind of fight harder.
		And it's not neatly, ideologically aligned so much as it is about whether Democrats should be more conciliatory and try and work with Republicans to influence legislation and tariffs.
		That is kind of the lane that Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan has espoused of late, or should Democrats fight harder?
		And those who want to see the party fight harder were heartened by Corey Booker's 25-hour floor speech in the Senate.
		In the case of Mr. Hogg, we are seeing kind of a new drive to intrude on what the leadership at the DNC has been doing for a while.
		It's very rare to see someone who has a DNC position advocate for primarying longtime members, but we did see, for example, a progressive challenger emerge who was in their 20s to Congresswoman Jan Schakowski of Illinois.
		And she is slated to make an announcement about her plans in early May, and many expect her to retire.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We have a question from X AZ Tech says, did the electorate swing Republican or did the Democrats just lose interest?
		How much influence does the media have on the electorate?
		And has the electorate learned the media lies to them often?
unidentified		Well, turnout was a bit down in 2024 from what it was in 2020.
		But the bulk of evidence suggests that Democrats lost ground with voters who were fundamentally voting their pocketbook.
		And in 2020, Joe Biden was ahead in the polls by a lot, but he ended up winning by effectively 43,000 votes in the three closest states.
		That was his cumulative margin of victory in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin.
		And the voters who put him over the finish line were not hardcore Democrats, but rather independent voters who disapproved of Donald Trump's handling of COVID.
		They didn't like what they were seeing in the economy at that point in fall of 2020.
		So they never really subscribed to Democrats' arguments that Trump was an aspiring dictator or wanted to end democracy.
		They weren't necessarily motivated to show up in 2022 on the abortion issue.
		And then in 2024, they liked the economy even less.
		Groceries cost 20% more than they did.
		And they moved back to Trump.
		By the same token, they aren't now automatically part of the Trump coalition.
		And if they're still paying high prices at the supermarket or at the gas pump, then they are either going to sit out 2026 or they're going to flip to Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Andrew is in Long Island in New York on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Andrew.
unidentified		Yes, my name is Andrew Perugini.
		I'm from Long Island.
		I'm 100% disabled wartime veteran.
		I voted Democrat most of my life.
		And I switched to Republican, even though I know what Donald Trump is.
		The problem I have is we needed somebody to do something about, first of all, the border and crime.
		I'm ex-U.S. Coast Guard.
		But with that said, I'm being forced to pay for everybody's life in New York.
		Anybody who ain't supposed to be here, anybody who's poor, any one of these criminals that get out of jail.
		I'm forced to pay everything.
		I'm 100% disabled, wartime veteran, honorably discharged.
		I only survive in New York because my sister lets me live at her house.
		I can't survive because they're charging me money to give other people lives.
		I joined at wartime and gave my life to the country.
		And now I'm being forced to pay for people who sit downtown and deal drugs their whole life and other people who just think this is a freebie.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, Andrew, I ask, you're in Long Island, New York.
		You know, we're talking about different congressional districts.
		What do you hear from other people in your community about how they view these things and how that affects how they vote?
unidentified		Well, we have a set of people here who, of course, we have both.
		But people can't survive here because of these programs.
		Yet you have a set of people who do have money, and I'm sorry, they vote liberal, but it's you try to put that in their neighborhood, and they're the first one, not in my neighborhood.
		So I don't buy into all these people who like these programs.
		They just, you know, they're emotional.
		And of course, I care about poor people, too.
		I've been trying to help poor people my whole life.
		I was a U.S. Coast Guard lifesaver.
		It's not race, creed, or color.
		It's financial.
		We can't afford it.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I want to let David respond because what Andrew is describing, I imagine, is the dynamic in many congressional districts across the country.
unidentified		Republicans have gained traction on the issues the caller is talking about, particularly on Long Island, where we've seen movement towards Republicans.
		Democrat Tom Swazi, Democrat Laura Gillen, they just barely hung on to districts in Nassau County that up until recently were a bit bluer.
		And part of the reason is Democrats are perceived both federally and at the state level to be too friendly to undocumented immigrants when it comes to funding health care and housing for them.
		They're perceived to be too friendly to people who aren't working.
		Part of the Republican drive right now in Congress is to impose work requirements for things like Medicaid or food stamps.
		And even though those are highly controversial in Congress, some of what Republicans are talking about plays well with independent voters.
		The question I have heading into the summer is by the time a lot of these Doge cuts are implemented, do voters still believe that government works well?
		Voters, they do favor reducing the size of government and rooting out waste.
		Where Musk and Doge tend to lose support is when they characterize federal workers as fraudulent or evil, and voters really don't align with that view.
		And so by the summertime, are voters getting tax refunds on time?
		Are they getting VA disability benefits on time?
		Are national parks able to handle the summer crowds and rush?
		Those are the questions I think that will give us a fuller understanding of how voters are reacting to the big changes we're seeing.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you so much, David Wasserman, with the Cook Political Report.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We really appreciate your time this morning.
unidentified		Thank you.
unidentified		All right.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, coming up next on Washington Journal, Daily Caller Senior Editor Amber Duke will join us to discuss media coverage of the Trump administration and press access at the White House.
		And later on, we'll take more of your calls and comments in open forum.
		We'll be right back.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Hassan Teta, in his latest book, opens the introduction with a question.
		How do we prepare for the future with AI?
		His primary focus is on healthcare and AI, but it's subtitled Harnessing Military Medicine to Revolutionize Healthcare for Everyone Everywhere.
		Dr. Teta is currently based at Howard University and Enova Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, after serving 25 years in military medicine.
		His specialty is as a thoracic surgeon doing heart and lung transplants.
		He retired from the Navy in 2023.
unidentified		Author and Dr. Hassan Teta with his latest book, Smarter Healthcare with AI, subtitled Harnessing Military Medicine to Revolutionize Healthcare for Everyone Everywhere.
		On this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts.
		Weekends bring you Book TV, featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		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.
		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.
		We'll feature author discussions on the late Pope Francis with Robert Waipels on the Pope's vision for society and Mark Shriver on the Pontiff's journey from Argentina to the papacy.
		Then, on afterwards, journalist Stephen Witt profiles the company NVIDIA, its founder, Jensen Huang, 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 weekend on C-SPAN2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Washington Journal continues.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We're joined now by Amber Duke, who's a senior editor at the Daily Caller and author of the Unfit to Print newsletter.
		Welcome to Washington Journal, Amber.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for having me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Can you tell us a bit about the Daily Caller, the types of stories that you all cover, and your political perspective?
unidentified		Sure.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		So the Daily Caller was founded in 2010 by Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel, and really it was created to fill a gap that they noticed in digital media where there wasn't really a conservative voice online covering the news from that perspective.
		And in the current political space, really we see our role as making sure that conservative ideas and values are actually being implemented by people on the federal level and answering to the voters.
		So as we look at the Trump administration, for example, the Daily Caller is not there to prop up Trump or even to prop up Republicans, but to see that Trump is actually holding himself accountable, actually doing the things that he promised the voters that he would do.
