| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | |
| Then we'll look at the first 100 days of President Trump's second term with author and presidential historian Lindsay Chervinski. | ||
| And the Cato Institute's Mike Fox discusses threats by the Trump administration to target local officials accused of interfering with immigration enforcement after the recent arrest of a judge in Wisconsin. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| The golden age of America begins right now. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| It's Tuesday, April 29th. | ||
| That was President Trump 100 days ago taking office for his second term. | ||
| He's holding several events to mark the day, including a rally in Michigan this evening that we'll cover live on C-SPAN 3 starting at 6 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| This morning, we're asking you about these past 100 days. | ||
| Specifically, what have you liked the most and or the least about President Trump's first 100 days? | ||
| Here are the numbers. | ||
| Republicans, 202748, 8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents, 202748, 8002. | ||
| You can send us a text at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Include your first name in your city-state. | ||
| And you can post your comments on social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Welcome to today's Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll start with real clear polling on President Trump's job approval. | ||
| This is an aggregate, an average of all these polls. | ||
| And here is the trend over time. | ||
| This black line is approved. | ||
| The red line is disapprove. | ||
| And right now, the average of all the polls that have been conducted during this last month of April is at a disapproval rating of 52% and approval rating of 45%. | ||
| Well, Borders are Tom Homan was at the White House yesterday talking about the success of the administration's immigration enforcement activities. | ||
| I've been at this for over 40 years. | ||
| I've worked for six presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan. | ||
| Every president I ever worked for took border security seriously because you can't have national security if you don't have strong border security. | ||
| We've got to know who's coming in, what's coming in, where it's coming in, why it's coming in, right? | ||
| Even President Obama and President Clinton took some steps to secure the border because they understood national security was important. | ||
| Joe Biden was the first president in the history of this nation who came in office and unsecured a border on purpose. | ||
| That's just a fact. | ||
| We handed the Biden administration after President Trump's first administration, we handed the Biden administration the most secure border in my lifetime, and he unsecured it on purpose. | ||
| Now, President Trump and this administration here, their success is unprecedented. | ||
| We beat Trump's first administration on border success. | ||
| Border numbers are historic law. | ||
| Today, as I'm standing here, we are the most secure border in the history of this nation. | ||
| And the numbers prove it. | ||
| President Trump's policies are saving lives every day. | ||
| That was yesterday. | ||
| And this morning we'll have a similar briefing at the White House with Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. | ||
| And this time it's going to be Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant talking about the economy during the first 100 days. | ||
| We're going to carry that live at 8:30 a.m. Eastern this morning on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| So you can watch that if you're interested, or you can stay with us here at the journal and watch that briefing later at c-span.org. | ||
| This is Pew Research doing some polling. | ||
| Trump's job rating drops. | ||
| Key policies draw majority disapproval as he nears 100 days. | ||
| Majorities in both parties say Trump administration must stop an action if a federal court rules it is illegal. | ||
| So here's a little bit more detail about that. | ||
| This one is Trump's approval rating is 40% and majorities disapprove of his tariff hikes and cuts to government. | ||
| Here are the numbers on that. | ||
| This is from Pew. | ||
| And Trump's job performance overall for them is 59 at disapproval, 40 at approve. | ||
| Administration's tariff policies have a 59% disapproval, 39% approval. | ||
| And the administration's cuts to federal departments and agencies are at 55% disapproving and 44% approval. | ||
| And we'll start taking your calls. | ||
| David is up first in Annapolis. | ||
| Good morning, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, America. | |
| Good morning, C-SPAN. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I'm an independent. | ||
| I think Trump is doing a fine job so far. | ||
| He's sticking to what he's been talking about for the past, well, during the campaign season and before. | ||
| Everything from the Panama Canal to let's get better trade deals to let's bring America jobs back to let's try to end these foreign wars. | ||
| There's really not much he's not touching. | ||
| And if anyone ever has any questions for Donald Trump, you can always go in the Oval Office because he's having a 45-minute QA every day with his cabinet there. | ||
| And anyone can feel the question. | ||
| I think within the first three days, he's probably spoke to the media and the American people off the cuff more than Biden did in his entire four years. | ||
| Nothing seems to be scrupulous. | ||
| So, David, let's get specific now. | ||
| So, tell me what have you liked? | ||
| You're obviously thinking he's doing a good job the first hundred years, first hundred days. | ||
| What is it that you've liked the most? | ||
| Give me your number one. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, if the reports are true, I like the fact that there's 70 countries in the queue ready to make new trade deals, which is, well, we'll see what they look like. | |
| But I find it hard to believe they're spending all this time for not or to not have favorable trade deals restructured. | ||
| I also like the fact that he's given the business to both Zelensky and Putin, saying, stop it. | ||
| Hey, it was $2,500 a week. | ||
| Now it's 5,000 people dying a week. | ||
| And he's constantly throwing that number out there, as well as reminding everyone that war is not good. | ||
| And he's also trying to end the war over with Israel and Hamas. | ||
| And he's also making sure that Iran is not necessarily arming the Houthis over there in Yemen in order to disrupt the shipping channel, which could really have some problems. | ||
| So it's just, he's taken all these hard issues, these difficult issues, head on. | ||
| And I just can't think of anyone else in my lifetime that I see. | ||
| Is there anything, David, that you don't like? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, I don't know. | |
| Like when he says that, you know, we're going to move into Gaza and it's America's now. | ||
| It's like, all right, well, sir, what does that look like? | ||
| He's like, well, it's just ours and we're not going to use Americans. | ||
| And I don't like the mineral deal. | ||
| And just speaking plainly, I don't like the mineral deal in Ukraine because then we have American companies over there and that could be a flashpoint if anything were to happen. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
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You know, the rare earth. | |
| So there are a couple things. | ||
| I know he likes to throw things out there to see what sticks to the wall and keep everybody on edge. | ||
| So, you know, this is Vicki in Nebraska, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Vicki. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, good morning, and thank you for having this show. | |
| I love you guys. | ||
| I love watching you. | ||
| I think he's doing a horrible job. | ||
| I'm for the people. | ||
| I believe in God, and I believe we're supposed to help poor people, and we're supposed to be honest. | ||
| And I'm sorry, but this is a bad time, and I'm glad I love prayer, and I believe God will get us out of it. | ||
| And thank you for being such a great show. | ||
| I recommend everybody to watch this show. | ||
| And yes, I don't think he's done anything right. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Have a beautiful day. | ||
| All right, Vicki, and appreciate that sentiment. | ||
| I wanted to bring something to your attention, actually, since Vicki brought up how much she enjoys C-SPAN, and that is an article, an opinion piece in the Washington Post because it's about us. | ||
| This is written by Karen Tummelty with the headline: Streaming Services Should Step Up to Make C-SPAN Great Again. | ||
| I'll just share with you a little bit of it. | ||
| It says that it starts by talking about how President Trump watches C-SPAN, and it says fewer and fewer Americans these days are getting access to C-SPAN, and that is creating a growing financial crisis for the network, which receives no government funding and is financed by a tiny sliver of what people pay on their cable bills. | ||
| It says that C-SPAN provides a vital service as the only place viewers can easily find start-to-finish coverage of so much that their elected officials are up to. | ||
| And if you would like to support that, we would love it if you went to our website and you can click there and let the streaming services know why you love C-SPAN so much and why you would love it if they carried it. | ||
| Here's Roy in Florida, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Roy. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, I mean, people need to get some stuff straight right here. | |
| I mean, I don't think he's did a good job at all. | ||
| I think he did a miserable job. | ||
| I was hoping that he'd do a good job, but he hasn't. | ||
| He's done what he's going to say and worse. | ||
| Every day, this guy signs executive orders on something when it's supposed to be going through Congress, which is extremely illegal, but Congress won't do anything. | ||
| Plus, he's doing away with due process, which that's on the way to a dictatorship. | ||
| If we don't get something done and ring in our government and get our Constitution back, he's going to keep on doing it. | ||
| He's using the Constitution for a piece of toilet paper. | ||
| Roy. | ||
| So let me ask you this: Is there anything that he's done this first hundred days that you appreciate that you like? | ||
|
unidentified
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No, there's nothing that he's done. | |
| People have to live in fear. | ||
| I mean, the immigrant community, they don't give any due process to anybody. | ||
| They put them in jail. | ||
| Right, Tom Horman, I like some of the immigration stuff, but that Tom Horman's wrong. | ||
| People get due process in this country. | ||
| A two-year-old with cancer sending them overseas is wrong. | ||
| They're U.S. citizens. | ||
| When you're a U.S. citizen, you stay in this country. | ||
| There's nothing that says that if you're not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, that you're supposed to leave this country. | ||
| The Democrats, people need to protest, or they're going to lose their country, and they're not because they're getting ugly. | ||
| They're starting to grandstand and cheerlead this thing of this immigration. | ||
| These people are evil, evil people. | ||
| And here's David Ossining, New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Let me focus on a foreign policy issue that if President Trump could really hack this and move it forward, his name at least would be absolved for many of the domestic policies that he has got involved, and that's Iran. | ||
| There is no way that he should only focus on nuclear issues with Iran. | ||
| Not only the nuclear issue has to be totally resolved. | ||
| That country doesn't need nuclear-related technologies as they have really wasted so much of their resources for the past 46 years. | ||
| But far more importantly, after having failed miserably at the domestic, regional, and international level for the past 46 years, if Trump can really facilitate the possibility of keeping the people of Iran fully empowered and at the table so that they could take their destiny into their own hands without any military confrontation and be able to transform that historic country, | ||
| that's the way Trump would be able to leave his name. | ||
| So, David, so far, do you think that that's the best thing that President Trump has done the first 100 days? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, he really has started it, but the fear that I have is that he starts rather strong, pompous, ostentatious, but then halfway into the process, all of a sudden he changes his tune and then moves forward and does a haphazard type of deal. | |
| I do not want him to only focus on nuclear issues, has to focus on domestic regional interference of that regime in the region and make sure that the number one priority is to have a prosperous, secular country where people for the first time can be heard clearly by their own constituencies that they truly elect. | ||
| All right, in St. Louis, Missouri, on the Republican line, Jack, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| First-time caller here. | ||
| I'm 20 years old. | ||
| I'm a college student, and I'm probably much younger than the rest of a lot of callers usually during the day. | ||
| But I have to say, as a Republican or I've shifted Republican, my first time voting, I voted for Trump. | ||
| And I have to say, I'm really pleased about seeing his leadership within the past 100 days. | ||
| A lot of my friends who were formerly independents or also kind of shifted towards liking Trump, we think he's a very strong leader, much stronger than what we've been seeing the past four years. | ||
| We're really excited most on his foreign policy and seeing his ability to make deals with his, even with Selensky, even though he was very kind of combative. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We want to see that. | |
| We want to see more people combat with the U.S. and bend their knee because we're the strongest country in the world and we need strong leadership to do so. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I'm very, very excited with where Trump is leading this nation. | |
| And I think he's leading this nation towards a much better direction than past president. | ||
| All right, Jack. | ||
| We appreciate you calling in. | ||
| And this is John in District Heights, Maryland, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning to you, and thank you. | |
| I don't see anything he has done positive since he's been in there. | ||
| Nothing, zero. | ||
| When he came in with Elon Musk, they started smashing, banging. | ||
| I mean, it's off the chain, and I don't blame him. | ||
| I blame that Republican Congress. | ||
| I blame that Republican Senate because they have not done what they were supposed to do. | ||
| They've all been bought and sold by Donald Trump and scared off by Elon Musk. | ||
| The American people, the only people who can save this nation, not him, because the man is a criminal. | ||
| He was a criminal before he came in. | ||
| He's a criminal now. | ||
| Donald Trump is not a weak, not a strong leader. | ||
| A strong leader is a humble man. | ||
| A man will look out for those who can't care for themselves. | ||
| He will do what is right because it is right. | ||
| This man is a thug. | ||
| He wants to be Don Cardillon, but he's just so weak and he's a whiner. | ||
| That's all he does is whine. | ||
| And the thing about it is, the one lawyer that works for him has any integrity, told the court what he did was wrong. | ||
| He got fired. | ||
| That should tell the American people to work for Donald Trump, you got to be a liar. | ||
| And that's all. | ||
| You're talking about the lawyer in the Abrego Garcia case that admitted that it was an administrative error. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, he did. | |
| And look what happened to him. | ||
| Now, if that happened to him, what does that say about the rest of the people that work for him? | ||
| They're liars. | ||
| They stand there and they lie. | ||
| They twist the truth. | ||
| And the only way, see, I don't watch sports, ma'am. | ||
| I do not watch no sports at all. | ||
| I'm 81 years old. | ||
| I'm a retired police officer. | ||
| When I was growing up, if you were a liar, then you had no integrity whatsoever. | ||
| That's all they do is lie and twist stuff. | ||
| Then they go to Fox News, and Fox News justify their lies, especially that dog on Hannity. | ||
| He makes $25 million a year for Fox News. | ||
| There's nothing. | ||
| And the thing about it is, ma'am, this thing is not. | ||
| And what's really upsetting me the most, they call themselves Christians. | ||
| Christians, can you believe this? | ||
| With the lie and the people they're hurting, my daughter worked for the federal government. | ||
| She's been perplexed and bewildered because she doesn't know if she'll have a job next week. | ||
| This is sad. | ||
| And then you got a four-year-old kid sent out the country with cancer. | ||
| You tell me this man is doing something decent. | ||
| All they're doing is call chaos and confusion, pain, and heartache and misery. | ||
| Old people right now are going to lose their Social Security, gonna lose their health insurance. | ||
| And this man doing something good. | ||
| He's a braggadocious. | ||
| Oh, yeah, he looks good. | ||
| But when you take the clothes off, you got a sick individual. | ||
| Donald Trump. | ||
| All right, John, we got that. | ||
| And this is House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries with reporters yesterday on Capitol Hill giving his assessment of the president's first 100 days. | ||
| What we said from the very beginning is that Donald Trump lied about his willingness to lower costs in America and drive down the high cost of living. | ||
| We said that from the very beginning and that we had them on the run on the economy, on health care, and Social Security, with the economy being first amongst equals, while at the same time, of course, defending freedom, liberty, justice, and due process in the United States of America. | ||
| And we'll continue to do that. | ||
| But Donald Trump made a core promise to the American people. | ||
| He was going to lower costs on day one. | ||
| Costs aren't going down. | ||
| They're going up. | ||
| Inflation is on the way up. | ||
| Donald Trump is crashing the economy. | ||
| And Republicans in the Congress, these rubber-stamp Republicans, are actively letting it happen. | ||
| And that's why the American people have said, inside of 100 days, enough. | ||
| This is a disaster. | ||
| It's an unmitigated disaster. | ||
| This guy has the lowest approval rating of any president in modern American history inside of 100 days. | ||
| That's extraordinary. | ||
| This is the same group that bragged to all of you and the American people that they had some extraordinary mandate. | ||
| We said from the very beginning there was no mandate. | ||
| News of our demise was greatly exaggerated. | ||
| And that was Hakeem Jeffries. | ||
| And here are a couple more lawmakers with their reaction for the first 100 days. | ||
| Here's Representative Randy Feenstra, who says, in well under 100 days, President Trump restored order at our border. | ||
| It turns out that enforcing the laws on the books actually works. | ||
| Representative Lloyd Doggett says Trump said he'd lower prices on day one. | ||
| Instead, we're nearly 100 days in, and we're paying more for everyday items thanks to his tariff tax. | ||
| No wonder he has the lowest 100-day approval rating of any president in the past 80 years. | ||
| Here's Representative Frank Pallone, who says Trump's poll numbers are the lowest that any president has had in his first 100 days in office. | ||
| The American people want a government that works for them, not billionaires. | ||
| And that is a little too small for me to see. | ||
| Senator Amy Klobuchar says it's been 100 days of broken promises by the Trump administration from higher costs to increase corruption. | ||
| The American people see what's happening and they won't stand for it. | ||
| And Senator Ben Ray Lujan, who says in his first 100 days, President Trump has done nothing to lower costs for families. | ||
| Instead, he's igniting a trade war and weaponizing the federal government to go after his political appointees. | ||
| Representative Andrew Clyde says in less than 100 days, President Trump has accomplished more than Joe Biden did in four years. | ||
| And we're hearing from you this morning on what you like the least, the most or the least about President Trump's first 100 days. | ||
| Here's Norris in San Bernardino, California, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Hey, I'm actually an individual that voted for Trump back in 2016. | ||