		And we also view our role as speaking on behalf of Americans that don't really have a voice in traditional media spaces, making sure that their stories get covered, that the things that they're concerned about on a day-to-day basis are actually reflected in the media coverage.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now you mentioned holding President Trump to account for his promises.
		He's nearing the first 100 days in his administrative term in the White House.
		What's your take of how he's done so far at meeting the commitments he made to the American people?
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Well, we've seen that he has embarked on undergoing a lot of the promises that he did make on the campaign trail, whether that's doing the mass deportation plan or trying to implement tariffs to reshore manufacturing.
		The CPI came down for the first time in March, which was part of his promise to lower prices.
		We saw egg prices drop over the past couple of months as well after pretty much skyrocketing due to an outbreak of bird flu.
		But there's also been, of course, complaints about how Doge has been operating, whether or not it's operating with too wide of a scope and if it's using an axe rather than a scalpel.
		And also people are rightfully concerned, I think, about the potential for tariffs to increase prices on American consumers as this tariff strategy plays out.
		And then there's also been some issues with personnel.
		We've seen recent high-profile exits from the State Department and the Department of Defense.
		And there's concerns from people within the administration who have talked to us that perhaps more establishment members of the party who might not be as in line with Trump's agenda are freezing out Trump loyalists.
		So those are all things that we're watching at the Daily Caller.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		The White House Correspondents Association dinner was last night.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What are your thoughts on the event, especially in light of the relationship between this White House and the press in the town and how that relationship is changing?
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		So our reporter Robert McGreevy wrote a piece about how the White House Correspondence Center basically has the least amount of juice it probably ever has in its history.
		And I think that's an accurate perspective.
		We saw stories going around yesterday ahead of the dinner with journalists talking about how they were hugging each other a bit longer and a bit tighter because of how concerned they were about threats to the First Amendment.
		But the dinner itself didn't make many headlines.
		We, of course, heard from the White House Correspondents Association president Eugene Daniels, who similarly waxed poetic about how much of a threat the organization is under from the Trump administration.
		But they notably canceled their entertainment this year, who was meant to be comedian Amber Ruffin, who took no qualms about having a very anti-Trump bent, described the president as a toddler with his pants down.
		We heard from the administration that they were not planning on attending the dinner, and the WHCA ultimately canceled Amber Ruffian, saying that they did not want to contribute to the politics of divisiveness.
		I think this led to the event being somewhat of a blip on the radar.
		Even though they wanted to turn this into a celebration and a commentary on the defense of the First Amendment, there's a historic level of low trust in the media.
		And the American people have that for a reason, which is they see immense amounts of bias from the mainstream media and from the corporate media, particularly against Trump, both in the first term and then in the current term.
		And they don't feel like they can go to those people to be an unbiased or accurate source of information anymore.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, one of the changes that the Trump administration has made is to decide who gets to be in the White House press pool, which is bypassing the independently run White House Correspondents Association that previously would make those determinations.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What impact do you think, if any, this has had on the coverage of the president?
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Well, so far, I haven't really noticed any impact.
		It seems like a lot of the same outlets that were chosen by the WHCA are continuing their rotation under the Trump administration's control.
		Of course, the Trump administration also took over or is planning to take over, according to reports, the briefing room seating chart, which I think it's important to point out.
		The WHCA actually did not control the briefing room seating chart until 2006.
		There's obviously nothing in the First Amendment that grants the WHCA the right to control the press pool or the briefing room.
		Those are both things that were done in negotiation with the White House.
		So from my perspective, I think the ideal situation would be for these two organizations to work in tandem in helping to figure out which news outlets are best positioned to cover these events, whether that's a matter of resources or experience or perhaps bias or lack thereof.
		But the WHCA, I think, has proven itself repeatedly.
		If we go back to the Biden administration, I'm happy to give some examples.
		If we go back to the Biden administration, it was very clear that they did not view their role as being these objective observers of the White House and the person who sat in the presidency because they let a lot of infringements on press freedom slide under the previous administration.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, you mentioned the idea that the White House might take over the seating chart.
		The White House Correspondents Association issued a statement in response to that saying that our organization has always been and will always be open to professional outlets covering the White House, and we've evolved over more than a century to reflect the changes in our press corps.
		For instance, of the 296 news organization WHCA members, 45 are digital only, 29 are new media founded since 2000, and 29 are local U.S. outlets hailing from 18 different states.
		Let's be clear about why seats and who assigns them even matter.
		It's simple.
		For the American people, for the public to get the information it needs to understand and to make decisions about the most powerful office in the world, it needs news produced by experienced professional journalists who ask tough questions and produce fair coverage.
		What's your response?
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		I think it's offensive because they're insinuating that if an outlet doesn't get a seat in the briefing room, it's because they are not professional or they're not experienced.
		And I don't think that could be any further from the truth.
		If we look at the current briefing chart, we see that there are basically less than five conservative outlets that are in the room on any given day, and probably even fewer than that when you consider that a lot of the seats in the back of the room are actually rotating seats.
		The Daily Caller, for example, only gets the briefing room seat every other day.
		The problem was even worse during COVID when the WHCA limited the number of briefing room seats available down to about a dozen, which they did again during the Omicron outbreak.
		And the corporate media outlets, the mainstream media outlets, all were allowed to keep their permanent seats in the front of the briefing room, where everybody else had to rotate through a handful of about four to five seats.
		I was at the spectator at the time that this happened during the Biden administration.
		I was lucky to get to sit in a briefing room seat once every 30 days.
		And even when I did, there was no guarantee, of course, that I would be called on by the White House press secretary.
		So, this is an intentional way that the White House Correspondents Association does freeze out new media and conservative media.
		And chalking it up to people who ask tough questions or people who are experienced, I think, really misses the point, especially when you consider that during the last four years, we did not hear tough questions from the media.
		We did not hear them, for example, asking for clarity on the president's mental and physical state when now we have these same mainstream media journalists all writing books and making a bunch of money on the fact that Biden's decline was well known both within the administration and to the media.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You know, this came up at the correspondence dinner last night, and I want to play a clip of that.
unidentified		One serious note: to my bones, I believe that reporting and the White House Correspondents Association is as necessary as ever.
		President Biden's decline and its cover-up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception.
		But being truth-tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves.
		We, myself included, missed a lot of this story, and some people trust us less because of it.
		We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows.
		I say this because acknowledging errors builds trust, and being defensive about them further erodes it.
		We should have done better.
		I believe our mission is vital in a world where people are struggling to figure out what's true and people with power are not telling the truth.
		I also believe that this association has been, is, and will continue to be critical to that mission.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		That was Axio's National Political Correspondent Alex Thompson speaking at the correspondence dinner last night.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Amber, what's your thoughts on that?
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Well, he was one of the few reporters who was early, quote unquote, to the story about Biden's decline.
		But to say that the media missed the story, I don't think is quite accurate.
		In fact, I think the media deliberately turned a blind eye to the story.
		You heard from people who covered the Biden White House that if they did ask about this question, they were told by administration officials that they needed to stop and they would push back.
		And they didn't charge ahead.
		They actually listened to the administration and dropped the story.
		And you also had members of the media referring to other members of the media, such as conservative and independent media, who were sounding the alarm on this, as conspiracy theorists.
		Jake Tapper, who's co-authoring a book with Alex Thompson on Biden's decline, was on air pushing back against Trump campaign officials, accusing them of spreading a lie about Joe Biden and saying that videos of his decline were actually just leftover from his childhood stutter.
		So it's very hard for me to believe that this was simply an omission.
		This was by design.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		If folks want to have questions for Amber Duke of the Daily Caller, you're welcome to call in Republicans at 202-748-8001, Democrats at 202-748-8000, and Independents at 202-748-8002.
		Now, Amber, I want to get back to sort of the layout and the composition of the White House briefing room.
		I'm looking here at a Politico magazine article, Meet the Eight MAGA Outlets Disrupting the White House briefing room.
		Some of these news outlets actually define themselves as being, you know, quote-unquote MAGA-aligned.
		Is that fair?
		And does that impact, in your opinion, how they cover this administration?
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		I think there is an important distinction between MAGA-aligned and Trump-aligned.
		The Make America Great Again and America First movements really do have ideological underpinnings where someone could be aligning with the policies of MAGA, but not necessarily the person.
		But I do think it's fair to say that there are outlets on both the left and the right that do define themselves in terms of who the president is.
		They are there explicitly to champion a certain political party.
		And I would note, you know, the Daily Caller is not in that article, and we don't consider ourselves a MAGA outlet.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, then, what you actually worked with the Daily Caller during 2019 to 2020 as a White House correspondent at that time.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And I wonder what your experience was like covering the first Trump presidency versus what you're seeing now, particularly in terms of the relationship with the media.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've noticed actually an increase in access and coverage this second time around than compared to the first time.
		The first time, the Daily Caller did not have a briefing room seat.
		We had to get to briefings hours early to stand in the aisle with the hopes of getting a question.
		We now, as I mentioned, do have that rotating seat, which is somewhat of an improvement.
		But I think not much has changed in terms of the way the Trump admin interfaces with the media outside of these changes to the WHCA's power over the process.
		The same outlets are getting questions, the same outlets are getting access to background briefings, the same outlets are getting access to travel.
		So I just think the apoplectic response to some of these changes, which are, I think, long overdue, I mean, again, going back to Biden, the WHCA said nothing when 440 White House reporters had their hard passes revoked.
		They did not say anything when the Biden White House required reporters to pay for a daily COVID test at the cost of $150 just for the privilege of accessing the White House grounds.
		And they said nothing.
		In fact, actually kicked out a reporter for One America News when she showed up in the briefing room during COVID at the invitation of the White House.
		They stripped them of their WHTA membership.
		So all of these instances tell me that they only care about these supposed threats to access when they happen against a certain group of reporters.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, in terms of how Trump relates to the media, Pew did a survey.
		The Pew Research Center did a survey of U.S. adults last from the end of February into last month and asked about the relationship between Trump and the media and found that 7 in 10 Democrats are much more likely to say that the Trump administration has been too critical of the news media.
		7 in 10 Republicans are more likely to say that the media are too critical of Trump.
		And overall, 64% of U.S. adults say that that relationship is bad, whereas just 11% say that it is good.
		And I wonder what you think of these numbers and what it means for how the American people perceive the media's coverage of the White House.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		I don't think the numbers are all that surprising, especially when you go back to what some of the bosses of media outlets said back in 2015 and 16 when Trump was first running for the presidency and then ultimately won the election.
		A lot of these outlets shifted the tone of their coverage by saying that it was important for them to instead of just cover the news but hold power to account.
		They talked about the threat that Trump posed to democracy.
		And that really colored a lot of the way that they approached the Trump administration, which was they went in with a negative outlook rather than one that was not colored by what Trump had or hadn't done yet.
		And I think it's reasonable for people to question the media's bent on this presidency.
		I mean, if you go back to the Russian collusion narrative where media sort of unquestionably ran with the idea that Trump had colluded with Russia, the Very Fine People hoax where they claim that he praised neo-Nazis after specifically condemning them in a full quote that they conveniently cut off.
		And even just minor scandals, like when Trump was visiting the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and the pair were tasked with feeding Koi in a koi pond.
		Trump was seen on video dumping out the entire box of fish food into the koi pond.
		And there were headlines across mainstream media outlets accusing Trump of being disrespectful and defying the tradition when they had cut off the part of the video that showed Prime Minister Abe dumping the entire box of fish food into the koi pond before Trump did.
		So that might seem like a minor example, but I think it's indicative of the larger perspective that the media took on the Trump presidency.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		If you have questions for Amber Duke, senior editor at the Daily Caller, you can call in Republicans 202-748-8001, Democrats at 202-748-8000, Independents 202-748-8002.
		Let's start with Chas in Wisconsin on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Chas.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just want to start off too by saying during the Biden administration, they actually blacklisted a journalist out of Africa because of the questions that he would ask.
		And I mean, that's insane.
		You know, we have the most transparent presidency in our lifetime right now, asking hundreds of questions a day from the media, as ridiculous as they may sound.
		And honestly, this is kind of a referendum on a Washington Journal.
		You guys promote these same journalists that had lied to us for the last four years, and you use them on your show on a daily basis as your sources.
		And honestly, you guys hardly even know what's in their articles.
		You read flashpoints on a daily basis.
		When the only time I ever really hear you guys reference Newsmax was when Greg Kelly was questioning the choice for Pete Hegseth.
		That's the only time, one of the rare times that I've seen you use a conservative network.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, we have Amber here from the Daily Caller.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Did you have a question for her?
unidentified		I just have comments.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Was there another comment before we let Amber respond?
unidentified		She's allowed to comment on my comments.
		I don't have to ask a question.
		Once again, you don't like what I'm saying.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Well, if I can jump in here, I mean, on the point about the reporter during Biden who was basically shunned from the briefing room, you're referring, I assume, to Simon Ateba.
		And I think it's an important point because during the first Trump administration, when reporters shouted from the aisles or from their seats in the briefing room, they were actually rewarded for that with massive book deals, cable news shows, and were praised by the WHCA for speaking truth to power.
		But when a reporter who had not had a question in three months to a year covering the Biden administration, he was summarily stripped of all good standing within the WHCA.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And Chaz, did you have another point?
unidentified		I just want to thank Amber for being here and Washington Journal.
		You know, you guys can do better.
		I mean, this is your job.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Next up is Chris in Maine on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Chris.
unidentified		Hi.
		So I just wanted to go over your website, your front page, and your viewership.
		Globally, you guys are ranked 14,588 on the web.
		Country rank is 2,774, and the category rank is 174.