| This current administration currently terrifies me. | ||
| I noticed a couple of callers called earlier and they were saying they like his leadership and I liked it. | ||
| I wish I could have challenged them and said, what leadership are you talking about? | ||
| Are you talking about the schoolgirl feud email that he left for Putin this weekend where he told him to stop, stop killing people instead of just, you know, maybe pressuring the guy or maybe send Putin a nickname or the Doge fiasco that everybody thought was actually saving us money. | ||
| What happened to those Doge checks people were supposed to get from the savings? | ||
| And the savings were supposed to be in the billions and now they're downgrading it because they're not saving anything. | ||
| They're cutting programs. | ||
| They're not getting rid of waste or anything. | ||
| It's just cutting programs. | ||
| Or how about this Trump actually playing, excuse me, hokey pokey with the tariffs, up and down. | ||
| Put your right foot in, put your right foot out. | ||
| I'm still a working individual. | ||
| I'm in my 50s. | ||
| So because of him, I think in that two or three days I lost somewhere around $11,000, $12,000 or $13,000 out of my 401k that I'm not going to get back is just ruined. | ||
| Where is the leadership? | ||
| Nothing has gone down. | ||
| And I challenge my brothers that are Trump supporters. | ||
| When he says something, go look and do your research. | ||
| Don't just take what he says and face value. | ||
| If he says eggs are down 80%, go look at it and compare it to something. | ||
| If he says gas is down by whatever percent, go actually look at it. | ||
| He doesn't have our best interests in mind. | ||
| I don't think he really wanted to be president, but he's doing an absolute horrible job. | ||
| I've never seen anything like this. | ||
| And I feel so sorry for seniors that Elon Musk was allowed to change the phone number or do something with the phone number for their Social Security where they can't actually get someone on the phone. | ||
| I have a lot of friends that are older guys. | ||
| The last thing they want to do is access the computer. | ||
| They rather get somebody on the phone and ask their questions. | ||
| I don't see where this has been a great administration the first hundred days. | ||
| And the sad and terrifying part that we got three more years and some change to go. | ||
| Three years, 11 months. | ||
| Well, three years, what is it, nine months to go? | ||
| All right, Norris. | ||
| We got your point. | ||
| Let's talk to Cheryl, a Republican in Daytona Beach, Florida. | ||
| Hi, Cheryl. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I hope you let me speak as long as you're Trump haters. | ||
| My very, very favorite thing to watch is the left pee brains brains explode, including the legacy media. | ||
| You know, C-SPAN, I've watched you guys for like 30 years of my life, and I have loved you so much, but you're becoming. | ||
| We love you too, Cheryl. | ||
| But let's stick with our topic, which is the most or least thing that you like about President Trump's first 100 days. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I like watching the Left's P-Brains explode. | |
| This man gets up every single day working with a tremendously great administration. | ||
| He brought together a coalition unlike any other Democrat, Independence, you name it. | ||
| These are very, very smart people. | ||
| And you think within 100 days he can fix what's been destroyed for not just the last four years, which were the worst ever, but for decades. | ||
| Not just by Democrats, but Republicans, too. | ||
| The fraud, waste, and abuse has happened because of both parties. | ||
| This is a government that is way overbloated. | ||
| It's full of fraud, waste, and abuse. | ||
| And if you think that his tariffs and stuff have affected prices, they have not yet. | ||
| They're not even kicked in for the most part yet. | ||
| So Cheryl, would you say the thing that you like the most is the Doge cuts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| The country should be cheering Elon Musk. | ||
| This is a man who is a genius. | ||
| And the left loved him until he decided to take back our freedom of speech and our constitutional rights and help save a country that's literally being destroyed. | ||
| You think that he's going to take your Social Security away? | ||
| He's trying to save it. | ||
| What's going to happen is you're going to lose your Social Security if nothing's done. | ||
| And the people of today are so selfish. | ||
| They want what they want right now without a care in the world about future generations. | ||
| We cannot sustain the level of debt and spending that we have been doing. | ||
| We can't. | ||
| It's impossible. | ||
| And because people want the self-gratification immediately, and the American people, overall, not every one of them, have become very lazy, very, very selfish. | ||
| It's mind-blowing. | ||
| And Cheryl, you had mentioned the tariffs. | ||
| You're in favor of those tariffs. | ||
| You said that they haven't really kicked in. | ||
| The price increases haven't really kicked in yet. | ||
| Was that what you were saying? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Exactly. | |
| My cost of living has not gone up. | ||
| As a matter of fact, I don't think I'm spending as much at the grocery store and the gas station as I was. | ||
| And I had more money under Trump's first administration than I ever had in my life in my pocket. | ||
| And Obama's gas prices and diesel prices went through the roof. | ||
| I remember it. | ||
| I had a handicap-capped husband with a diesel vehicle. | ||
| I had to ferry him around it. | ||
| I paid over $5 a gallon for diesel fuel. | ||
| It killed me economically. | ||
| And then the prices went back down under Trump and right back up under Biden. | ||
| You never wanted to talk about the 9% inflation rate. | ||
| Have you seen the prices of gas come down for you? | ||
| Or what are you seeing in these first 100 days? | ||
| Or are you expecting that to happen later? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Egg prices have come down in my market, and so have gas prices. | |
| And these people that are complaining, oh, their standard of living is hurting, not yet. | ||
| But they're going to. | ||
| And we do need free and fair trade. | ||
| And I'm for Robert F. Kennedy, too. | ||
| What kind of person doesn't want investigations done, questions asked? | ||
| Many voices at the table. | ||
| All right, Cheryl, I've got to move on. | ||
| This is Steve in Pekin, Indiana. | ||
| Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd like to make a few comments on some things that are going on in Indiana. | ||
| First off, I'd like to say that there's only two things in Trump's first and this administration that I like. | ||
| And we'll save this for last. | ||
| But what I don't like is here in Indiana, Union School District up in east central Indiana, they just closed the school system, and it's going to be effective in 2027 school year without any knowledge of the entire community. | ||
| And here, Republican people, this is what the state of Indiana has done. | ||
| I've been here for almost 20 years. | ||
| I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio area. | ||
| Now, they have canceled out and gotten rid of all of our township governments. | ||
| And Indiana is a rural state. | ||
| Who is doing this, Steve? | ||
| The state has taken and abolished union school system. | ||
| It's union. | ||
| But how is this related to the federal government and President Trump's first 100 days? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, here's the thing. | |
| Mike Braun is our governor. | ||
| He follows Trump's agenda, did when he was my senator. | ||
| The Republicans have canceled out all township governments. | ||
| So now they just run roughshod over us here in Indiana. | ||
| And President Trump and the rest of the Republicans are planning to do this to the country. | ||
| Also, oil is lower than it's been in a long time per barrel. | ||
| At the pump, it's $3 a gallon for regular. | ||
| And get this, it's $1.50 more. | ||
| I paid at a marathon station yesterday for premium. | ||
| I have one vehicle that I drive regular that's premium, and I have two pleasure vehicles that are premium. | ||
| But nonetheless, prices on fuel are going up. | ||
| They're not coming down. | ||
| They're charging more per gallon, and it's costing them way less per barrel. | ||
| What they're doing is they're playing a bait and switch on the American people. | ||
| Now, they're doing it in every aspect, this trade war with Canada. | ||
| Does anybody actually think this is going to make our prices lower? | ||
| It's not going to. | ||
| The egg epidemic, we just had to destroy over 2,000 birds a month and a half ago in Seymour, Indiana, 30 miles north of me, because of the bird flu that President Trump is closing down all the offices that watch those types of things. | ||
| How is the, if he's closing down USDA, and how are we going to pay attention, or the CDC, how are we going to pay attention to bird flu or COVID or anything? | ||
| I mean, it's just a debacle. | ||
| I mean. | ||
| All right, Steve, we got that point. | ||
| And Ceaseband had a chance to talk to the House Republican Conference Chair, Lisa McLean, at a first 100 days event at the Capitol yesterday. | ||
| Here's a portion of that. | ||
| Congressman McClain, we are marketing the president's first 100 days of this second term. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Where do you think the president has accomplished his agenda? | |
| And where do you think he's fallen short? | ||
| Well, I think it starts with promises made, promises kept. | ||
| And I think the biggest piece of legislation or function that he's done has been to close the border. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's done that. | |
| I don't think anyone can argue with that. | ||
| Border crossings are down. | ||
| Illegal migration and immigration is down, right? | ||
| Now we have to work on getting those illegals out, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Of which he's doing. | |
| So I think that is absolutely fantastic, what he's done. | ||
| He told you he was going to do it, and on day one, he did it, right? | ||
| What was the second part of the question, Sari, or do you think he's fallen short? | ||
| I don't know if I would say he's fallen short, but what I think you'll see in the next hundred days is more deregulation, more regulatory reform as it pertains to NEPA and whatnot. | ||
| That is going to just by nature take a little bit longer, but I think you'll see a lot of that happen in the next 100 days, as well as a lot of energy reform happen in the next 100 days. | ||
| I think the border, the reason why that was, that went so well was because he could do it quickly and swiftly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The other ones just take a little bit more time, and that's what you're going to see. | |
| On the economy, the president's poll numbers on how he's handling the economy are not good. | ||
| Why do you think that is? | ||
| Well, I don't think they're horrible either. | ||
| So if we're going to talk, we'll talk both ends of the stick. | ||
| I think because it's uncertainty, right? | ||
| But what I also think you see is a lot of people giving him a lot of grace because they know what President Trump is trying to do is make transformational change. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not a little tweak here or a little tweak there. | |
| He is literally trying to transform our economy, getting it back to the America First agenda, bringing manufacturing back to the United States, and more importantly, my state of Michigan. | ||
| That takes a little bit more time, and I liken it to working out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
When you start working out, you're going to be a little bit sore the first time, the first few times you work out. | |
| And that's what we're experiencing right now. | ||
| But the long-term health and the long-term gains that you're going to accomplish will be immeasurable. | ||
| And that's exactly what I think he's doing with the economy and the tariffs and whatnot. | ||
| That was yesterday on Capitol Hill. | ||
| And this is Patricia calling us from Texas on the line for independence. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| As far as Trump goes, back in 2016, I did vote for Trump. | ||
| But this go round, I'm not pleased with what Trump is doing. | ||
| What really had me upset is I feel it's a lot of division and commotion that's going on in the United States behind Trump. | ||
|
unidentified
|
January 6th, those riders being let out. | |
| And for him not to see anything wrong with what they did, even though we saw it in front of our own eyes, he's telling us we didn't see what we saw. | ||
| And it was just because those people were doing all that for him. | ||
| That was upsetting. | ||
| The second thing that was upsetting to me is the way they handled Zelensky in the Oval Office. | ||
| You know, I listened to that man that was Republican when he said, oh, you don't wear a suit. | ||
| You know, this man, when he gets off the plane in Ukraine, he's putting on a bulletproof vest and getting an AK-47 in his hand because he's at full-blown war. | ||
| And all they could talk about was a suit. | ||
| I think the Republicans have really become disrespectful. | ||
| I think they feel it's normal to just talk and say anything that you want and be rude. | ||
| I listened to him say Biden was an old man and he was retired. | ||
| He's nursing home age. | ||
| Trump is not far behind in age as Biden. | ||
| And Patricia, I heard what you like the least about the first 100 days. | ||
| Is there anything that you can point to that you did like about the first 100 days? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, honestly, no. | |
| I've been trying to try to find good in Trump because I try to find good and bad in both. | ||
| You know, as far as the tariffs, I understand it. | ||
| I understand him doing tariffs. | ||
| I feel it's a good thing. | ||
| But the way that it's being done, it's not right. | ||
| I think it's just not, it's just, it's not being done in the right way, but I do agree with it. | ||
| But and then the border control, living in Texas, you know, yeah, the border control, I'll give that to him. | ||
| I'm, I, you know, I'm pleased with the way he has border control, but the important people and stuff is the way they are, and some people that are Americans. | ||
| No, I don't agree with that. | ||
| All right, Patricia, let's hear from John, a Republican in Troy, New York. | ||
| Hi, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I just think the best thing about Trump so far that I liked was the border. | |
| Obviously, it was completely out of control, and Democrats were just lying or in denial about it. | ||
| And you have to ask yourself: people just call in and say they dislike Trump, you have to look at the alternative. | ||
| When they call Trump undemocratic, it's ridiculous because what was more undemocratic than handpicking a candidate that nobody voted for. | ||
| And so, John, sticking with the first 100 days, you like the border. | ||
| Anything you don't like about the first 100 days as a Republican? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, the, well, maybe, you know, when he says he's going to buy or make Canada 51st state or the Gulf of America, you know, that's just Trump being Trump. | |
| But if you look at the alternative to what Harris would have done, Trump is head and shoulders above it. | ||
| You know, the tariff, I hope that works out. | ||
| But if Harris had won, the alternative, everything would be between electric car mandates to the border to releasing criminals. | ||
| It just, everything would have been a complete mess. | ||
| And Trump might have his faults personality-wise, but overall, the country, most policies are back to normal, from sanity to the gender stuff. | ||
| It just was out of control with the Democrats. | ||
| And Harris was just not voted. | ||
| Not only was she not voted for, but four years ago when she ran on her own mayor, nobody voted for her, and she was the first to drop out. | ||
| So, you know, Trump has his faults, but mostly it's the border, the economy. | ||
| And, John, you did mention Canada. | ||
| How far away is Troy from the border with Canada? | ||
|
unidentified
|
About three, four hours. | |
| Like, you can get to Montreal in about three hours. | ||
| Okay, so did you hear about the elections yesterday? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I did not. | |
| Okay, so I'll just share with everybody that Mark Carney, the Liberal Party, did win the elections. | ||
| So he's the new prime minister. | ||
| And here is what he said in his victory speech yesterday, very early Tuesday morning. | ||
| Here it is. | ||
| I am going to begin with the value of humility and by admitting that I have much to be humble about. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| Over my long. | ||
| That's not an applause line. | ||
| It's just a statement of fact. | ||
| Over my long career, I have made many mistakes, and I will make more. | ||
| But I commit to admitting them openly, to correcting them quickly, and always learning from them. | ||
| You know, humility underscores the importance of governing as a team in cabinet and in caucus and working constructively with all parties across parliament. | ||
| Of working in partnership with the provinces and the territories and with Indigenous peoples. | ||
| And at this time, it underscores the value of bringing together labor, business, civil society to advance the nation-building investments we need to transform our economy. | ||
| Humility is also about recognizing that one of the responsibilities of government is to prepare for the worst, not hope for the best. | ||
| As I've been warning for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Never. | |
| But these are not. | ||
| These are not idle threats. | ||
| President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. | ||
| That will never. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That will never ever happen. | |
| That was Prime Minister, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declaring victory in those federal elections that happened yesterday. | ||
| And we've got a couple of posts on Facebook. | ||
| This is Bruce, who says, hated the January 6th pardons. | ||
| What happened to Republicans saying EOs were ruling by fiat? | ||
| Don't like Doge, uncomfortable with all the billionaires in positions of power after running on the common man promises. | ||
| Hate to break it to you, but they don't understand how working class people live. | ||
| And Cindy says Trump's reciprocal trading program is going to work. | ||
| He knows how to course correct and he is applying his expertise. | ||
| And here is Ray Lee in Erie, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| As far as the first hundred days, they're scary. | ||
| But I do have a question about the immigration that I have not heard nobody talk about. | ||
| And that would be the bill that Trump squashed, that was the bipartisan bill. | ||
| Why is it okay just to take the immigrant out without due process? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| It's just scary. | ||
| As far as the tariffs go, I don't know. | ||
| As far as Trump and his history, his business skills aren't, he does not have the great deal. | ||
| He's got people behind him. | ||
| Republican. | ||
| I just wish that they're talking about doing it for the American people, but they don't try to work together. | ||
| So if you had to point to one thing, Rayleigh, during the 100 days, is it the immigration enforcement? | ||
| Is it what do you said that you were scared? | ||
| What's scaring you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's pretty much all of it. | |
| I mean, the disrespect he has for, you know, our allies and fighting with our neighbors. | ||
| You know, he made a deal with Canada and Mexico. | ||
| It was a great deal in their first term. | ||
| And then the second term, he's talking about taking over Canada. | ||
| This is just ridiculous. | ||
| The hate's got to stop. | ||
| And as far as free speech goes, they talk to talk about free speech. | ||
| So free speech includes lying. | ||
| But if you say something against them, then where's your free speech? | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here's Kathy in Hawaii independent line. | ||
| Hi, Kathy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I do think that Europe definitely needs to take more responsibility for their own security because we American taxpayers should not be footing the bill for them all the time. | ||
| So I do definitely support that. | ||