		For some reason, you sit here whining like, oh, you know, you're entitled to be in a room that holds like 100 people.
		And, you know, if that were the case, then maybe we should just turn it into an auditorium and have like 3,000 people there.
		I mean, the victim mentality is just truly staggering.
		So let's just go to your website and look at the front page, okay?
		And I go to the Daily Caller, I'm a liberal, I'm left-wing Democrat.
		You know, I listen to Glenn Beck, I read Fox, I go to Fox, I go to the Daily Caller on a pretty regular basis, but I go to the Daily Caller mostly for the comedic aspect of it.
		So when we look at your front page of the Daily Caller, pretty much everything is, you know, basically pro-Trump as possibly can be.
		There's a funny photo of Nancy Pelosi looking ridiculous.
		There's a headline about Trump taking a quote-unquote very symbolic leading meeting with the World Cup.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Did you have a question for Amber, Chris?
unidentified		So, yeah, I mean, if you consider yourself somehow a balanced news outlet, why is it that literally every single headline is either, wow, Republicans and Trump are amazing, or Democrats are the most evil people on the planet.
		Thank you.
		And by the way, you guys are a joke.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		That is unnecessary, Chris.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Amber.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		No, that's okay.
		Look, I appreciate the question.
		I mean, first of all, I've already acknowledged that we are a conservative outlet, but I think that, first of all, the ranking question, I would point out to Greg there that if viewership were the reason why outlets get certain priority seating in the briefing room, then why did we see April Ryan in the third row when she was working for the National Urban Radio Network?
		And yet, somehow, despite the fact that seats are supposed to be assigned to outlets, not to people, when she moved to the Grio, which I would venture to guess a lot of people had never heard of before she started working there, she got to keep the same exact seat in the briefing room, whereas the Daily Caller remained in the back.
		So I think that goes to show you that the WHCA is not making these decisions based on our ranking on the internet.
		And then one of the examples he cited about supposed bias was us describing a meeting that Trump took as very symbolic.
		That doesn't scream pro-Trump to me, but I would also say that one of the first big stories that the Daily Caller broke after its inception was actually about potential donor fraud by Republican fundraising groups.
		And since then, we've continued to cover stories that are critical of Trump and Republicans.
		You'll notice that we have op-eds across our website criticizing Trump's vision for a gold card or for expansion of H-1B visas.
		We've covered issues within the House Intelligence Committee relating to the Republican chairman.
		So I think maybe Greg isn't really actually reading the website.
		He just goes there to get angry.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Ricky is in Philadelphia on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Ricky.
unidentified		Yes, good morning to both of y'all.
		My main question is about independent news going online.
		It seems like independent news is more on the upride than corporate news.
		And I understand like what Ms. Duke mentioned about the Democratic Party hiring Joe Biden, Joe Biden, Joe Biden's medical condition.
		And I see absolutely correct on that because that's why more people going to independent news, they're not getting fully informed with the news than our corporate news now.
		And I just want to hear from you, ma'am, what you think about it.
		Thank you.
		And both y'all have a faith, uneventful day.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Yes, I agree.
		Independent media is rising incredibly quickly.
		And I think this is, for one, a benefit of digital news in the new landscape where people are consuming news through social media or by going directly to websites rather than just getting a print newspaper delivered to their house every day.
		And this has given the opportunity for smaller upstart outlets to be able to compete in the space.
		And independent media absolutely did arise out of problems that people had with corporate media coverage.
		I mentioned the Russian collusion hoax, but let's talk about COVID.
		You had outlets accusing Trump of xenophobia for saying that the virus came from China and because he shut down travel from China in the early days of the pandemic.
		You had outlets going along with the lie that this was a totally unnaturally occurring virus.
		It could have never leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and covering for the public health bureaucrats who made decisions that were not based in science, whether it was the six-foot social distancing, which Jeborah Burks later admitted was made up out of whole cloth.
		Whether it was the idea that the vaccines did not cause women's menstrual cycles to be affected, which took six months for the New York Times to admit after other outlets accused women of lying about their symptoms.
		So that, I think, was also a huge turning point in how people viewed the media because this was something that impacted every single American, whether it was their health or whether it was their ability to live freely, to support their family, to be able to spend time with their family.
		I have a friend who was not able to bury her father for six months because of the restrictions that public health officials put on funerals.
		So this was a very glaring and personal issue for a lot of people.
		If they had kids in school, if they had other health issues that they were discouraged from going to the doctor for to leave space for people who could be testing positive for COVID, this was, I think, very indicative of the fact that a lot of the corporate media was happy to run with government-approved narratives rather than actually seeking the truth themselves if it ran counter to what officials were telling them.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, Amber, you've mentioned several times about the seating chart of the press briefing room and that there are still primarily traditional news outlets in that briefing room.
		The New York Times actually has the seating chart on their website, and I'll show it on our screen here.
		And it shows there the Daily Caller is sharing a seat in the very back row with EWTN.
		And most of these outlets are in the front row, CNN, Reuters, ABC News, AP, CBS News, Fox News, NBC, Second Row, USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Bloomberg, CBS Radio, The Wall Street Journal.
		And then there's that new media seat that is the new addition there.
		I just wanted to bring that up on the screen since you've referenced it, the seating chart several times.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Yes, and if I may comment on the new media seat, I think this is a really smart way for the administration to make sure that outlets that are ignored by the WHCA are able to get some kind of access to the briefing room.
		Obviously, we've been talking about the fact that there is limited space in there, so they do get just the one seat, and it's not a seat that is under the jurisdiction of the WHCA.
		You'll notice it's off to the side where members of the Trump administration would typically sit during the briefing room.
		So they've actually seated one of their own seats to make sure that those new media outlets can be there.
		And they've had an interesting rotating cast of people, right?
		They've had Axios, they've had Breitbart, they've had Breaking Points.
		They haven't just had what I think the left will probably call MAGA mouthpieces sitting in that seat.
		They've actually, I think, done a really great job of making sure that it's a rotating group of people from all different parts of the political spectrum.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Jana is in Tennessee on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Jana.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have a question about the Daily Caller.
		As I'm reading in Wikipedia, and I'd like to know your guest's response to what it says here.
		Quote, the Daily Caller has published false stories and declined to correct them when they were shown to be untrue.
		The website has published articles that contradict the scientific consensus on climate change.
		In September 218, the website cut ties with an editor linked to white supremacist causes.
		Website has responded to challenges to its stories in various ways, in some cases defending their claims, and in others expressing regret for story headlines or content, etc.
		I'd like to know what your guests' response would be to some of these statements.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
		On the editor who was fired, I would note that he was writing under a pseudonym for an outlet that none of us had ever heard of.
		And as soon as it was brought to our attention, we made sure that he was held accountable and he could no longer work for us because we find those kinds of views reprehensible.
		And I can assure you that he never would have been hired if it was known that he was writing for those places before he came in to work for the Daily Caller.
		On the issue of story corrections, I mean, I, of course, would want to know specific examples of what they're talking about because it's often the case that fact checkers try to diminish our reach by accusing us of publishing falsehoods when it's actually not the case.