| What worries me is the loss of the value in the dollar. | ||
| And I think that when the Treasury has to convince foreign nations or business leaders that the dollar is still a good thing or treasuries are still a good thing, if these countries decide to dump the dollar, I think it's going to be a huge problem for all of us. | ||
| And in regards to, I read the other day that 60 Minutes, which is, in my opinion, a wonderful program where they do investigative journalism. | ||
| And I read that the executive producer is resigning because apparently they cannot make their own independent decisions on what stories to run anymore. | ||
| I'm not, you know, I think that's not so good for the country as a whole thing. | ||
| And the environment does concern me, you know, quite a bit when you do go back to fossil fuel. | ||
| I think that on the one hand, we're talking about making America healthy again, but if the water gets polluted, you know, and people get sick because of that, that's going to be a huge problem. | ||
| But the other thing, too, is that, you know, other countries literally are diverting away from the United States. | ||
| That may or may not be a good thing, but everybody's looking for new trading partners. | ||
| And what worries me is, you know, maybe the United States will be kind of left behind because they're diverting away from the United States. | ||
| So anyway, that's my comment. | ||
| We got it, Kathy. | ||
| And the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant was with reporters outside the White House yesterday, and he talked about the status of trade talks with other nations. | ||
| Let me expect the first trade deal. | ||
| I think it could be as early as this week or next week. | ||
| Vice President Vance was in India last week, and negotiations are coming along quite well with them. | ||
| As I've mentioned, some of our Asian trading partners have come with very, very good deals. | ||
| We're evaluating those. | ||
| And President Trump's going to have the final say on all of them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Bessant, this weekend, the president wrote on True Social that tariffs will substantially reduce, even eliminate the income taxes for many Americans, especially those making under $200,000. | |
| How will that work? | ||
| I haven't spoken to President Trump since he got back from the Vatican. | ||
| We're going to be having a tax meeting today. | ||
| But what you can see is that as we go into the tax negotiations of the final stages of the tax bill, we're going to see the president's campaign promises, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime, and making auto loans deductible again. | ||
| Tariffs could substantially pay for many of those. | ||
| So if you'd like to hear more from Secretary Bessant, you can. | ||
| Later today, 8.30 a.m., there will be a briefing at the White House that we'll cover live on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| And here is Bill in Texas, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how y'all doing? | |
| I appreciate the program y'all run, but Trump has done an outstanding job on the border. | ||
| I think the Doge is something that people are hollering about that when it all comes to be. | ||
| And I know this because I worked for a company that had a government, which supplied everything for the government. | ||
| Government contract. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're right. | |
| On the state side. | ||
| And on the state side, I saw new parts and new products sitting in the corner, get swept up and thrown away. | ||
| And on the government side, I was in the Marine Corps, and I saw the things that were so wasted there. | ||
| And what they had to pay for was pitiful. | ||
| I mean, you know, when you get a $150 hammer, and it's just plain Jane, that's all it is to it. | ||
| But hey, I'm all for President Trump. | ||
| When we just had 100 days, I don't know what's wrong, people. | ||
| When we get to 365 days, that's a year, they'll be seeing what Trump has done and what he can do. | ||
| But I appreciate talking to y'all. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Appreciate you, too, Bill. | ||
| And this is Monique in Washington, D.C., Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| I want to start off by saying you don't have to make C-SPAN great again. | ||
| C-SPAN has always been great. | ||
| Okay, I just wanted to get that out the way. | ||
| Thank you, Monique. | ||
| And I hope you'll go to the website and let the streaming services know that, too. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I love C-SPAN, okay? | |
| I listen to C-SPAN more than I listen to music on the radio. | ||
| Okay, you are my go-to. | ||
| Sometimes I might not even understand everything that the politicians are saying, but eventually, if I watch the program good enough, I'm into it and I'm understanding of it. | ||
| And now I'll be able to communicate what I do listen to on C-SPAN to others, the facts. | ||
| What I wanted to start off by saying is I'm giving Trump an opportunity to just do what he says, and I'm not trying to analyze or complain about anything that's going on. | ||
| I've learned enough that about America. | ||
| This is America. | ||
| Everybody gets an opportunity to try to make it better than what it was before. | ||
| So when it comes to what I think Trump has done good for America so far, I think he's pushing the America agenda in a different type of way as far as when it comes to communicating what he wants to do and what he doesn't want to do. | ||
| And he's rubbing certain cultures the wrong way. | ||
| My first dislike is messing with the Black History Museum. | ||
| Let us tell our truth. | ||
| Let our truth speak for itself when it comes to the museum. | ||
| That's a place where he should not be putting his hands into and removing Martin Luther King Bibles. | ||
| He's removing a lot of historical pieces within that museum that tells the story of our history. | ||
| And I think a lot of Americans don't want that history told. | ||
| But I think one thing that'll settle it, if maybe the president himself get on the pollster and say, we apologize for everything that we have inflicted on the African American community. | ||
| There are a lot of businesses out here that get paid off of our pain and our disruption. | ||
| You know, you have a lot of organizations that get paid off of African Americans pain. | ||
| And what I also respect about Trump is immigration. | ||
| Even though a lot of people don't like the way he's doing it, but get in the right way, come through the right and correct way. | ||
| And that's how it be. | ||
| I don't think a lot of people should be jumping in front of people who are doing it the legal way. | ||
| You know, I understand the tears. | ||
| And one more thing. | ||
| One more thing before I go. | ||
| D.C., you know, a lot of Republicans talk about separating states from the federal government and taking care of ourselves. | ||
| The District of Columbia, we pay more in taxes than majority of the states in our union. | ||
| But let alone, we are right now forced. | ||
| My mayor is forced to cut $1.1 billion Within our economy, because Mike Johnson chose to put specific language in the legislation to force us to cut when President Trump specifically said that he did not want that language put in the bill. | ||
| Mike Johnson did it anyway. | ||
| I think President Trump is our president, and Mike Johnson needs to listen to what he said. | ||
| Got it, Monique. | ||
| And staying in the DC, well, no, we're going to go to Brighton, Michigan, Independent Line. | ||
| Linda, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Well, I'd have to say that I'm most disappointed with the way he's treating Zelensky in Ukraine. | ||
| I was in the Navy during the Cold War, and Putin and Russia are not our friends. | ||
| And I don't like RFK with the vaccine issues and everything. | ||
| I just heard the other day now that America has no longer eradicated the measles. | ||
| We're off that list now. | ||
| I just don't know what will be next. | ||
| I mean, firing all the veterans that worked in the federal government, just saying randomly that they weren't coming to work. | ||
| Nobody knows that. | ||
| I mean, you know what? | ||
| It ain't even that they weren't. | ||
| A lot of times you get more work done at home than you do when you go to the office because you're commuting and all of that, and you're more focused. | ||
| And you can take calls up until whenever, you know, in the middle of the night. | ||
| And all this money that Joe says they're saving is not even close to what he said he was going to save. | ||
| And they can't even buy one of the new fighter jets that they want to buy for the Air Force with what he saved. | ||
| So and Linda, you're an independent. | ||
| You're an independent in Michigan. | ||
| Did you vote for President Trump? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely not. | |
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'm not happy with the Democrats either. | |
| So it wasn't much of a choice. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| You're on the Republican line in Chevy Chase, Maryland. | ||
| Jim, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| I think that he's doing a good job, and I really like what he's doing with immigration. | ||
| We have a safe border again. | ||
| One of the things I'd like to mention, though, is a lot of people just don't give him time, and they have the arrangements since him. | ||
| You know, the thing is that he's going to need time to follow a lot of these policies. | ||
| And what I think we need right now is for people just to give him a chance and let these policies come through. | ||
| And one of the things that I don't like is the way he's doing things. | ||
| He's not following the due process in some of the situations where the deportation man was deported. | ||
| They should just send him back. | ||
| Things like that. | ||
| And the way that he's cutting a lot of the federal jobs, I think he could have done that better. | ||
| The tariffs, I think, are a good idea, but I think he should have done it in a more friendly way. | ||
| But the thing is that what he's trying to do, he's trying to change the economic policies that we've been having to deal with for years, and it's unfair. | ||
| I really like the reciprocal tariffs. | ||
| I think that's a great idea. | ||
| His other ideas in terms of Greenland and Panama Canal, I think those are good because it strengthens our country. | ||
| We need the raw materials from these places. | ||
| So I think that's good. | ||
| The last thing I just want to say is I think people who hate Trump, they need to give him a chance. | ||
| And they're always bringing up these things like, oh, he's a criminal. | ||
| He lies. | ||
| There's a callerback. | ||
| He said he lies. | ||
| But all politicians lie. | ||
| And they're always looking at the worst things he does. | ||
| But what about just looking at some of the good things he does? | ||
| And everything, no matter what he did, some of these people, they're always going to find the worst. | ||
| Even if he solves poverty, they're going to say he did something wrong. | ||
| So I just think we need to look at the overall picture. | ||
| All right, Jim. | ||
| And here is Sam in Thousand Oaks, California, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Sam. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I'll keep it short and sweet. | ||
| What I like, he closed the border. | ||
| I came in here legally decades ago. | ||
| I don't see why other people cannot come here legally. | ||
| What I don't like, he has not brought down prices yet. | ||
| I've said this before on this show a couple of times. | ||
| Your listeners may recall. | ||
| Several years ago, there's a jingle on the radio, $5 a foot long by Subway. | ||
| I don't think I'm going to hear that jingle again. | ||
| When I do, I'll know he's brought down prices. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| And let's talk to Eric in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You know, the way I see it, Donald Trump is lucky to break 25% approval because 95% of everything the media puts out is negative. | ||
| Even this show, 95% of what you've read this morning is negative toward Trump. | ||
| You've got to remember, Joe Biden slept for four years and he got nothing done important. | ||
| And now we've got a man in there that really shows up every day. | ||
| So what do you like the most, Eric? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I like the border. | |
| He closed the border. | ||
| My gracious, Biden let 20 million people in here. | ||
| And now, if you give those 20 million people a green card, then they can sponsor family members, and the 20 million turns into 50 million. | ||
| A lot of people don't realize that. | ||
| And it just I just wish that the media could be halfway fair. | ||
| It's like NBC the other day. | ||
| They used talking about those saving $150 billion. | ||
| They said allegedly saved $150 million, billion dollars. | ||
| You know, it's crazy. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right, Eric. | ||
| And here's Sandy in California, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I don't like Trump at all. | ||
| I don't think he's doing anything. | ||
| He lies like he breathes. | ||
| He has started a trade war that, and I believe he's manipulating the stock market with these tariff pronouncements. | ||
| As far as immigration goes, we had an immigration deal that he killed because he wanted the issue of immigration. | ||
| He didn't want to solve immigration. | ||
| What he wanted to do was to develop a police state where he could call out the military, where he could, if the protests got violent in some way, that he could declare martial law and deploy the military on the American people. | ||
| Trump wants to be a king. | ||
| So, Sandy, let me ask you, since you mentioned the bill, the immigration bill, so what the president's supporters are saying is President Trump closed the border without a bill. | ||
| So, what do you think of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so let's go back to the Biden administration. | |
| President Biden wanted a bill. | ||
| He wanted a law to fix our immigration. | ||
| What Trump is doing is issuing executive orders. | ||
| Those are not laws. | ||
| Only Congress can pass laws. | ||
| He doesn't want to use our systems of government in the way he has. | ||
| This is the most abusive president. | ||
| He has abused his power exponentially. | ||
| There is nothing that he is doing that is legal. | ||
| And the reason that I say that is because every single case that has been brought against him in the courts, he has lost. | ||
| He's not doing, he's not conducting the people's business in the people's interest. | ||
| What he is doing, he's not a business, man. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| He's a grifter. | ||
| All right, Sandy, let's get one more call in quickly. | ||
| Republican in Indiana. | ||
| David, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thank you for that five-minute speech. | |
| I just have just a problem with C-SPAN in general these days. | ||
| The last three days, you've focused on 100 days, 100 days, and all you focus on is the negative parts of you don't show any. | ||
| Sorry, David. | ||
| We're not going to get into that. | ||
| What do you want to say about the 100 days? | ||
| What have you liked the most? | ||
| What have you liked the least? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think I hopefully I think you're gone in 100 days because I can tell you. | |
| And that's our last call for this segment. | ||
| But later on this morning on the Washington Journal, Michael Fox from the Cato Institute discusses the FBI arrest of the judge in Wisconsin, accused of interfering with immigration enforcement. | ||
| But first, after the break, a conversation with author and presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky about President Trump's first 100 days and how historians came up with that benchmark for new presidents. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We'll be right back. | |
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're joined now by Lindsay Chervinsky, Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. | ||
| She's also author of the book, Making the Presidency, John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic. | ||
| Lindsay, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for having me back. | |
| So this week we mark the first 100 days of President Trump's second term. | ||
| When did the so-called first 100 days become a benchmark for presidents? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's a great place to start. | |
| So the first president where this was a concept was Franklin D. Roosevelt. | ||
| And it was largely his construction in response to the Great Depression, recognizing that the American people were in just a devastating place, the likes of which we have trouble imagining. | ||
| And so the goal was to try and push forward a ton of initiatives in the first 100 days, recognizing that some would fail, some wouldn't work, but that he had to be seen trying different things to help the American people. | ||
| And President Trump has cited FDR and his first 100 days as a model. | ||
| This is the Washington Post. | ||
| Trump claims mantle of FDR's first 100 days, but differences are stark. | ||
| Tell us about the similarities and differences with FDR's first 100 days. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think the key difference is the role of Congress. | |
| So in FDR's administration, for most of the time, he did have a Democratic majority in both houses, especially in that first term when there was a huge Democratic victory in the 1932 election. | ||
| And so while FDR did use a number of executive orders, he also passed a lot of legislation, created new agencies, created new different types of funding for relief for the American people. | ||
| It was really very much a partnership between his allies in Congress and the presidency. | ||
| And over the last several administrations, we have seen less congressional action in the first 100 days, largely because there are smaller majorities and our partisan gridlock is quite intense, but also because Congress has ceded a lot of its authority to the presidency. | ||
| It has permitted the presidency, and this is true of multiple administrations, to take on more power and to not use its own authority under the Constitution to check that power. | ||
| And when you say it's multiple administrations, put it in historical perspective for us. | ||
| Compare it to other, the use of the executive power as opposed to going through and passing laws in Congress for other administrations. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's a great question. | |
| And it's a little bit more nuanced than I perhaps initially indicated in my first answer because the numbers of executive orders over the last, let's say, seven decades have actually generally tended downward. | ||
| FDR had the high watermark. | ||
| And if you look at the measurement, it's important to look at executive orders per year because obviously his presidency was so much longer than anyone else. | ||
| So generally, we have seen a trend down of executive orders. | ||
| We see the biggest little bump there in the beginning of an administration, often when an incoming administration is overturning some of the policies of an outgoing administration. | ||
| But we see a lot of other executive action in terms of funding, in terms of agency activity, in terms of sort of the general discrepancy that the president is granted. | ||
| And that is a shift from what we used to see, even at the end of the 20th century, people like Reagan and Clinton and even George W. Bush, where the first 100 days were signified by the big legislation that they were putting forward. | ||
| That was the time to really get things done. | ||
| And now, sometimes we see a bill, sometimes we see one big push, but it's understood that the presidency probably only has the political power for one big bill, as opposed to multiple that we would see in the 20th century. | ||
| And if you would like to join our conversation with presidential historian Lindsay Chervinski, you can do so. | ||
| Our lines are bipartisan. | ||
| So Republicans are on 2028-8001. | ||
| Democrats are on 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Lindsay, you are the executive director at the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. | ||
| How did Washington and the founders view the use of executive power? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I love this question because we often think of the presidency as being much weaker and much smaller when it was first founded. | |
| And to be sure, the entire federal government was, you know, just a tiny fraction of what we see today. | ||