		For example, you mentioned the climate change issue.
		We publish people who have very high-level scientific credentials who question specific parts about climate change, meaning how severe it is, what the proper response is.
		And I think there's a reflexive nature by liberal and corporate media to assume that any questions about climate change that do not fit their orthodoxy are factually untrue.
		We don't take that stance.
		We actually allow a diversity of opinions and we identify stories and the facts behind them on an individual basis and not just based on whatever the predominant narrative might be.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Bernard Bookman in Belle Prix, Ohio asks, or says, Ms. Duke is clearly a Trump soldier.
		Should there so clearly be conservative and liberal media?
		I'd like to think media should be media.
		Journalism should be journalism without bypass.
		I'm guessing that may be biased by definition.
		The fact that she has to, quote unquote, act fair and unbiased shows the truth.
		Your response?
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		I've never claimed to be unbiased.
		I've made very clear that I'm a conservative and that we're a conservative outlet.
		But I think the difference between us and places like CNN and MSNBC is that we tell people who we are.
		They can identify our stories and their accuracy or the bent with which we approach stories on their own terms based on what we're telling them.
		And when people watch CNN, they get so frustrated because they are watching someone who claims to be unbiased and it's so obvious that they're not.
		I actually think that's why CNN has lower ratings than MSNBC because MSNBC is a little bit clear about them having this liberal perspective.
		But on the question, the broader question about whether outlets should just be media or whether there should be a liberal outlet versus a conservative outlet, I think it's fine to have all three of those if it's possible.
		But for a long time, we've been told to lie that media is unbiased.
		And clearly, that's not the case.
		Some people just hide it better than others.
		But the story selection, the experts that they choose to quote, the way that they write headlines often are indicative of these deep-seated biases that maybe even the reporters themselves don't even realize they have.
		And if I may, a little bit on the history of journalism in the United States.
		Media outlets used to be extensions of political parties.
		And it wasn't until the early 1900s that the idea of objectivity actually came into play.
		And that was when media outlets started requiring people to go to get journalism degrees to prove that they could properly report the news objectively.
		But what that did is it basically segmented off media from the rest of America.
		So now we have a media that is primarily living in coastal cities, that primarily comes from white-collar families, that has gone to some of the most elite universities in the country, that is less religious on average, has fewer kids on average than the average American person.
		So when the average American looks at the New York Times or the Washington Post and doesn't see their issues reflected there or their concerns reflected there, that's because the people who work for those outlets have a fundamentally much different life and reality than most of the people who live in this country.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Gary is in Greenville, Texas on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Gary.
unidentified		Good morning, y'all.
		My comment, it's not a question, it's just a comment.
		Opinion editorials, okay, op-eds, that's exactly what they are.
		They're that person's opinion.
		Me and John went around and around and around.
		C-SPAN is real bad about reading op-eds, not necessarily the news.
		And I think that's really the main concern here: opinion editorials.
		And people need to understand that that's exactly what it is.
		It's that person's opinion, just like my opinion.
		Okay.
		Anyways, that's all I have to say.
		You know, people need to realize they're op-eds.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Amber, would you like to respond, particularly in terms of the balance of news versus op-eds on the Daily Caller?
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
		I mean, we obviously publish both.
		Our opinion pieces are clearly labeled on the front page.
		They'll have a little opinion tag on the featured image, and when you click through, opinion is labeled right at the top.
		And same thing with our articles.
		They're categorized into different buckets like politics, U.S., national security, entertainment.
		And so we try to make it very clear to the reader what they're getting before they even click into an article.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Robert is in Naples, Florida, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Robert.
unidentified		Hey, how are you doing today?
unidentified		Yeah, it's the thing my dad used to say: you preach to the choir.
boris epshteyn ▲ ● ▼		So you get the Daily Caller or MSNBC or CNN.
unidentified		They preach to the people that believe what they're saying.
		They don't try to hide it.
		They're just saying this is what we believe.
		This is what you believe because you're listening to us.
		And that has to stop.
		I would love to see unbiased, unvarnished, unliberal, unconservative news.
		Just that, not opinion.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Amber, do you think that this point that Robert was making about everyone sort of getting news from sources that already affirms what they believe, is that an issue or does it kind of relate back to what you were saying about there being a benefit to, you know, all types of media, even if it's partisan?
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of people who read the Daily Caller who probably don't agree with us on much of anything, but I think the more important point is that our news articles are not injected with our opinion.
		We might cover stories that the mainstream media doesn't cover because they don't think they're important enough to cover or they don't fit their narrative.
		And we might quote people who the mainstream media would never quote.
		But when we're writing stories, we hold ourselves to the highest journalistic standards.
		We don't run single-sourced anonymous stories.
		We fact-check everything ourselves.
		We have multiple editors look at pieces that are reliant on multiple anonymous sources.
		And our stories are always presented to the subjects of them so that they have ample opportunity to respond.
		So we're following all of the same standard journalistic procedures that you would expect from a news outlet.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		John is in Plainfield, New Jersey on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Hi, ma'am.
		Why me as an African American to trust conservative media and Donald Trump?
		I just don't think you're fair.
		And I personally feel that you want to bring back Jim Crow.
		And why should we trust you?
		Will you ever do a story in the black community or talk to black leaders that you might not agree with to find some common ground?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's let Amber respond.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Yes, we absolutely have covered stories in the black community.
		And I would pose a question back to you.
		What is it about the Daily Caller that makes you think we're trying to bring back Jim Crow?
		Because as you can imagine, that's a pretty heavy accusation.
unidentified		Because of some of your attitudes about us.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Like what?
unidentified		And like, I think some of the things about DEI.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		John, can you give a specific example for Amber?
unidentified		Like, what's going on with the black history museum and Trump trying to take it down and other things about black books and other things like that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So, John, the president hasn't said that he's planning to shut down the African American History Museum.
unidentified		I just want you to know, those rumors are going on.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Right, but you were saying that the Daily Caller specifically is pushing this.
unidentified		It's because it's conservative media, and there is a mistrust in conservative media in the black community, especially with me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, Amber, would you like to respond?
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so, I mean, John did mention the issue of DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
		And I would posit to you, John, that the opposition to DEI is because of, for one of many reasons, it actually does a disservice to the black community.
		And I'll give you an example of how exactly that is.
		When you look at Chicago schools right now, we see that black students are not performing well.
		A lot of them have high illiteracy rates, low graduation rates, and yet Chicago school system has been one of the biggest advocates for DEI.
		Now, look at Mississippi.
		What's being dubbed the Mississippi Miracle has shown that they now have the highest NAEP adjusted scores for reading in the fourth grade.
		And why is that?
		It's not because they gave different standards to different students.
		It's because they implemented a set standard for all students that said when students are graduating from the third grade to the fourth grade, they have to meet a certain standard.
		They have to pass a test that shows they can read at a certain level.
		And if not, they're held back.
		And we saw that black students in Mississippi specifically went from one of the lowest performing groups in the nation on these NAEP scores.
		And now they are third in the nation in reading and fourth in the nation in math.
		So when we set different standards across different groups, we're doing what Thomas Sowell called the bigotry of low expectations.
		I believe that black students, Hispanic students, and white students are all capable of high levels of achievement.
		And I don't purport to say that black students need lower standards in order for them to be able to be successful.
		So I think if you actually look at the real objections to DEI and why those are taking place, yes, it's because it's fundamentally unfair and unjust for some students to be held to different standards.
		When we're looking at the education system, for example, or if you're looking at jobs, we shouldn't be hiring lower qualified candidates because of their race or gender.
		But you're also, when holding those people to a lower standard, ensuring that they never really have the real opportunity or belief that they can succeed at a high level.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Gloria is in Cleveland, Ohio on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Gloria.
unidentified		Good morning.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Did you have a question or comment for Amber?
unidentified		Yes, I have basically a comment and a question.
		The question is: why do the media that covers these topics basically scared of the president?
		Is it because of retaliation?
		Because I noticed that every time a certain news coverage covers them, they ask a certain question that he doesn't agree with.
		He basically, you know, shines them off and don't want to answer their questions, call them out their name, which is I don't understand why a president will, you know, try to belittle people and call them out their names due to the fact that he don't agree with the questions that they're asking.
		And also, do she think it's fair for him to not answer questions because he don't agree with what they're asking?
		Because I think us as the American people, we need answers.
		And just by him, because he doesn't like the question that we're asking, that he shouldn't have to answer those questions.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, I think presidents should answer questions, absolutely.
		And if there were a criticism of Trump, I think that's a valid one.
		Just saying you don't like the media outlet, so you don't get to answer the question, I think, is not a reasonable excuse.
		On your point about media outlets being scared to challenge people in elected office, I don't think that that is something that is specific to Trump or to any specific party.
		In the prior administration, we saw that Biden referred to a Fox News reporter as a son of a bee and was frequently quite critical of people who asked difficult questions of him.
		And the broader issue of why media does not ask challenging questions or hold people accountable in certain instances is because a lot of them work on access-based journalism, which means if someone gets angry at them, they're no longer going to give them stories or connect with them as a source or be helpful to them in some way.
		So some media outlets are so predicated on the fact that they are able to access these people that they're covering that they might pull punches a little bit to make sure that they still have that access.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's all the time we have for this segment.
		Thank you so much, Amber Duke, senior editor at the Daily Caller and author of the Unfit to Print newsletter.
		Really appreciate your time this morning.
amber athey ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And up next, we're going to have more of your calls and comments in open forum.
		You can start calling in now.
		Our number for Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Independents, 202-748-8000.
		And 2.
		And again, our text line, 202-748-8003.
		We'll be right back.
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kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We're in open forum ready for calls and comments about public policy and the news of the week.
		Let's start with Horace in Ohio on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Horace.
unidentified		Yes, bringing up all this thing about the assassination of JFK.
		Yeah, they lays it Oswald shot Kennedy and they were going on like that forever.
		But every rifle and pistol that made they have riflings in them.
		And all I have to do for sure is to take a bullet from the gun that he has and the one out of Kennedy.
		Imagine if they match up, then he shot them.
		If they don't match up, he didn't shoot them.
		And then in the files, they're saying a nurse was in the room when I brought Kennedy in, and they said he had a big hole in the back of his head.
		If he did, for real, he wasn't shot in the back.
		He was shot in the front like somebody's facing him.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, Horace, let's hear from Tony in Champaign.
		Oh, excuse me, Robin in Schenectady, New York.
		Good morning, Robin.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm going to piggyback on the first half of the show.
		And I didn't vote for Trump, and I didn't vote for Bush.
		But I think what's happened in the mainstream media, which I used to read religiously, is exactly what the woman said.
		It is kowtowing to people making $100,000 a year or more.
		I remember watching Nightline when they were covering Iran and our sanctions in the 90s, and they were trying to show footage of raw sewage in the street from our sanctions, and it was pulled off the air.
		So, you know, the story about, you know, the White House scandal with Nipson that was reported by the Washington Post with a reporter, can't state this enough, who didn't have her degree.
		Once you have a degree, you have a huge college debt, and you're going, and it just appears that people are just catering to people who have money.
		And then I'm just going to add this in.
		I don't think that people who don't have a college degree should be paying people's loans who went to college.
		I don't think that people with disabilities or who have, I hate to use this term, intellectual disabilities who can't go to college, that their taxes should be paying for someone to go to college.
		Does that seem fair?
		So I didn't catch the woman before me.
		Again, I've never voted, well, I vote for one Republican.
		But I don't view the Democrats as any kind of liberal party anymore.
		I view them as the party of the very wealthy, and I've been slapped personally by them figuratively too many times.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Esther is in Hot Springs, Arkansas on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Esther.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'd like to thank President Trump.
		I recently bought gas for $2.50 a gallon.
		It hasn't been that cheap in years since he was last in office.
		I wish people would give him a chance to get the economy straightened out.
		He's working hard to bring some good paying manufacturing jobs back to this country.
		He's the first president in my lifetime that's even tried to do that.
		When that happens, maybe we won't have so many working poor in this country if they can get a good paying manufacturing job and be able to actually buy a home for their families.
		I guess Wall Street and businesses don't like some of the things he's doing, but hopefully they won't lose much money.
		Hopefully they won't have to sell their yacht maybe.
		But they'll make out a lot better than most of us.
		And for all the government workers who got laid off, they had cushy jobs that most wouldn't even show up to the office to do.
		And we, the taxpayers, were paying them who had sympathy for the oilfield workers when Biden cut their jobs off.
		I believe they were all told to learn to code.
		Well, that's my advice to these government office workers.
		Learn to code.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Next up is Lewis in South River, New Jersey on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Lewis.
		And can you turn down the volume on your TV, please, Lewis?
unidentified		Sure, I can.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And then go ahead with your comment.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You can go ahead, Lewis.
unidentified		Is somebody talking?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You need to turn down the volume on your TV, and then you can go ahead with your comment.
unidentified		Hi, my name is Lewis.
		I was, as Donald Trump was saying about the jobs that come back into the country.
		All right, next to us.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, Lewis, I'm going to let you work on your TV for a bit.
		Let's go to Don in New Orleans on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Don.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		And, you know, we talk about the government and the tariffs, the federal government, the tariffs, and the state governments, many state governments falling in line.
		I want to speak on not the beloved community in and of itself.
		I want to speak on the benevolent societies, the benevolent communities in the United States and in the world as we isolate ourselves with tariffs and ill will and destruction of federal government to give billionaires tax cuts.
		You're not returning the revenue that you're garnering from tariffs to the American people.
		You're destroying, deconstructing departments that was under a president who was supportive and encouraged through institutions such as Habitat for Humanity.