| But the presidency itself was designed to be much stronger than anything that had come before it. | ||
| And Washington used those powers quite energetically. | ||
| He carved out space for the president to act with great authority when there was a domestic crisis like the Whiskey Rebellion or an international crisis like the neutrality crisis, which happened in 1793 when there was a war between France and Great Britain. | ||
| But also, Washington used executive power in a way that we sometimes don't even think about, which is that so much of the presidency is not written down. | ||
| How a president dresses, how a president interacts with citizens, how a president sort of operates in the day-to-day within the Oval Office. | ||
| Some of that is guided by statute now 200, almost 250 years later, but most of it is built on norm and custom. | ||
| And Washington had the enormous power and privilege and trust from the American people to craft those norms and customs. | ||
| You wrote an opinion piece for The Hill with the headline, 100 days is a ridiculous way to judge a presidency. | ||
| Explain that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, admittedly, I didn't write the headline. | |
| This is a little secret for people who don't write op-eds. | ||
| The writer very rarely chooses the headline. | ||
| So I wrote the op-ed, maybe not the headline. | ||
| But I think my point in that piece was that 100 days is a metric that we sort of have come up with. | ||
| It doesn't actually necessarily signify the long-term ramifications of a presidency, what the administration contributes to the American people, what their impact on the global community will be. | ||
| And so it's important for us to not get too focused on this parameter, but rather look at the president's contributions within the broader scope of American history, recognizing that in our political cycle, I think, you know, up until the midterms is when the president generally has the most political authority, but their full four years do really matter. | ||
| And they are the most powerful person in the world, most powerful office in the world. | ||
| And so we can't just focus on those first 100 days. | ||
| I want to go back 100 days ago to the inauguration of President Trump for his second term. | ||
| I'm going to play a portion and then get your reaction. | ||
| 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. | ||
| Lindsay Turvinsky, that there was a lot of promises for quick action on domestic challenges, on international challenges. | ||
| What are your thoughts on that as far as typical, is that typical for presidents to do that in their inaugural addresses and maybe the dangers of not being able to do all those things so quickly? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, what's interesting about that particular inaugural address is that in some ways it is similar to what other presidents have done, and in some ways it is a departure. | |
| Presidents typically give two types of big public addresses. | ||
| They give their inaugurations, which are usually high-flying, as lofty a rhetoric as you can, you know, very ideological, try to be inspirational. | ||
| And then they will give their State of the Union address, which tends to be more focused on specific policies, tends to be focused on specific promises. | ||
| And so I had, you know, two thoughts about that address. | ||
| And these are, you know, just comparing them to the other presidents. | ||
| One, there are a lot of the promises that you would typically see in the State of the Union. | ||
| You don't typically see the policy recommendations in inauguration. | ||
| The other is that most presidents, and this actually started with Thomas Jefferson in 1801, when he said, we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. | ||
| They take their inauguration address as an opportunity to try and build unity, to smooth over the wounds of the previous election cycle, to bring people together to offer an olive branch to their political opponents. | ||
| And in this speech, regardless of how you felt of the content, the president didn't really do that. | ||
| And so it was a departure from what we have seen before. | ||
| Start taking some calls. | ||
| We'll start with Barbara in Oklahoma, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Barbara. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I wanted to just say what I wanted to, but I think she can maybe help me. | ||
| You know that Lisa a while ago, everything she said was a lie. | ||
| You bring these people on here, they tell lie after lie after lie. | ||
| Who are you talking about, Barbara? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Lisa McClain. | |
| Yep. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And she said that prices were down, Trump isn't down in the polls. | |
| Everything that she said was a lie. | ||
| And we're out here trying to hold on to our Social Security, trying to hold on to everything. | ||
| And he has destroyed everything he's touched has been destroyed. | ||
| And he keeps saying he's their warrior, warrior against who. | ||
| Who is he fighting? | ||
| There's nobody after us. | ||
| The only people I'm scared of is him and Elon. | ||
| We've got nobody after us. | ||
| And they're fighting. | ||
| They're fighting me and you. | ||
| People get aware of that and see span. | ||
| All right, Barbara, let's hear from Lindsay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Well, you know, I think what this comment gets at is we are living in a moment where we have really different information silos, that people are getting information from different places. | ||
| And often their facts don't align. | ||
| And that is not something that we have experienced in many decades. | ||
| It's not the first time that that has happened, though. | ||
| You know, in the 1790s, we had a very partisan press. | ||
| We had Federalist newspapers. | ||
| We had Democratic-Republican newspapers. | ||
| The difference was that everyone understood that that's how the media system was operating. | ||
| Whereas today, a lot of people still expect that we are operating under the media ecosystem of Walter Cronkite and people who could be trusted to generally do the right thing and pursue truth. | ||
| And of course, there are still voices that are trying to do that. | ||
| C-SPAN is a great place for that. | ||
| But there are also those who are pursuing a partisan agenda. | ||
| And so it's actually not so much a media problem as it is a media literacy problem. | ||
| And this is something that I think civics education can really help with because it helps you understand how that process occurs. | ||
| Let's talk to Akiva in Clifton, New Jersey, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Lindsay. | |
| Good morning, Ms. Trubinski. | ||
| And I want to ask you about President Trump's first 100 days, particularly the progress that has been made. | ||
| A few questions, and here three, and that is, one, President Trump has worked with the Congress. | ||
| Actually, it's just the Congress that is working to extend the Trump perfect. | ||
| At the month of February, the Congress narrowly was able to pass a budget that extends the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. | ||
| And my second question is, one, is the Republican-controlled Congress moving at a normal pace to announce President Trump's agenda? | ||
| And second, do you expect the Trump tariffs that were enacted on April 2nd to actually bring jobs back and to also bring economic prosperity? | ||
| And if so, will it be by the end of the year? | ||
| Those are three big questions. | ||
| Okay, so the first thing I want to mention is that they didn't actually pass a budget. | ||
| They passed a continuing resolution, which continued the existing budget, which was the last year of Biden's budget, up through, I believe it's this fall. | ||
| So then they have to actually pass the budget, which will include either continuing the tax cut for certain percentages of income or changing it. | ||
| So that is something to keep an eye on over the coming months. | ||
| I believe the next deadline for negotiations is July, but it is this year. | ||
| The second piece is I think that the Republican Congress, again, they have a very small majority. | ||
| Typically, you would try and see a Congress that is controlled by the same party as the president to pass something before they go on their summer vacation, a big bill, not just a budget, but a bill. | ||
| And so, typically, they go on their summer vacations. | ||
| They're sum in July, but then it's a significant portion of August. | ||
| They often go back to their home districts and do constituent services. | ||
| So, I'd keep an eye out for that timeline. | ||
| If they don't pass a bill, again, not a budget, sort of a policy position, that would be a departure from what we've seen in the past. | ||
| And then, the last piece about the tariffs is most of the tariffs have not actually gone into effect. | ||
| Most of them have been paused, with the exception, I believe, of some on Canada and perhaps Mexico and perhaps China as well. | ||
| The thing about the tariffs is they work really well when you are an industrializing nation. | ||
| And this was actually something we did for most of the 19th century when we were trying to catch up to other more industrialized nations like Britain and France and other European nations. | ||
| But we are now leading the pack. | ||
| And so, to try and basically protect industries that we don't necessarily want, I think is at odds with the historical precedent. | ||
| So, for example, we could bring back a lot of manufacturing jobs. | ||
| I'm not sure a lot of Americans want those jobs. | ||
| They often prefer service jobs or the type of high-tech chip manufacturing that you saw created in some of the legislation in the Infrastructure Act that was passed a couple of years ago. | ||
| So, I will confess that personally, based on history, I'm not super optimistic, but we will have to see what happens once the tariffs actually go into effect because there is that 90-day pause. | ||
| Lindsay, I want to ask you about President Trump's use of declaring national emergencies. | ||
| If you could give us an idea of how typical that is and put it in historical perspective for us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| I don't have the exact numbers in front of me. | ||
| I saw a really helpful chart yesterday that I wish I had pulled up for this exact discussion. | ||
| But all presidents declare national emergencies. | ||
| That is a part of a presidential prerogative. | ||
| Typically, they occur either when there's a crisis like COVID or you have a natural disaster like a hurricane or a terrible flooding. | ||
| So, there was an emergency around the horrible flooding in North Carolina last year, for example. | ||
| Very common, very, it's a very much a bipartisan thing to do. | ||
| My understanding is that the current administration has declared more natural emergencies than several of the previous administrations thus far into the presidency. | ||
| But again, I'm sorry, I don't have those exact numbers in front of me. | ||
| So, I think there have been eight. | ||
| I'm just looking it up. | ||
| I think there have been eight declarations of national emergencies, and it looks like 142 executive orders in 2025. | ||
| Let's talk to Neil, who's calling us from New York, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| First, we've answered a couple of questions already while you were talking, but let me preface it this way: I'm from New York. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I know a lot of people that did a lot of business coming out of China, and the hurt that I am seeing on several of my friends that cannot bring their goods into this country anymore because of the China tariffs. | |
| Okay, they're going out of business. | ||
| Four weeks, they're going to be gone. | ||
| When did we start running this country on executive orders? | ||
| When does one man have edicts to do all this? | ||
| He has no idea, okay, the hurt that he's inflicting on smaller businesses. | ||
| How do we stop this now and in the future when one man with the stroke of a pen can create so much chaos and harm on a country? | ||
| I'm an independent, I don't care who gets into office, I really don't, as long as they're the right person. | ||
| But this, I'm watching the hurt. | ||
| You can hear I'm very emotional about it. | ||
| I don't understand it. | ||
| I'm a businessman also who did business with China for 35 years. | ||
| The horses left the barn. | ||
| Everybody played by the rules. | ||
| And all of a sudden, he's creating a lot of hurt and chaos, as I said. | ||
| How do we stop executive orders? | ||
| Okay, Neil, let's get an answer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's a great question, Neil. | |
| So the concept of governing by executive order is something that's really emerged in the second half of the 20th century as the presidency and the various agencies took on more responsibility or were given more responsibility by Congress. | ||
| Things like, you know, Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, those didn't exist prior to the 1930s. | ||
| And so you just didn't have agencies that were even there to manage those things. | ||
| But this has accelerated, I would say, maybe since the 1980s, when Congress has both been at loggerheads and been at a partisan jam, but also has ceded that authority to the president. | ||
| So in particular, when we're talking about tariffs, Congress has the power of the purse. | ||
| That is a very clear statement in Article 1 of the Constitution. | ||
| And although they have given the president authority to determine tariff rates in the past, they can take it back. | ||
| So, you know, if that's something that you are concerned about, I highly encourage everyone to call and voice their opinion, either pro or against, for their representatives. | ||
| Representatives are very responsive to constituent calls because they can only respond to the constituents that they hear from. | ||
| And so there is nothing stopping Congress from passing a law right now to take back some of that authority, whether it be around tariffs, whether it be on another issue where they have ceded that prerogative. | ||
| There is all it takes is for them to pass a bill. | ||
| Part of the first 100 days, Lindsay, is to get the cabinet together. | ||
| And there have been controversies over President Trump's cabinet picks, including Secretary Hegseth, HHS Secretary Kennedy, and DHS Secretary Gabbard, sorry, DNI Gabbard, as well as DHS Christine Noam. | ||
| How do those early controversies affect a president's term, if at all? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, George Washington established a number of precedents for the cabinet that most presidents have done their best to follow. | |
| So the first is Washington was quite meticulous about surrounding himself with diverse viewpoints. | ||
| Now, we might look at his cabinet and think that's five dead white dudes, but they saw that cabinet and they saw people who came from different educational backgrounds, different regions of the nation, different economic factions, religious traditions. | ||
| And Washington was quite intentional in doing so because he knew it would make him a better leader to have people who would bring different ideas and tell him no, but also that it would bring the country together if they saw someone that looked like them or looked like one of their neighbors in the cabinet representing their viewpoint. | ||
| So that's the first precedent. | ||
| The second is he really tried to reduce turnover as much as possible, recognizing that it would cause a loss of institutional knowledge. | ||
| It would slow down the administration. | ||
| It would make it harder to get things done. | ||
| The third was he tried to avoid scandal. | ||
| And this sounds like a duh statement, but Washington understood that trust in the institutions was so essential. | ||
| And anything that took away from trust was going to make it both harder for him to be an effective president, but also damaging long-term to the presidency. | ||
| And so most presidents have attempted to follow those things, albeit always imperfectly. | ||
| And so all presidents do have some scandals. | ||
| That is always the case in any cabinet administration. | ||
| When you have a group of imperfect humans, you're going to have imperfect results. | ||
| What I think that we have seen in this administration is not unlike some others, we've seen some scandals once people are actually in office, as opposed to like President Bill Clinton had some trouble getting some people into the administration. | ||
| There were scandals before they were confirmed. | ||
| Most of these have happened once they're actually in their positions. | ||
| Let's hear from Glenn, a Democrat in Middletown, New Jersey. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and happy to be here. | |
| I wanted to ask Lindsay about a previous caller called in a female maybe four callers back, and she was stating some facts, which I believe to be facts about Donald Trump and his administration. | ||
| And Lindsay came back with the statement that said, sometimes our facts don't align. | ||
| I'm curious to know what does that mean by facts not aligning? | ||
| As far as I know, there's one fact, that's the truth fact. | ||
| And the other thing is somebody sold you a lie and now you believe it. | ||
| How many Washington Post, how many lies have they documented that this president had made? | ||
| How many people are being manipulated, especially by places like Fox News? | ||
| Didn't they just pay a settlement of $700 and some $60 million or so, plus or minus? | ||
| And they're going, they have another lawsuit that they're trying to settle now. | ||
| I mean, why is it that the American people can't be told the truth? | ||
| And there's one truth. | ||
| So please tell me about facts that don't align. | ||
| I don't understand that. | ||
| There's one fact. | ||
| Well, I completely agree that there's one fact. | ||
| I think the problem is that we no longer have a shared agreement on what that fact is. | ||
| We used to have a shared set of facts, and then we would have different ideas about how to attack a problem. | ||
| So for example, if we all agreed that the economy wasn't doing well, perhaps the Republican Party thought that the goal was to reduce the size of government, to reduce taxes. | ||
| The concept of trickle-down economy was a Republican philosophy, whereas the Democratic Party wanted to increase social services, and maybe they wanted to increase taxes to pay for more goods and support. | ||
| So they all agreed on the same baseline. | ||
| It's just that they disagreed on how to attack that baseline. | ||
| What my point was that that is no longer the case, is that we don't have a shared set of facts that we can all agree upon to then try and discuss what to do about it. | ||
| And I agree with you that there are certain things that are, there are, they're black and white. | ||
| They're not fuzzy. | ||
| They cannot be debated. | ||
| So for example, the cost of eggs is the cost of eggs. | ||
| The cost of gas is the cost of gas. | ||
| We can't debate those things. | ||
| You know, when the border was closed, when the border was open, those are written down. | ||
| But the problem is we don't necessarily have one place where everyone can go to trust that they're getting that information. | ||
| And so you end up with people believing wildly different things as a result. | ||
| And my point was that that is a product of this fractured media ecosystem. | ||
| I want to ask you about the role of Doge and Elon Musk. | ||
| So I'll just play a portion of President Trump's first cabinet meeting where Elon Musk was in attendance and then we'll talk about it. | ||
| 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 are, 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 if 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. | ||
| Lindsay, your take on Doge and kind of putting it in a historical perspective for us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, one of the challenging things about having a federal government, and this is true from the very beginning of the Declaration of Independence and the creation of an American nation, is that Americans have disagreed about the size and the powers and the scope of the federal government. | |
| And so that is sort of a basic characteristic of our existence. | ||
| And I think that's totally fine. | ||
| It's okay for us to have those debates. | ||
| Since the expansion of the government around the New Deal period, there have been conversations about, you know, how much is too much? | ||
| Where is there waste? | ||
| How can things be made more efficient? | ||
| And that is absolutely true. | ||
| There is always areas for improvement. | ||
| But I think it's important to note that under our system, we do have, you know, a rule of law. | ||
| And if there is fraud, then people are charged with fraud. | ||
| And so one thing I would encourage people to look for is: are you actually seeing that? | ||
| Or are you seeing programs canceled? | ||
| Those are different things. | ||
| So I would never disagree with anyone to say that there shouldn't be improvements. | ||
| I think that conversation is part of the American existence. | ||
| And we are constantly trying to reform government to make it more efficient, whether that be civil service reform in the 1880s, the end of the spoils system, the creation of new agencies, the reorganization of agencies. | ||
| We've done that from time to time as well. | ||
| And we should continue to try and improve the system in a way that is, I think, consistent with the rule of law and goes through the appropriate channels. | ||
| Let's talk to Dennis in New York, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Dennis. | ||
| Dennis, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm still here. | |
| You there? | ||
| Yes, go right ahead. | ||
| We can hear you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Over the last four years, when I hear a Democrat saying that the Republicans did nothing but lie, look what happened the last four years, right down to the mental acuity of the president, to be lied to about our borders being secure, about the sex trafficking and 300,000 children missing, and all that ain't happening. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How come Democrats are not listed as domestic terrorists? | |
| They do nothing helpful for this country. | ||
| The open borders are lack our children. | ||
| The mental health issues with our young youth, with the poisoning, with the CEI and wokeism. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Our country's in trouble. | |
| And Trump, in the first 100 days, is trying to get back to American morals, to be proud to be an American. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I wish these days would come back. | |
| And what can you tell the Democrats to just quit lying and be straight with the American people or charge them with domestic terrorists? | ||
| All right, Dennis. | ||
| Any comment, Lindsay? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not sure there was a question in there for me to answer, but my question, I guess, always is when we look at American history, what is the golden age? | |
| What is the area we're trying to go back to? | ||
| Because I think that is an important historical observation. | ||
| If we're going to try and go back to a period, I would like to know what period we're going to go to. | ||
| Mark in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Mimi. | |
| Good to speak with you again. | ||
| It's always nice to see your beautiful face on TV. | ||
| Good to see you, Lindsay. | ||
| It's been interesting listening to this conversation. | ||
| A little shout out to the woman that called from Tulsa, Oklahoma. | ||
| I left this Tulsa somewhere in Oklahoma. | ||
| But nonetheless, I'm going to ask my question first, Lindsay, and then let me ramble on a little bit about what I think is really happening and then tell you what I think is good and bad about Trump. | ||
| Okay, so the question is, Lindsay, will you consider writing an article on this? | ||
| You seem to know a lot about the history of the United States, all the way from George, the temporary king, the new temporary king of the United States of America. | ||
| Now, one wisdom rule is very weak to me. | ||
| It's one direction, one way. | ||
| And that's the problem. | ||
| And if you really look at throughout human history, it's banks that control the king. | ||
| It's bankers control the king. | ||
| He's like a coach of a football team. | ||
| It's like the NFL. | ||
| Bankers control the team, and the president's like the commissioner of the league. | ||
| And if something goes wrong with the league and the NFL, the bankers come in, swipe him out, put a new one in. | ||
| Now, we saw Biden. | ||
| He goes four years without doing anything. | ||
| I agree with that. | ||
| He was asleep. | ||
| It was kind of peaceful when he was asleep. | ||
| I mean, but they were playing with the oil prices and all the prices and such not. | ||
| And so if we have someone that's asleep, why don't we believe that we have a bombastic person as something good? | ||
| Well, I don't know if Trump's good or bad. | ||
| I don't know if Biden's good or bad. | ||
| But write an article on the bankers that really run this game. | ||
| All right, Mark. | ||
| Let's take that up. | ||
| Go ahead, Lindsay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I have to disagree with your initial premise because George Washington was quite meticulous about not being a king. | |
| And he really could have stayed in office for the duration of his life. | ||
| He was so popular even at the end of his second term that Thomas Jefferson, who was the founder of the opposition party, wanted him to serve again. | ||
| And instead, he felt it was essential to hand over power to teach the American people how to participate in the peaceful transfer of power, to demonstrate that the presidency would work for other people, and to establish a precedent that a president would not be in office for a lifetime. | ||
| So that is very much not kinglike. | ||
| And it was a shock at the time because that was the age of Napoleon when people did not step away from power. | ||
| It was a very revolutionary thing to do. | ||
| In terms of the influence of finance on our political system, you are not wrong that financial players do have a large role. | ||
| That role has been increased by things like the Supreme Court decision, Citizen United, which made it possible for corporations to spend more money in politics rather than limiting the amount that they could spend. | ||
| But there is also a relationship between the health of the economy and a presidency. | ||
| It's why we have an independent Fed chair to try and keep politics a little bit out of it, recognizing that the health of the stock market and the health of the economy do affect a president's poll numbers, do affect the likelihood of reelection, do affect the chance that their party will do well in the forthcoming election. | ||
| And so we do want to try and keep that as independent as possible, such that we can make finance and our banking system as separate from politics. | ||
| But of course, they are going to have an impact on one another. | ||
| Here's Bill in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| One question I would like to ask, and a big roadblock is the federal unions. | ||
| Those people are against Trump because what he exposed. | ||
| You're talking about the federal worker unions, Bill, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, 800,000 of them controlled by one man. | |
| What are you saying that he exposed? | ||
| He exposed the corruption. | ||
| We had an intelligent man going into the government, which is, say, 100 years old in their own little area, and now they don't like that exposure. | ||
| The country does not stand a chance with the unions. | ||
| Well, I think going back to one of our previous callers, it's important to set the facts here, which is that actually a number of unions did endorse the president, and most union members, depending on the type of union, of course, we're talking about, did vote for the president. | ||
| So I think if you look at the police unions, if you look at some of the membership of the auto unions, if you look at the firefighters' unions, many of those unions actually did endorse the president. | ||
| And I think if you look at the voter makeup, you will find that they voted Republican in this last election as well. | ||
| Here's Jesse in California, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Jesse. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just wanted to comment on Trump's first hundred days, or basically my opinion on his behavior. | ||
| First of all, I can't wrap my head around the fact that people don't see what's going on here. | ||
| I'm a Democrat, but I deal in reality. | ||
| And what I see is a person who's leading us down a path that almost reminds me of going around World War II. | ||
| The Republican Party doge, almost like SS soldiers, taking people off the streets, deporting them on planes to gulags in El Salvador. | ||
| This is not what happens in the United States. | ||
| It should never happen. | ||
| I don't understand this is what you want from a president. | ||
| Lindsay Chervinsky. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I appreciate the voter sharing or their caller sharing their opinion. | |
| I am glad that there are programs like this where people can call in and share their perspective. | ||
| And on the Republican line in Augusta, Georgia, this is Russell. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I have never heard President Trump profess to be a politician. | ||
| He is a businessman and a very good one. | ||
| Sometimes you have to lose the Liberal business to gain. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We need to be patient. | |
| I trust his judgment much more than a group of men sitting on the steps of the Capitol. | ||
| They can't even come to a conclusion then. | ||
| We've just got to be patient, lose a little, wait to gain some. | ||
| He doesn't have to do this. | ||
| He doesn't need the money. | ||
| He's doing it because he loves the United States of America and wants to make it what it should be and what it was meant to be. | ||
| Lindsay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, again, I appreciate people sharing their perspective. | |
| I think the only thing that I would say is that if you've run for president three times and if you've won twice, you're probably a politician at this point, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have business roots, to be sure. | ||
| So, and I think, you know, to the caller's point, we will certainly see what happens with his policies. | ||
| This is only the first 100 days, and so there are many more days for his actions to unfold, and we'll see where it goes. | ||
| Kevin is in Homosasa, Florida, independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'd like to know her opinion on the current Ukraine-Russia war. | |
| I believe Putin is losing the war badly, but he's winning the propaganda war and playing President Trump like a fiddle. | ||
| He has no interest in a peace deal. | ||
| And I think President Trump could really put pressure on Putin right now. | ||
| His military is crumbling. | ||
| His economy is failing. | ||
| And I think we should support Ukraine and don't give up territory. | ||
| Ukraine is simply not going to give that up. | ||
| I'd like her opinion on that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, as very much a patriotic American, I believe that one of the greatest things that has ever happened to the United States is our system of alliances in the post-World War II era. | ||
| We have benefited greatly from people wanting to do trade with us, from wanting to have their economies integrated, from wanting to have their defense systems integrated. | ||
| Our foreign policy has basically been the foreign policy of our allies, and that has made us much stronger. | ||
| And so I believe in the importance of defending our allies, to keeping our promises. | ||
| We agreed to help protect Ukraine when the Soviet Union crumbled and Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, and we promised to help protect their sovereignty. | ||
| Are they a perfect nation? | ||
| Of course not. | ||
| Are they a improving democracy? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And I believe that their war is a just one. | ||
| They were invaded and we should defend, we should help all democracies around the world. | ||
| It doesn't mean we have to send troops, but the funds and the military weapons that we are sending, especially the military arms, those are coming from American companies. | ||
| So when we invest money, we are investing in American business. | ||
| And so that is, I think, a win-win situation all the way around. | ||
| You wrote a book making the presidency John Adams and the precedents that forged the Republic. | ||
| Of course, John Adams was the second president after George Washington. | ||
| Tell us a little bit about that book. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you so much for asking. | |
| You know, one of the interesting things about Washington's presidency, which was the subject of my first book, The Cabinet, is that he established all of these precedents, but he was such an unusual person because his stature was so enormous and he was so well respected and really revered by the American people in a way that is almost impossible for us to comprehend. | ||
| And so all of the precedents he established were, it was unclear if they were going to work for anyone else. | ||
| And so Adams' presidency was really spent trying to defend the character of the presidency and the character of the executive branch and the powers and the precedents that Washington had established for everyone else to prove that indeed the office would work, that we didn't need to have a king, and that this institution was worth preserving and saving. | ||
| And so that is the story of the book. | ||
| It is bookended by the first two peaceful transfers of power in which Washington, Adams, and Jefferson were essential in establishing the foundation of what it means to be a republic. | ||
| That's Lindsay Chervinsky, author and executive director at the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. | ||
| Thanks for joining us once again, Lindsay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for having me. | |
| Coming up next, we'll be joined by Michael Fox from the Cato Institute to discuss the FBI arrest of that judge in Wisconsin accused of interfering with immigration enforcement. | ||
| Stay with us. | ||
|
unidentified
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unidentified
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're joined now by Michael Fox. | ||
| He's a legal fellow at the Project on Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute. | ||
| Mike, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me, Mimi. | |
| So federal authorities arrested a Wisconsin judge on Friday. | ||
| Can you get us up to speed about that case and what are the facts of the case? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, absolutely. | |
| So Judge Hannah Dugan, who is a judge in Milwaukee Superior Court in Wisconsin, was arrested by the federal agents. | ||
| So it seems like it was ICE Immigration Customs Enforcement, the FBI, as well as the DEA Drug Enforcement Administration, which seems kind of weird that they were somehow involved in this. | ||
| But they sent six officers to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, and they had had what's known as an administrative warrant. | ||
| So when most people think of a warrant, they think of a judicial warrant, which is something that's signed by a judge, you know, a neutral and detached magistrate in federal court. | ||
| They're called Article III judges. | ||
| They're judges who are appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate. | ||
| They're independent. | ||
| So law enforcement would present or a prosecutor would present facts to a judge. | ||
| Judge would decide if there's probable cause and issue a warrant. | ||
| That is not what happened here at all. | ||
| This is an administrative warrant. | ||
| It's issued by ICE, meaning that ICE itself, Immigration Customs Enforcement, has reason to believe that the person is unlawfully in the United States and wants to initiate deportation proceedings. | ||
| So they sent six federal agents to the courthouse on April 18th to arrest Mr. Flores-Ruiz. | ||
| And when they did that, Judge Dugan, you know, sort of, I guess, was caught off guard, didn't know what was going on. | ||
| She had questioned them. | ||
| I know they also talked to the chief judge, found out they only had an administrative warrant. | ||
| I am not one inclined to believe anything the government tells me, so I'm going to not take what's in the complaint or what the Attorney General alleges as fact. | ||
| But from what I understand, the judge led her into a back hallway that actually led out the same direction that she would have been, that they would have been if they were in a public hallway. | ||
| So, and I don't know why she did that, if she was caught off guard, if she was intending to conceal him. | ||
| I will say, having been a public defender myself, these are, you know, I'd imagine a very busy, you know, criminal courtroom in a city that is a lot of violent crime. | ||
| She probably had a lot going on. | ||
| They said she appeared angry. | ||
| My guess is she just did not want to create more drama in her courtroom. | ||
| She probably took them out the back door and was like, let's deal with this out here. | ||
| Of course, I wasn't there. | ||
| I don't know what happened. | ||
| But to me, that seems like it could be entirely plausible. | ||
| And what is she actually being charged with? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so she's being charged with two federal statutes. | |
| One is obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a U.S. department or agency. | ||
| And this is something that I find interesting because one of the questions that, you know, whether she goes to trial and it's a jury and she gets convicted and appeals court has to address this is whether or not immigration removal counts as an investigative proceeding. | ||
| So that is one thing that they're going to have to prove to prove this case. | ||
| The other charge that she was charged with is concealing an individual to prevent discovery or arrest. | ||
| And as I was looking through this, two things stood out to me. | ||
| One is whether or not an administrative warrant actually counts as a federal warrant, because some of the elements of this offense are that the person had a federal warrant and that the judge knew about the federal warrant. | ||
| In this case, he had an administrative warrant. | ||
| It's abundantly clear that Judge Dugan knew about the administrative warrant, but it's not clear that an administrative warrant counts as a federal warrant because it's not issued by a judge. | ||
| It's issued by ICE itself. | ||
| So I think that's one plausible defense theory. | ||
| And then another thing that I was interested in is it also proves they also, you know, the Department of Justice would have to prove that she had the intent to conceal Mr. Flores Ruiz. | ||
| And it's not clear to me that that's the case. | ||
| It seems to me totally plausible that the judge just did not want this in her courtroom and she literally just took it outside in a place that she thought there wouldn't be a lot of people to address it there. | ||
| Of course, I don't know what happened. | ||
| And, you know, this is a perfect example as to why, you know, the criminal jury trial is so vital and fundamental, right? | ||
| So if, you know, in the federal system, 98.3% of cases are resolved by guilty pleas. | ||
| That means less than two out of every 100 cases go to trial. | ||
| But jurors are the conscience of the community. | ||
| So a jury would not just have to decide whether or not, you know, she actually, the Department of Justice could satisfy the elements of all these offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. | ||
| The maximum exposure she has is six years in prison. | ||
| One of these charges is one year. | ||
| The other is five. | ||
| So they're going to, a jury would have to decide that. | ||
| But it's also worth noting that historically the role of criminal jurors has encompassed a lot more than just deciding guilt, right? | ||
| Jurors, as I mentioned earlier, were the conscience of the community. | ||
| So it is entirely plausible that a jury in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, could believe that even if she is guilty and even if they can satisfy the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, that this is not something that they as members of the community think should be prosecuted. | ||
| And they have the historic power and prerogative to acquit against the evidence. | ||
| And the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution contains something called the Vicinage Clause, and that is expressly there to make sure that these types of trials occur in front of similarly situated people. | ||
| In other words, her trial would occur in Milwaukee and not in like Topeka, Kansas, or somewhere where totally detached and people might have dramatically different perspectives. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation on the arrest of Judge Dugan in Wisconsin, you can do so. | ||
| Our guest is Mike Fox of the Cato Institute. | ||
| Our lines are by party. | ||