		So I think that we need to focus more on our benevolent community, our mutual aid society, and all of those things require that we invest and volunteer our time and our talents to our institutions of higher learning, our hospitals, all the institutions that make America a great place and make the world a better place.
		And we have to focus on the benevolent society and not just the profit margins and make billionaires more billions at the expense of the societies that we hope to have in our communities.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Don, are you involved in any of these communities in New Orleans or any of these programs that you can talk about how it's impacted your own community?
unidentified		Yes, well, very much the Pope Francis, you know, the new Louisiana, if you will, even though Louisiana was purchased.
		The parishes, we don't have counties.
		We have parishes.
		It's because of the influence of the Catholic Church.
		And we have many black Catholics, the National Black Catholic Congress, and then we have many social aid and pleasure clubs, mutual benevolent societies here.
		New Orleans may not be a Fortune 500 corporate city like Chicago or New York or Los Angeles, but we are very much a benevolent society community.
		We have ad hoc mutual aids after Katrina to help mitigate some of the issues that the federal government, billions of dollars was allocated after Katrina, but none hit the ground.
		What hit the ground was our benevolent community, and they took care of the people in New Orleans, and that's why our city has come back not just better, but stronger.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, next up is Andy in Florida on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Andy.
unidentified		Good morning.
		The discussions that we're having are all great.
		The next bill that's going to come up is the tax bill and what the last guest was just talking about and how they're reallocating funds.
		They're skinning the government alive.
		And we're not going to be ready for the next pandemic if they close all these programs down.
		That's one very important thing.
		And I don't know if we can expect the Republicans who do hold an edge in Congress, and we won't be able to do a damn thing without some of them signing on.
		We have to look at the Department of Defense.
		There was one thing that I used to say while I was working.
		I'm retired now, is that monkeys got to fight.
		Monkeys are going to fight.
		And you could be guaranteed that we will have wars.
		And I was drawing a somewhat unpleasant comparison to humanity.
		You know, there's going to be fights, but none of these systems are leading edge.
		They're basically all fighting the last war.
		There's got to be much more focus on drone warfare against large targets like ships if we're going to do that.
		They're less expensive and en masse in large numbers.
		They're going to be hard to defeat, both by our people and China and Russia.
		Further, like a lot of the statements have been going on, I'll speak in the national realm or the international realm.
		If we don't stop Putin in Ukraine, he will take Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia first, and then he'll be going after Moldova.
		Don't be silly.
		Don't be silly.
		You can't bluff with this guy.
		He's KGB.
		This is not like most of the rulers of the Soviet Union.
		And it's not like Mikhail Garbage Hub.
		Not at all.
		And just like Putin is not gorbachev, Trump is not Reagan by any stretch of the imagination.
		He's just causing us what's going to become apparent in about four weeks.
		I'll switch to the tariffs now.
		In about four weeks, we're going to start to see which things we're not going to have.
		Like electronics.
		You could just roll down the list of apparel, electronics, all these things that we are too expensive in our labor force to make here.
		And it's not just by a few bucks.
		People can't live in America on the wages that these industries can provide.
		People have to belly up to the bar, like I did 45 years ago, and get some sort of training.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So, Andy, you mentioned earlier about President Trump and some of the statements he's made about President Putin of Russia.
		There's some news this weekend that Trump says Putin may not want to stop the war in Ukraine.
		This is a story from Politico.
		It was referencing a post that he made on Truth Social shortly after Trump met with Vladimir Zelensky in Rome.
		President Donald Trump said Saturday that he is beginning to question whether Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to end the Russia-Ukraine war, a warning shot to the Russian leader that came just after Trump met with Ukrainian President Vlodymir Zelensky in Rome.
		Quote, there was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities, and towns over the last few days, Trump said in a post to his social media site referring to an attack on Kyiv earlier this week, which killed at least eight people.
		Lisa is in Shreveport, Louisiana on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Lisa.
unidentified		Yes, I think they are both bad people on both sides.
		I think we have been lied to about everything.
		I think President Trump is going to be the greatest president that ever lived because he is going to tell the truth with the people that he puts in there, such as I cannot wait to find out about the Clinton Global Foundation and where are the children.
		Thank you very much.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Carmelo is in Long Island City, New York on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Carmelo.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes.
george in the colony of texas ▲ ● ▼		I am listening to everyone, and I'm just amazed that we're not really looking at the real problem here.
unidentified		It seems to be that we are the problem.
		We, the American people, are the problem because we're not vetting our elected officials as we should.
		And when these people get elected, they tend to forget why they're there.
		They're there to represent each and every one of their constituents, their communities, but they're not.
		They're literally there to rubber stamp bills as some of the most outrageous policies that I've ever seen in my lifetime.
		And as I listen to people wondering that, oh, it's the right that they're too out there.
		Oh, it's the left that they just appease everyone.
		And it just basically comes down to us.
		Why aren't we betting the Margaret Taylor Greens of Georgia or the Bulbits or the Tim Scotts or the Byron Donald?
		We need to start looking at our politicians and our elected officials with a fine-tooth comb in order to get the right representation that we need.
		Because if we do not, we're going down the path of this dark hole that we're never going to come out of.
		The world is looking at us and they're laughing, and we don't seem to get the punchline.
		I just wanted to get that out to the people out in the audience so that maybe they'll reflect a little bit more when it comes to these elections that are coming up in the midterms.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Ricky is in South Carolina on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Ricky.
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
unidentified		Thanks for taking my call.
chris-2 in oklahoma ▲ ● ▼		We have to realize as taxpayers that the United States is a $37 trillion debt, and that's my call.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Next up is Daniel in Berlin, Connecticut on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Daniel.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		We got to get more transparency in the media.
		They're not open enough.
		Look what's happening to 60 Minutes.
		They're being suppressed.
		They're going to drag them into the court.
		So the media is running scared like the lawyers.
		So we really got to get our country back and get on board.
		People got to start realizing and read between the lines when it comes to the media.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Michael is in Washington, D.C. on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Michael.
unidentified		Good morning.
		What's your comment?
		My comment is about the computers and everything.
		People, everybody's grumping over what's being done and how the people are fighting amongst themselves over money and everything.
		But they've already been tested about all this, you know, these computers and stuff.
		Everybody's getting laid back.
		They're getting too laid back.
		And they're not really, if anything really did happen, I don't think they'll be in shape to really handle it politically or any other kind of way.
		That was all I wanted to say.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Julian is in Georgia on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Julian.
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
		I think what a lot of people are missing and not understanding is what's going on with Russia and Ukraine is the Cuban missile crisis in reverse.
		NATO kept pushing on Russia's boundaries, getting closer and closer to where Putin had a red line, and then they wanted Ukraine.
		All he had to do, Jelinsky, was go neutral.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Julian, are you still there?
unidentified		Hello.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go ahead.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You can finish your point.
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
marty schachter ▲ ● ▼		All Jelinsky had to do was go neutral, and the war would have ended that day one.
unidentified		But instead, he wants to continue to go around and ask for money and beg for military equipment and continue the war.