| So Republicans are on 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats are on 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| Mike, I want to go over the Department of Justice guidance on implementing Alien Enemies Act. | ||
| So I'll read it and then you can explain it to us. | ||
| It says, as much as practicable, officers should follow the proactive procedures above and have an executed warrant of apprehension and removal before contacting an alien enemy. | ||
| However, that will not always be realistic or effective in swiftly identifying and removing alien enemies. | ||
| Given the dynamic nature of enforcement operations, officers in the field are authorized to apprehend aliens upon a reasonable belief that the alien meets all four requirements to be validated as an alien enemy. | ||
| This authority includes entering an alien enemy's residence to make an AEA apprehension where circumstances render it impracticable to first obtain a signed notice and warrant of apprehension and removal. | ||
| What does all that mean? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, a few things I would note. | |
| One is administrative warrants, you do not, if you, you know, if you are served as an administrative warrant, you do not have to consent to a search. | ||
| You do not have to open your door. | ||
| You should ask if the warrant is issued by a judge and is signed by a judge. | ||
| If they're executing a warrant that's signed by a federal judge, that is very, very different than if they're executing an administrative warrant. | ||
| And just to be clear, to explain a little bit the distinction, a criminal warrant or judicial warrant means that the federal government has probable cause to believe that you committed a federal crime, whereas administrative warrants are simply ICE issuing themselves, sorry, ICE issues the warrants themselves to, you know, under belief they have that you're in the country unlawfully. | ||
| And I'd, you know, like to extrapolate a little bit about this. | ||
| I listened to an interview that Attorney General Bondi did, where she was discussing the reason why they started doing apprehensions in courthouses for with administrative warrants. | ||
| And one of the things she said was that, you know, they know it's safe because the people go through security. | ||
| Granted, that's correct. | ||
| I'll give her that. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And she also said that they know where these people are. | ||
| However, one of the things that I've, you know, come to hear is that the administration says they're doing all this. | ||
| They're doing everything, you know, under the sun in immigration, all hands on deck, because they believe that, you know, these people are a danger to the community, that it is, you know, important to scale back on crime, to enforce the rule of law, right? | ||
| This actually does precisely the opposite, right? | ||
| When you look at Eduardo Flores-Ruiz was there because he was charged with a crime. | ||
| He was accused of a crime. | ||
| The alleged victims were there in court. | ||
| They were waiting for Judge Dugan to give them justice. | ||
| And why did that not happen? | ||
| Because the U.S. Department of Justice impeded those proceedings. | ||
| And when the Justice Department takes custody of people for ICE, right, they frequently will wind up in detention facilities along the border, whether that's Texas, California, and Louisiana houses a number of these people. | ||
| Mr. Flores-Ruiz will never appear in Wisconsin ever again, and that victim will be denied justice. | ||
| So we need to understand that just because the government tells us something is true, it often isn't. | ||
| And in this case, I think it's just emphatically false. | ||
| And I think, you know, these things do not actually scale back crime. | ||
| They actually inhibit the prosecution of violent crime. | ||
| And if you look further, I mentioned earlier that they had the DEA involved. | ||
| I've seen other instances of immigration raids where they were also using the DEA, using the U.S. Postal Inspector Service. | ||
| These roles, regardless of what you think of them, exist for a reason, right? | ||
| They exist to go after violent criminals, to protect the streets, to protect society. | ||
| And when Trump is taking them to make what amounts to low-level misdemeanor arrests, that means one less federal agent, one less officer going after violent offenders. | ||
| So that is distorted policing priorities that actually increase crime. | ||
| We've seen this repeatedly in certain communities that are vastly overpoliced and yet have some of the lowest. | ||
| They have some of the highest violent crime rates in the country and some of the lowest clearance rates. | ||
| If you look, there are a neighborhood in Chicago where the clearance rate for homicide is zero. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
| Self-defeating policing. | ||
| It is, you know, police harass and intimidate people over stupid things and they are not willing to come forward. | ||
| They are not willing to cooperate. | ||
| And if you see in cases like this, if victims are scared to come to court to testify against their accuser or if witnesses are afraid to come to court because they think they might wind up being deported, that chills the administration of justice and undermines the rule of law. | ||
| And it does not matter to me if DOJ is saying that's not happening. | ||
| They lie with impunity, and it probably is. | ||
| And they've also told us that U.S. citizens aren't being deported. | ||
| Not only have they deported U.S. citizens, they've deported kids who were here getting treatment for cancer. | ||
| That is deplorable. | ||
| No, I will say on that point that Borders are Tom Homan has said, we are not deporting the children, these American citizens. | ||
| The mother is choosing to take her child with her. | ||
| The mother is being deported, and they are choosing to take the children with them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that's what Tom Homan said. | |
| A federal judge disagreed with him and said that there was no meaningful process and that they believed that they might have been coerced. | ||
| I will take the federal judge's word over Tom Homan's word. | ||
| Well, here is Tom Homan. | ||
| Again, he was speaking yesterday to reporters about the arrest of Judge Dugan. | ||
| I said from day one, you don't have to support ICE's operations. | ||
| You can support sanctuary cities if that's what you desire to do. | ||
| Sanctuary cities can stand aside and watch ICE keep their communities safe because any public official, whether you're mayor, city councilman, or governor, their number one responsibility is protection of communities. | ||
| And ICE has been clear, we're targeting public safety threats and national security threats. | ||
| I can't believe there's any elected official, and especially a judge, that doesn't believe we should be doing that, and they should be helping us. | ||
| But ICE said from day one, you can sit aside and watch. | ||
| You can argue against us all you want and protest all you want. | ||
| But when you cross that line, I've said this a thousand times, when you cross that line to impedement or annoying harmony concealing an illegal alien from ICE, you will be prosecuted, judge or not. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, as I mentioned before, you know, this is why we have criminal jury trials. | |
| If the government wants to weaponize the system against people who've spoken out or people who have positions different to them, obviously that's wrong. | ||
| It shouldn't be done. | ||
| But juries are guardians against tyranny and criminal juries should exercise their power to acquit against the evidence in cases where the administration oversteps its bounds. | ||
| We've got a question from Jeff in Dearborn, Michigan about your background asking if you have a law degree. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I do. | |
| Okay, got that out of the way. | ||
| Let's talk to Antoine in Washington, D.C., Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| So I guess I'm a little confused because not even, what, a year ago, everyone, and I've seen your guests in other places. | ||
| I seem to remember everyone screaming, no one's above the law. | ||
| No one's above the law. | ||
| They, you know, prompt up zombie charges on the president. | ||
| They were on TV, MSNBC, C-SPAN, CNN, all of the major news companies saying no one's above the law. | ||
| And yet, I mean, it doesn't really sound like it, but it sounds like everyone around this case with the judge is making every excuse for why we shouldn't have arrested her. | ||
| It seems like we're all willing to make excuses for what we deem is acceptable, and we're not just following a clear-cut line. | ||
| And I believe that that's why most people have, you know, kind of stepped back from the political process or seem to have some type of trepidation about being involved or engaged. | ||
| It's because we're getting things like this. | ||
| You know, on one hand, they want to lock everybody up that's on the right if they say something wrong or look at someone wrong or misgenders them. | ||
| And then when someone on the left does it, it's like, oh, it's okay. | ||
| They just made a bad mistake. | ||
| Same thing with the guy that keyed all of the Teslas and the judge just let them go. | ||
| Like, I get it. | ||
| It's your first offense. | ||
| But when you do something that's super malicious, you have to be, you know, disciplined some. | ||
| And I mean, to just. | ||
| Okay, on to on. | ||
| I think you've made your point. | ||
| So let's get a response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thanks, Antoine. | |
| I will say, you know, my colleagues and I at the Cato Institute, I'm a former public defender. | ||
| We've been consistent. | ||
| I think Biden absolutely weaponized DOJ. | ||
| But I think Trump came in and rather than try to fix it, he made it a thousand times worse. | ||
| So look, if people are actually engaging in serious crime, they should be prosecuted and held accountable. | ||
| And that is, as I mentioned earlier, that's the role of jurors to decide. | ||
| And also there's prosecutorial discretion. | ||
| I am not making excuses for Judge Dugan's conduct by any stretch of the imagination. | ||
| If she actually broke the law and a jury can be proven to a jury, then she should be held accountable. | ||
| I will say that I do think, you know, this wasn't about her. | ||
| This was about the government looking to intimidate people who might take positions contrary to her, but that doesn't excuse her conduct. | ||
| But even if she did do something wrong, there's other ways to discipline her, right? | ||
| She could be removed from the bench. | ||
| She could be disciplined by the state bar, both of which might be plausible remedies that might make sense. | ||
| But not everything rises to the level of a crime. | ||
| And just even if it does, it doesn't necessarily warrant six years in prison, which is the max sentence she could yet have convicted on both counts. | ||
| So these are all things that people need to consider. | ||
| But I will say, just because the last administration did not do a good job doesn't mean that making things a thousand times worse is the solution. | ||
| You know, you can make things better. | ||
| And this administration has gone way off the rails in targeting political adversaries and threatening to silence people who've challenged it. | ||
| Do you think she should have been arrested and handcuffed? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, well, so that's another thing. | |
| So I'm not going to try the case in the media. | ||
| So whether or not she should have been arrested, whether or not she broke the law, that's really up to a jury to determine. | ||
| I will note this, though. | ||
| She was handcuffed publicly in front of the courthouse or in the courthouse, I think. | ||
| And Kash Patel put the image all over the media. | ||
| In a case like that, where they knew exactly where she was, she wasn't a flight risk. | ||
| She wasn't a danger to the community. | ||
| That is totally inappropriate. | ||
| They should have arranged a time to meet with her and her attorney, taking her into custody in that way. | ||
| It's just, it's all for show. | ||
| And I think that furthers the point that I was trying to make, that this is not about justice in that case. | ||
| It's about intimidating other people. | ||
| And the Attorney General has even said that publicly. | ||
| On the line for Independence in Northbrook, Illinois, this is Bill. | ||
| Hi, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, hi. | |
| Enjoy the discussion. | ||
| Here's my question. | ||
| Is what transpired in the courtroom? | ||
| Is there a video of it? | ||
| But what I'm curious about is the judge took this defendant in her courtroom, and I assume his case was before her, then took this individual into the hall. | ||
| Did the judge then direct the person how to leave the building? | ||
| And so my real question is: when does a judge stop being a judge? | ||
| Which is obviously getting to the problem, but when are you not a judge, even though you have a robot and you are a citizen doing something that perhaps you shouldn't have done? | ||
| And is there a video? | ||
| Has anybody looked at what exactly was transpired? | ||
| And exactly what happened in the hall about in terms of directing this person and what was said in terms of leaving the courthouse. | ||
| Yes, sure. | ||
| So I don't know whether or not there's a video. | ||
| If there is, I haven't seen it. | ||
| It's not public. | ||
| If there is, that would obviously be something the prosecution should have reviewed. | ||
| It's also something a jury should see if she goes to trial because that would tell us a lot of what may or may not have actually happened. | ||
| Had she actually told him to leave the courthouse, I think the Department of Justice has a much stronger case. | ||
| And they actually prosecuted a judge in Massachusetts, Judge Joseph, a number of years ago. | ||
| And Judge Joseph's case was dramatically different because she had actually conspired with a courtroom deputy to help someone escape the courthouse who was here illegally. | ||
| That is, from what I understand about this case now, that is dramatically different from this case. | ||
| It's also worth noting that Judge Joseph's case, they investigated for a year and they didn't make all this big public fanfare about it. | ||
| And this was the Trump administration, the last Trump administration. | ||
| So I think there's a dramatic difference between what they allege Judge Joseph did and what happened with Judge Dugan in Wisconsin. | ||
| I don't know what she actually said. | ||
| I only know what's publicly available and what we've read. | ||
| I think her simply bringing her outside the courtroom to a back room probably doesn't violate the law. | ||
| Had she actually told him to leave the courthouse and flee, that probably does. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I think that's a distinction that we need to make and figure out what actually went down. | |
| Timberly in Beaver Falls, New York, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thanks for taking my call. | |
| First of all, I want to thank the gentleman for actually acknowledging the fact of the weaponization of the DOJ, not just from the Biden and the administration, but also the exacerbation of Donald Trump making it even worse. | ||
| It's unacceptable. | ||
| I don't know anything about criminal law. | ||
| I'm sure that this gentleman knows a little bit more, but he's right about them coming in and putting her in handcuffs and actually taking her out the way they did. | ||
| They could have done it completely differently. | ||
| But I just want to make a comment about Donald Trump's first 100 days in office, if I can. | ||
| Sure, quickly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I just want to grade it. | |
| And I've graded it before, and I'm just going to give him a D again. | ||
| All right. | ||
| A lot's been made, Mike, of the Kilmar Obrego-Garcia case. | ||
| Remind us about that and your legal assessment of it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so Kilmar Obrego-Garcia was a Maryland man who was picked up and sent to Seacott prison in El Salvador. | |
| The government openly admitted that they made an administrative error and never should have done it. | ||
| However, the case went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously decided that the government has to make a concerted effort to bring him back. | ||
| They have not only refused to do that, they've repeatedly been dishonest or not forthcoming with Judge Paula Zenas, who's a U.S. District Court judge in Maryland, who's been overseeing the case. | ||
| They appealed her to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, who affirmed her. | ||
| And she asked for daily assessments, which she've now put on hold, I believe, until tomorrow. | ||
| Senator Chris Van Holland from Maryland went down to visit him, and then he was moved out of Seacott to another facility. | ||
| Here's the thing: right, they allege he's a member of MS-13. | ||
| We don't know if that's true. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| They've alleged, I guess, he had some type of domestic issue with his wife. | ||
| Again, I don't know. | ||
| But we have to keep in mind with due process. | ||
| It's not whether or not these are good people. | ||
| Mr. Robrego Garcia could be the nicest person in the world. | ||
| He could be a horrible human being. | ||
| I don't know, but I also don't care because it doesn't matter for the purposes of this case, right? | ||
| When I was a public defender, I represented some of the best people I know and some of the worst people I know because we have to enforce due process for absolutely every single person. | ||
| Otherwise, it does not mean anything. | ||
| So an immigration judge back in 2019 found credible fear for Mr. Robrego Garcia and explicitly said he cannot be deported to El Salvador because he might be killed there. | ||
| That is precisely what our government did, right? | ||
| And they have steadfastly said that they cannot get him back. | ||
| That is pathetic. | ||
| Trump likes to play strongman. | ||
| kind of president can't get a U.S. citizen or not a U.S. that the United States government sent to a country to a third world country, we can't get him back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am frankly embarrassed. | |
| That is absolutely pathetic that the president will send someone to another country and we are fundamentally uncapable of getting him back. | ||
| So, but it's also just one of many instances, right? | ||
| I know when this first happened, I had mentioned that without due process, it's very difficult for even a U.S. citizen to assert that they're a citizen. | ||
| Like I could be picked up by ICE, pulled that I'm here illegally and deported. | ||
| And without due process, I don't have any forum for which I can prove or show that I'm a U.S. citizen and can't be deported. | ||
| So they just send me to some gulag in El Salvador and I'm sort of screwed, going to be killed down there, right? | ||
| So I think a lot of people are disconnected from this. | ||
| They don't understand. | ||
| They think these people are, you know, one-offs or they're bad people. | ||
| We try to frame the narrative. | ||
| And that very well might be true. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| But it's important that we make sure that due process is strictly enforced for every single human being on the face of the planet. | ||
| We've got a question for you on text from Nelson in Florida. | ||
| Based on Mr. Fox's explanation on the difference between an arrest signed by a judge versus an administrative arrest, perhaps not being an arrest means that a police officer arresting a criminal on the beat may not really be an arrest. | ||
| Can Mr. Fox better explain this contradictory opinion of his? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, no, sorry. | |
| This is administrative warrants are solely in immigration context. | ||
| So you're not going to have local police on the beat making administrative arrests. | ||
| That is not a thing. | ||
| So on the other hand, though, it does not mean that everyone who's arrested by police is arrested pursuant to a warrant, right? | ||
| Police can make arrests when they have probable cause to believe there's a crime. | ||
| So for instance, if the police get called to a burglary and see you fleeing out the back window, that's a warrantless arrest that they obviously have probable cause to make. | ||
| Also, if you have an arrest warrant, let's say they stop you, you have a warrant out for your arrest for failing to appear in court, they can arrest you pursuant to that warrant. | ||
| We're talking about administrative warrants. | ||
| This is solely in the context of immigration law, and it's solely in the context of ICE believing people are in the country illegally. | ||
| So it has nothing to do with local criminal law whatsoever. | ||
| On the Republican line in Massachusetts, Bob, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's a whole lot to put together here, but I guess I've got to stick to a few things because I don't want to take up too much time. | |
| You're a little dishonest about the guy that got deported because we can't get him back because I guess you didn't see President Trump sitting in his office with the leader of El Salvador and he said he wasn't going to let him come back. | ||
| That he considered him a terrorist himself. | ||
| Okay, let's take each one. | ||
| Let's take your points by each one. | ||
| Can you respond to that? | ||
| And then, Bob, I'll let you continue, okay? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, we're not going to let some despotic leader of a third world country decide who we do and don't get back, especially when we send them there. | |
| I can tell you right now, if I was president or someone who was competent was president, he wouldn't have been there in the first place, and we absolutely would get him back. | ||
| So I don't really care what Buki decides to tell Trump. | ||
| It is totally irrelevant. | ||
| It's probably calculated. | ||
| They probably did that on purpose. | ||
| And let me tell you, we are, I don't know what we are, 100,000 times, much, much bigger than El Salvador. | ||
| We can put political pressure on them. | ||
| We could also end the contract, right? | ||
| We're paying them to send these people, to send people there, which we are not supposed to be doing in the first place. | ||
| We could shut that off tomorrow if we wanted to. | ||
| Okay, Bob, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Wow. | ||
| So you want our country, like everybody that they put the pictures on the front lawn or the back lawn of the White House. | ||
| You want all those people back in this country. | ||
| The 20 million people that came in without any vetting at all are allowed to be here, and we can't get rid of any of them without vetting every one of them. | ||
| That's not exactly how that works either, because I've been listening to a lot of different news stations telling me that the process for an illegal immigrant is not the same process as an American citizen. | ||
| You do some administrative stuff, period. | ||
| You're not actually do all this court stuff. | ||
| And the guy that they threw out and sent to that country, he was MS-13. | ||
| He had knuckle markings all over the place. | ||
| Those are MS-13 all over the front of his four knuckles. | ||
| And it wasn't, I don't mean that they put the numbers over the top of it all. | ||
| They just showed you the numbers, meaning what the symbols on his fingers were. | ||
| The first one being marijuana. | ||
| The next one, it's all about death. | ||
| So he was a gang member. | ||
| And all the Democrats want them back. | ||
| All right, Bob, let's get to a response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so number one, I never said that we should bring all these people back or keep them all here. | |
| What I said is that we are a country of a rule of law. | ||
| We have to respect due process. | ||
| You're correct that the process for deporting people who are here illegally is dramatically different than due process citizens would get when charged with a crime. | ||
| Of course, it's also worth noting that citizens can never be deported. | ||
| So that's not a thing that can ever happen. | ||
| I mean, it does happen, but it's not supposed to happen if we actually follow the Constitution. | ||
| And as far as deporting people who are here illegally who are not citizens, they can be deported, and some of them probably should be. | ||
| It's just there is a process that we have to go through to get there. | ||
| We can't just assert things and then throw people in gulags in El Salvador. | ||
| It's also worth noting that when we deport people, one, we deport them back to the country they came from. | ||
| I realize he's from El Salvador. | ||
| And two, we don't send them to a prison. | ||
| We send them back to where they came from. | ||
| So if someone illegally immigrates here from Mexico, they're not going to get sent back to a prison in Mexico. | ||
| They're just going to get sent back to Mexico. | ||
| And that is a dramatic distinction that I think a lot of people are failing to understand. | ||
| So why are the Venezuelans that the administration alleges are Trenda Aragua gang members going to El Salvador? | ||
| Why aren't they going to Venezuela? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think part of it is because the administration alleges they're gang members. | |
| I am sure some of them are. | ||
| I'm sure some of them are not. | ||
| I know this gentleman whose name escapes me, but is obviously not a member of Trende Aragua. | ||
| And this is exactly my point. | ||
| Government simply asserting something does not mean that it's true. | ||
| If I were to leave this place and go get MS-13 tattooed on my knuckles, which I would never do, but does that then mean that I'm MS-13 gang member? | ||
| Is it really even accurate that that happened? | ||
| I don't know, right? | ||
| And this is one of the things we need to understand is I don't trust the government to make these claims. | ||
| If there really are people here who are gang members who are violent criminals, which no doubt there are, we should deport them. | ||
| We should send them back to where they came from. | ||
| We should not be sending them to gulags in El Salvador, and we have to give them due process. | ||
| Here is California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff. | ||
| He serves on the Judiciary Committee and he was talking about those arrests on Sunday. | ||
| You know, in a normal, rational world, you would have immigration authorities work with a courthouse and decide, okay, how do we work together or how do we at least not interfere with what each other are doing? | ||
| You wouldn't have the kind of confrontation and arrests that we saw. | ||
| But the administration relishes this. | ||
| They relish the opportunity to go after judges. | ||
| They relish the opportunity to try to intimidate and shock people. | ||
| They talk, you know, just gleefully about impeaching judges they disagree with. | ||
| So it is part of a broader assault on the rule of law, a broader effort to intimidate. | ||
| They're intimidating the universities. | ||
| They're intimidating the law firms. | ||
| They're intimidating corporations, forcing them to come hat in hand begging for exemptions from tariffs. | ||
| And now they're trying to intimidate the judiciary as well. | ||
| What do you think of that, Mike? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I can't say I often agree with Senator Schiff, but he's spot on there. | |
| I mean, that is precisely what's gone on here. | ||
| You have a number of cases where federal judges have ruled against the administration. | ||
| They haven't even been appealed in some cases. | ||
| In some cases, they've been affirmed on appeal. | ||
| And rather than the administration claim that they're wrong, they've had members of Congress introduce legislation trying to either scale back the powers that judges have, which are all consistent with Article III of the Constitution, or they've had threatens to, they've threatened to impeach judges. | ||
| So that is a major affront to the rule of law, to our constitutional system of government, right? | ||
| Judges have an affirmative obligation to enforce the Constitution as written, not as the administration wants it to apply. | ||
| And that is the way the world works. | ||
| And if you don't like it, that's frankly, that's too bad, right? | ||
| Judges have to enforce the Constitution. | ||
| They're not beholden to someone's partisan politics. | ||
| And that's precisely why they're insulated. | ||
| They serve life tenure and they're deliberately insulated to ensure that they're not subject to political expediency. | ||
| On the line for Democrats in Scottsboro, Alabama, Robin, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you today? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was just calling to make a comment. | |
| It seems like this president, who is a 34-comp felon and a sexual predator, he's making a mockery of our rules, the Constitution, the whole thing. | ||
| And he's vindictive because he's a criminal and he doesn't like it. | ||
| He doesn't like that he was tried in a court of law and that those jurors found him guilty. | ||
| Among the other things that he's done that is numerous. | ||
| And a little while ago, you showed the pictures of all those criminals arrested. | ||
| They need to put his picture on there. | ||
| America needs to know who he is. | ||
| And the journalists need to keep reporting. | ||
| And this mockery that he's making, these Republican governors and senators and House of Representatives, they need to impeach this man because he is ruining this country. | ||
| And thank you for letting me make my comment. | ||
| Any comment on that, Mike Fox? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I mean, I think, you know, just say there's obviously a lot going on. | |
| You know, I think we always get, you know, Democrat, Republican sort of people have different views of how to approach things of how this is, you know, frankly, I think the last administration was an abysmal failure, and I think this administration is 100 times worse. | ||
| So I think it's just one of those things like we simply have to get back to following the Constitution, following the rule of law as it exists, not as, you know, someone in power wants it to exist. | ||
| Here's Sandy in Youngstown, Ohio, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Sandy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, I agree with the one guy who was saying about Tesla being burnt, and they were let free. | ||
| They weren't even arrested as far as I can recall. | ||
| And that's an act of terrorism. | ||
| That's an act of terrorism. | ||
| You can protest, but that's not protesting. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| This Cato guy, Cato is a leftist organization. | ||
| Maybe we should read the Constitution where American citizens have due process and illegal immigrants do not have due process. | ||
| Biden, before he got elected, said for the people in the world, I would surge the border. | ||
| And Democrats still vote for him. | ||
| And just because they never heard from Biden because he couldn't speak, they think he was a good president. | ||
| Trump is doing the best he can to save this country as a representative republic where we have due process. | ||
| Do January 6th people have due process? | ||
| No, they've been in there for years and years. | ||
| They can't even, you can't get, they don't get free lawyers. | ||
| All of these illegals should be deported immediately. | ||
| They have no due process. | ||
| Obama did it, and they let him, they didn't give him a hard time, okay? | ||
| Okay, Sandy, got a lot of points there for Mike to respond to. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, first of all, everyone gets due process. | |
| As someone mentioned earlier, there are definitely different procedures between deporting someone who's here illegally and criminal adjudication, regardless of whether the person's a citizen or legal permanent resident or without legal status. | ||
| But everyone gets due process. | ||
| And I'll also comment briefly on some of the Tesla, well, called Tesla terrorism. | ||
| It is absolutely a crime. | ||
| And anyone who vandalized Tesla should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but it is not terrorism. | ||
| And it is no different than you keying my Subaru or me keying Mimi's Honda or anything else like that, right? | ||
| And I think we need to stop making these weird arbitrary distinctions because I always find it interesting when people who claim to support small constitutionally limited government want the government coming down with a heavy hand on things that really the Constitution does not authorize them to do, right? | ||
| The federal government's one of enumerated powers, and that dramatically limits the size and scope of the federal government, particularly in the criminal justice sphere. | ||
| Most criminal laws, including vandalism or arson, are quintessential state law crimes, and those should be prosecuted by the states. | ||
| Now, how the states go about that and the severity of the crimes if someone's a first-time nonviolent offender, that's, you know, I don't know Minnesota law. | ||
| I'm not going to get into that, but that's, you know, they were key because because of the connection with Elon Musk. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| But I don't think that that changes it versus if someone keyed my car because they didn't like the color of it or they didn't like who I am. | ||
| That's not a distinction that, in my view, gives the federal government power to prosecute these cases. | ||
| She mentioned Cato being a left-wing organization. | ||
| Can you talk about your organization and the political affiliation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, certainly. | |
| So Cato is not a left-wing organization. | ||
| You'll never hear me say that Biden was a good president. | ||
| Cato is a libertarian think tank, right? | ||
| So our views, you know, first of all, I would say Cato Institute itself doesn't have views, right? | ||
| The scholars have views. | ||
| We have different perspectives. | ||
| There are some people there who are more right of center than me. | ||
| There are some people there who are more left of center than me. | ||
| And that's one of the things that we, you know, we like. | ||
| We have different viewpoints, different perspectives on things. | ||
| But Cato has been consistently advocating for about 50 years now in favor of constitutionally limited government. | ||
| So whether that's going to be taking on the Biden administration, taking on the Trump administration, our views don't change. | ||
| The only thing that changes is the person in power and the person violating people's rights. | ||
| Now, the caller also mentioned former President Obama deporting a lot of people more than President Trump did in his first term, but not being asked about all due process and giving him a hard time about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| So President Obama, President Biden, even President Trump in his first term, they deported people. | ||
| They were following the law, right? | ||
| And this is what I'm trying to say here is I am not opposed to deporting people. | ||
| There are people who do not belong in this country. | ||
| We just have to do it right. | ||
| We have to follow the law. | ||
| We have to give them due process. | ||
| There's nothing stopping the Trump administration from doing that except themselves. | ||
| It seems to me like they're not actually interested in public safety. | ||
| They're interested in fanfare, whether that's, you know, for fundraising, for getting sound bites on the news. | ||
| They could have deported dramatically more people, assuming that's what they want to do. | ||
| You know, we can debate whether that makes sense or not, but they could have done that the right way and they wouldn't be caught up in all these court battles. | ||
| In Triangle, Virginia William is on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'd just like to make a comment on the guy that came a couple calls ago when they showed all the pictures of the rapists and all this on the line of the White House. | |
| If they line up all the Americans that committed the same crime, the line would be out of this world. | ||
| And another thing, and white men commit most crimes in this country. | ||
| White men commit more crimes in this country than anybody else, but they always put up the brown, the black, as the face of criminals. | ||
| But white men commit most crimes in this country, and you can take the FBI certificates. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Mike, there's a text here from John in San Antonio about what we were just talking about. | ||
| The Obama administration deported 3.5 million illegals during his term. | ||
| It's roughly $1,198 a day. | ||
| How can anyone be sure every one of that 3.5 million got, quote, due process? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, a few things. | |
| I just want to also respond to the last thing real briefly. | ||
| I say my colleague Alex Narasta did an extensive study that's online at Cato's website where he actually showed that people who are here, you know, immigrants, whether they're, you know, legal, illegal, actually have a much lower rate of committing crimes than U.S. citizens. | ||
| That's worth looking into. | ||
| As far as that question goes, frankly, I don't know the answer to that. | ||
| I was in school during the Obama administration. | ||
| I wasn't paying close attention to this. | ||
| And look, I'm sure there are probably cases where due process was denied. | ||
| That, you know, having been a public defender, I can tell you there's a lot of cases where due process is due process in name only. | ||
| That's not acceptable, right? | ||
| So the way, if that were the case, the way we address that isn't by saying, oh, well, now we're going to openly violate everyone's due process rights. | ||
| It's by saying we have to carefully consider things and do them the right way. | ||
| And frankly, I don't know what may have happened during the Obama administration. | ||
| The only thing I do know is that it was nowhere near the level of egregiousness is what we're seeing now. | ||
| And one more question for you from ex Ajika says, why aren't the employers of undocumented workers being arrested and jailed? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so that's an entirely different issue than this, you know, and I am not, don't really want to get into that now, you know, because we don't, there's different laws on the books for that. | |
| Frankly, I am very opposed to that. | ||
| And I think probably the reason that that isn't happening, if I had to guess, is because a lot of these people, one, they're powerful people who lobby, they give money, they have voices in front of Congress, in front of the administration, right? | ||
| So if you start going after big agriculture businesses who employ large numbers of illegal immigrants, they're going to get considerable pushback. | ||
| Whereas if you go after, you know, random people who don't have a voice in D.C., who don't have a voice in Washington, you're not going to get the same level of pushback. | ||
| I think there's some constitutional issues with that as well. | ||
| So I think it's a bad idea that I don't like. | ||
| But if I had to guess the reason it's not happening, it's got nothing to do with constitutional law and everything to do with power dynamics. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That's Michael Fox. | ||
| He's a legal fellow at the Project on Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute. | ||
| Thanks so much for coming in. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| Coming up, more of your phone calls on Open Forum. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We are in open forum, so looking forward to taking your calls about anything that you want to talk about public policy-wise. | ||
| Of course, it's the first 100 days of the second Trump administration. | ||
| A couple of things for your schedule before we get into the calls this morning, a House hearing about the financial transparency of the Defense Department. | ||
| The DOD is the only federal agency never to receive a clean audit opinion on their financial statement. | ||
| You can watch the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations. | ||
| That's a hearing live. | ||
| We're carrying that at 10 a.m., so it's right after this program over on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| It's also on the app and online. | ||
| And 6 p.m. this evening, President Trump will mark his first 100 days in office with a rally in Michigan. | ||
| We have that live starting at 6 p.m. | ||
| It's going to be on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| It'll also be on our app and online. | ||
| Well, in talking about the first 100 days, the Wall Street Journal has this opinion, this editorial, I should say. | ||
| It says the presidential second terms are rarely successful. | ||
| And on the evidence of his first 100 days, Donald Trump's won't be different. | ||
| The president needs a major reset if he wants to rescue his final years from the economic and foreign policy shocks he has unleashed. | ||
| Wonder what you think about that. | ||
| And we'll talk to Marshall, who is calling us from Brooksville, Florida, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Marshall. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, and thank you for taking my call, ma'am. | |