		Putin drew the red line.
		America kept pushing NATO on his boundaries.
		America went crazy when missiles were in Cuba, 90 miles off our coast.
		And then as far as the tariffs with President Trump.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Julian, it looks like we lost your line.
		Let's go to Jermaine in Charleston, South Carolina on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Jermaine.
unidentified		Hey, how are you doing?
		Good morning.
		Good.
		I would just like to say a couple of things.
		First, I would like to say that Pete Hakesev is worse than anything that they think DEI is.
		He is not qualified for the job.
		He's only got that job because he kissed Trump's butt.
		And then they promoted a three-star general to lead the Joint Chiefs.
		Now, you're going to tell me Pete Hagseff is more qualified to be SECDEF over that general?
		It doesn't make any sense.
		So he's worse than anything that they say DEI is.
		Also, for the callers that's calling in and saying that Donald Trump is going to get this country on track because he's honest and he tells the truth, where this man has lied to the American people thousands of times, and these lies are provable.
		You can prove that he's lying.
		He told the country there's massive fraud in an election and hasn't proved it yet.
		This man took a Sharpie and drew on the map just to prove himself to be correct.
		So he lies and he deceived the country at every turn.
		And I don't understand why people trust him so much.
		And that's my frustration.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		President Trump has complained that some elements of the federal government have been aligned against him.
		He had a speech at the Justice Department last month in which he said that the department was weaponized against him during the Biden administration.
		And he talked about how he sees the role of the Department of Justice in his administration.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Here's a portion: Our predecessors turned this Department of Justice into the Department of Injustice, but I stand before you today to declare that those days are over and they are never going to come back.
		They're never coming back.
		So now, as the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred.
		The American people have given us a mandate, a mandate like few people thought possible.
		We won every single swing state.
		We won the popular vote by millions and millions of people.
		We won districts 2,750.
		Think of that, 2,750 districts compared to 505.
		So we want it at levels that have, I don't believe, ever seen before.
		That's the one where you see the map of the United States, and it's all red, red for Republican, not for communist, red for Republican.
		They would like it to turn red for communists, but it didn't work out that way.
		The American people have given us a mandate and really a far re just a far-reaching investigation is what they are demanding into the corruption of our system.
		And that's exactly, I'm sure, what Pam and Cash and everyone else mentioned here and not mentioned is going to be doing.
		We will expel the rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government.
		We will expose and very much expose their egregious crimes and severe misconduct, of which was levels.
		You've never seen anything like it.
		It's going to be legendary.
		It's going to also be legendary for the people that are able to seek it out and bring justice.
		We will restore the scales of justice in America and we will ensure that such abuses never happen again in our country.
		And that's why on day one I signed an executive order banning all government censorship and directing the removal of every bureaucrat who conspired to attack free speech and many other things and values in America.
		My administration stripped the security clearances of the disgraced intelligence agents who lied about Hunter Biden's laptop from hell.
		We revoked the clearances of deranged Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, and the crooked law firms that aided their partisan persecutions.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Back to your calls and open forums.
		Selena is in Rochester, New York on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Selena.
unidentified		Good morning, Ms. Kimberly.
		I would like to make a comment about something that came up in the first part of the show.
		If we thought that we were going to get from Donald Trump what we are getting, I would like to say that I was never fooled by him.
		I believed that he was going to do exactly what he promised to do.
		And I think that Republicans voted for him because that was exactly what they wanted.
		But now, yes, he is doing what I expected him to do.
		But what I expect him to do further is to engage in some form of genocide or ethnic cleansing of people of color because NAGA really want an all-white America.
		So I think that the deportations are going to be coming for us.
		And if they have already done it to judges, then who am I?
		I'm just a little low-income person.
		And if they feel to, they will attack us too and deport us too.
		So thank you, Ms. Kimberly.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Kevin is in New York, New York, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Kevin.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thanks for C-SPAN.
		I was looking on the internet and I came across a story about a car attack in Canada at a festival.
		It happened to be for Filipino and the celebration of Lapu Lapu Day.
		I never heard of it.
		But I looked and did a quick search of the internet, and I noticed that it was similar to the attack, the car attack in Louisiana, but nobody knows anything about the driver.
		He's 30 years old, and that's it.
		And one of the media outlets said, oh, it wasn't a terrorist attack.
		I was just curious, does anybody know anything about this driver of the car and why are they so quick to say it's not a terrorist attack?
		Thank you so much for C-SPAN.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I'll read the latest on this that I'm seeing from CNN.
		Nine people killed after a car plows into a crowd at a Vancouver Filipino festival.
		And it's said that that was on Saturday night, and some of those attending the festival helped arrest the suspect at the scene, who police identified as a 30-year-old man.
		As of now, we can confirm nine people have died after a man drove through a crowd at last night's Lapu-Lapu Festival.
		Our thoughts are with all those affected by this tragic incident.
		Vancouver Police said, No motive was given, although police have said they are confident it was not an act of terrorism.
		Canadian officials are investigating whether mental health issues may have factored into the incident, a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation told CNN.
		Now then, that's all the time that we have today for Washington Journal.
		Thank you to everyone who called in with your questions and comments.
		We're going to be back tomorrow with another edition of the show starting at 7 a.m. Eastern.
		We hope you'll join us then, and have a great day.
unidentified		Coming up Monday morning, the Globe and Mail's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife previews federal elections in Canada.
		And then Catherine Tully McManus of Politico discusses the week ahead in Congress.
		Also, Christian Daytock of the Washington Examiner previews the week ahead at the White House.
		And Mohsen Milani of the Center for Strategic and Diplomatic Studies at the University of South Florida on U.S.-Iran relations and the state of nuclear negotiations.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
		Join the conversation live at 7 Eastern Monday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org.
		Next up, the U.S. Supreme Court hears a case concerning a group of parents in Maryland who are suing the Montgomery County School Board over the right to opt their children out of learning from LGBTQ-themed storybooks in elementary schools.
		And then Florida Republican Congressman Byron Donalds meets with constituents and discusses the implementation of Trump administration policy through the Department of Government Efficiency.
		And later, Vice President JD Vance talks about the economic interests of the U.S. and India after meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
		This week on the C-SPAN networks, the House and Senate returned from their two-week congressional recess.
		The House will vote to repeal several of the Biden administration's emissions standards rules.
		The Senate will vote on more of President Trump's nominations for U.S. ambassadors to China, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Italy.
		On Tuesday, after failing seven financial audits, financial officers from the Defense Department will appear before a House Oversight Subcommittee examining the DOD's financial practices, management of American taxpayer dollars, and its progress towards achieving a clean audit.
		Also, on Tuesday, as the Department of Education prepares to recognize its 45th anniversary, Education Secretary Linda McMahon will discuss why the department needs to be eliminated, how that can be done, and what American education would look like without a federal Department of Education.
		Live this week on the C-SPAN networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app.
		Also, head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime.
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		And we're just getting started.

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