| I'm a Vietnam veteran, and that gentleman that was just on before this, I don't understand why if one of his children was raped or killed by one of these illegal immigrants, I wonder how he would feel about them being deported. | ||
| That's what really bothers me. | ||
| I know that he is a lawyer, but even though after me serving in Vietnam, fighting for my country, being wounded, being disabled, and I don't understand people why they are fighting this about the illegal immigrants coming to this country. | ||
| We as veterans fought for this country to protect the people of the United States. | ||
| And so, and that's what Trump's doing. | ||
| He is deporting people for the safety of the people of the United States, but yet again, people want to fight against him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's my thing. | |
| And thank you again, ma'am, for taking my call. | ||
| All right, Marshall. | ||
| And here's Linda in Massachusetts. | ||
| Democrat, good morning, Linda. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have a couple of things. | ||
| Basically, focused on power and money. | ||
| We all know that politics certainly circles around power and money or is focused on power and money. | ||
| I'm a former teacher, retired, and we're putting people in positions of power to control the education system, like Bessie DeRoe, who never even set foot in a public school in her life, didn't even have kids, so she really didn't have a frame of reference. | ||
| And now there's McMahon, who really knows about wrestling only, who wants to destroy it completely. | ||
| And they have the money, so they were given the positions. | ||
| No knowledge base. | ||
| We have to get our leaders to stop allowing that to happen, whether it's judicially or legislative methods. | ||
| The other thing is the people who are in power, like I'm going to use the example of Lisa Murkowski. | ||
| Recently, she was on television, recorded, saying how she feels targeted, she's afraid. | ||
| Well, she is an elected representative from the state of Alaska. | ||
| If she's worried about herself and being targeted, how do you think her constituents feel? | ||
| The ones who don't have money to pay their bills, to pay their rent, to buy food. | ||
| And she's sitting there trying to get our sympathy because she's scared. | ||
| If she's too scared and not up to it with the strength that's needed at these times, she needs to step aside and let someone who is perhaps younger, stronger, protect her citizens. | ||
| Everyone in our government, not everyone, but so many of these people in our government only want to hang on to their positions or to get their positions using power and money. | ||
| Or Lisa Murkowski clearly doesn't want to give up the prestige of being a senator instead of letting someone else take over when she's clearly not able to. | ||
| All right, Linda, here's Laura, Pennsylvania, Republican. | ||
| Go ahead, Lori. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| I wanted to speak on Trump's first 100 days, transition to golden age, and I'm considering this the revival of America. | ||
| Trump works endlessly 24-7, and the executive orders are pouring in every day, non-stop. | ||
| Some things. | ||
| The border is controlled. | ||
| Doge will eliminate all the government fraud and it's going to scale back that bureaucracy. | ||
| And that stolen money will make its way back to the people through the Department of Treasury. | ||
| And I wanted to touch on tariffs. | ||
| We had tariffs from 1870 to 1913. | ||
| And that appeared to be the richest period in history where in 1887 there was a tariff commission formed, set up, and America was very rich and powerful with lots of money, no deficit like the present day, and there was no income tax till 1913. | ||
| So the tariffs will take a little time to fully implement, but will ultimately kick in and enrich American citizens is what it will occur. | ||
| Moving on to like Social Security and Medicare, I continually hear people complain and act like it's going to decrease. | ||
| No, the Trump administration has never ever said that there would be an increase, but the opposite, and the benefits will increase. | ||
| And it didn't happen. | ||
| There was no decrease in his first administration. | ||
| And so it'll just increase and not decline. | ||
| All right, Lori. | ||
| And we are, campaign 2028 has begun. | ||
| C-SPAN has aired its first event of the 2028 cycle. | ||
| This is Illinois Governor Democrat J.B. Pritzker's speech at a New Hampshire Democratic Party's dinner over the weekend. | ||
| Here's a portion. | ||
| When you see a danger, you yell for help at the top of your lungs. | ||
| We Democrats, we shouldn't be comfortable ignoring those cries for help. | ||
| The fact that so many are speaks to the real reason that we lost last November. | ||
| What I find ironic about the current conversation surrounding our party is that the voices flocking to podcasts and cable news shows to admonish fellow Democrats for not caring enough about the struggles of working families are the same ones who... | ||
| when it comes to relief of the struggles of real people, have been timid, not bold. | ||
| They didn't want to fight the health insurance companies and the drug manufacturers. | ||
| They didn't want to demand an increase in the minimum wage or require paid family leave. | ||
| They gave in to the powerful hedge fund managers and tech pros whose blind pursuit of profits is now destroying everything that matters to middle-class families, from home ownership to health care to veterans' benefits. | ||
| They told us to ignore the fact that most Americans can't afford a vacation while they're young or retirement once they're old. | ||
| Here's the problem with the do-nothing crowd now telling us what to do. | ||
| Well, they spent their years watching Republicans illegitimately pack the Supreme Court, take away voting rights from people of color, systematically chip away at the constitutional order. | ||
| And all the while they offered, in response, a simple defense of norms and decorum and a blind hope that one day soon Republicans would wake up to find their better angels. | ||
| Well, that got us exactly where we are today. | ||
| So folks, the reckoning is here. | ||
| The full event of that is on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| Also, if you go to c-span.org, there is your chance to weigh in on the streaming services like YouTube and Hulu that are so far not carrying C-SPAN. | ||
| If you go on our website, you'll see this pop-up, and you can just click on one of those and tell them why you would like them to carry C-SPAN. | ||
| We would appreciate that because that's important to us to get C-SPAN out to as many people as possible, including those who are cutting the cord and going just with streaming services. | ||
| Susan in Massachusetts is a Democrat. | ||
| Go ahead, Susan. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I'm calling to let everyone know or think about what exactly this president is not doing. | ||
| He is not following law, and that's the big problem. | ||
| Also, there are two things to look out for. | ||
| The Constitution put two things in it to prevent a dictator. | ||
| One of them is preventing a president to run for a third term. | ||
| The second one is disallowing a president to use the army to invade any of the United States. | ||
| Once he has those two powers, once he takes on that, then we have fear of dictatorship, which I understand now why he wants Hegseth to lead the Army, because he is incompetent and will do anything President Trump wants. | ||
| So when President Trump wants to send the Army into the states who may not be obeying him, Hegset will not say no. | ||
| He tried it in his first term, and the head of the Army said to him, no, it's against the Constitution. | ||
| So they were able to send a few of the Army down to the border without guns. | ||
| Now he's trying a more serious tact, and he's trying to pass a law giving him the power to do that. | ||
| So everyone, beware. | ||
| And Jeremy in Rockville, Maryland, Independent Line, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I would agree with what Susan just said, and I think this is part of a well-known authoritarian playbook that America has been taught pretty well for a couple of decades to hate immigrants and Muslims and people that aren't from here. | ||
| And that's what authoritarians do to build up power. | ||
| They teach the citizens to hate others, and that gives them power. | ||
| And I don't know how to flip the script on that. | ||
| Maybe others can offer some guidance. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, Republican Line. | ||
| Good morning, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to say I was a Democrat for about 55 years, and I recently changed to the Republican Party because I can see the bias that the news coverage, you know, they cover up, they covered up for Biden. | ||
| We knew from the very beginning that the man was incompetent. | ||
| He couldn't think for himself. | ||
| He fell down all the time. | ||
| And the news media, the White House, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, everybody lied and covered for him. | ||
| And for four years, we still don't know who was running this country. | ||
| I believe it was probably Obama, Jill, and Hunter. | ||
| And they lied and lied and just covered. | ||
| And the cocaine in the White House will never know whose cocaine that was, although we really do know whose it was. | ||
| And Biden created this border crisis. | ||
| It is a crisis. | ||
| We cannot afford to have all of these illegal aliens here put up in hotels, free food, Medicaid. | ||
| You know, they have fake Social Security numbers. | ||
| And there's this fear that people on the left have that Trump is going to take away their Social Security. | ||
| The only, if anybody could tell me one person whose Social Security benefits stopped, I would like to hear from them. | ||
| All right, Mary. | ||
| And this is CNBC with this White House blasts Amazon over tariff cost report, calling it hostile and a political act. | ||
| It says the White House on Tuesday slammed Amazon for reportedly planning to display the cost of President Donald Trump's tariffs next to the total price of products on its site. | ||
| Well, Secretary Besant was at the White House yesterday speaking, and he talked about tariffs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it was reported this morning that Amazon will soon display a little number next to the price of each product that shows how much the Trump tariffs are adding to the cost of each product. | |
| So isn't that a perfect crystal clear demonstration that it's the American consumer and not China who is going to have to pay for these policies? | ||
| I will take this since I just got off the phone with the president about Amazon's announcement. | ||
| This is a hostile and political act by Amazon. | ||
| Why didn't Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years? | ||
| And I would also add that it's not a surprise because as Reuters recently wrote, Amazon has partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm. | ||
| So this is another reason why Americans should buy American. | ||
| It's another reason why we are onshoring critical supply chains here at home to shore up our own critical supply chain and boost our own manufacturing capabilities. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is Jeff Bezos still a Trump supporter? | |
| Look, I will not speak to the president's relationships with Jeff Bezos, but I will tell you that this is certainly a hostile and political action by Amazon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And Secretary, if you have anything to add. | |
| Yeah, I would also add that bringing down the terrible Biden inflation has been a priority for the first 100 days of the Trump administration. | ||
| And President Trump has done a great job of leading that since January 20th. | ||
| Interest rates, mortgage rates are down. | ||
| Gasoline and energy prices are down. | ||
| We're expecting the further decreases. | ||
| And as Caroline said, the big tax on consumers that goes unnoticed is deregulation or regulation. | ||
| And we are deregulating and bringing that down. | ||
| So from a household income point of view, we would expect real purchasing increases. | ||
| We've seen them over the first 100 days, and we would expect that to accelerate. | ||
| We are doing peace deals, trade deals, tax deals, and deregulating. | ||
| And the deregulation is a longer lead time, but I think by the third and fourth quarter, that's really going to kick in. | ||
| And that was earlier this morning at the White House. | ||
| And Agatha is calling from Orlando, Florida. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to say that the Supreme Court gave Trump unchecked power. | |
| And these people speaking for Trump, I don't know what world they're living in. | ||
| They cut people's jobs. | ||
| People are losing their homes. | ||
| People don't know what to do with their children for school. | ||
| What world are these people living in? | ||
| Certainly not America. | ||
| And they're talking about Shop America. | ||
| Do they not realize most of our products come from China, Korea, and other countries? | ||
| They're not even made in America. | ||
| We don't have the factories to do that. | ||
| And what do they think? | ||
| We're going to wait, what, 20, 30, 40 years to get these factories built up? | ||
| That is ludicrous. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| And we'll hear from Mo next, who's in Mesa, Arizona, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| I would like to say the real illegal aliens is the white people who stole this country from the Indians and brought slaves over here and gave them all kinds of hell. | ||
| And God is going to judge white people today. | ||
| All right, and this is Ann in Coos Bay, Oregon, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| These people on here, mostly Democrats, complaining about what Trump is doing, he's following the law. | ||
| I know no one is above the law. | ||
| I'm not a judge, not a lawyer, not Letitia James. | ||
| He's doing what's best for America, which Biden did not do. | ||
| He didn't do anything. | ||
| So they can just stop their whining and crying and singing, and they look ridiculous. | ||
| They're showing their true selves. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Steve in Bay City, Michigan, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, America. | |
| Yeah, some lot of these people calling and blaming Biden for everything. | ||
| It's like, come on, can you govern? | ||
| You don't have to keep playing the blame game. | ||
| Can you govern? | ||
| Let's see. | ||
| The DOS was a joke. | ||
| They found $1.5 billion, exposed to $1.5 trillion. | ||
| And then they're going to still want to do the tax cut for the rich, the Republicans in Congress. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| For four years, I heard hate speech from Donald Trump. | ||
| Joe Biden's in the basement. | ||
| He's at the beach. | ||
| He's golfing. | ||
| Blah, blah, blah. | ||
| I'm so sick of it. | ||
| The debate, which they say Joe Biden lost so bad, Trump lied through his teeth. | ||
| 12 lies. | ||
| They're eating cats and dogs in Illinois. | ||
| The guy's a joke. | ||
| And here's Jerome in California, Independent. | ||
| Hi, Jerome. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I looked up the meaning of the word pragmatic. | ||
| Didn't know what the meaning of it was, but it's sensible, reasonable thinking. | ||
| You know, some people lie for themselves. | ||
| Some people, you know, other people lie for them. | ||
| You know, I think people should just gather the facts or the information, use your brain like a computer, and without being influenced by other people's opinion, maybe just, you know, spit out the answer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Be pragmatic. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| And here's Michelle, Staten Island, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Michelle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I appreciate that. | ||
| Well, what I have to say to the people who voted for Trump, how does it feel to be duped? | ||
| I mean, this is what he's good at. | ||
| You know, he's a businessman. | ||
| He said his first time around. | ||
| He's not a politician. | ||
| You know, one thing about Trump: if he says it, he means it. | ||
| You know, people will laugh like, oh, God, that's so ridiculous. | ||
| Yeah, but to you it is, but damn, that's what he's going to do. | ||
| So you've got to give him that much. | ||
| You know, he says what he's going to do, and he does it. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| Sandra, North Carolina, Democrat, good morning, Sandra. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you for taking my call. | |
| The only thing I'd like to say is I wish these Republicans would watch something other than Fox News because they lie to them every day. | ||
| Every day. | ||
| If you would get out of your etho bubble or whatever, you would understand that this man is running our country into the ground. | ||
| And what do you watch, Sandra, for news? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It breaks my heart. | |
| I watch a combination of CNN, MSNBC, and I watch Fox News, and none of them are the same. | ||
| So you have to investigate everything you can to find out where the truth is. | ||
| And James in Elk Grove, California, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to make a comment. | ||
| Obviously, tariffs are front and center for a lot of people that are calling in. | ||
| And we continue to hear people say, it's like, oh, we don't have the infrastructure. | ||
| We don't have the manufacturing facilities. | ||
| The fact of the matter is, if we don't start building them now, and I'm convinced that we could do it in a rapid fashion, it's like, when do we do it? | ||
| Or do we continue on the same path we're going where like we experienced during COVID, for example, where there was a critical, there was an opportunity for the Chinese, for example, to go ahead and hold up the supply chain. | ||
| And do you think that might happen again? | ||
| Do you think that there's going to be supply chain issues, James? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's always a possibility. | |
| I mean, do we want to be in a position where we're relying upon another country who obviously does not have our best interests at hand? | ||
| That's being minimalistic. | ||
| I mean, we're talking about antibiotics and many, many other things. | ||
| The reality of it is that we know why this all happened. | ||
| I mean, you know, if you can go ahead and you have to compete with slave labor in some of these countries. | ||
| How long, sorry to cut you off, but I wanted to know how long do you think it will take to ramp up the manufacturing capabilities in the United States? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think obviously it's according to what type of fabrication we're talking about. | |
| But there's plenty of space out there as far as square footage and buildings. | ||
| We all know through the Midwest, there's ghost buildings standing there with a lot of things. | ||
| And I hear people saying like, well, we don't even have, we don't have the people trained and whatnot. | ||
| Well, it's like, how did they get trained in the first place? | ||
| I mean, regardless of what territory you're manufacturing things, you should be able to do it. | ||
| I'm pretty convinced that we could get up and going. | ||
| And in some sectors, probably a lot quicker than others. | ||
| But it's not an overnight thing. | ||
| But the alternative is, do we never do it and just carry on like this where we're continually to import? | ||
| Mark in Niagara Falls, New York, Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you? | |
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just wanted to make a comment here. | |
| What people really should, there are some systems that are so outdated in this country, and they're screaming to get changed and up to date. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| What everybody should be really, really concerned is these crazy judges who are stopping the agenda of a whole country. | ||
| And this has nothing to do with Trump. | ||
| Is this going to be the new thing now? | ||
| When he's gone and I vote for the next president and I can't get anything that I voted for, I didn't vote for these judges. | ||
| And look, look at the other day. | ||
| You have a judge who's trying to get somebody out the back door. | ||
| And they're going to determine policy, and I didn't even vote for them. | ||
| That's a disgrace. | ||
| They're traitors, and people should be outraged about that. | ||
| The other guy's got gang members living in his house, giving them automatic weapons. |